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at the request of the Infanta Juana, by a man of high station, who professes to relate only what he witnessed, and although it is in perfect harmony with all the rest of the information respecting Charles that has reached us. M. Pichot's book, however, though written and arranged far less carefully than either of the others, is lively and amusing, and deserves an honourable place among the numerous biographies of which Charles V. has been the subject.

M. Mignet enjoyed the great advantages of writing the last, and of having the use of the original documents, the proofsheets of M. Gachard's work having been communicated to him. His work is not so full as that of M. Pichot, nor so varied as that of Mr. Stirling, but it contains in a small space all that is historically important in the two last years of Charles V., arranged with the skill, and told with the elegance which place M. Mignet in the very first rank of modern his

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As a specimen of the work, we translate the character of Charles V., with which it is concluded.

I may be accused, perhaps, of having dwelt too much on 'the two last years of Charles V. But nothing that relates to a great man is unimportant. We are anxious to know what were his thoughts when he had ceased to act, and what was his life when he had ceased to reign. And these details explain the remarkable termination of his political existence. Complicated infirmities, unrestrained appetites, long-endured 'fatigue of mind, and increasing devotional fervour, carried him from the throne to the convent, and hurried him from the 6 convent to the tomb.

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Charles V. was in every sense the greatest sovereign of the 16th century. Uniting the blood of the four houses of Aragon, Castile, Austria, and Burgundy, he inherited not only their vast territories, but their dissimilar peculiarities. The statesmanship, sometimes degenerating into cunning, of his grandfather, Ferdinand the Catholic, the magnanimity of his grand'mother, Isabella of Castile, mixed with the melancholy of his 'mother, Johanna, the chivalrous audacity of his great-grandfather, Charles the Bold, to whom he bore a personal resem'blance, and the diligent ambition, love of the fine and of the 'mechanical arts, of his grandfather, the Emperor Maximilian, —all these qualities were transmitted to him, together with ⚫ their dominions and their schemes. He not merely supported 'but added to the greatness which had been accumulated on his head by the providence of many royal ancestors and the

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chances of many royal successions. The man stood erect under the load of the sovereign. For many years his talents, 'so high and so varied, enabled him to play, not without success, his many parts, and to carry on his many undertakings. But the task became too great for a single intellect.

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As King of Aragon he had to keep Sardinia, Sicily, and Naples, left to him by his predecessors, and to acquire Milan, lest his powerful rival, once ruler of Northern Italy, might become master of the South. As King of Castile he had to conquer and colonise America. As Sovereign of the Low Countries he had to protect the possessions of the House of Burgundy against the House of France. As Emperor of Germany his political duty was to repel the Turks, then in the fulness of their strength and of their ambition; and his ' religious duty was to check the progress, or at least to prevent the triumph, of Protestantism. All these tasks he undertook. Aided by great captains and great statesmen, well chosen and skilfully employed, he managed with ability and perseverance a policy which was never simple, and wars which recommenced as soon as they appeared to be terminated. He was to be seen in every country, facing every adversary, leading his own 'armies and conducting his own negotiations. He evaded no 'obligation imposed on him by his station or by his belief. But, perpetually turned aside from one object by the necessity of pursuing another, he often began too late, and was forced to end too soon.

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Some of his enterprises he accomplished. In Italy, opposed by Francis I. and Henry II., at the price of thirty-four years ' of exertion and five great wars, in which a king of France and a pope were among his prisoners, he subjected one part of the 'country to his own government, and the remainder to his own influence. He not only preserved but extended his dominions in the Low Countries, adding to them Guelders, Utrecht, Zutphen, and Cambray, which he relieved from their vassalage to France. The Turk was in Hungary, and the corsairs of Africa habi'tually ravaged the coasts of Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean. He repulsed the formidable Solyman from before • Vienna in 1532, tore Goletta and Tunis from the fierce Barbarossa in 1535, and would have conquered Algeria in 1541 if he had not been conquered himself by the elements. He 'would have made Christendom secure from attack by land or on sea, and have been himself the protector of the Mediterranean, instead of leaving it to his heroic son, the victor at Lepanto, if he had not been perpetually called away to meet a different danger in a different quarter.

