CHAPTER I

[Frontispiece: Philip IV at the age of 55. _From a portrait by

Valazquez in the National Gallery, London._]

The Court of

Philip IV.

SPAIN IN DECADENCE

BY

MARTIN HUME

EDITOR OF THE CALENDARS OF SPANISH STATE PAPERS

(PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE)

LECTURER IN SPANISH HISTORY AND LITERATURE

PEMBROKE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

_Vuestras augustisinas Soberanias vivan_, O GRAN

FELIPE, _inclitamente triunfantes, gravadas en los Anales

de la Fama, pues sois sólida columna y mobil Atlante de

la Fe, unica defensa di la iglesia, y bien universal de

vuestras invencibles reinos_

LONDON

EVELEIGH NASH

1907

{v}

PREFACE

"I lighted upon great files and heaps of papers and writings of all

sorts.... In searching and turning over whereof, whilst I laboured

till I sweat again, covered all over with dust, to gather fit matter

together ... that noble Lord died, and my industry began to flag and

wax cold in the business."

Thus wrote William Camden with reference to his projected life of Lord

Burghley, which was never written; and the words may be applied not

inappropriately to the present book and its writer. Some years ago I

passed many laborious months in archives and libraries at home and

abroad, searching and transcribing contemporary papers for what I hoped

to make a complete history of the long reign of Philip IV., during

which the final seal of decline was stamped indelibly upon the proud

Spanish empire handed down by the great Charles V. to his descendants.

I had dreamed of writing a book which should not only be a social

review of the period signalised by the triumph of French over Spanish

influence in the civilisation of Europe, but also a political history

of the wane and final disappearance of the prodigious national

imposture that had enabled Spain, aided by the rivalries between other

nations, to dominate the world for a century by moral force unsupported

by any proportionate material power.

{vi}

The sources to be studied for such a history were enormous in bulk and

widely scattered, and I worked very hard at my self-set task. But at

length I, too, began to wax faint-hearted; not, indeed, because my

"noble Lord had died"; for no individual lord, noble or ignoble, has

ever done, or I suppose ever will do, anything for me or my books; but

because I was told by those whose business it is to study his moods,

that the only "noble Lord" to whom I look for patronage, namely the

sympathetic public in England and the United States that buys and reads

my books, had somewhat changed his tastes. He wanted to know and

understand, I was told, more about the human beings who personified the

events of history, than about the plans of the battles they fought. He

wanted to draw aside the impersonal veil which historians had

interposed between him and the men and women whose lives made up the

world of long ago; to see the great ones in their habits as they lived,

to witness their sports, to listen to their words, to read their

private letters, and with these advantages to obtain the key to their

hearts and to get behind their minds; and so to learn history through

the human actors, rather than dimly divine the human actors by means of

the events of their times. In fact, he cared no longer, I was told,

for the stately three-decker histories which occupied half a lifetime

to write, and are now for the most part relegated, in handsome leather

bindings, to the least frequented shelves of dusty libraries.

I therefore decided to reduce my plan to more modest proportions, and

to present not a universal {vii} history of the period of Spain's

decline, but rather a series of pictures chronologically arranged of

the life and surroundings of the "Planet King" Philip IV.--that monarch

with the long, tragic, uncanny face, whose impassive mask and the

raging soul within, the greatest portrait painter of all time limned

with merciless fidelity from the King's callow youth to his sin-seared

age. I have adopted this method of writing a history of the reign,

because the great wars throughout Europe in which Spain took a leading

part, under Philip and his successor, have already been described in

fullest details by eminent writers in every civilised language, and

because I conceive that the truest understanding of the broader

phenomena of the period may be gained by an intimate study of the mode

of life and ruling sentiments of the King and his Court, at a time when

they were the human embodiment, and Madrid the phosphorescent focus, of

a great nation's decay.

The ground was practically virgin. John Dunlop, three-quarters of a

century ago, wrote a stolid history of the reign, mainly concerned with

the Spanish wars in Germany, Flanders, and Italy. But that was before

the archives of Europe were accessible; and, creditable as was Dunlop's

history for the time in which it was written, it is obsolete now. The

Spanish reproduction in recent years, of seventeenth-century documents,

for the most part unknown in England, has added much to recent

information; whilst numerous original manuscripts, and old printed

narratives and letters of the time, in Spanish, English, and French,

have also provided ample material for the embodiment {viii} in the text

of first-hand descriptions of events. The book as it stands is far

less ambitious than that originally projected; but it contains much of

the contemporary matter which would have provided substance for the

wider history; and though it is limited in its scope, it may

nevertheless render the important period it covers human and

interesting to ordinary readers who seek intellectual amusement, as

well as intelligible to students who read for information alone.

The book--"a poor thing, but mine own"--owes nothing to the labours of

previous English historians, except that in describing the Prince of

Wales' visit to Madrid I have referred to two documents published by

the Camden Society under the editorship of the late Dr. Gardiner. With

these exceptions the material has been sought in contemporary

unpublished manuscripts and printed records and letters, in most cases

now first utilised for the purpose. Whatever its faults may be--and

doubtless the critical microscope may discover many--it is the only

comprehensive history of Philip IV. and the decadent society over which

he reigned that modern research has yet produced. May good fortune

follow it; for, as the Bachiller Carasco sagely said: "_No hay libra

tan malo que no tenga algo bueno_," and I hope that in this book, at

least, the "good" will be held to outbalance the "bad."

MARTIN HUME.

LONDON, _October_ 1907

{ix}

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY--PHILIP'S BAPTISM, 1605--THE ENGLISH EMBASSY--EXALTED

RELIGIOUS FEELING--DEDICATION OF PHILIP'S LIFE TO THE VINDICATION OF

ORTHODOXY--STATE OF SPAIN--EFFECTS OF LERMA'S POLICY--POVERTY OF THE

COUNTRY--EXPULSION OF THE MORISCOS--PHILIP'S CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH--HIS

BETROTHAL--FALL OF LERMA--THE PRINCE AND OLIVARES--DEATH OF PHILIP III.

CHAPTER II

ACCESSION OF PHILIP IV.--OLIVARES THE VICE-KING--CONDITION OF THE

COUNTRY--MEASURES ADOPTED BY THE NEW KING--RETRENCHMENT--MODE OF LIFE

OF PHILIP AND HIS MINISTER--PHILIP'S IDLENESS--HIS

_APOLOGIA_--DISSOLUTENESS OF THE CAPITAL--VILLA MEDIANA--THE AMUSEMENTS

OF THE KING AND COURT--A SUMPTUOUS SHOW--ARRIVAL OF THE PRINCE OF WALES

IN MADRID--HIS PROCEEDINGS--OLIVARES AND BUCKINGHAM

CHAPTER III

STATE ENTRY OF CHARLES INTO MADRID--GREAT FESTIVITIES--HIS

LOVE-MAKING--ATTEMPTS TO CONVERT THE PRINCE--THE REAL INTENTION OF

OLIVARES--HIS CLEVER PROCRASTINATION--CHARLES AND BUCKINGHAM LOSE

PATIENCE--HOWELL'S STORY OF CHARLES AND THE INFANTA--THE FEELING

AGAINST BUCKINGHAM--ANXIETY OF KING JAMES--HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH {x}

"BABY AND STEENIE"--CHARLES DECIDES TO DEPART--FURTHER DELAY--THE

DIPLOMACY OF OLIVARES--BUCKINGHAM AND ARCHY ARMSTRONG--DEPARTURE OF

CHARLES--HIS RETURN HOME, AND THE ENGLISH DISILLUSION

CHAPTER IV

FOREIGN WAR RENDERED INEVITABLE BY OLIVARES' POLICY--ITS EFFECTS IN

SPAIN--CONDITION OF THE COURT--WASTE, IDLENESS, AND OSTENTATION OF ALL

CLASSES--EXTRAVAGANCE IN DRESS--PHILIP'S EFFORTS TO REFORM

MANNERS--RETRENCHMENT IN HIS HOUSEHOLD--THE SUMPTUARY ENACTMENTS--THE

_GOLILLA_--THE INDUSTRY OF OLIVARES--HIS CHARACTER AND APPEARANCE--HIS

MAIN OBJECT TO SECURE POLITICAL AND FISCAL UNITY IN SPAIN--THE

DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF THIS--THE COMEDIES--THEATRES IN

