CHAPTER XXIV.
DEATH OF GONSALVO DE CORDOVA.—ILLNESS AND DEATH OF FERDINAND.—HIS CHARACTER.
1513-1516.
Gonsalvo Ordered to Italy.—General Enthusiasm.—The King's Distrust.—
Gonsalvo in Retirement.—Decline of his Health.—His Death and Noble
Character.—Ferdinand's Illness.—It Increases.—He Dies.—His Character.
—A Contrast to Isabella.—The Judgment of his Contemporaries.
Notwithstanding the good order which King Ferdinand maintained in Castile by his energetic conduct, as well as by his policy of diverting the effervescing spirits of the nation to foreign enterprise, he still experienced annoyance from various causes. Among these were Maximilian's pretensions to the regency, as paternal grandfather of the heir apparent. The emperor, indeed, had more than once threatened to assert his preposterous claims to Castile in person; and, although this Quixotic monarch, who had been tilting against windmills all his life, failed to excite any powerful sensation, either by his threats or his promises, it furnished a plausible pretext for keeping alive a faction hostile to the interests of the Catholic king.
In the winter of 1509, an arrangement was made with the emperor, through the mediation of Louis the Twelfth, by which he finally relinquished his pretensions to the regency of Castile, in consideration of the aid of three hundred lances, and the transfer to him of the fifty thousand ducats, which Ferdinand was to receive from Pisa. [1] No bribe was too paltry for a prince, whose means were as narrow, as his projects were vast and chimerical. Even after this pacification, the Austrian party contrived to disquiet the king, by maintaining the archduke Charles's pretensions to the government in the name of his unfortunate mother; until at length, the Spanish monarch came to entertain not merely distrust, but positive aversion, for his grandson; while the latter, as he advanced in years, was taught to regard Ferdinand as one, who excluded him from his rightful inheritance by a most flagrant act of usurpation. [2]
Ferdinand's suspicious temper found other grounds for uneasiness, where there was less warrant for it, in his jealousy of his illustrious subject Gonsalvo de Cordova. This was particularly the case, when circumstances had disclosed the full extent of that general's popularity. After the defeat of Ravenna, the pope and the other allies of Ferdinand urged him in the most earnest manner to send the Great Captain into Italy, as the only man capable of checking the French arms, and restoring the fortunes of the league. The king, trembling for the immediate safety of his own dominions, gave a reluctant assent, and ordered Gonsalvo to hold himself in readiness to take command of an army to be instantly raised for Italy. [3]
These tidings were received with enthusiasm by the Castilians. Men of every rank pressed forward to serve under a chief, whose service was itself sufficient passport to fame. "It actually seemed," says Martyr, "as if Spain were to be drained of all her noble and generous blood. Nothing appeared impossible, or even difficult, under such a leader. Hardly a cavalier in the land, but would have thought it a reproach to remain behind. Truly marvellous," he adds, "is the authority which he has acquired over all orders of men!" [4]
Such was the zeal with which men enlisted under his banner, that great difficulty was found in completing the necessary levies for Navarre, then menaced by the French. The king, alarmed at this, and relieved from apprehensions of immediate danger to Naples, by subsequent advices from that country, sent orders greatly reducing the number of forces to be raised. But this had little effect, since every man, who had the means, preferred acting as a volunteer under the Great Captain to any other service, however gainful; and many a poor cavalier was there, who expended his little all, or incurred a heavy debt, in order to appear in the field in a style becoming the chivalry of Spain.
