superior knowledge and prudence as secured the public welfare. Charles deputed him to assemble the Cortes of Valencia, but his authority was not sufficient to awe them into obedience. Upon the departure of Charles to Germany, he was made viceroy of Castile; but the haughty Castilians remonstrated against his appointment. An unexpected call to another station removed him from that unpleasant office. Upon the death of pope Leo X. great discord prevailed in the conclave concerning the election of his successor. Julio, Cardinal de Medici, Leo's nephew, had secured a considerable number of votes, but the aged cardinals united against him; and while these factions were endeavouring to gain, to corrupt, or to weary out each other, Medici and his adherents voted one morning at the scrutiny, which, according to form, was made every day, for Cardinal Adrian of Utrecht, who at that time governed Spain in the emperor's name. This they did merely to protract time. But the adverse party instantly closing with them, to their own amazement and that of all Europe, a stranger to Italy, unknown to the persons who gave their suffrages in his favour, and unacquainted with the manners of the people, or the interest of the state, the government of which they conferred upon him, was unanimously raised to the papal throne, at a juncture so delicate and critical, as would have demanded all the sagacity and experience of one of the most able prelate in the sacred college. The cardinals themselves, unable to give a reason for this strange choice, on account of which, as they marched in procession from the conclave, they were loaded with insults and curses from the Roman people, ascribed it to an immediate impulse of the Holy Ghost. It may be imputed with greater certainty, to the influence of Don John Manuel, the imperial ambassador, who,

by his address and intrigues, facilitated the election of a person devoted to his master's service, from gratitude, from interest, and from inclination.

Though the Roman people longed extremely for his arrival, they could not on his first appearance conceal their surprise and disappointment. After being accustomed to the princely magnificence of Julius, and the elegant splendour of Leo, they beheld with contempt an old man of an humble deportment, of austere manners, an enemy to pomp, destitute of taste in the arts, and unadorned with any of the external accomplishments which the vulgar expect in those raised to eminent stations. Nor did his political views and maxims seem less strange and astonishing to the pontifical ministers. He acknowledged and bewailed the corruptions which abounded in the church, as well as in the court of Rome, and prepared to reform both; he discovered no intention of aggrandizing his family; he even scrupled at retaining such territories as some of his predecessors had acquired by violence or fraud, rather than by any legal title, and for that reason he invested Francesco Maria de Rovere anew in the dutchy of Urbino, of which Leo had stripped him, and surrendered to the duke of Ferrara several places wrested from him by the church. To men little habituated to see princes regulate their conduct by the maxims of morality and the principles of justice, these actions of the new pope appeared incontestable proofs of his weakness or inexperience. He was a stranger to the intricate system of politics pursued by the Italian states; and their subtile refinements in business did not ac cord with the natural simplicity and candour of his character. He began his government with endeavouring to reconcile the contending christian princes, and to unite them in a league against Solyman. But this was an undertaking beyond his abilities.

In a short time Adrian died, an event so much to the satisfaction of the Roman people, whose hatred or contempt of him augmented every day, that the night after his decease, they adorned the door of his chief physician's house with garlands, adding this inscription, "To the deliverer of his country." Such were the corrupt manners of the Romans at that period.

WILLIAM DE CROY,

LORD OF CHIEVRES.

MAXIMILIAN the emperor, made choice of this man to superintend the education of the young prince Charles, his grandson. This nobleman possessed, in an eminent degree, the talents which fitted him for such an important office, and discharged the duties of it with great fidelity. He was however rather solicitous to gain an ascendancy over the mind of his royal pupil, which it would have been honourable to his memory that he had employed to more honourable purposes. He became the prime minister and favourite of the young king, and all his great qualities were sullied with an ignoble and sordid avarice.

The ac

cession of his master to the crown of Spain, opened a new and copious source for the gratification of this passion. During the time of Charles's residence in Flanders, the whole tribe of pretenders to offices or to favour resorted thither. They soon discovered, that without the patronage of Chievres, it was vain to hope for preferment; nor did they want sagacity to find out the proper method of securing his protection. Great sums of money were drawn out of Spain; every thing was venal, and disposed of to the highest bidder. Af

ter the example of Chievres, the inferior Flemish ministers engaged in this traffic, which became as general and avowed as it was infamous. The Spaniards were filled with rage, when they beheld offices of great importance to the welfare of their country set to sale by strangers, unconcerned for its honour or its happiness. The Flemish courtiers did all they could to retard the return of Charles into Spain; and when he could no longer be detained, a great number of them, of whom Chievres was the chief, attended him. Upon their arrival there, they successfully exerted all their influence to prevent an interview with Charles and Ximenes, whose death soon left them at full liberty to pursue their avaricious plans. To amass wealth was their only aim; all honours, offices, or benefices, were either engrossed by them, or publicly exposed to sale. Chievres, his wife, and Sauvage, whom Charles had imprudently raised to be chancellor of Castile, vied with each other in all the refinements of extortion and venality. The nomination of William de Croy, Chievres's nephew, a young man, not of canonical age, to the archbishopric of Toledo, exasperated the Spaniards more than all these exactions. They considered the elevation of a stranger to the head of their church, and to the richest benefice in the kingdom, not only as an injury, but as an insult to the whole nation.

The result of time, however, and circumstances, operated to open the eyes of Charles, and Chievres lost his confidence. This was first fully evident in his concluding a peace with the pope, and forming a league without his knowledge or concurrence. This appeared to Chievres so decisive a proof of his having lost the ascendant which he had hitherto maintained over his mind, that his chagrin on this account, added to the melancholy with

which he was overwhelmed on taking a view of the many and unavoidable calamities attending a war against France, is said to have shortened his days, and he died under these unpleasant circumstances. This event delivered Charles from a minister, to whose authority he had been accustomed from his infancy, to submit with such implicit deference, as checked and depressed his genius, and retained him in a state of pupilage, unbecoming his years as well as his rank. But this restraint being removed, the native powers of his mind were permitted to unfold themselves, and he began to display such great talents, both in council and in action, as exceeded the hopes of his contemporaries, and command the admiration of posterity.

HENRY VIII.

He ascended the throne of England in the year one thousand five hundred and nine, with such circumstances of advantage as promised a reign of distinguished felicity and splendour. The union in his person of the two contending parties of York and Lancaster, the dissension and emulation with which both parties obeyed his commands, not only enabled him to exert a degree of vigour and authority in his domestic government, which none of his predecessors could have safely assumed; but permitted him to take a share in the affairs of the continent, from which the attention of the English had long been diverted by their unhappy intestine divisions. The immense treasures which his father had amassed, rendered him the most wealthy prince in Europe. The peace which had subsisted under the cautious administration of that monarch, had been of sufficient length to recruit the population of the kingdom after the desolation of the civil