MADRID--PHILIP'S LOVE FOR THE STAGE--AN _AUTO DE FE_--LORD WIMBLEDON'S

ATTACK ON CADIZ--RICHELIEU'S LEAGUE AGAINST SPAIN--SPANISH

SUCCESSES--"PHILIP THE GREAT"--VISIT OF THE KING TO ARAGON AND

CATALONIA IN 1626--DISCONTENT AND DISSENSION--PHILIP'S LIFE TRAGEDY

CHAPTER V

RISE OF THE PARTY OPPOSED TO OLIVARES--THE QUEEN AND THE INFANTES

CARLOS AND FERNANDO--OLIVARES REMONSTRATES WITH PHILIP FOR HIS NEGLECT

OF BUSINESS--PHILIP'S REPLY--ILLNESS OF THE KING--FEARS OF

OLIVARES--PHILIP'S CONSCIENCE--ASPECT OF MADRID AT THE TIME--HABITS OF

THE PEOPLE--A GREAT ARTISTIC CENTRE--MANY FOREIGN

VISITORS--VELASQUEZ--PHILIP'S LOVE OF ART, LITERATURE, AND THE

DRAMA--CONTEMPORARY DESCRIPTION OF A PLAYHOUSE--PHILIP AND THE

_CALDERONA_, MOTHER OF DON JUAN OF AUSTRIA--BIRTH AND BAPTISM OF

BALTASAR CARLOS--PHILIP'S FIELD SPORTS--GENERAL SOCIAL DECADENCE

{xi}

CHAPTER VI

RENEWED WAR WITH FRANCE, LATE IN 1628--RECONCILIATION WITH ENGLAND--THE

PALATINATE AGAIN--COTTINGTON IN MADRID--HIS RECEPTION AND NEGOTIATIONS

WITH OLIVARES AND PHILIP--FETES IN MADRID FOR BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF

WALES--DEATH OF SPINOLA--TREATY OF CASALE--A "LOCAL PEACE" WITH

FRANCE--SPAIN AND THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR--POVERTY AND MISERY OF THE

COUNTRY--UNPOPULARITY OF OLIVARES--HIS MONOPOLY OF POWER--HIS GREAT

ENTERTAINMENT TO THE KING--HIS INTERVENTION IN PHILIP'S DOMESTIC

AFFAIRS--"DON FRANCISCO FERNANDO OF AUSTRIA"--THE BUEN RETIRO--HOPTON

IN MADRID--HIS DESCRIPTIVE LETTERS--THE INFANTES--PHILIP'S VISIT TO

BARCELONA--DISCONTENT OF THE CORTES--THE INFANTE FERNANDO LEFT AS

GOVERNOR--DEATH OF THE INFANTE CARLOS--DEATH OF THE INFANTA ISABEL IN

FLANDERS--THE INFANTE FERNANDO ON HIS WAY THITHER WINS BATTLE OF

NORDLINGEN--GREAT WAR NOW INEVITABLE WITH FRANCE

CHAPTER VII

INTRIGUES TO SECURE ENGLISH NEUTRALITY--HOPTON AND OLIVARES--SOCIAL

LAXITY IN MADRID--CHARLES I. APPROACHES SPAIN--THE BUEN RETIRO AND THE

ARTS--WAR IN CATALONIA--DISTRESS IN THE CAPITAL AND FRIVOLITY IN THE

COURT--PREVAILING LAWLESSNESS--THE RECEPTION OF THE PRINCESS OF

CARIGNANO--SIR WALTER ASTON IN MADRID--THE ENGLISH INTRIGUE ABANDONED

CHAPTER VIII

FESTIVITIES IN MADRID--EXTRAVAGANCE AND PENURY--NEW WAYS OF RAISING

MONEY--HOPTON AND WINDEBANK--BATTLE OF THE DOWNS--VIOLENCE IN THE

STREETS OF MADRID--REVOLT OF PORTUGAL--FRENCH {xii} INVASION OF

SPAIN--REVOLT OF CATALONIA--PHILIP'S AMOUR WITH THE NUN OF ST.

PLACIDO--THE WANE OF OLIVARES--PHILIP'S VOYAGE TO ARAGON--INTRIGUES

AGAINST OLIVARES--FALL OF OLIVARES

CHAPTER IX

DEATH OF RICHELIEU AND OF THE CARDINAL INFANTE--PHILIP'S GOOD

RESOLUTIONS--HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE NUN OF AGREDA--PHILIP WITH HIS

ARMIES--DEATH OF QUEEN ISABEL OF BOURBON--THE WAR CONTINUES IN

CATALONIA--DEATH OF BALTASAR CARLOS--PHILIP'S GRIEF--HE LOSES

HEART--INFLUENCE OF THE NUN--HIS SECOND MARRIAGE WITH HIS NIECE

MARIANA--HIS LIFE WITH HER--DON LUIS DE HARO--NEGOTIATIONS WITH

ENGLAND--CROMWELL'S ENVOY, ANTHONY ASCHAM--HIS MURDER IN

MADRID--FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN PHILIP AND THE ENGLISH

COMMONWEALTH--CROMWELL SEIZES JAMAICA--WAR WITH ENGLAND

CHAPTER X

MORAL AND SOCIAL DECADENCE IN MADRID--PHILIP'S HABITS--POVERTY IN THE

PALACE--VELAZQUEZ--THE MENINAS--BIRTH OF AN HEIR--THE CHRISTENING--THE

PEACE OF THE PYRENEES--PHILIP'S JOURNEY TO THE FRONTIER--MARRIAGE OF

MARIA TERESA--CAMPAIGNS IN PORTUGAL--DON JUAN--DEATH OF HARO--PHILIP

BEWITCHED--DEATH OF PHILIP PROSPER--BIRTH OF CHARLES--FANSHAWE'S

EMBASSY--LADY FANSHAWE AND SPAIN--ROUT OF CARACENA IN

PORTUGAL--PHILIP'S ILLNESS--THE INQUISITION AND WITCHCRAFT--DEATH OF

PHILIP

INDEX

{xiii}

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PHILIP IV. AT THE AGE OF 55 . . . _Frontispiece_

_From a portrait by_ VELAZUEZ _in the National Gallery, London._

ISABEL DE BOURBON, FIRST WIFE OF PHILIP IV

_From a portrait by_ VELAZQUEZ _in the possession of Edward Huth, Esq._

PHILIP IV. AS A YOUNG MAN

_From a contemporary portrait in the possession of His Grace the Duke

of Wellington, at Strathfieldsaye._

CASPAR DE GUZMAN, COUNT-DUKE OF OLIVARES

_From a portrait by_ VELAZQUEZ _in the possession of Edward Huth, Esq._

PRINCE BALTASAR CARLOS ON HORSEBACK

_From a picture by_ VELAZQUEZ _at the Prado Museum._

THE NUN SOR MARIA DE AGREDA

_From an etching reproducing a contemporary portrait in the Franciscan

Convent of St. Domingo de la Calzada._

{xiv}

MARIANA DE AUSTRIA, SECOND WIFE OF PHILIP IV.

