open expression of public discontent with Alexander's policy. Personally, indeed, he was never popular; but his efficiency as an administrator formed the brightest side of his character, and his care for the material interests of his subjects was exemplary. Years afterwards those who had most detested the man wished back the ruler "for his good government, and the plenty of all things in his time."
Unhappily for Alexander's repute, the glory which he might acquire as a just and able rulerwas nothing in his eyes compared with the opportunities which his station afforded him for aggrandising his family. Up to this time he had been content with the comparatively inoffensive measures of dignified matrimonial alliances and promotions in Church and State, and had not sought to make his children territorial princes; but, profiting by the death of King Ferrante of Naples, who was succeeded by his uncle Federigo, he now revived papal claims on the territory of Benevento, and erected it into a duchy for the Duke of Gandia. This was to despoil the Church, supposing her claims to have been well founded; so complete, however, was Alexander's ascendancy over the Sacred College that only one Cardinal dared to object. Simultaneously, Alexander pushed forward his schemes for the advancement of his daughter Lucrezia by divorcing her from her husband Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, whose dignity now seemed unequal to the growing grandeur of the Borgia, and who moreover belonged to a family politically estranged from the Pope. A colour of right was not wanting, the divorce, which was decreed by the College of Cardinals after a professedly searching investigation, being grounded upon the alleged impotence of the husband. It is indeed noticeable that Lucrezia, who bore children to both her subsequent husbands, bore none to Giovanni Sforza. The transaction also serves to discredit in some measure the charges brought against the Borgia of secret poisoning, which would have been more easily and conveniently employed than the disagreeable and scandalous method of a legal process.
While Alexander seemed at the summit of success, the wrath or warning of Heaven descended upon him. On the morning of June 15, 1497, the Duke of Gandia was missed from his palace; soon afterwards his body, gashed with frightful wounds, was taken from the Tiber. Returning the night before from a banquet at the house of his mother, Vanozza, in the company of his brother the Cardinal and other guests, he had separated himself from the party to ride with a masked person who had several times been observed in his company; and he was never again seen alive. After many had been named as the probable assassins, the popular voice at length proclaimed Cesare Borgia, who certainly profited by the deed; and most people thought this enough. History cannot convict on such a ground alone, and must rank this picturesque crime among her unsolved problems. After the first paroxysms of grief had subsided, Alexander made a public confession of penitence, which was
