during which three
discourses were pronounced over it by the best preachers in the convent.
It was then consigned to the earth, with due solemnity, amidst the
prayers and tears of the brethren and of Charles's domestics, in
presence of a numerous concourse of persons from the surrounding
country.

The burial did not take place, however, without some difficulty. Charles
had requested by his will that he might be laid partially under the
great altar, in such a manner that his head and the upper part of his
body might come under the spot where the priest stood when he performed
the service. This was dictated in all humility by the emperor; but it
raised a question among the scrupulous ecclesiastics as to the propriety
of permitting any bones save those of a saint to occupy so holy a place
as that beneath the altar. The dispute waxed somewhat warmer than was
suited to the occasion; till the momentous affair was finally adjusted
by having an excavation made in the wall, within which the head was
introduced, so as to allow the feet to touch the verge of the hallowed
ground.[344] The emperor's body did not long abide in its resting-place
at Yuste. Before many years had elapsed, it was transported, by command
of Philip the Second, to the Escorial, and in that magnificent mausoleum
it has continued to repose, beside that of the Empress Isabella.

The funeral obsequies of Charles were celebrated with much pomp by the
court of Rome, by the Regent Joanna at Valladolid, and, with yet greater
magnificence, by Philip the Second at Brussels. Philip was at Arras when
he learned the news of his father's death. He instantly repaired to a
monastery in the neighborhood of Brussels, where he remained secluded
for several weeks. Meanwhile he ordered the bells in all the churches
and convents throughout the Netherlands to be tolled thrice a day for
four mouths, and during that time that no festivals or public rejoicings
of any kind should take place. On the twenty-eighth of December the king
entered Brussels by night, and on the following day, before the hour of
vespers, a procession was formed to the church of St. Gudule, which
still challenges the admiration of the traveller as one of the noblest
monuments of mediaeval architecture in the Netherlands.

[Sidenote: HIS DEATH AND CHARACTER.]

The procession consisted of the principal clergy, the members of the
different religious houses, bearing lighted tapers in their hands, the
nobles and