stable of France, to be murdered in his bed, out of revenge, because he had been disappointed in his attempt to obtain the duchy of Angoulême, which the king had bestowed upon La Cerda. He soon after began to intrigue against his sovereign, set up a claim to the throne of France in right of his mother, and even ventured to draw the dauphin into a confederacy against his father. But the king having obtained full information respecting these machinations, suddenly arrested Charles and his adherents while seated at dinner with the dauphin in the castle of Rouen, sent him a prisoner to Chateau Gaillard, and put several of his most obnoxious associates to death. After the disastrous battle of Poitiers in 1356, at which King John was taken prisoner, the king of Navarre made his escape, and soon after proceeded to Paris, where his eloquence and winning address had rendered him, in spite of his crimes, a great favourite with the citizens. He continued his intrigues against the royal authority, and having attracted to his standard numbers of Norman and English adventurers, known by the name of Companions, he declared war against France, took several towns and fortresses, and reduced the dauphin almost to the last extremity; but at length peace was concluded between them in 1360. The remainder of the reign of this able but unprincipled sovereign was spent in continual plots and broils. In 1361 he entered into an alliance with Pedro the Cruel, and assisted him in his campaigns against the king of Arragon. He conducted the Black Prince, who came to the assistance of Pedro with a body of English troops, through his own territories, as far as Pampeluna, but was accidentally taken prisoner by a French knight before the battle, in which the prince defeated the French army that had espoused the cause of the king of Arragon. He soon regained his liberty, however, and peace was subsequently concluded between him and Charles, his brother-in-law, the new king of France, which lasted for four years. But hostilities again broke out on the discovery of a conspiracy on the part of the king of Navarre, to poison the French king. The poison was actually administered, and Charles never recovered from its effects, though its immediate operation was partially suspended by the skill of a physician, sent by the Emperor Charles IV. Unable to resist the French arms, the king of Navarre entered into a treaty with the English and engaged to deliver Cherbourg into their hands as the price of their aid. On this condition a powerful army was sent to his assistance, and soon turned the tide in his favour. This wicked sovereign died in 1387. His death was worthy of his life. He was wrapped in clothes that had been dipped in spirits of wine and sulphur, to reanimate the chill in his limbs caused by his debaucheries, and to cure his leprosy. By some accident they caught fire, and burnt the flesh off his bones.—(Froissart.)—J. T.
CHARLES III., King of Navarre, called the Noble, on account of his good qualities, was born in 1361. He married in 1375 Leonora, daughter of Henry II. of Castile, surnamed the Magnificent. Charles ascended the throne of Navarre in 1390. In 1404 he entered into a treaty with Charles VI. of France, by which he renounced his pretensions to the provinces of Champagne, de Brie and d'Evreux, receiving in exchange the duchy of Nemours. Charles died in 1425.—J. T.
CHARLES IV., son of John II., king of Navarre and Arragon, and of Blanche, daughter of Charles III. the Noble, born in 1421, became titular king of Navarre on the death of his mother in 1441; but after some fruitless attempts to overcome the opposition of his father, which was vigorously supported by Joan of Castile, John's second wife, he abandoned his claims to the crown, and accepted the title of Count of Barcelona. This accomplished and unfortunate prince was poisoned in 1461.—J. S., G.
V.—CHARLESES OF SPAIN.
CHARLES I. See Charles V. of Germany.