Ferdinand's former distrust of his general was now augmented tenfold by this evidence of his unbounded popularity. He saw in imagination much more danger to Naples from such a subject, than from any enemy, however formidable. He had received intelligence, moreover, that the French were in full retreat towards the north. He hesitated no longer, but sent instructions to the Great Captain at Cordova, to disband his levies, as the expedition would be postponed till after the present winter; at the same time inviting such as chose to enlist in the service of Navarre. [5]
These tidings were received with indignant feelings by the whole army. The officers refused, nearly to a man, to engage in the proposed service. Gonsalvo, who understood the motives of this change in the royal purpose, was deeply sensible to what he regarded as a personal affront. He, however, enjoined on his troops implicit obedience to the king's commands. Before dismissing them, as he knew that many had been drawn into expensive preparations far beyond their means, he distributed largesses among them, amounting to the immense sum, if we may credit his biographers, of one hundred thousand ducats. "Never stint your hand," said he to his steward, who remonstrated on the magnitude of the donative; "there is no mode of enjoying one's property, like giving it away." He then wrote a letter to the king, in which he gave free vent to his indignation, bitterly complaining of the ungenerous requital of his services, and asking leave to retire to his duchy of Terranova in Naples, since he could be no longer useful in Spain. This request was not calculated to lull Ferdinand's suspicions. He answered, however, "in the soft and pleasant style, which he knew so well how to assume," says Zurita; and, after specifying his motives for relinquishing, however reluctantly, the expedition, he recommended Gonsalvo's return to Loja, at least until some more definite arrangement could be made respecting the affairs of Italy.
Thus condemned to his former seclusion, the Great Captain resumed his late habits of life, freely opening his mansion to persons of merit, interesting himself in plans for ameliorating the condition of his tenantry and neighbors, and in this quiet way winning a more unquestionable title to human gratitude than when piling up the blood- stained trophies of victory. Alas for humanity, that it should have deemed otherwise! [6]
Another circumstance, which disquieted the Catholic king, was the failure of issue by his present wife. The natural desire of offspring was further stimulated by hatred of the house of Austria, which made him eager to abridge the ample inheritance about to descend on his grandson Charles. It must be confessed, that it reflects little credit on his heart or his understanding, that he should have been so ready to sacrifice to personal resentment those noble plans for the consolidation of the monarchy, which had so worthily occupied the attention both of himself and of Isabella, in his early life. His wishes had nearly been realized. Queen Germaine was delivered of a son, March 3d, 1509. Providence, however, as if unwilling to defeat the glorious consummation of the union of the Spanish kingdoms, so long desired and nearly achieved, permitted the infant to live only a few hours. [7]
Ferdinand repined at the blessing denied him, now more than ever. In order to invigorate his constitution, he resorted to artificial means. [8] The medicines which he took had the opposite effect. At least from this time, the spring of 1513, he was afflicted with infirmities before unknown to him. Instead of his habitual equanimity and cheerfulness, he became impatient, irritable, and frequently a prey to morbid melancholy. He lost all relish for business, and even for amusements, except field sports, to which he devoted the greater part of his time. The fever which consumed him made him impatient of long residence in any one place, and during these last years of his life the court was in perpetual migration. The unhappy monarch, alas! could not fly from disease, or from himself. [9]
In the summer of 1515, he was found one night by his attendants in a state of insensibility, from which it was difficult to rouse him. He exhibited flashes of his former energy after this, however. On one occasion he made a journey to Aragon, in order to preside at the deliberations of the cortes, and enforce the grant of supplies, to which the nobles, from selfish considerations, made resistance. The king failed, indeed, to bend their intractable tempers, but he displayed on the occasion all his wonted address and resolution. [10]
On his return to Castile, which, perhaps from the greater refinement and deference of the people, seems to have been always a more agreeable residence to him than his own kingdom of Aragon, he received intelligence very vexatious, in the irritable state of his mind. He learned that the Great Captain was preparing to embark for Flanders, with his friend the count of Ureña, the marquis of Priego his nephew, and his future son-in- law, the count of Cabra. Some surmised that Gonsalvo designed to take command of the papal army in Italy; others, to join himself with the archduke Charles, and introduce him, if possible, into Castile. Ferdinand, clinging to power more tenaciously as it was ready to slip of itself from his grasp, had little doubt that the latter was his purpose. He sent orders therefore to the south, to prevent the meditated embarkation, and, if necessary, to seize Gonsalvo's person. But the latter was soon to embark on a voyage, where no earthly arm could arrest him. [11]
