been related, for Matilla as the King’s confessor. Probably as part of a
concerted plan to obtain complete control over him, Diaz appeared to
agree with Charles in his expressed belief that he was bewitched; and,
having heard that an old friend of his in a convent in Galicia, had by
many efficacious exorcisms become quite familiar with the evil spirits
that he cast out, he consulted the Inquisitor-General Rocaberti, as to
whether it would be well to summon the priestly exorciser to the King.
The Inquisitor did not like the business, but consented to a letter
being written to the Bishop of Oviedo, the exorciser’s spiritual
superior, asking him to submit to the latter the question as to the
truth of the statement that the King was suffering from diabolical arts.
The bishop, determined not to be made the channel of such nonsense,
replied that the only witchcraft the King was suffering from was
weakness of constitution and a too ready acquiescence in his wife’s
will; and he refused to have anything to do with it. Diaz then sent
direct to Argüelles the exorciser in July 1698, instructing him to lay
upon his breast a paper with the names of the King and Queen written
upon it, and summon the devil to ask if the persons whose names were
written were bewitched.
Thenceforward for eight or nine months the ghastly mockery went on.[342]
The devil announced that the King was bewitched: ‘et hoc ad destruendam
materiam generationis in Rege, et eum incapacem ponendum ad regnum
administrandum’; the charm having been administered by moonlight when
the King was fourteen years old. Repulsive remedies were prescribed
which, if administered, would certainly have killed the patient, others
were recommended just as hideous but less harmful; and the poor creature
was submitted to them. At length, after the will in favour of the
Bavarian had been wrung from the King by many months of this ghastly
nonsense, it was seen that the exorciser was aiming at gaining influence
for himself. He said that the charms had been administered by the King’s
mother, and repeated much dangerous political advice that the devil had
given, such as to recommend the complete isolation of the King from his
wife, and other things less palatable to Portocarrero and the French
party; and the exorciser, being able to get no further, was dropped in
June 1699.
This was the time when the King was suffering from the shock of the
recent tumults, and Stanhope writes: ‘His Catholic Majesty grows every
day sensibly worse and worse. It is true that last Thursday they made
him walk in the public solemn procession of Corpus, which was much
shortened for his sake. However, he performed it so feebly that all who
saw him said he could not make one straight step, but staggered all the
way; nor could it be otherwise expected after he had had two falls a day
or two before, walking in his own lodgings, when his legs doubled under
him by mere weakness. In one of them he hurt his eye, which appeared
much swelled, and black and blue; the other being quite sunk into his
head, the nerves being contracted by his paralytic distemper. Yet it was
thought fit to have him make this sad figure in public, only to have it
put into the Gazette how strong and vigorous he is.’
At this juncture Marie Anne’s suspicions were first aroused of the
witchcraft business by a hint dropped by the King, and she at once set
spies upon those who had access to him, and especially upon Diaz the
confessor. A very few days convinced her that the ghastly incantations
that were being carried on were directed against her, politically and
personally. ‘Roaring with very rage,’ she summoned her friends and
demanded instant revenge and punishment of the King’s confessor.[343]
She was reminded by Folch de Cardona, that as the Inquisitor-General was
concerned in the matter, it would be prudent to go cautiously until it
was seen how far the Holy Office itself was a party: and, in any case,
he said it would be wisest to allow the Inquisition to avenge her rather
than for her to do it and thereby make herself more unpopular than she
was. It was soon found that the Sacred Tribunal was not concerned; but
as Rocaberti, the dreaded chief Inquisitor, had been active in the
matter, no one dared to move against Diaz or him, for Inquisitors were
dangerous people to touch. Almost immediately afterwards Rocaberti died
suddenly, almost certainly poisoned; and then Marie Anne laid her plans
to crush Father Diaz the confessor.
Stanhope writes (15th July): ‘The doctors, not knowing what more to do
with the King, to save their credit have bethought themselves to say his
ill must certainly be witchcraft, and there is a great Court party who
greedily catch at and improve the report, which, how ridiculous soever
it may sound in England, is generally believed here, and propagated by
others to serve a turn. They, finding all their attempts in vain to
banish Madame Berlips, think this cannot fail, and are using to find out
any colourable pretences to make her the witch.’ It was higher game even
than Berlips that they were aiming at. Berlips stood behind the Queen,
and one could not be injured without the other.
In September a mad woman, in a state of frenzy, burst into the King’s
presence, foaming at the mouth, and cursed him with demoniac shrieks
until she was removed by force, leaving Charles in an agony of terror
which nearly killed him. The mad woman was followed, and it was found
that she lived with two other demoniacs who were under the impression
that they were keeping the King subject in their room. This nonsense was
conveyed to the King by Diaz, and confirmed the invalid in his
conviction that he was under the influence of sorcery. In this belief he
ordered that the three women should be exorcised by a famous German
monk, who had been brought to Spain as an able exorciser for the King’s
benefit. Diaz, who superintended the incantations, unfortunately for
himself, dictated questions to the demoniacs which were evidently
designed to involve the Queen. Who was it that caused the King’s malady?
A beautiful woman, was the answer. Was it the Queen? and to this no
distinct reply was given. But the question was enough; and when Marie
Anne received a full report of the proceedings, as she did from her
spies, she was, of course, furious that an open attempt should be made
to cast upon her the blame of the witchcraft.
The first step towards her revenge was to get a new Inquisitor-General
in her interest, and she pressed the King to appoint Folch de Cardona,
General of the Franciscans. He refused, prompted no doubt by his
confessor, and, in spite of Marie Anne’s passionate outbursts of
protest, he appointed Cardinal Cordova; to whom the King and the
confessor unburdened themselves completely, and told the whole story of
the exorcism. From these conferences an extraordinary resolution
resulted. The Queen herself was too high to strike at first; but her
great friend and late all-powerful minister, the Admiral of Castile, was
detested and despised by every one, and might be attacked with impunity
to begin with. So it was decided that he, being allied with the devil to
cause all the mischief, should be seized by the Inquisition of Granada
and closely imprisoned, whilst his household should be incarcerated
elsewhere, and his papers seized by the holy office. This could not be
done, however, until the new Inquisitor-General’s appointment was
ratified by the Pope. Once more Marie Anne and her friends trumped their
opponents’ strong suit, for Cardinal Cordova died of poison on the very
day that the bull arrived.
