Carlos
Carlos names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Carlos DON, son of Philip II
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
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 king's confidants, and especially was 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, 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 insurin Flanders. The sentence was left for the king to pronounce. Philip declared that he could make no exception in favor of such an unworthy son, but 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. book of Literature." The most important contribution to the question since is Gachard's "Don Carlos and Philippe II." (2d ed., Paris, 1867). A new and not unfavorable light on Philip's character as a father has been thrown by the publication of "Letters of Philippe II. to His Daughters" (Paris, 1884), by the same editor.
Carlos DON, Duke of Madrid
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
DON, Duke of Madrid, nephew of Don Carlos of Montemolin, born March 30, 1848. On the death of his uncle (1861) he became head of the CARLISTS (q. v.). In 1867 he married the daughter of Duke Charles III. of Parma. In 1872 he issued a manifesto to the Carlist party at Madrid and appeared dly in the Basque provinces, but was badly defeated at Oroquieta and fled back to France. In 1873 he reappeared in the N. provinces of Spain; captured the stronghold Estella, and had soon overrun Navarre, Catalonia, Aragon, and Valencia, with the exception of the great cities. He was aided with money by all the priests and Legitimists of Europe. By February, 1876, the rebels were hemmed in along the N. coast, and the majority surrendered at Pamplona. He himself fled over the French border, and lived from then on in exile and comparative poverty. He died July 18, 1909. CARLOS I., King of Portugal, born in 1863, formerly known as Duke of Braganza, son of Luis I. He married, in 1886, Marie Amélie de Bourbon, daughter of the Count of Paris. Immediately after his accession to the throne, in 1889, a revolution broke out in Brazil, which resulted in the overthrow of the empire and the formation of a republic. In the financial straits to which Portugal was reduced in 1892, the King and his family renounced 20 per cent. of their personal revenue, amounting to over $100,000 per annum. He died Feb. 1, 1908, after having been assassinated, together with his oldest son, Prince Luis, in the streets of Lisbon.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's judgement on the sixteenth-century Don Carlos still stands: historians agree with the 1921 verdict that "the suspicion that he was poisoned or strangled has no valid evidence," and that his instability owed more to Habsburg inbreeding than to his fall on the stairs at Alcalá. What has changed is the vehicle of the legend — Schiller's play is now met far more often as Verdi's opera Don Carlos (1867), which keeps Saint-Réal's discredited romance alive on stages worldwide. The two modern Carloses have both been overtaken by events: Portugal, whose King Carlos I was shot in Lisbon in 1908, abolished the monarchy in 1910 and has been a republic ever since, while the Carlist cause that the Duke of Madrid led into the field in 1873 dwindled into a fringe movement. Spain's throne went instead to the rival Bourbon line, restored in 1975 under Juan Carlos I, who abdicated in 2014 in favour of his son Felipe VI.
Written for this edition, 2026.