Queen Mary’s sad life deserves a word of sympathetic study. With her mother she had passed through years of hideous suffering, culminating in her being forced by her father to declare herself a bastard—probably the most utterly brutal act of Henry’s reign. She had seen the fruits of ungovernable sexuality in the fate of her enemy Anne Boleyn; added to her plain face this probably caused her to repress her own sex-complex; finally she married the wretched young creature Philip, who, having stirred her sexual passions, left her to pursue his tortuous policy in Spain. All the time, as I read the story, she was really desirous of Charles, his brilliant father. Love-sick for Charles; love-sick for Philip, to whom she had a lawful right set at naught by leagues of sea; love-sick for any man whom her pride would allow her to possess—and I do not hint a word against her virtue—she is not a creature to scorn; she is rather to be pitied. Her father had been a man of strong passions and violent deeds; from him she had inherited that tendency to early degeneration of the cardiovascular system which led to her death from dropsy at the early age of forty-two; and her repressed sex-complex led her into the ways of a ruthless religious persecution, probably increased by the object-lesson set her by her hero. From this repressed sex-complex also sprang her fierce desire for a child, though the historians commonly attribute this emotion to a desire for some one to carry on her hatred of the Protestants. I remember the case of a young woman who was a violent Labour politician; unfortunately it became necessary for her to lose her uterus because of a fibroid tumour. She professed to be frantically sorry because she could no longer bear a son to go into Parliament to fight the battle of the proletariat against the wicked capitalist; but once in a moment of weakness she confessed that what she had really wanted was not a bouncing young politician, but merely a dear little baby to be her own child. Probably some such motive weighed with Mary. People laughed at her because she used to mistake any abdominal swelling, or even the normal diminution of menstruation that occurs with middle age, for a sign of pregnancy[8]; but possibly if she had married Charles instead of Philip, and had lived happily with him as his wife, she would not have given her people occasion to call her “Bloody Mary.” She is the saddest figure in English history. From her earliest infancy she had been taught to look forward to a marriage with the wonderful man who to her mind—and to the world’s—typified the noblest qualities of humanity—courage, bravery, rich and profound wisdom, learning and love of the beautiful in art and music and literature; friend and admirer of Titian and gallant helper of her mother. Her disappointment must have been terrible when she found him snatched from her grasp and saw herself condemned either to a life of old maidenhood or to a loveless marriage with a mean religious fanatic twelve years younger than herself. The mentality which led Mary to persecute the English Protestants contained the same qualities as had led Joan of Arc to her career of unrivalled heroism, and to-day leads an old maid to keep parrots. When an old maid undresses it is said that she puts a cover over the parrot’s cage lest the bird should see her nakedness; that is a phase of the same mentality as Mary’s and Joan’s. Loneliness, sadness, suppressed longing for the unattainable—it is cruel to laugh at an old maid.
But Charles was to show himself mortal. He had always been a colossal eater, and had never spared himself either in the field or at the table. One has to pay for these things; if a man wishes to be a great leader and to undertake great responsibilities he must be content to forswear carnal delights and eat sparingly; and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that it is less harmful to drink too much than to eat too much. At the age of thirty Charles began to suffer from “gout”—whatever it was that they called gout in those days. At the age of fifty he began to lose his teeth—apparently from pyorrhœa. Possibly his “gout” may have really been the result of focal infection from his septic teeth. At fifty his gout “flew to his head,” and threatened him with sudden death. When he was fifty-two he suddenly became pale and thin, and it was noticed that his hair was rapidly turning grey. Clearly his enormous gluttony was beginning to result in arterio-sclerosis, and at fifty-four it was reported to his enemy the Sultan that Charles had lost the use of an arm and a leg. Sir William Stirling-Maxwell thought that this report was the exaggeration of an enemy; but it is quite possible that Charles really suffered from that annoying condition known as “intermittent claudication,” which is such a nuisance to both patient and doctor in cases of arterio-sclerosis. In these attacks there may be temporary paralysis and loss of the power of speech. The cause of them is not quite clear, because they seldom prove fatal; but it is supposed that there is spasm of some small artery in the brain, or perhaps a transitory dropsy of some motor area. Charles’s speech became indistinct, so that towards the end of his life it was difficult to understand what he meant. It has generally been supposed that this was due to his underhung lower jaw and loss of teeth; but it is equally probable that dropsy of the speech-centre may have been at the root of the trouble, such as is so frequently observed in arterio-sclerosis or its congener chronic Bright’s disease, and is also often caused by over-strain and over-eating. He began to feel the cold intensely, and sat shivering even under the warmest wraps; he said himself that the cold seemed to be in his bones. Probably there was some spasm of the arterioles, such as is often seen in arterio-sclerosis.
