CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924087983262 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. BRAUK CLEMENT' et Of? tz/^AyOi^y /K-a^-'i^/'ie- -7n, a.Ac't^.^i^ The Court of Philip IV. SPAIN IN DECADENCE BY MARTIN HUME editor of the calendars of spanish state papers (public record office) lecturer in spanish history and literature pembroke college, cambridge Vuestras augustisimos Soberanias vivan, O Gran Felipe, inclitamente triunfantes, grwvadas en los Anodes lie la Fama, pues sots sSlida colutnna y inobil Atlante de la Fe, unica defensa de la iglesia, y bien universal de vuestras invencibles reinos LONDON EVELEIGH NASH 1907 E.M, PREFACE " I lighted upon great files and heaps of papers and writings of all sorts. ... In searching and turning over whereof, whilst I laboured till I sweat again, covered all over with dust, to gather fit matter together . . . that noble Lord died, and my industry began to flag and wax cold in the business." Thus wrote William Camden with reference to his projected life of Lord Burghley, which was never written ; and the words may be applied not inappropriately to the present book and its writer. Some years ago I passed many laborious months in archives and libraries at home and abroad, searching and transcribing contemporary papers for what I hoped to make a complete history of the long reign of PhiUp IV., during which the final seal of decline was stamped indelibly upon the proud Spanish empire handed down by the great Charles V. to his descendants. I had dreamed of writing a book which should not only be a social review of the period signalised by the triumph of French over Spanish influence in the civilisation of Europe, but also a political history of the wane and final disappearance of the pro- digious national imposture that had enabled Spain, aided by the rivalries between other nations, to dominate the world for a century by moral force unsupported by any proportionate material power. VI PREFACE The sources to be" studied for such a history were enormous in bulk and widely scattered, and I worked very hard at my self -set task. But at length I, too, began to wax faint-hearted ; not, indeed, because my " noble Lord had died " ; for no individual lord, noble or ignoble, has ever done, or I suppose ever will do, anything for me or my books ; but because I was told by those whose business it is to study his moods, that the only " noble Lord " to whom I look for patronage, namely the sympathetic pubUc in England and the United States that buys and reads my books, had somewhat changed his tastes. He wanted to know and understand, I was told, more about the human beings who personified the events of history, than about the plans of the battles they fought. He wanted to draw aside the impersonal veil which historians had interposed between him and the men and women whose lives made up the world of long ago ; to see the great ones in their liabits as they lived, to witness their sports, to listen to their words, to read their private letters, and with these advantages to obtain the key to their hearts and to get behind their minds ; and so to learn history through the human actors, rather than dimly divine the human actors by means of the events of their times. In fact, he cared no longer, I was told, for the stately three-decker histories which occupied half a lifetime to write, and are now for the most part relegated, in handsome leather bindings, to the least frequented shelves of dusty libraries. I therefore decided to reduce my plan to more modest proportions, and to present not a universal PREFACE vii history of the period of Spain's dedine, but rather a series of pictures chronologically arranged of the life and surroundings of the " Planet King " Philip IV. — ^that monarch with the long, tragic, uncanny face, whose impassive mask and the raging soul within, the greatest portrait painter of all time limned with merciless fidelity from the King's callow youth to his sin-seared age. I have adopted this method of writing a history of the reign, because the great wars throughout Europe in which Spain took a leading part, under Philip and his successor, have already been described in fullest details by eminent writers in every civilised language, and because I conceive that the truest understanding of the broader pheno- mena of the period may be gained by an intimate study of the mode of life and ruling sentiments of the King and his Court, at a time when they were the human embodiment, and Madrid the phosphorescent focus, of a great nation's decay. The ground was practically virgin. John Dunlop, three-quarters of a century ago, wrote a stolid history of the reign, mainly concerned with the Spanish wars in Germany, Flanders, and Italy. But that was before the archives of Europe were accessible ; and, creditable as was Dunlop' s history for the time in which it was written, it is obsolete now. The Spanish reproduction in recent years of seventeenth-century documents, for the most part unknown in England, has added much to recent information ; whilst numerous original manu- scripts, and old printed narratives and letters of the time, in Spanish, English, and French, have also provided ample material for the embodiment viii PREFACE in the text of first-hand descriptions of events. The book as it stands is far less ambitious than that originally projected ; but it contains much of the contemporary matter which would have provided substance for the wider history ; and though it is limited in its scope, it may nevertheless render the important period it covers human and interesting to ordinary readers who seek intellectual amuse- ment, as well as inteUigible to students who read for information alone. The book — " a poor thing, but mine own " — owes nothing to the labours of previous English historians, except that in describing the Prince of Wales' visit to Madrid I have referred to two documents published by the Camden Society under the editorship of the late Dr. Gardiner. With these exceptions the material has been sought in contemporary unpublished manuscripts and printed records and letters, in most cases now first utilised for the purpose. Whatever its faults may be — and doubtless the critical microscope may discover many — it is the only comprehensive history of Philip IV. and the decadent society over which he reigned that modern research has yet produced. May good fortune follow it; for, as the Bachiller Carasco sagely said : " No hay libro tan malo que no tenga algo bueno," and I hope that in this book, at least, the " good " will be held to outbalance the " bad." Martin Hume. London, October 1907 CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE INTRODUCTORY — PHILIP's BAPTISM, 1605 — THE ENGLISH EMBASSY — EXALTED RELIGIOUS FEELING — DEDICA- TION OF Philip's life to the vindication of ortho- doxy — STATE OF SPAIN — EFFECTS OF LERMA's POLICY — POVERTY OF THE COUNTRY — EXPULSION OF THE MORISCOS — PHILIP'S CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH — HIS BE- TROTHAL — FALL OF LERMA — THE PRINCE AND OLIV- ARES — DEATH OF PHILIP III. .... I CHAPTER II ACCESSION OF PHILIP IV. — OLIVARES THE VICE-KING — CON- DITION OF THE COUNTRY — MEASURES ADOPTED BY THE NEW KING — RETRENCHMENT — MODE OF LIFE OF PHILIP AND HIS MINISTER — PHILIP'S IDLENESS — HIS APOLOGIA — DISSOLUTENESS OF THE CAPITAL — ^VILLA MEDIANA — -THE AMUSEMENTS OF THE KING AND COURT — A SUMPTUOUS SHOW — ARRIVAL OF THE PRINCE OF WALES IN MADRID — HIS PROCEEDINGS — OLIVARES AND BUCKINGHAM . . . . . .42 CHAPTER III STATE ENTRY OF CHARLES INTO MADRID — GREAT FES- TIVITIES — HIS LOVE-MAKING — ATTEMPTS TO CONVERT THE PRINCE — THE REAL INTENTION OF OLIVARES — HIS CLEVER PROCRASTINATION — CHARLES AND BUCKINGHAM LOSE PATIENCE — ^HOWELL's STORY OF CHARLES AND THE INFANTA — THE FEELING AGAINST BUCKINGHAM — ANXIETY OF KING JAMES — HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH xii CONTENTS PAGE INVASION OF SPAIN — REVOLT OF CATALONIA — PHILIP'S AMOUR WITH THE NUN OF ST. PLACIDO THE WANE OF OLIVARES — PHILIP'S VOYAGE TO ARAGON — INTRIGUES AGAINST OLIVARES — FALL OF OLIVARES . . 316 CHAPTER IX DEATH OF RICHELIEU AND OF THE CARDINAL INFANTE — PHILIP'S GOOD RESOLUTIONS — HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE NUN OF AGREDA — PHILIP WITH HIS ARMIES — DEATH OF QUEEN ISABEL OF BOURBON — THE WAR CON- TINUES IN CATALONIA — DEATH OF BALTASAR CARLOS — PHILIP'S GRIEF — HE LOSES HEART — INFLUENCE OF THE NUN — HIS SECOND MARRIAGE WITH HIS NIECE MARIANA — HIS LIFE WITH HER — DON LUIS DE HARO — NEGOTIATIONS WITH ENGLAND — CROMWELL'S ENVOY, ANTHONY ASCHAM — HIS MURDER IN MADRID — FRIEND- SHIP BETWEEN PHILIP AND THE ENGLISH COMMON- WEALTH — CROMWELL SEIZES JAMAICA — WAR WITH ENGLAND ...... 376 CHAPTER X MORAL AND SOCIAL DECADENCE IN MADRID — PHILIP'S HABITS — POVERTY IN THE PALACE — VELAZQUEZ — THE MENINAS — BIRTH OF AN HEIR — THE CHRISTENING — ^THE PEACE OF THE PYRENEES — PHILIP's JOURNEY TO THE FRONTIER — MARRIAGE OF MARIA TERESA — CAMPAIGNS IN PORTUGAL — DON JUAN — DEATH OF HARO — PHILIP BEWITCHED — DEATH OF PHILIP PROSPER — BIRTH OF CHARLES — FANSHAWE's EMBASSY — LADY FANSHAWE AND SPAIN — ROUT OF CARACENA IN PORTUGAL — PHILIP'S ILLNESS — THE INQUISITION AND WITCHCRAFT — DEATH OF PHILIP . . . 441 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Philip IV. at the Age of 55 . . Frontispiece Frotn a portrait by Velazquez in the National Gallery, London. Isabel de Bourbon, First Wife of Philip IV Facing page 56 From a portrait by Velazquez in the possession of Edward Huth, Esq. Philip IV. as A Young Man . . „ 144 Fr07n a contemporary portrait in the possession of His Grace the Duke of Wellington at Strathfieldsaye. Caspar de Guzman, Count-Duke of Olivares ,, 160 From a portrait by Velazquez in the possession of Edward Huth, Esq. Prince Baltasar Carlos on Horse- back ,, 284 From a picture by Velazquez at the Prado Museum. The Nun Sor Maria de Agreda , „ 380 From an etching reproducing a contemporary portrait in the Franciscan Convent of St. JJomingo de la Calzada. xiij 2 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. Holy Mother bedizened with priceless gems ; well- fed monks and friars had chanted praises before a hundred glittering altars ; and famished common folk, in filthy tatters, snarled like ravening beasts over the free food that had been flung to them, and fought fiercely for the silver coins that had been lavishly scattered for their scrambling.