pressing hard upon him, and that event filling his mind with despair, melancholy and pensiveness, he quickly followed his patroness to the grave.

KING FERDINAND.

He owed the crown of Arragon to the unexpected death of his elder brother, and acquired the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily by violating the faith of treaties, and disregarding the ties of blood. Isabella before her death appointed him regent or administrator of the affairs of Castile, until her grandson Charles should attain the age of twenty. Upon her death he resigned the title of king of Castile, and assumed that of regent; and the Cortes acknowledged that right. This however he did not procure without difficulty, nor without discovering such symptoms of alienation and disgust among the Castilians, as filled him with great uneasiness. The union of Castile and Arragon for almost thirty years, had not so entirely extirpated the ancient and hereditary enmity which subsisted between the natives of these kingdoms, that the Castilian pride could submit, without murmuring, to the government of a king of Arragon.

Ferdinand's own character, with which the Castilians were well acquainted, was far from rendering his authority desirable. Suspicious, discerning, severe, cautious, and parsimonious, he was accustomed to observe the most minute actions of his subjects with a jealous attention, and to reward their highest services with little liberality; and they were now deprived of Isabella, whose gentle qualities, and partiality to her Castilian subjects, often tempered his austerity, or rendered it tolerable. The 'maxims of his government were especially odious to the grandees; for that artful prince, sensible of

the dangerous privileges conferred upon him by the feudal institutions, had endeavoured to curb their exorbitant power, by extending the royal jurisdic tion, by protecting their injured vassals, by increasing the immunities of cities, and by other measures equally prudent. From all these causes, a formidable party among the Castilians united against Ferdinand. The consequences were, that he was constrained to give up the regency; but upon the death of Philip, he regained it by the prudence and abilities of his adherents. The prudence with which he exercised his authority, equalled the good fortune by which he recovered it. By a moderate, but steady administration, free from partiality and from resentment, he entirely reconciled the Castili ans to his person, and secured to them, during the remainder of his life, as much domestic tranquillity as was consistent with the genius of the feudal government, which still subsisted among them in full vigour.

Having conceived a strong aversion to Charles, he made a will in favour of prince Ferdinand. He retained to the last that jealous love of power, which was so remarkable through his whole life. Unwilling, even at the approach of death, to admit a thought of relinquishing any portion of his pow er, he removed continually from place to place, in order to fly from his distemper, or forget it. Though his strength declined every day, none of his attendants durst mention his condition; nor would he admit his father's confessor, who thought such silence criminal and unchristian, into his presence. At last the danger became so imminent, that it could be no longer concealed. Ferdinand received the intimation with a decent fortitude, and touched perhaps with compunction at the injustice which he had done his grandson, or influenced by the honest remonstrances of Carvajal, Zapara, and Var

gas, his most ancient and faithful counsellors, who represented to him, that by investing prince Ferdihand with the regency, he would infallibly entail a civil war on the two brothers, and by bestowing on him the grand masterships of the military orders, would strip the crown of its noblest ornament and chief strength, he consented to alter his will with respect to both these particulars. By a new deed he left Charles the sole heir of all his dominions, and allotted to prince Ferdinand, instead of that throne of which he thought himself almost secure, an inconsiderable establishment of fifty thousand ducats a year.

During the long administration of Ferdinand no internal commotion had arisen in Spain. His superior abilities had enabled him to restrain the turbulence of the nobles, and to moderate the jealousy of the commons. By the wisdom of his domestic government, by the sagacity with which he conducted his foreign operations, and by the high opinion that his subjects entertained of both, he had preserved among them a degree of tranquillity, greater than was natural to a constitution, in which the seeds of discord and disorder were so copiously mingled. But by the death of Ferdinand, these restraints were at once to be removed, and faction and discontent, from being long repressed, were ready to break out with fiercer animosity. In order to prevent these evils, he in his last will, also took a most prudent precaution, by appointing Cardinal Ximenes sole regent, until the arrival of his grandson in Spain. He died a few hours after signing this will, on the twenty-third day of January, one thousand five hundred and sixteen,

PHILIP,

FATHER OF CHARLES V.

PHILIP, surnamed the handsome, was archduke of Austria, and the son of the emperor Maximilian. His marriage with Joanna opened the way to the throne of Spain. But he was a youth who could not subject his manners to his prospects. He had scarcely arrived in the Spanish court, when its stately and reserved ceremonial became irksome to a prince, young, gay, affable, fond of society and of pleasure. Political motives more than cordial affection having united him to Joanna, his conduct towards her soon became negligent, and inhumane, The imbecility of her mind rendered his barbarity the more conspicuous. His indifference towards her did not render him remiss in improving the advantages which he received through her interest. He successfully contended with her father for the regal power. During this struggle he showed that he was not destitute of the qualifications necessary for government; but a fever put an end to his life, in the twenty-eighth year of his age, when he had not enjoyed the regal dignity, which he had been so eager to obtain, full three months.

XIMENES,

ARCHBISHOP OF TOLEDO.

He was one of those few ecclesiastics who preferred the good of the public to his own private interest. Though he had acquired his dignity by the influence of Isabella, and had no preferment to expect through Ferdinand, yet convinced that Castile could never be so happily governed as by a prince,

whom long experience had rendered thoroughly acquainted with its true interests, he exerted all his influence in behalf of Ferdinand. With a spirit very uncommon in a monk, and with a generosity. and magnificence still more singular, he led in person a numerous army against the Moors, and defrayed the whole expense of the expedition out of his own revenues. It was formerly mentioned, that his abilities and integrity had induced Ferdinand to select him as regent in the absence of Charles. The singular character of this man, and the extraordinary qualities which marked him out for that office at such a juncture, merit a particular description. He was descended of an honourable, not of a wealthy family; and the circumstances of his parents, as well as his own inclinations, having determined him to enter into the church, he early obtained benefices of great value, and which placed him in the way of the greatest preferment. All these however he renounced at once; and after undergoing a very severe noviciate, assumed the habit of St. Francis, in a monastery of observantine friars, one of the most rigid orders in the Romish church. There he soon became eminent for his uncommon austerity of manners, and for those excesses of superstitious devotion, which are the proper characteristics of a monastic life. But notwithstanding these extravagances, to which enthusiastic minds alone are usually prone, his understanding naturally penetrating and decisive, retained its full vigour, and acquired him such great authority in his own order as raised him to be their provincial. His reputation for sanctity soon procured him the office of father-confessor to queen Isabella, which he accepted with the utmost reluctance. He preserved in a court the same austerity of manners which had distinguished him in the cloister. He continued to make all his journies on foot; he