In the autumn of 1515 he was attacked by a quartan fever. Its approaches at first were mild. His constitution, naturally good, had been invigorated by the severe training of a military life; and he had been so fortunate, that, notwithstanding the free exposure of his person to danger, he had never received a wound. But, although little alarm was occasioned at first by his illness, he found it impossible to throw it off; and he removed to his residence in Granada, in hopes of deriving benefit from its salubrious climate. Every effort to rally the declining powers of nature proved unavailing; and on the 2d of December, 1515, he expired in his own palace at Granada, in the arms of his wife, and his beloved daughter Elvira. [12]
The death of this illustrious man diffused universal sorrow throughout the nation. All envy and unworthy suspicion died with him. The king and the whole court went into mourning. Funeral services were performed in his honor, in the royal chapel and all the principal churches of the kingdom. Ferdinand addressed a letter of consolation to his duchess, in which he lamented the death of one, "who had rendered him inestimable services, and to whom he had ever borne such sincere affection!" [13] His obsequies were celebrated with great magnificence in the ancient Moorish capital, under the superintendence of the count of Tendilla, the son and successor of Gonsalvo's old friend, the late governor of Granada. [14] His remains, first deposited in the Franciscan monastery, were afterwards removed and laid beneath a sumptuous mausoleum in the church of San Geronimo; [15] and more than a hundred banners and royal pennons, waving in melancholy pomp around the walls of the chapel, proclaimed the glorious achievements of the warrior who slept beneath. [16] His noble wife, Doña Maria Manrique, survived him but a few days. His daughter Elvira inherited the princely titles and estates of her father, which, by her marriage with her kinsman, the count of Cabra, were perpetuated in the house of Cordova. [17]
Gonsalvo, or, as he is called in Castilian, Gonzalo Hernandez de Cordova, was sixty-two years old at the time of his death. His countenance and person are represented to have been extremely handsome; his manners, elegant and attractive, were stamped with that lofty dignity, which so often distinguishes his countrymen. "He still bears," says Martyr, speaking of him in the last years of his life, "the same majestic port as when in the height of his former authority; so that every one who visits him acknowledges the influence of his noble presence, as fully as when, at the head of armies, he gave laws to Italy." [18]
His splendid military successes, so gratifying to Castilian pride, have made the name of Gonsalvo as familiar to his countrymen as that of the Cid, which, floating down the stream of popular melody, has been treasured up as a part of the national history. His shining qualities, even more than his exploits, have been often made the theme of fiction; and fiction, as usual, has dealt with them in a fashion to leave only confused and erroneous conceptions of both. More is known of the Spanish hero, for instance, to foreign readers from Florian's agreeable novel, than from any authentic record of his actions. Yet Florian, by dwelling only on the dazzling and popular traits of his hero, has depicted him as the very personification of romantic chivalry. This certainly was not his character, which might be said to have been formed after a riper period of civilization than the age of chivalry. At least, it had none of the nonsense of that age,—its fanciful vagaries, reckless adventure, and wild romantic gallantry. [19] His characteristics were prudence, coolness, steadiness of purpose, and intimate knowledge of man. He understood, above all, the temper of his own countrymen. He may be said in some degree to have formed their military character; their patience of severe training and hardship, their unflinching obedience, their inflexible spirit under reverses, and their decisive energy in the hour of action. It is certain that the Spanish soldier under his hands assumed an entirely new aspect from that which he had displayed in the romantic wars of the Peninsula.
Gonsalvo was untainted with the coarser vices characteristic of the time. He discovered none of that griping avarice, too often the reproach of his countrymen in these wars. His hand and heart were liberal as the day. He betrayed none of the cruelty and licentiousness, which disgrace the age of chivalry. On all occasions he was prompt to protect women from injury or insult. Although his distinguished manners and rank gave him obvious advantages with the sex, he never abused them; [20] and he has left a character, unimpeached by any historian, of unblemished morality in his domestic relations. This was a rare virtue in the sixteenth century.
