[Sidenote: [1556-1598 A.D.]]
Philip II had received the investiture of Milan and the crown of Naples,
previously to his marriage with Mary Tudor. The imperial crown he had
been obliged, much against his will, to forego. The archduchy of Austria,
with the hereditary German dependencies of his father’s family, had been
transferred by the emperor to his brother Ferdinand, on the occasion
of the marriage of that prince with Anna, only sister of King Louis of
Hungary. Ten years afterwards Ferdinand was elected king of the Romans,
and steadily refused all the entreaties afterwards made to him in behalf
of Philip to resign his crown, and his succession to the empire, in
favour of his nephew. With these diminutions, Philip had now received
all the dominions of his father. He was king of all the Spanish kingdoms
and of both the Sicilies. He was titular king of England, France, and
Jerusalem. He was “absolute dominator” in Asia, Africa, and America; he
was duke of Milan and of both Burgundies, and hereditary sovereign of the
seventeen Netherlands.
Thus the provinces had received a new master. A man of foreign birth and
breeding, not speaking a word of their language, nor of any language
which the mass of the inhabitants understood, was now placed in supreme
authority over them, because he represented, through the females, the
“good” Philip of Burgundy, who a century before had possessed himself,
by inheritance, purchase, force, or fraud, of the sovereignty in most
of those provinces. It is necessary to say an introductory word or two
concerning the previous history of the man to whose hands the destiny of
so many millions was now entrusted.
He was born in May, 1527, and was now, therefore, twenty-eight years
of age. At the age of sixteen he had been united to his cousin Maria
of Portugal, daughter of João III and of the emperor’s sister, Doña
Catalina. Within two years (1545) he became father of the celebrated and
ill-starred Don Carlos, and a widower. In 1548, he had made his first
appearance in the Netherlands. He came thither to receive homage in the
various provinces as their future sovereign, and to exchange oaths of
mutual fidelity with them all. Andrea Doria, with a fleet of fifty ships,
had brought him to Genoa, whence he had passed to Milan, where he was
received with great rejoicing. At Trent he was met by Duke Maurice of
Saxony, who warmly begged his intercession with the emperor in behalf
of the imprisoned landgraf of Hesse. This boon Philip was graciously
pleased to promise, and to keep the pledge as sacredly as most of the
vows plighted by him during this memorable year. The duke of Aerschot met
him in Germany with a regiment of cavalry and escorted him to Brussels.
A summer was spent in great festivities, the cities of the Netherlands
vying with each other in magnificent celebrations of the ceremonies, by
which Philip successively swore allegiance to the various constitutions
and charters of the provinces, and received their oaths of future fealty
in return.
His oath to support all the constitutions and privileges was without
reservation, while his father and grandfather had only sworn to maintain
the charters granted or confirmed by Philip and Charles of Burgundy.
Suspicion was disarmed by these indiscriminate concessions, which had
been resolved upon by the unscrupulous Charles to conciliate the good
will of the people. The light-hearted Flemings, Brabantines, and Walloons
received him with open arms. Yet icy was the deportment with which Philip
received these demonstrations of affection, and haughty the glance with
which he looked down upon these exhibitions of civic hilarity, as from
the height of a grim and inaccessible tower. The impression made upon the
Netherlanders was anything but favourable, and when he had fully learned
the futility of the projects on the empire which it was so difficult both
for his father and himself to resign, he returned to the more congenial
soil of Spain.
PHILIP’S MARRIAGE WITH MARY TUDOR
[Sidenote: [1544-1554 A.D.]]
In 1554 he had again issued from the peninsula to marry the queen of
England, a privilege which his father had graciously resigned to him.
He was united to Mary Tudor at Winchester, on the 25th of July of that
year, and if congeniality of tastes could have made a marriage happy,
that union should have been thrice blessed. To maintain the supremacy
of the church seemed to both the main object of existence, to execute
unbelievers the most sacred duty imposed by the Deity upon anointed
princes, to convert their kingdoms into a hell the surest means of
winning heaven for themselves. It was not strange that the conjunction
of two such wonders of superstition in one sphere should seem portentous
in the eyes of the English nation. Philip’s mock efforts in favour of
certain condemned reformers, and his pretended intercessions in favour of
the princess Elizabeth, failed entirely of their object. The parliament
refused to confer upon him more than a nominal authority in England. His
children, should they be born, might be sovereigns; he was but husband
of the queen--of a woman who could not atone by her abject but peevish
fondness for himself, and by her congenial blood-thirstiness towards her
subjects, for her eleven years’ seniority, her deficiency in attractions,
and her incapacity to make him the father of a line of English monarchs.
It almost excites compassion even for Mary Tudor, when her passionate
efforts to inspire him with affection are contrasted with his
impassiveness. Tyrant, bigot, murderess though she was, she was still
woman, and she lavished upon her husband all that was not ferocious in
her nature. Forbidding prayers to be said for the soul of her father,
hating her sister and her people, burning bishops, bathing herself in
the blood of heretics, to Philip she was all submissiveness and feminine
devotion. It was a most singular contrast--Mary the queen of England, and
Mary the wife of Philip. Small, lean, and sickly, painfully near-sighted,
yet with an eye of fierceness and fire; her face wrinkled by care and
evil passions still more than by time, with a big man’s voice, whose
harshness made those in the next room tremble; yet feminine in her
tastes, skilful with her needle, fond of embroidery work, striking the
lute with a touch remarkable for its science and feeling, speaking many
languages, including Latin, with fluency and grace; most feminine, too,
in her constitutional sufferings, hysterical of habit, shedding floods of
tears daily at Philip’s coldness, undisguised infidelity, and frequent
absences from England--she almost awakens compassion and causes a
momentary oblivion of her identity.
Her subjects, already half maddened by religious persecution, were
exasperated still further by the pecuniary burdens which she imposed upon
them to supply the king’s exigencies, and she unhesitatingly confronted
their frenzy, in the hope of winning a smile from him. When at last her
chronic maladies had assumed the memorable form which caused Philip
and Mary to unite in a letter to Cardinal Pole, announcing not the
expected but the actual birth of a prince, but judiciously leaving the
date in blank, the momentary satisfaction and delusion of the queen was
unbounded. The false intelligence was transmitted everywhere. When the
futility of the royal hopes could no longer be concealed, Philip left
the country, never to return till his war with France made him require
troops, subsidies, and a declaration of hostilities from England.
Upon his first journey out of Spain, in 1548, into his various dominions,
he had made a most painful impression everywhere. “He was disagreeable,”
says Envoy Suriano[b] “to the Italians, detestable to the Flemings,
odious to the Germans.” He was thought deficient in manly energy. He was
an infirm valetudinarian, and was considered as sluggish in character,
as deficient in martial enterprise, as timid of temperament as he
was fragile and sickly of frame. It is true that, on account of the
disappointment which he occasioned by his contrast to his warlike father,
he mingled in some tournaments in Brussels, where he was matched against
Count Mansfeld, one of the most distinguished chieftains of the age, and
where, says his professed panegyrist, Cabrera,[c] “he broke his lances
very much to the satisfaction of his father and aunts.”
PHILIP’S CHARACTER
[Sidenote: [1556-1598 A.D.]]
Those who were most disposed to think favourably of him remembered that
there was a time when even Charles V was thought weak and indolent, and
were willing to ascribe Philip’s pacific disposition to his habitual
cholic and side-ache, and to his father’s inordinate care for him in
youth. They even looked forward to the time when he should blaze forth
to the world as a conqueror and a hero. These, however, were views
entertained by but few; the general and the correct opinion, as it
proved, being that Philip hated war, would never certainly acquire any
personal distinction in the field, and when engaged in hostilities would
be apt to gather his laurels at the hands of his generals, rather than
with his own sword. He was believed to be the reverse of the emperor.
Charles sought great enterprises; Philip would avoid them. The emperor
never recoiled before threats; the son was reserved, cautious, suspicious
of all men, and capable of sacrificing a realm from hesitation and
timidity. The father had a genius for action, the son a predilection for
repose. Charles took “all men’s opinions, but reserved his judgment,” and
acted on it, when matured, with irresistible energy; Philip was led by
others, was vacillating in forming decisions, and irresolute in executing
them when formed.
His talents were, in truth, very much below mediocrity. His mind was
incredibly small. A petty passion for contemptible details characterised
him from his youth, and, as long as he lived, he could neither learn to
generalise, nor understand that one man, however diligent, could not be
minutely acquainted with all the public and private affairs of fifty
millions of other men. He was a glutton of work. He was born to write
despatches, and to scrawl comments[82] upon those which he received. He
gave audiences to ambassadors and deputies very willingly, listening
attentively to all that was said of him, and answering in monosyllables.
He spoke no tongue but Spanish, and was sufficiently sparing of that,
but he was indefatigable with his pen. He hated to converse, but he
could write a letter eighteen pages long, when his correspondent was in
the next room, and when the subject was, perhaps, one which a man of
talent could have settled with six words of his tongue. The world, in his
opinion, was to move upon protocols and apostilles. Events had no right
to be born throughout his dominions, without a preparatory course of his
obstetrical pedantry. He could never learn that the earth would not rest
on its axis, while he wrote a programme of the way it was to turn. He
was prolix with his pen, not from affluence, but from paucity of ideas.
He took refuge in a cloud of words, sometimes to conceal his meaning,
oftener to conceal the absence of any meaning, thus mystifying not only
others but himself.
He appeared on the whole the embodiment of Spanish chivalry and Spanish
religious enthusiasm, in its late and corrupted form. He was entirely a
Spaniard. The Burgundian and Austrian elements of his blood seemed to
have evaporated, and his veins were filled alone with the ancient ardour,
which in heroic centuries had animated the Gothic champions of Spain.
