attachment of the Janizaries, was the great art of government, and the principal object of attention in the policy of the Ottoman court. Under a monarch, whose abilities and vigour of mind fit him for command, they are obsequious instruments; execute whatever he enjoins; and render his power irresistible. Under feeble princes, or such as are unfortunate, they become turbulent and mutinous; assume the tone of masters; degrade and exalt sultans at pleasure; and teach those to tremble, on whose nod, at other times, life and death depend.

From Mahomet II. who took Constantinople, to Solyman the Magnificent, who began his reign a few months after Charles V. was placed on the Imperial throne of Germany, a succession of illustrious princes ruled over the Turkish empire. By their great abilities, they kept their subjects of every order, military as well as civil, submissive to government; and had the absolute command of whatever force their vast empire was able to exert. Solyman in particular, who is known to the Christians chiefly as a conqueror, but is celebrated in the Turkish annals, as the great lawgiver who established order and police in their empire, governed, during his long reign, with no less authority than wisdom. He divided his dominions into several districts; he appointed the number of soldiers which each should furnish; he appropriated a certain proportion of the land in every province for their maintenance; he regulated, with a minute accuracy, every thing relative to their discipline, their arms, and the nature of their service. He put the finances of the empire into an orderly train of administration; and, though the taxes in the Turkish dominions, as well as in the other despotic monarchies of the East, are far from being considerable, he supplied that defect by an attentive and severe economy.

Nor was it only under such sultans as Solyman, whose talents were no less adapted to preserve internal order than to conduct the operations of war, that the Turkish empire engaged with advantage in its contests with the Christian states. The long succession of able princes, which I have mentioned, had given such vigour and firmness to the Ottoman government, that it seems to have attained, during the sixteenth century, the highest degree of perfection of which its constitution was capable. Whereas the great monarchies in Christendom were still far from that state, which could enable them to act with a full exertion of their force. Besides this, the Turkish troops in that age possessed every advantage which arises from superiority in military discipline. At the time when Solyman began his reign, the Janizaries had been embodied near a century and a half; and, during that long period, the severity of their military discipline had in no degree relaxed. The other soldiers, drawn from the provinces of the empire, had been kept almost continually under arms, in the various wars which the sultans had carried on with hardly any interval of peace. Against troops thus trained and accustomed to service, the forces of the Christian powers took the field with great disadvantage. The most intelligent as well as impartial authors of the sixteenth century acknowledge and lament the superior attainments of the Turks in the military art [45]. The success which almost uniformly attended their arms, in all their wars, demonstrates the justness of this observation. The Christian armies did not acquire that superiority over the Turks, which they now possess, until the long establishment of standing forces had improved military discipline among the former; and until various causes and events, which it is not my province to explain, had corrupted or abolished their ancient warlike institutions among the latter.

THE

HISTORY OF THE REIGN

OF THE

EMPEROR CHARLES V.

BOOK I.

CHARLES V. was born at Ghent on the twenty-fourth day of February, in the year one thousand five hundred. His father, Philip the Handsome, archduke of Austria, was the son of the emperor Maximilian, and of Mary the only child of Charles the Bold, the last prince of the house of Burgundy. His mother, Joanna, was the second daughter of Ferdinand king of Aragon, and of Isabella queen of Castile.

A long train of fortunate events had opened the way for this young prince to the inheritance of more extensive dominions, than any European monarch, since Charlemagne, had possessed. Each of his ancestors had acquired kingdoms or provinces, towards which their prospect of succession was extremely remote. The rich possessions of Mary of Burgundy had been destined for another family, she having been contracted by her father to the only son of Louis XI. of France; but that capricious monarch, indulging his hatred to her family, chose rather to strip her of part of her territories by force, than to secure the whole by marriage; and by this misconduct, fatal to his posterity, he threw all the Netherlands and Franche Compte into the hands of a rival. Isabella, the daughter of John II. of Castile, far from having any prospect of that noble inheritance which she transmitted to her grandson, passed the early part of her life in obscurity and indigence. But the Castilians, exasperated against her brother Henry IV., an ill-advised and vicious prince, publicly charged him with impotence, and his queen with adultery. Upon his demise, rejecting Joanna, whom Henry had uniformly, and even on his death-bed, owned to be his lawful daughter, and whom an assembly of the states had acknowledged to be the heir of his kingdom, they obliged her to retire into Portugal, and placed Isabella on the throne of Castile. Ferdinand owed the crown of Aragon to the unexpected death of his elder brother, and acquired the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily by violating the faith of treaties, and disregarding the ties of blood. To all these kingdoms, Christopher Columbus, by an effort of genius and of intrepidity, the boldest and most successful that is recorded in the annals of mankind, added a new world, the wealth of which became one considerable source of the power and grandeur of the Spanish monarchs.

