ed elections generally was to promote a man antagonistic to
his predecessor. The clash of parties and the numerical majority of
independent Cardinals excluded the creatures of the last reign, and
selected for advancement one who owed his position to the favor of an
antecedent Pontiff. This result was further secured by the natural
desire of all concerned in the election to nominate an old man, since it
was for the general advantage that a pontificate should, if possible,
not exceed five years.

[Footnote 51: This does not mean that the Spanish crown had not a
powerful voice in the elections. See the history of the conclaves which
elected Urban VII., Gregory XIV., Innocent IX., Clement VIII., in Ranke,
vol. ii. pp. 31-39. Yet it was noticed by those close observers, the
Venetian envoys, that France and Spain had abandoned their former policy
of subsidizing the Cardinals who adhered to their respective factions.]

The personal qualities of Carlo Borromeo were of grave importance in
the election of a successor to his uncle. He had ruled the Church during
the last years of Pius IV.; and the newly-appointed Cardinals were his
dependents. Had he attempted to exert his power for his own election, he
might have met with opposition. He chose to use it for what he
considered the deepest Catholic interests. This unselfishness led to the
selection of a man, Michele Ghislieri, whose antecedents rendered him
formidable to the still corrupt members of the Roman hierarchy, but
whose character was precisely of the stamp required for giving solidity
to the new phase on which the Church had entered. As Pius IV. had been
the exact opposite to Paul IV., so Pius V. was a complete contrast to
Pius IV. He had passed the best years of his life as chief of the
Inquisition. Devoted to theology and to religious exercises, he lacked
the legal and mundane faculties of his predecessor. But these were no
longer necessary. They had done their duty in bringing the Council to a
favorable close, and in establishing the Catholic concordat. What was
now required was a Pope who should, by personal example and rigid
discipline, impress Rome with the principles of orthodoxy and reform.
Carlo Borromeo, self-conscious, perhaps, of the political incapacity
which others noticed in him, and fervently zealous for the Catholic
Revival, devolved this duty on Michele Ghislieri, who completed the work
of his two predecessors.

Paul IV. had laid a basis for the modern