XII. states interpose, and balance any temporary advantage BOOK which either party may have acquired. After the fiercest and most lengthened contest, all the rival nations are exhausted, none are conquered. At length they find it necessary to conclude a peace, which restores to each almost the same power and the same territories of which they were formerly in possession. tions of state dur tury. Such was the state of Europe during the reign of The naCharles V. No prince was so much superior to the rest Europe in in power, as to render his efforts irresistible, and his con- a similar quests easy. No nation had made progress in improve-ing the sixment so far beyond its neighbours, as to have acquired a teenth cen very manifest pre-eminence. Each state derived some advantage, or was subject to some inconvenience, from its situation or its climate; each was distinguished by something peculiar in the genius of its people or the constitution of its government. But the advantages possessed by one state were counterbalanced by circumstances favourable to others; and this prevented any from attaining such superiority as might have been fatal to all. The nations of Europe in that age, as in the present, were like one great family; there were some features common to all, which fixed a resemblance; there were certain peculiarities conspicuous in each, which marked a distinction. But there was not among them that wide diversity of character and of genius, which, in almost every period of history, hath exalted the Europeans above the inhabitants of the other quarters of the globe, and seems to have destined the one to rule, and the other to obey. But though the near resemblance and equality in im-A remarkprovement among the different nations of Europe pre-able change vented the reign of Charles V. from being distinguished of Europe, by such sudden and extensive conquests as occur in some during the reign of other periods of history, yet, during the course of his ad- Charles V. ministration, all the considerable states in Europe suffered a remarkable change in their political situation, and felt the influence of events, which have not hitherto spent their force, but still continue to operate in a greater or in a less XII. BOOK degree. It was during his reign, and in consequence of the perpetual efforts to which his enterprising ambition roused him, that the different kingdoms of Europe acquired internal vigour; that they discerned the resources of which they were possessed; that they came both to feel their own strength, and to know how to render it formidable to others. It was during his reign, too, that the different kingdoms of Europe, which in former times seemed frequently to act as if they had been single and disjoined, became so thoroughly acquainted, and so intimately connected, with each other, as to form one great political system, in which each took a station, wherein it has remained since that time with less variation than could have been expected after the events of two active centuries. The progress of the house of Austria. The progress, however, and acquisitions of the house of Austria, were not only greater than those of any other power, but more discernible and conspicuous. I have already enumerated the extensive territories which descended to Charles from his Austrian, Burgundian, and Spanish ancestors. To these he himself added the imperial dignity; and, as if all this had been too little, the bounds of the habitable globe seemed to be extended, and a new world was subjected to his command. Upon his resignation, the Burgundian provinces, and the Spanish kingdoms, with their dependencies, both in the Old and New Worlds, devolved to Philip. But Charles transmitted his dominions to his son in a condition very different from that in which he himself had received them. They were augmented by the accession of new provinces; they were habituated to obey an administration which was no less vigorous than steady; they were accustomed to expensive and persevering efforts, which, though necessary in the contests between civilized nations, had been little known in Europe before the sixteenth century. The provinces of Friesland, Utrecht, and Overyssel, which he acquired by purchase from their former proprietors, and the duchy of Gueldres, of which he made himself master, partly by f Vol. v, p. 165. XII. force of arms, partly by the arts of negociation, were ad- BOOK ditions of great value to his Burgundian dominions. Ferdinand and Isabella had transmitted to him all the provinces of Spain, from the bottom of the Pyrenees to the frontiers of Portugal; but as he maintained a perpetual peace with that kingdom, amidst the various efforts of his enterprising ambition, he made no acquisition of territory in that quarter. Charles had gained, however, a vast accession of power Particularin this part of his dominions. By his success in the warly in Spain. with the commons of Castile, he exalted the regal prerogative upon the ruins of the privileges which formerly belonged to the people. Though he allowed the name of the cortes to remain, and the formality of holding it to be continued, he reduced its authority and jurisdiction almost to nothing, and modelled in such a manner, that it became rather a junto of the servants of the crown, than an assembly of the representatives of the people. One member of the constitution being thus lopped off, it was impossible