The fierce enthusiasm for the cross, which in the long internal warfare
against the crescent had been the romantic and distinguishing feature
of the national character, had degenerated into bigotry. That which had
been a nation’s glory now made the monarch’s shame. The Christian heretic
was to be regarded with a more intense hatred than even Moor or Jew had
excited in the most Christian ages, and Philip was to be the latest
and most perfect incarnation of all this traditional enthusiasm, this
perpetual hate. Thus he was likely to be single-hearted in his life. It
was believed that his ambition would be less to extend his dominions than
to vindicate his title of “the most Catholic king.”
His education had been but meagre. In an age when most kings and noblemen
possessed many languages, he spoke not a word of any tongue but Spanish,
although he had a slender knowledge of French and Italian, which he
afterwards learned to read with comparative facility. He had studied a
little history and geography, and he had a taste for sculpture, painting,
and architecture. Certainly if he had not possessed a feeling for art, he
would have been a monster. To have been born in the earlier part of the
sixteenth century, to have been a king, to have had Spain, Italy, and the
Netherlands as a birthright, and not to have been inspired with a spark
of that fire which glowed so intensely in those favoured lands and in
that golden age, had indeed been difficult.
The king’s personal habits were regular. He was most strict in religious
observances, as regular at mass, sermons, and vespers as a monk; much
more it was thought by many good Catholics, than was becoming to his
rank and age. Besides several friars who preached regularly for his
instruction, he had daily discussions with others on abstruse theological
points. He consulted his confessor most minutely as to all the actions
of life, inquiring anxiously whether this proceeding or that were likely
to burden his conscience. He was grossly licentious. It was his chief
amusement to issue forth at night disguised, that he might indulge
himself in the common haunts of vice. This was his solace at Brussels in
the midst of the gravest affairs of state.[83] He was not illiberal; but,
on the contrary, it was thought that he would have been even generous
had he not been straitened for money at the outset of his career. During
a cold winter, he distributed alms to the poor of Brussels with an open
hand. He was fond of jests in private, and would laugh immoderately,
when with a few intimate associates, at buffooneries which he checked in
public by the icy gravity of his deportment.
The court was organised during his residence at Brussels on the
Burgundian, not the Spanish model, but of the 150 persons who composed
it, nine-tenths of the whole were Spaniards; the other fifteen or sixteen
being of various nations, Flemings, Burgundians, Italians, English,
and Germans. Thus it is obvious how soon he disregarded his father’s
precept and practice in this respect, and began to lay the foundation of
that renewed hatred to Spaniards which was soon to become so intense,
exuberant, and fatal throughout every class of Netherlanders. He esteemed
no nation but the Spanish; with Spaniards he consorted, with Spaniards he
counselled, through Spaniards he governed.
His council consisted of five or six Spanish grandees, the famous Ruy
Gomez, then count of Melito, afterwards prince of Eboli; the duke of
Alva, the count de Feria, the duke of Franca Villa, Don Antonio Toledo,
and Don Juan Manrique de Lara. The “two columns,” said Suriano,[b]
“which sustain this great machine are Ruy Gomez and Alva, and from their
councils depends the government of half the world.” The two were ever
bitterly opposed to each other. Alva represented the war party, Ruy Gomez
the pacific policy more congenial to the heart of Philip. The bishop
of Arras, who in the opinion of the envoys was worth them all for his
capacity and his experience, was then entirely in the background, rarely
entering the council except when summoned to give advice in affairs of
extraordinary delicacy or gravity. He was, however, to reappear most
signally in course of the events already preparing. The duke of Alva,
also to play so tremendous a part in the yet unborn history of the
Netherlands, was not beloved by Philip. He was eclipsed at this period
by the superior influence of the favourite, and his sword, moreover,
became necessary in the Italian campaign which was impending. It is
remarkable that it was a common opinion even at that day that the duke
was naturally hesitating and timid. One would have thought that his
previous victories might have earned for him the reputation for courage
and skill which he most unquestionably deserved. The future was to
develop those other characteristics which were to make his name the
terror and wonder of the world.[f]
[Illustration: A SPANISH PENITENT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY]
[Sidenote: [1555-1557 A.D.]]
To acquire a clear understanding of the interminable and complex
events of this remarkable reign, it will be necessary to class them
under general heads, without much regard to the chronological order.
Unlike the reign of the preceding monarch, some brief space must be
devoted to foreign transactions; but such only will be noticed as have
an inseparable connection with Spain, and are absolutely necessary to
explain its condition.
Immediately after the resignation by the emperor of Naples and Sicily in
favour of Philip, the duke of Alva was sent to protect that kingdom and
the honour of Spain, against the secret enmity of the pope and the open
hostility of the French. Paul IV, who was bound with the tiara in 1555,
was as favourable to France as he was hostile to her rival. The papal
displeasure was signalised by the arrest of the Spanish ambassador, and
by the citation of Philip, whom, as king of Naples, Rome considered as
its vassal.
[Sidenote: [1557-1574 A.D.]]
Confiding in the promises of France, Paul in full consistory declared
Philip deprived of the Neapolitan throne. The latter, having consulted
the most celebrated theologians, whether, as a dutiful son of the church,
he could arm against its chief; and having, as was to be expected,
received an answer in the affirmative, prepared to defend his rights. The
duke of Alva entered the papal states, and seized on several fortresses.
The eternal city began to tremble for its security, and was forcing Paul
to negotiate with the victor, when, notwithstanding the truce concluded
by the emperor, a French army under the duke of Guise advanced, and
hostilities were continued. On another part of the frontier, the truce
was broken at the same time by the admiral Coligny, governor of Picardy,
who made an unsuccessful attempt on Douay. Philip himself inflicted
so severe a blow on the French at St. Quentin that Henry in great
consternation recalled the duke. The pope was accordingly left at the
mercy of the duke of Alva,[84] who advanced on Rome, and forced him to
purchase peace by withdrawing from the French alliance. As Turkey was
banded with the unscrupulous French, that alliance was little honourable
to the head of the church. At this very time the Ottoman fleet was
ravaging the coast of Calabria, whence it retired with great booty and
many captives. The duke of Alva, whose presence was required in Flanders,
was for a season replaced in the viceroyalty of Naples by the marquis of
Santa Cruz. In 1559, peace was made with France.
WAR WITH THE TURKS (1560-1574 A.D.)
But if this peace freed Naples from the hostilities of the French, it
could not arrest the frequent depredations of the Turks. In general,
however, these depredations led to no result, the Mohammedans retiring
before the Spanish forces. But, in 1565, the sultan Suleiman equipped
a powerful armament, both for the conquest of Malta, which the emperor
Charles had conferred on the knights of St. John, and for the invasion
of the Spanish possessions on the continent. It is not easy to account
for the apathy apparently shown by Philip towards their cause, especially
after ordering the viceroy of Sicily to defend them. In vain did Don John
of Austria, his natural brother, to whom, very honourably for himself, he
had granted a splendid household, flee from the court with the intention
of embarking at Barcelona, in aid of the knights; the prince was
constrained to return. After one of the most gallant defences on record,
when nearly two-thirds of the assailants, and most of the defenders, were
cut off, about ten thousand Spaniards were landed on the island, and the
siege was raised.
In 1570, the war between the Venetian Republic and the porte again
brought the Spaniards into collision with the latter power; Rome, Venice,
and Spain having confederated for the common defence of Christendom.
The combined fleet assembled at Messina, and resolved to assail the
formidable armament of the sultan. In the celebrated battle which
followed [that of Lepanto in 1571], the papal galleys being headed by
Marco Antonio Colonna, the Venetians by Doria, and the Spaniards by Don
John of Austria, a splendid victory declared for the Christians [see
the history of Italy]. But this advantage was not improved, and the
vanquished were soon able to resume. The isle of Jerba, Peñon de Velez
a strong fortress on the African coast, and subsequently Tunis were
reduced; and in various isolated engagements the advantage rested with
the Christians. Such conquests, however, were more easily made than
retained. Jerba and Tunis were retaken by storm; the fortress of Oran was
abandoned, after most of its defenders had perished either by the climate
or the harassing warfare.
WARS WITH FRANCE (1557-1597 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1557-1585 A.D.]]
The jealousy which had actuated the emperor and Francis was transmitted
to their heirs. Philip, however, had no intention to break the truce
which it had been one of his father’s latest acts to procure; but, as
before observed, the hatred of the pope, and the faithlessness of Henry,
forced him into the war. Assisted by the troops of his consort, Mary
of England, Philip invaded France; and his generals laid siege to St.
Quentin, while the duke of Alva, as before related, vigorously defended
Italy against a French army under the duke of Guise. The constable,
accompanied by the martial chivalry of the country, hastened to
relieve St. Quentin; but under the walls of that fortress he sustained
a disastrous defeat, which was followed by the surrender of the place.
Mary had little reason to congratulate herself on her impolitic quarrel
with Henry; she lost Calais, and two smaller forts,--all that remained of
the English possessions in the country,--and died before the conclusion
of the war. So far was Philip from indemnifying his ally for the loss
sustained, that, four months after her decease, he made peace with
France, and confirmed it by a new marriage with Elizabeth [Isabella in
Spanish] daughter of the king of France.
For many years after this event (1559-1585), the two monarchs remained
outwardly in peace, but inwardly agitated by jealousy or ill will:
France had reason to dread the ambitious views of the Castilian; and the
latter was far from satisfied with the secret encouragement afforded by
the French Protestants, with the full connivance of the court, to their
brethren of the Low Countries, who were striving to shake off the Spanish
yoke. The troubles which distracted the Gallic kingdom during the wars
of the league afforded Philip an opportunity, which he had long coveted,
of interfering in the affairs of that kingdom, ostensibly in support of
the Roman Catholic faith, but quite as much for his own advantage. As the
protector of the league, he at first furnished the rebels with money,
and subsequently ordered the governor of the Netherlands, the prince of
Parma, to invade the country, and to effect a junction with them. But the
abilities of Henry IV, and the valour of his Protestant adherents, the
assistance of Elizabeth, queen of England, and, above all, his conversion
to the established faith, rendered the combined efforts of Spaniards and
leaguers of no ultimate avail. His subsequent absolution by the pope
destroyed the unnatural coalition which had been formed against him, and
enabled him, with the pontiff’s mediation, to obtain an honourable peace.
