But Charles was to show himself mortal. He had always been a colossal eater, and had never spared himself either in the field or at the table. One has to pay for these things; if a man wishes to be a great leader and to undertake great responsibilities he must be content to forswear carnal delights and eat sparingly; and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that it is less harmful to drink too much than to eat too much. At the age of thirty Charles began to suffer from “gout”--whatever it was that they called gout in those days. At the age of fifty he began to lose his teeth--apparently from pyorrhœa. Possibly his “gout” may have really been the result of focal infection from his septic teeth. At fifty his gout “flew to his head,” and threatened him with sudden death. When he was fifty-two he suddenly became pale and thin, and it was noticed that his hair was rapidly turning grey. Clearly his enormous gluttony was beginning to result in arterio-sclerosis, and at fifty-four it was reported to his enemy the Sultan that Charles had lost the use of an arm and a leg. Sir William Stirling-Maxwell thought that this report was the exaggeration of an enemy; but it is quite possible that Charles really suffered from that annoying condition known as “intermittent claudication,” which is such a nuisance to both patient and doctor in cases of arterio-sclerosis. In these attacks there may be temporary paralysis and loss of the power of speech. The cause of them is not quite clear, because they seldom prove fatal; but it is supposed that there is spasm of some small artery in the brain, or perhaps a transitory dropsy of some motor area. Charles’s speech became indistinct, so that towards the end of his life it was difficult to understand what he meant. It has generally been supposed that this was due to his underhung lower jaw and loss of teeth; but it is equally probable that dropsy of the speech-centre may have been at the root of the trouble, such as is so frequently observed in arterio-sclerosis or its congener chronic Bright’s disease, and is also often caused by over-strain and over-eating. He began to feel the cold intensely, and sat shivering even under the warmest wraps; he said himself that the cold seemed to be in his bones. Probably there was some spasm of the arterioles, such as is often seen in arterio-sclerosis. By this time, what with the failure of his plans against the Protestants and his wretched health, he had made up his mind to resign the burden of Empire, and to seek repose in some warmer climate, where he could rest in the congenial atmosphere of a monastery. No Roman Emperor had voluntarily resigned the greatest position in the world since Diocletian in A.D. 305; curiously enough he too had been a persecutor, so that his reign is known among the hagiographers as “the age of martyrs.”