pleasure. Since the Concordat of 1516 all important clerical patronage was in his hands; and the great ecclesiastical revenues served him as a convenient means for rewarding ministers, and attaching to himself the great families whose cadets were greedy of spiritual promotion. His cavalry and artillery were excellent and well organised. His infantry had not yet been satisfactorily developed, but his resources permitted him to engage mercenaries, and Germans and Swiss were still ready to serve the highest bidder. In defence he could fight upon interior lines. For attack he had a ready road to Italy through the friendly territories of Savoy. The possession of Milan secured to him the maritime power of Genoa, a very valuable addition to his own.
In character the two potentates were less equally matched. Francis was bold, and vigorous upon occasion, but inconsequent in action; his choice of men was directed by favouritism; his attention was diverted from business by the pursuit of every kind of pleasure, the more as well as the less refined. His extravagance was such as to hamper his public activity. To the last he never showed any increasing sense of royal responsibility, and preserved in premature old age the frivolous and vicious habits of his youth.
At the death of Ferdinand Charles was still a boy, and, until the death of Guillaume de Croy, Sire de Chièvres (1521), his own individuality did not make itself clearly felt. Chièvres, his old tutor, now his principal minister, dominated his action. Yet at the election to the Empire it was his own pertinacity that secured for him the victory when others would have been content to obtain the prize for his brother Ferdinand. Throughout his life this pre-eminent trait of manly perseverance marks him with a certain stamp of greatness. Slow in action, deliberate in council to the point of irresolution, he yet pursued his ends with unfailing obstinacy until by sheer endurance he prevailed. Extreme tenacity in the maintenance of his just rights, moderation in victory, and abstinence from all chimerical enterprise, are the other qualities to which he owes such success as he obtained. Fortune served him well on more than one conspicuous occasion; but he merited her favours by indefatigable patience; and he never made on her exorbitant demands. Of his two grandfathers he resembles Ferdinand far more than Maximilian. In the course of his career these characteristics were developed and became more notable; unlike his rival he learnt from life; but from his youth he was serious, persistent, sober. In his choice of ministers and judgment of men he showed himself greatly superior to Francis. He was well served throughout his life; and never allowed a minister to become his master. Unsympathetic, unimaginative, he lacked the endearing graces of a popular sovereign; he lacked the gifts that achieve greatness. But, born to greatness, he maintained unimpaired the heritage he had received; and, at whatever price of personal and national exhaustion, he left the House of Habsburg greater than he