Into the interminable transactions of this period--transactions which
are more intimately connected with the history of France than that of
Spain--we cannot enter here.
THE NETHERLANDS
The most important of the wars of Philip were with his revolted subjects
of the Low Countries. Soon after his accession, he learned that the
Reformation had made alarming progress in these provinces, and he
resolved to extirpate it. His bigotry to the ancient religion, his stern,
cruel character, caused him to prefer violent to persuasive measures. A
little reflection might have convinced him that he could never succeed in
his object, and that by the bare attempt he would risk the security of
his government. His repulsive manners, his arbitrary measures, and the
manifest preference which he gave to his Spanish subjects, soon estranged
both Flemings and Dutch from his person. To his father, whose demeanour
was marked by unwonted condescension, and who really loved them, they had
been devotedly attached.
Though the emperor was no less a bigot than the son,--though from 1521 to
1555 no fewer than fifty thousand Protestants are said to have perished
by fire or sword,--the Roman Catholics were by far the more numerous
party, and ready to support him in his bloody proscriptions. But now the
new opinions had seized on all classes of men, and their professors were
approaching to a numerical level with the rest. This fact, however, was
unknown to the government: many of the converts were so only in secret;
and the few who in despite of the penal decrees attended the public
profession of the reformed doctrines were regarded, not indeed as all,
but as the chief portion of Protestants. In his resolution of extirpating
them, the king commenced by giving new vigour to those decrees; and, to
insure their execution, he created a new tribunal, with powers similar to
those of the ancient Spanish Inquisition, to take cognisance of heresy.
These measures were obnoxious to the people, not merely to the secret
Protestants, but to the Catholics, who were subjected to new impositions
to defray the expense. The latter, too, joined with the former in
exclaiming against the presence of the Spanish troops, which they justly
characterised as an infraction of a fundamental law, that prohibited
the sojourn in these provinces of armed foreigners. Philip, who had
extravagant notions of the royal power, paid no regard to murmurs which
he was resolved to stifle by force. As Spain demanded his presence, he
intrusted the regency to his natural sister, Margaret duchess of Parma, a
princess devoted to his will.
[Sidenote: [1556-1567 A.D.]]
After the king’s departure, the regent put the obnoxious edicts into
execution, and the blood of martyrs moistened the soil of the Low
Countries. Her natural disposition was doubtless averse to cruelty;
but she was governed by Cardinal Granvella, a furious zealot, to whose
suggestions, as they were strictly in conformity with the instructions
of Philip, she was almost compelled to defer. The native nobles, who
formed the council of regency, were not a little chagrined to find
their voices powerless--that measures were framed not only without
their consent, but without their knowledge; and they resolved to remove
the odious churchman. Among these were two of more than ordinary
consideration--William prince of Orange, and Count Egmont; the former
governor of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht, the latter of Artois and
Flanders. They were soon joined by Count Horn, a nobleman of equal
ambition, and equally jealous of Granvella’s ascendency. The cardinal,
perceiving the execration in which he was held, applied for a release
from his unenviable post. It was reluctantly granted by the king, who
never forgave the men that had occasioned it. But it produced no relief
for the dissenters.
The decrees of the Council of Trent--decrees written in blood--were
ordered to be executed with even increased severity by some bigoted
counsellors. A confederacy was now formed, professed to prevent the
dreaded introduction of the Inquisition, but in reality to procure
uncontrolled liberty of conscience, or to throw off the Spanish yoke. It
was headed by Philip de Marnix, lord of St. Aldegonde; but though the
three nobles before mentioned were not members, they were the soul of its
proceedings. Emboldened by their numbers, the lower class of Protestants
rose in several of the towns to inflict on the Roman Catholics what they
themselves had suffered; perhaps more still were incited by the hope of
plunder. This was but the beginning of horrors: a furious organised band,
amplified as it went along, hastened to the neighbouring towns; and, if
the relations of Catholic writers are to be believed, soon laid waste
four hundred sacred edifices.
When Philip received intelligence of these events,[85] he called a
council, which, after some deliberation, resolved that an army should
be sent to extirpate heresy by open force. Its command was intrusted
to the duke of Alva, whose relentless disposition seemed well adapted
for the task. His powers were much more ample than those of a
general-in-chief: they went so far as to control the authority of the
regent. His arrival spread great consternation in the provinces; the more
so, when counts Egmont and Horn were arrested (Prince William, too wise
to await him, had fled into Germany); and the regent, finding that she
was in fact superseded, resigned her authority, and returned to Italy.
Many thousands, in dread of the approaching persecution, fled into the
Protestant states of Europe; to no country more readily than to England.
[Illustration: A SPANISH CAPTAIN OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY]
[Sidenote: [1567-1573 A.D.]]
A new tribunal, called the Council of Tumults, was formed: its name
implied that it was to take cognisance of the late disorders; but,
in reality, it was to be an inquisition. Its fatal activity was soon
manifest: confiscations, imprisonment, executions were of hourly
occurrence. The number of victims is impossible to be estimated: the
Protestants say it amounted to thousands; the Catholics, that the
ringleaders only suffered the last penalty. It was, however, severe
enough to fill all the Protestant states of Europe with concern, and
even to draw forth expostulation from several Catholic. How little such
remonstrance availed with either the king or his viceroy, appeared from
the execution of the counts Egmont and Horn. Their death made a deep
impression on the people, who began to turn their eyes towards the prince
of Orange, whom they requested to arm in behalf of his suffering country.
William was sufficiently inclined, both by love of liberty and personal
ambition, to make the attempt. He and his brothers had for some time been
making preparations--raising money and troops in the Protestant states
of Germany, and collecting the exiles who had fled from the scaffold.
To enter into the details of the interminable wars which followed, from
1568 to 1598, would little accord either with the limits or the design of
this chapter. They will be found in the history of the Netherlands. In an
assembly of the Dutch states, held at Dordrecht, they openly recognised
William as their governor, and voted him supplies to carry on the war.
By their invitation he arrived among them, and the reformed religion was
declared that of the state. Alva and his son took the field, to recover
the places which had rebelled; and wherever their arms were successful,
the cruelties inflicted by them on the inhabitants were certainly
horrible. It may, however, be doubted whether they were not fully
equalled by the atrocities of the count de la Marek, and other Protestant
leaders--atrocities which William, with laudable humanity, endeavoured to
end. Philip was at length convinced that a wrong policy had been adopted;
and Alva was either recalled, or permitted to retire. He was succeeded
by Requesens, a nobleman of equal talents and moderation. The fortune of
his administration was varied. He soon lost Middelburg; but he defeated
and slew Count Louis of Nassau. He failed before Leyden, the inhabitants
of which defended themselves with a heroism and a constancy never
surpassed; but, on the other hand, he gained some fortresses in North
Zealand. On the whole, however, he was so dissatisfied with his success
that anxiety brought him to his grave.
[Sidenote: [1573-1592 A.D.]]
Under the council of state which next governed the Netherlands, Spanish
affairs wore a much worse aspect. Sometimes the troops mutinied for their
arrears of pay, which Philip’s coffers could not often satisfy. They
seized Alost, and plundered Antwerp, which had shown more attachment to
the prince’s cause. To restore the fortune of the war, in 1576, Don John
of Austria, the king’s brother, was appointed to the regency. After some
warlike operations, in which assistance was furnished by Elizabeth, and
which were to the advantage of the confederates, the duke of Anjou, who
could muster an army, was invited by the Catholics to take possession of
the government. Before the negotiations with this prince were concluded,
Don John died; and Farnese, the prince of Parma, by far the ablest
officer in the Spanish service, arrived, took command of the king’s
forces, and by his valour no less than his policy changed the position
of affairs. He gained possession of Flanders, Artois, and Hainault; but
William of Orange had address enough to maintain all Holland, Gelderland,
and Friesland, with a proportion of Brabant, in his interests.
These states he formed into a confederacy, called the Union of Utrecht,
from the place where it was held. The apparent object was to secure the
common weal; the real one, to subvert the Spanish sway. This confederacy
was the foundation of the Seven United Provinces. The election of the
duke of Anjou threatened forever to destroy the expiring domination of
Spain, which the same states (in 1581) declared to be at an end. But
Anjou was weak and faithless, and was soon expelled by his new subjects.
Subsequently, indeed, they showed a disposition to be reconciled with
him; but his death intervened, and again left the prince of Parma a
theatre for the exercise of his talents. It was immediately followed
by that of the prince of Orange, who was assassinated by the fanatic
Balthasar Gerard, at the instigation of the Spanish general, if not of a
higher personage. The death of this justly celebrated man did not produce
any advantage for Spain: though his eldest son, the count of Buren, was a
hostage in the hands of Philip, the second, Prince Maurice, soon showed
that he was able to tread in his steps. The southern provinces, indeed,
as far as the Schelde, were persuaded or compelled by Farnese to swear
anew allegiance to the Spaniard: from community of religious feeling
and from hereditary attachment his path here was smoothed; but in the
northern, where the principles of the Reformation had struck so deeply
into the soil, the house of Orange had laid the sure foundation of its
future sway. The latter, after the loss of Antwerp, which was reduced by
Farnese in 1585, were strengthened by the accession of Protestants from
the Spanish provinces, and by the arrival of exiles from Germany and
Britain.
[Sidenote: [1587-1598 A.D.]]