By this time, what with the failure of his plans against the Protestants and his wretched health, he had made up his mind to resign the burden of Empire, and to seek repose in some warmer climate, where he could rest in the congenial atmosphere of a monastery. No Roman Emperor had voluntarily resigned the greatest position in the world since Diocletian in A.D. 305; curiously enough he too had been a persecutor, so that his reign is known among the hagiographers as “the age of martyrs.”
Charles called together a great meeting at the Castle of Caudenburg in Brussels in 1556. All the great ones of the Empire were there, and the Knights of the Golden Fleece, an order which still vies for greatness with our own order of the Garter; possibly it may now even excel that order, because it is unlikely that it will ever again be conferred by an Austrian Emperor. Like the Garter, it had “no damned pretence of merit about it.” If you were entitled to wear the chain and insignia of the Golden Fleece, you were a man of very noble birth. Yet, like the Order of the Thistle, the Fleece may yet be revived, and may recover its ancient splendour. On the right of the Emperor sat his son Philip, just returned, a not-impetuous bridegroom, from marrying Mary of England. On his left he leant painfully and short of breath upon the shoulder of William the Silent, who was soon to become of some little note in the world. It was a strange group: the great, bold Emperor whose course was so nearly run; the mean little king-consort of England; and the noble patriot statesman who was soon to drag Philip’s name in the dust of ignominy. Charles spoke at some length, recounting how he had won many victories and suffered many defeats, yet, though so constantly at war, he had always striven for peace; how he had crossed the Mediterranean many times against the Turk, and had made forty long journeys and many short ones to see for himself the troubles of his subjects. He insisted proudly that he had never done any man a cruelty or an injustice. He burst into tears and sat down, showing the emotionalism that so often attends upon high blood-pressure; and the crowd, seeing the great soldier weep, wept with him. Eleanor gave him a cordial to drink, and he resumed, saying that at last he had found the trials of Empire more than his health would allow him to sustain. He had decided to abdicate in favour of his beloved son Philip. It was given to few monarchs to die and yet to live—to see his own glory continued in the glory which he expected for his son. It seems to have been a really touching and dramatic scene, causing an immense sensation throughout Europe. If there were ever an indispensable man it would have appeared at that time to be the Emperor Charles V; the world quaked in apprehension.
It was some time before Charles could carry out his design, but ultimately he went, by a long and dangerous journey, to the place of his retirement, Yuste, in Estremadura, Northern Spain, where there slept a little monastery of followers of St. Jerome; why he—a Fleming—should have picked on this lonely and inaccessible place is not known. With him went a little band of attendants, chief among whom was his stout old chamberlain, Don Luis Quixada, of whom we shall hear more when we come to consider Don John of Austria. This Quixada seems to have been a fine type of Spanish grandee, loyal and faithful; a merry grandee also, who added sound sense to jocund playfulness. Note well the name; we shall meet it again to some purpose.