_From a portrait by_ VELAZQUEZ _at the Prado Museum._

THE MAIDS OF HONOUR

_Portrait of the Infanta Margaret; from a picture by_ VELAZQUEZ _at the

Prado Museum._

{1}

THE COURT OF PHILIP IV.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY--PHILIP'S BAPTISM, 1605--THE ENGLISH EMBASSY--EXALTED

RELIGIOUS FEELING--DEDICATION OF PHILIP'S LIFE TO THE VINDICATION OF

ORTHODOXY--STATE OF SPAIN--EFFECTS OF LERMA'S POLICY--POVERTY OF THE

COUNTRY--EXPULSION OF THE MORISCOS--PHILIP'S CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH--HIS

BETROTHAL--FALL OF LERMA--THE PRINCE AND OLIVARES--DEATH OF PHILIP III

The mean city of Valladolid reached the summit of its glory on the 28th

of May 1605. Seven weeks before--on Good Friday, the 8th April--there

had been born in the King's palace an heir to the world-wide monarchy

of the Spains, the first male child that had been vouchsafed to the

tenuous reigning house for seven-and-twenty years; and the new capital,

proud of the fleeting importance that the folly of Lerma had conferred

upon it, curtailed its lenten penance, and gave itself up to sensuous

devotion blent with ostentatious revelry. King Philip III. and his

nobles, in a blaze of splendour, had knelt in thanksgiving to sacred

images of the {2} Holy Mother bedizened with priceless gems; well-fed

monks and friars had chanted praises before a hundred glittering

altars; and famished common folk, in filthy tatters, snarled like

ravening beasts over the free food that had been flung to them, and

fought fiercely for the silver coins that had been lavishly scattered

for their scrambling.[1] From every window had flared waxen torches;

for the hovels of beggars were illumined as well as the palaces of

nobles,--nay, the courtly chronicler records that the very bells in the

church tower of St. Benedict, seventeen of them, "melted in glittering

tears of joy" when, to put it more prosaically, the edifice was gutted

by a conflagration accidentally caused by the torches.[2] Cavalry

parades, bull fights, and cane-tourneys by knights and nobles had

alternated with banquets and balls during the fifty days that had been

needed to bring together in the city of the Castilian plain the

chivalry of Philip's realms. One after the other grandees and

prelates, with long cavalcades of followers as fine as money or credit

could make them, had crowded into the narrow streets and straggling

plazas of Valladolid; and as the great day approached for the baptism

of the Prince, who had been pledged by his father at his birth to the

Virgin of San Llorente as the future champion of Catholic orthodoxy,

news came that a greater company than that of any {3} grandee of them

all was slowly riding over the mountains of Leon to honour the

festival, and to pledge the most Catholic King to lasting peace and

amity with heretic England, that in forty years of bitter strife had

challenged the pretension of Spain to dictate doctrine to Christendom;

and had, though few saw it yet, sapped the foundation upon which the

imposing edifice of Spanish predominance was reared.

[Sidenote: Howard in Spain]

Then grave heads were shaken in doubt that this thing might be of evil

omen. Already had the rigid Ribera, Archbishop of Valencia,[3]

solemnly warned the King and Lerma of their impiety in making terms

with the enemies of the faith; lamentations, as loud as was consistent

with safety, had gone up from churches and guardrooms innumerable at

this tacit confession of a falling away from the stern standard of

Philip II. But now that Lord Admiral Howard, Earl of Nottingham, who

had defeated the great Armada in 1588, and had commanded at the sack of

Cadiz in 1596, was to ruffle and feast, with six hundred heretic

Englishmen at his heels, in the very capital of orthodox Spain, whilst

the baby prince whom God had sent to realise the dream of his house was

baptized into the Church, offended pride almost overcame the stately

courtesy and hospitality which are inborn in the Spanish character.

But not quite: for though priests looked sour, and soldiers swaggered a

little more than usual when they met the Englishmen in the {4} cobbled

streets, yet to outward seeming all was kind on both sides; and even

the biting satires of the poets were decently suppressed until the

strangers had gone their way.[4]

[Sidenote: Howard's reception]

Howard and his train were lodged on the night of the 25th May in the

castle and town of Simancas, on its bold bluff seven miles from the

city; and betimes in the morning the six hundred and more British

horsemen, all in their finest garb, set forth over the arid sandy plain

on the banks of the Pisuerga, to enter in stately friendship the

capital of the realm that they and theirs had harried by land and sea

for two score years. For seven months no drop of rain had fallen on

the parched earth; and as the noble figure of the old earl, in white

satin and gold, surrounded by equally splendid kinsmen, passed on

horseback to the appointed meeting place outside the walls of the city,

the dust alone marred the magnificence of the cavalcade. For two hours

the Englishmen were kept waiting under the trees, {5} where the Grand

Constable, the Duke of Frias,[5] and the other grandees were to meet

them; for Spanish pride was never at a loss for a device to inflict a

polite snub upon a rival. This time it was a diplomatic illness of the

Duke of Alba that delayed the starting of the great crowd of nobles who

were to greet the English ambassador, and it was five o'clock in the

afternoon before the Spanish horsemen reached their waiting guests.

Then, as if by magic, the heavens grew suddenly black as night, and

such a deluge as few men had seen[6] descended upon the gaudy throng;

"heaven weeping in sorrow at their reception," said the bigots. In

vain the Constable of Castile besought the stiff old Lord Admiral to

take shelter in a coach. He would not balk the people of the sight, he

said, and the costly finery of both English and Spanish received such a

baptism as for ever spoilt its pristine beauty. Wet to the skin, their

velvets and satins bedraggled, their plumes drooping, and their great

lace ruffs as limp as rags, the thousand noble horsemen passed through

dripping, silent, but curious crowds to their quarters.

[Sidenote: English peculiarities]

Howard himself was lodged in seven fine rooms in the palace of Count de

Salinas, hard by the yet unfinished palace; and his six hundred

followers were billeted in the houses of nobles and citizens.[7] {6}

Fifty English gentlemen of rank dined together that evening in Howard's

lodging, and their manners, dress, and demeanour furnished food for

curious discourse in Spain for many days to come. How tall and

handsome they were, though some of them were spoilt by full beards!

said the gossips; how careful to show respect for the objects of

worship in the churches, although only fourteen of the whole number

were avowed Catholics. Many of them spoke Spanish well, as did Howard

himself, and their dress was, on the whole, adjudged to be handsome;

"though their ornaments were not so fine as ours." But what amused

their critics more than anything else was their industrious poking

about the city in search of books, and a curious fashion they had of

breaking off in their discourse--or in a pause of the conversation--and

practising a few steps of a dance, the tune of which they hummed

between their teeth.[8] In the innocence of their hearts, too, they

imagined that they were {7} paying a compliment to the Spaniards by

saying how little real difference there was between their own creed and

that of their hosts; a view which the latter received in courteous

silence in their presence, but rejected with scorn and derision behind

their backs.[9] Brave doings there had been, too, the next day, when

Howard had his first interview with Philip III. Surrounded by the

King's Spanish and Teuton guard, in new uniforms of yellow and red, the

Lord Admiral was led by the Duke of Lerma into the presence of the

King. Of the genuflections and embraces, of the advances on each side,

measured and recorded to an inch by jealous onlookers, of the piled-up

sumptuousness of the garments and the gifts, it boots not here to tell

in full, but the King's new liveries alone on this occasion are said to

have cost 120,000 ducats; and Howard excused himself for the poverty of

his country when he handed to Queen Margaret an Austrian eagle in

precious stones worth no more than the same great sum.[10]

All this, however, was a mere foretaste of the overwhelming

magnificence of the following day, Whit Sunday, the 28th May, for ever

memorable in the annals of Valladolid as the greatest day in its long

history; for then it was that in solemn majesty, and lavish ostentation

without example, there was dedicated to the great task in which his

ancestors had failed, a babe with a lily-fair skin and wide open light

blue eyes, upon whom were {8} centred the hopes and prayers of a

sensitive, devout people, who had seen in a few years their high-strung

illusions vanish, their assurance of divine selection grow fainter and

fainter, the cause they thought was that of heaven conquered everywhere

by the legions of evil, and their own country reduced to chronic

penury; burdened with a weight beyond its strength, yet too proud to

cast the burden down or to acknowledge its own defeat.

The almost despairing cry that constant disaster had wrung from Philip

II: "Surely God will in the end make His own cause triumph," still

found an echo in thousands of Spanish hearts; and this child of many

prayers was greeted as an instrument sent at last from heaven, on the

most solemn day in the Christian year, to put all things right when he

should grow to be a man.[11] The presence of the "heretic" peace

embassy seemed of no good omen, though some men even affected to

interpret it as such when Howard knelt before the King and was raised

and embraced by him; but, as if to banish every doubt, and mark for all

the world that the vocation of the Prince was irrevocably fixed

beforehand, there was brought in solemn pomp, from the remote village

of Calguera, the {9} crumbling little font in which, five hundred years

before, had been baptized the fierce firebrand St. Dominic, scourge of

heresy and founder of the Holy Inquisition, whose work it was to make

all Christians one, though blood and fire alone might do it.