^ From every window had flared waxen torches ; for the hovels of beggars were illumined as well as the palaces of nobles, — nay, the courtly chronicler records that the very bells in the church tower of St. Benedict, seventeen of them, " melted in glittering tears of joy" when, to put it more prosaically, the edifice was gutted by a conflagration accidentally caused by the torches." Cavalry parades, bull fights, and cane-tourneys by knights and nobles had alternated with banquets and balls during the fifty days that had been needed to bring together in the city of the Castilian plain the chivalry of Philip's realms. One after the other grandees and prelates, with long cavalcades of followers as fine as money or credit could make them, had crowded into the narrow streets and straggling plazas of Valladolid ; and as the great day approached for the baptism of the Prince, who had been pledged by his father at his birth to the Virgin of San Llorente as the future champion of Catholic orthodoxy, news came that a greater company than that of any I See a curious contemporary, unpublished, account by Don Geronimo Gascon de Torquemada. Add. MSS. 10,236 British Museum. He says that the Town Council scattered 12,000 silver reals in the plaza on Satur- day, gth April, and that 30,000 wax candles, with as many sheets of white paper to wrap round them for torches, were distributed to the poor • the whole population of the city at the time being between 50,000 and 60,000. ' Narrative of Matias de Novoa, Documenfos Ineditos, vol. Ix. HOWARD IN SPAIN 3 grandee of them all was slowly riding over the mountains of Leon to honour the festival, and to pledge the most Catholic King to lasting peace and amity with heretic England, that in forty years of bitter strife had challenged the pretension of Spain to dictate doctrine to Christendom ; and had, though few saw it yet, sapped the foundation upon which the imposing edifice of Spanish predominance was reared. Then grave heads were shaken in doubt that this thing might be of evil omen. Already had the rigid Ribera, Archbishop of Valencia,^ solemnly warned the King and Lerma of their impiety in making terms with the enemies of the faith ; lamentations, as loud as was consistent with safety, had gone up from churches and guardrooms innumerable at this tacit confession of a falling away from the stern standard of Phihp II. But now that Lord Admiral Howard, Earl of Nottingham, who had defeated the great Armada in 1588, and had com- manded at the sack of Cadiz in 1596, was to ruffle and feast, with six hundred heretic Enghshmen at his heels, in the very capital of orthodox Spain, whilst the baby prince whom God had sent to reaUse the dream of his house was baptized into the Church, offended pride almost overcame the stately courtesy and hospitality which are inborn in the Spanish character. But not quite: for though priests looked sour, and soldiers swaggered a httle more than usual when they met the Englishmen in the * The vehement protest of Ribera is reproduced in extenso in Gil Gonzalez Davila's Vida y Hechos de Phelipe III. Original MS. in pos- session of the author. Also published, Madrid, 1771. Ribera it was who principally promoted the expulsion of the Moriscos a few years later. 4 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. cobbled streets, yet to outward seeming all was kind on both sides ; and even the biting satires of the poets were decently suppressed until the strangers had gone their way.^ Howard and his train were lodged on the night of the 25th May in the castle and town of Simancas, on its bold bluff seven miles from the city ; and betimes in the morning the six hundred and more British horsemen, all in their finest garb, set forth over the arid sandy plain on the banks of the Pisuerga, to enter in stately friendship the capital of the realm that they and theirs had harried by land and sea for two score years. For seven months no drop of rain had fallen on the parched earth ; and as the noble figure of the old earl, in white satin and gold, surrounded by equally splendid kinsmen, passed on horseback to the appointed meeting place outside the walls of the city, the dust alone marred the magnificence of the cavalcade. For two hours the Englishmen were kept waiting under the trees, ^ Gongora's sonnet, for instance, whick is thus Englished by Churton — " Our Queen had borne a Prince. When all were gay, A Lutheran envoy came across the main. With some six hundred followers in his train, — All knaves of Luther's brood. His proud array Cost us, in one fair fortnight and a day, A milUon ducats of the gold of Spain, In jewels, feasting crowds, and pageant play. But then he brought us, for our greater gain. The peace King James on Calvin's Bible swore. WeU I we baptized our Prince ; Heaven bless the child 1 But why make Luther rich, and leave Spain poor ? What witch our dancing courtiers' wits beguiled ? Cervantes, write these doings : they surpass Your grave Don Quixote, Sancho and his ass." See also Cervantes' ballad of the Churching of Queen Margaret, in his Exem'plary Novel oiThe Little Gipsy, written, however, some years after the event. , HOWARD'S RECEPTION 5 where the Grand Constable, the Duke of Frias/ and the other grandees were to meet them ; for Spanish pride was never at a loss for a device to inflict a polite snub upon a rival. This time it was a diplomatic illness of the Duke of Alba that delayed the starting of the great crowd of nobles who were to greet the Enghsh ambassador, and it was five o'clock in the afternoon before the Spanish horsemen reached their waiting guests. Then, as if by magic, the heavens grew suddenly black as night, and such a deluge as few men had seen ^ descended upon the gaudy throng ; " heaven weeping in sorrow at their reception," said the bigots. In vain the Constable of Castile besought the stiff old Lord Admiral to take shelter in a coach. He would not balk the people of the sight, he said, and the costly finery of both English and Spanish received such a baptism as for ever spoilt its pristine beauty. Wet to the skin, their velvets and satins bedraggled, their plumes drooping, and their great lace ruffs as limp as rags, the thousand noble horse- men passed through dripping, silent, but curious crowds to their quarters. Howard himself was lodged in seven fine rooms in the palace of Count de Sahnas, hard by the yet unfinished palace ; and his six hundred followers were billeted in the houses of nobles and citizens.* • Don Juan Fernandez de Velasco, hereditary Great Constable of Castile, Duke of Frias, who in the previous year, 1604, had gone to England to conclude with James I. the Treaty of Peace. * So at least say the eye-witnesses ; though it can hardly have been a more violent downpour than that which overtook the present writer on the same spot, and at a similar date, in a recent year, when, with hardly five minutes' notice, the road was converted into a rushing torrent several inches deep, though previously no rain had fallen for months. ' Cabrera (Documentos Ineditos) says that care was taken that no 6 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. Fifty English gentlemen of rank dined together that evening in Howard's lodging, and their manners, dress, and demeanour furnished food for curious discourse in Spain for many days to come. How tall and handsome they were, though some of them were spoilt by full beards ! said the gossips ; how careful to show respect for the objects of worship in the churches, although only fourteen of the whole number were avowed Catholics. Many of them spoke Spanish well, as did Howard himself, and their dress was, on the whole, adjudged to be handsome ; " though their ornaments were not so fine as ours." But what amused their critics more than anything else was their industrious poking about the city in search of books, and a curious fashion they had of breaking off in their discourse — or in a pause of the conversation — and practising a few steps of a dance, the tune of which they hummed between their teeth .^ In the innocence of their hearts, too, they imagined that they were sacred pictures were placed in the rooms, for fear of offence, though they were hung with fine tapestries. Three new beds, he says, were bought for Howard and his sons, etc. As an instance of the great care taken on both sides to avoid ofience, Davila mentions that Howard, having learnt that two of his gentlemen had brought English Bibles with them, insisted upon their being returned to the ship ; and Gascon de Torquemada asserts that the Englishmen were forbidden to dispute with Spaniards, right or wrong, on pain of death. ^ " Todos tienen lindos trajes y altos cuerpos ; y en habiendo entrado en conversacion con nosotros se apartan luego, y hacen cabriolas, can- tando entre dientes : y aunque entre ellos usan esto no lo usava el Almirante." Gascon de Torquemada's MS. B.M., Add. MSS. 10,236. Cabrera de Cordova {Relacion de las Cosas Sucedidas desde 1599 hasta 1614) also mentions the " cabriolas " or skipping of the English gentlemen in the grand ball given in their honour on the i6th June by the King. The passion for dancing " high and disposedly " was at the time con- sidered peculiarly English, and Englishmen are frequently referred to in Spanish letters of the time as being naturally volatile and mercurial, in marked contrast with their latter-day descendants. ENGLISH PECULIARITIES 7 paying a compliment to the Spaniards by saying how Uttle real difference there was between their own creed and that of their hosts; a view which the latter received in courteous silence in their presence, but rejected with scorn and derision behind their backs.^ Brave doings there had been, too, the next day, when Howard had his first interview with Philip III. Surrounded by the King's Spanish and Teuton guard, in new uniforms of yellow and red, the Lord Admiral was led by the Duke of Lerma into the presence of the King. Of the genuflections and embraces, of the advances on each side, measured and recorded to an inch by jealous onlookers, of the piled-up sumptuousness of the garments and the gifts, it boots not here to tell in full, but the King's new liveries alone on this occasion are said to have cost 120,000 ducats ; and Howard excused himself for the poverty of his country when he handed to Queen Margaret an Austrian eagle in precious stones worth no more than the same great sum." All this, however, was a mere foretaste of the overwhelming magnificence of the following day, Whit Sunday, the 28th May, for ever memorable in the annals of Valladolid as the greatest day in its long history ; for then it was that in solemn majesty, and lavish ostentation without example, there was dedicated to the great task in which his ancestors had failed, a babe with a lily-fair skin and wide open light blue eyes, upon whom were * See Geronimo Gascon de Torquemada's MS. B.M., Add. MSS. 10,936. ' Full accounts of Howard's reception may be found in Torquemada's MS. already quoted, in Novoa's relation (Documentos Ineditos, 60 and 61), in Cabrera de Cordova, in Davila already quoted, and in Yepes' Felipe III. Madrid, 1723. 