Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/280

254 REIGN AND DEATH OF PHILIP. PART sovereignty, which he had so long and so glori- '- — ously filled. He had, indeed, lorded it over his vicerojalty with most princely sway. But he had assumed no powers to which he was not entitled by his services and peculiar situation. His public operations in Italy had been uniformly conducted for the advan- tage of his country, and, until the late final treaty with France, were mainly directed to the expulsion of that power beyond the Alps.^^ Since that event, he had busily occupied himself with the internal afiairs of Naples, for which he made many excel- lent provisions, contriving by his consummate ad- dress to reconcile the most conflicting interests and parties. Although the idol of the army and of the people, there is not the slightest evidence of an at- tempt to pervert his popularity to an unworthy pur- pose. There is no appearance of his having been corrupted, or even dazzled, by the splendid offers repeatedly made him by the different potentates of Europe. On the contrary, the proud answer re- corded of him, to Pope Julius the Second, breathes a spirit of determined loyalty, perfectly irrecon- cilable with any thing sinister or selfish in his mo- tives.'^ The Italian writers of the time, who affect to speak of these motives with some distrust, were little accustomed to such examples of steady devo- id My limits will not allow room Sismondi, R^publiques Italiennes, for the complex politics and feiuls torn. xiii. chap. 103. — Guicciar- of Italy, into which Gonsalvo en- dini, Isloria, torn. iii. p. 235 et tered with all the freedom of an alibi. — Zurita, Anales, torn. vi. independent potentate. See the lib G, cap. 7, 9. — Carta del Gran details, apud Ciironica del Gran Capitan, IMS. Capitan, lib. 2, cap. 112 - 127. — IG Zurita, Anales, lib. C, cap. 11.