[Sidenote: Philip and the Dominicans]

Nothing was omitted that could connect the Prince with the Dominican

idea. Early in the morning of the day of the baptism, the King, who

was to take no public part in the later christening ceremony, walked in

state with all his Court[12] in a great procession of six hundred monks

of Saint Dominic from their monastery of San Pablo to the cathedral,

there again solemnly to dedicate his infant heir to the vindication of

the Church; and at the dazzling ceremony which took place the same

afternoon in the Dominican church of San Pablo a similar note was

struck. The fair infant, with its vague blue eyes, was borne in

triumph by the Duke of Lerma, a half dozen of the proudest dukes in

Christendom carried the symbols and implements of the ceremony,

cardinals and bishops in pontificals received the baby with royal state

at the church porch, the populace pressed in thousands around with

tears and blessings to see their future King; all that lavish

extravagance and exuberant {10} fancy could devise to add refulgence to

the solemnity was there; but, looking back with understanding eyes, we

can see that the two significant objects which stand forth clearly in

antagonism from all that welter of gew-gaws are the humble rough font

of St. Dominic under its jewelled canopy, supported by great silver

pillars, and the stately white-haired figure of the "heretic"

ambassador with his prominent eyes bowing gravely, yet triumphantly, in

his balcony, as the pompous procession swept by.

Other less important things there were which must have told their tale

and cast their shadow as plainly to those who witnessed them as to us.

The two black-browed Savoyard cousins, who walked in the place of

honour, the eldest of them as chief sponsor, must have been but

skeletons at the feast, for the birth of the Prince had spoilt their

cherished hope of the great inheritance; and, as we shall see in the

course of this history, Victor-Amadeus of Savoy and his kin brought,

therefore, abounding sorrow to his god-son and to Spain. When the

infant, too, was denuded of his rich adornments for the ceremony, and

they were deposited upon the solid silver bed that had been erected in

the church for the purpose, some of the great personages, who alone

could have had access to the precious objects, stole them all, and the

heir of Spain, Prince Philip Dominic, who entered the church with his

tiny body covered with gems, left it as unadorned as ascetic St.

Dominic himself could have wished.[13]

{11}

[Sidenote: Philip's dedication]

Thus, in a whirlwind of squandering waste, surrounded by pompous pride,

unscrupulous dishonesty, and ecstatic devotion, Philip from his birth

was pledged to the hopeless task of extirpating religious dissent from

Christendom: the task that had been too great for the Emperor and his

steadfast son, that had drained to exhaustion the wealth of the Indies,

had turned Castile into a wilderness, and was to drag the Spanish

Empire to ruin and dissolution under the sceptre of the babe whose

christening we have witnessed. The life-story of the unhappy monarch

which we have to tell is one of constant struggle amidst the

antagonistic circumstances that surrounded his baptism; against the

impossibility of reconciling the successful performance of the work, to

which devotional pride and not national interest had bound him, with

the poverty and exhaustion that had forced Philip III. and Lerma to

seek peace with Protestants, and had made the victor of the Invincible

Armada an honoured guest when the heir of Catholic Spain was dedicated

to the ideal of Dominic. For, in good truth, it was from no lack of

either devotion or pride that Philip III. had been forced to parley

with the thing that he had been taught to look upon as accursed of God.

Almost the only policy in which he was ever vehemently energetic was

the attempt in the first days of his reign to invade Ireland in the

interests of the Catholics, and to secure the control of the Crown of

England by {12} means of the anti-Jacobite party.[14] He was, as

Llorente truly says, more fit himself for a Dominican friar's frock

than a regal mantle; and if rigid obedience to the directions of his

spiritual guides had enabled him to root out Protestant dissent from

Christendom, as he rooted out the Moriscos from his realms, Philip III.

would have succeeded where his greater father and grandfather failed.

[Sidenote: The Philips compared]

But devotion was not enough to secure the triumph of Spain; fervent

belief in the divine approval was not enough. Both Philip II. and the

Spaniards of his time possessed those qualities to excess, and yet they

had failed. What was needed now, even to avert catastrophe, were

orderly organisation, industry, celerity in council and in action,

economical adaptation of ways and means, ready resource and a flexible

conscience; in short, statesmanship,--and these were the very qualities

which Philip III. conspicuously lacked. With the accession of Philip

III. (1598) the weak point in the system of the Emperor and his son had

come out; and their laboriously constructed political machine had

broken down. Under Philip II. himself, in his later recluse years, it

had grown rusty and sluggish, but whilst the mainspring, the monarch,

had laboured ceaselessly, treating his ministers as clerks, and raising

them from the gutter that they might be his tools alone, the wheels at

least went round; but when the monarch in whom all motion was centred

left off working, and did nothing but dance and pray alternately, then

came paralysis {13} and consequent disaster. "Ah! Don Cristobal; I

fear they will rule him," groaned Philip II. on his agonised deathbed;

and, though too late, he had guessed his son's character aright.

Thenceforward the favourite, Lerma or another, was monarch in all but

name; and each problem of government as it arose, or was submitted to

the King, was considered by Philip III. not in its broad political

aspects, but as a case of private conscience to be quibbled over by

confessors and theologians, and finally decided with timorous

heart-searching on grounds apart from national interests or expediency.

Philip II. himself had all his life been sternly conscientious,

according to his lights, and his inflexibility had been one of the main

causes of the partial failure of his policy and the exhaustion of his

country. He was a strong, slow, persistent man, unwavering in his

methods, as he was consistent in his objects; but he was withal a

statesman of vast ability, with the power of self-persuasion that all

great statesmen must possess, and he played the game of international

politics with mundane pieces, though he convinced himself and others

that they were divine. His son and grandson, as will be seen in the

course of this book, had not his power of self-conviction; they lived

in an age of growing national disillusionment, and were swayed mainly

by sentimental, traditional, and devotional considerations. They were

for ever unlocking with trembling hands the secret closet of their

conscience, to assure themselves that indeed no stain rested there.

Having seen that all was spotless in their own breasts, they {14} were

content to sit with crossed hands, in almost Oriental fatalism,

throwing the whole responsibility for what happened, or failed to

happen, upon the divine decrees. _They_ had satisfied their confessor

and their conscience in the course they had taken, and if things went

awry after that it was not _their_ fault.[15] This was no doubt all

very saintly and good; but it meant calamity as a system of government

when its professors were pitted against rivals unhampered by such

scruples and limitations.

It may seem paradoxical to assert that the more purely religious

character of the motives that swayed Philip III. and Philip IV., than

of those which influenced Philip II., resulted from a weakening of the

exalted devotional faith that had dominated Spain during the greater

part of the sixteenth century; and yet, if it be carefully considered,

such will prove to be the case. A faith so fervent as that which

carried the men-at-arms and explorers of the Emperor and his son

triumphant through the world left no room for doubt. What _they_ did

could not be wrong, because they were chosen to do God's own work; and

for that all means were sanctified. They did not need to be {15} for

ever pulling their consciences up by the roots to satisfy themselves

that the fruit was good. If Philip II. ordered murder to be committed,

or the Emperor seized private or ecclesiastical property for his own

purposes; if hundreds of inconvenient political persons were consigned

to a living tomb in the galleys and dungeons of the Inquisition, we may

be assured that no qualms of conscience were felt in consequence by the

first two sovereigns of the Spanish house of Austria; for the spiritual

fervour, which was the secret of the unity and power of their realms,

made all things right which were done in furtherance of objects which

were considered sacred: and throughout the Reformation period the

Spanish sovereigns quite honestly and unhesitatingly employed religious

forms and professions to attain purely political ends.[16] But after

the accession of Philip III. disillusion and faintness of faith set in,

and the assurance of divine selection grew weaker. People in Spain

were, it is true, more outwardly devout than ever, for the Inquisition

increased in strength as it became more independent and less a

political engine in the hands of the weak monarch; but the constant

timid misgivings of governors and people, the universal recourse of

gentle and simple to priests, friars, and nuns for guidance,

consolation, and reassurance, were of themselves a proof that the old

robust self-sufficing faith was declining; and in the course of this

history we shall see how {16} the process continued hand in hand with

the national decadence; the devotional influence upon political action

increasing as religious faith grew less positive and conscience more

clamorous.

