Meanwhile, Carlos was kept rigorously confined, so much so that he was not left alone day or night. Of the two nobles in his chamber at night, one was required to keep awake while the other slept. They were permitted to talk with him, but not on political matters nor on the subject of his imprisonment. They were ordered to bring him no messages from without nor receive any from him. No books except devotional ones were allowed him.
If it was the purpose of Philip to end the life of his son by other means than execution he could not have taken better measures. For a young man of his high spirit and fiery temper such strict confinement was maddening. At first he was thrown into a frenzy, and tried more than once to make way with himself. The sullenness of despair succeeded. He grew daily more emaciated, and the malarial fever which had so long affected him now returned in a severe degree. To allay the heat of the fever he would deluge the floor of his chamber with water, and walk for hours with bare feet on the cold floor. He had a warming-pan filled with ice and snow brought him, and kept it for hours at night in his bed. He would drink snow-water in immoderate draughts. In his eating he seemed anxious to break down his strength,—now refusing all food for days together, now devouring a pasty of four partridges[pg 223] at a sitting, washing it down with three gallons or more of iced water.
That he was permitted to indulge in such caprices seems to indicate that Philip wished him to kill himself. No constitution, certainly not so weak a one as that of Carlos, could long withstand these excesses. His stomach refused to perform its duty; severe vomiting attacked him; dysentery set in; his strength rapidly failed. The expected end came on the 24th of July, six months after the date of his imprisonment, death releasing the prince from the misery of his unhappy lot. One writer tells us that it was hastened by a strong purgative dose, administered by his father's orders, and that he was really assassinated. However that be, Philip had little reason to be sorry at the death of his lunatic son. To one of his austere temperament it was probably an easy solution of a difficult problem.
Less than three months passed after the death of Carlos when Isabella followed him to the grave. She was then but twenty-three years old,—about the same age as himself. The story was soon set afloat that Philip had murdered both his son and his wife, moved thereto by jealousy; and from this has arisen the romantic story of secret love between the two, with the novels and dramas based thereon. In all probability the story is without foundation. Philip is said to have been warmly loved by his wife, and the poison which carried her away seems to have been the heavy doses of medicine with which the doctors of that day sought to cure a passing illness.
SPAIN'S GREATEST VICTORY AT SEA.
On the 16th of September, 1571, there sailed from the harbor of Messina one of the greatest fleets the Mediterranean had ever borne upon its waves. It consisted of more than three hundred vessels, most of them small, but some of great bulk for that day, carrying forty pieces of artillery. On board these ships were eighty thousand men. Of these, less than thirty thousand were soldiers, for in those days, when war-galleys were moved by oars rather than sails, great numbers of oarsmen were needed. At the head of this powerful armament was Don John of Austria, brother of Philip II., and the ablest naval commander that Spain possessed.
At sunrise on the 7th of October the Christian fleet came in sight, at the entrance to the Bay of Lepanto, on the west of Greece, of the great Turkish armament, consisting of nearly two hundred and fifty royal galleys, with a number of smaller vessels in the rear. On these ships are said to have been not less than one hundred and twenty thousand men. A great battle for the supremacy of Christian or Mohammedan was about to be fought between two of the largest fleets ever seen in the Mediterranean.
For more than a century the Turks had been[pg 225] masters of Constantinople and the Eastern Empire, and had extended their dominion far to the west. The Mediterranean had become a Turkish lake, which the fleets of the Ottoman emperors swept at will. Cyprus had fallen, Malta had sustained a terrible siege, and the coasts of Italy and Spain were exposed to frightful ravages, in which the corsairs of the Barbary states joined hands with the Turks. France only was exempt, its princes having made an alliance with Turkey, in which they gained safety at the cost of honor.