The king did not accompany it. Slowly it defiled through the crowded streets, where the people gave audible utterance to their grief, as they gazed on the funeral pomp, and their eyes fell on the bier of the prince, who, they had fondly hoped, would one day sway the sceptre of Castile; and whose errors, great as they were, were all forgotten in his unparalleled misfortunes.[1532]
The procession moved forward to the convent of San Domingo Real, where Carlos had desired that his ashes might be laid. The burial service was there performed, with great solemnity, in presence of the vast multitude. But whether it was that Philip distrusted the prudence of the preachers, or feared some audacious criticism on his conduct, no discourse was allowed to be delivered from the pulpit. For nine days religious services were performed in honor of the deceased; and the office for the dead continued to be read, morning and evening, before an audience among whom were the great nobles and the officers of state, clad in full mourning. The queen and the princess Joanna might be seen, on these occasions, mingling their tears with the few who cherished the memory of Carlos. A niche was excavated in the wall of the church, within the choir, in which the prince's remains were deposited. But they did not rest there long. In 1573, they were removed, by Philip's orders, to the Escorial; and in its gloomy chambers they were left to mingle with the kindred dust of the royal line of Austria.[1533]
Philip wrote to Zuñiga, his ambassador in Rome, to intimate his wish that no funeral honors should be paid there to the memory of Carlos, that no mourning should be worn, and that his holiness would not feel under the necessity of sending him letters of condolence.[1534] Zuñiga did his best. But he could not prevent the obsequies from being celebrated with the lugubrious pomp suited to the rank of the departed. A catafalque was raised in the church of Saint James; the services were performed in presence of the ambassador and his attendants, who were dressed in the deepest black; and twenty-one cardinals, one of whom was Granvelle, assisted at the solemn ceremonies.[1535] But no funeral panegyric was pronounced, and no monumental inscription recorded the imaginary virtues of the deceased.[1536]
Soon after the prince's death, Philip retired to the monastery of St. Jerome, in whose cloistered recesses he remained some time longer secreted from the eyes of his subjects. "He feels his loss like a father," writes the papal nuncio, "but he bears it with the patience of a Christian."[1537] He caused despatches to be sent to foreign courts, to acquaint them with his late[{490}] bereavement. In his letter to the duke of Alva, he indulges in a fuller expression of his personal feelings. "You may conceive," he says, "in what pain and heaviness I find myself, now that it has pleased God to take my dear son, the prince, to himself. He died in a Christian manner, after having, three days before, received the sacrament, and exhibited repentance and contrition,—all which serves to console me under this affliction. For I hope that God has called him to himself, that he may be with him evermore; and that he will grant me his grace, that I may endure this calamity with a Christian heart and patience."[1538]
Thus, in the morning of life, at little more than twenty-three years of age, perished Carlos, prince of Asturias. No one of his time came into the world under so brilliant auspices; for he was heir to the noblest empire in Christendom; and the Spaniards, as they discerned in his childhood some of the germs of future greatness in his character, looked confidently forward to the day when he should rival the glory of his grandfather, Charles the Fifth. But he was born under an evil star, which counteracted all the gifts of fortune, and turned them into a curse. His naturally wild and headstrong temper was exasperated by disease; and, when encountered by the distrust and alienation of him who had the control of his destiny, was exalted into a state of frenzy, that furnishes the best apology for his extravagances, and vindicates the necessity of some measures, on the part of his father, to restrain them. Yet can those who reject the imputation of murder acquit that father of inexorable rigor towards his child in the measures which he employed, or of the dreadful responsibility which attaches to the consequences of them?
CHAPTER VIII.
DEATH OF ISABELLA.
Queen Isabella.—Her Relations with Carlos.—Her Illness and Death.—Her Character.
1568.