The impolitic war of Philip with France drew the prince of Parma from the
Low Countries. The confederates had not only time to consolidate their
powers north of the Schelde, but to make even destructive irruptions
into Brabant and Flanders. The extraordinary military talents of Prince
Maurice rendered him no mean antagonist for even the able Farnese. In
1592, the latter died, and with him ended the hope of subduing the
northern provinces. The administration of Count Mansfeld, of Ernest
archduke of Austria, of the count de Fuentes, led to little advantage,
though the last was an able man. In 1596, the archduke Albert was
appointed to the government, but it was disastrous; under it Maurice
reduced not a few of the northern fortresses. Philip now opened his eyes
to the impossibility of maintaining the Netherlands in obedience: he
found that, even in the Catholic states, the name of Spaniard was odious;
and, as he was approaching the end of his days, he was naturally anxious
to settle the affairs of the country. These considerations, added to the
affection which he bore for his daughter, the infanta Isabella, and the
esteem which he entertained for Albert, made him resolve to marry the
two, and resign the government to them and their heirs. This was one of
his most prudent measures: if it could not recall Holland and the other
Protestant provinces to obedience, it seemed likely at least to preserve
those which were still left. The deed of abdication was executed in May,
1598, about four months before the monarch’s death.
ENGLISH AFFAIRS AND THE ARMADA
The succours which Elizabeth had from time to time afforded the
insurgents of the Netherlands was not the only cause of Philip’s
resentment and of his desire for revenge. She had fomented the
disturbances in Portugal, consequent on the death of Cardinal Henry;
and her captains, among whom Sir Francis Drake was the most active,
had for many years committed unjustifiable depredations on the Spanish
possessions of South America, and more than once on the coasts of the
peninsula itself. By the Spanish historians these hostilities are
represented as unprovoked in their origin, and as barbarous in their
execution; and candour must allow that there is but too much justice in
the complaint. When Philip’s patience was exhausted, and his affairs in
the Netherlands allowed him a few months’ respite to avenge the insults
he had so long sustained, he diligently began to prepare a mighty
armament, which, though its destination was secret, was suspected by all
to be intended against England.
In 1587, Elizabeth despatched Sir Francis to reconnoitre the coasts of
the peninsula, and if possible to annihilate the preparations which were
proceeding with so much rapidity. In April, that admiral, accompanied
by twenty-five vessels, appeared before Cadiz, and, by hoisting French
and Flemish colours, entered the bay. But he found the troops aware at
length of his country, and drawn up to receive him: he therefore made
no attempt to land; but having set fire to many merchant vessels, he
returned. This aggression was not likely to cool the animosity of Philip:
the preparations were hastened; all the seaports of Spain, the viceroys
of Naples and Sicily, the governor of Milan and the Netherlands furnished
vessels, troops, or money. The general rendezvous was Lisbon, and the
command of the fleet confided to the duke of Medina Sidonia, while the
prince of Parma was to conduct the land-forces. After some fruitless
attempts at negotiation, in which neither party was sincere, and in which
both merely sought to gain time,--how would such conduct be deprecated in
private life?--a fleet of 131 ships, some the largest that ever ploughed
the deep, carrying, exclusive of seven thousand sailors, no less than
seventeen thousand of the bravest troops in the Spanish armies, and the
flower of the Spanish chivalry, in May, 1588, left the harbour of Lisbon.
[Sidenote: [1588 A.D.]]
The pompous epithet of “the invincible,” which self-confidence had
applied to this mighty armament, the approbation of the pope, and the
great reinforcement which the prince of Parma had prepared in Flanders,
might well inspire the enemy with hope of success.[i]
The fate of the Armada is too well known to need discussion here,
especially as it finds full treatment in the history of England. It is
well, however, to emphasise the opposition of the Spanish officers to the
rash project, and to remember the large part played in the result by the
remarkable series of storms against which the Spanish hulks were from
their shape peculiarly helpless.
[Illustration: A SHIP OF THE ARMADA]
The Spanish historian Mariana,[p] who dedicated his monumental work to
Philip II, wrote thus calmly of the failure of the Armada:
“King Philip had in readiness a mighty fleet at Lisbon to revenge the
death of the innocent queen of Scots, and the many wrongs done to
himself. The marquis of Santa Cruz was appointed admiral; but he dying
in the midst of these preparations, the duke of Medina Sidonia was
substituted in his place. He set sail in June with fair weather; and
having turned Cape Finisterre, off Corunna, a violent storm so scattered
and disabled the fleet that they could not put to sea again till
September.[86] At length it came to the coast of Flanders, the English
fleet always hovering upon their skirts, whose cannon and the many
sand-banks much endangered our fleet. Some ships were taken by the enemy,
and many sore battered by their shot. For which reason, endeavouring to
return home round the north of Scotland, many ships perished in that
stormy season and long voyage. Besides, the extremity of the cold and
want of provisions consumed most of the men, so that very few ships, and
a small number of mariners and soldiers, returned to several ports of
Spain. Thus human designs are disappointed by a superior power. Doubtless
the flower of all the Spanish soldiers was lost in this expedition, and
God by this disaster punished the many sins of this nation.”
The same pious resignation was shown by Philip himself.[a]
Had the English admiral been well supplied with stores, instead of being
compelled to return in search of them, not a vessel would ever have
revisited Spain. How many actually perished has been disputed; but the
Spaniards fix the number at thirty-two. They must, however, have been the
largest, since half the soldiers returned no more, and most of the noble
families had to mourn a lost member.
On this trying occasion Philip acted with great moderation: he ordered
extraordinary care to be taken of the survivors; received the duke of
Medina Sidonia with kindness; observed that no human prudence or valour
could avail against the elements, and caused thanksgiving to be made
that any of his subjects had returned. The following year an English
fleet landed, first in Galicia, where, according to the Spanish accounts,
the loss of the invaders was one thousand,[87] and next in Portugal, to
support the pretensions of the prior of Crato; but with as little effect.
This expedition was injudiciously planned: at this time the authority of
Philip in Portugal was too firm to be shaken. The satisfaction which he
felt was subsequently alloyed by the hostilities of his enemy in South
America, and at Cadiz. In the former, indeed, his fleet triumphed; but
in 1596, that flourishing seaport was taken and pillaged. The excesses
committed on this occasion by the English troops under the earl of Essex
are strongly reprobated by the Spanish historians, while their existence
is denied by the English; here we prefer the evidence of the natives.
Both admit that the plunder was immense. The insult so enraged the king
that he resolved to equip an expedition for the invasion of Ireland,
where he would certainly have been joined by the disaffected Romanists.
This new fleet, however, was even more disastrous than the famous one of
1588; it was assailed by so furious a tempest that forty of the vessels
were lost, and the rest disabled. The severity of this second blow
deterred Philip from any future attempts on the most hated of his enemies.
ACQUISITION OF PORTUGAL
[Sidenote: [1580-1588 A.D.]]
The transactions of Philip with Portugal will be best related in the
chapters devoted to the modern history of that kingdom. It is here
sufficient to observe that, on the death of Cardinal Henry without issue
(1580), the crown was claimed by the Castilian monarch in right of
his mother; that though there were other competitors, of whom one was
supported by England, and though the Portuguese themselves, from hatred
to their neighbours, armed to oppose him, his forces placed him on the
throne of that country; and that he continued to fill it unto his death.
This acquisition, added to the other extensive dominions of Philip,
rendered him by far the most powerful monarch in Europe.
So far with respect to the foreign transactions of Spain under the
eventful reign of this monarch; its domestic history must now be noticed.
MORISCOS REVOLT
[Sidenote: [1567-1580 A.D.]]
The revolt of the Moriscos occupies a remarkable place in the native
annals of the sixteenth century. These christianised Moors still remained
Mohammedans at heart; and though they attended at mass, they made amends
in secret for this compulsory apostasy, by celebrating the rites of their
own religion. Early in 1567 a decree was published, that the children of
the Moriscos should frequent the Christian church; that the Arabic should
cease to be used in writing; that both men and women should wear the
Spanish costume; that they should discontinue their ablutions; that they
should no longer receive Mohammedan names; and that they should neither
marry, nor remove from one place to another, without permission from the
proper authorities.
The tenacity with which men adhere to ancient forms, even where there is
not the slightest compromise of principle, appears from the opposition
raised to the edict. The Moriscos contended, with great reason, that
no particular mode of dress involved religious considerations, since,
in every country, even where the same religion prevailed, it was found
to vary; that if their women continued to use the veil, modesty only
was the cause; that their musical instruments were equally harmless;
that the use of the Arabic language could not surely be a sin, since
it was the mother-tongue of many oriental Christians; and that their
baths were used, not from religion, but from cleanliness. The marquis of
Mondejar, captain-general of Granada, who had strongly disapproved the
royal ordinance, was persuaded to lay these representations before the
king. They had no effect--a result which so irritated this people that
a general revolt was planned. Its chief authors were Ferag ben Ferag,
descended from the royal house of Granada, and Diego Lopez ben Abu. The
evening of Christmas Day was fixed for the general rising. With the
romantic view of restoring their ancient kingdom, they secretly elected
in Granada a sovereign, Ferdinand de Valor, whom they named Muhammed ben
Humeya, and whose family was of royal extraction.
This bold step was followed by other measures equally secret and
vigilant. Officers were nominated; the mountaineers and inhabitants of
the plain armed, and ordered to rise on the night appointed--when alarm
guns should be fired by the Christians from the fortress of the Alhambra.
When the day arrived, eight thousand men lay in the mountains which
overlook the towers of Granada, and two thousand more in a different
direction, waiting for the signal. They had agreed to assail three of
the gates, while another party should scale the walls: the Mohammedans
who had been committed to the prisons of the Inquisition, or to those
of the state, were immediately to be released, and every Christian in
the place to be massacred. Fortunately for the city, several accidents
conspired to avert the catastrophe. The night was dark; a heavy snow fell
in the mountains; it was followed by a still heavier rain, which rendered
them impassable, and compelled the eight thousand in ambush to retire.
