ter's death was presented to
their minds, or they were touched, it may be, with compassion for this
pitiable display of his weakness. Charles, muffled in a dark mantle, and
bearing a lighted candle in his hand, mingled with his household, the
spectator of his own obsequies; and the doleful ceremony was concluded
by his placing the taper in the hands of the priest, in sign of his
surrendering up his soul to the Almighty.

Such is the account of this melancholy farce given us by the Jeronymite
chroniclers of the cloister life of Charles the Fifth, and which has
since been repeated--losing nothing in the repetition--by every
succeeding historian, to the present time.[327] Nor does there seem to
have been any distrust of its correctness till the historical scepticism
of our own day had subjected the narrative to a more critical scrutiny.
It was then discovered that no mention of the affair was to be discerned
in the letters of any one of the emperor's household residing at Yuste,
although there are letters extant written by Charles's physician, his
major-domo, and his secretary, both on the thirty-first of August, the
day of the funeral, and on the first of September. With so extraordinary
an event fresh in their minds, their silence is inexplicable.

One fact is certain, that, if the funeral did take place, it could not
have been on the date assigned to it; for on the thirty-first the
emperor was laboring under an attack of fever, of which his physician
has given full particulars, and from which he was destined never to
recover. That the writers, therefore, should have been silent in respect
to a ceremony which must have had so bad an effect on the nerves of the
patient, is altogether incredible.

Yet the story of the obsequies comes from one of the Jeronymite brethren
then living at Yuste, who speaks of the emotions which he felt, in
common with the rest of the convent, at seeing a man thus bury himself
alive, as it were, and perform his funeral rites before his death.[328]
It is repeated by another of the fraternity, the prior of Escorial, who
had ample means of conversing with eye-witnesses.[329] And finally, it
is confirmed by more than one writer near enough to the period to be
able to assure himself of the truth.[330] Indeed, the parties from whom
the account is originally derived were so situated that, if the story be
without foundation, it is impossible to explain its existence by
misapprehension on their part. I