Philip’s plan for a French alliance--His marriage with Elizabeth de
Valois--Philip’s embarrassments in the Netherlands--De
Granvelle--Philip’s departure from Flanders--Condition of affairs
in Spain--The Spanish Church--Death of Paul IV.--The
Inquisition--Bartolomé de Carranza--Philip’s arrival and routine in
Spain--The auto de fé at Valladolid.
Philip was as fully alive as were his fiery advisers to the necessity of
keeping friendly with England, but he would have no more war if he could
help it. Moreover, an entirely new combination of a sort which exactly
appealed to his character had suggested itself to him. One of the
principal objects of Henry II., in his anxiety to make peace, was to
unite with Philip in order to withstand the growing power of the
reformers, especially in France. Philip was not actively responsive on
this point, as at the time (early in 1559) it had not reached an acute
stage in his Netherlands dominions, and for the moment it did not suit
his English policy to appear as the champion of extreme Catholicism. It
was settled, however, in the preliminary discussions of the peace envoys
at Cateau Cambresis that Philip’s only son, Carlos, who was now fourteen
years of age, should marry Henry’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth, who was
three months younger than the prince. When it became evident that
Elizabeth of England might hold her own, and even in time oppose him, it
must have appeared to Philip that an entire change of his policy might
isolate her, and that a close union between the old enemies, France and
Spain, would reduce England to impotence for harm. So Philip’s own name
was substituted for that of his son when the treaty was finally drafted,
and the new policy was inaugurated. This policy was, so far as Philip
was concerned, not an aggressive one against England or against
Elizabeth. The next Catholic heir to the English throne was Mary Stuart,
practically a Frenchwoman, and married to the Dauphin Francis, the
future King of France. It was therefore, above all, necessary for Philip
that the way should not be opened for the Queen of Scots to mount the
English throne. Better far for him that Elizabeth, heretic though she
was, should be there than that a French king should reign over England
and Scotland. Then, indeed, would the Netherlands have been in jeopardy.
The new combination seemed to avert danger from every side. The
coalition was too strong for England to trouble alone, whilst any design
to depose Elizabeth in the interest of Mary Stuart and France could now
be counteracted from the inside by Philip. The Duke of Alba, with a
splendid train of Spanish and Flemish nobles, entered Paris on June 22,
1559, and married by proxy for his master the young French princess,
Elizabeth of the Peace, as the Spaniards afterwards called her. She was
but a child as yet, but already her striking beauty and sweetness had
endeared her beyond compare to the French populace. Brantome and other
contemporary writers describe her personal appearance, but her own wise
letters to her mother, her brother, and to her friend and sister, Mary
Stuart, speak more eloquently still of her mental gifts, and explain the
undoubted influence she gained over the spirit of her husband, who,
notwithstanding the disparity of their years, loved her deeply, and
mourned her sincerely when she died. The marriage rejoicings in Paris
were brought to a sudden and untoward conclusion by the accidental
killing of the King of France, Henry II., by a thrust in the eye at a
tourney, at the hands of Montgomeri, captain of the Scots Guard.
Philip was still in Belgium, immersed in anxiety and trouble. Already
the want of sympathy between himself and his Flemish subjects was
bearing its natural fruit. Heresy was raising its head there as
elsewhere. The Netherlands had on more than one occasion felt the heavy
hand of the emperor both in matters of religion and in the autonomous
privileges of the various states which constituted the dominions of the
House of Burgundy. But Charles was one of themselves, and from him they
would suffer much. With Philip, ostentatiously a foreigner, it was a
very different matter, and all attempts from him, however innocent,
towards the centralisation of power, which was the kernel of his system,
were tacitly resented by them. The commercial and geographical position
of the Netherlands, in constant touch with England and Germany--the
highway between them indeed--especially exposed the country to the
influence of the new religious ideas; and in Holland, at least, the
Protestant doctrines had before Philip’s accession obtained firm root.