Again Marie Anne pressed her husband to appoint one of her tools
Inquisitor-General; but Father Diaz was now fighting for his life, and
prevented the appointment. Marie Anne then sought out a man who would be
acceptable to her opponents, but whom she might buy, and Mendoza, Bishop
of Segovia, became Inquisitor-General, bribed by the Queen with the
promise of a cardinal’s hat to do her bidding in future. Marie Anne had
the whip hand and promptly used it. Stanhope wrote on the 22nd August:
‘As to Court factions, her Majesty is now as high as ever, and the
Cardinal of Toledo, who carried everything before him two months ago,
now dares hardly to open his mouth. But he is sullen, comes seldom to
Court, and talks of retiring to Toledo.’ First the German exorciser was
captured, and under torture confessed the details of the exorcism of the
three demoniacs when Diaz was present; then the compromising
correspondence with the exorciser in Galicia was seized, with all the
hints and suggestions made in it to incriminate the Queen. This was
sufficient evidence against Diaz, and he was arrested. Everything he had
done, he said, was by the King’s orders; and as royal confessor he
claimed immunity, his mouth being closed. He was at once dismissed from
all his offices, and the King was appealed to by the Inquisitor-General
to allow the confessor’s privileges to be dispensed with. Charles could
only mumble that they might do justice; but Diaz had a powerful party
behind him who took care to spread abroad the story of the Queen’s
vengeance, and Diaz, aided by many of his late colleagues on the Council
of the Inquisition, fled to the coast, and so to Rome. There he was
seized and brought back to Spain; and thenceforward, for many years,
there raged around him a great and unparalleled contest between the
Council of the Inquisition, which favoured Diaz, and the
Inquisitor-General in the interests of the Queen’s vengeance.[344]
Marie Anne had won, so far as the King’s confessor was concerned, but
her unpopularity was so great that she gained no ground politically; nor
did her German candidate for the succession improve in his chance of
success, for Cardinal Portocarrero and his friends filled all the
administrative offices, and Marie Anne was powerless. Stanhope wrote in
September 1699: ‘One night last week a troop of about three hundred,
with swords, bucklers and firearms, went into the outward court of the
palace and, under the King’s window, sung most impudent lampoons and
pasquins; and the Queen does not appear in the streets without hearing
herself cursed to her face.... The pasquins plainly tell her they will
pull her out of the palace and put her in a convent, adding that their
party is no less than 14,000 strong. This new turn has damped the
discourse, which was very hot lately, of the Admiral’s return to Court,
and the Cardinal of Toledo is now like to be the great man again.’[345]
Every day some fresh sign was given that Marie Anne’s foes were
paramount. ‘Our great German lady, the Countess of Berlips, is going,
nor does she go alone; but all the rest of the German tribe are to
accompany her, namely, a fine young lady, her niece, a German woman, a
dwarf, an eunuch, the Queen’s German doctor, the Capuchin, her
confessor, and Father Carapacci ... who, though no German, yet is one of
the Queen’s chief agents, and as great an eyesore to the people as any
of them. This seems a great reform, but I believe will prove no
amendment, for I expect to see others as greedy, if not more so, to take
their places.’[346]
The French party was now absolutely paramount; for the money and
diplomatic skill of Louis XIV. had been lavishly employed in gaining
friends from those who had been in favour of the Bavarian prince; and
Marie Anne herself, though she had now the Inquisitor-General on her
side, could hardly get a word alone with her dying husband. Charles
lingered on in morbid melancholy for many months longer. Like his
father, in similar case, he found the royal charnelhouse at the Escorial
a resort that suited his humour. On one occasion it is related that,
with Marie Anne at his side, he caused the coffins of his relatives to
be opened and the bodies exposed to view. He was deeply affected by the
sight of the corpse that had once been the beautiful Marie Louise, the
wife of his youth, whose dead face he caressed, with tears and promises
to join her soon, whilst Marie Anne, as a reply to the King’s affection
for his dead French wife, kissed the crumbling hand of old German
Mariana, whose enemy she had been on earth.
Whilst the Spanish Court and so-called government were thus employed in
degrading superstitions and petty squabbles, the fate of the nation,
reduced now to utter impotence, was being discussed and settled by
foreign powers. Louis XIV., still desirous, if possible of securing for
France without war the portion of Spain’s inheritance which mainly
interested him, made early in 1700, another treaty with England and
Holland for the partition of Spain between the claimants and others
interested, threatening that if the Emperor refused to accept the terms
offered the invasion of Spain by France would follow, and the whole
inheritance claimed for the Dauphin at the sword’s point. The Emperor
indignantly rejected the advance, and also claimed to be sole heir: the
Spaniards, and even their moribund King, blazing out in anger with some
of their old pride at this unceremonious dismemberment of their ancient
realm. Stanhope’s expulsion from Spain followed quickly upon this new
attempt at partition, and for a short time the French cause looked
black. Then the Austrians, to make their assurance doubly sure,
endeavoured to secure Marie Anne firmly to their side by the same means
as those that Harcourt had employed to win her for the French faction.
They promised that if she aided them the Archduke, her nephew, when he
became King of Spain should marry her. The Queen was delighted; and in
order to deal one more blow at the French claim, went to her husband and
divulged to him, not the Austrian but the former French offer of
marriage. Charles was tired of life and utterly muddled with the
atmosphere of intrigue in which he lived; but even he protested in
impotent passion against his wife being wooed before he was dead, and
this increased his dislike of the French claimant, though Louis XIV.
recalled Harcourt and disclaimed the offer he had made.
But Cardinal Portocarrero was always by the King’s side, and exercised
more influence over him than any one else. He, in his sacred character,
warned Charles that it was his duty to his conscience to lay aside
personal partialities, and to summon a conference of the most famous
theologians and jurisconsults to discuss and decide the question of the
succession. Portocarrero took care that such conferences should result
in a vote in favour of Louis XIV.‘s young grandson, Philip Duke of
Anjou, measures being taken to prevent any future joining of the two
realms under one crown. Charles was hard to convince, for he clung to
the Empire both by tradition and at the pleading of his wife; and
Portocarrero then told him that it was his duty to submit his doubts to
the Pope. Charles was devout, and did so. Innocent XI. had all along
been an enemy of Austria and a friend of France; and, as Portocarrero of
course anticipated, decided in favour of the Duke of Anjou as the
legitimate heir.[347]
But still Charles hesitated. Marie Anne was indefatigable in persuading
him to favour the Austrian, and always managed to prevent the fateful
will being made in Anjou’s favour; distracting her dying husband, even
at this pass, with the vain shows, bull fights, tourneys, and the like,
which had been for so long the traditional pleasures of his Court. She
even endeavoured to make terms with her enemies again, in order to be
safe in any eventuality; but Louis XIV. began to speak more haughtily
now; threatening war if a single German soldier set foot in Spain or
resistance was offered to the partition. There was nothing that Charles
and his people dreaded more than the dismemberment of the country, and
this frightened the King into looking upon the acceptance of the French
claim as the only means of keeping Spain intact. Thus, from day to day,
the irresolute monarch turned to one side or another, as his wife or
Portocarrero, his fears or his affections, gained the upper hand.
On the 20th September he took to his bed to rise no more, and a few days
afterwards received the last sacrament, asking for pardon of all whom he
had unconsciously offended. The sick chamber assumed the appearance of a
mingled charnel house and toyshop, as the pale figure of the King upon
his great bed grew more ghastly and hopeless. All the sacred relics in
the capital were crowded into the room; carved saints, blessed rosaries
and mouldering human remains, until, to make space for fresh comers, the
less renowned objects had to be removed. The Primate of Spain,
Portocarrero, made the most of the priestly privilege; and, in the
interests of the dying King’s religious consolation, he kept from his
side Marie Anne and her allies, the Inquisitor-General and the King’s
regular confessor. Alone with the King, the Cardinal admonished him that
in order to avoid dying in a state of sin, it was necessary for him to
avert war from the country by making a will, leaving his crown to the
Duke of Anjou, putting aside all personal leanings and family ties.
Charles could resist no longer. He was in terror; the spectre of sin and
devilish temptations always before him, and summoning the Secretary of
State, Ubilla, he himself directed him to draft a will in favour of his
young French great-nephew, the Duke of Anjou. On the 3rd October 1700,
the document was placed before him. Around his bed stood Cardinals
Portocarrero and Borgia, and the highest officers of the household; but
Marie Anne of Neuburg was not there to see the final shattering of her
hopes. With trembling hand Charles the Bewitched took the pen. ‘God
alone gives kingdoms,’ he sighed, ‘for to Him all kingdoms belong.’ Then
signing in his great uncultured writing; ‘I, the King,’ he dropped the
pen, saying, ‘I am nothing now:’ and thus the die was cast, the house of
Austria gave place to the house of Bourbon. Marie Anne did not even yet
accept defeat meekly. In an interval of partial improvement in the
King’s health, she returned to the attack, and with tears and
protestations, induced the King to think well again of his Austrian
kinsmen. A courier was sent hurrying to Vienna to tell the Emperor,
that, after all, the last will would make his son the heir of Spain, and
a codicil was signed conferring upon Marie Anne the governorship of any
city in Spain or Spanish State in Italy or Flanders in which she might
choose to reside after her husband’s death.
Soon afterwards (26th October) a decree was signed by Charles, who
seemed then to be dying, appointing a provisional government, headed by
Marie Anne, with Portocarrero and other great officers, to rule, pending
the arrival of the new King; whilst Portocarrero was nominated to act as
Regent if the King, though still alive, might be unable to exercise his
functions. With all the terror-stricken devotion that had been
traditional in his house, the last few days on earth of Charles the
Bewitched were passed, and on the 1st November 1700, the last descendant
in the male line of the great Emperor Charles V., died of senile old age
before he was forty, the victim of four generations of incest; leaving
as his legacy to the world a great war which changed the face of Europe,
and decided the future course of civilisation.
