Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/180

36 from the people. But Carlos, from motives of pru- dence or magnanimity, declined engaging in this new contest, and passed over to Sicily, whence he resolved to solicit a final reconciliation with his father. He was received with much kindness by the Sicilians, who, preserving a grateful recollection of the beneficent sway of his mother Blanche, when queen of that island, readily transferred to the son their ancient attachment to the parent. An assembly of the states voted a liberal supply for his present exigencies, and even urged him, if we are to credit the Catalan ambassador at the court of Castile, to assume the sovereignty of the island. Carlos, however, far from entertaining so rash an ambition, seems to have been willing to seclude himself from public observation. He passed the greater portion of his time at a convent of Benedictine friars not far from Messina, where, in the society of learned men, and with the facilities of an extensive library, he endeavoured to recall the happier hours of youth in the pursuit of his favorite studies of philosophy and history.