Note 1526 — Chapter VII
Reading edition
Ante. p. 177.
It is in this view that Dr. Salazar de Mendoza does not shrink from asserting, that, if Philip did make a sacrifice of his son, it rivalled in sublimity that of Isaac by Abraham, and even that of Jesus Christ by the Almighty! "Han dicho de él lo que del Padre Eterno, que no perdonó á su propio Hijo. Lo que del Patriarca Abraham en el sacrificio de Isaac su unigénito. A todo caso humano excede la gloria que de esto le resulta, y no hay con quien comparalla." (Dignidades de Castilla y Leon, p. 417.) He closes this rare piece of courtly blasphemy by assuring us that in point of fact Carlos died a natural death. The doctor wrote in the early part of Philip the Third's reign, when the manner of the prince's death was delicate ground for the historian.