VOL. CI. NO. CCV.

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His attempt to force Germany back to her ancient faith 'failed, only because it was made too late. He had neglected • Protestantism while it was weak; when he attacked it, it was too strong, I will not say to be destroyed but even to be restrained. For thirty years the tree had been growing, its roots had 'penetrated deep into the soil of Germany, its branches covered 'her fields. Who could then uproot it? The sovereign of Catholic Spain and of Catholic Italy, the chief of the Holy Roman empire, opposed to Protestantism by his position and by his belief, he thought in 1546 that the time was come when his temporary toleration might be discontinued, and heresy might be put down by the force of arms or by the authority ' of a council. He was established in Italy, and successful in France and in Africa, and he marched on the Protestants of "Germany. During two campaigns he was victorious over the Protestant troops. He could subdue armies, but not con' sciences. His religious and military triumph over nations 'that were resolved to be neither converted nor enslaved, roused every Protestant from the Elbe to the Danube. Old hatreds 'were revived, questions, supposed to have been long settled were reopened. Charles turned to bay against calamity, but he had come to the end of his strength-of his good fortuneof his life. Exhausted by illness, overtaken in his last effort by this irremediable reverse, unfit for enterprise, almost for resistance, incapable of extending, almost of controlling, the vast empire which on his death was to be divided, having 'established his son in England, and made an honourable truce with France, and determined not to treat with the victorious heresy of Germany, he effected, what he had long meditated, 'an abdication, which was demanded by the diseases of the man, the lassitude of the sovereign, and the feelings of the • Christian.

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'Abdication operated no change in him. The devotee was still a statesman. He had renounced power, but not the habits of command. Though he had become personally disinterested, he was ambitious for his son. From his monastery in 1557 he assailed Paul IV., as in 1527 from his throne he had rebuked Clement VII. He counselled Philip II. to follow 'up his advantage against Henry II. as vigorously as he himself had pushed his success against Francis I. He planned the 'means of defending Christendom against the Turks, whom he had repelled from Germany and vanquished in Africa. He 'continued to defend Catholicism against Protestantism with 'all his old sincerity and more than his old ardour, for his time of action was passed. He had now only to believe; and

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' though a man's conduct may bend to circumstances, his con'victions ought to be inflexible. He continued to be the head and the umpire of his family, the object of their love, their respect, and their obedience. Obstinate as a Spaniard in 'belief, sagacious and firm in policy, equal to every different 'emergency, what he had been on the throne he remained in the 'convent; his death was pious and humble, but his life lofty ' and magnanimous.' (P. 450.)

We are not sure whether we ought to quote from a book so well known as that of Mr. Stirling; but we believe that our readers will not be sorry to be recalled to his brilliant, amusing pages, and to compare them with the balanced periods, the comprehensive condensations, and the well considered antitheses of his accomplished successor. Mr. Stirling's character of Charles is thus introduced by the story of his death.

