by Jean Plaidy
He knew they whispered about him. “The solemn Spaniard was never able to break a lance in even combat. Lances have to be made soft when set against him, that he may wear the victor’s crown.”
The Emperor was uneasy, but he was too wise to arrange more jousts and tourneys with more faked victories for Philip.
In spite of his exasperation, he was full of affection for his son. Philip’s grasp of statecraft was as sure as ever; he was never brilliant, but always intelligent. While he had a plan to follow he would plod steadily on, but if he had to make a decision, as surely every leader must, he would take so long to reach it that valuable opportunities were lost. No flashing genius this, but what admirable determination, what power of control, what steady, plodding virtue. When he contemplated Philip, Charles was reminded of François Premier merely by the wide gulf between the two. François had been witty and brilliant, but where had that led him? Once it had taken him to Pavia; and some said that his love of pleasure had driven him earlier to his grave than he might otherwise have gone. And Henri Deux, the son of François, who now ruled France, was another such as Philip—slow, steady, almost completely faithful to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. Henri was not unlike Philip, and he was proving that he could successfully rule a kingdom. It might be that there was no need to worry about Philip; but Philip must please these foreigners; Philip might rule Spain as well as Henri ruled France, but Philip had an additional task; he must ingratiate himself with strangers if he was to succeed to the position held by Charles.
Every day father and son spent hours together. Every lesson of government and statecraft which the Emperor had learned at great cost and bitter experience, he passed on to Philip, and Philip absorbed this instruction with that thoroughness which was a part of his nature.
There were family gatherings, with Mary of Hungary giving her views. Eleonore was trying hard to bring about a match between her daughter and Philip. There were festivities and entertainments, and always Charles was trying to show the Flemings that his son was becoming more and more like them. He selected the most comely women for his son’s approval, but while the Emperor was able to make his choice with the greatest ease, Philip hesitated.
There were titters in the court, and in the quietness of private apartments there was much bawdy chatter concerning the Prince of Spain.
This would not do, the Emperor decided. He knew that if he were to declare his son to be the future Emperor, the people of Brussels at least would rise against the judgment.
In desperation, Charles sent for a certain woman whom he knew well. She was by no means virtuous, but of what use to Philip at this stage was a virtuous woman! She was beautiful and there was about her a childishness combined with a motherliness which was very appealing. The Emperor looked at her with some regret as he gave her his instructions, for he would have liked her for himself.
To this lady he said: “The Prince is a strange man. Few understand him. He seems cold, and so he is; but there is passion somewhere within him. His religion has kindled it; so could a woman. He loved his wife but she died. Appeal to his chivalry. He has plenty to spare for ladies in distress, and I doubt not that before long you will be his mistress.”
She turned her beautiful face to the Emperor and smiled. “Your Imperial Highness need have no fears. I will do this.”
“Fears!” cried the Emperor. “I have no fears, dear lady. I have only regrets.”
And so Philip had a Flemish mistress.
Strangely enough, he was in love, but this love was quite different from the emotion he had felt for Maria Manoela; nor was it in the least like the steady affection he had shared with Isabel. This was an intoxication, an introduction to the delights of the flesh such as he had never known existed. His new mistress was expert in the ways of love, and under her tuition Philip was slowly changing. There was, he discovered, a voluptuous side to his nature. He saw no reason why he should not indulge it since his father approved. Charles had said: “My son, you are becoming a man of the world, and that is a good thing to be.”
But Philip was no lecherous philanderer; he was faithful to his mistress, and when she had his child he was as delighted as he had been at the birth of Isabel’s children.
Meanwhile eighteen months had passed, and the Emperor had shown no inclination to part with him. There were continual negotiations, not only with regard to Philip’s marriage, but also with the division of the family inheritance.
At length it was decided that Charles’s brother Ferdinand should succeed Charles as Emperor, but, on the death of Ferdinand, Philip should be given the Imperial crown. Maximilian, Ferdinand’s son, should act as Regent in Austria while Philip governed Spain, although Philip was to remain supreme over the Italian States.
“It is not what I would have wished for you,” said Charles when he and Philip were alone together, “but it is the best we can get; and now, my son, it might be well if you returned to Spain, for you must not overlong neglect your Spanish subjects. There is one matter which all wish to see settled. Have you decided who your wife shall be?”
Charles looked up with some amusement at his son’s face. Philip could never make up his mind quickly.
At length he spoke: “I think … Maria of Portugal.”
“Wisely chosen!” cried Charles. “There is a big dowry there. I should dispatch Ruy Gomez da Silva into Portugal to discuss matters. Let us hope her brother, King John, will be as liberal with his sister’s dowry as he was with that of his daughter, your little Maria Manoela, whose dowry stood us in such good stead. Then after the Augsburg Diet is concluded you can start your journey back to Spain. It will not do to let Master Max rule too long in your stead.”
“No, Father.”
“I shall be very sorry to see you go. And I know at least one other who will be heart-broken. It was a pleasant little friendship, was it not? She has changed you. I envy your youth. Don’t forget, my son, to take your pleasures. You have responsibilities and anxieties before you. Leaven them with pleasure, as I have always done.”
