LITMIR.BIZ

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had no reason to think would be mitigated in the person of Philip.

      AMBITIOUS SCHEMES.

      They desired a German to rule over them—one who would understand the German character, and enter heartily into the feelings of the people. Maximilian's directness of purpose and kindly nature had won largely on the affections of his countrymen, and proved him, in their judgment, worthy of the throne.[40]

      Philip, on the other hand, was even more distasteful to the Germans than he was to the Flemings. It was in vain that, at their banquets, he drank twice or thrice as much as he was accustomed to do, until the cardinal of Trent assured him that he was fast gaining in the good graces of the people.[41] The natural haughtiness of his temper showed itself on too many occasions to be mistaken. When Charles returned to his palace, escorted, as he usually was, by a train of nobles and princes of the empire, he would courteously take them by the hand, and raise his hat, as he parted from them. But Philip, it was observed, on like occasions, walked directly into the palace, without so much as turning round, or condescending in any way to notice the courtiers who had accompanied him. This was taking higher ground even than his father had done. In fact, it was said of him, that he considered himself greater than his father, inasmuch as the son of an emperor was greater than the son of a king![42]—a foolish vaunt, not the less indicative of his character, that it was made for him, probably, by the Germans. In short, Philip's manners, which, in the language of a contemporary, had been little pleasing to the Italians, and positively displeasing to the Flemings, were altogether odious to the Germans.[43]

      Nor was the idea of Philip's election at all more acceptable to the Spaniards themselves. That nation had been long enough regarded as an appendage to the empire. Their pride had been wounded by the light in which they were held by Charles, who seemed to look on Spain as a royal domain, valuable chiefly for the means it afforded him for playing his part on the great theatre of Europe. The haughty Castilian of the sixteenth century, conscious of his superior pretensions, could ill brook this abasement. He sighed for a prince born and bred in Spain, who would be content to pass his life in Spain, and would have no ambition unconnected with her prosperity and glory. The Spaniards were even more tenacious on this head than the Germans. Their remote situation made them more exclusive, mere strictly national, and less tolerant of foreign influence. They required a Spaniard to rule over them. Such was Philip; and they anticipated the hour when Spain should be divorced from the empire, and, under the sway of a patriotic prince, rise to her just preëminence among the nations.

      Yet Charles, far from yielding, continued to press the point with such pertinacity, that it seemed likely to lead to an open rupture between the different branches of his family. For a time Ferdinand kept his apartment, and had no intercourse with Charles or his sister.[44] Yet in the end the genius or the obstinacy of Charles so far prevailed over his brother, that he acquiesced in a private compact, by which, while he was to retain possession of the imperial crown, it was agreed that Philip should succeed him as king of the Romans, and that Maximilian should succeed Philip.[45] Ferdinand hazarded little by concessions which could never be sanctioned by the electoral college. The reverses which befell the emperor's arms in the course of the following year destroyed whatever influence he might have possessed in that body; and he seems never to have revived his schemes for aggrandizing his son by securing to him the succession to the empire.

      Philip had now accomplished the great object of his visit. He had presented himself to the people of the Netherlands, and had received their homage as heir to the realm. His tour had been, in some respects, a profitable one. It was scarcely possible that a young man, whose days had hitherto been passed within the narrow limits of his own country, for ever under the same local influences, should not have his ideas greatly enlarged by going abroad and mingling with different nations. It was especially important to Philip to make himself familiar, as none but a resident can be, with the character and institutions of those nations over whom he was one day to preside. Yet his visit to the Netherlands had not been attended with the happiest results. He evidently did not make a favorable impression on the people. The more they saw of him, the less they appeared to like him. Such impressions are usually reciprocal; and Philip seems to have parted from the country with little regret. Thus, in the first interview between the future sovereign and his subjects, the symptoms might already be discerned of that alienation which was afterwards to widen into a permanent and irreparable breach.

      Philip, anxious to reach Castile, pushed forward his journey, without halting to receive the civilities that were everywhere tendered to him on his route. He made one exception at Trent, where the ecclesiastical council was holding the memorable session that occupies so large a share in Church annals. On his approach to the city, the cardinal legate, attended by the mitred prelates and other dignitaries of the council, came out in a body to receive him. During his stay there, he was entertained with masks, dancing, theatrical exhibitions, and jousts, contrived to represent scenes in Ariosto.[46] These diversions of the reverend fathers formed a whimsical contrast, perhaps a welcome relief, to their solemn occupation of digesting a creed for the Christian world.

      CONDITION OF SPAIN.

      From Trent Philip pursued his way, with all expedition, to Genoa, where he embarked, under the flag of the veteran Doria, who had brought him from Spain. He landed at Barcelona, on the twelfth day of July, 1551, and proceeded at once to Valladolid, where he resumed the government of the kingdom. He was fortified by a letter from his father, dated at Augsburg, which contained ample instructions as to the policy he was to pursue, and freely discussed both the foreign and domestic relations of the country. The letter, which is very long, shows that the capacious mind of Charles, however little time he could personally give to the affairs of the monarchy, fully comprehended its internal condition and the extent of its resources.[47]

      The following years were years of humiliation to Charles; years marked by the flight from Innsbruck, and the disastrous siege of Metz—when, beaten by the Protestants, foiled by the French, the reverses of the emperor pressed heavily on his proud heart, and did more, probably, than all the homilies of his ghostly teachers, to disgust him with the world and its vanities.

      Yet these reverses made little impression on Spain. The sounds of war died away before they reached the foot of the Pyrenees. Spain, it is true, sent forth her sons, from time to time, to serve under the banners of Charles; and it was in that school that was perfected the admirable system of discipline and tactics which, begun by the Great Captain, made the Spanish infantry the most redoubtable in Europe. But the great body of the people felt little interest in the success of these distant enterprises, where success brought them no good. Not that the mind of Spain was inactive, or oppressed with the lethargy which stole over it in a later age. There was, on the contrary, great intellectual activity. She was excluded, by an arbitrary government, from pushing her speculations in the regions of theological or political science. But this, to a considerable extent, was the case with most of the neighboring nations; and she indemnified herself for this exclusion by a more diligent cultivation of elegant literature. The constellation of genius had already begun to show itself above the horizon, which was to shed a glory over the meridian and the close of Philip's reign. The courtly poets in the reign of his father had confessed the influence of Italian models, derived through the recent territorial acquisitions in Italy. But the national taste was again asserting its supremacy; and the fashionable tone of composition was becoming more and more accommodated to the old Castilian standard.

      It would be impossible that any departure from a national standard should be long tolerated in Spain, where the language, the manners, the dress, the usages of the country, were much the same as they had been for generations—as they continued to be for generations, long after Cervantes held up the mirror of fiction, to reflect the traits of the national existence more vividly than is permitted to the page of the chronicler. In the rude romances of the fourteenth and the fifteenth century, the Castilian of the sixteenth might see his way of life depicted with tolerable accuracy. The amorous cavalier still thrummed his guitar, by moonlight, under the balcony of his mistress, or wore her favors at the Moorish tilt of reeds. The common people still sung their lively seguidillas, or crowded to the fiestas de toros—the cruel bull-fights—or to the more cruel autos da fé. This last spectacle, of comparatively recent origin—in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella—was the legitimate consequence

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