FOOTNOTES
[1] See Part I. Chapters 10, 12.
[2] Histoire du Royaume de Navarre, pp. 567, 570.—Aleson, Annales de Navarra, tom. v. lib. 34, cap. 1, fol.—Diccionario Geográfico-Histórico de España, por la Real Academia de la Historia, (Madrid, 1802,) tom. ii. p. 117.
[3] Aleson, Annales de Navarra, tom. v. lib. 35, cap. 13.—Zurita, Anales, tom. vi. lib. 9, cap. 54.—Sismondi, Hist. des Français, tom. xv. p. 500.
[4] Aleson, Annales de Navarra, ubi supra.
[5] Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, tom. iv. part. 1, p. 147.—See also the king's letter to Deza, dated at Burgos, July 20th, 1512, apud Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 235.
[6] Aleson, Annales de Navarra, tom. v. p. 245.—Herbert, Life and Raigne of Henry VIII., (London, 1649,) p. 20.—Holinshed, Chronicles, p.568, (London, 1810.)—Mariana, Hist. de España, tom. ix. p. 315.
His Valencian editors correct his text, by substituting marquis of
Dorchester!
[7] The young poet, Garcilasso de la Vega, gives a brilliant sketch of this stern old nobleman in his younger days, such as our imagination would scarcely have formed of him at any period.
"Otro Marte 'n guerra, en corte Febo. Mostravase mancebo en las señales del rostro, qu' eran tales, qu' esperança i cierta confiança claro davan a cuantos le miravan; qu' el seria, en quien s' informaria un ser divino." Obras, ed. de Herrera, p. 505.
[8] Lebrija, De Bello Navariensi, lib. 1, cap. 3.—Zurita, Anales, tom. vi lib. 10, cap. 4, 5.—Aleson, Annales de Navarra, tom. v. lib. 35, cap. 15.—Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 488.—Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., ubi supra.—Garibay, Compendio, tom. ii. lib. 29, cap. 25.—Sandoval, Hist. del Emp. Carlos V., tom. i. p. 25.
[9] Zurita, Anales, tom. vi. lib. 10, cap. 7, 8.—Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 487.—Garibay, Compendio, tom. iii. lib. 29, cap. 25.
[10] Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, tom. iv. part. 1, no. 69.—Carta del Rey a D. Diego Deza, apud Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 235.
[11] A confidential secretary of King Jean of Navarre was murdered in his sleep by his mistress. His papers, containing the heads of the proposed treaty with France, fell into the hands of a priest of Pampelona, who was induced by the hopes of a reward to betray them to Ferdinand. The story is told by Martyr, in a letter dated July 18th, 1512. (Opus Epist., epist. 490.) Its truth is attested by the conformity of the proposed terms with those of the actual treaty.
[12] Carta del Rey a D. Diego Deza, Burgos, July 26th, apud Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 236.—Histoire du Royaume de Navarre, pp. 620- 627.—Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. rey 30, cap. 21.—Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 495.—Aleson, Annales de Navarra, tom. v. lib. 35, cap. 15.
Bernaldez has incorporated into his chronicle several letters of King Ferdinand, written during the progress of the war. It is singular, that, coming from so high a source, they should not have been more freely resorted to by the Spanish writers. They are addressed to his confessor, Deza, archbishop of Seville, with whom Bernaldez, curate of a parish in his diocese, was, as appears from other parts of his work, on terms of intimacy.
[13] Aleson, Annales de Navarra, tom. v. lib. 35, cap. 15.—Histoire du Royaume de Navarre, p. 622.—Lebrija, De Bello Navariensi, lib. 1, cap. 4.—"Jean d'Albret you were born," said Catharine to her unfortunate husband, as they were flying from their kingdom, "and Jean d'Albret you will die. Had I been king, and you queen, we had been reigning in Navarre at this moment." (Garibay, Compendio, tom. iii. lib. 29, cap. 26.) Father Abarca treats the story as an old wife's tale, and Garibay as an old woman for repeating it. Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. rey 30, cap. 21.
[14] Manifiesto del Rey D. Fernando, July 30th, apud Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 236.—Lebrija, De Bello Navariensi, lib. 1, cap. 5.— Garibay, Compendio, tom. iii. lib. 29, cap. 26.
[15] Aleson, Annales de Navarra, tom. v. lib. 35, cap. 2.—Histoire du Royaume de Navarre, pp. 603, 604.
[16] 16 See the king's third letter to Deza, Logroño, November 12th, apud Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 236.—Mariana, Hist. de España, tom. ii. lib. 30, cap. 12.—Lebrija, De Bello Navariensi, lib. 1, cap. 7.— Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 499.—Herbert, Life of Henry VIII., p. 24.—Holinshed, Chronicles, p. 571.
[17] Garcilasso de la Vega alludes to these military exploits of the duke, in his second eclogue.
"Con mas ilustre nombre los arneses
de los fieros Franceses abollava."
Obras, ed. de Herrera, p. 505.
[18] Such was the power of the old duke of Najara, that he brought into the field on this occasion 1100 horse and 3000 foot, raised and equipped on his own estates. Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 507.