The terms of the will had been kept a close secret; and as soon as the
King’s death was known, the Palace of Madrid was packed with an eager
crowd of nobles and magnates to learn the name of their future king. The
will was read solemnly in the presence of Marie Anne and the principal
great officers; and soon the news was spread that Spain was free from
the house of Austria, which had been the cause of its greatness and its
ruin. Marie Anne, at the head of the Council of Regency, had but a short
term of power, and, as may be supposed, considering her imperious
nature, a far from harmonious one. Louis XIV., however, lost no time;
and the bright handsome lad, full of hope and spirit, thenceforward
Philip V. of Spain, hurried south to take possession of his inheritance
almost before the Emperor had time to protest.
On the 18th February 1701, Philip arrived in Madrid; and his first act
was to confirm Portocarrero as his leading minister. Marie Anne had
quarrelled with her colleagues before this, and they had complained of
her to the young King before his arrival. She had been defeated indeed;
for she saw now that the marriage bait that had been held out to her was
illusory; and when the order came to her from the new King to leave
Madrid before he entered it, she went, full of plans for revenge still,
to her place of banishment at Toledo; yet with kindly professions upon
her lips, for the large pension of 400,000 ducats settled upon her by
Charles, was too valuable to be jeopardised by open opposition to the
ruling powers. She was all smiles when young Philip visited her at
Toledo soon after his arrival; and she hung around his neck a splendidly
jewelled badge of the Golden Fleece as a token of her recognition of his
sovereignty. But when the war broke out, and the Archduke, her nephew,
with his allies came to fight for the prize he claimed, Marie Anne could
hardly be expected to stand quite aloof. In 1706, the victorious
Austrian and his allies were carried by the fortune of war into Toledo;
and Marie Anne welcomed her nephew with effusive joy as King of Spain;
but when the turn of the tide carried Philip V. into power again, a few
months later, two hundred horsemen, under the Duke of Osuna, clattered
into the courtyard of Marie Anne’s convent retreat at Toledo, and
arrested the Queen, carrying her thence as rapidly as horses could
travel over the frontier to France.
At Bayonne, Marie Anne lived in retirement for nine years, when a
strange revolution of fortune’s wheel brought her back to Spain again
triumphant. In the stately Morisco Palace at Guadalajara, Marie Anne
passed in affluent dignity the last twenty-six years of life in
widowhood, and died in 1740. She lived to see Spain rise from its ashes,
a new nation, purged by the fires of war; purified by heroism and
sacrifice. The long duel between the Empire and France for the
possession of the resources of Spain had ended before the death of Marie
Anne in the successful reassertion of Spain to the possession of her own
resources. Rulers, men and women, had blindly and ignorantly done their
worst; pride, bigotry, and sloth had dominated for centuries the spirit
of the nation, as a result of the action which alone had caused Spain to
bulk so big in the eyes of the world, and then to sink so low. But at
last the evil nightmare of the house of Austria was shaken off, and when
the aged widow of Charles II. passed to her rest at Guadalajara,
Spaniards were awakening to the stirring message, that Spain might be
happier and more truly great in national concentration than when the
men-at-arms of the Austrian Philips squandered blood and treasure beyond
count, to uphold in foreign lands an impossible pretension, born of
ambitions as dead as those who first conceived them.
EPILOGUE
Fire and sword swept Spain clean. The long drawn war of succession broke
down much of the old exclusiveness and conceit which had been for two
centuries the bane of the Spanish people, and a new patriotic spirit was
aroused which proved that the nation was not effete but only drugged.
The accession of Philip V. had been looked upon by his grandfather as
practically annexing Spain to France. ‘_Il n’y a plus de Pyrénées_,’ he
announced; and his first act proved his determination of treating his
grandson’s realm as a vassal state of his own. Again it was to a large
extent the influence of women which directed the course of Spanish
politics, even to the confusion of the _roi soleil_. It has been shown
in this history how often feminine influence had been invoked by
statesmen to bring Spain to a sympathetic line of policy for their own
ends, and how often circumstances had rendered their efforts
ineffectual.
The confident anticipations of Louis XIV. that, by rightly choosing his
feminine instruments he might use Spain entirely for the aggrandisement
of France, were even more conspicuously defeated than any previous
attempts had been in a similar direction; for the ladies upon whom he
depended were one after the other caught up by the chivalrous patriotism
of the Spanish people, newly aroused from the bad dream of a hundred
years, and boldly braving Louis, they did their best for Spain and for
their own ends, whether France benefited or not.
The bride that Louis chose for his grandson was one from whom no
resistance could be expected. She was a mere child, under fifteen, Maria
Louisa Gabriela of Savoy, daughter of Victor Amadeus and Anne Marie of
Orleans, sister of that Marie Louise, Queen of Spain, whose life has
been told in detail in these pages. In September 1701 young Philip went
to meet his bride at Barcelona; and even thus early it was seen that he
had to face a coalition of all Europe against him. Revolt had been
stirred up in Naples; and Philip had hardly time to snatch a brief
honeymoon before he was obliged to hurry away to Italy to fight for his
crown; leaving the girl whom he had married to rule Spain in his absence
and to marshal the elements of defence in a country utterly prostrate
and disorganised. Maria Louisa was, of course, entirely inexperienced,
but she came of a stout race and never flinched from the
responsibilities cast upon her. The young married couple were already
deeply in love with each other; and Philip, though only seventeen, had
thus early begun to show the strange uxoriousness that in later life
became an obsession which made him a mere appanage of the woman by his
side; so that Maria Louisa began her strenuous life assured that she
would meet with no captious opposition from her husband.
Louis XIV. and Mme. de Maintenon had placed by her side a far stronger
personality than Philip; one of the greatest women of her century, whose
mission it was to keep the young King and Queen of Spain in the narrow
path of French interests. Anne Marie de la Tremouille, Duchess of
Bracciano, whom the Spaniards called the Princess of Ursinos, took
charge of the young Queen at once when the Piedmontese household was
dismissed at the frontier; and through the most troublous period of the
great struggle which finally gave the throne to Philip, she ruled the
rulers gently, wisely and firmly for their own interests and those of
Spain. No cantankerous straitlaced Mistress of the Robes was she, such
as the Duchess of Terranova who had embittered the life of the other
Marie Louise, but a great lady full of wit and knowledge, and as brave
as a lioness in defence of the best interests of those in her charge.
The young Queen herself, when she had been installed in the capital as
Regent, showed how changed were the circumstances of a Queen of Spain,
now that the dull gloom of the house of Austria had been swept away, and
a new Spain was gazing towards the dawn. Nothing could exceed the
diligence and ability of this girl of fifteen in administering the
government of Madrid in the absence of the new King. Instead of the dull
round of devotion and frivolity which had filled the lives of other
Queen Consorts, she, with the wise old Princess at her side, worked
incessantly. She would sign nothing she did not understand: she insisted
upon all complaints being investigated, and reports made direct to her.
Supplies of men and money for the war in which Philip was already
plunged in Italy, were collected and remitted with an activity and
regularity which filled old-fashioned Spaniards with surprise, and
encouraged those who possessed means to contribute from their hoards
resources previously unsuspected. The manners of the Court were
reformed; immorality and vice, so long rampant in Madrid, was frowned at
and discouraged; and, instead of allowing the news of the wars in which
the King was engaged to filter slowly and incorrectly from the palace to
the gossips of the street, the Queen herself read aloud from a balcony
to the people below the despatches she daily received from her husband.
All this was enough to make the old Queen Consorts of Spain turn with
horror in their porphyry urns at the Escorial; but it came like a breeze
of pure mountain air into the miasmatic apathy which had hitherto
cloaked the capital; and all Spain plucked up heart and spirit from the
energy of this girl of fifteen, with the wise old Frenchwoman behind
her. But even they could only administer things as they found them, and
the root of the governmental system itself was vicious. Time, and above
all knowledge, was required to re-organise the country; and Spaniards
grew restive at the foreign auspices under which the reforms were
introduced. Maria Louisa and her husband well knew that without French
support liberally given, they could never hold their own: for when the
King returned to Madrid early in 1703, the Spaniards, who had belonged
to the Austrian party in the last reign, had thrown off the mask and
fled to join the enemy: and it was clear that no Spaniards would fight
to make Spain a dependency of France.