We have seen the wasteful splendour with which young Philip's infancy

was surrounded: it will be necessary now for us to examine the state of

the country at the time, in order that we may be able to trace in

future pages the consequences of Philip's action and character when he

came to the throne. Most of the contemporary chroniclers of the reign

whose works remain to us, men like Novoa, Davila, Porreño, Cabrera,

Malvezzi, and Torquemada, courtiers or placemen all, lose themselves in

hyperbolical ecstasy at the colossal riches and greatness of the

sovereign who could afford to spend in feasts and shows such vast sums

as those squandered on the christening of Prince Philip Dominic and

similar celebrations: but they were too much taken up with the pomp and

glitter of their patrons, and in recording the interminable lists of

high-sounding titles and glittering garments, to give much attention to

the reverse side of the picture. For that we must turn to other

authorities, especially to the narratives of foreign visitors, and to

the remonstrances of the unfortunate members of the Cortes of Castile,

who, between the despairing and indignant orders of their constituents,

and the ceaseless pressure of the sovereign for fresh supplies of

money, were obliged to speak plainly, though fruitlessly, of the ruin

that impended unless matters were reformed.[17]

{17}

[Sidenote: State of Spain in 1600]

The first Cortes of the third Philip's reign (1598), when Lerma

demanded the previously unheard-of vote of eighteen million ducats,

spread over six years, to be raised by a tax on wine, oil, meat, etc.,

earnestly prayed the King to attend to their long-neglected petitions

for a readjustment of expenditure and taxation. When the sum was

voted, the King's promise of reform was, as usual, broken, and the

Cortes then told the King that his country was already ruined and could

pay no more. "Castile is depopulated, as you may see; the people in

the villages being now insufficient for the urgently necessary

agricultural work: and an infinite number of places formerly possessing

a hundred households are now reduced to ten, and many to none at

all."[18] The common people were starving: the formerly prosperous

cloth-weaving industry was rapidly being strangled by the terrible

"_alcabala_" tax, imposed upon all commodities every time they changed

hands by sale. The price of necessary articles was enormously and

constantly rising, owing to the tampering of {18} Lerma with the

currency, the dwarfing of industry by the _alcabala_, town tolls, local

octrois, and the greatly increasing demand for commodities by America.

Whilst the sternest decrees were issued in rapid succession against

luxury in dress and living, the advent of Lerma and the host of greedy

aristocrats to power had caused a perfect frenzy for magnificence in

attire; and the vast amounts of money spent in costly stuffs and

precious embroideries, etc., were almost entirely sent abroad, inasmuch

as the Spanish manufacturers and dealers in such wares were not only

impeded in the production and distribution of them by the economical

causes mentioned, but were practically the only classes punished for

infraction of the sumptuary decrees. Thus the great sums that arrived

in Seville every year from the Indies to a large extent never

penetrated Spain at all, but were transhipped at once to other

countries, either in exchange for foreign commodities which unwise

sumptuary decrees and faulty finance prevented from being produced in

Spain, or else to pay the Genoese and German

loan-mongers,--_asentistas_, as they were called,--who on usurious

terms were always ready to provide money against future revenue for the

wasteful shows by means of which the idea of Spain's abounding wealth

and power was kept up. What portion of the American gold and silver

did reach the Spanish people themselves was mostly hoarded or buried to

keep it from the grasp of tax-farmers, thieves, and extortioners of all

sorts, to whom a man of known wealth was simply looked upon as fair

prey. The copper money, genuine and forged, with which the country

{19} was flooded[19] was the only sort commonly current, and this had

been by decree (1603) raised to double its face value, again increasing

the price of articles of prime necessity to the poorer purchaser;

whilst the nobles and other wealthier people who possessed hoarded

silver and gold lived comparatively cheaply.

[Sidenote: Spain at Philip's birth]

In the very year 1605, when, as we have seen, money was squandered in

Valladolid without limit, every source of national revenue had been

pledged for years in advance; and a year or two previously the King's

officers had been forced to beg from door to door for so-called

voluntary contributions of not less than fifty reals, for the daily

expenses of the royal household. The revenue in this year was stated

to be nominally 23,859,787 copper ducats of the value of 2s. 5-1/3d.

each,--more than enough, if it had been received, to meet every

necessary expenditure; but peculation and corruption were so universal,

contraband and evasion so general, that according to the Venetian

ambassador, every branch of the administration was starved, the

national defences in a deplorable condition, and the King unable to

raise an army of more than 20,000 or 30,000 men in Spain.[20] In the

meanwhile Lerma and his family and friends and their respective

adherents were piling up possessions and riches beyond computation.

The first act of Philip III. on his accession had been to give to his

favourite the right to receive what presents {20} were offered to him,

and Lerma had exercised the privilege to the full. What the chief

minister did the subordinates imitated. Rodrigo Calderon, the

favourite of the favourite, and Franquesa, the clerk of the council of

finance, were found in their subsequent disgrace to have hoarded

immense quantities of gold and silver; and every one of the twenty

Viceroys, forty-six Governor-Generals, and their infinite underlings,

robbed as much money as he could grasp, the sooner to come and swagger

in the Court amidst a squalid, starving population, of which every man

was striving within his limits to imitate his betters, and to share in

the easily won riches of official corruption.[21] The one prosperous

trade was the service of the King or the service of his servants; and

thus, whilst the sovereign himself was blind and deaf to all but his

innocent frivolities, and the superstitious awe that constituted his

religion, Spain grew yearly poorer and more miserable as a nation, and

the favoured classes, the nobles and the clergy, practically exempt

from taxation, waxed ever fatter, more insolent, and more lavish.

[Sidenote: Spain's responsibilities]

The policy and aims of Philip II. had kept his realms at war for a

generation. The fatal possession of the Flemish and Dutch territories

{21} of the House of Burgundy and the traditions of Catholic unity had

cursed poor Castile with a European policy, and had driven Spain into

constant war with Protestant England, her natural ally; but Philip II.

on his deathbed had done his best to lighten his son's burden.

Flanders was left to his dear daughter Isabel, and her destined

husband, the Cardinal-Archduke Albert, with reversion, unfortunately,

to Spain, in the probable case of failure of issue from the Infanta.

To this extent Spain was relieved. There was no longer any material

need for her to spend her blood and money in fighting the Protestants,

either for the Emperor or for the new Archduchess of Flanders; who

herself, and especially her husband, were content to let the Protestant

Dutch go their own way, whilst she enjoyed in peace her inherited

Catholic Belgic sovereignty. The exhaustion of Spain and his own

avarice had tended to make Lerma pacific; and, as we have seen, peace

was arranged both with France and England: it must be confessed, on

extremely favourable terms for Spain, as early in the reign of Philip

III. as was practicable. The war with the Dutch in support of the

Infanta still dragged on; for the Spaniards would bate not a jot of

their pride, and Maurice of Nassau and his Hollanders were in no

submissive mood after holding their own for forty years. The Infanta

and her husband ardently longed for peace, and were ready to

acknowledge the independence of Holland; but Philip III. was full of

scruples of conscience as to the morality of formally ceding territory

to Protestants, even when he could not hold it himself, {22} and it was

1609 before the punctilious haggling ended, and the famous truce of

twelve years was signed, practically giving the stout Dutchmen the

independence for which they had fought so well.