8 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. centred the hopes and prayers of a sensitive, devout people, who had seen in a few years their high-strung illusions vanish, their assurance of divine selection grow fainter and fainter, the cause they thought was that of heaven conquered everywhere by the legions of evil, and their own country reduced to chronic penury ; burdened with a weight beyond its strength, yet too proud to cast the burden down or to acknowledge its own defeat. The almost despairing cry that constant disaster had wrung from PhiUp II: "Surely God will in the end make His own cause triumph," still found an echo in thousands of Spanish hearts ; and this child of many prayers was greeted as an instrument sent at last from heaven, on the most solemn day in the Christian year, to put all things right when he should grow to be a man.^ The presence of the " heretic " peace embassy seemed of no good omen, though some men even affected to interpret it as such when Howard knelt before the King and was raised and embraced by him ; but, as if to banish every doubt, and mark for all the world that the vocation of the Prince was irrevocably fixed beforehand, there was brought in solemn pomp, from the remote village of Calguera, the * Cervantes thus writes on the subject — "This pearl that Thou to us hast given, star of Austria's diadem: What crafty plans, what high designs. Are shattered by this peerless gem. What hopes within our breasts are raised, Wnat soaring schemes have come to nought. What fears are by his birth aroused. What havoc with ambition wrought I " MacCoU's translation of " The Exemplary Novels." PHILIP AND THE DOMINICANS 9 crumbling little font in which, five hundred years before, had been baptized the fierce firebrand St. Dominic, scourge of heresy and founder of the Holy Inquisition, whose work it was to make all Christians one, though blood and fire alone might do it. Nothing was omitted that could connect the Prince with the Dominican idea. Early in the morning of the day of the baptism, the King, who was to take no public part in the later christening ceremony, walked in state with all his Court ^ in a great procession of six hundred monks of Saint Dominic from their monastery of San Pablo to the cathedral, there again solemnly to dedicate his infant heir to the vindication of the Church ; and at the dazzling ceremony which took place the same afternoon in the Dominican church of San Pablo a similar note was struck. The fair infant, with its vague blue eyes, was borne in triumph by the Duke of Lerma, a half dozen of the proudest dukes in Christendom carried the symbols and implements of the ceremony, cardinals and bishops in pontificals received the baby with royal state at the church porch, the populace pressed in thousands around with tears and blessings to see their future King ; all that lavish extravagance and exuberant * With him, we are told, walked the Princes of Savoy and all the grandees and prelates present in Valladolid, the household of each per- sonage being dressed in new liveries for the occasion, those of the royal servants being white and crimson trimmed with gold. The EngUsh ambassador Howard witnessed the procession, as he did later in the day that of the baptism, from a comer balcony in Count Rivadavia's house, his garments glittering with diamonds, and the collar of the Garter on his shoulder. It was noticed that when the King passed beneath the Englishman dofied his bonnet and made a deep reverence. Porreflo, Vida y Hechos de Phdipe III. lo THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. fancy could devise to add refulgence to the solemnity was there ; but, looking back with understanding eyes, we can see that the two significant objects which stand forth clearly in antagonism from aU that welter of gew-gaws are the humble rough font of St. Dominic under its jewelled canopy, supported by great silver pillars, and the stately white-haired figure of the " heretic " ambassador with his prominent eyes bowing gravely, yet triumphantly, in his balcony, as the pompous procession swept by. Other less important things there were which must have told their tale and cast their shadow as plainly to those who witnessed them as to us. The two black-browed Savoyard cousins, who walked in the place of honour, the eldest of them as chief sponsor, must have been but skeletons at the feast, for the birth of the Prince had spoilt their cherished hope of the great inheritance ; and, as we shall see in the course of this history, Victor- Amadeus of Savoy and his kin brought, therefore, abounding sorrow to his god-son and to Spain. When the infant, too, was denuded of his rich adornments for the ceremony, and they were deposited upon the sohd silver bed that had been erected in the chvirch for the purpose, some of the great personages, who alone could have had access to the precious objects, stole them all, and the heir of Spain, Prince PhiMp Dominic, who entered the church with his tiny body covered with gems, left it as unadorned as ascetic St. Dominic himself could have wished.^ • Cabrera, Relacion de las Cosas Sucedidas desds 1599 hasta 1614. In addition to the authorities already quoted, there is a curious account of PHILIP'S DEDICATION ii Thus, in a whirlwind of squandering waste, surrounded by pompous pride, unscrupulous dis- honesty, and ecstatic devotion, Philip from his birth was pledged to the hopeless task of extirpating religious dissent from Christendom : the task that had been too great for the Emperor and his stead- fast son, that had drained to exhaustion the wealth of the Indies, had turned Castile into a wilderness, and was to drag the Spanish Empire to ruin and dissolution under the sceptre of the babe whose christening we have witnessed. The hfe-story of the unhappy monarch which we have to teU is one of constant struggle amidst the antagonistic cir- cumstances that surrounded his baptism ; against the impossibiUty of reconciUng the successful performance of the work, to which devotional pride and not national interest had bound him, with the poverty and exhaustion that had forced Phihp III. and Lerma to seek peace with Protestants, and had made the victor of the Invincible Armada an honoured guest when the heir of Catholic Spain was dedicated to the ideal of Dominic, For, in good truth, it was from no lack of either devotion or pride that Philip III. had been forced to parley with the thing that he had been taught to look upon as accursed of God. Almost the only policy in which he was ever vehemently energetic was the attempt in the first days of his reign to invade Ireland in the interests of the Cathohcs, and to secure the control of the Crown of England by the celebrations referred to, sometimes attributed to Cervantes, called Relacion de lo Suhcedido en la Ciudad de Valladolid, etc. Published at Valladolid in 1605. 12 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. means of the anti- Jacobite party. ^ He was, as Llorente truly says, more fit himself for a Dominican friar's frock than a regal mantle; and if rigid obedience to the directions of his spiritual guides had enabled him to root out Protestant dissent from Christendom, as he rooted out the Moriscos from his realms, Phihp III. would have succeeded where his greater father and grandfather failed. But devotion was not enough to secure the triumph of Spain; fervent behef in the divine approval was not enough. Both Phihp II. and the Spaniards of his time possessed those qualities to excess, and yet they had failed. What was needed now, even to avert catastrophe, were orderly organisation, industry, celerity in council and in action, economical adaptation of ways and means, ready resource and a flexible conscience ; in short, statesmanship, — and these were the very qualities which Phihp III. conspicuously lacked. With the accession of Phihp III. (1598) the weak point in the system of the Emperor and his son had come out ; and their laboriously constructed political machine had broken down. Under Philip II. himself, in his later recluse years, it had grown rusty and sluggish, but whilst the mainspring, the monarch, had laboured ceaselessly, treating his ministers as clerks, and raising them from the gutter that they might be his tools alone, the wheels at least went round ; but when the monarch in whom all motion was centred left off working, and did nothing but dance and pray alternately, then came paralysis ^ A detailed account of these attempts will be found in Treason and Plot, by the present writer, and in the fourth volume of his Calendars of Spanish State Papers of the Reign of Elizabeth. THE PHILIPS COMPARED 13 and consequent disaster. " Ah ! Don Cristobal ; I fear they will rule him," groaned Philip II. on his agonised deathbed ; and, though too late, he had guessed his son's character aright. Thence- forward the favourite, Lerma or another, was monarch in all but name ; and each problem of government as it arose, or was submitted to the King, was considered by Philip III. not in its broad political aspects, but as a case of private conscience to be quibbled over by confessors and theologians, and finally decided with timorous heart-searching on grounds apart from national interests or ex- pediency. Philip II. himself had all his life been sternly conscientious, according to his lights, and his inflexibility had been one of the main causes of the partial failure of his policy and the exhaustion of his country. He was a strong, slow, persistent man, unwavering in his methods, as he was con- sistent in his objects ; but he was withal a statesman of vast ability, with the power of self-persuasion that all great statesmen must possess, and he played the game of international politics with mundane pieces, though he convinced himself and others that they were divine. His son and grandson, as will be seen in the course of this book, had not his power of self -conviction ; they lived in an age of growing national disillusionment, and were swayed mainly by sentimental, tradi- tional, and devotional considerations. They were for ever unlocking with trembling hands the secret closet of their conscience, to assure themselves that indeed no stain rested there. Having seen that all was spotless in their own breasts, they 14 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. were content to sit with crossed hands, in almost Oriental fatahsm, throwing the whole responsibility for what happened, or failed to happen, upon the divine decrees. They had satisfied their confessor and their conscience in the course they had taken, and if things went awry after that it was not their fault.