Ignorant of this disaster, in accordance with a preconcerted plan, Ibn
Ferag, accompanied by 180 resolute Moriscos, advanced to the walls of the
Albaycin, which they soon scaled, and with loud voices called on their
brethren of that quarter to join them. The call, which, as it was issued
by trumpets, amidst the silence of night, was heard by all, was applied
to deaf ears; none obeyed it.
MOORISH ATROCITIES
[Sidenote: [1568 A.D.]]
But if no impression was made on the capital, the case was far different
with respect to the towns and villages in the province, the Moorish
inhabitants of which rose simultaneously with this attempt. From Granada
Ibn Ferag led his followers into the Alpujarras, where being joined by
the _monfis_, or banditti of these mountains, he passed from place to
place to sustain the insurrection.
At the same time orders were given by Ibn Humeya to massacre all
Christians above the age of ten years. The vengeance of these ferocious
apostates fell chiefly upon the priests who had forced them to mass,
on the altars and images which they had been compelled to venerate, on
collectors of the taxes, and on the officers of justice.
At Ragol, in the district of Marchena, the priest was dragged from the
altar where he was celebrating mass, and was hung from a pillar: when
dead, he was flayed, and his skin nailed to the wall. At Pitres, after
the church and private houses had been plundered, the prisoners were
brought out to suffer; but for the priest, who, with his aged mother,
exhorted them not to flinch in the trial before them, a more lingering
death was reserved. He was first drawn up by a pulley to the top of the
steeple, and suffered to fall; but though his legs and arms were broken,
he was not dead: he was then heavily cudgelled; still he breathed: a cord
was thrown over his neck, and the end first given to some Morisco women,
who dragged him through the mire, plunging needles, scissors, and knives
into his body, until he perished. These demons of women next destroyed
the venerable matron in the same manner. In some places the executions
were conducted with whimsical caprice. In one, the rebels first shaved
both the head and beard of the curate, but not so dexterously as to avoid
inflicting some severe wounds; they next put him to death. In another,
the priest and several of his flock having taken refuge in the church,
and knelt, to prepare for their inevitable fate, before the high altar,
they were seized by the Moorish alguazil; who, in delivering them into
the hands of the bloodhounds outside, observed, “Kill these dogs! Let the
priest have the first blow, in reward for the anxiety he showed about our
souls; let the sacristan have the second, in return for the chastisement
he inflicted on us when we either failed to attend mass or arrived too
late!”
[Illustration: A DELEGATION FROM HOLLAND TO PHILIP II]
They seized an image of the Virgin, which, after buffeting and kicking
and dragging through the mud, they rolled down a steep eminence, calling
on the idol, with ludicrous jeers, to save itself if it had any virtue in
it. In another, as a Moorish wag was dragging a large crucifix through a
sewer, he perceived a Christian physician, to whom he cried out, “Dog,
here is thy Creator! canst thou not cure him?” The horrified Christian
immediately knelt, kissed the log, which he declared was indeed his
Creator, and was immediately transfixed by the contemptuous bystanders. A
magistrate of Santa Cruz was stripped before his three daughters and one
of his grandsons; his nose was cut off and nailed to his forehead; and in
this state all were led out. On the way to the place of execution, with
hands tied behind them, he forgot his own sufferings to strengthen their
constancy by his exhortations: and his discourse so incensed the Moriscos
that one cut off his ears, and crammed them into his mouth; another,
improving on the barbarity, cut open his belly, and thrust into the
cavity, ears, nose, tongue, hands, and feet; and in this state the poor
sufferer was thrown into the flames. The daughters were spared--probably
to satiate the brutal lust of the misbelievers. The priest of Andarax
was roasted over a brazier; and while sustaining the agony with devout
constancy, his mouth was gagged, that he might not invoke the divine
mercy; the women, tired of waiting for his death, at length despatched
him with their knives and needles. At one place, with the view of
ridiculing the sacrifice of the mass, the rebels killed a pig on the
high altar. At another, where, under the assurance of safety, about one
hundred prisoners who had sought refuge in the fortress surrendered and
were immediately butchered, two priests rendered themselves peculiarly
obnoxious by their zealous exhortations to the martyrs. One of them was
suspended with the head downwards, and with a noose round his neck; at
the other end of the cord a second noose was made, and thrown over the
neck of the other priest, who was similarly suspended: in their agony
they strangled each other, amidst the shouts of the spectators. At Oanez,
twenty-five Christian maidens of surpassing beauty were reserved as a
present to the African princes whose aid had been solicited. As usual,
endeavours were made to convert them, but without effect. Policy yielding
to religious fury, they were stripped naked, conducted into the fields,
tied to trees, pricked from head to foot with briers and thorns, and a
rope being passed round them as they stood in a circle, was drawn so
tight as to produce excruciating agony: in the end they were shot. Such
are a few of the horrors perpetrated by the Moriscos on this occasion.
The number of victims cannot be estimated; it probably amounted to
thousands.
CHRISTIAN ATROCITIES
[Illustration: A SPANISH CAPTAIN, TIME OF PHILIP II]
[Sidenote: [1568-1570 A.D.]]
When intelligence of these events reached the marquis of Mondejar, after
providing for the defence of Granada, he took the field. Ibn Humeya,
confiding in the defiles of the Alpujarras, prepared to receive him;
while another band of the rebels placed themselves in opposition to
the marquis de los Velez, on the southern frontier of this mountainous
district. In some isolated actions, the Moriscos had the advantage; but
this was only when the Christians went in scattered detachments, and were
consequently subject to surprise. The former were too weak, even with the
succours they derived from Africa, to risk a general engagement. Fortress
after fortress fell into the power of the royal generals, who vigorously
pursued the enemy.
The marquis de Mondejar continued the desultory warfare with more or less
success. That success would have been much more decisive, but for the
opposition between him and the marquis de los Velez: the former was for
tempering mercy with justice; the latter for extermination. Horrors now
were as much the work of the Christians as of the Moriscos. An event,
which happened in the fortress of Jubiles made a deep impression on the
rebels, and contributed more than any other cause to feed the flame of
civil strife. That fortress being invested by the marquis, three aged
Moriscos issued from it with the banner of peace, and agreed to its
surrender, on the condition that the lives of the garrison, consisting
of three hundred men and fifteen hundred women, should be respected. It
was accordingly entered by the royal troops, to whom the plunder was
abandoned. The men were lodged with the inhabitants of the town; the
women were ordered to be accommodated in the church. As that edifice,
however, would contain no more than five hundred, the remaining thousand
were compelled to pass the night in the square before it. Guards were
posted to protect them.
About the middle of the night, one of the soldiers, being enamoured with
a young Morisca, wished to detach her from her companions. She resisted;
he pulled her away by force; when one of the persons by her side--her
husband or brother, in the disguise of a woman--took her part, engaged,
and disarmed the soldier. The confusion produced by this struggle led
to a tumult; the soldiers rushed from their camp; it was proclaimed
that many armed Moriscos were disguised among the prisoners; and, in
the fury of the moment, the whole number were pitilessly massacred. In
vain did the marquis endeavour to stay the carnage: the authority of the
officers was disregarded. At break of day their fury cooled, and gave way
to remorse on perceiving the bloody corpses of one thousand helpless,
unarmed women. This bloody crime will never be blotted from the minds of
men.[88]
The tyranny of Ibn Humeya somewhat counterbalanced the effect which this
terrific tragedy was so well calculated to produce. He assassinated
his father-in-law, repudiated his wife, put to death several of her
relatives, and threatened the same fate for her brother, Diego de Rojas,
one of his ablest adherents. By this hasty vengeance he naturally
estranged many of his followers. As the Christian army advanced into the
mountains, he was compelled to flee from one position to another; but not
without loss to his pursuers.
Mondejar considered that the war was at an end, and that the fugitive
would infallibly be captured. He did not know that, notwithstanding the
heavy losses sustained by the enemy, they were still six thousand in
number; many of them determined to resist to the last extremity. In a few
days, however, on the heights of the Sierra Nevada, one thousand were
exterminated by the marquis de los Velez.
But such were the excesses of the Christian soldiers, the want of
faith which characterised some of their leaders, and the rapacity of
all, that no reverses could make the rebels lay down their arms; and
on several occasions they were enabled to inflict a suitable revenge.
The Moriscos had learned, to their cost, that even when conditions of
capitulation had been proposed and accepted, in violation of their terms
the prisoners were plundered or massacred. It was asserted that no faith
could be placed in a Christian’s word or bond; and the report naturally
strengthened the bands of Ibn Humeya. Philip saw that the two marquises
would never cordially co-operate so long as each led an independent
power; and he subjected both to the authority of his bastard brother, Don
John of Austria.
Several districts which had submitted rebelled anew, and Ibn Humeya was
at the head of a far more numerous force than had ever yet taken the
field.
At Valor, whither the marquis de los Velez penetrated, Ibn Humeya made a
vigorous stand; but notwithstanding his valour, which was never perhaps
surpassed, and his abilities, which were of a high order, he was signally
defeated and compelled to flee almost alone. This disaster was partially
repaired by a reinforcement from Africa, and by the spirit of desertion
which prevailed in the camp of the marquis. His own conduct, however,
continually increased the number of his enemies. One night he was
strangled, and Ibn Abu was proclaimed under the name of Mulei Abdallah.
The war now raged with various success; to each party the loss of one day
was counterbalanced by the gain of the next, until Don John of Austria,
who had assembled troops on every side, again took the field in person.
He proceeded to reduce the mountain fortresses. One after another fell
into his hands. To prevent another insurrection after submission, the
inhabitants of the newly subdued towns were transplanted to other parts,
generally to the towns of Andalusia; a few into New Castile. This measure
contributed more than any other to weaken the rebels, and to hasten the
conclusion of the war. In almost every partial action--the enemy could no
longer dream of a general one--the advantage lay with the Christians; nor
was the success less rapid than decided.