Gonsalvo's fame rests on his military prowess; yet his character would seem in many respects better suited to the calm and cultivated walks of civil life. His government of Naples exhibited much discretion and sound policy; [21] and there, as afterwards in his retirement, his polite and liberal manners secured not merely the good-will, but the strong attachment, of those around him. His early education, like that of most of the noble cavaliers who came forward before the improvements introduced under Isabella, was taken up with knightly exercises, more than intellectual accomplishments. He was never taught Latin, and had no pretensions to scholarship; but he honored and nobly recompensed it in others. His solid sense and liberal taste supplied all deficiencies in himself, and led him to select friends and companions from among the most enlightened and virtuous of the community. [22]
On this fair character there remains one foul reproach. This is his breach of faith in two memorable instances; first, to the young duke of Calabria, and afterwards to Caesar Borgia, both of whom he betrayed into the hands of King Ferdinand, their personal enemy; and in violation of his most solemn pledges. [23] True, it was in obedience to his master's commands, and not to serve his own purposes; and true also, this want of faith was the besetting sin of the age. But history has no warrant to tamper with right and wrong, or to brighten the character of its favorites by diminishing one shade of the abhorrence which attaches to their vices. They should rather be held up in their true deformity, as the more conspicuous from the very greatness with which they are associated. It may be remarked, however, that the reiterated and unsparing opprobrium with which foreign writers, who have been little sensible to Gonsalvo's merits, have visited these offences, affords tolerable evidence that they are the only ones of any magnitude that can be charged on him. [24]
As to the imputation of disloyalty, we have elsewhere had occasion to notice its apparent groundlessness. It would be strange, indeed, if the ungenerous treatment which he had experienced ever since his return from Naples had not provoked feelings of indignation in his bosom. Nor would it be surprising, under these circumstances, if he had been led to regard the archduke Charles's pretensions to the regency, as he came of age, with a favorable eye. There is no evidence, however, of this, or of any act unfriendly to Ferdinand's interests. His whole public life, on the contrary, exhibited the truest loyalty; and the only stains that darken his fame were incurred by too unhesitating devotion to the wishes of his master. He is not the first nor the last statesman, who has reaped the royal recompense of ingratitude, for serving his king with greater zeal than he had served his Maker.
Ferdinand's health, in the mean time, had declined so sensibly, that it was evident he could not long survive the object of his jealousy. [25] His disease had now settled into a dropsy, accompanied with a distressing affection of the heart. He found difficulty in breathing, complained that he was stifled in the crowded cities, and passed most of his time, even after the weather became cold, in the fields and forests, occupied, as far as his strength permitted, with the fatiguing pleasures of the chase. As the winter advanced, he bent his steps towards the south. He passed some time, in December, at a country-seat of the duke of Alva, near Placentia, where he hunted the stag. He then resumed his journey to Andalusia, but fell so ill on the way, at the little village of Madrigalejo, near Truxillo, that it was found impossible to advance further. [26]
The king seemed desirous of closing his eyes to the danger of his situation as long as possible. He would not confess, nor even admit his confessor into his chamber. [27] He showed similar jealousy of his grandson's envoy, Adrian of Utrecht. This person, the preceptor of Charles, and afterwards raised through his means to the papacy, had come into Castile some weeks before, with the ostensible view of making some permanent arrangement with Ferdinand in regard to the regency. The real motive, as the powers which he brought with him subsequently proved, was, that he might be on the spot when the king died, and assume the reins of government. Ferdinand received the minister with cold civility, and an agreement was entered into, by which the regency was guaranteed to the monarch, not only during Joanna's life, but his own. Concessions to a dying man cost nothing. Adrian, who was at Guadalupe at this time, no sooner heard of Ferdinand's illness, than he hastened to Madrigalejo. The king, however, suspected the motives of his visit. "He has come to see me die," said he; and, refusing to admit him into his presence, ordered the mortified envoy back again to Guadalupe. [28]
At length the medical attendants ventured to inform the king of his real situation, conjuring him if he had any affairs of moment to settle, to do it without delay. He listened to them with composure, and from that moment seemed to recover all his customary fortitude and equanimity. After receiving the sacrament, and attending to his spiritual concerns, he called his attendants around his bed, to advise with them respecting the disposition of the government. Among those present, at this time, were his faithful followers, the duke of Alva, and the marquis of Denia, his majordomo, with several bishops and members of his council. [29]