The person of the new monarch was not popular with the Flemings. His
dislike of noisy enthusiasm, his coldness and reserve, his preference
for Spaniards, had already widened the breach that his first appearance
had occasioned, and his people were almost eager to place a bad
interpretation upon all he did. His first step, if it had been taken by
another sovereign, would have been a popular one, but with him it was
the reverse. The three bishoprics of the Netherlands were unwieldy, and
a considerable portion of the country was under the ecclesiastical
control of German bishops. Philip desired to remedy this by the
re-division of the various dioceses and the creation of fourteen new
bishops and three archbishops, the lands of the monasteries being
appropriated for the support of the new prelates. Philip had endeavoured
to keep his plans secret, but they leaked out, and at Philip’s farewell
visit to the States-General at Ghent, on the eve of his departure for
Spain, the members of the assembly denounced in no uncertain terms the
implied policy of Philip to rule them according to Spanish instead of
Flemish ideas. The severe edicts of the emperor against heresy had been
only partially enforced, and in most of the states had been controlled
by the native civil tribunals; but it was concluded that Philip would
inaugurate a new era of rigour, especially as he was retaining under
arms in the Netherlands some 4000 Spanish infantry. Philip had to listen
to some bold talk from the burghers. With him heresy had always been
synonymous with resistance to authority--in his case, he thought, allied
with divinity; and as he left the assembly of the States he must have
made up his mind that here, in his own dominion, the hydra must be
crushed at any cost. As was his wont, however, he dissembled, promised
that the Spanish troops should be withdrawn, and took leave of the
States with fair words. The country was to be governed in his absence by
the Duchess of Parma, daughter of the emperor by a Flemish lady, and now
married to that Ottavio Farnese whose dukedoms had been taken and
subsequently restored to him by the Spaniards. Her principal adviser was
to be the Bishop of Arras (De Granvelle). He was the third son of
Charles’s favourite minister, Secretary Perrennot, a Franche-Comtois,
and consequently a foreigner in Flanders. Upon him the principal brunt
of his master’s unpopularity fell. His appointment as prime minister, he
being a foreigner, was, said the Flemings, a violation of their rights.
But Philip was immovable. He knew by the signatories of the petition for
the removal of the Spanish troops that many of the principal men in the
Netherlands were disaffected, and his suspicions had been aroused
against those prime favourites of his father, the young Prince of Orange
and Count Egmont. But he was, as usual, careful to dissemble his
distrust, and left Egmont as governor of the counties of Flanders and
Artois, and Orange of those of Holland, Zeeland, etc.
The atmosphere in Philip’s Netherlands dominions was thus full of
gathering storm when he turned his back upon them for the last time to
sail for Spain (August 1559). At the last moment, as he was about to
embark, his indignation at the resistance to his authority seems to have
overridden his reticence. He turned to Orange and told him that he knew
that he was at the bottom of the opposition he had encountered in the
States-General. Orange began by laying the responsibility upon the
States themselves. “No,” said Philip, “not the States, but you! you!
you!” This was Orange’s first warning. In his heart he must have known
now that in future it was to be war to the knife between his sovereign
and himself. In any case he was prudent enough to stay on shore, and
declined to accompany the other Flemish nobles on board the Spanish
fleet.
If the sky was overcast in the Netherlands, it was almost as lowering in
Spain itself; and this was a matter which lay nearer still to Philip’s
heart. The country had been governed during the king’s absence by his
sister, the widowed Princess Juana of Portugal, as regent. Civil affairs
had shown no decided change. The money that flowed from the Indies had
been mostly seized and squandered upon the foreign wars, and on one
occasion the Seville merchants had ventured to remonstrate. But their
leaders had been loaded with irons and cast into prison, and
henceforward the people patiently bore their burden. Religious matters,
however, were in a less satisfactory condition. It has already been
observed that the policy of Charles and Philip had always been to bring
the Church in Spain under subjection to the monarch, and to weaken the
control of Rome over it. The ecclesiastical benefices were now
practically all at the disposal of the sovereigns, and were distributed
to a large extent with political objects, pensions and payment for
national purposes frequently being charged upon episcopal, and other
revenues, as a condition of presentation of a benefice. The royal
council had assumed the power of reviewing the decisions of
ecclesiastical tribunals, and the same civil power had now claimed the
right of suspending the publication of papal bulls in Spain.