As the whole range of mountains was now almost depopulated, the Moriscos
being uniformly transferred to other parts, and as but a handful of
desperate adventurers, most of whom had been professed banditti,
remained, the chiefs who still adhered to Mulei now advised him to
submit. He refused and was killed. With Mulei was extinguished the last
spark of the rebellion.
THE MISFORTUNES OF DON CARLOS
[Sidenote: [1562-1570 A.D.]]
The next important feature in the domestic administration of Philip is
the fate of his first-born son, Don Carlos. This prince, who was born
in 1545, was by nature of fiery temperament and of irregular manners.
In his seventeenth year he sustained an accident, which was, doubtless,
the chief cause of all his misfortunes. One day, while at the university
of Alcalá, he fell headlong down the staircase, and was for some time
stunned by the blow. As no external injury was visible, his medical
attendants hoped that he would soon be restored; but in a few days he was
seized with an alarming fever, and they were painfully convinced that a
serious internal one had been sustained. The fever increased, delirium
approached, the king was sent for, and all hope of cure abandoned (1562).
In this extremity, when human aid was evidently unavailing, recourse
was had to the merits of San Diego of Alcalá, who had always been the
peculiar object of the prince’s veneration. The holy corpse was exhumed
and brought into the bedchamber of Carlos, whose hands were devoutly
placed on it, and whose lips implored the intercession of the saint; at
the same time a part of the shroud was laid on his burning face. While a
procession of monks removed the corpse to the tomb, the prince, we are
gravely informed, fell into a sweet sleep, in which San Diego appeared
to him, and assured him of a speedy recovery. The prediction, we need
scarcely add, was immediately verified! Unfortunately, however, the
saint could only restore the body; from this moment must be dated the
periodical insanity of the patient, and that invariable eccentricity of
manner which is inconsistent with soundness of intellect.[89] As he grew
in years he exhibited his wayward humour; sometimes the most extravagant
freaks. Nothing can more clearly show his unfortunate state of mind
than his behaviour to the duke of Alva, when that nobleman, on being
appointed to the government of the Netherlands, called to take leave of
him. He told the duke that to him alone belonged the dignity, and that
he would take the life of anyone who usurped it from him. Alva, with
great mildness, endeavoured to pacify him, but in vain: in his fury he
drew forth a dagger, and would assuredly have buried it in the governor’s
heart, had not the latter seized his hands and held him until some
gentlemen of the household hastened to the scene. One of his favourite
diversions was to walk the streets by night, sometimes indecently
exposing his person. On one occasion a pair of new boots were brought,
which the prince, finding too tight, immediately cut into pieces, and
made the poor workman swallow several. One day his chamberlain, Don
Alfonso de Cordova, brother of the marquis de las Navas, being summoned
by the bell, was unable to arrive in time for his impatience: he took the
chamberlain in his arms, swore he would throw him out at the window, and
advanced to one for the purpose, when the cries of Don Alfonso brought
the domestics to his aid. Being one day in a forest with his governor,
Don Garcia de Toledo, whom he hated for attempting to restrain his
desperate excesses, he proceeded to stab that nobleman; but the intended
victim escaped and reported him to the king. In short, his conduct to all
his servants was intolerable, alike for its cruelty and caprice: several
he beat, a few he maimed; nor could the exhortations of his father or
his confessor make any impression on him. To the former he bore a bitter
hatred: the cause was that Philip, who knew his fatal infirmity, would
not allow him to interfere with public affairs.
At length, being discovered in an attempt to flee into the Netherlands,
to place himself at the head of the insurgents, the king felt that he
should be compelled to place a guard over his frenzied son. On the night
of January 19th, 1568, accompanied by four of his nobles and some armed
guards, he proceeded to the prince’s apartment, took away his papers, his
sword, knives, and everything that could be hurtful to him; assuring him
at the same time that he had no end in view beyond his good.
He confided the care of the prince to six gentlemen of the noblest
families of Spain, two of whom were always to be with him night and
day; and he placed over all the duke of Feria and the prince of Eboli.
This measure, however well intended, did no good: Carlos grew sullen
and obstinate; his freaks more frequent and capricious. To walk in a
state of nudity through his apartments; to refrain from food two days
together, and then to eat voraciously; to drink immoderate quantities
of the coldest water; to steal ice and convey it into his bed;[90] to
devour the sourest fruits, were his constant occupation. The infallible
consequences soon appeared: his stomach refused to retain the most
wholesome food, much more the medicines that were administered to him; a
malignant fever assailed him; and he was told to prepare for death. At
this period his better feelings returned; he asked for his father, whose
pardon he humbly demanded, and whose blessing he received; he received
the last sacraments, commended his soul to God, and died at midnight,
July 24th, 1568.
The fate of this maniac prince has called forth much affected
commiseration, inasmuch as it has enabled malignity to assail the memory
of the father. It has been stated that Philip was the rival of his son
in the affections of a French princess [Elizabeth (Isabella), daughter
of King Henry II]; that after she became queen of Spain, she loved the
latter, and detested the former; that jealousy forced the king to the
most tyrannical treatment of the youth; that Carlos was persecuted by
the Inquisition, and at length poisoned, by order of the father.[91] The
truth is that Philip behaved with much moderation to a son who was fit
only for a receptacle for lunatics.
FATE OF THE KING’S SECRETARY, PEREZ
[Sidenote: [1568-1579 A.D.]]
But if impartial justice acquit Philip of guilt, or even of undue
severity in regard to his son, the same favourable verdict cannot be
given in regard to two other affairs, which have been studiously wrapped
in great darkness: they were the assassination of Juan de Escovedo,
secretary to Don John of Austria, and the subsequent persecution of
Antonio Perez, Philip’s secretary of state. The former, who had been sent
to Spain on business of his master, was murdered at Madrid, in March,
1578. The assassins were not unknown; but they were suffered to escape
into Italy, and were afterwards employed in the service of the Neapolitan
viceroy. That they were hired by Antonio Perez is undoubted, from his
own confession; but what interest had he, what revenge to gratify,
in such a crime? The same confession--published many years after the
tragedy--throws the entire blame on the king; nor is there any reason to
doubt its truth.[92]
The most probable hypothesis is that Escovedo was the prime intriguer in
the ambitious schemes which Don John is known to have formed: that he
had persuaded his master to aspire to the hand of Elizabeth, queen of
England, was seriously affirmed by letters from the Low Countries; and
that he had passed two months in England in trying to open negotiations
for that end was said to rest on the authority of the Spanish ambassador
at Rome.[i]
The sons of the murdered Escovedo had, soon after their father’s death,
instituted a prosecution against the secretary, Antonio Perez, as the
author of the foul deed. Through the king’s intervention, and under
his sanction, a compromise was effected between the parties. Perez
paid a large sum of money to Escovedo’s family, whereupon he was set
at liberty, and, though forbidden to appear at court, continued to
conduct the business of his office. But either the alleged intimacy
with the princess of Eboli still rankled in Philip’s mind, or he
dreaded the disgraced secretary’s revealing his own share in Escovedo’s
assassination. In 1591 Perez was accused of boasting of the murder, of
betraying state secrets to the princess of Eboli, of falsifying the
letters he deciphered, and of taking bribes. Upon these charges he was
thrown into prison, where, whilst he was offered his liberty as the
price of giving up the king’s letters touching Escovedo’s death, he was
treated with extraordinary severity. Perez accepted the terms, and was
released: but he managed to keep back one note, which Philip, it seems,
had forgotten.
[Sidenote: [1579-1591 A.D.]]
The liberty thus purchased. Perez was not, however, long permitted to
enjoy. The prosecution for the murder was revived; the accused was again
thrown into prison, where he was tortured to extort a confession, which
he had no desire to withhold. He is said to have revealed all, giving the
reserved royal letter as evidence of his truth; and thus Philip, whose
only object in this strange tissue of artifice appears to have been the
clearing himself by a judicial sentence from any participation in the
murder, was caught in his own toils. But the situation and prospects of
the prisoner were not improved by the exposure of his royal accomplice;
and he saw that in flight lay his only chance of life. His escape was
happily managed by the address of his wife. Perez fled to his native
Aragon; and there, though he was again seized by the king’s orders, his
condition was far different. He appealed to the yet inviolate laws and
privileges of Aragon. The _justiciero mayor_, Juan de Lanuza, evoked the
cause before his own tribunal at Saragossa, where the proceedings were
public; and he lodged the accused in the prison called the Manifestacion,
under his own sole and especial jurisdiction.
[Illustration: PEREZ IN PRISON]
This was not the tribunal before which it suited Philip that Perez
should be tried. The Inquisition, therefore, accused the ex-secretary
of heretical opinions; and as the justiciero mayor would not surrender
his prisoner, the inquisitors, with the assistance of the marquis of
Almenara, a minister of the king, broke open the prison, and removed him
to their own dungeons. Such an infraction of the Aragonese constitution
roused the spirit of the people, and a regular contest ensued between
them and the king’s officers, in the course of which the marquis of
Almenara was so ill-used as to occasion his death. Perez was recovered
from the inquisitors and replaced in the justiciero’s custody; again
seized by the inquisitors, and again torn from them by the populace, who,
upon this second occasion, favoured his flight, when Perez, by the aid
of his friends, escaped into France, where he was kindly received and
protected by Henry IV.
Philip sent an army into Aragon, to quell and chastise these disorders.
Prudence and submission upon negotiation might still, perhaps, have
effected a compromise: but the justiciero had died during the tumults,
and his son, who had succeeded to his office, rashly attempted to
resist by force this second act of unconstitutional violence; for no
foreign troops might enter Aragon without the consent of the cortes
or the justiciero; and each of the several kingdoms united under the
name of Spain still considered the natives of the others as foreigners.
The attempt was unsuccessful, and again the fatal consequences of
unsuccessful rebellion followed. The justiciero, together with the duke
of Villa Hermosa, and some other leaders of the insurgents, were put to
death; and the liberties of Aragon were very greatly diminished, though
not so completely crushed as those of Castile had long been.[n]
DE CASTRO’S ESTIMATE OF ANTONIO PEREZ
[Sidenote: [1591-1611 A.D.]]
