Chapter 40
Having thus discharged their painful office, Arellano and the governor withdrew, and, summoning the friar, left the prisoner to the spiritual consolations he so much needed. What followed, we have from Castillo himself. As Montigny's agitation subsided, he listened patiently to the exhortations of the good father; and when at length restored to something like his natural composure, he joined with him earnestly in prayer. He then confessed and received the sacrament, seeming desirous of employing the brief s.p.a.ce that yet remained to him in preparation for the solemn change. At intervals, when not actually occupied with his devotions, he read the compositions of Father Luis de Granada, whose spiritualized conceptions had often solaced the hours of his captivity.
Montigny was greatly disturbed by the rumor of his having been shaken in his religious principles, and having embraced the errors of the Reformers. To correct this impression, he briefly drew up, with his own hand, a confession of faith, in which he avows as implicit a belief in all the articles sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church, and its head, the Vicar of Christ, as Pius the Fifth himself could have desired.[1254]
Having thus relieved his mind, Montigny turned to settle some temporal affairs which he was desirous to settle. They did not occupy much time.
For, as Philip had truly remarked, there was no occasion for him to make a will, since he had nothing to bequeath,--all his property having been confiscated to the crown.[1255] If, however, any debt pressed heavily on his conscience, he was to be allowed to indicate it, as well as any provision which he particularly desired to make for a special purpose.
This was on the condition, however, that he should allude to himself as about to die a natural death.[1256]
Montigny profited by this to express the wish that ma.s.ses, to the number of seven hundred, might be said for his soul, that sundry sums might be appropriated to private uses, and that some gratuities might be given to certain of his faithful followers. It may interest the reader to know that the ma.s.ses were punctually performed. In regard to the pious legacies, the king wrote to Alva, he must first see if Montigny's estate would justify the appropriation; as for the gratuities to servants, they were wholly out of the question.[1257]
One token of remembrance, which he placed in the hands of Castillo, doubtless reached its destination. This was a gold chain of delicate workmans.h.i.+p, with a seal or signet ring attached to it, bearing his arms. This little token he requested might be given to his wife. It had been his constant companion ever since they were married; and he wished her to wear it in memory of him,--expressing at the same time his regret that a longer life had not been granted him, to serve and honor her. As a dying injunction he besought her not to be entangled by the new doctrines, or to swerve from the faith of her ancestors.--If ever Montigny had a leaning to the doctrines of the Reformation, it could hardly have deepened into conviction; for early habit and education rea.s.serted their power so entirely, at this solemn moment, that the Dominican by his side declared that he gave evidence of being as good and Catholic a Christian as he could wish to be himself.[1258] The few hours in which Montigny had thus tasted of the bitterness of death seemed to have done more to wean him from the vanities of life than the whole years of dreary imprisonment he had pa.s.sed within the walls of Segovia and Simancas. Yet we shall hardly credit the friar's a.s.sertion, that he carried his resignation so far, that, though insisting on his own innocence, he admitted the sentence of his judges to be just![1259]
At about two o'clock on the morning of the sixteenth of October, when the interval allowed for this solemn preparation had expired, Father Castillo waited on the governor and the alcalde, to inform them that the hour had come, and that their prisoner was ready to receive them. They went, without further delay, to the chamber of death, attended by the notary and the executioner. Then, in their presence, while the notary made a record of the proceedings, the grim minister of the law did his work on his unresisting victim.[1260]
No sooner was the breath out of the body of Montigny, than the alcalde, the priest, and their two companions were on their way back to Valladolid, reaching it before dawn, so as to escape the notice of the inhabitants. All were solemnly bound to secrecy in regard to the dark act in which they had been engaged. The notary and the hangman were still further secured by the menace of death, in case they betrayed any knowledge of the matter; and they knew full well that Philip was not a man to shrink from the execution of his menaces.[1261]
[Sidenote: HIS LAST MOMENTS.]
The corpse was arrayed in a Franciscan habit, which, coming up to the throat, left the face only exposed to observation. It was thus seen by Montigny's servants, who recognised the features of their master, hardly more distorted than sometimes happens from disease, when the agonies of death have left their traces. The story went abroad that their lord had died of the fever with which he had been so violently attacked.
