TRANSLATION:

(Secretarial Note: 21 January 1567; di Nobili)

Most Illustrious and Excellent Prince, Your Excellency will be receiving this letter by way of France because any means of sending correspondence to Italy or elsewhere with any sort of person has been blocked due to the bizarre occurrence of which you will hear. So that Your Excellency will have some idea of what has happened, I resolved to try my luck at routing these few lines by way of France. Your Excellency should know that at midnight on the 18th of this month, His Majesty [Felipe II] left his rooms, accompanied by the Council of State and War, that is to say Ruy Gomez [Ruy Gómez de Silva, Principe de Eboli], Prior Don Antonio [de Toledo], the Duke of Feria [Gómez Suárez de Figueroa] and Luigi Chisciada [Luis Méndez Quixada], then went to the bedroom of his son, the Prince of Spain, who was already in bed. As soon as he heard his father, he jumped out of bed in his nightshirt and raised his voice saying, "Your Majesty wants to kill me." His Majesty immediately told him to get back in bed and that he would then know his will. Approaching the bolster of the bed, the King took the Prince's sword and gave it to the Count [sic] of Feria. He then lifted the bolster and found a small harquebus loaded with shot, which he took as well and gave to one of those who were with him. The Prince meanwhile did not cease to exclaim that His Majesty wanted to kill him or restrain him as a madman, insisting that he wasn't crazy but only desperate. His Majesty had all of the weapons removed, as well as all iron implements down to the very andirons of the bedchamber, and he then had the windows nailed shut. He caused the Prince to return to bed and assigned the Count of Feria to watch him and the Count had halbardiers guard the doors to all the rooms. The King allowed only two attendants to enter these rooms, Don Rodrigo di Mendozza [de Mendoza] and the Count of Lerma [Francisco Rojas y Sandoval]. He summoned these two personally, commanding them to render the Prince the most attentive service but entirely without arms, since the Prince had already been secured and if they failed in this, they would be traitors to their King. He then went up to his own rooms, having left a heavy guard. The next morning, the King sent for the Council of Spain and the Council of Italy and informed them that he had imprisoned his son the Prince and would tell them the cause. These are the bare facts, exactly as they occurred, since I have neither the opportunity nor a safe way of saying more. I believe that I will soon be able to write Your Excellency at greater length regarding this matter, but in the meantime, please excuse my brevity. At least you know that the Prince has been imprisoned with a heavy guard and it is thought that the King will communicate this to all the various rulers. I humbly kiss the hands of Your Most Illustrious Excellency, praying that God will maintain you in your happy condition. From Madrid XXI January MDLXVII

Your Most Illustrious Excellency's faithful servant,

The Cavaliere de Nobili

TEXT:

(Secretarial Note: il 21 di gennaio 1567; di Nobili)

Illustrissimo et eccellentissimo s.r Principe Questa lettera riceverà Vostra Eccellenza Illustrissima per via di Francia per ché per il caso stravagante, che Vostra Eccellenza intenderà, sono impedite tutte le strade da potere scrivere in Italia, o in qualsivoglia parte per ogni sorte di gente. Et perché Vostra Eccellenza habbia qualche poco di lume di quello, che è passato mi so[n] risoluto a tutta ventura inviar questi quattro versi per Francia. Saprà Vostra Eccellenza che a li XVIII di questo Sua Maestà [Felipe II] a la mezza notte accompagnato dal consiglio di stato et di guerra, che sono Ruy Gomez [Ruy Gómez de Silva, Principe de Eboli], il Prior Don Antonio [de Toledo], il Duca di Feria [Gómez Suárez de Figueroa], et Luigi Chisciada [Luis Méndez Quixada] si partì dalle sue camere, et andò a la camera del Principe di Spagna suo figliuolo, il quale era già nel letto, et subito che sentì suo Padre, saltò fuora del letto in camicia alzando la voce, et dicendo, Vostra Maestà mi vuole ammazzare. Sua Maestà subito li disse, che si rientrasse nel letto, che vedrebbe qual'era la volontà sua, et accostatosi al capezzale pigliò la spada del Principe, et dettela al Conte [sic]di Feria, et alzando il capezzale del letto trovò un'archibusetto carico di palline, et medisimamente lo prese, et dettelo a uno di quelli che erono seco, non cessando però il Principe d'esclamare, che Sua Maestà lo volea ammazzare, o legar per pazzo, dicendo, che non era locco, ma disperato. Così Sua Maestà fece levare tutte l'armi, et tutti i ferri sino agli alari di quella camera, et conficcare le finestre, et rientrarsi il Principe nel letto, dandolo in guardia al conte di Feria, il quale con alabardieri facesse guardare le porte di tutte le camere, ne permettesse che entrasse dal Principe altri, che duoi camererj Don Rodrigo di Mendozza [de Mendoza], e'l Conte di Lerma [Francisco Rojas y Sandoval], li quali chiamò quivi, et comandò loro, che senz'arme nissuna tenessero grandissima cura del servitio del Principe et che era sicuro, che essendo cavalieri lo farebbono et avvertissero, che mancandone sariano traditori al suo Re: et lasciato buonissime guardie sene salì nelle sue camere. Di poi la mattina mandò per il Consiglio di Spagna, et d'Italia, dicendo loro come havea fatto prigione il Principe suo figliuolo, et che ne diria la cagione. Questo è il fatto puro, come è passato. Non ho commodità, ne sicurtà di dire altro a Vostra Eccellenza. Credo bene, che presto potrò scriverle a lungo sopra questa materia. Intanto per brevità mi scusi et sappia, che tuttavia il Principe sta prigione a grandissima guardia et si crede che Sua Maestà ne darà conto a tutti i Principi et humilmente baciando le mani di Vostra Eccellenza Illustrissima prego Dio, che la conservi felicissima. Di Madrid li XXI di Gennaio MDLXVII.

