Transylvania. But war was carried on in the Low
Countries with considerable vigor.

Charles, whose only passion was the aggrandizement of his house, now
projected a marriage of his son, Philip, with Mary, queen of England.
The queen, dazzled by the prospect of marrying the heir of the
greatest monarch in Europe, and eager to secure his powerful aid to
reestablish Catholicism in England, listened to his proposal, although
it was disliked by the nation. In spite of the remonstrance of the
house of commons, the marriage treaty was concluded, and the marriage
celebrated, (1554.)

[Sidenote: Character of Charles V.]

Soon after, Charles formed the extraordinary resolution of resigning
his dominions to his son, and of retiring to a quiet retreat.
Diocletian is the only instance of a prince, capable of holding the
reins of government, who had adopted a similar course. All Europe was
astonished at the resolution of Charles, and all historians of the
period have moralized on the event. But it ceases to be mysterious,
when we remember that Charles was no nearer the accomplishment of the
ends which animated his existence, than he was thirty years before;
that he was disgusted and wearied with the world; that he suffered
severely from the gout, which, at times, incapacitated him for the
government of his extensive dominions. It was never his habit to
intrust others with duties and labors which he could perform himself,
and he felt that his empire needed a more powerful protector than his
infirmities permitted him to be. He was grown prematurely old, he felt
his declining health; longed for repose, and sought religious
consolation. Of all his vast possessions, he only reserved an annual
pension of one hundred thousand crowns; resigning Spain and the Low
Countries into the hands of Philip, and the empire of Germany to his
brother Ferdinand, who had already been elected as King of the Romans.
He then set out for his retreat in Spain, which was the monastery of
St. Justus, near Placentia, situated in a lovely vale, surrounded with
lofty trees, watered by a small brook, and rendered attractive by the
fertility of the soil, and the delightful temperature of the climate.
Here he spent his last days in agricultural improvements and religious
exercises, apparently regardless of that noisy world which he had
deserted forever, and indifferent to those political storms which his
restless ambition had raised. Here his grandeur and his world