The funeral obsequies were performed, according to the royal orders, with all due solemnity. The vicar and beneficiaries of the church of St.
Saviour officiated on the occasion. The servants of the deceased were clad in mourning,--a token of respect recommended by Philip, who remarked, the servants were so few, that mourning might as well be given to them;[1262] and he was willing to take charge of this and the other expenses of the funeral, provided Montigny had not left money sufficient for the purpose. The place selected for his burial was a vault under one of the chapels of the building; and a decent monument indicated the spot where reposed the ashes of the last of the envoys who came from Flanders on the ill-starred mission to Madrid.[1263]
Such is a true account of this tragical affair, as derived from the king's own letters and those of his agents. Far different was the story put in circulation at the time. On the seventeenth of October, the day after Montigny's death, despatches were received at court from Peralta, the alcayde of the fortress. They stated that, after writing his former letter, his prisoner's fever had so much increased, that he had called in the aid of a physician; and as the symptoms became more alarming, the latter had entered into a consultation with the medical adviser of the late regent, Joanna, so that nothing that human skill could afford should be wanting to the patient. He grew rapidly worse, however, and as, happily, Father Hernando del Castillo, of Valladolid, chanced to be then in Simancas, he came and administered the last consolations of religion to the dying man. Having done all that a good Christian at such a time should do, Montigny expired early on the morning of the sixteenth, manifesting at the last so Catholic a spirit, that good hopes might be entertained of his salvation.[1264]
This hypocritical epistle, it is hardly necessary to say, like the one that preceded it, had been manufactured at Madrid. Nor was it altogether devoid of truth. The physician of the place, named Viana, had been called in; and it was found necessary to intrust him with the secret.
Every day he paid his visit to the castle, and every day returned with more alarming accounts of the condition of the patient; and thus the minds of the community were prepared for the fatal termination of his disorder. Not that, after all, this was unattended with suspicions of foul play in the matter, as people reflected how opportune was the occurrence of such an event. But suspicions were not proof. The secret was too well guarded for any one to penetrate the veil of mystery; and the few who were behind that veil loved their lives too well to raise it.
Despatches written in cipher, and containing a full and true account of the affair, were sent to the duke of Alva. The two letters of Peralta, which indeed were intended for the meridian of Brussels rather than of Madrid, were forwarded with them. The duke was told to show them incidentally, as it were, without obtruding them on any one's notice,[1265] that Montigny's friends in the Netherlands might be satisfied of their truth.
In his own private communication to Alva, Philip, in mentioning the orthodox spirit manifested by his victim in his last moments, shows that with the satisfaction which he usually expressed on such occasions was mingled some degree of scepticism. "If his inner man," he writes of Montigny, "was penetrated with as Christian a spirit as he exhibited in the outer, and as the friar who confessed him has reported, G.o.d, we may presume, will have mercy on his soul."[1266] In the original draft of the letter, as prepared by the king's secretary, it is further added: "Yet, after all, who can tell but this was a delusion of Satan, who, as we know, never deserts the heretic in his dying hour." This sentence--as appears from the ma.n.u.script still preserved in Simancas--was struck out by Philip, with the remark in his own hand, "Omit this, as we should think no evil of the dead!"[1267]
Notwithstanding this magnanimous sentiment, Philip lost no time in publis.h.i.+ng Montigny to the world as a traitor, and demanding the confiscation of his estates. The Council of Blood learned a good lesson from the Holy Inquisition, which took care that even Death should not defraud it of its victims. Proceedings were inst.i.tuted against the _memory_ of Montigny, as had
The proceedings of the Council of Blood against Montigny were characterized, as I have already said, by greater effrontery and a more flagrant contempt of the common forms of justice than were usually to be met with even in that tribunal. A bare statement of the facts is sufficient. The party accused was put on his trial--if trial it can be called--in one country, while he was held in close custody in another.
The court before which he was tried--or rather the jury, for the council seems to have exercised more of the powers of a jury than of a judge--was on this occasion a packed body, selected to suit the purposes of the prosecution. Its sentence, instead of being publicly p.r.o.nounced, was confided only to the party interested to obtain it,--the king. Even the sentence itself was not the one carried into effect; but another was subst.i.tuted in its place, and a public execution was supplanted by a midnight a.s.sa.s.sination. It would be an abuse of language to dignify such a proceeding with the t.i.tle of a judicial murder.