Towards eight o'clock in the evening, Charles asked if the consecrated tapers were ready. He was evidently sinking rapidly. The physicians acknowledged that the case was past their skill, and that all hope was over. Cornelio retired. Mathys remained by the bedside, occasionally feeling the patient's pulse, and whispering to the group of anxious spectators, "His majesty has but two hours to live "but one hour-but half an hour." Charles meanwhile lay in a stupor, seemingly unconscious, but now and then murmuring a prayer and turning his eyes to heaven. At length he raised himself and called for "William." The physician looked towards the door, and said to the archbishop, who was standing in its shadow, "Domine, jam moritur!" The primate came forward with the chaplain Villalva, to whom he made a sign to speak. It was now nearly two o'clock in the morning of the twenty-first of September. Addressing the dying man, the favourite preacher told him how blessed a privilege he enjoyed in being about to die on the feast of St. Matthew, who for Christ's sake had forsaken wealth, as his majesty had forsaken imperial power. For some time the preacher held forth in this pious and edifying strain. At last the Emperor interposed, saying, "The time is come: bring me the candle and the "crucifix." These were cherished relics, which he had long kept in reserve for this supreme hour. The one was a taper from Our Lady's shrine at Montserrate, the other, a crucifix of beautiful workmanship, which had been taken from the dead hand of his wife at Toledo, and which afterwards comforted the last moments of his son at the Escorial. He received them eagerly from the archbishop, and taking one in each hand, for some moments he silently contemplated the figure of the Saviour, and then clasped it to his bosom. Those who stood nearest to the bed now heard him say quickly, as if replying to a call, "Ya, voy, Señor," "Now, Lord, I go." As his strength failed, his fingers relaxed their hold of the crucifix, which the primate therefore took, and held up before him. A few moments of death-wrestle between soul and body followed; after

which, with his eyes fixed on the cross, and with a voice loud enough to be heard outside the room, he cried "Ay, Jesus!" and expired.

'So ended the career of Charles V., the greatest monarch of the memorable sixteenth century. The vast extent of his dominions in Europe, the wealth of his transatlantic empire, the sagacity of his mind, and the energy of his character, combined to render him the most famous of the successors of Charlemagne. "Christendom," wrote a Venetian envoy * in 1551, in one of those curious secret reports addressed by the keenest of observers to the most jealous of governments, "has seen no prince since Charlemagne so wise, so valorous, or "so great as this Emperor Charles." Pre-eminently the man of his time, his name is seldom wanting to any monument of the age. He stood between the days of chivalry, which were going out, and the days of printing, which were coming in; respecting the traditions of the one, and fulfilling many of the requirements of the other. Men of the sword found him a bold cavalier; and those whose weapons were their tongues or their pens, soon learned to respect him as an astute and consummate politician. Like his ancestors, Don Jayme, or Don Sancho, with lance in rest, and shouting Santiago for Spain! he led his knights against the Moorish host, among the olives of Goletta; and even in his last campaign in Saxony, the cream-coloured genet of the Emperor was ever in the van of battle, like the famous piebald charger of Turenne in later fields of the Palatinate. In the council chamber he was ready to measure minds with all comers; with the northern envoy who claimed liberty of conscience for the Protestant princes; with the magnifico who excused the perfidies of Venice; or with the still subtler priest, who stood forth in red stockings to gloze in defence of the still greater iniquities of the Holy See. In the prosecution of his plans, and the maintenance of his influence, Charles shrank from no labour of mind, or fatigue of body. Where other sovereigns would have sent an ambassador, and opened a negotiation, he paid a visit, and concluded a treaty. From Groningen to Otranto, from Vienna to Cadiz, no unjust steward of the house of Austria could be sure that his misdeeds would escape detection on the spot from the keen cold eye of the indefatigable Emperor. The name of Charles is connected, not only with the wars and politics, but with the peaceful arts, of his time: it is linked with the graver of the Vico, the chisel of Leoni, the pencil of Titian, and the lyre of Ariosto; and as a lover and patron of art, his fame stood as high at Venice and Nuremberg as at Antwerp and Toledo.

There can be no doubt that the Emperor gave the true reasons of his retirement when, panting for breath, and unable to stand alone, he told the states of Flanders that he resigned the government because it was a burden which his shattered frame could no longer bear. He was fulfilling the plan which he had cherished for nearly twenty years. Indeed, he seems to have determined to abdicate almost at the time when he determined to reign. So powerful

* Marino de' Cavalli: Bulletin de l'Acad. Roy. de Bruxelles, tom. xii. p. 57.

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