CHARLES II., son of Philip IV., was a child of four years at his accession to the throne in 1665, and the country, already wasted by his father's follies, had to undergo the evils of a long minority. The queen-mother held the regency; and her subserviency to her favourites was checked only in part by the influence of Don John of Austria. This able and popular commander obtained the ascendancy, when Charles, at the age of fifteen, assumed the reins of government; but the young king was speedily left by the death of his minister to responsibilities, for which he was incapacitated by bodily weakness and mental imbecility. It was in this reign that Portugal secured her independence; but the most serious dangers arose out of the ambitious attempts of Louis XIV. to annex the Low Countries to his dominions, and to obtain for a Bourbon prince the heirship of the childless Spanish monarch, in opposition to the claims of the Emperor Leopold and the electoral Prince Joseph Ferdinand. The alliance of England, Holland, and Germany checked the progress of the French arms in the Netherlands; and at the peace of Nimeguen in 1678, the marriage of Charles to a niece of Louis was expected to be the bond of a permanent accord. Her death, however, in the following year, brought on new conflicts, which were embittered by the marriage of the king to an Austrian princess, and continued till the peace of Ryswick in 1697. Charles died in 1700, having been induced by the plots of Philip and the influence of the pope to execute a will in favour of Philip of Anjou, who succeeded him.—W. B.
CHARLES III., a younger son of Philip V., born in 1716, acquired distinction at an early age by his military services in Italy, and was invested by his father with the sovereignty of the Two Sicilies, in which he was confirmed by the treaty of Vienna in 1730. Succeeding to the throne of Spain at the death of his brother, Ferdinand VI., he found the kingdom strengthened in its internal organization and resources by the wise and beneficent administration of his predecessor, and his own disposition led him to cultivate similar means of national prosperity. But the confederacy of the Bourbon princes in the middle of the century involved him in a war with the British, who captured Manilla, and some of the other Spanish colonial possessions. After the peace of Fontainebleau, Charles again devoted himself to the social and administrative improvement of his kingdom, and made an attempt to repress the Algerine pirates, which proved unsuccessful. In the struggle of the British colonies in America for their independence, he joined France in aiding them with a naval force; and at the close of the war, the provinces of Florida, with the island of Minorca, were ceded to Spain. His death occurred in 1788.—W. B.
CHARLES IV., King of Spain, son and successor of Charles III., was born at Naples in 1748, and died at Rome in 1819. He married his cousin, Maria Louisa Theresa of Parma, in 1765, and was crowned king of Spain at Madrid in 1789. His reign was anything rather than glorious. Of a violent temper, and destitute of almost every kingly quality, it was impossible that he should distinguish himself in the task of guiding the national councils during the stormy times which succeeded the French revolution. His father had tried to rouse the Spaniards out of their natural indolence; but immediately after the accession of Charles IV., the ancient spirit of inaction and routine took possession of the nation. In 1792 he superseded his able minister Florida Blanca by Aranda, whom he soon after exiled for favouring the French revolutionists. Charles, who had hitherto been at peace with the Revolution, took vigorous measures to save the life of Louis XVI., and, failing in his efforts, entered into war with France. In 1795 a peace was negotiated at Basle by Godoy, the queen's favourite, who had been appointed prime minister, and was now created Prince of Peace, high admiral, and generalissimo. An alliance, offensive and defensive with France, which followed the treaty of Basle, drew Spain info war with Portugal and England; the consequences of which were the ruin of her commerce and the annihilation of her fleet at the battle of Trafalgar. Charles was now tired of France, but the hostile proclamation made by Godoy in 1806, only brought him more under the power of Napoleon, who forced him in the following year to sign a secret treaty, that had for its object the partition of Portugal between the queen of Etruria and the Prince of Peace. The French troops, which had professedly been sent to enforce the stipulations of this treaty, were however ordered to Madrid, upon which Godoy withdrew with the court to Andalusia. Charles prepared to flee to America, but was arrested by the populace, and on the 9th of March, 1808, abdicated the throne in favour of his son Ferdinand. The ruin of the dynasty was at hand. Napoleon, having now gained over Godoy, who had long been the mortal enemy of Ferdinand, enticed the royal family to Bayonne, and there succeeded, with the aid of the Prince of Peace and of the queen, in depriving the house of Bourbon of the Spanish crown. He assigned to Charles a pension of seven millions of francs, and the château of Compeigne for a residence. The unfortunate monarch afterwards lived for some time at Marseilles. In 1811 he departed with his little court for Rome, where he died.—R. M., A.