Nothing less than this would satisfy Louis XIV.; and the Princess of
Ursinos, who had tried to make the struggle a patriotic one for
Spaniards, was warned from Paris that, unless she immediately retired
from the country, King Louis would abandon Spain and his grandson to
their fate. The Princess went into exile with a heavy heart, and the new
French ambassador, Grammont, came when she had departed in 1704,
instructed to make a clean sweep of all the national party in Madrid,
and to obtain control for the French ministers. But Louis _XIV._ had
underrated the power and ability of Maria Louisa, who resented the
contemptuous dismissal of her wise mentor, and took no pains to conceal
her opposition to the change. Louis sent scolding letters to her,
berating her for her presumption in wishing, ‘at the age of eighteen to
govern a vast disorganised monarchy,’ against the advice of those so
much more experienced than herself. But at last he had to recognise that
this girl, with the best part of Spain behind her, held the stronger
position; and he took the wise course of conciliating her by
re-enlisting and restoring to Spain the offended Princess of Ursinos. In
vain his representatives in Madrid assured him that neither the Princess
nor the Queen could be trusted to serve French interests blindly. The
two women were too clever and too firm to be ignored, and the Princess
returned to Madrid in triumph in August 1705, with _carte blanche_ from
Louis to do as she judged best to save Spain for the house of Bourbon,
at all events.
Thenceforward the Mistress of the Robes governed the Queen, the Queen
governed the King, and the King was supposed to govern the country;
plunged in war at home and abroad, with the Spanish nobles either on the
side of the Austrian or sullen at the foreign influence which pervaded
the government measures, even when moderated and held in check by the
Princess of Ursinos. At length, when the long war was wearing itself
out, and peace was in the air, the stout-hearted little Savoyarde fell
sick. She had borne many children to her husband, but only two sons, so
far, had lived, Louis, born in 1707, and Ferdinand, born late in 1713.
The birth of the latter heralded his mothers death. She had not spared
herself in all the strenuous thirteen years of war and tumult, during
which she had to a great extent governed Spain; for Philip, when not
absent in the field, was an obedient husband; and now, at the dawn of a
period of peace at the beginning of 1714, Maria Louisa died at the age
of twenty-six.
Philip was still a young man; but the dependence upon his wife, and his
long fits of apathy that afterwards led to lunacy, had made him unfit to
fulfil the duties of his position without a clever helpmeet by his side.
The first result of the death of Maria Louisa was enormously to increase
the influence of the old Princess of Ursinos. She was the only person
allowed to see the King in his heartbroken grief; and whilst he was in
seclusion in the Medina Celi palace, the monks were turned out of a
neighbouring monastery that the Princess might stay there and have free
access to the King through a passage made for the purpose through the
walls that separated the buildings. The gossips very soon began to say
that the King was going to marry the Princess, though she was old enough
to be his grandmother. But, as usual, the scandalmongers were wrong. The
Princess of Ursinos was far too clever for such a stroke as that; but
she and others saw that Philip must marry some one without loss of time,
or he would lose what wits were left to him.
[Illustration:
ISABEL FARNESE.
_After a Painting by Van Loo_.
]
The marriage-mongers of Europe were on the alert, but the problem to be
solved was not an easy one. A bride must be found whom Louis XIV. would
accept, and yet one not too subservient to orders from France, nor one
who would interfere with the absolute paramountcy of the Princess of
Ursinos. So all the suggestions coming from France were regarded coldly;
and the Princess set about finding a candidate who would suit her. There
was an Italian priest in Spain at the time, one Father Alberoni, a
cunning rogue, who could be a buffoon when it suited him, who had wormed
himself into Court circles in the suite of the Duke of Vendome. This
man, a Parmese, came to the Princess of Ursinos the day after Queen
Maria Louisa Gabriela died and suggested that there was a modest,
submissive little princess at Parma, the niece and stepdaughter of the
reigning prince, who had no male heirs, and that this girl was exactly
fitted to be the new consort to Philip V. The Princess of Ursinos was
inclined to regard the idea favourably, for not only was it evident that
so young and humble a princess would not attempt to interfere with her,
but the match seemed to offer a chance for re-establishing the lost
influence of Spain in Italy. Louis XIV. had other views for his
grandson, and did not take kindly to the proposal, but he was grudgingly
won over by the Princess of Ursinos, whom he could not afford to offend.
Philip himself was as wax in the hands of the old Princess; and on the
16th September 1714 he married by proxy Isabel Farnese, Princess of
Parma.
Isabel Farnese had been represented by Alberoni as a tractable young
maiden, but she was a niece, by her mother, of the Queen Dowager, Marie
Anne of Neuburg, who was eating her heart out in spite in her exile at
Bayonne; and Alberoni knew full well when he suggested the Parmese bride
that he was taking part in a deep-laid conspiracy to overthrow the
Princess of Ursinos. His part was a difficult one to play at first, for
he had to keep up an appearance of adhesion to the Princess of Ursinos
whilst currying favour with the coming Queen. Isabel Farnese approached
her new realm with the airs of a conqueror. She was to have landed at
Alicante, and thither went Alberoni and her Spanish household to receive
her: but she altered her mind suddenly, and decided to go overland
through the south of France and visit her aunt Marie Anne at Bayonne.
Marie Anne had a long score of her own to settle with the Princess of
Ursinos, who had kept her in exile, and she instructed her niece how to
proceed to make herself mistress of her husband’s realm.
Isabel Farnese, girl though she was, did not need much instruction in
imperious self-assertion, and began her operations as soon as she
crossed the frontier. She flatly refused to dismiss her Italian suite,
as had been arranged in accordance with the invariable Spanish rule, and
showed from the first that she meant to have her own way in all things.
She was in no hurry, moreover, to meet her husband until the Princess of
Ursinos was out of the way; and when the latter, in great state, came to
meet her at Jadraque, a short distance from Guadalajara, where the King
was awaiting his bride, Isabel was ready for the decisive fray which
should settle the question as to who should rule Spain.
The old Princess was quite aware also by this time that she had to meet
a rival, and she began when she entered the presence by making some
remark about the slowness of the Queen’s journey. Hardly were the words
out of her mouth than the young termagant shouted: ‘Take this old fool
away who dares to come and insult me:’ and then, in spite of protest and
appeal, the Princess was hustled into a coach to be driven into exile
through a snowstorm in the winter night over the bleakest uplands in
Europe. Attired in her Court dress, with no change of garments or
adequate protection against the weather, without respect, consideration
or decency, the aged Princess was thus expelled from the country she had
served so wisely. She saw now, as she had feared for some time before,
that she had been tricked by the crafty Italian clown-cleric, and that
her day was done.
The dominion of the new Queen Isabel Farnese over the spirit of Philip
V. was soon more complete even than that of the Princess had been, and a
letter of cold compliment from the King was all the reward or
consolation that the Princess got for her protracted service to him and
his cause in Spain; services without which, in all human probability, he
would never have retained the crown. So long as Philip had a masterful
woman always by his side to keep him in leading strings, it mattered
little to him who the woman was; and Isabel Farnese, bold, ambitious,
and intriguing, ruled Spain in the name of her husband thenceforward for
thirty years. Her system was neither French nor Spanish, but founded
upon the feline ecclesiastical methods of the smaller Italian Courts:
and the object of Isabel’s life was to assert successfully the rights of
her sons to the Italian principalities, she claimed in virtue of her
descent. The pretext under which she cloaked her aims was the recovery
of the Spanish influence in the sister Peninsula: but the wars which
resulted were in no sense of Spanish national concern, but purely
Italian and dynastic.
Thus, for many years to come, the progress of Spain was retarded, and
her resources wasted in struggles by land and sea all over Europe, and
with allies and opponents constantly changing, with the end of seating
Isabel’s Bourbon sons upon Italian thrones. She succeeded, at the cost
of a generation of war, and gave to Spain once more an appearance of
some of her old potency, thanks to new ideas and more enlightened
administration: but when the successive deaths of her two stepsons, the
heirs of Philip by his first Savoyard wife, made her own eldest son
Charles King of Spain, Isabel was plainly, but delicately, made to
understand that the destinies of the country must in future be guided by
men, and in enlightened national interests, and not by women for
secondary ends.
