Note 68 — Chapter VII · THE REGENCIES OF FERDINAND

A foolish Carthusian monk, “levi sicco folio levior,” to borrow Martyr’sl words, though more knave than fool probably, filled Juana 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 been dead fourteen years. As Philip was disembowelled, he was hardly in a condition for such an auspicious event. The queen, however, seems to have been caught with the idea. Martyr loses all patience at the inventions of this “blactero cucullatus,” as he calls him, in his abominable Latin, as well as at the mad pranks of the queen, and the ridiculous figure which he and the other grave personages of the court were compelled to make on the occasion. It is impossible to read his jeremiads on the subject without a smile.