Hated by the people while his influence with Philip II lasted, Antonio
Perez became eminently popular as soon as his sufferings began. The
secretary of state had commenced his brilliant career with a careful
education, a vast knowledge, and an experience superior to his years.
His handsome appearance won him the attention and favour of high-born
women; his easy and agreeable manner gave him the highest place at the
splendid court; his great ability, intelligence, and skill in business,
his courtier-like cleverness had promptly won him his king’s affection.
The highest offices were heaped upon him, country-seats, palaces,
carriages, horses, banquets, magnificent furniture, gold, and precious
stones, all that his century could bestow, the delights of luxury, the
pleasures of riches, the adulation of a high position--all was within
his reach, and he abused all without limit or restraint. What could he
not promise himself? What could he not hope for? Nevertheless the scene
completely changed for the dazzled favourite; the hour of misfortune
roused him from the soft sleep of his sybaritic delights, of his
ambitious hopes, and imprisonment, tortures, the most violent and painful
sufferings put his rich nature to the proof, exhausted the resources of
his character, humbled his pride, and effacing the grievous errors of his
prosperity, repeatedly poured into his ardent and pleasure-loving soul
the balsam of resignation and the consolations of melancholy.
Having taken refuge in Paris by the side of Henry IV, he employed the
rest of his life in defending the acts of his administration, and in
vindicating his name from the grave accusations weighing on him. It
was then he wrote his voluminous work entitled _Memoirs and Letters of
Antonio Perez_, a book now well-nigh forgotten, but which in its time won
the highest fame for its author. And this fame was just. All his writings
in France, all his labours in England, had but the one exclusive aim--his
defence; while he excited the interest of powerful foreigners won by the
attraction of his cultured conversation, his graceful manners, and his
flowery and witty letters. By this means his life and defence gained
the highest popularity, his book made the greatest sensation in Paris,
and numerous editions, translations, and extracts followed in quick
succession to satisfy the public eagerness. The attentions of interest,
the praise of admiration everywhere followed Perez, and while people
believed his word and compassionated his dramatic misfortunes, they
anathematised with horror the memory of his persecutor, the son of the
victorious emperor, the eternal enemy of French influence.
An extraordinary coincidence kept the memory of his misfortunes ripe in
Spain. His last persecution is intimately connected with the abolition
of Aragonese _fueros_, when, a fugitive from prison, Antonio Perez
presented himself in Saragossa, imploring the aid of the country’s laws,
and appealed to the magistrates of the town, and his personal friends
watched that no harm should come to his person. Provocations on one side,
excesses and disorders on the other, brought about a revolution; and when
the king’s troops presented themselves before the gates of Saragossa, the
people neither knew how to calm down nor to resist them, and Aragonese
liberty came to perish on the scaffold of Lanuza. The remembrance of
their lost privileges, the memory of their sufferings, lasted many years
in Aragon, and the natives of the country loved and defended the person
of the luckless being who was the occasion rather than the motive of
their rising. The name of Antonio Perez has become therefore strangely
involved with the fueros of his native land, and both causes have been
handed down to posterity united in a common misfortune and a common love.
But it is unworthy of the learning of the age to judge the first of
Spanish kings by the light of the deceptive rays reflecting from
his political and religious enemies, from the point of view of the
philosophical prejudices of the eighteenth century. By the blunders of
his administration, the violence of his passions, the exaggeration of his
character the son of Charles V has given sufficient food for censure,
without heaping on his head false crimes and imaginary faults. When,
trusting to appearances or to partisan reports, one judges Philip II in
his dealings with Antonio Perez, one’s natural feeling is to absolve
the favourite and condemn the king, but if one has the curiosity to
examine contemporary documents, if one investigates the private or public
interests which suddenly changed the condescending friendship of the king
into hatred and persecution, one certainly deplores the misfortune of
the fallen minister and the inexorable anger of his sovereign, but the
extravagant admiration for the victim will slightly decrease, and the
abhorrence for the man who abandoned him to the implacable hatred of his
enemies will be less intense.
His life is a lasting example to proud courtiers that the favour of
princes is inconstant as the calmness of the sea; speedily the tempest
comes and lashes the waves. As the famous duke of Alva said to the prince
of Eboli: “Kings are wont to prove men like children with personal
favours, and bait them like fishes.”
The life of Antonio Perez is an example of the inconstancy of fortune
and the vanity of worldly desires; and there is a warning in the fate
of the magnate who, having drained all the pleasures of riches and
seductions of vanity, dazzled by the height of his position fell into
such affliction and misery that his contemporaries considered him worthy
of the title--“fortune’s freak.”[m]
THE DEATH OF PHILIP
[Sidenote: [1597-1598 A.D.]]
Philip now felt his latter end approaching; and, from a natural desire
to leave his wide-spreading dominions in a tranquil state to his son, he
gladly accepted Pope Clement VIII’s proposal to mediate a peace between
France and Spain. The negotiation was procrastinated by the archduke’s
surprise and capture of Amiens, which Henry thought it indispensable to
recover, before he would even listen to terms. The Spanish garrison in
that town capitulated in the autumn of 1597; and in the following summer,
notwithstanding the opposition of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Maurice, the
Peace of Vervins was concluded upon equitable conditions--all conquests
being mutually restored, and all pretensions to any part of each other’s
dominions mutually relinquished.
This peace and the investing of the infanta with the sovereignty of the
Netherlands were the last acts of Philip. He did not live to see the
celebration of her marriage, or of his son’s with Margaret, daughter of
the archduke Charles of Austria, which he had concluded. He had for years
been, like his father, a martyr to the gout, but had never permitted
his sufferings to interfere with his regal duties. During the severest
paroxysms, he regulated everything, and frequently, when urged to spare
himself, said that the pains in his joints did not lame his brain. His
last illness was dreadful, his limbs being covered with ulcers that
generated swarms of the most loathsome vermin. In that condition he lay
for fifty days, and is said to have exhibited during the whole time a
wonderful example of Christian patience and resignation. He died on the
13th of September, 1598. Of his numerous children, two only survived
him--his son Philip, and the infanta Isabella. A second daughter,
Catherine, had married the duke of Savoy, but died before her father,
leaving a large family.
In America the limits of the Spanish empire were extended during this
reign, but not so as sensibly to affect the power or the greatness of
the mother-country. One fact, however, deserves notice. Whilst all
surrounding Indians bowed beneath the yoke, and were rapidly swept
away by the unaccustomed toils their new masters required, one bold
and warlike tribe in the province of Chile, named the Araucans, after
submitting like the rest, rose against their oppressors, and for years
defied all the troops the Chilian and the Peruvian Spaniards could send
against them. The war was ended only by a treaty recognising their
independence. In the East Indian seas the Philippines were named and
colonised.
[Sidenote: [1556-1598 A.D.]]
Philip II had received Spain from his father in a state of brilliant
prosperity. Her agriculture and manufactures were flourishing, and were
competent to supply her large exports to her American colonies. That from
this happy condition Spain began, during his long reign, to decline, is
admitted by those Spanish writers who most warmly eulogise Philip; nor is
the great pecuniary distress denied to which the lord of America and her
mines was latterly reduced. The two facts form a curious comment upon the
extraordinary prudence considered by them as his peculiar characteristic.
For this decline various causes have been assigned by philosophical
historians, as, the numerous colonies that drained the population of the
mother-country; the disgust which men, who saw immense fortunes easily
and rapidly accumulated, in the plunder or the mines of the New World,
conceived for the toils and the slow profits of trade and husbandry;
the enormous waste of men and money occasioned by the various and
simultaneous wars into which Philip was hurried, by either an extravagant
ambition or an uncalculating bigotry. Experience and a maturer philosophy
teach us that whatever ills may be thus occasioned, they are in their
nature temporary, requiring only time to correct themselves; and direct
us to seek the true cause of the gradual downfall of Spain in her loss of
liberty.
The union of Spain into one monarchy, under Ferdinand and Isabella, had
lessened the long-existing intimate connection between king and people,
and the dependence of the former upon the latter: the natural consequence
was a diminished respect on the part of the crown for popular rights.
The splendour of Charles’ reign, his clemency, conciliating manners, and
good government, perhaps, blinded the nation to his gradual invasion of
their privileges, and neglect of the forms of a free constitution. Under
the sterner sway of Philip, a complete despotism was established, and it
seemed to give him a boundless power, alarming Europe, at the moment his
authority began to decline. Since the cortes had fallen into contempt,
the cities had lost their importance, and an arbitrary system of taxation
had shaken the security of property.
Under such circumstances, commerce languished, and had no energy to
resist the blow when the English and Dutch fleets intercepted the
vessels bearing Spanish merchandise to America, or bringing back an
ample return. Agriculture, like manufactures, must always suffer from
the impoverishment of any portion of the community; but in Spain it now
laboured under peculiar additional evils. When the nobles were lured from
their rural homes to court, for the purpose of weakening their feudal
power, the peasantry, divided from their natural protectors, robbed of
the encouragement and support of almost princely establishments in every
part of the country, sank into a degraded class; whilst the mighty lords
themselves became mere intriguing courtiers, rapacious for money, in
order to rival each other in splendour, and tyrants of those dependent
peasants to whom their ancestors were as fathers. In this state, the
vital spirit that should have reacted against every disaster was no more;
and calamities, in their nature temporary, became permanent.
Philip II adorned Spain with many useful and some ornamental works.
He erected the Escorial, which has ever since been a favourite royal
residence. The Escorial is an immense pile of building, uniting a
monastery, a cemetery, and a palace, dedicated to St. Lawrence in
gratitude for the great victory of St. Quentin, gained upon the day on
which his festival is celebrated; and to stamp it yet more manifestly
his, is built in the form of a gridiron, the instrument of that saint’s
martyrdom. The expense of the Escorial is reckoned as one cause of the
exhaustion of Philip’s exchequer.
