the gate should receive a hundred stripes. He enjoyed the visits of Francisco Borgia, Duke of Gandia,
who had exchanged a brilliant position for membership in the Society of the Jesuits, and confirmed
him in his conviction that he had acted wisely in relinquishing the world. He wished to be prayed
for only by his baptismal name, being no longer emperor or king. Every Thursday was for him a
feast of Corpus Christi.
He repeatedly celebrated the exequies of his parents, his wife, and a departed sister.
Yea, according to credible contemporary testimony, he celebrated, in the presentiment of
approaching death, his own funeral, around a huge catafalque erected in the dark chapel. Bearing
a lighted taper, he mingled with his household and the monks in chanting the prayers for the departed,
on the lonely passage to the invisible world, and concluded the doleful ceremony by handing the
taper to the priest, in token of surrendering his spirit to Him who gave it. According to later accounts,
the Emperor was laid alive in his coffin, and carried in solemn procession to the altar.^323
This relish for funeral celebrations reveals a morbid trait in his piety. It reminds one of the
insane devotion of his mother to the dead body of her husband, which she carried with her wherever
she went.
His Intolerance.
We need not wonder that his bigotry increased toward the end of life. He was not philosopher
enough to learn a lesson of toleration (as Dr. Robertson imagines) from his inability to harmonize
two timepieces. On the contrary, he regretted his limited forbearance towards Luther and the German
Protestants, who had defeated his plans five years before. They were now more hateful to him than
ever.
To his amazement, the same heretical opinions broke out in Valladolid and Sevilla, at the
very court and around the throne of Spain. Augustin Cazalla,^324 who had accompanied him as
chaplain in the Smalkaldian war, and had preached before him at Yuste, professed Lutheran
sentiments. Charles felt that Spain was in danger, and repeatedly urged the most vigorous measures
for the extermination of heresy with fire and sword. "Tell the Grand Inquisitor, from me," he wrote
to his daughter Joanna, the regent, on the 3d of May, 1558, "to be at his post, and to lay the ax at
the root of the evil before it spreads farther. I rely on your zeal for bringing the guilty to punishment
with all the severity which their crimes demand." In the last codicil to his will, he conjures his son
Philip to cherish the Holy Inquisition as the best instrument for the suppression of heresy in his
dominions. "So," he concludes, "shall you have my blessing, and the Lord shall prosper all your
undertakings."^325
Philip II., who inherited the vices but none of the virtues of his father, faithfully carried out
this dying request, and by a terrible system of persecution crushed out every trace of evangelical
(^323) The story is told with its later embellishments by Robertson and many others. The papers of Simancas, and the private letters of the
Emperor’s major-domo (Quixada) and physician, are silent on the subject; and hence Tomas Gonzalez, Mignet (1854 and 1857), and
Maurenbrecher ("Studien und Skizzen." 1874, p. 132, note) reject the whole as a monkish fiction. But the main fact rests on the testimony
of a Hieronymite monk of Yuste, who was present at the ceremony, and recorded the deep impression it made; and it is confirmed by
Sandoval, who derived his report directly from Yuste. A fuller account is given by Siguença, prior of the Escorial, in his general history
of the Order of St. Jerome (1605); and by Strada, who wrote a generation later, and leaves the Emperor in a swoon upon the floor. Stirling,
Pichot, Juste, Gachard (1855), Prescott (Phil. II., Vol. I., 327 sqq.), and Ranke (Vol. V., 309 sq.), accept the fact as told in its more simple
form by the oldest witness. It is quite consistent with the character of Charles; for, as Prescott remarks (p. 332), "there was a taint of
insanity in the royal blood of Castile."
(^324) Commonly called Dr. Cazalla. See on him Dr. Stoughton, The Spanish Reformers, p. 204 sq.
(^325) Gachard, II. 461. Ranke, V. 308. Prescott, I. 325 sq.