^ This was no doubt all very saintly and good ; but it meant calamity as a system of govern- ment when its professors were pitted against rivals unhampered by such scruples and limita- tions. It may seem paradoxical to assert that the more purely religious character of the motives that swayed Philip III. and PhiUp IV., than of those which in- fluenced PhiUp II., resulted from a weakening of the exalted devotional faith that had dominated Spain during the greater part of the sixteenth century ; and yet, if it be carefully considered, such will prove to be the case. A faith so fervent as that which carried the men-at-arms and ex- plorers of the Emperor and his son triumphant through the world left no room for doubt. What they, did could not be wrong, because they were chosen to do God's own work ; and for that all means were sanctified. They did not need to be 1 When the capital of Spain was again transferred to Madrid in 1606, Queen Margarita was much opposed to and distressed at the change. Porrefio relates that she went to take leave of her favourite nuns at Valladolid with tears in her eyes, and when asked by the nuns why she did not persuade the King to remain at Valladolid, which agreed so well with his wife and children, she replied that " nothing on earth could move the King now, as the removal of the capital to Madrid had now been presented to him as a case of conscience." " Thus," saysPorreuo, in admiration, " he was ready to sacrifice the welfare of his wife and children, and all earthly considerations, for his conscience' sake I " Spaniards of the period thought that no higher praise than this could be given to any man. THE PHILIPS COMPARED 15 for ever pulling their consciences up by the roots to satisfy themselves that the fruit was good. If Philip II. ordered murder to be committed, or the Emperor seized private or ecclesiastical property for his own purposes ; if hundreds of inconvenient political persons were consigned to a living tomb in the galleys and dungeons of the Inquisition, we may be assured that no qualms of conscience were felt in consequence by the first two sovereigns of the Spanish house of Austria ; for the spiritual fervour, which was the secret of the unity and power of their realms, made all things right which were done in furtherance of objects which were considered sacred : and throughout the Reforma- tion period the Spanish sovereigns quite honestly and unhesitatingly employed religious forms and professions to attain purely pohtical ends.^ But after the accession of Philip III. disillusion and feiintness of faith set in, and the assurance of divine selection grew weaker. People in Spain were, it is true, more outwardly devout than ever, for the Inquisition increased in strength as it became more independent and less a political engine in the hands of the weak monarch ; but the constant timid misgivings of governors and people, the universal recourse of gentle and simple to priests, friars, and nuns for guidance, consolation, and reassurance, were of themselves a proof that the old robust self-sufficing faith was decHning ; and in the course of this history we shall see how * For instance, Charles' unblushing manipulation of the Council of Trent in 1 545-46, the juggle with Paul III. about the Italian principalities, and the clever hoodwinking of Sixtus V. as to the real objects of the Armada of 1588. i6 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. the process continued hand in hand with the national decadence ; the devotional influence upon political action increasing as religious faith grew less positive and conscience more clamorous. We have seen the wasteful splendour with which young Philip's infancy was surrounded : it will be necessary now for us to examine the state of the country at the time, in order that we may be able to trace in future pages the consequences of Philip's action and character when he came to the throne. Most of the contemporary chroniclers of the reign whose works remain to us, men Uke Novoa, Davila, Porreiio, Cabrera, Malvezzi, and Torquemada, courtiers or placemen all, lose them- selves in hyperbolical ecstasy at the colossal riches and greatness of the sovereign who could afford to spend in feasts and shows such vast sums as those squandered on the christening of Prince Philip Dominic and similar celebrations : but they were too much taken up with the pomp and ghtter of their patrons, and in recording the interminable lists of high-sounding titles and ghttering garments, to give much attention to the reverse side of the picture. For that we must turn to other authorities, especially to the narratives of foreign visitors, and to the remonstrances of the unfottunate members of the Cortes of Castile, who, between the despairing and indignant orders of their constituents, and the ceaseless pressure of the sovereign for fresh supplies of money, were obhged to speak plainly, though fruitlessly, of the ruin that impended unless matters were reformed.^ 1 It must be borne in mind that the Cortes of Castile (which comprised Castile, Leon, Andalucia, etc., and consisted of thirty-six deputies for STATE OF SPAIN IN 1600 x^ The first Cortes of the third PhiUp's reign (1598), when Lerma demanded the previously unheard-of vote of eighteen million ducats, spread over six years, to be raised by a tax on wine, oil, meat, etc., earnestly prayed the King to attend to their long-neglected petitions for a readjustment of expenditure and taxation. When the sum was voted, the King's promise of reform was, as usual, broken, and the Cortes then told the King that his country was already ruined and could pay no more. " Castile is depopulated, as you may see ; the people in the villages being now insufficient for the urgently necessary agricultural work : and an infinite number of places formerly possessing a hundred households are now reduced to ten, and many to none at all." ^ The common people were starving: the formerly prosperous cloth- weaving industry was rapidly being strangled by the terrible " alcabala " tax, imposed upon all commodities every time they changed hands by sale. The price of necessary articles was enormously and constantly rising, owing to the tampering of eighteen'cities) had, after the abortive rising of the Comuneros early in the reign of CharlesV., in a great measure allowed the control of supply to slip from its hands, and was rapidly becoming efiete ; all the members being bribed and influenced by grants and favours of the Court. The three Cortes of the Crown of Aragon, however, still held their own purse-strings, and always made supply a matter of bargain. For this reason practically the whole of the growing national burden rested upon wretched Castile. * Danvila y CoUado, El Poder Civil en Espana, vol. 6. In this peti- tion the Cortes told the King that, whereas it had cost twelve years previously 60 ducats to maintain a student and his servant at Salamanca for a year, it now cost 120. Wages had risen for a bricklayer from 4 reals to 8, and for a labourer from 2 reals to 4 ; a trimmed felt hat which had previously cost 12 reals now cost 24. Segovia cloth, of which the price was formerly 3 ducats a piece, now fetched nearly double. The ducats quoted are the so-called copper ducat of 2s. 5i Navarrete says, speaking of the luxury of the Court at this period —and we shall see that it was exceeded later — " The smallest hidalgo insisted upon his wife only going out in a carriage, and that her equipage should be as showy as that of the greatest gentleman at Court. Not even a carpenter or a saddler, or any other artizan, was seen but he must be dressed in velvet or satin like a nobleman. He must needs wear his sword and his dagger, and have a guitar hanging on the wall of his shop." When it is remembered that the production and distribution in Spain itself of the precious stuffs mentioned were hampered at every point, it will be understood how great and constant the drain of wealth was from a country which now exported little but the products of its soil. SPAIN'S RESPONSIBILITIES 21 of the House of Burgundy and the traditions of Catholic unity had cursed poor Castile with a European policy, and had driven Spain into con- stant war with Protestant England, her natural ally ; but Phihp II. on his deathbed had done his best to lighten his son's burden. Flanders was left to his dear daughter Isabel, and her destined husband, the Cardinal-Archduke Albert, with reversion, unfortunately, to Spain, in the probable case of failure of issue from the Infanta. To this extent Spain was relieved. There was no longer any material need for her to spend her blood and money in fighting the Protestants, either for the Emperor or for the new Archduchess of Flanders ; who herself, and especially her husband, were content to let the Protestant Dutch go their own way, whijst she enjoyed in peace her inherited Catholic Belgic sovereignty. The ex- haustion of Spain and his own avarice had tended to make Lerma pacific ; and, as we have seen, peace was arranged both with France and England : it must be confessed, on extremely favourable terms for Spain, as early in the reign of Philip III. as was practicable. The war with the Dutch in support of the Infanta still dragged on ; for the Spaniards would bate not a jot of their pride, and Maurice of Nassau and his Hollanders were in no submissive mood after holding their own for forty years. The Infanta and her husband ardently longed for peace, and were ready to acknowledge the independence of Holland ; but Philip III. was full of scruples of conscience as to the morality of formally ceding territory to Pro- testants, even when he could not hold it himself, 22 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. and it was 1609 before the punctilious haggling ended, and the famous truce of twelve years was signed, practically giving the stout Dutchmen the independence for which they had fought so well. Spain was then at peace for the first time within most men's memory ; and, with prudence, economy, and good government, might yet have repaired the disasters that had befallen her. The pro- motion of production, the rehabilitation of labour, a return to the frugal, honest life which prevailed before the nation was led to its splendid hysteria by the imperial connection, would have enabled the great revenues from the Indies to be kept in Spain, whose shipping was now for a time free from the depredations of privateers. But we have seen how demoralised the whole people had grown. Long wars in foreign lands, usually against Protestants or infidels, the craze for discovery and profitable adventure in the Indies, and the dwarf- ing of industry, except for the very poor, humble, plodding folk, had made the vast majority of Spaniards scornful of labour ; and in any case it would have been hard to set men to work again. The attempt even was never seriously made. Peace for Philip III. and