The king, it seems, had made several wills. By one, executed at Burgos, in 1512, he had committed the government of Castile and Aragon to the infante Ferdinand during his brother Charles's absence. This young prince had been educated in Spain under the eye of his grand-father, who entertained a strong affection for him. The counsellors remonstrated in the plainest terms against this disposition of the regency. Ferdinand, they said, was too young to take the helm into his own hands. His appointment would be sure to create new factions in Castile; it would raise him up to be in a manner a rival of his brother, and kindle ambitious desires in his bosom, which could not fail to end in his disappointment, and perhaps destruction. [30]
The king, who would never have made such a devise in his better days, was more easily turned from his purpose now, than he would once have been. "To whom then," he asked, "shall I leave the regency?" "To Ximenes, archbishop of Toledo," they replied. Ferdinand turned away his face, apparently in displeasure; but after a few moments' silence rejoined, "It is well; he is certainly a good man, with honest intentions. He has no importunate friends or family to provide for. He owes everything to Queen Isabella and myself; and, as he has always been true to the interests of our family, I believe he will always remain so." [31]
He, however, could not so readily abandon the idea of some splendid establishment for his favorite grandson; and he proposed to settle on him the grand-masterships of the military orders. But to this his attendants again objected, on the same grounds as before; adding, that this powerful patronage was too great for any subject, and imploring him not to defeat the object which the late queen had so much at heart, of incorporating it with the crown. "Ferdinand will be left very poor then," exclaimed the king, with tears in his eyes. "He will have the good-will of his brother," replied one of his honest counsellors, "the best legacy your Highness can leave him." [32]
The testament, as finally arranged, settled the succession of Aragon and Naples on his daughter Joanna and her heirs. The administration of Castile during Charles's absence was intrusted to Ximenes, and that of Aragon to the king's natural son, the archbishop of Saragossa, whose good sense and popular manners made him acceptable to the people. He granted several places in the kingdom of Naples to the infante Ferdinand, with an annual stipend of fifty thousand ducats, chargeable on the public revenues. To his queen Germaine he left the yearly income of thirty thousand gold florins, stipulated by the marriage settlement, with five thousand a year more during widowhood. [33] The will contained, besides, several appropriations for pious and charitable purposes, but nothing worthy of particular note. [34] Notwithstanding the simplicity of the various provisions of the testament, it was so long, from the formalities and periphrases with which it was encumbered, that there was scarce time to transcribe it in season for the royal signature. On the evening of the 22d of January, 1516, he executed the instrument; and a few hours later, between one and two of the morning of the 23d, Ferdinand breathed his last. [35] The scene of this event was a small house belonging to the friars of Guadalupe. "In so wretched a tenement," exclaims Martyr, in his usual moralizing vein, "did this lord of so many lands close his eyes upon the world." [36]
Ferdinand was nearly sixty-four years old, of which forty-one had elapsed since he first swayed the sceptre of Castile, and thirty-seven since he held that of Aragon. A long reign; long enough, indeed, to see most of those whom he had honored and trusted of his subjects gathered to the dust, and a succession of contemporary monarchs come and disappear like shadows. [37] He died deeply lamented by his native subjects, who entertained a partiality natural towards their own hereditary sovereign. The event was regarded with very different feelings by the Castilian nobles, who calculated their gains on the transfer of the reins from such old and steady hands into those of a young and inexperienced master. The commons, however, who had felt the good effect of this curb on the nobility, in their own personal security, held his memory in reverence as that of a national benefactor. [38]
Ferdinand's remains were interred, agreeably to his orders, in Granada. A few of his most faithful adherents accompanied them; the greater part being deterred by a prudent caution of giving umbrage to Charles. [39] The funeral train, however, was swelled by contributions from the various towns through which it passed. At Cordova, especially, it is worthy of note, that the marquis of Priego, who had slender obligations to Ferdinand, came out with all his household to pay the last melancholy honors to his remains. They were received with similar respect in Granada, where the people, while they gazed on the sad spectacle, says Zurita, were naturally affected as they called to mind the pomp and splendor of his triumphal entry on the first occupation of the Moorish capital. [40]
By his dying injunctions, all unnecessary ostentation was interdicted at his funeral. His body was laid by the side of Isabella's in the monastery of the Alhambra; and the year following, [41] when the royal chapel of the metropolitan church was completed, they were both transported thither. A magnificent mausoleum of white marble was erected over them, by their grandson, Charles the Fifth. It was executed in a style worthy of the age. The sides were adorned with figures of angels and saints, richly sculptured in bas-relief. On the top reposed the effigies of the illustrious pair, whose titles and merits were commemorated in the following brief, and not very felicitous inscription.