[19] Mémoires de Bayard, chap. 55, 56.—Fleurange, Mémoires, chap. 33.— Lebrija, De Bello Navariensi, lib. 1, cap. 8, 9.—Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. rey 30, cap. 21.—Carbajal, Anales, MS., año 1512.
Jean and Catharine d'Albret passed the remainder of their days in their territories on the French side of the Pyrenees. They made one more faint and fruitless attempt to recover their dominions during the regency of Cardinal Ximenes. (Carbajal, Anales, MS., cap. 12.) Broken in spirits, their health gradually declined, and neither of them long survived the loss of their crown. Jean died June 23d, 1517, and Catharine followed on the 12th of February of the next year;—happy, at least, that, as misfortune had no power to divide them in life, so they were not long separated by death. (Histoire du Royaume de Navarre, p. 643.—Aleson, Annales de Navarra, tom. v. lib. 35, cap. 20, 21.) Their bodies sleep side by side in the cathedral church of Lescar, in their own dominions of Bearne; and their fate is justly noticed by the Spanish historians as one of the most striking examples of that stern decree, by which the sins of the fathers are visited on the children to the third and fourth generation.
[20] Flassan, Diplomatie Française, tom. i. p 296.—Rymer, Foedera, tom. xiii. pp. 350-352.—Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. vi. lib. 11, p82, lib. 12, p. 168.—Mariana, Hist. de España, tom. ii. lib. 30, cap 22.—"Fu cosa ridicola," says Guicciardini in relation to this truce, "che nei medesimi giorni, che la si bandiva solennemente per tutta. Ja Spagna, venne en araldo a significargli in nome del Re d'Ingbilterra gli apparati potentissimi, che ei faceva per assaltare la Francia, e a sollecitare che egli medesimamente movesse, secondo che aveva promesso, la guerra dalla parte di Spagna." Istoria, tom. vi. lib. 12, p. 84.
[21] Francesco Vettori, the Florentine ambassador at the papal court, writes to Machiavelli, that he lay awake two hours that night speculating on the real motives of the Catholic king in making this truce, which, regarded simply as a matter of policy, he condemns in toto. He accompanies this with various predictions respecting the consequences likely to result from it. These consequences never occurred, however; and the failure of his predictions may be received as the best refutation of his arguments. Machiavelli, Opere, Lett. Famigl. Aprile 21 1513.
[22] Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. vi. lib. II, pp. 81, 82.—Machiavelli, Opere, ubi supra.—Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 538.
On the 5th of April a treaty was concluded at Mechlin, in the names of Ferdinand, the king of England, the emperor, and the pope. (Rymer, Foedera, tom. xiii. pp. 354-358.) The Castilian envoy, Don Luis Carroz, was not present at Mechlin, but it was ratified and solemnly sworn to by him, on behalf of his sovereign, in London, April 18th. (Ibid., tom. xiii. p. 363.) By this treaty, Spain agreed to attack France in Guienne, while the other powers were to cooperate by a descent on other quarters. (See also Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, tom. iv. part. 1, no 79.) This was in direct contradiction of the treaty signed only five days before at Orthès, and if made with the privity of King Ferdinand, must be allowed to be a gratuitous display of perfidy, not easily matched in that age. As such, of course, it is stigmatized by the French historians, that is the later ones, for I find no comment on it in contemporary writers. (See Rapin, History of England, translated by Tindal, (London, 1785-9,) vol. ii. pp. 93, 94. Sismondi, Hist. des Français, tom. xv. p. 626.) Ferdinand, when applied to by Henry VIII. to ratify the acts of his minister, in the following summer, refused, on the ground that the latter had transcended his powers. (Herbert, Life of Henry VIII., p. 29.) The Spanish writers are silent. His assertion derives some probability from the tenor of one of the articles, which provides, that in case he refuses to confirm the treaty, it shall still be binding between England and the emperor; language which, as it anticipates, may seem to authorize, such a contingency.
Public treaties have, for obvious reasons, been generally received as the surest basis for history. One might well doubt this, who attempts to reconcile the multifarious discrepancies and contradictions in those of the period under review. The science of diplomacy, as then practised, was a mere game of finesse and falsehood, in which the more solemn the protestations of the parties, the more ground for distrusting their sincerity.
[23] Carta del Rey a Don Diego Deza, Nov. 12th, 1512, apud Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 236.—Aleson, Annales de Navarra, tom. v. lib. 35, cap. 16.—Zurita, Anales, tom. vi. lib. 10, cap. 13, 36, 43.— Carbajal, Anales, MS., año 1512.
[24] Hist. du Royaume de Navarre, pp. 629, 630.—Aleson, Annales de Navarra, tom. v. lib. 35, cap. 16.—Garibay, Compendio, tom. iii. lib. 30, cap. 1.
[25] Zurita, Anales, tom. vi. lib. 10, cap. 92.—Carbajal, Anales, MS., año 1515.—Garibay, Compendio, tom. iii. lib. 30, cap. 1.—Aleson, Annales de Navarra, tom, v. lib. 35, cap. 7.—Sandoval, Hist. del Emp. Carlos V., tom. i. p. 26.
[26] The honest canon Salazar de Mendoza, (taking the hint from Lebrija, indeed,) finds abundant warrant for Ferdinand's treatment of Navarre in the hard measure dealt by the Israelites of old to the people of Ephron, and to Sihon, king of the Amorites. (Monarquía, tom. i. lib. 3, cap. 6.) It might seem strange, that a Christian should look for authority in the practices of the race he so much abominates, instead of the inspired precepts of the Founder of his religion! But in truth your thoroughbred casuist is apt to be very little of a Christian.
[27] See the original bull of Julius II., apud Mariana, Hist. de España, tom. ix. Apend. no. 2, ed. Valencia, 1796.—"Joannem et Catharinam," says the bull, in the usual conciliatory style of the Vatican, "perditionis filios,—excommunicatos, anathemizatos, maledictos, aeterni supplicii reos," etc., etc. "Our armies swore terribly in Flanders, cried my uncle Toby,—but nothing to this. For my own part I could not have a heart to curse my dog so."
[28] The ninth volume of the splendid Valencian edition of Mariana contains in the Appendix the famous bull of Julius II. of Feb. 18th, 1512, the original of which is to be found in the royal archives of Barcelona. The editor, Don Francisco Ortiz y Sanz, has accompanied it with an elaborate disquisition, in which he makes the apostolic sentence the great authority for the conquest. It was a great triumph undoubtedly, to be able to produce the document, to which the Spanish historians had been so long challenged in vain by foreign writers, and the existence of which might well be doubted, since no record of it appears on the papal register. (Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. rey 30, cap. 21.) Paris de Grassis, maître des cérémonies of the chapel of Julius II. and Leo X., makes no mention of bull or excommunication, although very exact and particular in reporting such facts. (Bréquigny, Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque du Roy, tom. ii. p. 570.) There is no reason that I know for doubting the genuineness of the present instrument. There are conclusive reasons to my mind, however, for rejecting its date, and assigning it to some time posterior to the conquest.
1st. The bull denounces John and Catharine as having openly joined themselves to Louis XII., and borne arms with him against England, Spain, and the church; a charge for which there was no pretence till five months later.—2d. With this bull the editor has given another, dated Rome, July 21st, 1512, noticed by Peter Martyr. (Opus Epist., epist. 497.) This latter is general in its import, being directed against all nations whatever, engaged in alliance with France against the church. The sovereigns of Navarre are not even mentioned, nor the nation itself, any further than to warn it of the imminent danger in which it stood of falling into the schism. Now it is obvious that this second bull, so general in its import, would have been entirely superfluous in reference to Navarre, after the publication of the first; while, on the other hand, nothing could be more natural than that these general menaces and warnings, having proved ineffectual, should be followed by the particular sentence of excommunication contained in the bull of February.—3d. In fact, the bull of February makes repeated allusion to a former one, in such a manner as to leave no doubt that the bull of July 21st is intended; since not only the sentiments, but the very form of expression, are perfectly coincident in both for whole sentences together.—4th. Ferdinand makes no mention of the papal excommunication, either in his private correspondence, where he discusses the grounds of the war, or in his manifesto to the Navarrese, where it would have served his purpose quite as effectually as his arms. I say nothing of the negative evidence afforded by the silence of contemporary writers, as Lebrija, Carbajal, Bernaldez, and Martyr, who, while they allude to a sentence of excommunication passed in the consistory, or to the publication of the bull of July, give no intimation of the existence of that of February; a silence altogether inexplicable. The inference from all this is, that the date of the bull of February 18th, 1512, is erroneous; that it should be placed at some period posterior to the conquest, and consequently could not have served as the ground of it; but was probably obtained at the instance of the Catholic king, in order, by the odium which it threw on the sovereigns of Navarre, as excommunicate, to remove that under which he lay himself, and at the same time secure what might be deemed a sufficient warrant for retaining his acquisitions.
Readers in general may think more time has been spent on the discussion than it is worth. But the important light, in which it is viewed by those who entertain more deference for a papal decree, is sufficiently attested by the length and number of disquisitions on it, down to the present century.
[29] Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, tom. iv. part. 1, no. 69.
[30] According to Galindez de Carbajal, only three fortresses were originally demanded by Ferdinand. (Anales, MS., año 1512.) He may have confounded the number with that said to have been finally conceded by the king of Navarre; a concession, however, which amounted to little, since it excluded by name two of the most important places required, and the sincerity of which may well be doubted, if, as it would seem, it was not made till after the negotiations with France had been adjusted. See Zurita, Anales, lib. 10, cap. 7.
[31] Aleson, Annales de Navarra, tom. v. lib. 35, cap. 1, 3.—Garibay, Compendio, tom. iii. lib. 29, cap. 13.
[32] See King Ferdinand's letter, July 20th, and his manifesto, July 30th, 1512, apud Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 235.—Lebrija, De Bello Navariensi, lib. 1, cap. 7.
[33] Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. rey 30, cap. 21.