his people did not mean an opportunity for setting their house in order and reorganising the nation, because they did not even yet fully recognise the hopelessness of the national dream of domination through the unity of Christendom on Spanish Catholic lines. For the reaUsation of this dream absolute unity of faith in Spain itself was the first necessary condition. The country was peopled by several THE MORISCOS 23 unamalgamated racial and political elements, and had been artificially unified by the rehgious exalta- tion resulting from the conquest of Granada and the fierce doctrinal pride fostered by the Inquisition, artfully utilised for political ends by Ferdinand the Catholic and his successors. The weak point of the sacred bond that held Spaniards together was the large hard - working Moorish population scattered over the Peninsula, and especially numerous in the south-west. In spite of pledges and promises of toleration. Christian baptism had been forced upon these people. Taxes and dis- abilities of all sorts had been piled upon them, insulting and oppressive rules had been made to their detriment, alternate cruelty and persuasion had been resorted to in vain : the Moriscos at heart remained true to their own faith, however humbly they conformed to the Christian rites imposed upon them. They were still the most thrifty toilers ; the carrjdng trade of the Peninsula was almost entirely in their hands, and their means of inter-communication were thus better than those enjoyed even by Christian Spaniards. How to deal with this alien element so as to eliminate the danger that existed from their presence in a Christian state, the realisation of whose great ambition depended upon unbroken religious unifica- tion, had puzzled the minds of Spanish statesmen for years. It had been practically decided at one time (1581) by Philip II. to take the whole Morisco population out to sea and sink the ships that carried them ; Gomez Davila of Toledo urged Philip III. in 1598 to massacre the whole of them, whilst others more humane advocated the forcible abduction 24 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. of all the cMldren, the sterilisation of the males, and other heroic measures. For a time also the milder spirits, such as Father Las Casas, prayed that gentler methods might be tried ; but the attitude of the Moriscos themselves and the bigotry of the churchmen soon silenced the voice of mercy. For years the Moriscos had been plotting with Spain's enemies ; with Henry IV. of France, with Ehzabeth of England, with the Duke of Savoy, with the Sultan, with the King of Fez, or whoever else would promise them aid to break up the Spanish monarchy ; and the very day that the Prince Philip Dominic was born (8th April 1605) was fixed for the great Moslem rising at Valencia which should deliver Eastern Spain to the French King. The plot was discovered in time, and this frustrated treason had added to the religious fervour of the baptism, which has been described at the beginning of this chapter. Thenceforward the black cloud that loomed over the folk of Moorish blood grew ever darker. Not the religious bigots alone, but statesmen too, intent only on the immediate problem before them, urged that if unity of Christendom was the necsssary condition of Spain's greatness, then the faith within her own realms must be made pure and solid beyond all question or doubt, let the sacrifice be what it might.^ Racial jealousy, economical rivalry, and envy of the superior financial position of the frugal Moriscos over that of their Christian neighbours, * For details of the expulsion see, inter alia, Fray Jaime Bleda's Cronica de los Moras de Espaiia (Valencia, 1618); The Moriscos of Spain, by C. H. Lea (London, 1901 ) ; Memorable Expulsion, etc., by Guadalajara (Pamplona, 1614) ; and Porreno's Felipe III. THE MORISCOS 25 aided the forces of religious bigotry and political expediency : and, just as the baptism of Prince PhiUp had coincided in point of time with the discovery of the Moorish treason, so did the next ceremony of his infant hfe coincide with the fatal decision to exterminate root and branch from Spain all those in whose veins was known to flow the blood of the Moslem races. For the attainment of the views of both statesmen and churchmen of the day, purbUnd as they were to the larger issues, the resolution to expel the Moriscos was necessary, but, as will be seen later, it was dis- astrous industrially and economically. In accordance with the condition of political science of the time, the results of the measure were indeed neither considered nor understood in the latter aspects.^ It was discussed in the King's Council, first as a point of conscience, and secondly as a political necessity, and the breathing time given to Spain by the peace with the Protestants after forty years of strife, instead of being employed in the repair and recuperation of national forces, was seized upon by those who yet pursued the chimera of domination by religious unification, to deplete still further the already exhausted country by the expulsion of the principal productive element of ' The wise minister of Philip II., Idiaquez, in 1595 almost alone saw the economical evil of the expulsion. In an important letter to a colleague (MS. Loyola No. i., 31, Royal Academy of History, Madrid) he rebuked the general idea that Spain would be richer for the expulsion of the Moriscos, and pointed out that they almost alone were creating national wealth by their industry, frugality, and skill in agriculture. " But all this," he says, " is of no consideration in exchange for putting away from our throat the knife which threatens it so long as these people remain amongst us in their present condition and we in ours." 26 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. its population, amidst the fervent applause of the idle and thriftless majority. And still the frenzy of waste and magnificence in all classes went on, for no men saw fully yet that ruin was the inevitable result of a state of society in which luxurious idleness, or the pretence of it, was alone regarded as honourable, and where the honey was seized by the drones of the hive before workers had stored it. On the 13th January 1608 the ceremony of swearing allegiance to the child Philip as heir to the Crown of Spain was celebrated in the church of St. Geronimo in Madrid,^ with a lavishness that almost rivalled that of his baptism. Once more the King, in white satin and spangles and overloaded with gems, walked in procession with the fair-haired fragile Queen, even more splendidly bedight than he ; * once more the lavish Lerma led the baby Prince as sponsor, and the courtiers who followed vied with the favourite in the magnificence of their attire ; once more Cardinal Sandoval de Rojas with a crowd of prelates invested the act with all the solemn state of which the Church was capable, and in the courtly fashion of his house substituted a kiss for the canonical blow in the ceremony of confirmation.^ Madrid was * The ancient 'church in the Prado where this ceremony always took place, and where the young King of Spain and his English bride were married recently. ' " His Majesty wore a white doublet and trunks with a grey satin cloak, all embroidered with bugles and gold spangles and Uned with ermine. White shoes and a black velvet cap with strings of pearls and diamonds and a plume of white feathers sprinkled with magnificent diamonds ; a sword beautifully chased and an embroidered belt ; a ruff with crimson silk ribs and the grand collar of the Golden if'leece." See a curious contemporary MS. account of the ceremony. British Museum MSS., Egerton, 367. » The Prince was nevertheless so frightened that the silken bands . PHILIP'S CHILDHOOD 27 ablaze with light, and the ball in the palace at night surpassed anything that the now deposed Valladohd could show ; but over all the gUtter the black cloud hovered, and even whilst the ceremony of homage was being celebrated, the Council of State, despairing now of the conversion of the Moriscos by softer methods, and alarmed at the prospects of a great invasion from Morocco, practically decided to clear the soil of Spain of the descendants of its former conquerors. Of the details of the expulsion this is not the place to speak. We are principally concerned with it here to show that Philip IV. was bound from his earliest infancy to an inherited policy, and that the seeds of social and national decadence were sown before his time. He was no Hercules to root them out, but was forced with bitter anguish to witness the riches and power of his realms choked and destroyed by the noxious growth which grew to maturity in his time : whilst he wept and prayed for the miraculous remedy that never comes, or sought forgetfulness in vicious indulgence that added private remorse to his public sorrow. Young Philip's education and the surroundings of his childhood were not calculated to increase his self-rehance or independence of judgment. His devout, deUcate, Austrian mother died in child- birth when he was but six years old, and his father's awestricken devotion thereafter grew necessary in the ceremony meant an intention to bleed him, and he cried so much in consequence, that he had to be led to a httle chair at his mother's knee before he could be pacified ; and there his sister, the Infanta Ana, weighed down by her stiff gorgeousness, knelt and did homage, to be followed by the cardinal, the nobles, and the Cortes. Ihid. Missing Page 30 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. was, succeeded where crafty, servile James Stuart failed ; and in 1612 the eldest daughter of Spain, the Infanta Ana, was betrothed in Madrid by proxy to the boy King of France, Louis XIII. , and young PhiUp, Prince of Asturias, became the affianced husband of Isabel of Bourbon, the elder daughter of Henry IV., the great Bearnais. Of the lavish splendour that accompanied the betrothals in Madrid this is not the place to speak,^ but when Lerma's fall was at last approaching, engineered by his own son the Duke of Uceda, in 1615, King Philip III. and his pompous Court travelled north in an interminable cavalcade to exchange the brides on the frontier. Prince PhiUp remained at the ancient Castilian capital of Burgos, whilst the dark-eyed young beauty who was destined to be his wife rode, surrounded by Spanish nobles jfrom the little frontier stream through San Sebastian and Vittoria to meet her eleven year old bridegroom. The boy and his father rode a league or two out of Burgos to greet the girl, who it was fondly hoped would cement France and Spain together for the fulfilment of the impossible old dream of Christian unity dictated from Madrid ; and eye-witnesses tell that the pale little milksop Prince, with his lank sandy hair and his red hanging under-lip, gazed speechless in admiration of the pretty bright-eyed child, in unbecoming Spanish dress, who was destined to be the companion of his youth and prime. The next day Burgos was in a blaze of splendour to welcome the future Queen, who rode on her white palfrey and her silver sidesaddle through * A full account of the crazy magnificence on the occasion will be found in Documentos Ineditos, Ixi. PHILIP'S BETROTHAL 31 the narrow frowning streets to the glorious cathedral ; and then, from city to city, through stark Castile, the Uttle bride, smiling and happy, and her pale boy bridegroom, followed by the most splendid Court in Christendom, slowly made their way to the crowning triumph of the capital.