Spain was then at peace for the first time within most men's memory;

and, with prudence, economy, and good government, might yet have

repaired the disasters that had befallen her. The promotion of

production, the rehabilitation of labour, a return to the frugal,

honest life which prevailed before the nation was led to its splendid

hysteria by the imperial connection, would have enabled the great

revenues from the Indies to be kept in Spain, whose shipping was now

for a time free from the depredations of privateers. But we have seen

how demoralised the whole people had grown. Long wars in foreign

lands, usually against Protestants or infidels, the craze for discovery

and profitable adventure in the Indies, and the dwarfing of industry,

except for the very poor, humble, plodding folk, had made the vast

majority of Spaniards scornful of labour; and in any case it would have

been hard to set men to work again. The attempt even was never

seriously made. Peace for Philip III. and his people did not mean an

opportunity for setting their house in order and reorganising the

nation, because they did not even yet fully recognise the hopelessness

of the national dream of domination through the unity of Christendom on

Spanish Catholic lines.

[Sidenote: The Moriscos]

For the realisation of this dream absolute unity of faith in Spain

itself was the first necessary condition. The country was peopled by

several {23} unamalgamated racial and political elements, and had been

artificially unified by the religious exaltation resulting from the

conquest of Granada and the fierce doctrinal pride fostered by the

Inquisition, artfully utilised for political ends by Ferdinand the

Catholic and his successors. The weak point of the sacred bond that

held Spaniards together was the large hard-working Moorish population

scattered over the Peninsula, and especially numerous in the

south-west. In spite of pledges and promises of toleration, Christian

baptism had been forced upon these people. Taxes and disabilities of

all sorts had been piled upon them, insulting and oppressive rules had

been made to their detriment, alternate cruelty and persuasion had been

resorted to in vain: the Moriscos at heart remained true to their own

faith, however humbly they conformed to the Christian rites imposed

upon them. They were still the most thrifty toilers; the carrying

trade of the Peninsula was almost entirely in their hands, and their

means of inter-communication were thus better than those enjoyed even

by Christian Spaniards. How to deal with this alien element so as to

eliminate the danger that existed from their presence in a Christian

state, the realisation of whose great ambition depended upon unbroken

religious unification, had puzzled the minds of Spanish statesmen for

years. It had been practically decided at one time (1581) by Philip

II. to take the whole Morisco population out to sea and sink the ships

that carried them; Gomez Davila of Toledo urged Philip III. in 1598 to

massacre the whole of them, whilst others more humane advocated the

forcible abduction {24} of all the children, the sterilisation of the

males, and other heroic measures. For a time also the milder spirits,

such as Father Las Casas, prayed that gentler methods might be tried;

but the attitude of the Moriscos themselves and the bigotry of the

churchmen soon silenced the voice of mercy.

For years the Moriscos had been plotting with Spain's enemies; with

Henry IV. of France, with Elizabeth of England, with the Duke of Savoy,

with the Sultan, with the King of Fez, or whoever else would promise

them aid to break up the Spanish monarchy; and the very day that the

Prince Philip Dominic was born (8th April 1605) was fixed for the great

Moslem rising at Valencia which should deliver Eastern Spain to the

French King. The plot was discovered in time, and this frustrated

treason had added to the religious fervour of the baptism, which has

been described at the beginning of this chapter. Thenceforward the

black cloud that loomed over the folk of Moorish blood grew ever

darker. Not the religious bigots alone, but statesmen too, intent only

on the immediate problem before them, urged that if unity of

Christendom was the necessary condition of Spain's greatness, then the

faith within her own realms must be made pure and solid beyond all

question or doubt, let the sacrifice be what it might.[22] Racial

jealousy, economical rivalry, and envy of the superior financial

position of the frugal Moriscos over that of their Christian

neighbours, {25} aided the forces of religious bigotry and political

expediency: and, just as the baptism of Prince Philip had coincided in

point of time with the discovery of the Moorish treason, so did the

next ceremony of his infant life coincide with the fatal decision to

exterminate root and branch from Spain all those in whose veins was

known to flow the blood of the Moslem races. For the attainment of the

views of both statesmen and churchmen of the day, purblind as they were

to the larger issues, the resolution to expel the Moriscos was

necessary, but, as will be seen later, it was disastrous industrially

and economically.

In accordance with the condition of political science of the time, the

results of the measure were indeed neither considered nor understood in

the latter aspects.[23] It was discussed in the King's Council, first

as a point of conscience, and secondly as a political necessity, and

the breathing time given to Spain by the peace with the Protestants

after forty years of strife, instead of being employed in the repair

and recuperation of national forces, was seized upon by those who yet

pursued the chimera of domination by religious unification, to deplete

still further the already exhausted country by the expulsion of the

principal productive element of {26} its population, amidst the fervent

applause of the idle and thriftless majority.

And still the frenzy of waste and magnificence in all classes went on,

for no men saw fully yet that ruin was the inevitable result of a state

of society in which luxurious idleness, or the pretence of it, was

alone regarded as honourable, and where the honey was seized by the

drones of the hive before workers had stored it. On the 13th January

1608 the ceremony of swearing allegiance to the child Philip as heir to

the Crown of Spain was celebrated in the church of St. Geronimo in

Madrid,[24] with a lavishness that almost rivalled that of his baptism.

Once more the King, in white satin and spangles and overloaded with

gems, walked in procession with the fair-haired fragile Queen, even

more splendidly bedight than he;[25] once more the lavish Lerma led the

baby Prince as sponsor, and the courtiers who followed vied with the

favourite in the magnificence of their attire; once more Cardinal

Sandoval de Rojas with a crowd of prelates invested the act with all

the solemn state of which the Church was capable, and in the courtly

fashion of his house substituted a kiss for the canonical blow in the

ceremony of confirmation.[26] Madrid was {27} ablaze with light, and

the ball in the palace at night surpassed anything that the now deposed

Valladolid could show; but over all the glitter the black cloud

hovered, and even whilst the ceremony of homage was being celebrated,

the Council of State, despairing now of the conversion of the Moriscos

by softer methods, and alarmed at the prospects of a great invasion

from Morocco, practically decided to clear the soil of Spain of the

descendants of its former conquerors.

Of the details of the expulsion this is not the place to speak. We are

principally concerned with it here to show that Philip IV. was bound

from his earliest infancy to an inherited policy, and that the seeds of

social and national decadence were sown before his time. He was no

Hercules to root them out, but was forced with bitter anguish to

witness the riches and power of his realms choked and destroyed by the

noxious growth which grew to maturity in his time: whilst he wept and

prayed for the miraculous remedy that never comes, or sought

forgetfulness in vicious indulgence that added private remorse to his

public sorrow.

[Sidenote: Philip's childhood]

Young Philip's education and the surroundings of his childhood were not

calculated to increase his self-reliance or independence of judgment.

His devout, delicate, Austrian mother died in childbirth when he was

but six years old, and his father's awestricken devotion thereafter

grew {28} more mystic than ever. Friars surrounded him, dictating the

most trifling as well as the most important acts of his life;

supernatural visions and heavenly voices assured him of divine favour

in his intervals of terrified despair which reduced him almost to

lunacy,[27] and the little boy who was to be the heir of his gilded

misery was left to the care of cloistered churchmen, whose ideal of

goodness was the suppression of all natural impulse and the extinction

of personal initiative as opposed to the dread fatalism which made them

supreme.

Beyond dull, ceremonious visits to the royal convent of the Discalced

Carmelites, hard by the palace of Madrid, the little Prince saw no

relaxation from prayers and lessons, but an occasional stage play or

masque performed by himself and his young courtiers of similar age.

Even as a small child this was young Philip's sole delight; and so long

as he could declaim verse before his father's Court, or listen to the

declamation of others, he was content. On one occasion, in 1614, it is

recorded in a gossiping letter of the time, that the Prince, who was

then nine years old, represented the character of cupid before the King

and his family in the room in the palace devoted to such shows; and as

he had to make his entry upon the stage in a high ornamental chariot,

the jolting of the vehicle made the poor child seasick; and the God of

love, when he advanced to the footlights, was reduced to a most

unlovely plight in face of the dignified audience, {29} though we are

told that he "performed his part very prettily." There were those who

shook grave heads, especially some of the friars, at this early

indulgence of the heir of Spain in his passion for a pastime so little

in accord with the traditional dignity of the royal house;[28] but

little Philip himself very soon learnt his lesson, for he was an apt

pupil, and even as a youth assumed a staid gravity on all public and

ceremonious occasions entirely at variance with his demeanour in

private.