Again, on the death of Charles III., the only strong King since Philip
II., the regal mantle fell upon a weak uxorious man, whose wife, yet
another Maria Louisa, led Spain by the miry path of disgraceful
favouritism to the great war of Independence—the Peninsular war—which
destroyed what was left of old Spain, and held up to the derision of the
world the reigning family, of whom Napoleon made such cruel sport.
Forty years more of feminine rule in the next generation brought the
unfortunate country to the revolution of 1868, and then the dawning came
of a happier day, now brightening to its full. Only half a century ago
the old, old struggle between France and Germany to provide a Consort
for Spain was engaged anew, and brought England and France upon the very
verge of war. But the fall of the Bourbons in France and Italy, and the
disappearance of the French monarchy, as a result of the great war
between the Frank and Teuton, still, on the ancient pretext of their
rival interests in Spain, banished, at least for our time, the dynastic
jealousy which had kept Europe at war for centuries.
An Austrian Queen-Regent has since then ruled Spain with consummate
wisdom and the noblest self-sacrifice for nearly twenty years; and
France has watched with sympathy, and no thought of aggression, the
sustained effort of a good woman to hand down intact to her fatherless
son the inheritance to which he was born. An English Queen Consort sits
by the side of the Spanish King, now, for the first time for centuries,
and yet no breath of discord comes from other nations to mar the love
match that has ended in a happy marriage.
The world grows wiser at last. The old tradition that dynastic
connection could override irresistible national tendencies has lingered
long, but is really dying now. Matrimonial alliances between reigning
families are symptoms, not causes, and as the personal power of the
monarch wanes before the growth of popular government, the influence of
the consort becomes more social, and consequently more personally
interesting.
The stories told in these pages treat of a state of affairs never likely
to recur. They show, amongst other things, with what little prescience
the world has been governed. The attempt of Ferdinand the Catholic to
make Aragon great by marriage ended in the swamping of Aragon: the
attempt of Charles V. and his son to dictate the religion of the world,
by means of the strength gained by matrimonial alliances, ended in the
exhaustion and ruin of Spain: the attempts of France and Germany to
obtain control of Spain by providing consorts for the ruling kings has
ended in neither obtaining what it sought, and in Spain being as safe
from foreign domination of any sort as any country in Europe. The lesson
to be drawn surely is that rulers, grandly as they bulk for their little
day in the eyes of men, are themselves but puppets, moved by aggregate
spontaneous national forces infinitely more powerful than any
individuality can be, and that a monarch’s seeming strength is only
effective so long as it interprets truly the accumulated impulse, that,
in obedience to some harmonious law as yet uncoded, guides to their
destiny the nations of the earth.
FINIS
[Illustration]
INDEX
Adrian, Cardinal, 182, 192
Aguirre, Señora, 474
Agreda, Maria de, 354, 357
Aix la Chapelle, 391
Alba, 230, 249, 266
Albaicin, 116
Alberoni, Father, 537
Albuera, 52
Albuquerque, Duchess of, 455
Alcantara, Master of, 11
Alcazar, 3, 165
Alexander VI., 105
Alexander Farnese, 292
Alfonso V. of Portugal, 9, 19
Alphonso (brother of Henry IV), 10, 11, 14
Alhama, 56, 57
Almazan, 162
Almeria, 55, 65
Anne of Austria (wife of Phillip II), 314;
character, illness and death, 316
Anna of Austria (Queen of France), 320, 321, 352
Arabic Manuscripts, 116
Aranda, 24
Aranjuez, 331
Arcos, 177
Arevalo, 200
Armada, 318
Armignac, 5
Arthur, Prince of Wales, 100, 127
Artois, 106
Arundel, 220
Astorga, 156
Astorga, Marquis, 424
Augsburg, League of, 463, 480, 487
Aulnoy, Madame d’, quoted, 419
Avila, 11, 192
Avila, Juan de, 189, 196
Badajoz, 317
Balbeses, Marquis de los, 415, 423
Baltasar Carlos, 334, 358
Barcelona, 46;
Treaty, 104, 348
Bavaria, Prince of, 495, 500
Baza, 65
Bedford, Earl of, 223
Behovia, 321
‘Beltraneja,’ the birth, 4;
betrothal, 23;
betrothal to King of Portugal, 30;
marriage, 33, 146
Benavente, Count, 9, 12, 163
Bergues, 230
Berlips, Baroness, 496
Bernaldez, 89
Bertondona, Martin de, 228
Bidasoa, 377, 425
Boabdil, 60, 61, 72
Bobadilla, Beatriz de, 13, 80, 135, 165
Bobadilla, Francisco de, 123
Bonner, 215, 238
Borgia, Francis of, 202
Bourbon, Anthony de, 276
Braganza, Duke of, 348
Brantôme, quoted, 283, 303
Bristol, Earl of, 326
Browne, Sir Anthony, 221, 230
Buckingham, Duke of, 325
Buendia, Count, 272
Buen Retiro, 328, 342, 429
Burgos, 35, 108, 322
Burgundy, 106
Cabeña, 38
Cabero, Juan, 80, 87, 162
Cabra, Count of, 60
Cabrera, Andres, 13, 165
Cabezon, 9
Calais, 249
Calatrava, 42
Calderon, Maria, 333
Cardeñosa, 14
Cardona, Folch de, 507, 516, 518
Cardona, Hugo de, 146
Carew family, 223
Carlos, Don, 288, 296, 309, 310
Carrillo, Alfonso, 4, 9, 11, 20, 97
Cartuja de Miraflores, 168
Castañar, 97
Castile, Admiral of, 163
Castile, revolt in, 192
Cateau Cambresis, 262
Catharine of Lancaster, ix.
Cerdagne, 59, 100
‘Chambergo’ Regiment, 396, 406
Charles, Archduke, 497
Charles, Prince of Wales, 325
Charles of Viana, 8
Charles II, birth, 382;
description as a child, 392, 396;
recalls Don Juan, 402;
banishes Don Juan to Aragon, 403;
coming of age, 403;
suggestions for marriage, 414;
reconciliation with Mariana, 421;
journey to meet Marie Louise, 426;
marriage, 431;
neglect of government, 440;
jealousy of Mme. de Villars, 459;
dismisses Medina Celi, 463;
illness at Aranjuez, 467;
second marriage, 488;
meets Marie Anne, 491;
dismisses Oropesa, 494;
increasing weakness, 497;
appoints Prince of Bavaria heir, 500;
destroys will, 502;
said to be bewitched, 514;
makes will in favour of Philip, 524;
death, 525
Charles III, 540
Charles V, 105, 179, 184, 189, 243
Charles VIII, 62, 75, 100, 104, 108
Chatellerault, 274
Chièvres, 185
Chimay, Prince of, 185
Cigales, 9, 11
Civil War in Spain, 12, 29
Clarencius, Mrs., 217, 255
Claude of France, 127
Clerambant, Maréchale, 423
Coligny, 247
Columbus, Christopher, 74;
received by Isabel, 78;
guest of Deza, 82;
member of royal household, 82;
grant for maintenance, 82;
negotiations with Portugal, France, and England, 82;
extravagant demands, 83, 84;
agreement with Isabel, 89;
returns in triumph from first voyage, 94;
second voyage, 95, 120;
third voyage, 120;
imprisoned, 123;
release, 123;
fourth voyage, 124
Columbus, Diego, 89
Comuneros, 192, 198
Compostella, 57
Conchillos, 131, 143
Condé, 354, 376
Consuegra, 383
Conti, Prince of, 417
Cordova, Cardinal, 518
Cordova, Gonzalo de, 65, 105, 118
Corunna, 154, 391
Cotes, Sebastian de, 505
Council of the Indies, 120, 121
Court, Spanish, description, 328, 338, 369, 533
Courtenay, 214
Courtrai, 460
Cranmer, 220
Cromwell, 371
Cuellar, 26
Cueva, Beltran de la, 5, 9, 10
D’assonleville, 254
