Home › C › Carlos (DON son of Philip II)

Carlos (DON son of Philip II)

DON, son of Philip II. by his first marriage with Maria of Portugal; born in Valladolid, July 8, 1545. After his recognition as heir to the throne, Don Carlos was sent to study at the University of Alcala de Henares, where, however, he profited so little, that the king, regarding him as unqualified to reign, invited a nephew, the Archduke Rudolf, to Spain, intending to make him heir to the throne. The weak intellect, with vicious and cruel tendencies, which the young prince showed early, may have been due to an injury to his head from a fall down the stairs at Alcala de Henares; or more probably was congenital through the fatal descent from "Juana la loca," and only aggravated by his accident. Excluded from all participation in the government, he early conceived a strong aversion toward unwilling that the Duke of Alva should have the government of Flanders. In confession to a priest, on Christmas eve, 1567, he betrayed his purpose to assassinate a certain person; and as the king was believed to be the intended victim, king's confidants, and especially was this confession was divulged. The papers of Don Carlos were seized; he was tried and found guilty of conspiring against the life of the king, and of traitorously endeavoring to raise an insurleft for the king to pronounce. Philip in favor of such an unworthy son, but in Flanders. The sentence was declared that he could make no exception sentence of death was not formally recorded. Shortly afterward he died, July 24, 1568, and was interred in the Dominican monastery, El-Real, at Madrid. The suspicion that he was poisoned or strangled has no valid evidence to support it. The enemies of Philip II. were eager to prove him the murderer of his son, and much has been written on this problem. The version of the story which obtained so much currency through "Don Carlos," the great tragedy of Schiller, was due to the romancing pen of Saint- Real in 1672. Its credibility was shattered first in 1817 by the Spanish writer, Llorente, and in 1829 by the learned Ranke in vol. xlvi. of the "Vienna Year.

CARLOS portant contribution to the question since is Gachard's "Don Carlos and Philippe II." (2d ed., Paris, 1867). A new and acter as a father has been thrown by the publication of "Letters of Philippe II. to His Daughters" (Paris, 1884), by the same editor. dly