XI. 1555. his former rage, his nephews had recourse to the arts. BOOK which they had already practised with so much success. They alarmed him with new representations of the emperor's hostile intentions, with fresh accounts which they had received of threats uttered against him by the imperial ministers, and with new discoveries which they pretended to have made of conspiracies formed, and just ready to take effect against his life. raged at Ç° the niet of But these artifices, having been formerly tried, would Paul ennot have operated a second time with the same force, nor the prohave made the impression which they wished, if Paul had cedags of not been excited by an offence of that kind which he was Augsburg; least able to bear. He received advice of the recess of the diet of Augsburg, and of the toleration which was thereby granted to the Protestants; and this threw him at once into such transports of passion against the emperor and king of the Romans, as carried him headlong into all the violent measures of his nephews. Full of high ideas with respect to the papal prerogative, and animated with the fiercest zeal against heresy, he considered the liberty of deciding concerning religious matters, which had been assumed by an assembly composed chiefly of laymen, as a presumptuous and unpardonable encroachment on that jurisdiction which belonged to him alone; and regarded the indulgence which had been given to the Protestants as an impious act of that power which the diet had usurped. He complained loudly of both to the imperial ambassador. He insisted that the recess of the diet should immediately be declared illegal and void. He threatened the emperor and king of the Romans, in case they should either refuse or delay to gratify him in this particular, with the severest effects of his vengeance. He talked in a tone of authorityand command which might have suited a pontiff of the twelfth century, when a papal decree was sufficient to have shaken, or to have overturned, the throne of the greatest monarch in Europe, but which was altogether improper in that age, especially when addressed to the minister of a prince who had so often made pontiffs, more formidable XI. 1555. BOOK than Paul, feel the weight of his power. The ambassador, however, heard all his extravagant propositions and menaces with much patience, and endeavoured to sooth him, by putting him in mind of the extreme distress to which the emperor had been reduced at Inspruck, of the engagements which he had come under to the Protestants in order to extricate himself, of the necessity of fulfilling these, and of accommodating his conduct to the situation of his affairs. But weighty as these considerations were, they made no impression on the mind of the haughty and bigoted pontiff, who instantly replied, that he would absolve him by his apostolic authority from those impious engagements, and even commanded him not to perform them; that in carrying on the cause of God and of the church, no regard ought to be had to the maxims of worldly prudence and policy; and that the ill success of the emperor's schemes in Germany might justly be deemed a mark of the divine displeasure against him, on account of his having paid little attention to the former, while he regulated his conduct entirely by the latter. Having said this, he turned from the ambassador abruptly, without waiting for a reply. and exas his ne phews. His nephews took care to applaud and cherish these perated by sentiments, and easily wrought up his arrogant mind, fraught with all the monkish ideas concerning the extent of the papal supremacy, to such a pitch of resentment against the house of Austria, and to such an high opinion of his own power, that he talked continually of his being the successor of those who had deposed kings and emperors; that he was exalted as head over them all, and would trample such as opposed him under his feet. In Concludes this disposition the cardinal of Lorrain found the pope, with and easily persuaded him to sign a treaty, which had for its object the ruin of a prince against whom he was so highly exasperated. The stipulations in the treaty were much the same as had been proposed by the pope's envoy at Paris; and it was agreed to keep the whole transac Dec. 15. a treaty France. tions secret until their united force should be ready to BOOK take the fields. XI. 1555. to resign minions. During the negociation of this treaty at Rome and Pa- The emperis, an event happened which seemed to render the fears ror resolves that had given rise to it vain, and the operations which his herewere to follow upon it unnecessary. This was the em-ditary doperor's resignation of his hereditary dominions to his son Philip, together with his resolution to withdraw entirely from any concern in business, or the affairs of this world, in order that he might spend the remainder of his days in retirement and solitude. Though it requires neither deep reflection, nor extraordinary discernment, to discover that the state of royalty is not exempt from cares and disappointment; though most of those who are exalted to a throne, find solicitude, and satiety, and disgust, to be their perpetual attendants in that envied pre-eminence; yet to descend voluntarily from the supreme to a subordinate station, and to relinquish the possession of power, in order to attain the enjoyment of happiness, seems to be an effort too great for the human mind. Several instances, indeed, occur in history, of monarchs who have quitted a throne, and have ended their days in retirement; but they were either weak princes, who took this resolution rashly, and repented of it as soon as it was taken, or unfortunate princes, from whose hands some stronger rival had wrested their sceptre, and