[Sidenote: NOTICE OF GACHARD.]
Yet Philip showed no misgivings as to his own course in the matter. He had made up his mind as to the guilt of Montigny. He had been false to his king and false to his religion; offences which death only could expiate. Still we find Philip resorting to a secret execution, although Alva, as we have seen, had supposed that sentence was to be executed on Montigny in the same open manner as it had been on the other victims of the b.l.o.o.d.y tribunal. But the king shrunk from exposing a deed to the public eye, which, independently of its atrocity in other respects, involved so flagrant a violation of good faith towards the party who had come, at his sovereign's own desire, on a public mission to Madrid. With this regard to the opinions of his own age, it may seem strange that Philip should not have endeavored to efface every vestige of his connection with the act, by destroying the records which established it.
On the contrary, he not only took care that such records should be made, but caused them, and all other evidence of the affair, to be permanently preserved in the national archives. There they lay for the inspection of posterity, which was one day to sit in judgment on his conduct.
In the part of this History which relates to the Netherlands, I have been greatly indebted to two eminent scholars of that country. The first of these, M. Gachard, who had the care of the royal archives of Belgium, was commissioned by his government, in 1844, to visit the Peninsula for the purpose of collecting materials for the ill.u.s.tration of the national history. The most important theatre of his labors was Simancas, which, till the time of his visit, had been carefully closed to natives as well as foreigners. M. Gachard profited by the more liberal arrangements which, under certain restrictions, opened its historical treasures to the student. The result of his labors he is now giving to the world by the publication of his "Correspondance de Philippe II.," of which two volumes have already been printed. The work is published in a beautiful form, worthy of the auspices under which it has appeared. It consists chiefly of the correspondence carried on by the Spanish government and the authorities of the Netherlands in the reign of Philip the Second,--the revolutionary age, and of course the most eventful period of their history. The official despatches, written in French, are, it is true, no longer to be found in Simancas, whence they were removed to Brussels on the accession of Albert and Isabella to the sovereignty of the Low Countries. But a large ma.s.s of correspondence which pa.s.sed between the court of Castile and the Netherlands, is still preserved in the Spanish archives. As it is, for the most part, of a confidential nature, containing strictures on men and things intended only for the eyes of the parties to it, it is of infinite value to the historian. Not only has it never before been published, but, with the exception of a portion which pa.s.sed under the review of the Italian Strada, it has never been submitted to the inspection of the scholar. With the aid of this rich collection, the historian is enabled to enter into many details, hitherto unknown, of a personal nature, relating to the actors in the great drama of the revolution, as well as to disclose some of the secret springs of their policy.
M. Gachard has performed his editorial duties with conscientiousness and ability. In a subsequent volume he proposes to give the entire text of the more important letters; but in the two already published he has confined himself to an a.n.a.lysis of their contents, more or less extended, according to circ.u.mstances. He has added explanatory notes, and prefixed to the whole a copious dissertation, presenting a view of the politics of the Castilian court, and of the characters of the king and the great officers of state. As the writer's information is derived from sources the most authentic as well as the least accessible to scholars, his preliminary essay deserves to be carefully studied by the historian of the Netherlands.
M. Gachard has further claims to the grat.i.tude of every lover of letters by various contributions in other forms which he has made to the ill.u.s.tration of the national history. Among these his "Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne," of which three volumes in octavo have already appeared, has been freely used by me. It consists of a collection of William's correspondence, industriously gathered from various quarters.
The letters differ from one another as widely in value as might naturally be expected in so large and miscellaneous a collection.
The other scholar by whose editorial labors I have profited in this part of my work is M. Groen van Prinsterer. His voluminous publication, "Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Na.s.sau," the first series of which embraces the times of William the Silent, is derived from the private collection of the king of Holland. The contents are various, but consist chiefly of letters from persons who took a prominent part in the conduct of affairs. Their correspondence embraces a miscellaneous range of topics, and with those of public interest combines others strictly personal in their details, thus bringing into strong relief the characters of the most eminent actors on the great political theatre. A living interest attaches to this correspondence, which we shall look for in vain in the colder pages of the historian. History gives us the acts, but letters like these, in which the actors speak for themselves, give us the thoughts, of the individual.