Di Vostra Eccellenza Illustrissima

Fidelissimo Servitore

Il Cavaliere de Nobili

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
Crown Prince Don Carlos de Austria (1545-68) came by his insanity honestly, as the only child of Felipe II and Maria of Portugal, two cousins whose common grandmother was the notorious Juana la Loca ("Joanna the Mad".) The Prince's increasingly aberrational and often violent behavior is well-documented in the Medici diplomatic correspondence in the months leading up to his arrest. These stories were narrated in startling detail when the Tuscan legation was able to route their letters through secure private couriers. [For example, Archivio Mediceo del Principato 4898, ff. 74-76; 23 July 1567.) Otherwise, they needed to rely on painstaking (and necessarily brief) encapsulations in diplomatic cipher or calculated understatements and double-meanings.

As Tuscan Ambassador Leonardo de' Nobili noted in the present smuggled letter, Felipe II blocked all outgoing mail from Madrid (for two days, from 20 through 22 January 1568), in order to prepare the government's version of events. Though de' Nobili conceals the identity of his confidential informant, his account closely parallels the official one (codified a generation later by the historian Luis Cabrera de Córdoba) and probably represents a sanctioned leak. On 25 January, after the resumption of regular postal service, de' Nobili composed a fuller report (including, for example, the king's seizure of the Prince's papers) and assigning direct quotations in Spanish (rather than Italian translations as in the previous letter) to both father and son: "[…]Il che visto dal Principe subito saltò fuora in camicia dicendo, Que es este? Vuestra Majestad me quiere matar! Porque? A che rispose Sua Maestà, che s'entrasse nel letto perche a quello, che'era venuto a fare, si movea solo per sua salute, et per suo bene. Et replicando il Principe, Vuestra Majestad me quiere atar como loco! Io no soy loco, mas desesperado[…] [Il re] sempre dicendo al Principe, Sossiegaos, y no tengais miedo, que todo se haze por bien […]" (Mediceo del Principato 4898, f.164.)

The King was emphatic, perhaps over-emphatic, in his instructions that the Prince's "attendants" remain unarmed while "serving" him. Months later, after Don Carlos' mysterious death in captivity on 25 July 1568, such language was minutely dissected by the bereaved monarch's friends and enemies. On 22 July, Ambassador de' Nobili describes with exquisite diplomatic subtlety the last stages of an implied poisoning, "The Prince of Spain has in effect ruined his stomach through disorders caused by his intemperate mouth…"; "[…]Il Principe di Spagna per disordini causati dalla sua intemperata bocca s'havea di maniera guasto lo stomaco […]; (Mediceo del Principato 4898, f.284)

The Florentine "man on the street" (as exemplified by the diarist Agostino Lapini) seemed to share the assumption that much was being left unsaid. On 20 September 1568, Lapini commented on the state exequies in the Medici family church of San Lorenzo, "This was the first-born son of Philip II, King of Spain, but he was hunchbacked and ugly and deformed. The son wanted to kill his father with a rotary harquebus, but this was discovered and the king had him put in prison where he soon died, but it is not generally known how this came about. The exequies were held in San Lorenzo, in the presence of Duke Cosimo [I de' Medici] with two of his children. There was no sermon." (Diario Fiorentino di Agostino Lapini, Florence 1900, p.161.)

SPECIAL THANKS: To Rosemarie Mulcahy for her advice regarding the Spanish historical context and to Anatole Tchikine for signalling the reference in Lapini's diary.