Ferdinand at hie death, 23rd of January 1516, left Cardinal Cisneros regent till the arrival of his grandson, Charles I. of Spain, afterwards Charles V. of Germany. The Dean of Louvain (afterwards Pope Adrian VL), opposed this nomination. Cisneroa however consented to admit him into the administration, and chose Madrid for his residence, that he might be more independent of the nobility, and better able to control their factions. The grandma objected to the power of Ferdinand to confer the regency, himself being only a regent, as the widower of Isabella; and the letter of Charles, which Cisneros showed them in ratification of Ferdinand's will, they treated as a mere matter of form. To satisfy their objections at once, the cardinal coolly requested them to wait upon him. From a balcony he showed them 2000 men in array, with a formidable train of artillery, which he ordered to be discharged. "There," said he, raising his voice, "are the powers which I have received from his Majesty, and in a word hcec eat ulama ratio regum." John Albret, the dispossessed king of Navarre, supported by some of the grandees, was forming a scheme to recover his kingdom. Cis neros, who had foreseen the danger long before, ordered a powerful body of troops to enter Navarre, and completely frustrated the attempt. To secure Navarre, he caused its numerous and expensive fortresses to be demolished, except Pampelnna, which he strengthened. To this precaution Spain was not only then hut often since indebted for the preservation of Navarre. In order to pay the debts of Ferdi nand and the officers of his new militia, and to establish numerous and well-furnished magazines, Cisneros boldly undertook the abolition of unnecessary pensions, and enforced the restitution of many ex tensive crown demesnes, which had been alienated chiefly to the nobility in the late reign. He did not spare his dearest friends, nor even men of learning. The historian Peter Martyr of Anghierra and Console. Oviedo suffered with the rest, and in revenge have defamed the continent character.
While Charles remained in Flanders, every pretender to favour resorted thither, but nothing could be obtained without pecuniary application to his favourite Chldvrea. Great sums were drawn out of Spain, and everything was disposed of to the highest bidder. The Inferior officen followed the example of their head, and this infamous traffic lemma general. On the other hand, seeing Flanders on the eve of becoming a distant province of a vast monarchy, the Flemish ministers detained the klog as long as they could, spreading all the time delusive report. of his 'natant departure, and cheating the cardi nal under the pretext of defraying the expense of the king's voyage. When after twenty menthe of entreaties Cisneros prevailed on Charles to embark for Spain, and was himself proceeding towards the coast to meet him, he was seized with a violent disorder, at the convent of BoseguIllas, near Aranda de Duero, which was attributed to poison. The Spanish grandees and Flemish courtiers now regulated the edrance of the court by the probable extent of tho cardinal's life. Weakened by disease, fatigue, and austerities, he still directed, to the great vexation of the courtiers, the helm of state, and seemed to sur vive only to evince his greatness of spirit unimpaired by bodily suffering. Under pretext of giving time to the towns for preparing
the honours due to the kinr, they succeeded in deferring his entry Into Castile till the cardinal's death, which happened ou the 8th of November 1517, but not before Charles, whose pride was worked upon by his flatterers, had written, with signal Ingratitude, a letter to Cis neros signifying to him his dismissal. The rare union of calmness, firmness, and decision in Cisneros, is well shown in Gometius (Gomez de Castro), ' De Rebus gentle b. Francisco Ximeuio;' in Marsollier, Fl6chier, Moreri, and Robertson.
CLA11tAUT, ALEXIS CLAUDE, sometimes spelt CLAIRAULT (we have taken the spelling from the title of his own works), was born at Paris, Slay 7, 1713. His father, John Baptist Clairaut, was a teacher of mathematics. The early proficiency of the son in mathe matics is bettor attested than in any other similar case, by the actual appearance of his celebrated treatise on ' Curves of Double Curvature,' in 1731, when he was eighteen years of age, Accompanied by the usual official reeommendatious, which prove that it was ready for the press two years before; it is said to have been begun when he was only thirteen years old. Ile read the 'Conic, Sections' of De 11116pital, and also the • Infiniinente Petits' of the same author, when he was only ten years old ; a fact which we should have forborne to state, had it not been fur the evidence contained in the treatise just cited, and in this fact, of public notoriety, that at the age of twelve years he presented a memoir on some remarkable curves to the Academy of Sciences, and removed all doubts as to its authorship by Liss personal explanations.
In 1731, being then under the legal age, Clairaut was admitted into the Academy of Sciences. Ile formed an intimate acquaintance with Maupertuis, and commenced at this period his researches on the figure of the earth. In 1735 ho accompanied Maupertuis, Camus, Lemon nkr, Ac. in their expedition to Lapland, for the purpose of measuring a degree of the meridian. This measure has frequently been con sidered as of little value: it must however be remarked, that such an opinion has been formed on the strength of discrepancies which were sufficiently apparent to the measurers themselves, and which caused them to review all their operations; as also, that circumstances con nected with local attractions are fully sufficient to explain the whole difficulty. The work of Clairaut on the ' Figure of the Earth' appeared in 1743, and was reprinted in 1808. It contains the remark able discovery which is usually called Clairaut's Theorem. Considering the earth as an elliptic spheroid, it should eeein that tho variation of gravity on the surface would depend upon the law of density of the interior strata. But Clalmnt showed that this variation is altogether indepentiout of the kw of density, and may be deduced from a know ledge of the form of the exterior surface. In this theorem, the second and higher powers of the eccentricity are rejected. Mr. Airy (io an early volume of the ' Cambridge Transaction.') has shown that it remains true when the higher powers are taken into account.