SIXTUS, 
and ever complained of the infirmities of age hanging heavily 
upon him. Gregory died in 1585, and the cardinals split 
into factions. Montalto appeared, but in the character of 
one bending under the weight of years, and as if ready to 
expire. In the course of the contests, which were long and 
severe, he was informed that the choice would probably fall 
on him; to which he replied by averring his own unfit¬ 
ness for the office; that his life would scarcely outlive the con¬ 
clave; and that if he were elected, he should only be pope 
in name, while all the authorities must devolve upon others. 
This sort of argument, which he threw out as a bait to his 
ambitious brethren, was readily seized upon by them all, as 
well with the hope of a short pontificate, as with the expec¬ 
tation that they should all strengthen themselves against a 
new election. Montalto was chosen on the 24th of April, 
1585. Scarcely, however, had the tiara been placed on his 
head, when lie threw away his crutches, which had enabled 
him to assume his former character, walked perfectly erect, and 
chanted Te Deuiii with a voice so strong, that the roof of the 
chapel in which the ceremony was performed re-echoed the 
sound. He also gave his benediction to the people with such 
an air of vigour, that they could scarcely believe him to be 
the decrepid cardinal Montalto. It was now that he assumed 
the name of Sixtus V., and he soon shewed them that his 
mind was as vigorous as his body. The territory of the 
church was at this time overrun with banditti, who plunder¬ 
ed and even murdered the people with impunity; and in the 
metropolitan city itself, a relaxed police had encouraged all 
kinds of disorders. The first object of Sixtus was to exter¬ 
minate these evils, and no sovereign ever employed the cor¬ 
rective powers with which he was invested with more vigour 
and effect. It had been usual, fcyr the sake of acquiring po¬ 
pularity, on the election of a new pope, to set the imprisoned 
criminals at liberty ; but the first act of Sixtus was to order 
four persons to be hanged, on whom were found a few days 
before, prohibited weapons. This system of rigour he pur¬ 
sued with the most inexorable severity, never, in a single 
instance, pardoning a criminal. There is no doubt that 
signal severity was necessary to stop the public disorders, 
and in that view of the subject, Sixtus was certainly a bene¬ 
factor to the state; but unfortunately for his character as a 
just magistrate, in whom compassion should be found tem¬ 
pering the rigour of the law, instances are recorded on the 
page of history, which go to prove that he took a real plea¬ 
sure in acts of punishment, and that his soul w r as insensible to 
all the emotions of tenderness and pity ; which, says a good 
writer and diligent observer of human nature, “ is not an un¬ 
usual effect of a monastic education.” 
A Spanish gentleman having been struck by a Swiss guard 
with his halberd in a church, retaliated by a blow which proved 
fatal to the soldier. Sixtus, having examined into the affair, 
gave an order to the governor of Rome to have the offender 
executed before he should sit down to table. The Spanish 
ambassador, with four cardinals, waited upon his holiness, not 
to plead for the criminal's life, but to entreat upon their knees, 
that, as he Was a gentleman by birth, the punishment might be 
commuted to that of decapitation: this small favour he abso¬ 
lutely refused, and said in a tone of anger, bordering on frantic 
rage, “ he shall be hanged; but to alleviate the disgrace in¬ 
curred by his family, I will do him the honour to assist 
at his execution.” He accordingly ordered the gallows to 
be erected before his own house, and was witness to the deed 
of horror. When the sentence was executed, he turned with 
the utmost coolness to his domestics, and said, “ Bring me 
my dinner; this act of justice has given me an additional 
appetite.” He caused the heads of all those who had suffered 
the penalty of death for crimes committed against the state, 
to be placed on the city gates, and on each side of the bridge 
of St. Angelo, and sometimes went on purpose to view them; 
and a request being made by the conservators of the health 
of the city for their removal, when they, by their numbers 
and decay, became offensive, he replied, “ You are too de¬ 
licate; the heads of those that rob the public are still 
more offensive.” 
Another anecdote is fold of him, to shew that he was not 
Vol. XXIII. No. 1569. 