Don John, the only son of Ferdinand and Isabella, and their eldest daughter, the queen of Portugal, being cut off, without issue, in the flower of youth, all their hopes centred in Joanna and her posterity. But as her husband, the archduke, was a stranger to the Spaniards, it was though VOL. II.-12

expedient to invite him into Spain, that by residing among them, he might accustom himself to their laws and manners; and it was expected that the Cortes, or assembly of states, whose authority was then so great in Spain, that no title to the crown was reckoned valid unless it received their sanction, would acknowledge his right of succession, together with that of the infanta, his wife. Philip and Joanna, passing through France in their way to Spain, were entertained in that kingdom with the utmost magnificence. The archduke did homage to Louis XII. for the earldom of Flanders, and took his seat as a peer of the realm in the parliament of Paris. They were received in Spain with every mark of honour that the parental affection of Ferdinand and Isabella, or the respect of their subjects, could devise; and their title to the crown was soon after acknowledged by the Cortes of both kingdoms.

But amidst these outward appearances of satisfaction and joy, some secret uneasiness preyed upon the mind of each of these princes. The stately and reserved ceremonial of the Spanish court was so burdensome to Philip, a prince, young, gay, affable, fond of society and of pleasure, that he soon began to express a desire of returning to his native country, the manners of which were more suited to his temper. Ferdinand, observing the declining health of his queen, with whose life he knew that his right to the government of Castile must cease, easily foresaw, that a prince of Philip's disposition, and who already discovered an extreme impatience to reign, would never consent to his retaining any degree of authority in that kingdom; and the prospect of this diminution of his power awakened the jealousy of that ambitious monarch.

Isabella beheld, with the sentiments natural to a mother, the indifference and neglect with which the archduke treated her daughter, who was destitute of those beauties of person, as well as those accomplishments of mind, which fix the affections of a husband. Her understanding, always weak, was often disordered. She doated on Philip with such an excess of childish and indiscreet fondness, as excited disgust rather than affection. Her jealousy, for which her husband's behaviour gave her too much cause, was proportioned to her love, and often broke out in the most extravagant actions. Isabella, though sensible of her defects, could not help pitying her condition, which was soon rendered altogether deplorable, by the archduke's abrupt resolution of setting out in the middle of winter for Flanders, and of leaving her in Spain. Isabella entreated him not to abandon his wife to grief and melancholy, which might prove fatal to her, as she was near the time of her delivery. Joanna conjured him to put off his journey for three days only, that she might have the pleasure of celebrating the festival of Christmas in his company. Ferdinand, after representing the imprudence of his leaving Spain, before he had time to become acquainted with the genius, or to gain the affections of the people, who were one day to be his subjects, besought him, at least, not to pass through France, with which kingdom he was then at open war. Philip, without regarding either the dictates of humanity, or the maxims of prudence, persisted in his purpose; and on the twenty-second of December set out for the Low Countries, by the way of France.*

From the moment of his departure, Joanna sunk into a deep and sullen melancholy, and while she was in that situation bore Ferdinand her second son, for whom the power of his brother Charles afterwards procured the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia, and to whom he at last transmitted the imperial sceptre. Joanna was the only person in Spain who discovered no joy at the birth of this prince. Insensible to that as well as to every other pleasure, she was wholly occupied with the thoughts

* Petri Martyris Anglerii Epistolæ, 250-253.

† Id. Fpist. 255.

of returning to her husband; nor did she, in any degree, recover tranquillity of mind, until she arrived at Brussels next year.*

Philip, in passing through France, had an interview with Louis XII. and signed a treaty with him, by which he hoped that all the differences between France and Spain would have been finally terminated. But Ferdinand, whose affairs, at that time, were extremely prosperous in Italy, where the superior genius of Gonsalvo de Cordova, the great captain, triumphed on every occasion over the arms of France, did not pay the least regard to what his son-in-law had concluded, and carried on hostilities with greater ardour than ever.

From this time Philip seems not to have taken any part in the affairs of Spain, waiting in quiet till the death either of Ferdinand or Isabella should open the way to one of their thrones. The latter of these events was not far distant. The untimely death of her son and eldest daughter had made a deep impression on the mind of Isabella; and as she could derive but little consolation for the losses which she had sustained either from her daughter Joanna, whose infirmities daily increased, or from her son-in-law, who no longer preserved even the appearance of a decent respect towards that unhappy princess, her spirits and health began gradually to decline, and after languishing some months, she died at Medina del Campo on the twenty-sixth of November one thousand five hundred and four. She was no less eminent for virtue than for wisdom; and whether we consider her behaviour as a queen, as a wife, or as a mother, she is justly entitled to the high encomiums bestowed on her by the Spanish historians.t

A few weeks before her death, she made her last will, and being convinced of Joanna's incapacity to assume the reins of government into her own hands, and having no inclination to commit them to Philip, with whose conduct she was extremely dissatisfied, she appointed Ferdinand regent or administrator of the affairs of Castile until her grandson Charles should attain the age of twenty. She bequeathed to Ferdinand likewise one half of the revenues which should arise from the Indies, together with the grand masterships of the three military orders; dignities which rendered the person who possessed them almost independent, and which Isabella had, for that reason, annexed to the crown. But before she signed a deed so favourable to Ferdinand, she obliged him to swear that he would not, by a second marriage, or by any other means, endeavour to deprive Joanna or her posterity of their right of succession to any of his kingdoms.§

