which "gave a lift" to his race that enabled it to increase in importance at a very rapid rate. Mary was in possession of most of the immense dominions of her father, which he had intended to convert into a kingdom, had he lived to complete his purpose. His success would have had great effect on the after history of Europe, for he would have reigned over the finest of countries, and his dominions would have extended from the North Sea to Provence,—and over Provence so powerful a sovereign would have had no difficulty in extending his power,—which done, his dominions would have been touched by the Mediterranean. Louis XI. of France got hold of some of Mary's inheritance; but the greater part thereof she conveyed to Maximilian. She died young, leaving a son and a daughter. The son was Philip the Fair, who in 1496 married Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, king of Aragon, and queen of Castille, and heiress of the Spanish monarchy, which had come to great glory through the conquest of Granada, and to wonderful influence through the discovery of the New World,—events that took place in the same year, and but a short time before the marriage of the Austrian archduke and the Peninsular princess. This marriage, useful and brilliant as it was to the house of Austria, turned out bitterly bad to the parties to it,—and it is not an isolated case in that respect. Philip the Fair was a very handsome fellow, as became his designation, or rather whence his designation came; but on the principle that "handsome is that handsome does," he was one of the ugliest of men. He was guilty of gallantry, the weakness of kings, and of many of the sovereign people too. When living in Spain he had many amorous adventures; and his wife, who had brought him so great a fortune that she thought she had an especial claim on his fidelity, became exceedingly jealous, and, being a dague en jarretière lady, as became one who was born to reign over Andaluçia, killed her faithless husband,—not by stabbing him, but by giving him poison. This was in 1506, when husband and wife were but twenty-eight and twenty-four years old, and had been but ten years married. There were two sons and four daughters born of this marriage, all of whom made important marriages. The eldest son was the man whom Mr. Stirling calls "the greatest monarch of the memorable sixteenth century,"—Charles V., Emperor of Germany, and the Spanish Charles I. He founded the Spanish branch of the house of Austria, the elder branch.[1] He married Isabella of Portugal, and their son was Philip II., who added Portugal to the possessions of the Austrian family, and one of whose wives was Mary Tudor, queen of England, the Bloody Mary of fire-and-fagot memory; and Philip gladly would have placed Mary's sister Elizabeth in his half-vacant bed. The marriage of Philip and Mary was barren, and poor Mary's belief that a "blessed baby"
- ↑ The division of the house of Austria into two branches, which alone prevented it from becoming supreme in Europe, and over much of the rest of the world, took place in 1521. After the death of their grandfather, Charles and Ferdinand possessed the Austrian territories in common, but in 1521 they made a division thereof. Ferdinand obtained Austria, Carinthia, Carniola, and Styria, and, in 1522, the Tyrol, and other provinces. In 1531 he was chosen King of the Romans, which made him the successor of Charles as Emperor. How Charles came, not merely to consent to his election, but to urge it, and to effect it in spite of opposition, when he had a son in his fourth year, is very strange. The reasons commonly given for his course are by no means sufficient to account or it. Many years later he tried to undo his work, in order to obtain the imperial dignity for his son; but Ferdinand held on to what he possessed, with true Austrian tenacity. Had Charles kept the imperial crown for his son, as he might have done, Philip's imperial position must have sufficed to give him control of the civilized world. He would have made himself master of both France and England, and must have rendered the Reaction completely triumphant over the Refor-
Frederick II. But it was as Archduke of Austria, Count of Tyrol, Duke of Styria and Carinthia, feudal superior of lands in Swabia, Alsace, and Switzerland, that he was great, not as Roman Emperor. For just as from him the Austrian monarchy begins, so with him the Holy Empire in its old meaning ends." (The Holy Roman Empire, pp. 343, 344.) Mr. Bryce's work is one of the most valuable contributions to historical literature that have appeared in this century, and great expectations are entertained from the future labors of one so liberally endowed with the historic faculty.