For some years a controversy had been in progress with the papacy as to
the right of the crown to insist upon the execution of a decision of the
Council of Trent with regard to the reformation of the Spanish cathedral
chapters, which had become very corrupt. The pope had considered this an
interference with his prerogative, and had summoned to Rome the Spanish
bishops who championed the right of the monarch over the Church. The
royal council suspended the papal bulls and forbade the bishops to obey
the pope’s summons. Paul IV. was furious, and this was one of the
reasons for his attempts to ruin the Spanish power. When he fulminated
his famous excommunication of Philip already mentioned, the king
retorted by ordering through the Regent Juana that all the pope’s
messengers bearing the bulls into Spain should be captured and punished.
The council next recommended that Philip should insist upon all papal
nuncios to Spain being Spanish prelates, and that they should be paid by
the pope and not by the king. It did not, however, suit Philip to
proceed too violently against the Church, upon which he knew he must
depend largely as an instrument of his policy. When in 1557 he consented
to the undignified peace with Paul IV., who had been so bitter an enemy
to him, proud Alba said that, if he had had his way, he would have made
Caraffa go to Brussels to sue the king for peace instead of Philip’s
general having to humble himself before the churchman.
Matters were still extremely strained between Philip and the pope, Paul
IV., when, almost simultaneously with the king’s departure from
Flanders, the pontiff died (August 15, 1559), and during most of the
rule of his successor, Pius IV. (Angelo de Medici), Philip had a ready
and pliant instrument in the chair of St. Peter.
The gradual slackening of the bonds which bound the Spanish Church to
the papacy, and the laxity of the ecclesiastical control which was a
consequence, had brought about scandalous corruption amongst the higher
and cloistered clergy. The general tone of religion, indeed, at the time
seems to have been one of extreme looseness and cynicism, accompanied by
a slavish adherence to ritual and form. The terms in which the king and
his ambassadors in their correspondence refer to the pontiffs and to the
government of the Church in Rome, are often contemptuous in the last
degree. They are always regarded as simple instruments for forwarding
the interests of “God and your Majesty,” the invariable formula which
well embodies Philip’s own conception of his place in the universe.
Nothing is more curious than the free way in which religious matters
were spoken of and discussed with impunity, so long as the speakers
professed profound and abject submission to the Church, which in this
case really meant the semi-political institution in Spain.
The Inquisition had from the first been jealously guarded from any real
effective interference on the part of the pope, and by the time of
Philip’s return to Spain had already begun to assume its subsequent
character as a great political instrument in the hands of the monarch,
working on ecclesiastical lines. So far as Philip’s personal experience
extended, nearly all resistance to authority had begun with heresy, and,
with his views as to the identity of his interests with those of the
Almighty, it was evidently a duty to crush out ruthlessly any
manifestation of a spirit which tended to his prejudice.
There had gone with Philip to England as one of his confessors a learned
and eloquent friar named Bartolomé de Carranza, of the Order of
Preachers. He had been active in his efforts to bring England into the
Catholic fold, and had especially devoted himself to refuting the
arguments upon which the reformers depended. By his zeal and ability he
had gained the good-will of Philip, who had, after his return to
Brussels, raised him to the archbishopric of Toledo and the primacy of
Spain. He shortly afterwards left for his diocese, with instructions to
visit the emperor at Yuste on his way thither. He found Charles dying,
and administered the last consolations to him, whilst another monk, a
spy of the Inquisition, knelt close by, storing up in his mind for
future use against him the words of hope and comfort he whispered to the
dying man. It was afterwards alleged that he had dared to say that we
might hope for salvation and justification by faith alone. Previous to
this (1558) he had published in Antwerp a work called _Commentaries on
the Christian Catechism_, in the preface of which certain words of a
somewhat imprudent tendency were employed. “He wished,” he said, “to
resuscitate the antiquity of the primitive church because that was the
most sound and pure”; and in the body of the book certain propositions
were cautiously advanced, which, however, nothing but the keenest
sophistry could twist into heresy.
Carranza was at Alcalá de Henares in August 1559, shortly before Philip
left Flanders, when he was summoned by the Regent Juana to Valladolid.
