The Story of Don John of Austria by Luis Coloma (e books for reading txt) 📖

at those hours, used to visit alone the houses of ill-fame in Madrid, an arquebus in his hand, and disguised by a false beard.

D. John agreed with the good grace he always showed in pleasing his sister, and arranged the "camisada" with the two Archdukes Rudolph and Ernest, the Prince of Parma, and all the young lords of the Court; but no one succeeded in recruiting Prince Carlos, who, as usual, had slipped away to his strange and dangerous adventures, which at that time were the scandal of the Court.

It was already past midnight when the "encamisada" collected together in the little square of Santiago, in front of D. John's house. This singular amusement consisted of a large cavalcade, in which all the riders wore white shirts over their ordinary clothes, and had their heads disguised by picturesque turbans, plumed helmets, or queer caps with ribbons and feathers. Each carried a lighted torch in his left hand, and kept the right arm out of the shirt to display his lady's colours.

In this way they went through the streets of the town until the house of the person to be honoured was reached; then under the windows they executed one of those equestrian dances, in which the riders of that day were such adepts. At their passing the neighbours awoke, lighted up their windows, and applauded the "encamisados," until in a few moments the whole place became a scene of rejoicing and festivity.

"Camisadas" were always improvised when the scarcity of time prevented the preparation of liveries and disguises which the more solemn cavalcades demanded; these were also much the fashion, and were called masquerades, although no one had his face covered.

This "Camisada" went to the royal castle from the square of Santiago, where D. John lived; he took care that it should pass before the house of the Princess de Évoli, where, as he had heard, Doña Maria de Mendoza was staying.

But his alarm and astonishment grew at seeing the house all dark and shut up, and that neither music, nor torches, nor the sound of horses, nor even the cheers that they gave on passing the house of the Princess attracted anyone to those shut balconies and windows; this was in itself strange, as it was then thought an act of great discourtesy not to display illuminations and signs of rejoicing at the passing of the "encamisadas," except in the case of grave illness or recent mourning.

However, a man, covered by a hood, came from a little door in front of St. Mary's Church as D. John was passing, and put his hand on his saddle-bow and quickly gave him a short message. The agitation of D. John knew no bounds, and his only idea was how to shorten the festivity, and, some way or other, to end the quadrilles that had to be danced by torchlight in the square of the Armoury. At last he escaped, and, just as he was, covered by the shirt, hastened alone to the house of the Princess de Évoli.

The man in the hood was still waiting for him at the little gate by St. Mary's, in front of the house which afterwards acquired so much historical celebrity,[7] and, without waiting, the man opened the door, the key of which he had.

Now the mystery begins to be cleared.

D. John did not return to his own house till just before dawn, and, according to the testimony of his valet Jorge de Lima, who was on duty that night, neither rested a moment nor went to bed; on the contrary, he paced up and down his room in a state of great agitation until it was daylight and Doña Magdalena should be dressed, as was her custom, at sunrise. Then D. John went to her rooms, where he passed the whole day, receiving no one, and eating no food except two porringers of broth with eggs beaten up in it which Doña Magdalena served him alone.

At dusk this lady went out in her litter to the house of the Princess de Évoli, her old squire Juan Galarza riding on a mule. In two hours she returned, but not alone, as she went, for she carried, carefully hidden in her shawl, a little girl, born unexpectedly and prematurely two days before, and already baptized by the name of Ana.

A few days later Doña Magdalena asked the King's permission to go and visit her estates, Luis Quijada not being able to do so on account of his duties with D. John and Prince Carlos. The King readily granted this, and Doña Magdalena left for Villagarcia, taking the baby with the greatest secrecy. D. John accompanied her on the first stage, and left her at the post-house; he asked her benediction as a mother, and she made him repeat two things he had promised, and which he religiously performed. Not to see Doña Maria de Mendoza again, and retire, as soon as he could without drawing attention, to the monastery of Abrojo, to meditate for a few days on the eternal truths away from the atmosphere of the Court.

As to Doña Maria de Mendoza, she vanished into the mist, crying like Andromache, and never saw D. John of Austria again. She stayed for a long time at the Princess de Évoli's house at Pastrana, and, on the score of delicate health, retired little by little from the Court. Without attracting anyone's attention, she succeeded in so effacing her memory, that to-day no one knows to which branch of the house of Mendoza she belonged, or where she lived after the sad episode which ruined her life. It is probable that she went to some convent to weep over that which was certainly her first false step, and very likely her only sin.[8]

CHAPTER VIII

During all this time Prince Carlos's strangeness had been increasing little by little, until it had become madness, his overbearing nature cruelty, and the aversion he showed to his father deep hatred.

It was in vain that, when the Prince was nineteen, D. Philip admitted him to the Council of State (1564), and gave him a new household, leaving Luis Quijada as Master of the Horse, but naming no less a person than Ruy Gómez de Silva, Prince of Évoli, as Lord Steward, in the place of D. Garcia de Toledo, lately dead.

All D. Carlos's household were the victims of his violence and abuse, from Ruy Gómez, whom he continually threatened that, when he was King, Ruy Gómez should know it, to the lowest barber, whom he beat with his own hand for the least delay or mistake.