Charles sighed and looked sadly at his gouty feet. He spat out the leaf he had been holding in his mouth and took a fresh one.
He was thinking that he himself had been rejuvenated by this change in Philip.
And in that mood they went to Augsburg for the Diet.
The days passed quickly in Augsburg, for Charles as well as for Philip. There were state matters to attend to every day; there were the Fiefs of the Empire to be received. Charles had at last settled affairs with his brother, and although neither was entirely satisfied, they both realized that they had come as near to satisfaction as could be expected.
Reviewing the last years, Charles considered he had good cause for satisfaction. His son Philip was a young man of whom he could be proud. Very soon he would be able to leave the responsibility of government in the hands of that worthy young man. It was folly to have wished for a gayer son. Yet how pleased he would have been to have begotten a son who combined Philip’s excellent qualities with charm, gaiety, and that bold manliness which the Flemings demanded of a leader.
Charles was in this meditative mood, sitting at his palace window, when he saw a beautiful girl below. Her fair thick hair was coiled about her head, and her costume proclaimed her to be a burgher’s daughter.
He watched her, wistfully admiring her youth. He could see the shape of her strong, firm legs and thighs beneath her skirts; her profile was clear-cut, and she walked with a modest unawareness of her beauty.
He wondered about her, and he could not dismiss thoughts of her from his mind. He forgot to put a fresh green leaf into his mouth, and indeed the fever had abated considerably. He had not felt so well for years, and the sight of the blonde girl, and perhaps the thoughts of a perfect son, had made him feel almost a young man again.
He saw the girl again on another occasion and he, keeping watch for her, discovered that she walked past the palace every day. He played with the idea (so beloved of kings) of walking thro
ugh the streets disguised, of making her acquaintance, and, temporarily setting aside his imperial dignity, wooing her as a nobleman.
But Charles was a realist. He was nearly fifty; the girl could not be any more than twenty. How could an aging man, with cracked lips, with gout and fever, disguise himself as a young lover?
No, he thought; I cannot cast off my imperial dignity, for what else have I to attract a beautiful young girl?
So, being unable to play the old game of masque and disguise, he sent for her.
She came, shy and trembling, and her beauty together with her youth delighted him. She was afraid, he had been told, that she or her father or some member of her family had committed an offense of some kind.
He waved away all his attendants and spoke to her very gently.
“Do not be afraid. You have committed no crime, nor has your father, unless it is a crime to be beautiful or to beget a beautiful daughter. I have watched you passing in the streets, and it gave me great pleasure to know that you were one of my subjects.”
The girl was so frightened that she could not speak.
“Tell me your name,” he said. “Here! Sit on this stool … close to me that I may see you better. Now … what do they call you?”
“Barbara,” she whispered. “Barbara Blomberg.”
“Then I shall call you Barbara, my Flemish maid.”
She did not speak, and he went on: “I thought to come to woo you disguised as a nobleman. Then I realized that I was too old to play such games, so I sent for you as your Emperor, because I knew that there would be little in your sight to distinguish me from others apart from my Imperial crown, my palace, my servants.”
He did not make love to her then. He felt unusually abashed, longing above all things that she should come to him willingly.
The burgher’s young daughter had seen the mighty Emperor on other occasions; she had seen him surrounded by Imperial pomp. She had never in all her life imagined a humble Emperor.
And in a short while Charles—fifty, gouty, fever-racked—found that his wayward interest had grown to love, and he loved this girl with a passion he had never felt before, even in his youth. As for Barbara Blomberg, she was at first moved by the imperial humility, and eventually her feelings changed to love of him.
The Emperor, feeling young again, was eagerly devouring the fruit of passion’s burgeoning. He was happy during those days in Augsburg when Barbara Blomberg became his mistress; and before Philip left for Spain it was beyond doubt that she was to have a child.
The Emperor was delighted. He believed that his child would be a son and that he would combine the staid virtues of Philip with the beauty of his mother.
Those were charmed days for the Emperor; and meanwhile Philip made his way back to Spain.
The Indian summer of the Emperor’s life had changed abruptly to autumn, and he felt that winter was not far off. Gout and fever troubled him once more. He could no longer enjoy to the full his life with Barbara. A child was born; he was a bonny child and they called him Juan; he was of promising beauty and intelligence, but Charles realized that he would not live to see his hopes for the boy fulfilled.
The German Princes rose in sudden and unexpected revolt, joining with Henri of France against Charles. The cunning French King persuaded the Italians to turn against the Emperor and, being confronted with war on two fronts and finding he had not the means at his disposal to meet it, Charles saw nothing but disaster and defeat ahead.
He ceased to dally with his beloved mistress; he put himself at the head of his armies, but he was too late, too tired, too old. Defeat followed swiftly, and with it the peace which was dictated by Saxony. The French seized their opportunities and the Duke of Guise decimated Charles’s armies at Metz.
He was beaten and he knew it. He did not see how he could ever regain what he had lost, so heavy was his defeat, so humiliating the peace terms to which he was forced to agree.
