§ 52. HIS INTOLERANCE. 288
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.1
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.
Mis 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,? who had accompanied
1 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 Siguenca, prior of the Escorial, in his genera] 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. I., 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.’’
2 Commonly called Dr. Cazalla. See on him Dr. Stoughton, The Spanish Reformers, p. 204 sq.
2984 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1580.
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 8d 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.” 1
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 Protestantism in Spain, and turned that beautiful country into a graveyard adorned by somber cathedrals, and disfigured by bull-rings.
Mis Death.
The Empercr’s health failed rapidly in consequence of a new attack of gout, and the excessive heat of the summer, which cost the life of several of his Flemish companions. He died Sept. 21, 1558, a consistent Catholic as he had lived. -A few of his spiritual and secular friends surrounded his death-bed. He confessed with deep contrition his sins; prayed repeatedly for the unity of the Church; received, kneeling in his bed, the holy communion and the extreme unction ; and placed his hope on the crucified Redeemer. The Archbishop of Toledo, Bartolomé de Carranza, read the one hundred and thirtieth Psalm, and, holding up a crucifix, said: ‘* Behold Him who answers for all. There is no more sin; all is forgiven;” while another of his preachers
1 Gachard, II. 461. Ranke, V. 308. Prescott, I. 325 sq.