Chapter X: Famous Monks and Monasteries (4)

When the Emperor Charles V. died, a monk at Yuste, his chamberlain said of him that he was the greatest man that ever lived, or ever would live, in the world. In his last moments he said, "The time is come; bring me the candle and the crucifix." These cherished relics he had long kept for this supreme hour, and he died with his eyes fixed on the crucifix. His body was embalmed and laid in a coffin in front of the high altar. The eloquent preacher Villalva preached a funeral sermon so impassioned, that the hearers declared that it made their flesh creep and their hair stand on end. Sixteen years later messengers went to remove the body to the mausoleum at the Escurial. The monks bewailed the loss of so precious a deposit, and one of them took occasion to preach an affecting sermon, in which he thus apostrophised the dead monarch: "Although you are but a lifeless corpse, the garment of the spirit which has long enjoyed, as we believe, the glory of God, we thank your Cæsarean majesty for the grace which you have bestowed on Yuste and on our order. In a year and eight months passed in this solitude we are well assured that you have gained more renown than in the whole of your long reign. History, indeed, will never forget your great achievements, but in the end of your life you surpassed them all. Grief for losing you, who so loved us, chokes my utterance; for I know that when you are gone, although we who are now alive are your devoted servants and chaplains, a time will come when even in this place your memory will be regarded no more than if you had never dwelt within our walls." This last allusion was prophetic; for in 1849, when Mr. Stirling visited Yuste, he found it in ruins, and all save the great walnut tree told only of mouldering decay. O'Campo, the chronicler of the Emperor Charles V., had undertaken to write his history; but having begun at Noah's flood was, after forty years' labour, surprised by death while narrating the exploits of the Scipios, B.C. 183.