owns of Castile and Aragon,
and, as was clearly wise, were urged by Queen Isabella to come to
Spain, and be acknowledged as expectant sovereigns by the Cortes of
both kingdoms. This was done. Here Duke Philip grew restless, eager
for the Netherlands, and, despite the entreaties of Ferdinand,
Isabella, and his wife, set out for the Low Countries three days before
Christmas, leaving his wife alone to give birth to a son, than which a
more heartless deed has not been credited even to the account of a
king. But without him, Joanna sunk into a hopeless and irremediable
melancholy; and was sullenly restless without him till his return to
Brussels in the succeeding year. Philip's coldness inflamed her ardor.
Three months after Joanna and Philip had been enthroned sovereigns of
Castile, Philip sickened and died with his brief months of kingship.
His death totally disordered an understanding already pitifully weak.
Her grief was tearless and pitiful. To quote the words of Prescott:
"Her grief was silent and settled. She continued to watch the dead
body with the same tenderness and attention as if it had been alive,
and though at last she permitted it to be buried, she soon removed it
from the tomb to her own apartment;" and she made it "her sole
employment to bewail the loss and pray for the soul of her husband."
Of such a weak though loyal and sorrowing mother was Charles V born at
Ghent, February 24, 1500, who, at the age of sixteen, was left by the
will of his godfather, Ferdinand, sole heir of his dominions; and at
the age of nineteen he was chosen Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
Fortune conspired to do him homage. Charles was little inclined to the
study of the humanities, but fond of martial exercise, and, though
neglecting general learning, studied, with avidity and success, history
and the theory and practice of government, and accustomed himself to
practical management of affairs in the government of the Netherlands,
as early as 1515 attending the deliberations of the Privy Council. He
was, as a youth, a prince of whom a realm would naturally feel proud,
though he scarcely displayed those qualities which were afterward his
chief characteristics. In 1516, King Ferdinand, dying, left Cardinal
Ximenes regent of Castile, thus bringing Charles into contact with one
of the foremost statesmen of Spanish history. Ximenes was rigorously
ascetic in his life, and absolutely irreproachable in his morals, in an
age when t