261 
more rigorous to his own subjects, than strenuous in main¬ 
taining the rights and authority of the holy see, with respect 
to foreign powers. When the ambassador of the king of 
Spain presented him with a beautiful genet and a purse of 
ducats, as a homage due for the kingdom of Naples, and 
complimented him in his master’s name, Sixtus, in a tone of 
raillery, said, that the compliment was very fine, but that 
it would require a deal of eloquence to persuade him to take 
a horse in exchange for the revenues of a kingdom. At the 
time of his accession, France was in confusion on account 
of the machinations of the Catholic league to exclude from 
the crown Henry, king of Navarre, its presumptive heir. 
Though Sixtus did not approve the attempts of the Guises, at 
the head of the league, to obtain a superiority over the king 
Henry III.; yet he thought it became him, as head of the 
Catholic religion, to promote the exclusion of a Protestant 
heir, and he accordingl y launched an excommunication against 
the king of Navarre, depriving him of the right of succession. 
That prince procured an appeal from this sentence to be fixed 
on the very gates of the Vatican, which act, Sixtus had the 
magnanimity to be pleased with, on account of the heroism 
which it displayed.^ When Henry III. had caused the duke 
of Guise to be assassinated, and the cardinal of Guise to be 
put to death, and the cardinal of Bourbon and the archbishop 
of Lyons to be imprisoned, the pope, highly incensed at the 
violation of the ecclesiastical immunities in the persons of the 
three last mentioned persons, issued a monitory, requiring 
the king to set at liberty the cardinal and archbishop within 
teu days, on pain of excommunication; and he afterwards 
approved, in an open manner, the assassination of Henry by 
the Dominican Clement. He refused, however, to renew 
the excommunication of Henry IV., saying, that he would 
pray for his conversion, and that no prince was more de¬ 
serving a crown. He had also a high veneration for the 
character of queen Elizabeth of England, on account of the 
prudence and vigour of her government, though he was un¬ 
der the necessity of treating her as an enemy on account of 
her enmity to the Catholic religion. It is said, and the fact 
is surely quite in character, that he envied her the good for¬ 
tune in having had the pleasure of taking off a crowned head, 
by the execution of Mary, queen of Scots. After the defeaf 
of the Spanish armada, he entertained the design of wresting 
the kingdom of Naples from Philip, but was prevented by 
death from making the daring attempt. 
It was the ruling passion of this pontiff, who, as we have 
seen, was only a peasant's son, to perpetuate his memory, 
by which he was led to many vain and ostentatious, and to 
some great and useful enterprises. He had already, while 
cardinal, engaged the celebrated architect Fontana, in erect¬ 
ing a splendid chapel in the church of St. Maria Maggiore, 
which he had been obliged to discontinue, from the with¬ 
drawing of his allowance by Gregory XIII.; and now hav¬ 
ing the means, as well as the good will, he employed the 
same artist in the arduous task of setting upright the fallen 
obelisk of Egyptian granite, which had once decorated the 
Circus of Nero. This was effected by great skill and labour, 
and the obelisk was dedicated by Sixtus to the Holy Cross. 
He afterwards caused three other obelisks to be dug out of the 
ruins among which they lay, and placed before different 
churches. If mere vanity and ostentation led him to erect 
useless buildings at his native place; it was universally allow¬ 
ed, that use and ornament were united in most of the works 
which he executed at Rome. For the supply of water to 
that metropolis, he directed the collection of a number of 
springs to one reservoir, at the distance of thirteen miles, 
whence it was conveyed by an aqueduct to the Quirinal 
mount. He undertook to rebuild the Vatican library upon 
an enlarged and more magnificent plan, by his favourite 
architect Fontana, and erected very near it a very fine 
printing-office, destined to give splendid as well as correct 
editions of the fathers, and other works relative to reli¬ 
gion. There was not a part of Rome to which he had 
not given decorations, and perhaps no pope left so many 
monuments of grandeur after a long reign as Sixtus V., 
after occupying the papal see little more than five years. 
3 X On 