The archbishop had known for some time that the spies of the
Inquisition were around him, and endeavoured diplomatically to delay his
journey until the king should arrive; but Philip had deferred his
departure for a fortnight, because a soothsayer had predicted heavy
storms at sea, and before he could arrive the archbishop, who had then
reached Torrelaguna, was taken from his bed at one o’clock in the
morning and carried to the dungeons of the Inquisition at Valladolid.
His arrest caused the greatest dismay throughout Spain. Contemporaries
made no secret of their belief that he was not imprisoned for religion
at all. His catechism was unanimously approved of by the pope, and by
the Congregation of the Index in Rome. The Council of Trent solemnly and
repeatedly protested against his arrest, and for many years it was a
pitched battle between the Inquisition and the king on the one hand, and
all the Catholic Church on the other. The documents in the case reached
25,000 folios of writing, some of the allegations against the archbishop
being quite ludicrous in their triviality and looseness. In all
probability the first cause of Carranza’s arrest was the jealousy of
Valdes, Archbishop of Seville, the inquisitor-general. He was, like all
the chief inquisitors, a Dominican, and during the many years he had
been at the head of the Holy Office had become intolerably overbearing
and ambitious. Carranza, on the other hand, was a much younger man
(fifty-five), and had, after several years’ absence from Spain, been
suddenly lifted from the position of a simple friar to that of Primate
of Spain, the holder of the richest ecclesiastical benefice in the
world. That Valdes should be jealous was only natural, and in the
absence of any adequate reason for his imprisonment in Carranza’s
writings, it is almost certain that the cause for his first detention
must be sought in this direction. Feria, who, of course, knew him well,
writing from Brussels at the date of his first arrest to Bishop Quadra
in England, says: “Things are going so badly in Spain, and they are
coming to such a pass, that we shall soon not know who are the heretics
and who the Christians. I will not believe evil of the archbishop, or of
his companion, or of the Archbishop of Granada, who has also been
summoned by the Inquisitors. What drives me crazy is to see the lives
led by the criminals (_i.e._ the accused) and those led by their judges,
and to compare their respective intelligence.” The bishop’s (Quadra’s)
reply to this is almost as bold; and a priest sitting at table in Ruy
Gomez’s house is reported to have said without rebuke, speaking of
Carranza, “We shall see by and by whether he is a heretic, but we
already see that he is being persecuted by envy.” When Philip arrived in
Spain the archbishop was in the dark dungeon, where he stayed for two
years, and churchmen everywhere were murmuring at the fate of the
primate. Then the matter assumed a very different complexion. It was now
a question of the vindication of Philip’s favourite tribunal against the
demands of Rome, and for many years Philip held out, making use of every
procrastination and subterfuge of which he was a master, until Pius V.
in 1566 threatened to excommunicate Philip unless Carranza were sent to
Rome. Then after some further delay Philip thought wise to cede the
point, and the archbishop left in April 1567. But his troubles were not
at an end. After a weary delay in Rome, he was fully absolved and
restored by the pope, and the decision sent to Spain for the king’s
ratification. This was deferred until Pius V. died (1572), whereupon the
new pope, Gregory XIII., commenced another interrogatory, which lasted
three years. This ended in the absolution of the archbishop after a
light penance, at the end of which, in a few days, Carranza died.
Through all this the monarch seems to have had no personal feeling
against the primate, but it was necessary at all costs to strengthen the
Inquisition.
