Carlos and Isabella.[1401]

[Sidenote: HIS EDUCATION AND CHARACTER.]

The time for discussing so dark and intricate a subject had not arrived
while the Spanish archives were jealously locked up even from native
scholars. But now that happily a more liberal system has prevailed, and
access has been given to the dread repositories of the secrets of the
Spanish sovereigns, the time seems to have come for investigating this
mysterious story. And if I cannot boast that I have been able to dispel
the doubts that have so long gathered around the subject, I may at least
flatter myself that, with the materials at my command, I have the means
of placing the reader in a better point of view than has yet been
enjoyed, for surveying the whole ground, and forming his own
conclusions.

Don Carlos was born on the eighth of July, 1545. His mother, Mary of
Portugal, then only eighteen years of age, died a few days after giving
birth to her ill-fated child. Thus deprived from the cradle of a
mother's watchful care, he experienced almost as little of his father's;
for, until Carlos was fourteen years old, Philip was absent most of the
time, either in the Low Countries or in England. The care of the child
was intrusted, during the greater part of this period, to Philip's
sister, the Regent Joanna,--an excellent woman, but who, induced
probably by the feeble constitution of Carlos, is said to have shown too
much indulgence to the boy, being more solicitous to secure his bodily
health than to form his character. In our easy faith in the miracles
claimed for education, it sometimes happens that we charge on the
parent, or the preceptor, the defects that may be more reasonably
referred to the vicious constitution of the child.

As Carlos grew older, Philip committed the care of his instruction to
Honorato Juan, a member of the emperor's household. He was a
well-trained scholar, and a man of piety as well as learning; and soon
after assuming the task of the prince's preceptor, he embraced the
religious profession. The correspondence of Honorato Juan with Philip,
then in Flanders, affords a view of the proficiency of Carlos when
eleven or twelve years old. The contentment which the king evinces in
the earlier letters diminishes as we advance; and anxious doubts are
expressed, as he gathers the unwelcome information from his tutor of his
pupil's indifference to his studies.[1402]

In the year 1556, Charles the Fifth stopped some time at Vall