"MAHOMETICAE SECTAE PROSTRATORES, ET HAERETICAE PERVICACIAE EXTINCTORES, FERNANDUS ARAGONUM, ET HELISABETA CASTELLAE, VIR ET UXOR UNANIMES, CATHOLICI APPELLATI, MARMOREO CLAUDUNTUR HOC TUMULO." [42]
King Ferdinand's personal appearance has been elsewhere noticed. "He was of the middle size," says a contemporary, who knew him well. "His complexion was fresh; his eyes bright and animated; his nose and mouth small and finely formed, and his teeth white; his forehead lofty and serene; with flowing hair of a bright chestnut color. His manners were courteous, and his countenance seldom clouded by anything like spleen or melancholy. He was grave in speech and action, and had a marvellous dignity of presence. His whole demeanor, in fine, was truly that of a great king." For this flattering portrait Ferdinand must have sat at an earlier and happier period of his life. [43]
His education, owing to the troubled state of the times, had been neglected in his boyhood, though he was early instructed in all the generous pastimes and exercises of chivalry. [44] He was esteemed one of the most perfect horsemen of his court. He led an active life, and the only kind of reading he appeared to relish was history. It was natural that so busy an actor on the great political theatre should have found peculiar interest and instruction in this study. [45]
He was naturally of an equable temper, and inclined to moderation in all things. The only amusement for which he cared much was hunting, especially falconry, and that he never carried to excess till his last years. [46] He was indefatigable in application to business. He had no relish for the pleasures of the table, and, like Isabella, was temperate even to abstemiousness in his diet. [47] He was frugal in his domestic and personal expenditure; partly, no doubt, from a willingness to rebuke the opposite spirit of wastefulness and ostentation in his nobles. He lost no good opportunity of doing this. On one occasion, it is said, he turned to a gallant of the court noted for his extravagance in dress, and laying his hand on his own doublet, exclaimed, "Excellent stuff this; it has lasted me three pair of sleeves!" [48] This spirit of economy was carried so far as to bring on him the reproach of parsimony. [49] And parsimony, though not so pernicious on the whole as the opposite vice of prodigality, has always found far less favor with the multitude, from the appearance of disinterestedness, which the latter carries with it. Prodigality in a king, however, who draws not on his own resources, but on the public, forfeits even this equivocal claim to applause. But, in truth, Ferdinand was rather frugal, than parsimonious. His income was moderate; his enterprises numerous and vast. It was impossible that he could meet them without husbanding his resources with the most careful economy. [50] No one has accused him of attempting to enrich his exchequer by the venal sale of office, like Louis the Twelfth, or by griping extortion, like another royal contemporary, Henry the Seventh. He amassed no treasure, [51] and indeed died so poor, that he left scarcely enough in his coffers to defray the charges of his funeral. [52]
Ferdinand was devout; at least he was scrupulous in regard to the exterior of religion. He was punctual in attendance on mass; careful to observe all the ordinances and ceremonies of his church; and left many tokens of his piety, after the fashion of the time, in sumptuous edifices and endowments for religious purposes. Although not a superstitious man for the age, he is certainly obnoxious to the reproach of bigotry; for he co-operated with Isabella in all her exceptionable measures in Castile, and spared no effort to fasten the odious yoke of the Inquisition on Aragon, and subsequently, though happily with less success, on Naples. [53]
Ferdinand has incurred the more serious charge of hypocrisy. His Catholic zeal was observed to be marvellously efficacious in furthering his temporal interests. [54] His most objectionable enterprises, even, were covered with a veil of religion. In this, however, he did not materially differ from the practice of the age. Some of the most scandalous wars of that period were ostensibly at the bidding of the church, or in defence of Christendom against the infidel. This ostentation of a religious motive was indeed very usual with the Spanish and Portuguese. The crusading spirit, nourished by their struggle with the Moors, and subsequently by their African and American expeditions, gave such a religious tone habitually to their feelings, as shed an illusion over their actions and enterprises, frequently disguising their true character, even from themselves.