In the meanwhile the country was sunk in the most abject misery.

Corruption and plunder of the national resources by Lerma and his

favourites and their hangers-on had at last aroused the resentment, or

perhaps the jealousy, of rival self-seekers. Spain was at war again,

and a league of all liberal Europe under Henry IV. of France was

pledged to humble finally the inflated pretensions of the house of

Austria; but just as Lerma's star was waning, and the prompt ruin of

Spain seemed imminent, a circumstance happened that gave a new lease of

life to the proud dreams of the Philips, and made the subsequent

downfall during the reign we have to record the more complete.

In May 1610 the dagger of a crazy fanatic ended the glorious life of

"Henry of Navarre"; and the coalition against Spain broke down, and

gave way to a struggle between his widow Marie de Medici and James I.

of England to secure the friendship of the decadent power which still

loomed so large and asserted its high claims so haughtily. The Queen

Regent of France, papal and clerical as she {30} was, succeeded where

crafty, servile James Stuart failed; and in 1612 the eldest daughter of

Spain, the Infanta Ana, was betrothed in Madrid by proxy to the boy

King of France, Louis XIII., and young Philip, Prince of Asturias,

became the affianced husband of Isabel of Bourbon, the elder daughter

of Henry IV., the great Béarnais. Of the lavish splendour that

accompanied the betrothals in Madrid this is not the place to

speak,[29] but when Lerma's fall was at last approaching, engineered by

his own son the Duke of Uceda, in 1615, King Philip III. and his

pompous Court travelled north in an interminable cavalcade to exchange

the brides on the frontier.

[Sidenote: Philip's betrothal]

Prince Philip remained at the ancient Castilian capital of Burgos,

whilst the dark-eyed young beauty who was destined to be his wife rode,

surrounded by Spanish nobles, from the little frontier stream through

San Sebastian and Vittoria to meet her eleven year old bridegroom. The

boy and his father rode a league or two out of Burgos to greet the

girl, who it was fondly hoped would cement France and Spain together

for the fulfilment of the impossible old dream of Christian unity

dictated from Madrid; and eye-witnesses tell that the pale little

milksop Prince, with his lank sandy hair and his red hanging under-lip,

gazed speechless in admiration of the pretty bright-eyed child, in

unbecoming Spanish dress, who was destined to be the companion of his

youth and prime. The next day Burgos was in a blaze of splendour to

welcome the future Queen, who rode on her white palfrey and her silver

sidesaddle through {31} the narrow frowning streets to the glorious

cathedral; and then, from city to city, through stark Castile, the

little bride, smiling and happy, and her pale boy bridegroom, followed

by the most splendid Court in Christendom, slowly made their way to the

crowning triumph of the capital.[30]

In the gorgeous crowd of courtiers that accompanied the King on his

long journey to and from the French frontier, intrigue and falsity were

rife. The Duke of Lerma's favourite, Calderon, had languished in a

dungeon already for five years, and the spoilt favourite himself knew

that his fall had been plotted long since by his son and the powerful

clerical clique that swayed the timorous soul of Philip III. But Lerma

was making a brave fight for his dignity and vast wealth. Philip III.

was kind and tender-hearted, and the habit of subjection to his

favourite was hard to break, so that his enemies had to tread warily.

Their plan was to place gradually around the King and his heir nobles

whom Lerma had failed to satisfy with sufficient bribes. One of them

was a young man of twenty-eight, perhaps the most forceful of them all,

Caspar de Guzman, Count of Olivares, son of that proud minister of

Philip II. who had bullied and hoodwinked Sixtus V. into supporting the

Armada in 1588. For years Caspar de Guzman, and his father before him,

had fruitlessly besought Lerma to convert their peerage of Castile into

a grandeeship of Spain; and on the journey to France with the King, the

Count, though his branch of the great Guzman {32} house was less rich

than noble, had striven to show by the splendour of his train that if

he was not a grandee he was magnificent enough to be one.[31]

Philip III. loved lavishness, especially to dazzle the French at this

juncture, and was easily persuaded by Lerma's false son to make the

Count of Olivares a gentleman of the chamber to the Prince. At first

young Philip disliked his masterful attendant, whose imperious manner

and stern looks frightened the sensitive boy; but gradually, as the

latter grew older and more curious, the address and cleverness of

Olivares asserted their influence over the weaker spirit of the Prince.

Olivares was supposed by Uceda to be acting entirely in his interest,

and had persuaded the latter to give him complete control of the

Prince's household, which he took care to pack with friends pledged to

himself. When Lerma was finally dismissed with a cardinal's hat and

all his riches, young Philip was anxious to know why so great a

minister had been disgraced. Olivares was always ready to enlighten

the lad, and would spend long periods chatting with him alone as the

Prince lay in bed, or as he was riding. In answer to Philip's

questions about Lerma, he impressed upon him the insolence of

favourites generally, their noxious public influence, their evil effect

upon monarchs, and much more to the same purport, pointed at Uceda the

new minister quite as much as at his fallen father. The sufferings of

the people were described vividly to the sympathising boy, who was told

of the vast plunder held by Lerma and his family from the national

resources, and the noble task awaiting a monarch who would {33} govern

his realm himself and redress the wrongs of his subjects. Young

Philip's youthful ambition was aroused, and thenceforward he listened

to his mentor eagerly; whilst he ostentatiously frowned in public upon

the Duke of Uceda.[32]

[Sidenote: Results of Lerma's rule]

Spain, notwithstanding the change of favourites, went from bad to

worse. The vast sums spent by the King upon the building of new

convents and in sumptuous shows were still wrung from the humblest

classes, who alone did any profitable work, and in vain was the sainted

image of the Virgin of Atocha carried in regal state through the

streets of the capital, in the hope of averting widespread famine.

Lerma at least, in his long ministry, had managed to conceal from the

indolent King the utter ruin that threatened; but the ineptitude of the

new favourites made the misery patent even to him. The knowledge

overwhelmed his feeble spirit, and his long spells of despair were but

rarely relieved now by the frivolities that formerly delighted him.

Ill and failing as he was, and his poor spirit broken, he prayed the

Council of Castile to tell him the truth as to the condition of his

people, and to suggest remedies for their ills. The report, which

reached him in February 1619, finally opened his eyes, now that it was

too late, to the appalling results of his rule; and, stricken with

panic fear that he would be damned eternally for his life-long neglect

of duty, the poor King broke down {34} utterly. He knew that his

strength was ebbing, and forgiveness for himself was his first thought,

and then to pray that his son might do better than he had done.

To distract him, his favourites persuaded him to make a royal progress

to Portugal, with all the old lavish splendour, to witness the taking

of the oath by the Portuguese Cortes to young Philip as heir to the

throne. For months the cities of Portugal were the scene of prodigal

pomp and devotion, that once more drove out of the muddled brain of the

King all thought of the misery he had left behind him in Castile; and

as he sat, on the 14th July 1619, under his gold and silken canopy in

his palace at Lisbon, dressed in white taffeta and gold, and surrounded

by the nobles of Portugal and Spain, it seemed as if the lying fable

that made him personally the master of boundless wealth must be true,

and that his stark and ruined realm was overflowing with happy

abundance.[33] By his side sat his hopeful son Philip, a tall slim lad

of fourteen, wearing a white satin suit covered with gold and gems, and

surmounted by a black velvet shoulder-cape a mass of bullion

embroidery; and as the representatives of the Portuguese nation bent

the knee and swore to accept him as King when his father should die, in

exchange for his assurance that their ancient rights should be

respected, little thought any of the glittering throng that the pale

long-faced boy with the loose lower lip would, out of indolent

amiability, cause rivers of blood to run between Portugal {35} and

Spain, and that all the oaths sworn that day on both sides would be

broken. Little dreamed they, either, that the dark-visaged man with

the big square head, who stood behind the Prince's chair, was to be the

mover of this calamity, and of the final disruption of his young

master's great inheritance. Olivares, secure in his hold now over the

Prince, left Lisbon to go to the home of his house in Seville for a

time, knowing well that the jarring rivals around the boy would soon

make his return to Court the more welcome. The King was ill and like

to die on his way back to Madrid,[34] and Olivares was near the Prince

at the critical time, more influential than ever.

