an abridgement, a briefer retelling in his own sonorous prose, of Lady Buchan's book, and the short lives, such as Father J. H. Pollen's, are rather biographical essays than full biographies. My endeavor has been to narrate Loyola's life as, aided by the works of the scholars to whom I have referred, I find it in the original sources, although not without comment or criticism, nor without my own interpretation upon such episodes as seem to me in need of interpretation. I have also tried to do what neither Tacchi Venturi nor Astrain has done for it lay quite outside their purposesand that is, to provide a frame of contemporaneous history in which to set the picture. I believe that I am fairly free from religious bias-although no one knows his own deep prejudices-and in telling Loyola's story, I shall be as strictly impartial as a profound admiration for this heroic soldier of Jesus will permit. Cambridge, Massachusetts, May, 1923. H. D. S. CALIFORNIA IGNATIUS LOYOLA CHAPTER I BOYHOOD AND YOUTH (1495-1521) IGNATIUS LOYOLA was born in the Basque province of Guipuscoa, at the castle of Loyola, not far from the little town of Azpeitia. This province lies between the Bay of Biscay and what was at that time the Spanish portion of the Kingdom of Navarre. His father, Don Beltran Yáñez de Oñaz y Loyola, belonged to the principal nobility of the province, and was of kin in some degree to a great nobleman, Don Alonso Manrique, duke of Najera. Don Beltran had eight sons, of whom Ignatius was the youngest, and five daughters. The date of Loyola's birth is usually given as 1491; however, for reasons set forth in the appendix, I incline to think that 1495 is the true year. He was baptized Iñigo but in manhood took the name Ignacio, or in its Latin form Ignatius, for the reason that it was more generally known, and for some years used one or the other indiscriminately, and then finally dropped Iñigo entirely. Of his doings during boyhood and youth few facts are known, and those vaguely. On the other hand, of his disposition and general behaviour the evidence is definite enough. Late in life he dictated to one of his disciples, Father Luis Gonzalez de Camara, a brief memoir of his career, in which all he says concerning his youth is, that it was given over to vanity, adding, in explanation, that he entertained a "love of martial exercises and a vainglorious desire for fame." His earliest biographer, Father Polanco, another of his disciples, says: "Like other young men bred in court to a military life" he was keenly interested in sports |