e absolute, than any
monarch since the days of Charlemagne. It may be thought strange that I
should have omitted to notice one feature in his character, the most
prominent in the line from which he was descended, at least on the
mother's side,--his bigotry. But in Charles this was less conspicuous
than in many others of his house; and while he sat upon the throne, the
extent to which his religious principles were held in subordination by
his political, suggests a much closer parallel to the policy of his
grandfather, Ferdinand the Catholic, than to that of his son, Philip the
Second, or of his imbecile grandson, Philip the Third.

But the religious gloom which hung over Charles's mind took the deeper
tinge of fanaticism after he had withdrawn to the monastery of Yuste.
With his dying words, as we have seen, he bequeathed the Inquisition as
a precious legacy to his son. In like manner, he endeavored to cherish
in the Regent Joanna's bosom the spirit of persecution.[365] And if it
were true, as his biographer assures us, that Charles expressed a regret
that he had respected the safe-conduct of Luther,[366] the world had
little reason to mourn that he exchanged the sword and the sceptre for
the breviary of the friar,--the throne of the Caesars for his monastic
retreat among the wilds of Estremadura.

* * * * *

The preceding chapter was written in the summer of 1851, a year before
the appearance of Stirling's "Cloister Life of Charles the Fifth," which
led the way in that brilliant series of works from the pens of Amedee
Pichot, Mignet, and Gachard, which has made the darkest recesses of
Yuste as light as day. The publication of these works has deprived my
account of whatever novelty it might have possessed, since it rests on a
similar basis with theirs, namely, original documents in the Archives of
Simancas. Yet the important influence which Charles exerted over the
management of affairs, even in his monastic retreat, has made it
impossible to dispense with the chapter. On the contrary, I have
profited by these recent publications to make sundry additions, which
may readily be discovered by the reader, from the references I have been
careful to make to the sources whence they are derived.

The public has been hitherto indebted for its knowledge of the reign of
Charles the Fifth to Robertson,--a writer who, combining a truly
philosophical spirit with an acute perception of character, is
r