M. Groen has done his part of the work well, adhering to the original text with scrupulous fidelity, and presenting us the letters in the various languages in which they were written. The interstices, so to speak, between the different parts of the correspondence, are skilfully filled up by the editor, so as to connect the incongruous materials into a well compacted fabric. In conducting what, as far as he is concerned, may be termed the original part of his work, the editor has shown much discretion, gathering information from collateral contemporary sources; and, by the side-lights he has thus thrown over the path, has greatly facilitated the progress of the student, and enabled him to take a survey of the whole historical ground. The editor is at no pains to conceal his own opinions; and we have no difficulty in determining the religious sect to which he belongs. But it is not the less true, that he is ready to render justice to the opinions of others, and that he is ent.i.tled to the praise of having executed his task with impartiality.
One may notice a peculiarity in the criticisms of both Groen and Gachard, the more remarkable considering the nations to which they belong; that is, the solicitude they manifest to place the most favorable construction on the conduct of Philip, and to vindicate his memory from the wholesale charges so often brought against him, of a systematic attempt to overturn the liberties of the Netherlands. The reader, even should he not always feel the cogency of their arguments, will not refuse his admiration to the candor of the critics.
There is a third publication, recently issued from the press in Brussels, which contains, in the compa.s.s of a single volume, materials of much importance for the history of the Netherlands. This is the "Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche," by the late Baron Reiffenberg. It is a part of the French correspondence which, as I have mentioned above, was transferred, in the latter part of Philip the Second's reign, from Simancas to Brussels; but which, instead of remaining there, was removed, after the country had pa.s.sed under the Austrian sceptre, to the imperial library of Vienna, where it exists, in all probability, at the present day. Some fragments of this correspondence escaped the fate which attended the bulk of it; and it is gleanings from these which Reiffenberg has given to the world.
That country is fortunate which can command the services of such men as these for the ill.u.s.tration of its national annals,--men who with singular enthusiasm for their task combine the higher qualifications of scholars.h.i.+p, and a talent for critical a.n.a.lysis. By their persevering labors the rich ore has been drawn from the mines where it had lain in darkness for ages. It now waits only for the hand of the artist to convert it into coin, and give it a popular currency.
[Sidenote: CONDITION OF TURKEY.]
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.
THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.
Condition of Turkey.--African Corsairs.--Expedition against Tripoli.--War on the Barbary Coast.
1559-1563.
There are two methods of writing history;--one by following down the stream of time, and exhibiting events in their chronological order; the other by disposing of these events according to their subjects. The former is the most obvious; and where the action is simple and continuous, as in biography, for the most part, or in the narrative of some grand historical event, which concentrates the interest, it is probably the best. But when the story is more complicated, covering a wide field, and embracing great variety of incident, the chronological system, however easy for the writer, becomes tedious and unprofitable to the reader. He is hurried along from one scene to another without fully apprehending any; and as the thread of the narrative is perpetually broken by sudden transition, he carries off only such sc.r.a.ps in his memory as it is hardly possible to weave into a connected and consistent whole. Yet this method, as the most simple and natural, is one most affected by the early writers,--by the old Castilian chroniclers more particularly, who form the princ.i.p.al authorities in the present work.
Their wearisome pages, mindful of no order but that of time, are spread over as miscellaneous a range of incidents, and having as little relation to one another, as the columns of a newspaper.
To avoid this inconvenience, historians of a later period have preferred to conduct their story on more philosophical principles, having regard rather to the nature of the events described, than to the precise time of their occurrence. And thus the reader, possessed of one action, its causes and its consequences, before pa.s.sing on to another, is enabled to treasure up in his memory distinct impressions of the whole.
In conformity to this plan, I have detained the reader in the Netherlands until he had seen the close of Margaret's administration, and the policy which marked the commencement of her successor's. During this period, Spain was at peace with her European neighbors, most of whom were too much occupied with their domestic dissensions to have leisure for foreign war. France, in particular, was convulsed by religious feuds, in which Philip, as the champion of the Faith, took not only the deepest interest, but an active part. To this I shall return hereafter.
