After several attempts by arms and negotiation amongst the local sovereigns, he met with a distinct failure in the kingdom of Naples before the fortress of Civitella, the siege of which he was forced to raise on the 15th of May, 1557.

Wearied out by want of success, sick in the midst of an army of sick, regretting over "the pleasure of his field-sports at Joinville, and begging his mother to have just a word or two written to him to console him," all he sighed for was to get back to France.

And it was not long before the state of affairs recalled him thither.

It was now nearly two years ago that, on the 25th of October, 1555, and the 1st of January, 1556, Charles V.

had solemnly abdicated all his dominions, giving over to his son Philip the kingdom of Spain, with the sovereignty of Burgundy and the Low Countries, and to his younger brother, Ferdinand, the empire together with the original heritage of the House of Austria, and retiring personally to the monastery of Yuste, in Estramadura, there to pass the last years of his life, distracted with gout, at one time resting from the world and its turmoil, at another vexing himself about what was doing there now that he was no longer in it.