With great agony of mind, he knew that he had lost a great deal of what he had hoped Philip would inherit, and it seemed now that his son would be Philip of Spain in very truth.
Was it because he was old that all the fight was going out of him?
He tried to raise money, but the Spaniards were only too glad to see his dominions slipping away from him. They wanted their King to be King of Spain, to stay with his people, to develop Spain from within. Charles could see little security in what was left of his Empire; he could only see a future given over to continual wars.
Often he thought of days and nights spent in Augsburg, of the child who was to be all that he had longed for in a son, of the Flemish girl who had been all that he had hoped for in a mistress.
“But,” he ruminated sadly, “Fortune is a strumpet who reserves her favors for the young.”
And so tired was he, so filled with pains, that he longed not so much for Barbara Blomberg as for the quiet of some monastery where he might relinquish responsibility and repent his sins, thereby resigning his interest in this world in his contemplation of the next.
Back in Spain, Philip resumed his relationship with Isabel. He confessed his infidelity; not that he felt it incumbent upon himself to do so, but because it seemed to him that Isabel would rather hear of it from him than from others; and there would certainly be others to pass on news of the Prince’s love affair in Brussels.
Although he was as kind and considerate as ever, Isabel noticed the change in him. His liaison with his Flemish mistress had broken down his previous reserve. The court began to whisper the name of Doña Catherine Lenez—a very beautiful woman of noble birth—in connection with Philip.
It was considered natural for a prince to have at least two mistresses. There was Isabel to provide the quiet, homey atmosphere which a wife of some years’ standing might give, and there was Catherine to supply more erotic entertainment.
Throughout Spain there was rejoicing in Philip’s return. Wherever he went people lined the streets to cheer him. News was bad from abroad. Let it be. The Prince was home.
And Philip continued to do what was expected of him. He summoned the Castilian Cortes in Madrid and asked for supplies which were so urgently required by his father. He pushed forward with negotiations which would bring him Maria of Portugal and her dowry. Philip was sorry to lose his beloved friend, Ruy Gomez da Silva, but he knew that Ruy with his suave diplomacy could lure more money from the coffers of King John of Portugal than anyone else could. So to Portugal went Ruy, and Philip prepared to receive his bride as soon as negotiations were brought to a conclusion.
But it seemed that King John was not prepared to be generous, and arrangements were delayed.
Philip was twenty-six; he had had a wife, and now he had two mistresses who completely satisfied him. For himself he did not need a wife. But he must not forget that although he had given his country an heir, that heir was Don Carlos.
Carlos was in the schoolroom; he was sprawling over the table, but he was not listening to his tutor. The tutor was afraid of him, as Carlos was beginning to realize most people were. They were not so much afraid that he would attack their persons—which he would do if the mood took him—but that he would attack their dignity. They did not know how to act when the Prince Don Carlos threw a boot at them. That made Carlos laugh so much that he would cry. To see them standing respectful, full of dignity, and then being forced suddenly to dodge in order to avoid a missile was, thought Carlos, the funniest thing imaginable.
They had taken his beloved Juana from him and married her to the Prince of Portugal. She had wept bitterly when she had gone, and she had told Carlos that she would continually think of him.
There had been only one matter which gave him pleasure at that time: his father was away from Spain. He had stayed for months which had grown to years, so that Carlos had forgotten what he looked like and remembered only that he hated him.
Maximilian and Maria hardly ever saw him; he was shut away from them because they were too busy to be bothered with him. Car
los alternated between bouts of anger and self-pity.
“Nobody loves the little one,” he would say to himself, although he was not so little now. “Nobody loves el niño.”
He was afraid of his Governor, Don Garcia de Toledo, who was the brother of the mighty Duke of Alba. Don Garcia would stride into the apartment and everyone would bow low as though he were the Emperor himself. Carlos would watch him from under lowered brows, his lip jutting out, his eyes sullen. One of these days he would put Don Garcia to the test; he would throw something at him; he would arrange a trap, something over the door to fall upon him and spoil his magnificent doublet, splash his white kid breeches; or perhaps he would put something on the floor so that Don Garcia slipped and turned head over heels. Then Carlos would see what became of his dignity.
For all these mighty dons must remember that Carlos was a prince of Spain and that one day he would be their King; and when that day came he would have their throats cut if they displeased him—not deeply, but just lightly, so that he could watch them bleed to death as he did the rabbits he caught.
At the moment, though, he was not ready. He planned these tricks he would play on Don Garcia, but when the nobleman appeared he would seem so much bigger than the man Carlos had imagined, so much more powerful; and the young Prince had to content himself with plotting for the future.
In the meantime he was helpless. He must leave his bed at seven to attend Mass, and after eating he must go to the schoolroom until eleven, when it was time for dinner. After dinner he must go out of doors into the courtyards, and sons of noblemen were sent to fence with him or play games. He would have liked to fence without foils; he would have liked to run a sharp sword through his opponent’s body. They were too quick for him. It seemed that all the boys with whom he played were stronger than he was, bigger than he was; they did not limp as he did; they could run fast and were never breathless.