[1522] The Abbé San Real finds himself unable to decide whether Carlos took poison, or, like Seneca, had his veins opened in a warm bath, or, finally, whether he was strangled with a silk cord by four slaves sent by his father to do the deed, in Oriental fashion. (Verdadera Historia de la Vida y Muerte del Príncipe Don. Carlos, Span, trans., MS.) The doubts of San Real are echoed with formal solemnity by Leti, Vita di Flippo II., tom. I. p. 559.
[1523] Von Raumer, who has given an analysis of this letter of Antonio Perez, treats it lightly, as coming from "a double-dealing, bitter enemy of Philip," whose word on such a subject was of little value. (Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, vol. I. p. 155.) It was certainly a singular proof of confidence in one who was so habitually close in his concerns as the prince of Eboli, that he should have made such a communication to Perez. Yet it must be admitted that the narrative derives some confirmation from the fact, that the preceding portions of the letter containing it, in which the writer describes the arrest of Carlos, conform with the authentic account of that event as given in the text.
It is worthy of notice, that both De Thou and Llorente concur with Perez in alleging poison as the cause of the prince's death. Though even here there is an important discrepancy; Perez asserting it was a slow poison, taking four months to work its effect, while the other authorities say that its operation was immediate. Their general agreement, moreover, in regard to the employment of poison, is of the less weight, as such an agency would be the one naturally surmised under circumstances where it would be desirable to leave no trace of violence on the body of the victim.
[1524] If we may take Brantôme's word, there was some ground for such apprehension at all times. "En fin il estoit un terrible masle; et s'il eust vescu, assurez-vous qu'il s'en fust faict aeroire, et qu'il eust mis le pere en curatelle." Œuvres, tom. I. p. 323.
[1525] "Li più favoriti del Rè erono odiati da lui a morte, et adesso tanto più, et quando questo venisse a regnare si teneriano rovinati loro." Lettera del Nunzio, Febraio 14, 1568, MS.
[1526] Ante. p. 177.
It is in this view that Dr. Salazar de Mendoza does not shrink from asserting, that, if Philip did make a sacrifice of his son, it rivalled in sublimity that of Isaac by Abraham, and even that of Jesus Christ by the Almighty! "Han dicho de él lo que del Padre Eterno, que no perdonó á su propio Hijo. Lo que del Patriarca Abraham en el sacrificio de Isaac su unigénito. A todo caso humano excede la gloria que de esto le resulta, y no hay con quien comparalla." (Dignidades de Castilla y Leon, p. 417.) He closes this rare piece of courtly blasphemy by assuring us that in point of fact Carlos died a natural death. The doctor wrote in the early part of Philip the Third's reign, when the manner of the prince's death was delicate ground for the historian.
[1527] Philip the Second is not the only Spanish monarch who has been charged with the murder of his son. Leovogild, a Visigothic king of the sixth century, having taken prisoner his rebel son, threw him into a dungeon, where he was secretly put to death. The king was an Arian, while the young prince was a Catholic, and might have saved his life if he had been content to abjure his religion. By the Church of Rome, therefore, he was regarded as a martyr; and it is a curious circumstance that it was Philip the Second who procured the canonization of the slaughtered Hermenegild from Pope Sixtus the Fifth.
For the story, taken from that voluminous compilation of Florez, "La España Sagrada," I am indebted to Milman's History of Latin Christianity (London, 1854, vol. I. p. 446), one of the remarkable works of the present age, in which the author reviews, with curious erudition, and in a profoundly philosophical spirit, the various changes that have taken place in the Roman hierarchy: and while he fully exposes the manifold errors and corruptions of the system, he shows throughout that enlightened charity which is the most precious of Christian graces, as unhappily it is the rarest.
[1528] Lettera di Nobili, Luglio 30, 1568, MS.