custom, frequently made offers of
their services to the heir apparent, and of causing them to take a solemn
oath to keep their engagements. No other indications of warlike talent,
however, have been preserved concerning him. "He was crafty, ambitious,
cruel, violent," says the envoy Suriano, "a hater of buffoons, a lover of
soldiers." His natural cruelty seems to have been remarkable from his
boyhood. After his return from the chase, he was in the habit of cutting
the throats of hares and other animals, and of amusing himself with their
dying convulsions. He also frequently took pleasure in roasting them
alive. He once received a present of a very large snake from some person
who seemed to understand how to please this remarkable young prince.
After a time, however, the favorite reptile allowed itself to bite its
master's finger, whereupon Don Carlos immediately retaliated by biting
off its head.

He was excessively angry at the suggestion that the prince who was
expected to spring from his father's marriage with the English queen,
would one day reign over the Netherlands, and swore he would challenge
him to mortal combat in order to prevent such an infringement of his
rights. His father and grandfather were both highly diverted with this
manifestation of spirit, but it was not decreed that the world should
witness the execution of these fraternal intentions against the babe
which was never to be born.

Ferocity, in short, seems to have been the leading characteristic of the
unhappy Carlos. His preceptor, a man of learning and merit, who was
called "the honorable John", tried to mitigate this excessive ardor of
temperament by a course of Cicero de Officiis, which he read to him
daily. Neither the eloquence of Tully, however, nor the precepts of the
honorable John made the least impression upon this very savage nature. As
he grew older he did not grow wiser nor more gentle. He was prematurely
and grossly licentious. All the money which as a boy, he was allowed, he
spent upon women of low character, and when he was penniless, he gave
them his chains, his medals, even the clothes from his back. He took
pleasure in affronting respectable females when he met them in the
streets, insulting them by the coarsest language and gestures. Being
cruel, cunning, fierce and licentious, he seemed to combine many of the
worst qualities of a lunatic. That he probably was one is the best
defence which can be offered for his conduct. In a