compelled them to descend with reluctance into a private station. Dioclesian is, perhaps, the only prince capable of holding the reins of government, who ever resigned them from deliberate choice, and who continued during many years to enjoy the tranquillity of retirement without fetching one penitent sigh, or casting back one look of desire towards the power or dignity which he had abandoned. tives of. No wonder, then, that Charles's resignation should fill The ro all Europe with astonishment, and give rise, both among this resighis contemporaries, and among the historians of that pe-nation. Pallav. lib. xiii, p. 163. F. Paul, 365. Thuan. lib. xv. 525, lib. xvi, 540. Mem. de Ribier, ii, 609, &c. XI. 1555 BOOK riod, to various conjectures concerning the motives which determined a prince whose ruling passion had been uniformly the love of power, at the age of fifty-six, when objects of ambition continue to operate with full force on the mind, and are pursued with the greatest ardour, to take a resolution so singular and unexpected. But while many authors have imputed it to motives so frivolous and fantastical as can hardly be supposed to influence any reasonable mind; while others have imagined it to be the result of some profound scheme of policy; historians more intelligent, and better informed, neither ascribe it to caprice, nor search for mysterious secrets of state, where simple and obvious causes will fully account for the emperor's conduct. Charles had been attacked early in life with the gout, and, notwithstanding all the precautions of the most skilful physicians, the violence of the distemper increased as he advanced in age, and the fits became every year more frequent, as well as more severe. Not only was the vigour of his constitution broken, but the faculties of his mind were impaired by the excruciating torments which he endured. During the continuance of the fits, he was altogether incapable of applying to business; and even when they began to abate, as it was only at intervals that he could attend to what was serious, he gave up a great part of his time to trifling and even childish occupations, which served to relieve or to amuse his mind, enfeebled and worn out with excess of pain. Under these circumstances, the conduct of such affairs as occurred of course, in governing so many kingdoms, was a burden more than sufficient; but to push forward and complete the vast schemes which the ambition of his more active years had formed, or to keep in view and carry on the same great system of policy, extending to every nation in Europe, and connected with the operations of every different court, were functions which so far exceeded his strength, that they oppressed and overwhelmed his mind. As he had been long accustomed to view the business of every department, whether civil, or military, or ecclesiastical, with his XI. 1555. own eyes, and to decide concerning it according to his BOOK own ideas, it gave him the utmost pain when he felt his infirmities increase so fast upon him, that he was obliged to commit the conduct of all affairs to his ministers. He imputed every misfortune which befel him, and every miscarriage that happened, even when the former was unavoidable, or the latter accidental, to his inability to take the inspection of business himself. He complained of his hard fortune, in being opposed, in his declining years, to a rival who was in the full vigour of life, and that while Henry could take and execute all his resolutions in person, he should now be reduced, both in council and in action, to rely on the talents and exertions of other men. Having thus grown old before his time, he wisely judged it more decent to conceal his infirmities in some solitude, than to expose them any longer to the public eye; and prudently determined not to forfeit the fame, or lose the acquisitions, of his better years, by struggling, with a vain obstinacy, to retain the reins of government, when he was no longer able to hold them with steadiness, or to guide them with address'. Don Levesque, in his Memoirs of Cardinal Granvelle, gives a reason for the emperor's resignation, which, as far as I recollect, is not mentioned by any other historian. He says, that the emperor having ceded the government of the kingdom of Naples and the duchy of Milan to his son, upon his marriage with the queen of England, Philip, notwithstanding the advice and entreaties of his father, removed most of the ministers and officers whom he had employed in those countries, and appointed creatures of his own to fill the places which they held; that he aspired openly, and with little delicacy, to obtain a share in the administration of affairs in the Low Countries; that he endeavoured to thwart the emperor's measures, and to limit his authority, behaving towards him sometimes with inattention, and sometimes with haughtiness; that Charles finding that he must either yield on every occasion to his son, or openly contend with him, in order to avoid either of these, which were both disagreeable and mortifying to a father, he took the resolution of resigning his crowns, and of retiring from the world. Vol. i, p. 24, &c. Dou Levesque derived his information concerning these curious facts, which he relates very briefly, from the original papers of Cardinal Granvelle. But as that vast collection of papers, which has been preserved and arranged by M. l'Abbe Boizot of Besançon, though one of the most valuable historical monuments of the sixteenth century, and which cannot fail of throwing much light on the transactions of Charles V. is not published, I cannot determine what degree of credit should be given to this account of Charles's resignation. I have therefore taken no notice of it in relating this event. |