Charles was mistaken in supposing that he could find rest at Yuste; the world would not let him rest. He had been a figure too overwhelming. He spent his days in reading dispatches from all who were in trouble and fancied that the great man could pluck them from the toils. Chief of his suppliants was his son Philip, who found the mantle that had seemed to sit so easily on his father’s mighty shoulders intolerably heavy when he came to wear it himself. To the man who is strong in his wisdom and resolution difficulties disappear when they are boldly faced. Philip was timorous, poor-spirited, pedantic, and procrastinating. He constantly appealed to his father for advice, and Charles responded in letters which seem to show, in their evidence of annoyance, the irritability that goes with a high blood-pressure. An epidemic of Reformation was breaking out in Spain, however sterile might seem the soil of that nation for Protestantism to flourish. It is not quite clear why no serious move towards the Reformed Religion ever took place among the Spaniards. It is probable that the ancient faith had thrust its roots too deeply into their hearts during the centuries of struggle against the Moors. In the minds of the Spanish people it had been the Church which had inspired their ancestors—not the kings; and they were not going to desert the old religion now that they saw it attacked by the Germans. Moreover, the fierce repression which was practised by the Spanish Inquisition must have had its effect. Lecky formed the opinion that no new idea could survive in the teeth of really determined persecution; and the history of religion in Spain and France seems to bear him out.
However, the old war-horse in his retirement snuffed the battle and the joyous smell of the burnings, and stoutly urged on the Inquisitors, at whatever cost to his own quiet. Spain remained diligently Roman Catholic at the orders of the Holy Roman Emperor and his son Philip; and at this moment, when Charles was so urgently longing for peace and retirement, English Mary, his cousin and daughter-in-law, in whose interests he had loyally braved God, man, and Pope, lost Calais; the French, under the Duke of Guise, took it from her. She might well grieve and say the name would be found written on her heart; she but echoed the feelings of her beloved Emperor. For weeks he mumbled with toothless jaws the agony of his soul over this crowning misfortune, and from this he never really recovered. Already how had the times changed since the Spanish infantry had overrun Europe at his command!
But he could do nothing; he had abdicated. That iron hand was now so crippled with gout that it could hardly even open an envelope, had to sign its letters with a seal, and constantly held a tiny chafing-dish to keep itself warm. Charles sat shivering and helpless, wrapped in a great eiderdown cloak even in midsummer; his eyes fell on the portrait of his beloved wife and of that plain Mary who had wished to marry him, and on several favourite pictures by Titian. He listened to the singing of the friars, and was resentful of the slightest wrong note, for he had an exceedingly acute musical ear. The good fathers, in their attempts to entertain him, brought famous preachers to preach to him; he listened dutifully—he, whose lightest word had once shaken Europe, but who now could hardly mumble in a slurring voice! And in spite of the protests of Quixada he heroically sat down to eat himself to death. It has been said that marriage for an old man is merely a pleasant way of committing suicide; it is doubtful whether Charles enjoyed his chosen method of self-poisoning, for he had lost the sense of taste, and no food could be too richly seasoned for his tired palate. Vast quantities of beef, mutton, venison, ham, and highly flavoured sausages went past those toothless jaws, washed down by the richest wines, the heaviest beers; the local hidalgoes quickly discovered that to reach the Emperor’s heart all they had to do was to appeal to his stomach, so they poured in upon him every kind of rich dainty, to the despair of Quixada, who did his best to protect his master. “Really,” said he, “kings seem to think that their stomachs are not made like other men’s!”
He sometimes used to go riding, but one day, when he was mounting his pony, he was suddenly seized with an attack of giddiness so severe that he nearly fell into the arms of Quixada, so that the Emperor, who had once upon a time been the beau ideal of a light cavalryman, had to toil about heavily on foot in the woods, and to strive to hold his gun steadily enough to shoot a wood-pigeon.
He spent his spare time watching men lay out for him new parterres and planting trees; man began with a garden, and in sickness and sorrow ends with one. The Earth-Mother is the one friend that never deserts us.