Denia, Marchioness of, 176
Denia, Marquis of, 187, 194, 198
Deza, Diego, 80
Diaz, Froilan, 506, 519
Dixmunde, 460
Dominicans, 46, 48
Dueñas, 21, 38
Dunkirk, 376
Edward IV. of England, 17
Edward VI. of England, 212
Egmont, Count, 221, 230
Eguia, Jeronimo de, 440, 454
Elizabeth of England, 229, 271
El Zagal, 60
Emanuel Philibert of Savoy, 247
Emmanuel, King, 106
Enriquez, Juana, 8
Escalas, Conde de, 63
Escorial, 357, 366, 388, 406
Estrada, Duke of, 184
Estremadura, 26
Fadrique, Admiral, 9, 20
Fadrique de Toledo, 346
Fanshawe, Lady, quoted, 384
Fanshawe, Sir Richard, 383, 390
Feuquières, 464
Ferdinand of Aragon, 17;
marriage, 22;
in France, 23;
motto, 33;
fight against Moors, 56;
in Council at Cordova, 61;
rejects Colon’s terms, 83;
attacked by lunatic, 93;
schemes for his children, 99;
treaty with France, 100;
breaks treaty, 104;
war with France, 105;
quarrel with son-in-law, 113;
represses rebellion of Moors, 118;
attempts to conciliate Philip, 126;
illness, 133;
claims right to govern Castile, 142;
ordered to leave Castile, 145;
alliance with Jimenez, 146;
contemplates second marriage, 146;
alliance with Louis XII, 147;
agreement with Philip, 150;
treaty, 159;
assumes government of Castile, 177;
death, 182
Ferdinand, Emperor, 130
Feria, 230, 251
Fernando, 89
Ferrer, Mosen, 182, 183
Flanders, 354, 390
Flushing, 489
Fonseca, 142
Fontainebleau, 417, 422
France, 100, 105, 128, 248, 316, 319, 346
Franche Comté, 106
Francis II, 293
Francis Phœbus, 61
Galicia, 39
Gardiner, 215, 220
Geneda, Diego de, 217
Germaine de Foix, 147
Giron, Pedro, 12
Gloucester, Duke of, 17
Gomez, Ruy, 230
Grammont, Duke de, 378
Granada, 36, 65;
siege, 67–72;
burning of library, 116
Granvelle, quoted, 215
Grey family, 223
Grey, Lady Jane, 213
Grey de Wilton, Lord, 249
Guadalajara, 284
Guadix, 65
Guevara, Anna de, 352
Guevara, Velez de, 337
Guienne, Duke of, 17, 23
Guise, Duke of, 321
Guisnes, 249
Guzmans, 39
Harcourt, Duke of, 423, 502, 503
Haro, Count de, 179
Haro, Luis de, 355, 375, 383
Harrach, Count, 499
Heliche, Marquis of, 370
Henry II. (of France), 269
Henry IV. (of France), 318, 319
Henry IV. (of Spain), 3;
impeachment, 11;
death, 26
Henry VII. (of England), 149, 153, 173
Henry VIII. (of England), 211
Hernandez, Garcia, 75
Hispanola, 121
Horn, Count, 230
Hornillos, 175
House tax, 38
Howell, James, quoted, 329
Huelva, 75
Infantado, Duke of, 38, 272
Inquisition, 46, 48, 448, 514, 516
Isabel, Empress, 209
Isabel Farnese, xiii;
marriage, 537;
influence over Philip, 539
Isabel of Bourbon, betrothal, 320;
meeting with Philip, 322;
marriage, 323;
character and manners, 327;
love for stage, 328, 331;
escape from fire at Aranjuez, 331;
birth of son, 333;
children, 334;
rejoicings at birth of Baltasar Carlos, 334;
portraits, 336;
sells jewels to provide soldiers, 346;
struggle with France, 346;
breach with Olivares, 349;
Regent in absence of King, 350;
demands dismissal of Olivares, 352;
illness, 355;
death, 356
Isabel of the Peace, xi, xiv;
betrothal, 267;
marriage, 268;
journey to Spain, 273;
meeting with Philip, 284;
smallpox, 286;
illness, 295;
letter to Catharine, 299;
defeats conspiracy in Navarre, 298;
meets her mother at Bayonne, 302;
birth of daughter, 305;
birth of second daughter, 308;
death, 313
Isabel the Catholic, ix;
betrothed to Charles of Viana, 8;
suggested betrothal to King of Portugal, 9;
offered crown, 14;
accepts heirship, 15;
meeting with Henry, 16;
intrigues with reference to marriage, 17;
marriage, 22;
deprived of grants and privileges, 23;
birth of first child, 23;
reconciliation with Henry, 24;
revenue, 41;
reforms Court, 41;
treatment of religious orders, 42;
influence f Torquemada, 44;
establishes Inquisition, 47;
birth of Prince of the Asturias, 50;
crushes Portuguese, 52;
acknowledged Queen of Spain, 52;
birth of third child, 52;
war with Moors, 56;
birth of fourth child, 60;
takes command of campaign against Moors, 63;
birth of last child, 64;
pledges crown, 66;
Queen of Granada, 73;
terms with Columbus, 89;
domestic life, 95;
letter to Talavera, 100;
purification of monasteries, 100;
unification of coinage, 104;
marriages of children, 106;
death of Juan, 109;
death of eldest daughter and her son Miguel, 110;
troubles domestic and political, 110;
ill-health, 111;
visit of Philip and Joan, 127;
wishes in regard to succession, 129;
apoplexy, 131;
will, 135;
codicil, 136;
death, 136.
Isle of Pheasants, 378, 425
Jaen, 66
Jamaica, 371
James I. of England, 319, 324
James IV., 107
Jews, 45, 47, 48, 67
Jimenez de Cisneros, Royal Confessor, 97;
primate, 99, 136, 158, 164;
maintains order, 173, 175;
Cardinal, 177;
Regent, 182, 191
Joan the Mad, xi;
birth, 52;
marriage, 106;
birth of son, 125;
visit to Spain, takes oath with her husband as heir of Castile, 127;
receives homage as heir of Ferdinand, 128;
detention at Medina, 132;
returns to Flanders, 133;
proclaimed Queen of Castile, 141;
discord with husband, 143;
letter on being declared unfit to rule, 144;
journey to Spain, 150;
shipwreck and landing in England, 152;
meeting with Katharine, 153;
interview with Enriquez, 163;
receives oath of allegiance of Cortes, 164;
grief for death of Philip, 168;
refusal to perform duties of Government, 171;
pilgrimage to Granada, 171;
birth of youngest child, 172;
suggested marriage with Henry VII., 173;
dismisses Councillors of Philip, 175;
meeting with Ferdinand at Tortoles, 176;
at Arcos, 177;
imprisoned at Tordesillas, 180;
visited by Charles and Leonora, 184;
protest against treatment, 190;
conference with executive body of Regent’s government, 190;
receives Padilla, 194;
identifies herself with Revolution, 194;
anti-religious tendency, 200;
visited by Francis of Borgia, 202;
illness, 204;
death, 205
Juan, Prince of Asturias, 50, 54, 106, 109
Juan II., of Aragon, 20
Juan of Austria, 292
Juan Jose, of Austria (Don Juan), xii, 363, 370, 376, 383, 387, 388,
390, 391;
controversy with Mariana, 393;
Viceroy of Aragon, 396;
ordered to Sicily, 401;
recalled by Charles, 402;
exiled to Aragon, 403;
recalled to Madrid, 405;
enters Madrid in State, 408;
decrease of power, 418;
death, 420
Juan II., of Castile, 3
Katharine of Aragon, 100, 173
Katharine, Infanta, 172, 199
Laredo, 107
Las Casas, 89
Las Huelgas, 431
Leganés, Marquis of, 351, 505
Lerida, 351, 354
Lerma, 323
Lille, 108
Lionne, M. de, 376
Lisle, Count Alva de, 4
Literature, Spanish, 327, 338
London, 153
Lope de Vega, 339, 342
Lotti, Cosme, 344
Louis XI., 61
Louis XII., 133, 147
Louis XIII., 320
Louis XIV., 460, 464, 521
Loja, 63
Luis de la Cruz, Friar, 203
Luna, Alvaro de, 27
Luxembourg, 106
Madrigal, 20, 37
Malaga, 55, 64, 118
Maldonado, Dr., 79
Manrique, Pedro, 21
Mansfeldt, Count, 463, 490
Manuel, Juan, 143, 156, 165
Marchena, Antonio de, 79, 120
Margaret, Archduchess, 106, 108, 149, 153
Margaret, Empress, 368, 414
Margaret of Austria, 318
Margaret of Savoy, 352
Margaret Tudor, 107
Maria of Hungary, 146
Maria Louisa of Savoy, 532;
marriage, 532;
regent in absence of husband, 533;
ability and diligence, 533;
death, 536
Mariana of Austria, offered in marriage to Baltasar Carlos, 361;