but that the other must feel the stroke, and suffer by it. The suppression of the popular power rendered the aristocratical less formidable. The grandees, prompted by the warlike spirit of the age, or allured by the honours which they enjoyed in a court, exhausted their fortunes in military service, or in attending on the person of their prince. They did not dread, perhaps did not observe, the dangerous progress of the royal authority, which, leaving them the vain' distinction of being covered in presence of their sovereign, stripped them, by degrees, of that real power which they possessed while they formed one body, and acted in concert with the people. Charles's success in abolishing the privileges of the commons, and in breaking the power of the nobles of Castile, encouraged Philip to invade the liberties of Aragon, which were still more extensive. The Castilians, accustomed to subjection themselves, assisted in imposing the yoke on their more happy and independent neighbours. The will of the sovereign became the supreme law in all the kingdoms of XII. BOOK Spain; and princes who were not checked in forming their plans by the jealousy of the people, nor controuled in executing them by the power of the nobles, could both aim at great objects, and call forth the whole strength of the monarchy in order to attain them. Also in other parts of Europe. As Charles, by extending the royal prerogative, rendered the monarchs of Spain masters at home, he added new dignity and power to their crown by his foreign acquisitions. He secured to Spain the quiet possession of the kingdom of Naples, which Ferdinand had usurped by fraud, and held with difficulty. He united the duchy of Milan, one of the most fertile and populous Italian provinces, to the Spanish crown; and left his successors, even without taking their other territories into the account, the most considerable princes in Italy, which had been long the theatre of contention to the great powers of Europe, and in which they had struggled with emulation to obtain the superiority. When the French, in conformity to the treaty of Chateau-Cambresis, withdrew their forces out of Italy, and finally relinquished all their schemes of conquest on that side of the Alps, the Spanish dominions then rose in importance, and enabled their kings, as long as the monarchy retained any degree of vigour, to preserve the chief sway in all the transactions of that country. But whatever accession, either of interior authority or of foreign dominion, Charles gained for the monarchs of Spain in Europe, was inconsiderable when compared with his acquisitions in the New World. He added there, not provinces, but empires to his crown. He conquered territories of such immense extent; he discovered such inexhaustible veins of wealth, and opened such boundless prospects of every kind, as must have roused his successor, and have called him forth to action, though his ambition. had been much less ardent than that of Philip, and must have rendered him not only enterprising but formidable. While the elder branch of the Austrian family rose to such pre-eminence in Spain, the younger, of which Ferdinand was the head, grew to be considerable in Germany; XIL Progress of the the ancient hereditary dominions of the house of Austria BOOK in Germany, united to the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia, which Ferdinand had acquired by marriage, form-f the Gr cd a respectable power; and when the imperial dignity man bronch was added to these, Ferdinand possessed territories more house of extensive than had belonged to any prince, Charles V. ex- Austria. cepted, who had been at the head of the empire during several ages. Fortunately for Europe, the disgust which Philip conceived on account of Ferdinand's refusing to relinquish the imperial crown in his favour, not only prevented, for some time, the separate members of the house of Austria from acting in concert, but occasioned between them a visible alienation and rivalship. By degrees, however, regard to the interest of their family extinguished this impolitical animosity. The confidence which was natural returned; the aggrandizing of the house of Austria became the common object of all their schemes; they gave and received assistance alternately towards the execution of them; and cach derived consideration and importance from the other's success. A family so great and so aspiring became the general object of jealousy and terror. All the power, as well as policy, of Europe, were exerted during a century, in order to check and humble it. Nothing can give a more striking idea of the ascendant which it had acquired, and of the terror which it had inspired, than that. after its vigour was spent with extraordinary exertions of its strength, after Spain was become only the shadow of a great name, and its monarchies were sunk into debility and dotage, the house of Austria still continued to be formidable. The nations of Europe had so often felt its superior power, and had been so constantly employed in guarding against it, that the dread of it became a kind of political habit, the influence of which remained when the causes which had formed it ceased to exist. While the house of Austria went on with such success in enlarging its dominions, France made no considerable acquisition of new territory. All its schemes of conque: t in Italy had proved abortive; it had hitherto obtained no |