* * * * * After the coronation of Don Federigo de Aragona as King of Naples, Cardinal Cesare (detto Borgia) announced a determination which he had nourished since the murder of the Duke of Gandia. Whether he was the Pope’s bastard or another’s, it was his pose to aggrandise the House of Borgia; moreover he was young, only twenty-four years of age, and of an ardent and forceful habit of mind and body. Don Gioffredo Borgia was occupied with his wife Madonna Sancia de Aragona and his principality of Squillace; and his age of seventeen years did not render him a capable representative of his illustrious House. Cardinal Cesare felt that his scarlet hat debarred him from the pursuits for which Nature had devised him. The foes of Borgia were active on all sides: the territories of the Holy See were a hot-bed of revolt. Sforza sulked in Milan; Orsini, never forgetful of injury, entrenched themselves in their strongholds; their fierce brigands ravaged the country far and wide: and there was no Borgia to hold them in check. Wherefore Cardinal Cesare requested leave to renounce his cardinalate, to receive secular rank, to marry a royal princess, that he might be free to adopt a military career, and to perpetuate the Borgia dynasty. It was an extraordinary plan: but, though it presented advantages of high political value, it was opposed and shelved by the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, whose behaviour to Cardinal Cesare was never that of a father, but of a patron and benefactor who patronized, and benefited, him for the sake of another than himself. Yet, though the attitude of the Pope to the Cardinal was one of life-long distinct antipathy, He set immense value on his advancement, and incurred peril and made sacrifices to promote it. What was the motive of conduct which presents such contradictory features? Is it possible that Cardinal Cesare was the son of Madonna Giovanna de’ Catanei, not by Cardinal Rodrigo de Lançol y Borja, but by the eternal rival of the last, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere? It is extremely possible and extremely probable. Cardinal Rodrigo undoubtedly had loved Madonna Giovanna very greatly since 1474. She undoubtedly was the mother of Cardinal Cesare, who was born in 1474. She had had relations with Cardinal Giuliano before that. And Cardinal Rodrigo never acknowledged the paternity of Cardinal Cesare, although he never denied it. The theory, which lacks not some proof (to be given in a proper place), would explain the unconquerable malice of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere towards the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, Who had deprived him of his mistress as well as of the triregno, the object of his ultimate ambition; and the loathing of the Pope’s Holiness for His enemy’s bastard, whom He, at the same time held as a hostage to be used against Cardinal Giuliano in an extremity, feared for his incorrigible and antipathetic disposition, and