Philip was, or in emulation of his father and of his great-grandmother
Isabella desired to be, esteemed a patron of literature, and of learning
in general: in token of which he sent his eldest son Don Carlos, his
brother Don John, and his nephew, the prince of Parma, to be educated at
the University of Alcalá; and during his reign flourished most of the
great Spanish authors. But the privilege of proscribing whatever books
they should judge dangerous to Catholicism, which he committed to the
Inquisition, more than counterbalanced his patronising exertions.[n]
“When he succeeded to his father,” says Hume,[k] “Spain was already
well-nigh ruined by the drain of the emperor’s wars, imposed upon him by
the inheritance of Flanders and the empire. It would be unfair to blame
the monarch for the folly of his financial measures, as the science
of political economy was yet unknown; but their persistent perversity
seems almost systematic. When no further supplies could be wrung from
the cortes, funds were raised by the seizure of the money which came to
merchants from the Indies in payment for goods, by forced loans from
nobles, prelates, or wealthy burgesses, by the sale of seigniorial rights
over villages and towns, and of the royal patrimony, by repudiating
debts, reducing interest, and hampering commerce and industry.
“The maladministration arising from the evil system of pledging and
farming future resources was never reformed, the squalid lavishness
of the court expenditure was never reduced, a conciliatory policy in
order to avoid the cost of war was never adopted: the only steps which
appear to have occurred to the financial advisers of Philip were those
which undermined public confidence and security, which blighted the
national industries, and which killed future resources for the sake of
present advantage. The continued aggregation of land in the hands of
the church and tied up in perpetual entail, and the expulsion of the
Moriscos from Andalusia had well-nigh ruined agriculture. To prevent
whole provinces from starving in the finest grain country in the world,
immense quantities of wheat had to be introduced from abroad, and the
alcabala suspended on bread-stuffs imported into Seville. Constant wars
and emigration, the association of the Moriscos with industry, and the
immense number of church holidays, moreover, made the ordinary Spaniard
contemptuous of work, and scanty in his aggregate production. And so
the vicious circle went on, and the curse of far-reaching dominions in
the possession of an imperfectly unified and organised country had in
seventy years reduced Spain to the last depth of misery and penury. To
some extent this may, of course, be attributed to Philip’s qualities and
limitations; but it was mainly owing to a system and to circumstances
which were originated before his birth and which neither his training nor
his character enabled him to vary.”
DUNHAM’S ESTIMATE OF PHILIP II
His character must be sufficiently clear from his actions: that it was
gloomy, stern, and cruel; that he allowed neither civil freedom, nor
religious toleration, but was on all occasions the consistent enemy
of both; that he was suspicious, dark, and vindictive, are truths too
evident to be denied. On his return to Spain, immediately after his
father’s resignation, a characteristic scene occurred in Valladolid, at
an auto-da-fé, which he attended with much devotion. When the condemned
arrived at the place where the fire and fagot awaited them, one of them,
an officer of distinction, asked the king how he could have the heart to
behold the exquisite torments of his people. “Were my own son,” replied
the bigoted tyrant, “such a wretch as thou, he should suffer the same
fate!”
And when the archbishop of Toledo, Don Bartolomeo de Carranza, was
arrested on suspicion of heresy by the office blasphemously called
holy, the king wrote to the inquisitors commanding them to show no
respect for persons, however exalted, but to proceed even against his
own son, should the latter ever dare to doubt the infallibility of the
church. All this is bad enough; yet, by the French writers as well as
by our own historians, he has been treated with injustice. His ambition
was certainly subservient to his zeal for religion; his talents were
considerable; for prudence he was almost unrivalled; his attention
to public affairs and to the best interests of his country has been
surpassed by few monarchs; his habits were regular, his temperance
proverbial; his fortitude of mind, a virtue which he had often occasion
to exercise, was admirable; and, in general, he was swayed by the
strictest sense of justice. Even his religious bigotry, odious as it was,
was founded on conscientious principles, and his arbitrary acts on high
notions of the regal authority. By many of his subjects he was esteemed,
by many feared, by some hated, by none loved.[i]
WATSON ON PHILIP’S IMPRUDENCES
Some historians have distinguished this prince by the title of Philip
the Prudent, and have represented him as the wisest as well as the
most religious prince that ever filled the Spanish throne. But it is
questionable whether he be entitled to praise on account of his prudence,
any more than on account of his religion. In the beginning of his reign
he discovered great caution in his military enterprises; and, on some
occasions, made even greater preparations than were necessary to insure
success. But his ambition, his resentment, and his abhorrence of the
Protestants were too violent to suffer him to act conformably to the
dictates of sound policy and prudence.
He might have prevented the revolt of his Dutch and Flemish subjects if,
after the reformation in the Netherlands was suppressed by the duchess
of Parma, he had left the reins of government in the hands of that wise
princess, and had not sent so odious a tyrant as the duke of Alva to
enslave them. He might, after the defeat of the prince of Orange, have
riveted the chains of slavery about their necks, and gradually accustomed
them to the yoke, if, by engaging in too many expensive enterprises, he
had not exhausted his exchequer, and made it in some measure necessary
for Alva to impose the taxes of the tenth and twentieth pennies, for the
maintenance of his troops. He might, through the great abilities of the
duke of Parma, have again reduced the revolted provinces to obedience, if
he had not conceived the wild ambition of subduing England and acquiring
the sovereignty of France. His armies, in the latter part of his reign,
were never sufficiently numerous to execute the various enterprises
which he undertook; yet they were much more numerous than he was able to
support. Few years passed in which they did not mutiny for want of pay.
And Philip suffered greater prejudice from the disorders and devastation
which his own troops committed, than he received from the arms of
his enemies. Against his attempts on England and France, the wisest
counsellors remonstrated in the strongest terms. And prudence certainly
required that, previously to any attack upon the dominions of others,
he should have secured possession of his own. Yet so great was his
illusion that, rather than delay the execution of those schemes which his
resentment and ambition had suggested, he chose to run the risk of losing
the fruits of all the victories which the duke of Parma had obtained;
and, having left defenceless the provinces which had submitted to his
authority, he thereby afforded an opportunity to the revolted provinces
of establishing their power on so firm a foundation that it could not be
shaken by the whole strength of the Spanish monarchy exerted against it
for more than fifty years.[h]
FOOTNOTES
[82] The character of these _apostilles_, always confused, wordy, and
awkward, was sometimes very ludicrous; nor did it improve after his
thirty or forty years’ daily practice in making them. Thus, when he
received a letter from France in 1589, narrating the assassination of
Henry III, and stating that “the manner in which he had been killed was
that a Jacobin monk had given him a pistol-shot in the head” (_la façon
que l’on dit qu’il a etté tué, sa etté par un Jacobin qui luy a donné
d’un cou de pistolle dans la tayte_), he scrawled the following luminous
comment upon the margin. Underlining the word _pistolle_, he observed,
“this is perhaps some kind of knife; and as for ‘_tayte_,’ it can be
nothing else but head, which is not _tayte_, but _tête_, or _teyte_,
as you very well know.”--GACHARD.[d] It is obvious that a person who
made such wonderful commentaries as this, and was hard at work eight or
nine hours a day for forty years, would leave a prodigious quantity of
unpublished matter at his death.
[83] “_Nelle piaceri delle donne è incontinente, prendendo dilettatione
d’andare in maschera la notte et nei tempi de negotii gravi_,”
etc.--BADOVARO.[e]
[84] [“Alva on his knees asked pardon for bearing arms against the
church.”[g]]
[85] [Watson,[h] like some other Protestant historians, very gently
alludes to these scenes. This is highly disingenuous. Nor are the
Catholics less to blame; they exaggerate as much as their rivals conceal.
The truth is to be gained from neither: it may with difficulty be
extracted from both.]
[86] [The dates generally accepted differ by some months from Mariana’s:
May 19th, 1588, the Armada sails from Lisbon; soon after dispersed by a
storm. July 19th, 1588, enters channel off Cornwall.]
[87] [English historians pass very gently over the failure of this
expedition. Some do not even condescend to notice it. According to
Hume,[k] the English lost more than six thousand of their eighteen
thousand men, a loss of over 30 per cent.]
[88] [Army after army of Christians were hurled upon them with the openly
avowed object of massacre--not war. Women and children, as well as men,
were slaughtered in cold blood. How many thousands fell in the attacks
and inevitable reprisals it is impossible now to say. Six thousand
helpless women and children fugitives were sacrificed in one day by the
marquis de los Velez, but still the churchmen were not satisfied. In
the council chamber and the cathedral they cried for blood, and ever
more blood--just as the same men did for the blood of Flemish heretics
at the hands of their chief Alva. In vain the civil governors, and even
soldiers, advocated some moderation, some mercy. Deza the inquisitor and
Espinosa the cardinal in their purple robes knew no mercy for those who
denied their sacred right to impose a doctrine upon other men.[j]]
[89] [He was unskilfully treated by the doctors, ghastly superstitions
were resorted to instead of proper surgical treatment, and he lay
unconscious, blind, and partially paralysed, until an Italian surgeon
trepanned him, and he then apparently recovered.[k]]
[90] [But as Prescott[o] points out, Carlos was confined in a stifling
prison, suffering from high fever. The ice-water treatment was favoured
then by certain physicians as it is now universally.]
[91] [The accusation was made by the arch-liar Antonio Perez, and Prince
William of Orange[l] declared that there was proof at Paris that Philip
murdered both his son and his wife; but the accusation is now generally
counted as pure malice.]
[92] [It seems now that Philip gave Perez written authority to kill
Escovedo, but that he neglected to do so till some months later when
the king’s hostility had passed and the motive was simply the personal
jealousy of Perez himself.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]