"Cæsar Borgia," writes Sebastiano de Branca in his diary, about the year 1500, "Cæsar Borgia was the cruelest man of any age." To serve his purposes he did not hesitate to use poison and perjury. He was treacherous, incestuous, murderous, even keeping a private executioner, Michilotto, to do his bidding. Louis XI. of France, and other princes, kept a court assassin. The fifteenth century was lurid with atrocities. Rodrigo Lenzuoli, the father, Lucretia, the daughter, and Cæsar, the son, comprised the Borgia trio, distinguished no less for their intellect, beauty, wealth, and bravery, than for their craft, lust, treachery, and cruelty. Says Lecky: "Philip II. and Isabella the Catholic inflicted more suffering in obedience to their consciences than Nero or Domitian in obedience to their lusts." In 1415 John Huss was burned for his religion, and in 1431 Joan of Arc for her patriotism. In like manner perished thousands of others. Mahomet II., disputing with the Venetian artist Gentile Bellini as to the length of John the Baptist's neck after decollation, called a slave, and striking off his head with one blow of his cimeter, exclaimed: "There! did not I say yours is too long?" Princes made bloodshed a pastime. Edward IV. put to death a tradesman for perpetrating a pun; caused a gentleman to be executed for speaking against a favorite; and condemned his own brother to death in a fit of petulance. In an interview between this same Edward of England and the king of France, the monarchs were brought together in huge iron cages, each distrustful of the other. Louis XII. confined Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan, in an iron cage for ten years, and until his death. This was a punishment common at that time in Italy and Spain. Pedro el Cruel is charged by Hallam with having murdered his wife and mother, most of his brothers and sisters, many of the Castilian nobility, and multitudes of the commonalty. The church tolerated the persecution of its enemies, believing it was for the glory of God. Nor was this idea confined to Spain or to the fifteenth century, for we find in England and even in America that persecutions for conscience' sake, with all the cruelties that refined civilization could devise existed at the opening of the present century; nor indeed is the world yet completely emancipated from this thraldom. Yet the Spaniards, I say, were bad enough. The cruelties following the capitulation of Málaga, in 1487, were more befitting fiends than a man and woman who prided themselves in the title of Catholic king and queen.