On the arrival of Philip in Spain in the autumn of 1559, his methods and
character were well matured, and he began the regular routine of
government which continued unbroken almost for the next forty years,
endeavouring to rule his wide-spreading dominions from his desk, and
trying to make puppets of all men for his own political ends. The
government was divided into eleven departments, distributed between four
secretaries of state. Letters and documents, after being deciphered,
were sent to the king by the secretary of the department to which they
belonged, often accompanied by a note explaining them or recommending a
particular course. Every letter, to the most trivial detail, was read by
Philip himself, who scrawled over the margins his acceptance or
otherwise of the recommendations, or ordered them to be submitted to the
inner council of state, Ruy Gomez, Alba, the confessor, and one or two
other persons. The results of the conference were sent to the king in a
memorandum from the secretary, and were once more considered. Every
paper was therefore before the king several times. All letters or
replies sent were submitted to him in draft, and frequently amended by
him. At the same time his secretaries kept up a copious semi-private
correspondence with all the Spanish ambassadors and governors, which was
also perused by the king, and frequently contained matters of the
highest importance in secret diplomacy, which it was unadvisable to send
by the usual official channels. It will be seen that this cumbrous
system, by which every individual point was brought before the king’s
personal consideration, entailed an immensity of work, and made prompt
action impossible, even if the king’s own character was capable of
promptitude. Ruy Gomez, Duke of Pastrana and Prince of Eboli, was
high-chamberlain and state councillor, the inseparable friend of the
king, over whom his influence was great. He had taken care to place
around the king secretaries of state attached to his party, the
principal of whom were Eraso and the two Perezes successively--Gonzalo
and Antonio. The Duke of Alba, unlike the other political advisers of
the king, was a great noble, ambitious, harsh, and turbulent, but
partaking of Philip’s own view of the sacredness of the power of the
crown. We have seen that Philip in his youth had been warned by his
father not to trust Alba, or any other great noble, with power in Spain,
and he never did. But the duke was useful in council, because he always
opposed Ruy Gomez, whose soft and peaceful methods he contemned. This
exactly suited Philip, who invariably wished to hear both sides of every
question, and followed his father’s advice to keep rivals and enemies
near him, in order that he might hear the worst that was to be said of
each, whilst he held the balance.
The king loved to surround himself with mystery, to be unseen by the
crowd except on occasions of great ceremony; and as he got older he
became in public graver and more reserved than ever. He had by this time
probably persuaded himself that he really was a sacred being, specially
selected as the direct representative of the Almighty, to whom Popes and
Churches were merely tools. Certain it is that he considered it
unfitting in him to exhibit any of the usual emotions of humanity. On
his marble mask anger, surprise, or joy left no sign.
Philip landed in Spain on September 8, 1559, in great danger, the ship
and all her rich freight sinking immediately after he left her. He had
previously instructed the Regent Juana that heresy must be pursued
without mercy in Spain, and she and young Carlos had sat through the
horrors of a great auto de fé in Valladolid at the beginning of June,
where some of the principal ladies of her own court were cruelly
sacrificed. But this did not suffice for Philip. If he was to dominate
the world from Spain, that country, at least, must be free from stain or
suspicion. So the first great public ceremony he attended in the country
that welcomed him was another stately auto at Valladolid. On Sunday,
October 18, he sat on a splendid platform in the open space opposite the
church of St. Martin. The judges of the Holy Office surrounded the
throne, and the multitude, frantic with joy to see their beloved Philip
again, and to enjoy a brilliant holiday, had flocked in for many miles
around, attracted by the festival, and the forty days’ indulgence
promised to them by the Church as a reward for their presence. Before
the assembled multitude Philip solemnly swore to maintain the purity of
the faith and to support the Holy Office. As the condemned criminals
passed his platform, one of them, a gentleman of high birth, married to
a descendant of the royal house of Castile, cried out to the king, “How
is it that a gentleman like you can hand over another gentleman such as
I am to these friars?” “If my son were as perverse as you are,” said
Philip, “I myself would carry the faggots to burn him.” Twelve poor
wretches were then handed over to the civil power for execution, with a
canting request for mercy from the Inquisition, for the Holy Office
itself never officially carried out the last sentence, and invariably
begged hypocritically for mercy for the poor wracked bodies it had
doomed to the fire.
It is probable that Philip’s object in thus celebrating his return to
his country was intended to give additional prestige to the institution
which he intended to use as a main instrument in keeping his country
free from the dissensions, such as he saw spreading over the rest of the
world. But it will be a mistake to conclude that his proceeding, or even
the Inquisition itself, was unpopular with Spaniards. On the contrary,
Philip seems in this, as in most other things, to have been a perfect
embodiment of the feeling of his country at this time. The enormous
majority of Spaniards exulted in the idea that their nation, and
especially their monarch, had been selected to make common cause with
the Almighty for the extirpation of His enemies.