^ In the gorgeous crowd of courtiers that accom- panied the King on his long journey to and from the French frontier, intrigue and falsity were rife. The Duke of Lerma's favourite, Calderon, had languished in a dungeon already for five years, and the spoilt favourite himself knew that his faU had been plotted long since by his son and the power- ful clerical clique that swayed the timorous soul of Philip HI. But Lerma was making a brave fight for his dignity and vast wealth* Philip III. was kind and tender-hearted, and the habit of subjection to his favourite was hard to break, so that his enemies had to tread warily. Their plan was to place gradually around the King and his heir nobles whom Lerma had failed to satisfy with sufficient bribes. One of them was a young man of twenty- eight, perhaps the most forceful of them aU, Gaspar de Guzman, Count of Olivares, son of that proud minister of Philip II. who had bullied and hood- winked Sixtus V. into supporting the Armada in 1588. For years Gaspar de Guzman, and his father before him, had fruitlessly besought Lerma to convert their peerage of Castile into a grandeeship of Spain ; and on the journey to France with the King, the Count, though his branch of the great Guzman * An unpublished account of the progress by an eye-witness Is in Add. MSS. 102,36, British Museum. See also Queens of Old Spain, by Martin Hume, and Documentos Ineditos, bci. 32 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. house was less rich than noble, had striven to show by the splendour of his train that if he was not a grandee he was magnificent enough to be one.^ Philip III. loved lavishness, especially to dazzle the French at this juncture, and was easily persuaded by Lerma's false son to make the Count of Ohvares a gentleman of the chamber to the Prince. At first young Philip dishked his masterful attendant, whose imperious manner and stem looks frightened the sensitive boy ; but gradually, as the latter grew older and more curious, the address and cleverness of Ohvares asserted their influence over the weaker spirit of the Prince. Ohvares was supposed by Uceda to be acting entirely in his interest, and had persuaded the latter to give him complete control of the Prince's household, which he took care to pack with friends pledged to himself. When Lerma was finally dismissed with a cardinal's hat and all his riches, young Phihp was anxious to know why so great a minister had been disgraced. Ohvares was always ready to enhghten the lad, and would spend long periods chatting with him alone as the Prince lay in bed, or as he was riding. In answer to Philip's questions about Lerma, he impressed upon him the insolence of favourites generally, their noxious public influence, their evil effect upon monarchs, and much more to the same purport, pointed at Uceda the new minister quite as much as at his fallen father. The sufferings of the people were described vividly to the sympathis- ing boy, who was told of the vast plunder held by Lerma and his family from the national resources, and the noble task awaiting a monarch who would * Malvezzi, Historia de Felipe III., Yaflez. RESULTS OF LERMA'S RULE 33 govern his realm himself and redress the wrongs of his subjects. Young Philip's youth- ful ambition was aroused, and thenceforward he Ustened to his mentor eagerly ; whilst he osten- tatiously frowned in public upon the Duke of Uceda.^ Spain, notwithstanding the change of favourites, went from bad to worse. The vast sums spent by the King upon the building of new convents and in sumptuous shows were still wrung from the humblest classes, who alone did any profitable work, and in vain was the sainted image of the Virgin of Atocha carried in regal state through the streets of the capital, in the hope of averting widespread famine. Lerma at least, in his long ministry, had managed to conceal from the indolent King the utter ruin that threatened ; but the ineptitude of the new favourites made the misery patent even to him. The knowledge overwhelmed his feeble spirit, and his long spells of despair were but rarely relieved now by the frivolities that formerly deUghted him. lU and failing as he was, and his poor spirit broken, he prayed the Council of Castile to tell him the truth as to the condition of his people, and to suggest remedies for their ills. The report, which reached him in February 1619, finally opened his eyes, now that it was too late, to the appalling results of his rule ; and, stricken with panic fear that he would he damned eternally for his life- long neglect of duty, the poor King broke down '■Matias de Novoa, Felipe III. Documentos Ineditos, Ixi. This writer was a chamberlain of PhiUp IV. and an agent of Ohvares ; but receiving from the latter no reward, he wrote a series of bitter attacks upon him. , C 34 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. utterly. He knew that his strength was ebbing, and forgiveness for himself was his first thought, and then to pray that his son might do better than he had done . To distract him, his favourites persuaded him to make a royal progress to Portugal, with all the old lavish splendour, to witness the taking of the oath by the Portuguese Cortes to young Philip as heir to the throne. For months the cities of Portugal were the scene of prodigal pomp and devotion, that once more drove out of the muddled brain of the King all thought of the misery he had left behind him in Castile ; and as he sat, on the 14th July 1619, under his gold and silken canopy in his palace at Lisbon, dressed in white taffeta and gold, and surrounded by the nobles of Portugal and Spain, it seemed as if the lying fable that made him person- ally the master of boundless wealth must be true, and that his stark and ruined realm was overflowing with happy abundance.^ By his side sat his hopeful son Phihp, a tall sHm lad of fourteen, wearing a white satin suit covered with gold and gems, and surmounted by a black velvet shoulder-cape a mass of bullion embroidery ; and as the representatives of the Portuguese nation bent the knee and swore to accept him as King when his_ father should die, in exchange for his assurance that their ancient rights should be respected, little thought any of the glittering throng that the pale long-faced boy with the loose lower lip would, out of indolent ami- ability, cause rivers of blood to run between Portugal * The King's and the Prince's splendid dresses and adornments on this occasion are described fully by Porreuo in Dichos y Hechos de Don Felipe III. DEATH OF PHILIP III. 35 and Spain, and that all the oaths sworn that day on both sides would be broken. Little dreamed they, either, that the dark-visaged man with the big square head, who stood behind the Prince's chair, was to be the mover of this calamity, and of the final disruption of his young master's great inherit- ance. Olivares, secure in his hold now over the Prince, left Lisbon to go to the home of his house in Seville for a time, knowing well that the jarring rivals around the boy would soon make his return to Court the more welcome. The King was ill and like to die on his way back to Madrid,^ and Olivares was near the Prince at the critical time, more influential than ever. Philip was precocious, and Olivares encouraged his precocity. By his influence it was decided that the married life of the fifteen and a half year old Prince and his pretty French bride should com- mence in November 1620, at the suburban palace of the Pardo ; and thenceforward, whilst the poor King, in alternate fits of agonised remorse and hysterical hope, clung to his mouldering relics of dead saints for comfort, and to the frocks of his attendant friars for reassurance against the wrath of the Most High^ his son Philip was yearning impatiently for the coming of the time when he might as King carry into effect the lessons his mentor Olivares had whispered to him ; banish the whole brood of Sandoval y Rojas, and revive, as • His recovery from this grave illness after the doctors had given up hope was ascribed to the miraculous effect produced by the dead body of the newly beatified Saint Isidore of Madrid, which was brought to his bedside at Covarrubias. The King kissed and embraced the corpse, and improved from that hour. 36 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. by magic, the potency of his country and the happiness of his people. Through the month of March 1621, King Philip III. lay d5dng in his palace at Madrid, overlooking the bare Castilian plain.^ He was not much over forty years of age, but though his malady was sHght his vitality had fled, and all desire to prolong his disillusioned life. His remorse and horror of heaven's vengeance were terrible to behold, though during all his reign his habits had been those of a frivolous friar rather than of a bad man, which he certainly was not.