Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/295

269 RETIREMENT OF GONSALVO. 269 she had unhappily so much cause to feel during Philip's lifetime. ^ In a subsequent journey, when at a short dis- tance from Torquemada, she ordered the corpse to be carried into the court-yard of a convent, occupied, as she supposed, by monks. She was filled with horror, however, on finding it a nunnery, and im- mediately commanded the body to be removed into the open fields. Here she encamped with her whole party at dead of night ; not, however, until she had caused the coffins to be unsealed, that she might satisfy herself of the safety of her husband's relics ; although it was very difficult to keep the torches, during the time, from being extinguished by the violence of the wind, and leaving the com- pany in total darkness.^ 2 Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 324, 332, 339, 363. — Mari- ana, Hist, de Espana, torn. ii. lib. 29, cap. 3. — Carbajal, Anales, MS., aiio 1506. — Bernaldez, Reves Catolicos, MS., cap. 206. — Ro- bles, Vida de Ximenez, cap. 17. " Childish as was the affection," says Dr. Dunham, "of Joanna for her husband, she did not, as Rob- ertson relates, cause the body to be removed from the sepulchre after it was buried, and brought to her apartment. She once visited the sepulchre, and, after affection- ately gazing on the corpse, was persuaded to retire. Robertson seems not to have read, at least not with care, the authorities for the reign of Fernando." (History of Spain and Portugal, vol. ii. p. 287, note.) Whoever will take the trouble to examine these au- thorities, will probably not find Dr. Dimham much more accu- rate in the matter than his prede- cessor. Robertson, indeed, draws largely from the Epistles of Peter Martyr, the best voucher for this period, which his critic apparently has not consulted. In the very page preceding that, in which he thus taxes Robertson with inaccu- racy, we find him speaking of Charles Vni. as the reigning mon- arch of France ; an error not mere- ly clerical, since it is repeated no less than three times. Such mis- takes would be too trivial for no- tice in any but an author, who has made similar ones the ground for unsparing condemnation of others. 3 Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 339. A foolish Carthusian monk, " las- vi sicco folio levior," to borrow Martyr's words, though more knave than fool probably, filled Joanna with absurd hopes of her husband's returning to life, which, he assured her, had happened, as he had read, to a certain prince, after he had