Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/303

277 RETIREMENT OF GONSALVO. 277 Captain, he granted him the noble duchy of Sessa, chapter by an instrument, which, after a pompous recapit- " ulation of his stately titles and manifold services, declares that these latter were too great for recom- pense. ^^ Unfortunately for both king and subject, this was too true. '^ Gonsalvo remained a day or two behind his royal master in Naples, to settle his private affairs. In addition to the heavy debts incurred by his own generous style of living, he had assumed those of many of his old companions in arms, with whom the world had gone less prosperously than with himself. The claims of his creditors, therefore, had swollen to such an amount, that, in order to satisfy them fully, he was driven to sacrifice part of the domains lately granted him. Having discharged all the obli- gations of a man of honor, he prepared to quit the land, over which he had ruled with so much splen- ic Chronica del Gran Capitan, 8, cap. 3.) This sort of testimony lib. 3, cap. 3. — Zurita, Anales, seems to contain an implication not torn. vi. lib. 7, cap. 6, 49. — Gio- very flattering:, and on the whole is vio, Vitas Illust. Virorum, p. 279. so improbable, that I cannot but " Vos el ilustre Don Gonzalo think the Aragonese historian has Hernandez de Cordoba," begins confounded it with the grant of the instrument, " Duque de Terra Sessa, bearing precisely the same Nova, Marques de Santangelo y date,February 25th, and containing . Vitonto, y mi Condeslable del rey- also, though incidentally, and as a no deNapoles, nuestromuycharoy thing of course, the most ample muy amado prime, y uno del nues- tribute to the Great Captain. — tro secreto Consejo," &c. (See Comp. also Pulgar, Sum., p. 138. the document apud Quintana, Es- 13 Tacitus may explain why. panoles Celebres, tom. i. Apend. " Beneficia eo usque laeta sunt, no. 1.) The revenues from his dum videntur exsolvi posse ; ubi various estates amoimted to 40,000 multum antevenere, pro gratia odi- ducats. Zurita speaks of another urn redditur." (Annales, lib. 4, instrument, a public manifesto of sec. 18.) "II n'est pas si dange- the Catholic king, proclaiming to reux," says Rochefoucault, in a the world his sense of his general's more caustic vein, " de faire da exalted services and unimpeacha- mal a la plupart des hommes, que ble loyalty. (Anales, tom. vi. lib. de leur faire trop de bien."