But the question which concerns Christianity at large, is not that of the continence or incontinence, the private conduct, the rigour or misrule of Alexander as a temporal sovereign in the chair of St. Peter; the grave question is, how came it to pass, that a man of his well-known immorality, living in Rome in open concubinage previously to the cardinals going into conclave, and a candidate in it for the vacant office of pontiff-taking unlawful measures for securing that election, which must have been known to the majority of the cardinal electors composing it—could have been chosen, and declared a fit and worthy person to rule the Church of God, and to represent the apostle Peter in the office of vicar of Jesus Christ? Cæsar Borgia heard of the death of his father without manifesting any surprise or sorrow. Sick as he was himself at the time, and confined to his bed in the sacred palace, when the news of the Pope's death was brought to him, he had sufficient energy to issue his commands the instant the intelligence was given to him, to Dom Michelette, to shut the doors immediately that led to the Pope's apartments. This brutal man, Michelette, says the author of the "Histoire des Conclaves," "finding the Cardinal of Casanuova at his heels, threatened to strangle him, or to throw him out of the window, if he did not give up to him the keys of the treasures of the Pope. The good cardinal, in his terror, immediately gave up the keys."* The faithful agent of Cæsar Borgia, Dom Michelette, then ransacked all the secret drawers and presses of the late pontiff: found gold and silver to the value of about 100,000 ducats, and having deposited them in security for his master, caused all the doors to be thrown open, and the public to be informed that Alexander the Sixth was dead. While Cæsar Borgia's agent was pillaging the property of the deceased Pope, the servants of his Holiness were plundering his wardrobe. The body of the deceased pontiff was soon after borne to St. Peter's by four poor persons, preceded by three hundred others with flambeaux in their hands. While the funeral procession * Hist. des Concl. Anon. 12mo. 1703. Ed. 3me. Col. Tom. i. p. 64. was slowly advancing towards St. Peter's, a fight took place between the soldiers of the guard, who had been stationed there, and the torch bearers, for the perquisites of the wax lights that might be left on the occasion; and the bearers of the dead pontiff set down their burden, and wrangled over the dead body of the pope for the butt ends of a few wax candles. Dom Michelette had the great regret of seeing a bag of precious stones removed, which had escaped his rigid search. The value of the precious stones contained in it was estimated at 22,000 ducats. The bearers and the soldiers not having finished fighting for their spoils in a reasonable time, the officers had to take the dead body in their arms, and to deposit it on the grand altar. "Le corps du pape devient si noir et si horrible que personne ne l'osait regarder, son nez infectait l'air par sa puanteur, ses levres avoissent grossé extraordinairement et son langue sortoit tout entiere de sa bouche. Sur le soir il fut porté dans la chapelle par six portefaix qui lui faisoient mille indignitès. Aprez lui avoir otè sa mitre et ses habits ils lui couvrirent d'un mechant tapis, et le foulerent aux pieds pour le faire entrer dans sa bierre qui etoit trop courte.' Cæsar Borgia recovered from the effects of the poison which was fatal to his father. After various vicissitudes and fruitless attempts to regain his lost power and influence, he found a shelter in the family of his wife, and was generously treated by Jean D'Albret, the King of Navarre. The former Cardinal, when he could no longer ravage Italy under the sacred banner which the deceased pontiff had committed to his care, sold his services to the King of Navarre, and after a few years he was slain at the siege of Viane in a skirmish, and died sword in hand, a terrible example of the calamitous results of the connexion of Church and State. In the midst of strife and bloodshed, while falling impetuously on some soldiers of the Count Alvarino, at the village of Men Hist. des Conclaves. Tom. i. P. 65. dania, Cæsar Borgia was shot dead, and instead of returning in triumph, his rifled corpse was brought to the king, slung across a horse, with his legs and arms dangling on each side-strange to say, precisely in the same manner that the corpse of his murdered brother was seen conveyed to the Tiber, closely watched by a muffled cavalier, and who, by Burchard's account, there can be little doubt, was the unnatural brother of the murdered Duke of Gandia. Cæsar Borgia, Duke of Valentino, was buried in Pampaluno, and his memory, says Paulo Jovio, was honoured with some clever verses of a Spanish poet, which were faithfully translated into Latin and Italian by Antonio Vacca: : "Colui che dianzi a l'universo diede E'n cosi poco spatio hora resiede Che lutto l'mundo en guerra fe meschino." The last lineal descendant of Cæsar Borgia is to be sought for and discovered in