It will not be so easy to acquit Ferdinand of the reproach of perfidy which foreign writers have so deeply branded on his name, [55] and which those of his own nation have sought rather to palliate than to deny. [56] It is but fair to him, however, even here, to take a glance at the age. He came forward when government was in a state of transition from the feudal forms to those which it has assumed in modern times; when the superior strength of the great vassals was circumvented by the superior policy of the reigning princes. It was the dawn of the triumph of intellect over the brute force, which had hitherto controlled the movements of nations, as of individuals. The same policy which these monarchs had pursued in their own domestic relations, they introduced into those with foreign states, when, at the close of the fifteenth century, the barriers that had so long kept them asunder were broken down. Italy was the first field, on which the great powers were brought into anything like a general collision. It was the country, too, in which this crafty policy had been first studied, and reduced to a regular system. A single extract from the political manual of that age [57] may serve as a key to the whole science, as then understood. "A prudent prince," says Machiavelli, "will not, and ought not to observe his engagements, when it would operate to his disadvantage, and the causes no longer exist which induced him to make them." [58] Sufficient evidence of the practical application of the maxim may be found in the manifold treaties of the period, so contradictory, or, what is to the same purpose for our present argument, so confirmatory of one another in their tenor, as clearly to show the impotence of all engagements. There were no less than four several treaties in the course of three years, solemnly stipulating the marriage of the archduke Charles and Claude of France. Louis the Twelfth violated his engagements, and the marriage after all never took place. [59]
Such was the school in which Ferdinand was to make trial of his skill with his brother monarchs. He had an able instructor in his father, John the Second, of Aragon, and the result showed that the lessons were not lost on him. "He was vigilant, wary, and subtile," writes a French contemporary, "and few histories make mention of his being outwitted in the whole course of his life." [60] He played the game with more adroitness than his opponents, and he won it. Success, as usual, brought on him the reproaches of the losers. This is particularly true of the French, whose master, Louis the Twelfth, was more directly pitted against him. [61] Yet Ferdinand does not appear to be a whit more obnoxious to the charge of unfairness than his opponent. [62] If he deserted his allies when it suited his convenience, he, at least, did not deliberately plot their destruction, and betray them into the hands of their deadly enemy, as his rival did with Venice, in the league of Cambray. [63] The partition of Naples, the most scandalous transaction of the period, he shared equally with Louis; and if the latter has escaped the reproach of the usurpation of Navarre, it was because the premature death of his general deprived him of the pretext and means for achieving it. Yet Louis the Twelfth, the "father of his people," has gone down to posterity with a high and honorable reputation. [64]
Ferdinand, unfortunately for his popularity, had nothing of the frank and cordial temper, the genial expansion of the soul, which begets love. He carried the same cautious and impenetrable frigidity into private life, that he showed in public. "No one," says a writer of the time, "could read his thoughts by any change of his countenance." [65] Calm and calculating, even in trifles, it was too obvious that everything had exclusive reference to self. He seemed to estimate his friends only by the amount of services they could render him. He was not always mindful of these services. Witness his ungenerous treatment of Columbus, the Great Captain, Navarro, Ximenes,—the men who shed the brightest lustre, and the most substantial benefits, on his reign. Witness also his insensibility to the virtues and long attachment of Isabella, whose memory he could so soon dishonor by a union with one every way unworthy to be her successor.