One day the King was consulting with his ministers about Flemish affairs; the Prince, who was very curious about the subject, went to listen at the door, with one ear at the keyhole, the Queen's ladies and pages seeing him in this ignoble position from the gallery above. His gentleman D. Diego de Acuña hearing of it, wanted to get him away, but D. Carlos answered him by a slap in the face, which so enraged D. Diego that it was with difficulty that he restrained the impulse of plunging a dagger into the Prince's heart, and he went straight to the King and resigned his appointment. D. Philip soothed his wounded feelings by taking him into his own service, with doubled honours and salary.

D. Carlos insulted another of his gentlemen, D. Alonso de Córdoba, son of the Marqués de las Navas, in the same way, slapping his face because he did not hasten when D. Carlos called, saying that he had intended to do it for six months, and it was fair that he should at last give vent to his desire.

One day he waylaid Cardinal Espinosa, President of Castille (who had exiled an actor named Cisnero, who was on intimate terms with D. Carlos, from the Court), at the door of the Council Chamber, and rushed at him, dagger in hand, and, pulling off his rochet, cried, "Little priest! You dare to stop Cisnero coming to wait upon me? By the life of my father, I must kill you." And so he would have done, had not some of the Grandees, who hastened at the cries, released the Cardinal from him.

This insolence to great personages became monstrous cruelty to the lower orders. In the Palace accounts, preserved in the Archives of Simancas, one meets with entries of indemnification paid to the fathers of boys caused to be beaten by D. Carlos. One day he wanted to throw his valet, Juan Estévez de Lobon, out of a window into the castle moat, after having beaten him, and he obliged a shoemaker, who had made him boots that were too tight, to eat them cooked and cut up in small pieces. Water fell on him one day from a window, and he at once sent a guard to burn the house and kill the inhabitants, and, "to satisfy him," says Cabrera de Córdoba, "the guard returned and said that the Holy Sacrament of the Viaticum was entering the house, and for this they had respected the walls."

On one occasion he shut himself up for five hours in the stables, and on leaving left twenty horses rendered useless through his ill-treatment, including a favourite one of the King's, which died two days afterwards.

He added to these cruel extravagances, the work of an unhinged mind, unkind, barefaced exhibitions of aversion towards his father, of which good proof was found in his papers afterwards.

Among these there was a blank book, with the title, written by the Prince's own hand, "The Great Travels of the King Philip II," and then on each of its pages these sneers: "The journey from Madrid to the Pardo," "From the Pardo to the Escorial," "From the Escorial to Aranjuez," "From Aranjuez to Toledo," "From Toledo to Valladolid," "From Valladolid to Burgos," "From Burgos to Madrid," and "From the Pardo to Aranjuez," "From Aranjuez to the Escorial," "From the Escorial to Madrid," etc.

In another paper, written also by him, was "The list of my enemies," and the first name that figured on it was "The King, my father." Then followed Ruy Gómez de Silva, the Princess de Évoli, Cardinal Espinosa, the Duque de Alba, and various other lords. On the other side of the paper he had written "List of my friends," "Queen Isabel, who has always been very good to me." And then "D. John of Austria, my much-loved uncle," then Luis Quijada, D. Pedro Fajardo, and very few more.

Indeed, Queen Isabel and D. John were the only two people the unlucky Prince spared in his hatred and general rudeness; and this has furnished poets, novelists and pseudo-learned persons with the supposition that between this unfortunate Prince, who never became a man, and the virtuous D. Isabel of the Peace, model of queens and wives, there existed a romantic and incestuous passion, which has served as a base for their midnight studies, calumnies to-day for those who even partially know history. Everyone in Madrid knew of and regretted D. Carlos's mad conduct, and foreign Courts also knew of it, as in their dispatches Ambassadors hastened to send the information, which has enabled posterity to know and judge all these circumstances.

But, although D. Carlos's physical and moral defects were so well known, there was not a Princess in Europe then who would not have been very pleased to give her hand to the heir of the most powerful monarch in the world.

So the various Courts began to present their candidates, first Queen Catherine de Medicis, who proposed for the Prince of the Asturias her younger daughter Margaret de Valois, the celebrated Margot, afterwards Queen of Navarre. At that time the King of France, Francis II, died, and the Guises, always friendly to Philip II, proposed their niece, the recently widowed Mary Stuart, who was also Queen of Scotland in her own right.

The Court of Lisbon, on their part, proposed Princess Juana, and in this sense the great widowed Queen of Portugal, Doña Catalina, wrote to D. Philip, with whom her opinion had much weight, as being grandmother of Prince Carlos and the only remaining sister of the Emperor, and a lady of such great virtues and talents. This alliance was also desired by the nation, as, although the difference in age between the nephew and the aunt was considerable, even this added to the great qualities of the Princess, who had done so well during her regency, and was considered to be a guarantee that her merit would supply the great deficiencies that they noted and feared in D. Carlos.

Last of all, but with great probabilities of success, the Emperor Maximilian of Austria suggested his granddaughter the Archduchess Doña Ana.

Philip II received all these proposals with his usual reserve, neither accepting nor refusing, and, slowly studying them, gave or took away hopes as it suited his policy, but, as was usual in such cases,