the British Peerage. Llorente, in his Critical History of the Inquisition of Spain, states, that " In 1507, the Inquisition, at the instance of Ferdinand the Fifth, undertook to proceed against, and to arrest, the Duke of Valentino, brother-in-law of Jean D'Albret, King of Navarre, whose sister he had married-Charlotte D'Albret. The Duke would probably have been consigned to the secret dungeons of the Inquisitions of Logrogno, had he not perished on the 12th of March of that year, before the town of Viane, not far from Logrogno, having been slain by a gentleman named Jean Garces de los Fayos, in command of the castle of Agreda, when it was besieged by Cæsar, Captain-General, commanding the troops of his brother-in-law, against Louis de Beaumont, Count of Lerne, Constable of Navarre, son-in-law of Ferdinand the Fifth, who refused to surrender... ..... "Cæsar left only one child by this union (with Charlotte D'Albret, Louisa of Borgia, styled Duchess of Valentino), who was married in 1517 to Louis of Tremouille, Peer of France, and (secondly) in 1539, to Philip of Bourbon Bousset, of the royal house of France, and grandson of Louis of Bourbon, Bishop of Liege." Llorente observes, he does not believe it was simply zeal for religion which prompted the Court of Rome to proceed against the Duke," as one charged with having given utterance to blas phemous heresies, and suspected of being an atheist and materialist, but that it was for reasons of state, and intrigues of the Duke with the constable of Navarre.""* In Playfair's English Peerage, vol. i. page 241, we read that William, the sixth Earl of Derby, died in 1642, and was succeeded by his son, James, seventh Earl of Derby, a warrior of great distinction in the latter days of Charles the First, and in the times of the Commonwealth. In one action against the troops of Col. Lilburne, we are told, he received seven shots on his breastplate, thirteen cuts on his beaver, five or six wounds on his arms and shoulders, and had two horses killed under him, and that, unfortunately for him, he was still able to make his way to Worcester, and that he fought bravely in the battle at that place in September, 1651, was taken prisoner, tried, and beheaded at Bolton. This seventh Earl of Derby, says Playfair, married Charlotte, daughter of Claude de Tremouille, Duke of Thouars, Prince of Palmont, by his marriage with Charlotte, daughter of William, first Prince of Orange, and Charlotte of Bourbon, (query, Charlotte Louisa?) his wife. Cæsar Borgia married Charlotte D'Albret, and left an only child, a daughter, Louisa. Louisa married-first, Louis of Tremouille-secondly, Philip of Bourbon, and left a daughter, Charlotte. Charlotte married William, the first Prince of Orange, and left a daughter, Charlotte. Charlotte married Claude de Tremouille, Duke of Thouars, and left a daughter, Charlotte. * Llorenti, Hist. Inquis. translated by A. Pellier, tome iii. ch. iii. p. 5. Fr. Edit. 8vo. Paris, 1818. Charlotte, the great-great-granddaughter of Cæsar Borgia, married James, the seventh Earl of Derby. This lady (the daughter of Claude de Tremouille) was a person of extraordinary courage in the face of the fiercest dangers, and of great capacity for public affairs. "She was remarkably famous (says Playfellow) for her gallant defence of Lathem House in 1644, when it was besieged with 2000 of the parliamentary forces, and (her defence) of the Isle of Man, which was the last place in the British dominions that submitted to the usurping powers, and of which Lord Fairfax enjoyed the profits; whilst this heroine was detained in prison, with her younger children, in extreme indigence, till the restoration of the king in 1660. She died March 21st, 1663, and was buried in Ormskirk." The few noble qualities that belonged to Cæsar Borgia,— valour, indomitable energy, capacity for affairs of importance,were faithfully transmitted to his great-great-granddaughter in the maternal line, to Charlotte of Tremouille, wife of the fiery soldier, James, seventh Earl of Derby. A man of wonderful sagacity and vigour of intellect, Sir William Scott, after reading Guicciardini's History of Italy, from beginning to end, wrote these words to Lord Teignmouth :"We have finished the twentieth and last book of Guicciardini's History, the most authentic one, I believe, (may I add, I fear?) that ever was composed. I believe it, because the historian was an actor in this terrible drama, and I fear, because it exhibits the woful picture of society in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries."* Now the history of Guicciardini commences with the Pontificate of Alexander the Sixth, 1492, and terminates with the transactions of the year 1532, twenty-nine years after the death of Alexander, and twenty-five years after the death of his son, Cæsar Borgia, which took place in 1507. Certainly more than half the history is taken up with details connected with the crimes of Alexander and his son, and the disastrous consequences Life of Lord Teignmouth, 4to. p. 325. Ap. Roscoe's Life of Leo the Tenth, vol. ii. p. 488. |