xix POSTSCRIPT FOR A SECOND EDITION. THE favour with which this work has been received having rendered a second edition necessary, I have endeavoured to acknowledge my sense of the kindness of the public, by bestowing on its pages a careful revision, as well as some new matter which I hope will be found to enhance its utility and interest, without greatly increasing its size. 128, PARK STREet, Grosvenor Square, Dec. 21st, 1852. POSTSCRIPT FOR A THIRD EDITION. THIS edition had already gone to press, when I first saw a paper communicated to the Royal Academy of Belgium, by M. Bakhuizen van den Brink, and entitled La Retraite de Charles Quint, analyse d'un manuscript Espagnol contemporain, par un Religieux de l'ordre de St. Jerôme à Yuste.1 The manuscript, thus analysed with great care and ability, was formerly in the archives of the Cour-feodale, and is now in those of the Cour-d'appel at Bruxelles. It consists of forty-five folio pages, written in a fine close hand of the end of the sixteenth, or of the beginning of the seventeenth, century. Its title is A brief and summary history of how the emperor Don Charles the Fifth, our lord, determined to retire to the monastery of St. Jerome of Yuste, in the Vera of Plasencia, and to renounce his states in favour of the prince Don Philip his son, and of the mode and manner in which he lived for a year and eight months, all but eight days, in the monastery until his death, and of the things which happened 1 Compte-rendu des seances de la commission royale d'histoire ou recueil de ses bulletins. Deuxième serie. tom. i. ler bulletin. 8vo. Bruxelles. 1850, p. 57. A few copies were struck off as a separate tract, and to one of them my references are made. says in his life and death.1 The memoir is divided into fifty chapters, of which the first tells How the prince Don Philip was married in England, and the last treats of the affliction of the village of Quacos and all the Vera when the body of the emperor was removed from Yuste. It was written, M. Bakhuizen, in or about 1574, soon after the removal of the emperor's remains. The author informs us that he was a monk of Yuste, and that he was one of four of the brotherhood who were appointed to watch the corpse of Charles at the time of his death, and one of eight who were sent to attend it to the Escorial. But he has concealed his name, which at this distance of time there is little hope of discovering. M. Bakhuizen is inclined to identify him with one of four persons-the prior Angulo, the confessor Regla, Fray Lorenzo de Losar, employed as purveyor of the imperial household, and Fray Miguel de Torralva, who held the post of obrero or master of works. The prior and the confessor, he says, are spoken of in such terms in the memoir, that it is very unlikely that either of them was the author of it; to which I may add that, in the case of the confessor, this improbability is enhanced by the fact that Regla left Yuste immediately after the emperor's death, and appears to have resided afterwards either at court or at Zaragoza. Of the two remaining friars, M. Bakhuizen is inclined to favour the claim of Losar, his name appearing along with that of the prior as a witness to the process-verbal which recorded the deposit of the emperor's body at Yuste, and that document being given at full length in the memoir. Not having seen the manuscript, I am unable to judge of the soundness of M. Bakhuizen's hypothesis. In the absence of direct evidence I should be inclined to attribute such a paper to the one monk of Yuste whom we know to have been fond of reading and writing, Fray Hernando de Corral. 1 Historia breve y sumaria de como el emperador Don Carlos Quinto, nuestro señor, trató de venir se á recojer al monasterio de S. Hieronimo de Yuste, que es en la Vera de Plasencia, y renunciar sus estados en el principe, Don Phelipe su hijo, y del modo y manera que vivio un año y ocho meses menos nueve dias, que estuvo en este monasterio, hasta que murió, y de las cosas que acaecieron en su vida y muerte. POSTSCRIPT FOR A THIRD EDITION. xxi The narrative in the main confirms those of Sandoval and Siguença. It is not improbable that the author, before he wrote his reminiscences, may have refreshed his memory by reading Angulo's memoir, which may account for minute coincidences with the expressions of Sandoval, who borrowed freely from Angulo. For example, Sandoval says the emperor was contented to lead 'the poor life of an honourable esquire,1 la pobre vida de un escudero honrado, while the Bakhuizen MS. compares the imperial household to that of a poor country gentleman, un pobre hidalgo. The resemblance to Siguença's account is still closer, so close that it seems likely that Siguença, who does not avow any obligation to Angulo, may have been indebted for some, at least, of his facts, to this other monk of Yuste. To cite a few instances; the monk speaks of the retired emperor as a pobre hidalgo; Siguença calls him an honesto hidalgo;3 the monk erroneously places the body of queen Juana amongst the royal corpses brought in 1574 to the Escorial;4 Siguença, although prior of the Escorial, has fallen into the same error;5 the stories of the hyssop and pyx, which I have related on the authority of Siguença,7 are also told by the monk;8 and lastly, Siguença's description of the obsequies performed by Charles for himself is confirmed in every particular by this anonymous eyewitness.9 Whoever its author may have been, the manuscript is well worth printing entire, and I trust that the Belgian government may ere long be induced to give it to the world. Meanwhile, I have to acknowledge my obligations to M. Bakhuizen van den Brink's paper for several fresh details of the emperor's life and death, and to M. Van de Weyer and M. Gachard for their kindness in bringing that paper under my notice. 'Sandoval: Hist. de Carlos V., 2 tom. fol. Pamplona: 1634, ii. p. 811. 2 Bakhuizen van den Brink: La Retraite, p. 20. Siguença: Hist. de la ord. de S. Geronimo, iii. p. 291. ♦ Bakhuizen van den Brink: La Retraite, p. 60. 5 Siguença: iii. p. 569. 7 Siguença: iii. p. 194, 195. Chap. viii. p. 184. • Bakhuizen van den Brink, La Retraite, p. 39. " Id., p. 45. xxii POSTSCRIPT FOR A THIRD EDITION. To this edition I have also added a chapter on the emperor's abdication and subsequent life at Bruxelles, in which I have freely availed myself of information supplied by M. Th. Juste, in his agreeable tract on that subject.1 Soon after the appearance of my work, M. Mignet commenced a series of elaborate papers on Charles the Fifth, his abdication and retirement, still in course of publication in the Journal des Savants, at Paris.2 Composed mainly of materials afforded by the MS. of Gonzalez, these papers explain why that MS. was acquired by the Foreign Office of France, and why it has been so zealously guarded by M. Mignet. They are written in the able style with which M. Mignet's other works have made the world familiar. The paucity of extracts from the original documents is a matter of regret, but this defect may perhaps be repaired when the completed chapters are published in the form of a book. 128, PARK STREET, GROSVENOR SQUARE, 1 L'Abdication de Charles Quint, par Th. Juste, (extraite du Progrès Pacifique,) 8vo. Liege, 1851. pp. 31. 2 Charles Quint, son abdication, sa retraite, son sejour, et sa mort au monastere hieronomite de Yuste, par M. Mignet. These papers began in the number for November, 1852, and were continued in December, and in January and March, 1853. |