Ferdinand's connection with Isabella, while it reflected infinite glory on his reign, suggests a contrast most unfavorable to his character. Hers was all magnanimity, disinterestedness, and deep devotion to the interests of her people. His was the spirit of egotism. The circle of his views might be more or less expanded, but self was the steady, unchangeable centre. Her heart beat with the generous sympathies of friendship, and the purest constancy to the first, the only object of her love. We have seen the measure of his sensibilities in other relations. They were not more refined in this; and he proved himself unworthy of the admirable woman with whom his destinies were united, by indulging in those vicious gallantries, too generally sanctioned by the age. [66] Ferdinand, in fine, a shrewd and politic prince, "surpassing," as a French writer, not his friend, has remarked, "all the statesmen of his time in the science of the cabinet," [67] may be taken as the representative of the peculiar genius of the age. While Isabella, discarding all the petty artifices of state policy, and pursuing the noblest ends by the noblest means, stands far above her age.
In his illustrious consort Ferdinand may be said to have lost his good genius. [68] From that time his fortunes were under a cloud. Not that victory sat less constantly on his banner; but at home he had lost
"All that should accompany old age,
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends."
His ill-advised marriage disgusted his Castilian subjects. He ruled over them, indeed, but more in severity than in love. The beauty of his young queen opened new sources of jealousy; [69] while the disparity of their ages, and her fondness for frivolous pleasure, as little qualified her to be his partner in prosperity, as his solace in declining years. [70] His tenacity of power drew him into vulgar squabbles with those most nearly allied to him by blood, which settled into a mortal aversion. Finally, bodily infirmity broke the energies of his mind, sour suspicions corroded his heart, and he had the misfortune to live, long after he had lost all that could make life desirable.
Let us turn from this gloomy picture to the brighter season of the morning and meridian of his life; when he sat with Isabella on the united thrones of Castile and Aragon, strong in the love of his own subjects, and in the fear and respect of his enemies. We shall then find much in his character to admire; his impartial justice in the administration of the laws; his watchful solicitude to shield the weak from the oppression of the strong; his wise economy, which achieved great results without burdening his people with oppressive taxes; his sobriety and moderation; the decorum, and respect for religion, which he maintained among his subjects; the industry he promoted by wholesome laws and his own example; his consummate sagacity, which crowned all his enterprises with brilliant success, and made him the oracle of the princes of the age.
Machiavelli, indeed, the most deeply read of his time in human character, imputes Ferdinand's successes, in one of his letters, to "cunning and good luck, rather than superior wisdom." [71] He was indeed fortunate; and the "star of Austria," which rose as his declined, shone not with a brighter or steadier lustre. But success through a long series of years sufficiently, of itself, attests good conduct. "The winds and waves," says Gibbon, truly enough, "are always on the side of the most skilful mariner." The Florentine statesman has recorded a riper and more deliberate judgment in the treatise, which he intended as a mirror for the rulers of the time. "Nothing," says he, "gains estimation for a prince like great enterprises. Our own age has furnished a splendid example of this in Ferdinand of Aragon. We may call him a new king, since from a feeble one he has made himself the most renowned and glorious monarch of Christendom; and, if we ponder well his manifold achievements, we must acknowledge all of them very great, and some truly extraordinary." [72]
Other eminent foreigners of the time join in this lofty strain of panegyric. [73] The Castilians, mindful of the general security and prosperity they had enjoyed under his reign, seem willing to bury his frailties in his grave. [74] While his own hereditary subjects, exulting with patriotic pride in the glory to which he had raised their petty state, and touched with grateful recollections of his mild, paternal government, deplore his loss in strains of national sorrow, as the last of the revered line, who was to preside over the destinies of Aragon, as a separate and independent kingdom. [75]