me visits this venerable pile, where Charles
the Fifth was wont to hold the chapters of the Golden Fleece, while he
gazes on the characteristic effigy of that monarch, as it is displayed
on the superb windows of painted glass, may call to mind the memorable
day when the people of Flanders, and the rank and beauty of its capital,
were gathered together to celebrate the obsequies of the great emperor;
when, amidst clouds of incense and the blaze of myriads of lights, the
deep tones of the organ, vibrating through the long aisles, mingled with
the voices of the priests, as they chanted their sad requiem to the soul
of their departed sovereign.[346]

I have gone somewhat into detail in regard to the latter days of Charles
the Fifth, who exercised, in his retirement, too important an influence
on public affairs for such an account of him to be deemed an impertinent
episode to the history of Philip the Second. Before parting from him for
ever, I will take a brief view of some peculiarities in his personal,
rather than his political character, which has long since been indelibly
traced by a hand abler than mine.

Charles, at the time of his death, was in the fifty-eighth year of his
age. He was older in constitution than in years. So much shaken had he
been, indeed, in mind as well as body, that he may be said to have died
of premature old age. Yet his physical development had been very slow.
He was nearly twenty-one years old before any beard was to be seen on
his chin.[347] Yet by the time he was thirty-six, gray hairs began to
make their appearance on his temples. At forty the gout had made severe
inroads on a constitution originally strong; and before he was fifty,
the man who could keep the saddle day and night in his campaigns, who
seemed to be insensible to fatigue as he followed the chase among the
wild passes of the Alpuxarras, was obliged to be carried in a litter,
like a poor cripple, at the head of his armies.[348]

His mental development was equally tardy with his bodily. So long as
Chievres lived,--the Flemish noble who had the care of his early
life,--Charles seemed to have no will of his own. During his first visit
to Spain, where he came when seventeen years old, he gave so little
promise, that those who approached him nearest could discern no signs of
his future greatness. Yet the young prince seems to have been conscious
that he had the elements of greatness within him, and he patiently bided
his time. "_N