he complained to his majordomo, that all his food was insipid.  The reply is, perhaps, among the most celebrated of facetia.  The cook could do nothing more unless he served his Majesty a pasty of watches.  The allusion to the Emperor’s passion for horology was received with great applause.  Charles “laughed longer than he was ever known to laugh before, and all the courtiers (of course) laughed as long as his Majesty.” [Badovaro] The success of so sorry a jest would lead one to suppose that the fooling was less admirable at the imperial court than some of the recorded quips of Tribaulet would lead us to suppose.

The transfer of the other crowns and dignitaries to Philip, was accomplished a month afterwards, in a quiet manner.  Spain, Sicily, the Balearic Islands, America, and other portions of the globe, were made over without more display than an ordinary ‘donatio inter vivos’.  The Empire occasioned some difficulty.  It had been already signified to Ferdinand, that his brother was to resign the imperial crown in his favor, and the symbols of sovereignty were accordingly transmitted to him by the hands of William of Orange.  A deputation, moreover, of which that nobleman, Vice-Chancellor Seld, and Dr. Wolfgang Haller were the chiefs, was despatched to signify to the electors of the Empire the step which had been thus resolved upon.  A delay of more than two years, however, intervened, occasioned partly by the deaths of three electors, partly by the war which so soon broke out in Europe, before the matter was formally acted upon.  In February, 1553, however, the electors, having been assembled in Frankfort, received the abdication of Charles, and proceeded to the election of Ferdinand.  That Emperor was crowned in March, and immediately despatched a legation to the Pope to apprize him of the fact.  Nothing was less expected than any opposition on the part of the pontiff.  The querulous dotard, however, who then sat in St. Peter’s chair, hated Charles and all his race.  He accordingly denied the validity of the whole transaction, without sanction previously obtained from the Pope, to whom all crowns belonged.  Ferdinand, after listening, through his envoys, to much ridiculous dogmatism on the part of the Pope, at last withdrew from the discussion, with a formal protest, and was first recognized by Caraffa’s successor, Pius iv.

Charles had not deferred his retirement till the end of these disputes.  He occupied a private house in Brussels, near the gate of Louvain, until August of the year 1556.  On the 27th of that month, he addressed a letter from Ghent to John of Osnabruck, president of the Chamber of Spiers, stating his abdication in favor of Ferdinand, and requesting that in the interim the same obedience might be rendered to Ferdinand, as could have been yielded to himself.  Ten days later; he addressed a letter to the estates of the Empire, stating the same fact; and on the 17th September, 1556, he set sail from Zeland for Spain.  These