The obscurity which hangs over the period has not been dispelled by those modern writers, who, like Varillas, in his well-known work, Politique de Ferdinand le Catholique, affect to treat the subject philosophically, paying less attention to facts than to their causes and consequences. These ingenious persons, seldom willing to take things as they find them, seem to think that truth is only to be reached by delving deep below the surface. In this search after more profound causes of action, they reject whatever is natural and obvious. They are inexhaustible in conjectures and fine-spun conclusions, inferring quite as much from what is not said or done, as from what is. In short, they put the reader as completely in possession of their hero's thoughts on all occasions, as any professed romance-writer would venture to do. All this may be very agreeable, and, to persons of easy faith, very satisfactory; but it is not history and may well remind us of the astonishment somewhere expressed by Cardinal de Retz at the assurance of those who, at a distance from the scene of action, pretended to lay open all the secret springs of policy, of which he himself, though a principal party, was ignorant.
No prince, on the whole, has suffered more from these unwarrantable liberties than Ferdinand the Catholic. His reputation for shrewd policy suggests a ready key to whatever is mysterious and otherwise inexplicable in his government; while it puts writers like Gaillard and Varillas constantly on the scent after the most secret and subtile sources of action, as if there were always something more to be detected than readily meets the eye. Instead of judging him by the general rules of human conduct, everything is referred to deep-laid stratagem; no allowance is made for the ordinary disturbing forces, the passions and casualties of life; every action proceeds with the same wary calculation that regulates the moves upon a chessboard; and thus a character of consummate artifice is built up, not only unsupported by historical evidence, but in manifest contradiction to the principles of our nature. The part of our subject embraced in the present chapter has long been debatable ground between the French and Spanish historians; and the obscurity which hangs over it has furnished an ample range for speculation to the class of writers above alluded to, which they have not failed to improve.
FOOTNOTES
[1] St. Gelais seems willing to accept Philip's statement, and to consider the whole affair of the negotiation as "one of Ferdinand's old tricks," "l'ancienne cantele de celuy qui en sçavoit bien faire d'autres." Hist. de Louys XII., p. 172.
[2] Idem, ubi supra.—Garnier, Hist. de France, tom. v. p. 410.—Gaillard, Rivalité, tom. iv. pp. 238, 239.—Zurita, Anales, tom. v. lib. 5, cap. 23.—Garibay, Compendio, tom. ii. lib. 19, cap. 15.—Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. viii. p. 233.
[3] Garnier, Hist. de France, tom. v. p. 388.—Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. rey 30, cap. 13, sec. 3.—Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. i. p. 300, ed. 1645.—Zurita, Anales, tom. v. lib. 5, cap. 9.
It is amusing to see with what industry certain French writers, as Gaillard and Varillas, are perpetually contrasting the bonne foi of Louis XII. with the méchanceté of Ferdinand, whose secret intentions, even, are quoted in evidence of his hypocrisy, while the most objectionable acts of his rival seem to be abundantly compensated by some fine sentiment like that in the text.
[4] Zurita, Hist. del Rey Hernando, tom. i. lib. 5, cap. 10.—Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. rey 30, cap. 13, sec. 2.—Mariana, Hist. de España, tom. ii. pp. 690, 691.—et al.
[5] Seyssel, Hist. de Louys XII., p. 61.—St. Gelais, Hist. de Louys XII., p. 171.—Gaillard, Rivalité, tom. iv. p. 239.—Garnier, Hist. de France, tom. v. p. 387.—D'Auton, Hist. de Louys XII., part. 2, chap. 32.
[6] Varillas regards Philip's mission to France as a coup de maître on the part of Ferdinand, who thereby rid himself of a dangerous rival at home, likely to contest his succession to Castile on Isabella's death, while he employed that rival in outwitting Louis XII. by a treaty which he meant to disavow. (Politique de Ferdinand, liv. 1, pp. 146-150.) The first of these imputations is sufficiently disproved by the fact that Philip quitted Spain in opposition to the pressing remonstrances of the king, queen, and cortes, and to the general disgust of the whole nation, as is repeatedly stated by Gomez, Martyr, and other contemporaries. The second will be difficult to refute, and still harder to prove, as it rests on a man's secret intentions, known only to himself. Such are the flimsy cobwebs of which this political dreamer's theories are made. Truly châteaux en Espagne.