Immediately upon the queen's death, Ferdinand resigned the title of king of Castile, and issued orders to proclaim Joanna and Philip the sovereigns of that kingdom. But, at the same time, he assumed the character of regent, in consequence of Isabella's testament; and not long after he prevailed on the Cortes of Castile to acknowledge his right to that office. This, however, he did not procure without difficulty, nor without discovering such symptoms of alienation and disgust among the Castilians as filled him with great uneasiness. The union of Castile and Aragon, for almost thirty years, had not so entirely extirpated the ancient and hereditary enmity which subsisted between the natives of these kingdoms, that the Castilian pride could submit, without murmuring, to the government of a king of Aragon. Ferdinand's own character, with which the Castilians were well acquainted, was far from rendering his authority desirable. Suspicious, discerning, severe, and parsimonious, he was accustomed to observe the minute actions of his subjects with a jealous attention, and to reward their highest services with little liberality; and they were now deprived of Isabella, whose gentle qualities, and partiality to her Castilian

Mariana, lib. 27. c. 11. 14. Flechier Vie de Ximen. 1. 191.

P. Mart. Ep. 279.

Ep. 277. Mar. Hist. lib. 28. c. 11. Fer. Hist. Gener. d'Espagne tom. viii. 263. 28. c. 14

Ibid.

Mar. Hist, lib.

subjects, often tempered his austerity, or rendered it tolerable. The maxims of his government were especially odious to the grandees; for that artful prince, sensible of the dangerous privileges conferred upon them by the feudal institutions, had endeavoured to curb their exorbitant power, by extending the royal jurisdiction, by protecting their injured vassals, by increasing the immunities of cities, and by other measures equally prudent. From all these causes, a formidable party among the Castilians united against Ferdinand, and though the persons who composed it had not hitherto taken any public step in opposition to him, he plainly saw, that upon the least encouragement from their new king, they would proceed to the most violent extremities.

There was no less agitation in the Netherlands, upon receiving the accounts of Isabella's death, and of Ferdinand's having assumed the government of Castile. Philip was not of a temper tamely to suffer himself to be supplanted by the ambition of his father-in-law. If Joanna's infirmities, and the nonage of Charles, rendered them incapable of government, he, as a husband, was the proper guardian of his wife, and, as a father, the natural tutor of his son. Nor was it sufficient to oppose to these just rights, and to the inclination of the people of Castile, the authority of a testament, the genuineness of which was perhaps doubtful, and its contents to him appeared certainly to be iniquitous. A keener edge was added to Philip's resentment, and new vigour infused into his councils by the arrival of Don John Manuel. He was Ferdinand's ambassador at the Imperial court, but upon the first notice of Isabella's death repaired to Brussels, flattering himself, that under a young and liberal prince, he might attain to power and honours, which he could never have expected in the service of an old and frugal master. He had early paid court to Philip during his residence in Spain, with such assiduity as entirely gained his confidence; and having been trained to business under Ferdinand, could oppose his schemes with equal abilities, and with arts not inferior to those for which that monarch was distinguished.†

By the advice of Manuel, ambassadors were despatched to require Ferdinand to retire into Aragon, and to resign the government of Castile to those persons whom Philip should intrust with it, until his own arrival in that kingdom. Such of the Castilian nobles as had discovered any dissatisfaction with Ferdinand's administration, were encouraged by every method to oppose it. At the same time a treaty was concluded with Louis XII. by which Philip flattered himself, that he had secured the friendship and assistance of that monarch.

Meanwhile, Ferdinand employed all the arts of address and policy, in order to retain the power of which he had got possession. By means of Conchillos, an Aragonian gentleman, he entered into a private negotiation with Joanna, and prevailed on that weak princess to confirm, by her authority, his right to the regency. But this intrigue did not escape the penetrating eye of Don John Manuel; Joanna's letter of consent was intercepted; Conchillos was thrown into a dungeon; she herself confined to an apartment in the palace, and all her Spanish domestics secluded from her presence.‡

The mortification which the discovery of this intrigue occasioned to Ferdinand was much increased by his observing the progress which Philip's emissaries made in Castile. Some of the nobles retired to their castles; others to the towns in which they had influence: they formed themselves into confederacies, and began to assemble their vassals. Ferdinand's court was almost totally deserted; not a person of distinction but Ximenes, archbishop of Toledo, the duke of Alva, and the marquis of Denia, remaining

Marian. lib. 28. c. 12. + Zurita Anuales de Aragon, tom. vi. p. 12. Zurita Annales, vi. p. 14.

P. Mart. Ep. 287.