marriage to Philip IV.;
meets Philip at Navalcarnero, 365;
birth of a daughter, 368;
paralysis, 371;
birth of son, 373;
intrigues against Don Juan, 382;
birth of a son, 382;
growth of power, 382;
Queen-Regent, 389;
conspiracy in favour of Don Juan, 394;
dismisses Nithard, 395;
alliance with England and Holland against France, 397;
seeks help of Don Juan, 398;
favour of Valenzuela, 400;
regency ends, 402;
triumph over Don Juan, 403;
prisoner in Alcazar, 406;
banished to Toledo, 406;
reconciled to Charles, 421;
return to Court, 421;
meeting with Marie Louise, 433;
treatment of Marie Louise, 444;
plots to ruin Marie Louise, 464;
plans for succession, 499;
death, 500
Maria Theresa, 371, 378, 380, 389, 396, 414
Marie Anne of Neuburg, married by proxy, 489;
journey to Spain, 489;
welcome at Corunna, 490;
sides with enemies of Oropesa, 493;
unpopularity, 496;
summons Count Harrach, 499;
efforts to secure succession of Archduke Charles, 500;
plans to crush Diaz, 517;
accused of witchcraft, 518;
secures dismissal of Diaz, 529;
head of Council of Regency, 526;
banished to Toledo, 526;
visited by Philip V., 526;
sides with Austria, 527;
banished to Bayonne, 527;
returns to Spain, 527;
death, 527
Marie Louise of Orleans, 415;
love for Dauphin, 416;
betrothed to King of Spain, 417;
marriage by proxy, 418;
journey to Spain, 423;
household, 424;
letter to Charles, 427;
marriage at Quintanapalla, 431;
meeting with Mariana, 433;
isolation at Burgos, 433;
entry into Madrid, 439;
frivolity, 444;
humoured by Mariana, 444;
growing interest in public affairs, 456;
discord with Mariana and Charles, 456;
unhappiness, 457;
influence of Madame Quantin, 458;
reproached for sterility, 458;
accused of plotting against King, 468;
French expelled from palace, 469;
letter to Louis XIV. _re_ Saint Chamans, 472;
smallpox, 479;
illness, 480;
death, 481
Martinez, Friar, 385
Mary of England, 213;
plans for marriage, 214–220;
accepts Philip, 223;
presents, 224;
meeting with Philip, 232;
marriage, 234;
parting from Philip, 241;
Queen of Spain, 243;
war with France, 247;
illness, 254;
death, 256
Mary Queen of Scots, 263, 290
Matienzo, Friar, 112
Matilla, Father, 493, 504, 506, 507
Maurice of Saxony, 212
Maximilian, 113, 133, 148, 179, 190
Mayenne, Duke of, 320, 382
Mazarin, 376, 382
Medici, Catharine de, 267
Medici, Marie de, 320, 321
Medillin, Count, 11
Medina, 34
Medina Celi, Duke of, befriends Colon, 76
Medina Celi, Duke of (under Charles), 415, 440, 453, 459, 463
Medina del Campo, 48, 56
Medina de las Torres, Duke of, 386, 387
Medina Sidonia, Duke of, 56, 76
Melcombe Regis, 153
Mello, 354
Mendoza, Cardinal, 19, 59, 80, 97
Mendoza, Bishop of Segovia, 519
Mendoza, Diego Hurtado de, 217
Metz, 212
Montalto, Duke of, quoted, 464, 470, 473, 475, 476, 477
Montenegro, 401
Monterey, Count, 505
Montgomerie, Sieur de l’Orge, 269
Montmorenci, 247
Moors, 55, 116, 118
Moscoso, 388
Moslems, 116, 119
Muley Abul Hassan, 55
Murcientes, 163
Muza, 72
New Hall, 213
Nimeguen, 414
Nithard, Father Everard, 382, 389, 393, 394;
dismissed, 395
Noailles, Antoine de, 213, 220, 229, 238
Novas, Marquis de las, 224
Ojeda, 47
Olivarez, Gaspar de Guzman, Count of, 230, 324, 345;
breach with Queen, 349;
fall, 353
Olivarez, Countess of, 339
Olmedo, 13
Oñate, 427
Orange, Prince of, 487
Oropesa, Count of, 463, 482;
dismissed, 494, 501–512
Osma, 21
Osorio, Isabel de, 217, 265
Osuna, Duke of, 418, 425
Ovando, Nicolas de, 123
Padilla, 194, 224
Paget, 220
Palencia, 175
Palos, 75
Passau, 212
Pastrana, Duke of, 320
Patiño, 393
Perez, Friar Juan, 75, 80, 85
Peter Martyr, 112
Petre, 220
Philip II., 202;
Regent, 209;
betrothed to Mary, 223;
journey to England, 226;
marriage, 234;
leaves England, 241;
returns, 245;
proposal of marriage to Elizabeth, 262;
union with France, 263;
marriage to Isabel, 267;
poverty, 293;
marriage to Anne, 314
Philip III., 318
Philip IV., betrothed, 320;
marriage, 323;
succeeds, 323;
character, 324, 328;
jealousy, 330;
intrigue with Maria Calderon, 333;
birth of son, 334;
leads armies in Catalonia, 350;
returns to Madrid, 351;
letter to Maria de Agredo;
grief at loss of son, 362;
marriage to Mariana, 363;
poverty, 372;
birth of son, 373;
journey to French frontier, 379;
ill-health, 383;
reported bewitched, 384;
will, 386;
death, 387
Philip V., 523, 526;
marriage, 532;
in Italy, 533;
second marriage, 537
Philip of Burgundy, 108;
assumes title, Prince of Castile, 113, 127, 128, 133;
intrigues with England, 149, 153;
treaty with Ferdinand, 159;
death, 166
Philip Prosper, 374, 381
Plascencia, 11
Pole, Cardinal, 214, 220, 245
Portocarrero, Cardinal, 493, 522
Portugal, throws off Spanish yoke, 348;
independence recognised, 390
Pyrenees, Peace of, 379
Quantin, Madame, 458, 465, 468
Quevedo, 337
Quintanapalla, 429
Quintanilla, Alfonso de, 79
Raleigh, 324
Ramua, 108
Ratisbon, Treaty of, 460
Ravaillac, 319
Rebenac, 480
Religious Orders, 42
Renard, Simon, 213
Richelieu, 321
Richmond, 153
Rio Seco, Duke of, 505, 518
Rieux, Madame, 282
Riquelme, Maria de, 340
Rivers, Lord, 63
Rocaberti, 514, 517
Roche sur Yon, 273
Rocroy, 354
Rojas, Bishop, 192
Roncesvalles, 276
Ronquillo, Francisco, 505
Rosellon, 59, 100, 378
Ruiz, 116
Russell, Admiral, 489
Ryswick, Peace of, 501
‘Sacred Brotherhood,’ 37
Saint Chamans, 471
St. Jean de Luz, 425
St. Jean Pied de Port, 277
St Jerome, monastery of, 313, 322
Salamanca, 10, 150
Salic Law, 31
Salmas, Countess of, 182
Sanchez, Gabriel, 94
Sandwich, Lord, 390
Santa Fe, 69
Sant’angel, Luis de, 78, 80, 87
Santa Maria de la Rabida, 75
Santa Maria del Campo, 177
Santiago, 39
Segovia, 9, 10, 165
Seville, 39, 48
Sicily, 398, 414
Soissons, Countess of, 475
Soto, Dr., 204
Spinola, 346
Stanhope, Colonel, quoted, 490, 491, 498, 500, 509, 510, 513, 515, 517
Suffolk, Earl of, 152
Talavera, Father, 51, 57, 59, 79, 93, 116
Tavara, Francisca de, 330
Tendilla, Count, 72, 93, 116
Terranova, Duchess of, 414, 429, 454
Tilly, 346
Toledo, 54, 127
Tordesillas, 33, 180;
battle, 196
Toro, 34, 36, 142
Torquemada, 44, 46;
inquisitor-general, 49, 57, 59
Torquemada (town), 172
Trenchard, Sir John, 152
Uceda, Duke of, 321
Ureña, Countess of, 282
Ursinos, Princess of, 532, 534, 535, 536, 538
Valdés, Pedro, 328
Valentinois, Duchess, 267
Valenzuela, Fernando de, 398;
honours, 403, 405;
flight, 406;
imprisoned at Consuegra, 408
Valladolid, 9, 20, 30, 154, 164, 223
Vanguyon, 461
Vaucelles, 262
Vega, Garcilaso de la, 163
Velazquez, 335, 337
Velazquez, Diego de Silva, 380
Velez, 55
Velez-Malaga, 64
Vendome, Duke of, 273
Venta de los Toros de Guisando, 16
Verjus, Father, 464
Vilaine, 468
Villafafila, 159
Villalar, 198, 209
Villamediana, Count of, 330, 331
Villars, Mme. de, quoted, 426, 433, 435, 443, 445, 446
Villars, Marquis de, 420, 431, 459
Villena, Marquis of, 5, 9, 11, 175
Vistahermosa, Duchess of, 50
Vivero, Juan, 22
Westphalia, Treaty of, 364
Weymouth, 151
Winchester, 232
Windsor, 152
Wyatt family, 223
Zahara, 56
Zamora, 35, 36
Zoraya, 62
Zuñiga, Diego Lopez de, 12
-----
Footnote 1:
The ceremony is described by Enriquez de Castillo in the contemporary
‘Cronica de Enrique IV.’
