The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 6 (of 7)

by Arthur Thomas Malkin

Engraved by C. E. Wagstaff
CARDINAL XIMENES.
From a Picture in the Florence Gallery.
Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street.

XIMENES.

Gonzales Ximenes de Cisneros, Primate and Regent of Spain, was born at Tordelaguna, in Castile, in 1437. He was descended of an ancient family, long settled at Cisneros in the kingdom of Leon, and was baptized Gonzales after an ancestor who was one of the most renowned knights of his day: the name of Francis, by which he is commonly known, he assumed in after-life, in honour of the saint whose monastic rule he embraced. But though he was of honourable descent, neither rank nor wealth were stepping-stones to his preferment. His father supported a large family upon the income of his humble office of collector of tenths, payable to the king by the clergy: but his own studious disposition, and the facilities then afforded by the universities to poor scholars, raised him out of the obscurity in which his lot appeared to be cast. At the schools of Alcala, and at the University of Salamanca, he studied philosophy, theology, canon and civil law; and his proficiency soon enabled him to support himself, by teaching others. Having completed his education he undertook a journey to Rome, hoping there to find a readier field for the exercise of his talents than at home. Poor and friendless, he maintained himself by pleading in the Spanish causes which came before the Court of the Consistory; and he was already rising into eminence, when, hearing of his father’s death, and the distress of his family, he abandoned his flattering prospects and returned to Spain.

It appears that he had taken holy orders during his abode at Rome, for before his departure Sixtus IV. bestowed on him a reversionary grant of the first benefice which should fall vacant. This proved to be Uceda; and he immediately produced his letters and took possession. The Archbishop of Toledo, who had already promised the living, was highly offended at this exercise of what in truth was a most objectionable prerogative of the Holy See. He not only dispossessed, but imprisoned for six years, Ximenes, who remained firm in the assertion of his rights. At the end of that time the prelate yielded. Ximenes soon exchanged Uceda for a chaplaincy in the cathedral of Siguenza. Here he applied himself to the pursuit of theology, and laid the foundation of that Hebrew and Chaldaic learning which bore such noble fruit in after-life. He gained the warm friendship of his bishop, the Cardinal Mendoza, who, in 1483, appointed him grand vicar of the diocese. In that office he distinguished himself by integrity and talents for business, as he had before by piety and learning. And the fairest prospect of advancement was open to him, when all at once he resolved to quit the world, and to devote himself wholly to religious meditation.

He embraced the strictest rule of the Franciscan order, with a zeal to which the general example of his brethren gave no countenance. He retired to the secluded monasteries of Castagnar and Salceda, and in the forests which surrounded them, devoted himself wholly to prayer, the study of the Scriptures, and the mortification of the flesh. He thus gained the reputation of uncommon sanctity, and there seems to be no reason to think that his asceticism was defiled by any trace of hypocrisy. But his friend the Cardinal saw that he was fitted for still better things, and regretting his departure from active life, expressed a belief that he would ultimately be raised to much higher dignity, to the great advantage of the Church. And, in truth, the Cardinal, who had been raised from the see of Siguenza to the primacy of Spain, the Archbishopric of Toledo, did much to fulfil his own prediction. He introduced Ximenes to the Queen Isabella, who was then in want of a confessor, and she readily listened to his recommendation, and appointed Ximenes to the vacant office. He would fain have declined it, urging that he had been called to the cloister from active life to attend to his own salvation; that what was demanded would withdraw him from his proper vocation; and that a sovereign above all persons needed a religious guide, not only of good intentions, but of experience and wisdom. The Queen smiled as she assured him, that if he had formerly been directed to solitude, he was now summoned to court, and that if he would take charge of her conscience, she would be answerable for having chosen him to do so. And he consented, on condition that he should be required to attend her only when called by the duties of his office. This was in 1492. The austerity of his life and the wildness of his aspect caused him, when he appeared, to be compared by the gay frequenters of the court to an old Egyptian hermit come out from the desert.

Moved by the hope of advancing the temporal interests of their order, his monastic brethren now appointed him their provincial. They widely mistook his character. He accepted the proffered dignity, moved chiefly by the hope that it would furnish him with an excuse for more frequent absence from court; and he employed his power in striving to reform the corruptions which abundant wealth had introduced among them. His own life was in strict adherence to the self-denial which he recommended to others. In his visitations he travelled on foot from convent to convent, accompanied by one brother, Francis Ruyz, whom he had selected for his constant companion, as uniting the qualifications of a lively temper and sound health, with learning, modesty, and trustworthiness. For their sustenance they depended upon alms, and in the trade of begging Ximenes was very unsuccessful. Ruyz used to remonstrate on the misapplication of his talents. “Your Reverence will let us die of hunger; you were not meant for this profession. God gives each of us his talents: do you pray for me, and I will beg for you. Your Reverence may be made to give, but certainly not to ask.” Visiting Gibraltar in one of these tours, he was strongly possessed by the desire of going to preach the gospel in Africa. On this subject he consulted a female devotee, who had the reputation of enjoying divine revelations in visions, and was dissuaded by her from prosecuting the scheme.

The Primate Mendoza died at the end of 1494. In their last interview, he urged his sovereign not to entrust the vast revenues of his see to any one connected with the highest nobility, esteeming its power to be even dangerous to the crown, when knit by family ties to great feudal influence. Isabella listened to his advice, and after much hesitation pitched on Ximenes to be his successor. Aware of his feelings, she kept her intentions secret until letters confirmatory of the appointment arrived from the Pope. These without preface she put into his hands. Reading the address, “To our venerable brother Ximenes, Archbishop elect of Toledo,” “Madam,” he said, “these letters are not for me;” and he rose abruptly and quitted the royal presence. Six months elapsed before he was induced to accept the proffered dignity, in virtue of a direct injunction from the Pope. He was consecrated October 11, 1495.

Rank and wealth made no difference in the manners of the ascetic monk. He continued to live upon the coarsest fare, to wear the humble dress of his order, to sleep on the ground, or on a bed as hard, and to travel on an ass, or on foot. And Pope Alexander VI. thought it necessary to send a letter to him, with the very unusual exhortation to cultivate the pomps and vanities of the world a little more, for the sake of the church of which he was so exalted a member. Ximenes obeyed, and probably became convinced of the propriety of the counsel, as he became more engaged in civil government. He assumed even a more gorgeous state than his predecessors, but he still practised his usual self-denial in private; he slept and fared as hardly as before, and wore a haircloth under his episcopal robes. He was exemplary in the discharge of his public duties; liberal even to an extreme in relieving the daily necessities of the poor, and in contributing to charitable, useful, and religious undertakings; diligent in promoting the welfare of the people to the full extent of his almost regal power, by repressing extortion and peculation, whether in courts of law, or the collection of the revenue, by providing for the due administration of justice, ecclesiastical and civil, and by exercising a strict superintendence over the conduct of the parochial clergy. To the cry of the wretched his ears were always open; he hated oppression; and if an injured vassal complained against the highest noble in the land, he was ready to grant justice, if the matter lay within his jurisdiction, or, if not, to carry the complaint before the Queen. And his zeal and energy carried to a happy conclusion the arduous undertaking of reforming the Franciscan brotherhood, upon which he succeeded in enforcing a new system of regulations in 1499, after a most obstinate resistance.