^ On the 30th March young Philip took a last farewell of his father. " I have sent for you," said the King, " that you may see how it all ends " ; and he gave the weeping lad similar advice to that given by his own greater father, Philip II., to him on his deathbed, counsel to be treated in a similar way. He was to marry his sister Maria to the German Emperor, and to set his face sternly against all temptations to make a less Catholic alliance for her ; for James of England ^ The ridiculous story, related by entirely untrustworthy French travellers, of the cause of Philip's fatal illness being the Court etiquette, which forbade any attendant but a high noble who happened to be absent to remove a brazier from too close proximity to the King, may be dis- missed as a fable. Anything which exaggerated the strangeness, the romance, and the inflation of Spanish manners found ready belief in sevwiteenth-century France, and has done so ever since. The absurd ideas relative to Spain even at the present time are mainly due to this insistence on the part of French writers in seeing everything Spanish through the coloured medium of the romantic school. Madame D' Aulnoy's overdone " local colour " and evidently invented stories are largely responsible for this, aided by Bassompiere, Saint Simon, Mme. Villars, and the later romantic school of French noveUsts. * Terrible accounts of Philip's awful deathbed are given by Gil Gonzales de Avila, his chronicler and friend, in his Historia de Felipe III., original MS. in my possession, in Yanez's additions to Malvezzi, and in Novoa, Documentos Ineditos, Ixi.; all contemporaries. DEATH OF PHILIP III. 37 had been striving hard, seconded by Gondomar, to win her for Charles, Prince of Wales, and to secure the Palatinate of the Rhine for his son-in-law Frederick. The dying Philip urged his son to strive for the happiness of his people, cherish his sisters and brothers, to avoid new counsellors, and to stand steadfast to the faith of Spain ; but when the young Prince left the room Uceda and his crew knew that it was to go straight and take counsel of Olivares and his supporters for making a clean sweep of all those who had not bent the knee to the cadet of the house of Guzman, the dark man with the bent shoulders, the big square head, flashing fierce black eyes, and brusque imperious manner, who was already assuming the airs of a master. For many months the palace had been a swarming hive of intriguers, where hate, jealousy, and uncharitableness reigned supreme ; but one by one the friends of the Sandovals had been pushed into the background, and no one but Olivares and his creatures were now allowed to approach the lad who was soon to he King of Spain. It was clear to Uceda that he was not strong enough to resist the coming storm alone ; perhaps the father he had ousted, the Cardinal Duke of Lerma, who had acted on the death of Philip II. as Olivares was acting now, might with his experience and prestige yet win the day. The dying King had already raised the exile of all the other courtiers who had been banished from Court; though on their return they had been excluded by Olivares from access to the Prince; and now, in the last days of the King's life, Uceda obtained 38 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. from him a decree recalling the Duke of Lerma. Like a thunderbolt the news fell in the camp of the Guzmans. Olivares summoned his kin, headed by the wisest of them, old Baltasar de Zuiiiga. From this meeting Ohvares went to the Prince and told him that as his father was dying it was necessary to look ahead and take measures for securing prompt obedience when the crucial moment came. Young Philip acquiesced, for he was as wax in the hands of his imperious mentor ; and Olivares, thus rein- forced, proceeded to the King's apartments, where by cajolery and threats he obtained from the two great nobles on duty, the aged Duke of Infantado and the Marquis of Malpica, not only a knowledge of the provisions of the King's will, but also a promise that prompt information of everything that passed in the death chamber should be sent direct to the Prince's adviser. The Cardinal Duke was hurrying across Castile towards Madrid, full of hope for a revival of his greatness ; for young Philip, whom he had dandled as a babe, always liked him, and had wept for his " Gossip," as he called him, when he had been banished from Court. If once the Duke reached Madrid, Guzman was in danger, and no time was to be lost. So the Prince, at the bidding of Olivares, took the bold and dangerous course of assuming sovereign power to countermand his father's orders whilst yet the King lived. Young Philip was alone in the dusk of the evening in his panelled chamber in the old palace of Madrid, when the president of the Council of Castile, the highest functionary in Spain and DEATH OF PHILIP III. 39 Archbishop of Burgos, stood bowing before him in obedience to his call. The Prince, who lounged against a carved oak sideboard, was dressed in black, and his long sallow face had assumed the haughty immobility that for the rest of his life was his official mask of majesty. " I have sent for you, he mumbled to the Archbishop in slow, measured tones, to direct you to despatch a member of the Council to forbid the Duke of Lerma from entering Castile, and to command him to return immediately to ValladoUd to await my orders." ^ The Archbishop knelt and promised obedience, though he knew, we are told, that if the King recovered he would have to suffer for his weak compliance with an illegal com- mand." There was little to fear in the world now, how- ever, from PhiUp III., who in the intervals of his bodily anguish was occupied solely in his panic- stricken intercessions for pardon. His room was encumbered with ghastly remains of saintly humanity, and the sacred offices succeeded each other day and night : but around the bed worldly ambitions were raging bitterly. In the morning of the 30th March a consultation of physicians pronounced the end to be near ; and the Duke of Uceda, as principal minister and first chamberlain, announced his intention of conveying the news to the Prince. Then the Duke of Infantado, secure in the favour of Olivares, to whom only two days before he had betrayed the secrets of the ' Novoa, Documentos Ineditos, Ixi. ' Novoa says that when the Archbishop signed the order he broke into tears and cast awiy the pen he had used. 40 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. death chamber, broke out tempestuously : " No, indeed; that is my place, for the Prince has specially ordered me to go." Uceda knew his day was past, and meekly bent his head : and thus, in the midst of greedy bickering, his nerveless hand grasping to the last the rough crucifix that had comforted the glazing eyes of his grandfather the Emperor, and his father PhiKp II., the third PhiUp passed the dread divide, revered and beloved by the people whom his ineptitude had ruined, because he had still upheld throughout Europe the claim of his house to impose Christian orthodoxy upon the world, and had purged the sacred soil of Spain of the taint of Moorish blood, to his country's permanent undoing. OUvares had played his cards cleverly. For weeks he had feigned a desire to seek retirement in his home at Andalusia, knowing well that young Phihp, in the welter of difficulties and intrigues that surrounded him, looked to him alone for guidance ; and the adviser had only to hint at a wish to retire for the Prince to assent to whatever he demanded. As the King lay dying Uceda had met Olivares in the corridor. " How goes it," he asked, " in the Prince's chamber ? " " All is mine," replied the Count. " All ! " exclaimed the Duke of Uceda ruefully ; " Yes, without exception," re- torted Olivares ; "for his Highness overrates me in aU things but my goodwill." ^ Before many hours had passed Uceda and his kin knew to their cost that Olivares had not boasted in vain. All was * Fragmenios Historicos de la Vida de D. Caspar de Guzman, etc. Un- published contemporary MS. biography of Olivares in my possession ; the work of his partisan Vera y Figueroa, Count de la Roca. DEATH OF PHILIP III. 41 indeed his, and the strong hand fell ruthlessly upon those who had ruled and plundered Spain since the greatest of the Philips had passed his heavy crown to his weak son twenty-two years before. CHAPTER II ACCESSION OF PHILIP IV. — OLIVARES THE VICE-KING — CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY — MEASURES ADOPTED BY THE NEW KING — RETRENCHMENT — MODE OF LIFE OF PHILIP AND HIS MINISTER — PHILIP'S IDLENESS — HIS APOLOGIA — DISSOLUTE- NESS OF THE CAPITAL — VILLA , MEDIANA — THE AMUSEMENTS OF THE KING AND COURT — A SUMPTUOUS SHOW — ARRIVAL OF THE PRINCE OF WALES IN MADRID — HIS PROCEEDINGS — OLIVARES AND BUCKINGHAM Prince Philip lay in his great square tentlike bedstead in the palace of Madrid, at nine o'clock on the morning of the 31st March 1621, when an usher announced his Dominican confessor, Soto- mayor. The friar entered, and, kneeling by the bedside with a grave face, saluted his new sovereign as King Phihp IV. For a moment the boy was overwhelmed at the long-looked-for news, and bade the attendants draw the curtains close that he might indulge his grief unseen. But soon the eager worshippers of the risen sun flocked into the room to pay their court to the new monarch when he should deign to show his face. Anon there was stir in the antechamber, and the crowd divided, bowing low as the stern, masterful man who was now lord over all stalked through the room, accompanied by his aged uncle the white-haired THE RISE OF OLIVARES 43 Don Baltasar de Zuniga, destined by him to be nominally the King's chief minister, behind whom Olivares might rule unchecked. Advancing to the King's bed, Olivares threw back the curtains and peremptorily told Philip that he must get up, for there was much to be done. Uceda was still officially first minister and great chamberlain, with right of free access to the Sovereign ; but when, a few moments later, he and his secretary entered the antechamber, amidst the scarcely concealed sneers of the courtiers, and the whisper reached Philip that they were coming, the King leapt from his bed and cried out that no one else was to be admitted until he was dressed. Dressing on this occasion was a long process, for the young King broke down with grief and excitement several times whilst his attendants were preparing him for public audience ; and Uceda, in the antechamber, fumed and fretted at the insult put upon him by the King, who thus disregarded his father's dying injunctions in the first moments of his bereavement. Whilst Uceda awaited the King's pleasure, Olivares, leaving the bed-chamber, met his falling rival face to face, and a violent altercation took place as to the pre- mature action of Philip in ordering the Duke of Lerma, a Prince of the Church now, and immune from lay commands, to stay his journey to Madrid. Pointing to the State papers, seals, and keys in the hands of the secretary who accompanied him, Uceda asked who but the Duke of Lerma was worthy of taking charge of them. " My uncle, Don Baltasar de Zuniga is here," replied OUvares, " to do so, and to give to the State the advantage 44 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. of his long experience, and wisdom second to none." Uceda was then notified that the King, being dressed, would receive him ; and entering the room, he knelt and proffered to Philip the seals and papers of his office. Pouting and frown- ing, the King waved his hand towards the side- board, and said, "Put them there," and Uceda went out unthanked, to weep his now certain ruin and disgrace.