common hackney. The boy naturally mounted the humbler steed, and they
set forth for the mountains of Toro, but on hearing the bugles of the
approaching huntsmen, Quixada suddenly halted, and bade his youthful
companion exchange horses with himself. When this had been done, he
seized the hand of the wondering boy and kissing it respectfully,
exclaimed, "Your Highness will be informed as to the meaning of my
conduct by his Majesty, who is even now approaching." They had proceeded
but a short distance before they encountered the royal hunting party,
when both Quixada and young Juan dismounted, and bent the knee to their
monarch. Philip, commanding the boy to rise, asked him if he knew his
father's name. Juan replied, with a sigh, that he had at that moment
lost the only father whom he had known, for Quixada had just disowned
him. "You have the same father as myself," cried the King; "the Emperor
Charles was the august parent of us both." Then tenderly embracing him,
he commanded him to remount his horse, and all returned together to
Valladolid, Philip observing with a sentimentality that seems highly
apocryphal, that he had never brought home such precious game from any
hunt before.

This theatrical recognition of imperial descent was one among the many
romantic incidents of Don John's picturesque career, for his life was
never destined to know the commonplace. He now commenced his education,
in company with his two nephews, the Duchess Margaret's son, and Don
Carlos, Prince-royal of Spain. They were all of the same age, but the
superiority of Don John was soon recognized. It was not difficult to
surpass the limping, malicious, Carlos, either in physical graces or
intellectual accomplishments; but the graceful; urbane, and chivalrous
Alexander, destined afterwards to such wide celebrity, was a more
formidable rival, yet even the professed panegyrist of the Farnese
family, exalts the son of Barbara Blomberg over the grandson of Margaret