The Resignation of the Crown of Spain by Published by R Chapman Glasgow 1816. THE HISTORY OF The Reign OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. BY WILLIAM ROBERTSON, D. D. NEW EDITION. IN FOUR VOLUMES. VOL. IV. EMBELLISHED WITH FOUR ENGRAVINGS. GLASGOW: Printed by and for R. Chapman. Sold by A. & J. M. Duncan, Brash & Reid, J. Smith & Son, W. Turnbull, M. Ogle, D. Niven & Co., Steven & Frazer, T. Ogilvie, J. Jones, R. Hutchison, and Murray & Bonnard. Also by P. Hill & Co., A. Constable & Co., and J. Anderson, Edinburgh- and Lackington, Allen & Co., London. THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. Book Tenth. WHILE Charles laboured with such unwearied industry to persuade or to force the protestants to adopt his regulations with respect to religion, the effects of his steadiness in the execution of his plan were rendered less considerable by his rupture with the pope, which daily increased. The firm resolution which the emperor seemed to have taken against restoring Placentia, together with his repeated encroachments on the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, not only by the regulations contained in the Interim, but by his attempt to re-assemble the council at Trent, exasperated Paul to the utmost, who, with the weakness incident to old age, grew more attached to his family, and more jealous of his authority, as he advanced in years. Pushed on by these passions, he made new efforts to draw the French king into an alliance VOL. IV. A against the emperor*; but finding that monarch, notwithstanding the hereditary enmity between him and Charles, and the jealousy with which he viewed the successful progress of the Imperial arms, as unwilling as formerly to involve himself in immediate hostilities, he was obliged to contract his views, and to think of preventing future encroachments, since it was not in his power to inflict vengeance on account of those which were past. For this purpose, he determined to recall his grant of Parma and Placentia, and after declaring them to be re-annexed to the holy see, to indemnify his grandson Octavio by a new establishment in the ecclesiastical state. By this expedient he hoped to gain two points of no small consequence. He, first of all, rendered his possession of Parma more secure; as the emperor would be cautious of invading the patrimony of the church, though he might seize without scruple a town belonging to the house of Farnese. In the next place, he would acquire a better chance of recovering Placentia, as his solicitations to that effect might decently be urged with greater importunity, and would infallibly be attended with greater effect, when he was considered not as pleading the cause of his own family, but as an advocate for the interest of the holy see. But while Paul was priding himself on this device, as a happy refinement in policy, Octavio, an ambitious and highspirited young man, who could not bear with patience to be spoiled of one half of his territories by the rapaciousness of his father-in-law, and to be deprived of the other by the artifices of his grandfather, took measures in order to prevent the execution of a plan fatal to his interest. He set out secretly from Rome, and having * Mem. de Ribier, ii. 230. |