But while at peace with her Christian brethren, Spain was engaged in perpetual hostilities with the Moslems, both of Africa and Asia. The relations of Europe with the East were altogether different in the sixteenth century from what they are in our day. The Turkish power lay like a dark cloud on the Eastern horizon, to which every eye was turned with apprehension; and the same people for whose protection European nations are now willing to make common cause, were viewed by them, in the sixteenth century, in the light of a common enemy.
It was fortunate for Islamism that, as the standard of the Prophet was falling from the feeble grasp of the Arabs, it was caught up by a nation like the Turks, whose fiery zeal urged them to bear it still onward in the march of victory. The Turks were to the Arabs what the Romans were to the Greeks. Bold, warlike, and ambitious, they had little of that love of art which had been the dominant pa.s.sion of their predecessors, and still less of that refinement which, with the Arabs, had degenerated into effeminacy and sloth. Their form of government was admirably suited to their character. It was an unmixed despotism. The sovereign, if not precisely invested with the theocratic character of the caliphs, was hedged round with so much sanct.i.ty, that resistance to his authority was an offence against religion as well as law. He was placed at an immeasurable distance above his subjects. No hereditary aristocracy was allowed to soften the descent, and interpose a protecting barrier for the people. All power was derived from the sovereign, and, on the death of its proprietor, returned to him. In the eye of the sultan, his va.s.sals were all equal, and all equally his slaves.
The theory of an absolute government would seem to imply perfection in the head of it. But, as perfection is not the lot of humanity, it was prudently provided by the Turkish const.i.tution that the sultan should have the benefit of a council to advise him. It consisted of three or four great officers, appointed by himself, with the grand-vizier at their head. This functionary was possessed of an authority far exceeding that of the prime-minister of any European prince. All the business of state may be said to have pa.s.sed through his hands. The persons chosen for this high office were usually men of capacity and experience; and in a weak reign they served by their large authority to screen the incapacity of the sovereign from the eyes of his subjects, while they preserved the state from detriment. It might be thought that powers so vast as those bestowed on the vizier might have rendered him formidable, if not dangerous, to his master. But his master was placed as far above him as above the meanest of his subjects. He had unlimited power of life and death; and how little he was troubled with scruples in the exercise of this power is abundantly shown in history. The bowstring was too often the only warrant for the deposition of a minister.
But the most remarkable of the Turkish inst.i.tutions, the one which may be said to have formed the keystone of the system, was that relating to the Christian population of the empire. Once in five years a general conscription was made, by means of which all the children of Christian parents who had reached the age of seven, and gave promise of excellence in mind or body, were taken from their homes and brought to the capital.
They were then removed to different quarters, and placed in seminaries where they might receive such instruction as would fit them for the duties of life. Those giving greatest promise of strength and endurance were sent to places prepared for them in Asia Minor. Here they were subjected to a severe training, to abstinence, to privations of every kind, and to the strict discipline which should fit them for the profession of a soldier. From this body was formed the famous corps of the janizaries.
Another portion were placed in schools in the capital, or the neighboring cities, where, under the eye of the sultan, as it were, they were taught various manly accomplishments, with such a smattering of science as Turkish, or rather Arabian, scholars.h.i.+p could supply. When their education was finished, some went into the sultan's body-guard, where a splendid provision was made for their maintenance. Others, intended for civil life, entered on a career which might lead to the highest offices in the state.
[Sidenote: CONDITION OF TURKEY.]
As all these cla.s.ses of Christian youths were taken from their parents at that tender age when the doctrines of their own faith could hardly have taken root in their minds, they were, without difficulty, won over to the faith of the Koran; which was further commended to their choice as the religion of the state, the only one which opened to them the path of preferment. Thus set apart from the rest of the community, and cherished by royal favor, the new converts, as they rallied round the throne of their sovereign, became more stanch in their devotion to his interests, as well as to the interests of the religion they had adopted, than even the Turks themselves.
This singular inst.i.tution bore hard on the Christian population, who paid this heavy tax of their own offspring. But it worked well for the monarchy, which, acquiring fresh vigor from the constant infusion of new blood into its veins, was slow in exhibiting any signs of decrepitude or decay.