CHAPTER VIII. THE EMPEROR CHARLES V
[1517-1556 A.D.]
Soon after the death of Ximenes, Charles [who as the emperor is known as Charles V but as King Charles I of Spain] made his public entry, with great pomp, into Valladolid, whither he had summoned the cortes of Castile. Though he assumed on all occasions the name of king, that title had never been acknowledged in the cortes. The Spaniards, considering Juana as possessed of the sole right to the crown, and no example of a son’s having enjoyed the title of king during the life of his parents occurring in their history, the cortes discovered all that scrupulous respect for ancient forms and that aversion to innovation which are conspicuous in popular assemblies.
The presence, however, of their prince, the address, the artifices, and the threats of his ministers, prevailed on them at last to proclaim him king, in conjunction with his mother, whose name they appointed to be placed before that of her son in all public acts. But when they made this concession, they declared that if, at any future period, Juana should recover the exercise of reason, the whole authority should return into her hands. At the same time, they voted a free gift of 600,000 ducats[77] to be paid in three years, a sum more considerable than had ever been granted to any former monarch.
[1517-1518 A.D.]
Notwithstanding this obsequiousness of the cortes to the will of the king, the most violent symptoms of dissatisfaction with his government began to break out in the kingdom. Chièvres had acquired over the mind of the young monarch the ascendant not only of a tutor, but of a parent. Charles seemed to have no sentiments but those which his minister inspired, and scarcely uttered a word but what he put into his mouth. He was constantly surrounded by Flemings; no person got access to him without their permission; nor was any admitted to audience but in their presence. As he spoke the Spanish language very imperfectly, his answers were always extremely short, and often delivered with hesitation. Unfortunately for Charles, his favourites were unworthy of his confidence. To amass wealth seems to have been their only aim; and as they had reason to fear that either their master’s good sense or the indignation of the Spaniards might soon abridge their power, they hastened to improve the present opportunity, and their avarice was the more rapacious because they expected their authority to be of no longer duration. All honours, offices, and benefices were either engrossed by the Flemings or publicly sold by them. Chièvres, his wife, and Sauvage, whom Charles, on the death of Ximenes, had imprudently raised to be chancellor of Castile, vied with each other in all the refinements of extortion and venality. Not only the Spanish historians, who, from resentment, may be suspected of exaggeration, but Peter Martyr Angleria[b] [or de Anghierra], an Italian, who resided at that time in the court of Spain, and was under no temptation to deceive the persons to whom his letters are addressed, gives a description which is almost incredible, of the insatiable and shameless covetousness of the Flemings.
According to Angleria’s calculation, which he asserts to be extremely moderate, they remitted into the Low Countries, in the space of ten months, no less a sum than 1,100,000 ducats. The nomination of William de Croy, Chièvres’ nephew, a young man not of canonical age, to the archbishopric of Toledo, exasperated the Spaniards more than all these exactions.