The History of Christianity / Consisting of the Life and Teachings of Jesus of Nazareth; the Adventures of Paul and the Apostles; and the Most Interesting Events in the Progress of Christianity, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time.

by John S. C. Abbott

The emperor was at length constrained, in view of new menaces from the Turks, to assent to the celebrated Treaty of Passau, on the 2d of August, 1552. The spirit of true toleration was then scarcely known in the world. After long debate, in which both parties were often at the point of grasping arms, it was agreed that the Protestants should enjoy the free exercise of their religion in the places specified by the Augsburg Confession. In all other places Protestant princes might prohibit the Catholic religion in their States, and Catholic princes might prohibit the Protestant religion; but in each case the expelled party were to be at liberty to sell their property, and to emigrate without molestation to some State where their religion was dominant. Even this wretched burlesque of toleration was so offensive to the pope, that he threatened to excommunicatethe emperor and his brother Ferdinand if they did not immediately declare these decrees to be null and void throughout their dominions.

Charles V. unquestionably inherited a taint of insanity. His mother, the unhappy Joanna, daughter of Isabella, Queen of Spain, after lingering for years in the most insupportable glooms of delirium, died on the 4th of April, 1555. Her imperial son had already become the victim of extreme despondency. Harassed by disappointments, mortified by reverses, and annoyed by the undutiful conduct of his son, he shut himself up in his room, refusing to see any company but his sister and servants, and rendering himself insupportable to them by his petulance and moroseness. For nine months he did not sign a paper. He was but fifty-five years of age, but was prematurely old, and the victim of many depressing diseases. There was probably not a more wretched man in all Europe than the Emperor Charles V.

He resolved, by abdicating the throne, to escape from the cares which tortured him. The important ceremony took place with much funereal pomp on the 4th of April, 1555.

The emperor had fixed upon the Convent of St. Justus, in Estremadura, Spain, as the place of his retreat. The massive pile was far removed from the busy scenes of the world, imbosomed among hills covered with wide-spread and gloomy forests, with a mountain rivulet murmuring by its walls. There is considerable diversity in the accounts transmitted to us of convent-life. According to the best evidence which can now be obtained, it was as follows:—

The emperor caused to be erected within the walls of the convent a small building, two stories high, with four rooms on each floor. These rooms, tapestried in mourning, were comfortably furnished. Choice paintings ornamented the walls, and the emperor was served from silver plate. Charles was not of a literary turn of mind, and a few devotional books constituted his only library. A pleasant garden, with a high enclosure which sheltered the recluse from all observation, invited the emperor to gravelled walks fringed with flowers.

The days passed monotonously. The emperor attended mass every morning in the chapel, and dined at an early hour in the refectory of the convent. After dinner he listened for a short time to the reading of some book of devotion. He was scrupulously attentive to the fasts and festivals of the Church, and, every evening, listened to a sermon in the chapel. In penance for his sins, he scourged himself frequently with such severity of flagellation, that the cords of the whip were stained with blood.

Being fond of mechanical pursuits, he employed many hours in carving puppets and children’s playthings, and constructed some articles of furniture. His room was filled with timepieces of every variety of construction. It is said, that, when he found how impossible it was to make any two of them keep precisely the same time, he exclaimed upon his past folly in endeavoring to compel all men to think alike upon the subject of religion.

His bodily sufferings were severe from the gout, by which he was helplessly crippled. Most of the time he spent in extreme dejection. It was evident that his health was rapidly failing, and that, ere long, he must sink into the grave. Under these circumstances, he adopted the extraordinary idea of rehearsing his own funeral. As the story has generally come down to us, all the melancholy arrangements for his burial were made, and the coffin provided. The emperor reclined upon his bed as if dead: he was wrapped in his shroud, and placed in his coffin. The monks and all the inmates of the convent attended in mourning; the bells tolled, requiems were chanted by the choir, the funeral-service was read; and then the emperor, as if dead, was placed in the tomb of the chapel, and the congregation retired.

The monarch, after remaining some time in his coffin to impress himself with what it is to die and be buried, rose from the tomb, kneeled before the altar in the chill church for some time in worship, and then returned to his room to pass the night in meditation and prayer. The shock and chill of these melancholy scenes were too much for the feeble frame and weakenedmind of the monarch. He was seized with a fever, and in a few days breathed his last; and his spirit ascended to that tribunal where all must answer for the deeds done in the body.

The reformers of the sixteenth century, in the various countries of Europe, have acquired renown which will never die. We give a group containing the portraits of five, who were among the most illustrious of these men, with the accompanying brief sketch of their lives.