suggestion in his retreat has been recorded from his lips. The epigrams
which had been invented for him by fabulists have been all taken away,
and nothing has been substituted, save a few dull jests exchanged with
stupid friars. So far from having entertained and even expressed that
sentiment of religious toleration for which he was said to have been
condemned as a heretic by the inquisition, and for which Philip was
ridiculously reported to have ordered his father's body to be burned,
and his ashes scattered to the winds, he became in retreat the bigot
effectually, which during his reign he had only been conventionally.
Bitter regrets that he should have kept his word to Luther, as if he had
not broken faith enough to reflect upon in his retirement; stern self-
reproach for omitting to put to death, while he had him in his power,
the man who had caused all the mischief of the age; fierce instructions
thundered from his retreat to the inquisitors to hasten the execution of
all heretics, including particularly his ancient friends, preachers and
almoners, Cazalla and Constantine de Fuente; furious exhortations to
Philip--as if Philip needed a prompter in such a work--that he should
set himself to "cutting out the root of heresy with rigor and rude
chastisement;"--such explosions of savage bigotry as these, alternating
with exhibitions of revolting gluttony, with surfeits of sardine
omelettes, Estramadura sausages, eel pies, pickled partridges, fat
capons, quince syrups, iced beer, and flagons of Rhenish, relieved by
copious draughts of senna and rhubarb, to which his horror-stricken
doctor doomed him as he ate--compose a spectacle less attractive to the
imagination than the ancient portrait of the cloistered Charles.
Unfortunately it is the one which was painted from life.