tinction superior to royalty, and monarchs were proud to receive it from the hands of private gen

tlemen.

This singular institution, in which valour, gallantry, and religion, were so strangely blended, was wonderfully adapted to the taste and genius of martial nobles, and its effects were soon visible in their manners. War was carried on with less ferocity, when humanity came to be deemed the ornament of knighthood no less than courage. More gentle and polished manners were introduced, when courtesy was recommended as the most amiable of knightly virtues. Violence and oppression decreased, when it was reckoned meritorious to check and to punish them. A scrupulous adkerence to truth, with the most religious attention to fulfil every engagement, became the distinguishing characteristic of a gentleman, because chivalry was regarded as the school of honour, and inculcated the most delicate sensibility with respect to those points. The admiration of these qualities, together with the high distinctions and prerogatives conferred on knighthood in every part of Europe, inspired persons of noble birth on some Occasions with a species of military fanaticism, and led them to extravagant enterprises. But they deeply imprinted on their minds the principles of generosity and honour. These were strengthened by every thing that can affect the senses or touch the heart. The wild exploits of those romantic knights who sallied forth in quest of adventures, are well known, and have been treated with proper ridicule. The humanity which accompanies all the operations of war, the refinements of gallantry, and the point of honour, are sentiments inspired by chivalry, and have had a wonderful influence on manners and conduct, during the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries.

1

They were so deeply rooted, that they continued to operate after the vigour and reputation of the institution itself began to decline.

LOUIS XI.

THE plan of humbling the nobility which Charles began to execute, his son Louis XI. carried on with a bolder spirit and with greater success. Louis was formed by nature to be tyrant; and at whatever period he had been called to ascend the throne, his reign must have abounded with schemes to oppress his people, and to render his own power absolute. Subtle, unfeeling, cruel; a stranger to every principle of integrity, and regardless of decency, he scorned all restraints, which a sense of honour or the desire of fame impose even upon ambitious men. Sagacious at the same time to discern what he deemed his true interest, and influenced by that alone, he was capa ble of pursuing it with a persevering industry, and of adhering to it with a systematic spirit, from which no object could divert and no danger could deter him.

The maxims of his administration were as profound as they were fatal to the privileges of the nobility. He filled all the departments of govern ment with new men, and often with persons whom he called from the lowest as well as most despised functions in life, and raised at pleasure to great stations of great power or trust. These were his only confidants, whom he consulted in forming his plans, and to whom he committed the execution of them; while the nobles, accustomed to be the friends and companions, and the ministers of their sovereigns, were treated with such studied and mortifying neglect, that if they would not submit to

XI

follow a court in which they appeared without any shadow of their ancient power, they were obliged to retire to their castles, where they remained unemployed and forgotten. Not satisfied with rendering the nobles of less consideration, by ta king out of their hands the sole direction of affairs, Louis added insult to neglect, and by violating their most valuable privileges, endeavoured to degrade the order, and to reduce the members of it to the same level with other subjects. Persons of the highest rank among them, if so bold as to oppose his schemes, or so unfortunate as to awaken the jealousy of his capricious temper, were persecuted with rigour, from which all who belonged to the nobility had hitherto been exempt: they were tried by judges who had no right to take cognisance of their actions, and were subjected to torture, or condemned to an ignominious death, without regard to their birth or condition. The people, accustomed to see the blood of the most illustrious personages shed by the hands of the common executioner, to behold them shut up in dungeons, and carried about in cages of iron, began to view the nobility with less reverence than formerly, and looked up with terror to the royal authority, which seemed to have humbled or annihilated every other power in the kingdom.

Afraid that oppression might rouse the nobles in their own defence, he by dexterous intrigues fomented the spirit of discord among the great families, which the feudal system engendered. He not only stripped the nobility of their privileges, but added to the power and prerogatives of the crown. To crush any force that might oppose his measures, he not only kept in pay the troops his father had raised, but took into his pay six thousand Swiss, at that time the best disciplined and most formidable infantry in Europe. From

the jealousy natural to tyrants, he confided in these more than in his own subjects.

Great funds were necessary to conduct his operations, but his genius suggested the means. The prerogative that his father had assumed, of levying taxes without the concurrence of the states-general, enabled him to provide in some measure for the increasing charges of government. He added address to prerogative. He was the first monarch in Europe who discovered the method of managing those great assemblies in which the feudal policy had vested the power of granting subsidies and of imposing taxes. He first taught other princes the fatal art of beginning their attacks upon public liberty, by corrupting the source from which it should flow. By exerting all his power and influence in the election of representatives, by bribing or overawing the members, and by various changes which he artfully made in the form of their deliberations, Louis acquired such entire direction of these assemblies, that, from being the vigilant guardians of the privileges and property of the people, he rendered them tamely subservient towards promoting the most odious measures of his reign. Nor was it the power alone or wealth of the crown that Louis increased; he extended its territories, by acquisitions of various kinds. Thus, during the course of a single reign, France was formed into one compact kingdom, and the steady unrelenting policy of Louis XI. not only subdued the haughty spirit of the feudal nobles, but established a species of government, scarcely less absolute or less terrible than eastern despotism.

But fatal as his administration was to the liberties of his subjects, the authority which he acquired, the resources of which he became master, and his freedom from restraint in concerting his plans,

as well as in executing them, rendered his reign. active and enterprising. Louis negotiated in all the courts of Europe; he observed the motions of all his neighbours; he engaged either as principal or as an auxiliary in every great transaction; his resolutions were prompt, his operations vigorous, and upon every emergence he could call forth into action the whole force of his kingdom. From the æra of his reign, the kings of France, no longer fettered and circumscribed at home by a jealous nobility, have exerted themselves more abroad, have formed more extensive schemes of foreign conquests, and have carried on war with a spirit and vigour long unknown in Europe.

JOANNA,

MOTHER OF CHARLES V.

SHE was the second daughter of Ferdinand king of Arragon, and of Isabella queen of Castile. Her only brother Don John, and her sister the queen of Portugal, being cut off without issue in the flower of youth, all the hopes of the parents centered in Joanna and her posterity. She married Philip the handsome, Archduke of Austria; and as he was a stranger to the Spaniards, it was thought expedient to invite him into Spain, that by residing among them he might accustom himself to their laws and manners. Upon their arrival in Spain, they were received with every mark of honour that the parental affection of Ferdinand and Isabella, or the respect of their subjects could devise; and their title to the crown was soon after acknowledged by the Cortes or assembly of states of both kingdoms.