^ Whilst the King was busy condoUng with his young wife and sister and his two brothers Carlos and Fernando, and receiving the homage of his nobles, the preparations were hastily made in the great hall of the Alcazar for the lying in state of the body of Philip III. in his habit as a friar of St. Francis. And as the muffled death bells boomed from the steeples of the capital, one man at least there was whose heart fainted at the sound. " The King is dead, and so am I," cried Don Rodrigo de Calderon from the prison where he had suffered and languished for years, the scape- goat for others, borne down by accusations in- numerable, from theft to witchcraft and regicide. In his pride and power he had piled up wealth beyond compute, as his master Lerma had done, but it is clear now that the other charges against him were mainly false. His long trial had resulted in no mortal crime being proved, and had Philip III. lived he would doubtless have been pardoned ; but he had belonged to the old greedy gang, and Olivares had no mercy upon them. Before Philip's nine days mourning reclusion in the ' Novoa, who was present at the scene described, Documenios Ineditos, Ixi. OLIVARES SUPREME 45 monastery of St. Geronimo was ended a clean sweep was made of the men who had surrounded the dead King. Calderon's head fell on the scaffold in the Plaza Mayor of Madrid ; the great Duke of Osuna, who had ruled Naples with so high a hand as to be accused of the wish to make himself a King, was incarcerated and persecuted till his proud heart broke ; Uceda met with a similar fate ; the powerful confessor Aliaga was disgraced and banished ; and even Lerma was not spared, though he fought stoutly for his plunder ; and all the clan of Sandoval and Rojas were trampled under the heels of the Guzmans and their allies. The state of things which the new Sovereign had to face was positively appalling. The details of the abject penury and misery universal through- out Spain, except amongst those who managed the public revenues and their numerous hangers-on, sound almost incredible. Idleness and pretence were everywhere. Insolent gentlemen in velvet doublets and no shirts, workmen who strutted and clattered in ruffs and rapiers, seeking prey as sham soldiers instead of earning wages by honest handicrafts, led poets, and paid satirists, gamesters, swindlers, bravos and cutpurses, pre- tended students who lived like the rest of the idle crew on alms and effrontery, crowds of friars and priests whose only attraction to their cloth was the sloth which it excused; ladies, rouged and over- dressed, who deliberately and purposely aped the look and manners of prostitutes, — ^these were the prevaiUng types of the capital, as described by eye- witnesses innumerable, as well as by the romancers who revelled in the colour, movement, and squaUd 46 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. picturesqueness of such a society.^ And to maintain the real and false splendour in Madrid the starving agriculturists, who had not abandoned their hold- ings in sheer despair, were ground down to their last real by the crushing alcabala tax, by local tolls and octrois, and by the heartless extortions of the tax farmers. There is no doubt that, so far as their Ught extended, both the King and Olivares sincerely wished to reform abuses of which the results were patent to all. Young Philip himself was good hearted and kindly, as his father had been, but far more sensual and less devout in his habits. Though in pubhc he assumed the marble gravity traditional thenceforward in Spanish kings, he was gay and witty in private discourse with those whose society he enjoyed, especially writers and players. His love of books, music, and pictures, as well as of poetry and the drama, made him, as time went on, the greatest patron of authors and artists in Spain's golden age of social and political decadence. But idleness marred aU his qualities, and the lust for pleasure which he was powerless to resist made him the slave of favourites and his passions all his life. A man such as this, endowed with a gentle heart and a tender conscience, was doomed to a Ufe of misery and remorse in the intervals of his thoughtless pleasures ; and in the course of this book we shall see that sorrow ever followed close on joy's footsteps in the life of the " Planet King," until final ruin overtook the nation, cursed with the gayest and wickedest Court since that of » Especially Gil Bias, Guzman de Alfarache, Marcos de Obregon Estevanillo Gonzales, and El Diablo Cojuelo. ' PHILIP AND HIS MINISTER 47 HeUogabalus, and all was quenched in a great wave of tears. The man to whom Philip handed his con- science, as has been described, on the first day of his reign, was nearly twenty years his senior. An indefatigable worker, with an ambition as voracious as his industry, Olivares was the exact reverse of the idle, courtly, conciliatory Lerma. His greed was not personal, as that of Lerma had been, though his love of power led him to absorb as many offices as he. He was vehement and voluble, arrogant and impatient even with the King, and impressed upon Philip incessantly the need for exertion on his own part.^ Able as he unquestionably was, he appraised his ability too highly, and contemned all opinions but his own; whilst his attitude towards the foreign Powers was insolent in the extreme, and quite unwarranted by Spain's position at the time. From an economic point of view, Olivares, though he began his rule by cutting down expenses in drastic fashion, was no wiser than his predecessors ; though his ruling idea that the political unity of Spain was the thing primarily needful was sage and statesmanhke. But in this he was before his time, and his disregard for provincial traditions and rights in his deter- mination to force unity of sacrifice upon the country, led to his own ruin and the disintegration of Spain. The portraits of him by Velazquez enable us to see the man as he lived, — stern, dark, and masterful. ' This was constantly denied by his many enemies, but original docu- ments, to which I shall refer later, will prove that in this as in so many other things they did him an injustice, whatever his real aim might have been. 48 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. with bulging forehead and sunken eyes and mouth, his massive shoulders bowed by the weight of his ponderous head, we know instinctively that such a man would either dominate or die. He was the finest horseman in Spain, and he treated men as he treated his big-boned chargers, breaking them to obedience by force of will and persistence. Such was the man who led Spain during the crucial period which was to decide, not only whether France or Spain should prevail politically, but whether the culture and civilisation of Europe should in future receive its impulse and colour from Spanish or French influences. In that great contest Spain was beaten, not so much because Olivares was inferior to Richelieu, as because of the old tradition that hampered Spain at home and abroad and pitted a decentralised country, where productive industry had been stifled and the sources of wealth choked, against a homo- geneous nation where active work was fostered, and whose resources were at the command of the central authority.^ This much it was necessary to say in order to make clear the manner of men that in future ruled the Court of which we have to write : a King to whom pleasure was a business ; and a minister to whom business alone was pleasure, who loved the reality of rule whilst his master loved the ceremonial of it. Not many days passed before the ambition of the Guzmans for the grandeeship was satisfied. The King was still passing his first days of mourning in the monastery of St. Geronimo when the sermon of the day, either by chance or ' Cambridge Modern History, vol. iv. " Spain," by Martin Hume. OLIVARES MADE A GRANDEE 49 design, inculcated the need for properly rewarding services done to us. The sermon over, Philip went to dinner, the room being crowded with nobles, amongst whom was Uceda, not yet finally banished. When the King had finished his meal and the cloth was drawn, Olivares entered very unob- trusively, and sidled against the wall behind the other nobles in attendance, well knowing, probably, what was coming. The King, catching his eye, said : " Let us obey the good friar who preached to-day ; Count of Olivares, be covered ! " This was the form used in the raising of a peer to the grandeeship, and Olivares, putting on his wide- brimmed hat, threw himself at the King's feet with his uncle and those of his kin who were in the room, overjoyed at the honour done to their house ; and their joy was increased when, a few hours later, Uceda was told that he must surrender to Olivares at once one of his two great offices in the household. Offices and honours thenceforward crowded upon the favourite, who was soon made Duke of San Lucar and principal chamberlain. Almost ostentatiously he professed a desire to leave politics entirely to his uncle, and to confine himself to the duties of his household offices near the King. Nobody was deceived by his apparent modesty, for even before Zuiiiga's death, which happened in a year, it was known that his nephew's long personal conversations with the King, facilitated by his courtly palace duties, were mainly concerned with questions of Government and State. The Count- Duke, as he came to be called universally, would allow nothing to be done for the King but by himself. Before Philip was out of bed the minister 50 THE COURT OF PHILIP IV. was the first to enter the room, draw the curtains and open the window. Then on his knees by the bedside he rehearsed the business of the coming day. Every garment that the King put on passed first through the hands of Ohvares, who stood by whilst Philip dressed. After the midday meal, at which Ohvares was often present, the minister was wont to amuse the King by entertaining chat, detailing the gossip of the capital, and late in the evening he attended to give him an account of the despatches received, and coiKult him as to the answers, after which he saw the monarch to bed.^ This constant attendance upon the King made it impossible for any person not an absolute creature of Ohvares to approach PhiHp's ear with doubt as to the pohcy of the favourite in pohtical matters. When "Philip's first parhament met, a few months after his accession, it was stated in the assembly that so terrible was the distress that " people had abandoned their lands and were now wandering on the roads, Uving on herbs and roots, or else traveUing to provinces where they had not to pay the ax^'ful food excises and alcabalas " ; whilst every source of revenue was anticipated for years to come on usurious terms.* Philip himself, in an important original paper hitherto unpublished (British Museum, Egerton MSS. 338), gives the following account of the state of affairs he had to face on his accession, whilst complaining of the httle help he had received from his officers: "I found iFra^men*oxHis