The worthy Curate of Los Palacios does not vouch for this exact amount from his own knowledge. He states, however, that 170 died, out of his own little parish of 500 persons, and he narrowly escaped with life himself, after a severe attack. Ubi supra.
[7] Ximenes equipped and paid out of his own funds a strong corps, for the ostensible purpose of protecting the queen's person, but quite as much to enforce order by checking the turbulent spirit of the grandees; a stretch of authority, which this haughty body could ill brook. (Robles, Vida de Ximenez, cap. 17.) Zurita, indeed, who thinks the archbishop had a strong relish for sovereign power, accuses him of being "at heart much more of a king than a friar." (Anales, tom. vi. lib. 7, cap. 29.) Gomez, on the contrary, traces every political act of his to the purest patriotism. (De Rebus Gestis, fol. 70, et alib.) In the mixed motives of action, Ximenes might probably have been puzzled himself, to determine how much belonged to the one principle, and how much to the other.
[8] Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 351.—L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 187.—Lanuza, Historias, tom. i. lib. 1, cap. 21.—Zurita, Anales, tom. vi. lib. 7, cap. 19, 22, 25, 30, 39.—Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. iv. p. 76, ed Milano, 1803.—Robles, Vida de Ximenez, cap. 17.—Sandoval, Hist. del Emp. Carlos V., tom. i. p. 12.
[9] Giannone, Istoria di Napoli, lib. 30, cap. 1-5.—Summonte, Hist. di
Napoli, tom. iv. lib. 6, cap. 5.—L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 187.
—Buonaccorsi, Diario, p. 129.—Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 210.
—Signorelli, Coltura nelle Sicilie, tom. iv. p. 84.
The learned Neapolitan civilian, Giannone, bears emphatic testimony to the general excellence of the Spanish legislation for Naples. Ubi supra.
[10] Giovio, Vitae Illust. Virorum, p. 102.—Chrónica del Gran Capitan, lib. 3.
[11] Machiavelli expresses his astonishment, that Gonsalvo should have been the dupe of promises, the very magnitude of which made them suspicious. "Ho sentito ragionare di questo accordo fra Consalvo e il Re, e maravigliarsi ciascuno che Consalvo se ne fidi; e quanto qual Re è stato più liberale verso di lui, tanto più, ne insospettisce la brigata, pensando che il Re abbi fatto per assicurarlo, e per poterne meglio disporre sotto questa sicurtà." (Legazione Seconda a Roma, let. 23, Oct. 6.) But what alternative had he, unless indeed that of open rebellion, for which he seems to have had no relish? And, if he had, it was too late after Ferdinand was in Naples.
[12] Chrónica del Gran Capitan, lib. 3, cap. 3.—Zurita, Anales, tom. vi. lib. 7, cap. 6, 49.—Giovio, Vitae Illust. Virorum, p. 279.
"Vos el ilustre Don Gonzalo Hernandez de Cordoba," begins the instrument, "Duque de Terra Nova, Marques de Santangelo y Vitonto, y mi Condestable del reyno de Nápoles, nuestro muy charo y muy amado primo, y uno del nuestro secreto Consejo," etc. (See the document, apud Quintana, Españoles Célebres, tom. i. Apend. no. 1.) The revenues from his various estates amounted to 40,000 ducats. Zurita speaks of another instrument, a public manifesto of the Catholic king, proclaiming to the world his sense of his general's exalted services and unimpeachable loyalty. (Anales, tom. vi. lib. 8, cap. 3.) This sort of testimony seems to contain an implication not very flattering, and on the whole is so improbable, that I cannot but think the Aragonese historian has confounded it with the grant of Sessa, bearing precisely the same date, February 25th, and containing also, though incidentally, and as a thing of course, the most ample tribute to the Great Captain.—Comp. also Pulgar, Sum., p. 138.
[13] Tacitus may explain why. "Beneficia eo usque laeta sunt, dum videntur exsolvi posse; ubi multum antevenere, pro gratia odium redditur." (Annales, lib. 4. sec. 18.) "Il n'est pas si dangereux," says Rochefoucault, in a more caustic vein, "de faire du mal à la plûpart des hommes, que de leur faire trop de bien."