Footnote 2:
Hernando de Pulgar, ‘Cronica de los Reyes Catolicos.’
Footnote 3:
Letter of Diego de Valera to Henry IV. MS. quoted by Amador de las
Rios. Historia de Madrid. See also the famous poems of the time,
Coplas de Mingo Revulgo, and Coplas del Provincial, where vivid
pictures are given of the prevailing anarchy.
Footnote 4:
The protest is in the archives of Villena’s descendant, the present
Duke of Frias, to whom I am indebted for an abstract of it.
Footnote 5:
The original treaty, which of course came to nothing, is in the Frias
Archives, and is signed by Louis XI. as one of the contracting
parties. It is dated 9th May 1463. I have not seen the fact stated
elsewhere.
Footnote 6:
The text of the demands, under thirty-nine heads, will be found in the
‘Documentos Ineditos,’ vol. xiv. p. 369.
Footnote 7:
The exact sequence and dates of these and the following events have
never yet been made clear in any of the numerous histories of the
time, not even in Prescott, owing to the fact that Enriquez de
Castillo and Pulgar very rarely give dates, whilst Galindez only
mentions the years of such happenings as he records. The printing of
the contemporary so-called ‘Cronicon de Valladolid’ (partly written by
Isabel’s physician, Dr. Toledo) in the ‘Documentos Ineditos,’ now
enables us to set forth the events chronologically, and thus the
better to understand their significance.
Footnote 8:
Enriquez de Castillo, ‘Cronica de Enrique IV.‘
Footnote 9:
A number of decrees issued by Alfonso at the time, conferring upon
Villena and his partisans great grants and privileges, are in the
Frias archives; and other charters rewarding the city of Avila for its
adherence to his cause have recently been printed by the Chronicler of
the city from its archives, Sr. de Foronda.
Footnote 10:
Of a poisoned trout which he ate, it was asserted by his partisans.
The suspicion of poison is strengthened by the fact that his death was
publicly announced as a fact some days before it happened, when he was
quite well.
Footnote 11:
In a series of documents recently published from the archives of the
city of Avila by St. Foronda, there is one very curious charter signed
by Isabel on 2nd September, before even she started for the interview
with her brother. In it she already acts as sovereign of Avila,
confirming the many privileges given to the city by her brother
Alfonso, whom she calls King, and cancelling the grants of territories
belonging to the city which King Henry had made to his follower, the
Count of Alba. Thus she annulled the King’s grants before he bestowed
the city upon her.
Footnote 12:
The original deed signed by the King of Portugal, dated 2nd May 1469,
is in the Frias archives.
Footnote 13:
Isabel only learnt of the deception practised upon her some time
afterwards (1471) from the partisans of the Beltraneja’s projected
marriage with the Duke of Guienne. A genuine bull of dispensation was
afterwards granted to her by the new Pope, Sixtus IV.
Footnote 14:
The story of Ferdinand’s coming and his marriage is graphically told
in the Decades of Alfonso de Palencia, who had been sent from Isabel
to fetch him, and accompanied him on his journey.
Footnote 15:
‘Cronicon de Valladolid,’ a diary kept at Valladolid at the time by
Dr. Toledo, Isabel’s physician. _Doc. Ined._ 14.
Footnote 16:
In the Frias archives there is an undertaking, dated 2nd October 1470,
signed by the Duke of Guienne, promising rewards to Cardinal Mendoza,
the Marquis of Villena, the Duke of Arevalo, and others, for their aid
in bringing about the betrothal with the Beltraneja.
Footnote 17:
Dueñas was granted on the same day, 21st October 1470, to the Princess
Doña Juana (the Beltraneja). Cronicon de Valladolid.
Footnote 18:
How much Isabel prized the fidelity of these steadfast adherents is
seen by the last act of her life. On her deathbed she revoked—not very
honestly or graciously most people think—all grants and rewards she
had given out of crown possessions, on the pretext that she had been
moved to make them more by need than by her own wish. The only
exception she made was the manors of the Marquisite of Moya, which,
with the title, had been granted to Cabrera and his wife Doña Beatriz
Bobadilla.
Footnote 19:
Recorded in Enriquez de Castillo’s ‘Cronica de Enrique IV.‘
Footnote 20:
It should be mentioned that the faithless Queen of Henry IV., the
mother of the Beltraneja, lived apart from him in Madrid. She had
several children by various men subsequently.
Footnote 21:
Galindez tells the story that Henry on his deathbed swore that Juana
was really his child, and says that he left a will in her favour of
which Villena was the executor. The latter having predeceased the
King, the will remained in the keeping of Oviedo, the King’s
secretary, who afterwards entrusted it to the curate of Santa Cruz at
Madrid. He, fearing to hold it, enclosed it in a chest with other
papers and buried it at Almeida, in Portugal. Years afterwards Isabel
learnt of this, and when, in 1504, she was mortally ill, she sent the
curate and the lawyer who had told her to disinter the will. When they
brought it she was too ill to see it, and it remained in the lawyer’s
keeping. He informed Ferdinand after the Queen’s death, and the King
ordered the document to be burnt, whilst the lawyer was richly
rewarded. Others say, continues Galindez, that the paper was
preserved.
Footnote 22:
She died in June 1475.
Footnote 23:
Although she allowed a poor madman who attempted to kill Ferdinand to
be torn to bits by red hot pincers, and consigned scores of thousands
of poor wretches to the flames for doubting the correctness of her
views on religion, she refused ever to go to a bullfight after
attending one at which two men had been killed. She strongly condemned
such waste of human life without good object.
Footnote 24:
Oviedo, who knew her well, says that no other woman could compare with
her in beauty.
Footnote 25:
‘Cronicon de Valladolid,’ Doc. Ined. 14, and also Alfonso de Palencia.
Footnote 26:
As one instance of the mercenary character of the Castilian nobles of
the time, I may mention that there is a bond signed by the King of
Portugal in the Frias archives promising to young Villena the
Mastership of Santiago in payment for his help.
Footnote 27:
The King of Portugal, having heard that Castilian raiders had crossed
the Portuguese frontier, is said to have proposed to Ferdinand at this
juncture a compromise, by which the Beltraneja should be dropped, and
Isabel recognised in return for the cession to Portugal of all Galicia
and the two fortresses of Zamora and Toro which he occupied. Ferdinand
was inclined to agree to this, and sent an envoy to propose it to his
wife. Before the envoy had finished his first sentence Isabel stopped
him indignantly, and forbade him to continue. She herself, she said,
would in future direct the war, and no foot of her own realm of
Castile should be surrendered. She then hurried to Medina and summoned
the Cortes, as is told in the text.
Footnote 28: