25,000 men killed, and 10,000 made prisoners, besides 15,000 Christian slaves liberated. As usually happens in the alliance of different powers, divisions arose with respect to the subsequent operations, and Don John, who proposed immediately to sail to Constantinople, was overruled. On the whole, the advantages obtained by the victory, by no means equalled the public expectations; and the next campaign, though honourable to the spirit of Don John, proved fruitless. In 1573, he sailed to Tunis, which the Turks had abandoned. Contrary to the king's orders he fortified the town, and built a new fort, having in view the obtaining for himself the kingdom of Tunis; but this project was not agreeable to his brother; and in the next year the Turks recovered the place and took the new fort, which Don John was not able to succour in time. In 1576, he was appointed to the government of the Low Countries. By virtue of the pacification of Ghent, the Catholic provinces had united with Holland and Zealand against the Spaniards; and Don John was directed openly to concur in this agreement, and cause the Spaniards to leave the country. They were, however, retained not far from the frontiers; and it was not long before Don John throwing off the mask, took possession of Namur, Charlemont, and Marienburg. The states, thereupon, in 1577, resumed their arms, and declared the archduke Matthias, their governor. Don John receiving a reinforcement of troops under the duke of Parma, defeated the Netherlanders at Genblaur, in January, 1578, and afterwards took Louvain, Limburg, Philipsburg, and other places. He was proceeding in his military career, when, in October, 1578, he was taken off after a short illness in his camp near Namur, being then thirty-two years of age. Although a sudden death in an unhealthy climate and season of the year could not be regarded as extraordinary, yet the character of Philip, and the young prince's aspiring disposition, gave occasion to a rumour of unfair practices. His confidential setretary, Escovedo, had some time before been assassinated in the streets of Madrid, by the express orders of the secretary of state; and it was known that Don John had entertained hopes of marrying queen Elizabeth, and had secretly intrigued with the Lorrain princes in the court of France. He resembled his father in person, whom he equalled in activity and enterprise, and surpassed in generosity and humanity.

ANTONIO PEREZ, son of Gonsalvo Perez, who was sole secretary of state to Charles V. and Philip II. Antonio succeeded his father in his office, and was also made secretary of war. He demeaned himself so well, as to enjoy at the same time the favour of the king and of the people. While in office he was commanded by the king to obtain the assassi

nation of Don Juan de Escovedo. He unfortunately obeyed the orders of his sovereign; and supposing the deed would be considered as a common accident, the murder was perpetrated in the streets of Madrid. Perez never appears to have suspected that he had committed a very great crime. He represented Escovedo's death as necessary, and the forms of justice he thought might readily be dispensed with on extraordinary occasions. Suspicions fell on him and the princess Eboli; it had been surmised that Philip was an unsuccessful suitor to this lady, and jealous of Perez's intimacy with her. Be this, however, as it may, he took the opportunity occasioned by the suspicion, to throw them both into prison, and suffered the accusation to hang over the secretary's head for many years, still continuing to employ him, and promising him his protection and favour. At length he got possession of the papers which alone could establish his own share in the murder, and then suffered Antonio to be put to the rack. It was the intention of this unfortunate man to bear the tortures inflicted on him without confessing, but the violence of the pain overcame his resolution, and he declared that he had procured Escovedo's assassination, but that it was by Philip's orders. Happily for his own character, he had papers by him sufficient to prove this, and with these he escaped to Arragon. "That kingdom," said Mr. Southey, in writing the life of Perez only a short time since, was still by its constitutions a free country, but constitutions are nothing in the way of power, and no country has any other security for its freedom than the spirit and strength of the people." He appealed to the tribunal del justiza de Arragon, a free tribunal to whose decision Philip did not choose to attend, and therefore, removed the cause to the Enquesta, a sort of star-chamber of his own, in which any wickedness that he was pleased to direct would receive the form of legality. "But," says the writer already alluded to," the Arragonese had now espoused the cause of their injured countryman, and it was thought that the most effectual method of destroying him would be to deliver him over to the inquisition. That accursed tribunal, which had lately been established in Saragossa, laid hands on him, on a charge of witchcraft, blinded and besotted with superstition as the Arragonese were, in common with all the Spaniards, their love of liberty was not at this time to be thus betrayed. They rescued him from the holy office. In consequence of this and other tumults, an army was marched into Arragon. The justiza, as he was bound to do, called upon his countrymen to resist this invasion of their rights; but he, and the nobles with him, aware of their inability to oppose veteran troops, set the example of flight. Better had it been to have died in the field, even had the cause been utterly hopeless, as he deemed

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it, which possibly it might not have been. He and the other chiefs were secured and beheaded. Perez made his escape into France, and the forms of liberty in Arragon were extinguished. Antonio found the protection that he implored; he published a narrative of his sufferings, and it is certain by the great names which appears in his correspondence, that he was highly esteemed and respected both in France and England. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to murder him. He died miserably poor in the year 1611, and endured to the last the heavy affliction of being separated from his wife and children. No interest could avail to procure their liberation, and he imputes the death of his eldest daughter to grief on his

account.

RODOLPH II., Emperor of Germany, son of Maximilian II., was born in 1552, and received the principal part of his education in Spain under the Jesuits. His father procured him the crown of Hungary in 1572, and that of Bohemia in 1575, together with the title of the king of the Romans. On the death of Maximilian II., in 1576, he succeeded to the imperial throne, being then regarded as a highly accomplished prince, of great sweetness of temper, and conversant with various branches of knowledge. Unfortunately his taste and acquirements were so far from qualifying him for the station to which he was elevated, that they diverted his attention from the principal duties of a sovereign. He was greatly attached to mechanical inventions, and spent whole days in the shops of clockmakers, turners, and other artists. Chemistry was also one of his favourite studies, with its usual attendant in that age, alchemy. He had a passion for horses which led him to waste much time in his stables, disguised as a groom. His easiness of temper was a defect which was attended with timidity and irresolution; and his zeal for the Catholic religion rendered him unfriendly to those tolerating principles upon which troubles soon arose in his Hungarian dominions, where sultan Amurath III., who had broken the subsisting truce, made various incursions into Hungary. Several defeats were given to the Turks by the imperial generals. But Mahomet III., the successor of Amurath, took the important town of Agra in Upper Hungary, and war was maintained for several years with various fortunes in that kingdom, till a peace was concluded with sultan Achmet in 1606. Rodolph, who had fixed his residence in Prague, took little personal share in these events, being chiefly occupied with his multifarious studies; and his Hungarian subjects had contracted such a contempt for his character, that they invited his brother, the archduke Matthias, to undertake the government, and in 1607 elected him for their King. The timid and pacific Rodolph was persuaded to enter into a treaty with his brother, by which he

7

UNIVERSAL BIOGRAPHY

[CENT. XVI. ceded to him both Hungary and Austria, and Matthias was solemnly inaugurated as sovereign of those countries. Soon after, great disturbances arose in the empire on account of the disputed succession of the duchies of Juliers and Cleves, with which were associated the causes of dissension between the catholics and protestants of Germany. Confederations were formed, and both parties prepared for war. The emperor convoked diets, and appears to have diligently exerted himself in order to prevent extremities. He, however, gave his chief confidence to his brother the archduke Leopold, who was sent to govern the disputed territories, and was placed at the head of the Catholic army. This prince at length marched into Bohemia to awe the protestants, who had been rendered discontented by attempts to introduce the inquisition into that country, and by violations of their privileges. In this emergency they applied for assistance to Matthias, who entered Bohemia, and obliged Leopold to disband his troops. Not content with this success, he so wrought upon the weakness of his brother, that Rodolph resigned to him his remaining kingdom of Bohemia, of which Matthias received the crown in 1611. Rodolph was probably at that time in a declining state of health, for he died in January, 1612, in the sixtieth year of his age, and the thirty-sixth of his reign. Conscious weakness, and the predictions of the celebrated, but superstitious astronomer Tycho Brahe, had rendered him distrustful of all his relations, so that he finally shut himself up in his palace, which he never quitted either for exercise or amusement. He was never married, but left some natural children. Among his various studies, the most respectable one was that of astronomy, his attachment to which induced him to invite Tycho Brahe to Prague, where he was liberally patronized till his death; and the same patronage was afterwards given to the more eminent Kepler, who had been his disciple. The Rodolphine tables, commenced by the former, and completed by the latter, have perpetuated the name of this emperor as a promoter of science.

CHARLES MANSFELD, prince of Mansfeld, lawful son to Peter Ernest, signalized himself in the wars of Flanders and Hungary; and died without issue in 1595, after having defeated the Turks, who attempted to relieve the city of. Grant.

ERNEST DE MANSFELD, the illegitimate son of Peter Ernest count of Mansfeld, by a lady of Malines, was educated at Brussels in the Roman Catholic religion. He was employed in the service of the king of Spain in the Netherlands, and in that of the emperor in Hungary, together with his brother Charles, count of Mansfeld. He was legitimated on account of his bravery, by Rodolph II., but his father's

At

posts and possessions in the Spanish Netherlands having been refused him contrary to promise, he, in 1610, joined the protestant princes. Being now become a most dangerous enemy to the house of Austria, who called him the Attila of Christianity, he set himself in 1618, at the head of the rebels in Bohemia, and got possession of Pilsen, in 1619. Though his troops were defeated in several battles, he penetrated into the palatinate, took several places, ravaged Alsace, made himself master of Haquenan, and defeated the Bavarians. length he was totally defeated by Walstein, at Dassan, in April, 1626. He gave his remaining troops to the duke of Weimar, and intending to pass into the Venetian States, he died in a village between Zara and Spalatro, in 1626, aged forty-six. Nami thus describes him, "He was bold, intrepid in danger, and the most skilful negociator of his age. He possessed a natural eloquence, and knew how to insinuate himself into the hearts of those whom he wished to gain. He was greedy of others' wealth, and prodigal of his own. He was full of vast projects, yet possessed neither lands nor money at his death." Not wishing to die in his bed he dressed himself in his finest robes, put on his sword, sat up, leaning upon two domestics, and in this position he breathed his last. But of all his actions, the following is the most extraordinary: having got information that Cazel, in whom he placed the greatest confidence, had communicated his plans to the Austrian chief, he gave him 300 rix dollars, and sent him to count Buquoy, with a letter in these words, "Cazel being attached to you and not to me, I send him to you, that you may have the benefit of his services." Ernest is deservedly esteemed one of the greatest generals of his age.

MATTHIAS, emperor of Germany, son of the emperor Maximilian II, was born in 1557. In 1594 he was appointed general of the army which his brother Rodolph II. sent against the Turks. He obtained several successes, and so well ingratiated himself with the Hungarians, that they first chose him as their governor, and then, in 1607, elected him for their king. (See Rodolph, p. 23.) On the death of Rodolph in 1612, Matthias was elected to succeed him. During the disputes which took place between the Catholics and Protestants, the Turks made an irruption into Transylvania. After a variety of fortune, a peace was made in 1615, by which the grand seignor restored to the house of Austria all the places in Hungary that had been conquered by his arms, and reinstated the owners of all lands that had been alienated. Matthias now found himself strong enough to venture upon curbing his Protestant subjects. The insolence with which they were treated so inflamed their passions, that they threw several of the members of the council of Prague out of the window, who, how