Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/258

232 232 THE REGENCY OF FERDINAND. I'ART Philip ? Was it to bring odium on the head of the '- — latter, by encouraging him to a measure, which he knew must disgust the Castilians ? ^^ But Ferdi- nand bj this very act shared the responsibility with him. Was it in the expectation that uncontrolled and undivided power, in the hands of one so rash and improvident, would the more speedily work his ruin ? As to his clandestine protest, its design was obviously to afford a plausible pretext at some future time for reasserting his claims to the govern- ment, on the ground, that his concessions had been the result of force. But then, why neutralize the operation of this, by the declaration, spontaneously made in his manifesto to the people, that his abdi- cation was not only a free, but most deliberate and premeditated act ? He was led to this last avowal, probably, by the desire of covering over the morti- fication of his defeat ; a thin varnish, which could impose on nobody. The whole of the proceedings are of so ambiguous a character as to suggest the inevitable inference, that they flowed from habits of dissimulation too strong to be controlled, even when there was no occasion for its exercise. We occasionally meet with examples of a similar fond- ness for superfluous manoeuvring in the humbler concerns of private life. stconj III- After these events, one more interview took place Ifrvicw. * July 5. between King Ferdinand and Philip, in which the 52 This motive is cliaritably im- bilitl, in extricating liiinself from puted to him by Gaiiiard. (Riva- his embarrassments by the treaty, liti, tom. iv. p. 311.) The same " auquel il fit consc7i(ir Philippe writer commends Ferdinand's ha- dans leur cntrevue " ! p. 310.