kingdom.” And so, one by one, the bishops and ministers who were to be Philip’s advisers are dissected for his benefit. The prince was ready enough to learn lessons of distrust, and it afterwards became one of the main principles of his system that only creatures of his own making should be his instruments for the political government of Spain.

Quite as extraordinary as the political instructions were the minute rules of conduct given by the emperor to his son for the regulation of his married life and the continuance of his studies. He is not to consider that he is a man with nothing to learn because he married early, and is left in so great a position, but is to study harder than ever. “If this, my son, be necessary for others, consider how much more necessary is it for you, seeing how many lands you will have to govern, so distant and far apart.... If you wish to enjoy them you must necessarily understand and be understood in them; and nothing is so important for this as the study of languages.” The coming marital relations of the young prince were in somewhat curious terms, left entirely to the guidance of Don Juan de Zuñiga, and the lessons enforced all through the proud and anxious father’s instructions, were piety, patience, modesty, and distrust. These were Philip’s guiding principles for the rest of his long life. The prince fully answered the expectations of his father. During the next few years, full of stress and storm for the wearying emperor, a close correspondence was kept up between them, and the plans and principles of the father were gradually assimilated by the son.

In November 1543 the Portuguese princess crossed the frontier to marry Philip. She was of the same height and age as her bridegroom, a plump bright little creature; but he was already grave and reserved, short and dapper, but erect and well made, of graceful and pleasant mien. But for all his gravity he was still a boy, and could not resist the temptation of going out in disguise to meet her, and mixing in her train. His coming was probably an open secret, for the princess on the day of his arrival took care to look especially charming in her dress of crimson velvet, and with white feathers in her jaunty satin hat. The meeting took place in a beautiful country house of the Duke of Alba near Salamanca, and on November 15 the wedding procession entered the city itself. All that pomp and popular enthusiasm could do was done to make the marriage feast a merry one. Bulls and cane tourneys, dancing and buffooning, fine garments and fair faces, seemed to presage a happy future for the wedded pair. The bride was Philip’s own choice, for his father had at one time suggested to him Margaret, the daughter of his old enemy Francis, but the prince begged to be allowed to marry one of his own kin and tongue, rather than the daughter of a foe, and the emperor let him have his way.

Little is known of the short married life of the young couple. It only lasted seventeen months, and then, after the birth of the unfortunate Don Carlos, the poor little princess herself died, it was said at the time from imprudently eating a lemon soon after her delivery. The birth of the heir had been hailed with rejoicing by the Spanish people, and the news of the death of the mother caused redoubled sorrow. Philip was already extremely popular with his people. His gravity was truly Spanish; his preference for the Spanish tongue, and his reluctance to marry the French princess, as well as his piety and moderation, had even now gained for him the affection of Spaniards, which for the rest of his life he never lost. His early bereavement was therefore looked upon as a national affliction. For three weeks after the death of his wife the young widower shut himself up in a monastery and gave way to his grief, until his public duties forced him into the world again. The Prince of Orange in his Apology, published in 1581, said that even before Philip had married Maria he had conferred the title of wife upon Doña Isabel de Osorio, the sister of the Marquis of Astorga. This has been frequently repeated, and much ungenerous comment founded upon it, strengthened, it is true, to some extent by the fact that subsequently for some years marital relations certainly existed between them. It is, however, in the highest degree improbable that Orange’s assertion was true. In the first place no Spanish churchman would have dared to marry the prince-regent before he was out of his boyhood without the knowledge of the emperor, and the matter is now almost placed beyond doubt by the already-mentioned document, which proves that Philip had pledged his word of honour to his father that he had hitherto kept free of all such entanglements, and would do so in future. Whatever may have been Philip’s faults, he was a good and dutiful son, with a high sense of honour, and it is incredible that he would thus early have been guilty of deceit upon such a subject as this.

Founded upon the statements of so bitter an enemy of Philip’s as Orange, and upon the remarks of the Venetian ambassadors that he was incontinent “nelli piacere delle donne”; that, above all things, he delighted, “nelle donne; delle quali mirabilmente si diletta”; and that “molto ama le donne con le quali spesso si trattiene”—it has been usual to represent Philip as quite a libertine in this respect, and the lies and innuendoes of Antonio Perez have strengthened this view. That Philip was perfectly blameless in his domestic relations it would be folly to assert, but he was an angel in comparison with most of the contemporary monarchs, including his father; and probably few husbands of four successive wives have been more beloved by them than he was, in spite of his cold reserved demeanour. Behind the icy mask indeed there must have been much that was gentle and loving, for those who were nearest to him loved him best; his wives, children, old friends, and servants were devotedly attached to him, even when they disagreed with his actions; and in the rare intervals of his almost incessant toil at the desk no society delighted him so much as that of his children. Charles had on April 24, 1547, won the battle of Mühlberg, and had for the time utterly crushed the leaders of the Reformation in Germany. The Diet of Augsburg was summoned, and the Declaration of Faith, which it was hoped would reconcile all difficulties, was drawn up. This perhaps was the highest point reached in Charles’s power. Now, if ever, was the time for carrying into effect his dream for assuring to his son the succession to almost universal domination. It had been the intention of Ferdinand the Catholic that Charles, his elder grandson, should succeed to the paternal dominions, the empire and Flanders, whilst Ferdinand the younger should inherit Spain and Naples. Charles, however, arranged otherwise, and made his brother King of the Romans, with the implied succession to the imperial crown on his elder brother’s death. But as Philip’s aptitude for government became more and more apparent to his father, the ambition of the latter to augment the heritage of his son increased. Ferdinand and his son Maximilian clung naturally to the arrangement by which the imperial crown should be secured to them and their descendants, but the emperor determined that as little power and territory as possible should go with it. Upon Philip accordingly the vacant dukedom of Milan was conferred in 1546 by special agreement with Ferdinand, who doubtless thought that it would not be bad for him to have his powerful nephew as prince of a fief of the empire, and so, to a certain extent, subordinate to him. But this was no part of Charles’s plan. Sicily had long been attached to the crown of Aragon, Naples had been added thereto by Ferdinand the Catholic, and now Milan was to be held by the