[Sidenote: Death of Philip III.]

Philip was precocious, and Olivares encouraged his precocity. By his

influence it was decided that the married life of the fifteen and a

half year old Prince and his pretty French bride should commence in

November 1620, at the suburban palace of the Pardo; and thenceforward,

whilst the poor King, in alternate fits of agonised remorse and

hysterical hope, clung to his mouldering relics of dead saints for

comfort, and to the frocks of his attendant friars for reassurance

against the wrath of the Most High, his son Philip was yearning

impatiently for the coming of the time when he might as King carry into

effect the lessons his mentor Olivares had whispered to him; banish the

whole brood of Sandoval y Rojas, and revive, as {36} by magic, the

potency of his country and the happiness of his people.

Through the month of March 1621, King Philip III. lay dying in his

palace at Madrid, overlooking the bare Castilian plain.[35] He was not

much over forty years of age, but though his malady was slight his

vitality had fled, and all desire to prolong his disillusioned life.

His remorse and horror of heaven's vengeance were terrible to behold,

though during all his reign his habits had been those of a frivolous

friar rather than of a bad man, which he certainly was not.[36] On the

30th March young Philip took a last farewell of his father. "I have

sent for you," said the King, "that you may see how it all ends"; and

he gave the weeping lad similar advice to that given by his own greater

father, Philip II., to him on his deathbed, counsel to be treated in a

similar way. He was to marry his sister Maria to the German Emperor,

and to set his face sternly against all temptations to make a less

Catholic alliance for her; for James of England {37} had been striving

hard, seconded by Gondomar, to win her for Charles, Prince of Wales,

and to secure the Palatinate of the Rhine for his son-in-law Frederick.

The dying Philip urged his son to strive for the happiness of his

people, cherish his sisters and brothers, to avoid new counsellors, and

to stand steadfast to the faith of Spain; but when the young Prince

left the room Uceda and his crew knew that it was to go straight and

take counsel of Olivares and his supporters for making a clean sweep of

all those who had not bent the knee to the cadet of the house of

Guzman, the dark man with the bent shoulders, the big square head,

flashing fierce black eyes, and brusque imperious manner, who was

already assuming the airs of a master.

For many months the palace had been a swarming hive of intriguers,

where hate, jealousy, and uncharitableness reigned supreme; but one by

one the friends of the Sandovals had been pushed into the background,

and no one but Olivares and his creatures were now allowed to approach

the lad who was soon to be King of Spain. It was clear to Uceda that

he was not strong enough to resist the coming storm alone; perhaps the

father he had ousted, the Cardinal Duke of Lerma, who had acted on the

death of Philip II. as Olivares was acting now, might with his

experience and prestige yet win the day. The dying King had already

raised the exile of all the other courtiers who had been banished from

Court; though on their return they had been excluded by Olivares from

access to the Prince; and now, in the last days of the King's life,

Uceda obtained {38} from him a decree recalling the Duke of Lerma.

Like a thunderbolt the news fell in the camp of the Guzmans. Olivares

summoned his kin, headed by the wisest of them, old Baltasar de Zuñiga.

From this meeting Olivares went to the Prince and told him that as his

father was dying it was necessary to look ahead and take measures for

securing prompt obedience when the crucial moment came. Young Philip

acquiesced, for he was as wax in the hands of his imperious mentor; and

Olivares, thus reinforced, proceeded to the King's apartments, where by

cajolery and threats he obtained from the two great nobles on duty, the

aged Duke of Infantado and the Marquis of Malpica, not only a knowledge

of the provisions of the King's will, but also a promise that prompt

information of everything that passed in the death chamber should be

sent direct to the Prince's adviser. The Cardinal Duke was hurrying

across Castile towards Madrid, full of hope for a revival of his

greatness; for young Philip, whom he had dandled as a babe, always

liked him, and had wept for his "Gossip," as he called him, when he had

been banished from Court. If once the Duke reached Madrid, Guzman was

in danger, and no time was to be lost. So the Prince, at the bidding

of Olivares, took the bold and dangerous course of assuming sovereign

power to countermand his father's orders whilst yet the King lived.

Young Philip was alone in the dusk of the evening in his panelled

chamber in the old palace of Madrid, when the president of the Council

of Castile, the highest functionary in Spain and {39} Archbishop of

Burgos, stood bowing before him in obedience to his call. The Prince,

who lounged against a carved oak sideboard, was dressed in black, and

his long sallow face had assumed the haughty immobility that for the

rest of his life was his official mask of majesty. "I have sent for

you, he mumbled to the Archbishop in slow, measured tones, to direct

you to despatch a member of the Council to forbid the Duke of Lerma

from entering Castile, and to command him to return immediately to

Valladolid to await my orders."[37] The Archbishop knelt and promised

obedience, though he knew, we are told, that if the King recovered he

would have to suffer for his weak compliance with an illegal

command.[38]

There was little to fear in the world now, however, from Philip III.,

who in the intervals of his bodily anguish was occupied solely in his

panic-stricken intercessions for pardon. His room was encumbered with

ghastly remains of saintly humanity, and the sacred offices succeeded

each other day and night: but around the bed worldly ambitions were

raging bitterly. In the morning of the 30th March a consultation of

physicians pronounced the end to be near; and the Duke of Uceda, as

principal minister and first chamberlain, announced his intention of

conveying the news to the Prince. Then the Duke of Infantado, secure

in the favour of Olivares, to whom only two days before he had betrayed

the secrets of the {40} death chamber, broke out tempestuously: "No,

indeed; that is my place, for the Prince has specially ordered me to

go." Uceda knew his day was past, and meekly bent his head: and thus,

in the midst of greedy bickering, his nerveless hand grasping to the

last the rough crucifix that had comforted the glazing eyes of his

grandfather the Emperor, and his father Philip II., the third Philip

passed the dread divide, revered and beloved by the people whom his

ineptitude had ruined, because he had still upheld throughout Europe

the claim of his house to impose Christian orthodoxy upon the world,

and had purged the sacred soil of Spain of the taint of Moorish blood,

to his country's permanent undoing.

Olivares had played his cards cleverly. For weeks he had feigned a

desire to seek retirement in his home at Andalusia, knowing well that

young Philip, in the welter of difficulties and intrigues that

surrounded him, looked to him alone for guidance; and the adviser had

only to hint at a wish to retire for the Prince to assent to whatever

he demanded. As the King lay dying Uceda had met Olivares in the

corridor. "How goes it," he asked, "in the Prince's chamber?" "All is

mine," replied the Count. "All!" exclaimed the Duke of Uceda ruefully;

"Yes, without exception," retorted Olivares; "for his Highness

overrates me in all things but my goodwill."[39] Before many hours had

passed Uceda and his kin knew to their cost that Olivares had not

boasted in vain. All was {41} indeed his, and the strong hand fell

ruthlessly upon those who had ruled and plundered Spain since the

greatest of the Philips had passed his heavy crown to his weak son

twenty-two years before.

[1] See a curious contemporary, unpublished, account by Don Geronimo

Gascon de Torquemada. Add. MSS. 10,236 British Museum. He says that

the Town Council scattered 12,000 silver reals in the plaza on

Saturday, 9th April, and that 30,000 wax candles, with as many sheets

of white paper to wrap round them for torches, were distributed to the

poor; the whole population of the city at the time being between 50,000

and 60,000.

[2] Narrative of Matias de Novoa, _Documentos Ineditos_, vol. lx.

[3] The vehement protest of Ribera is reproduced _in extenso_ in Gil

Gonzalez Davila's _Vida y Hechos de Phelipe III_. Original MS. in

possession of the author. Also published, Madrid, 1771. Ribera it was

who principally promoted the expulsion of the Moriscos a few years

later.

[4] Gongora's sonnet, for instance, which is thus Englished by Churton--

"Our Queen had borne a Prince. When all were gay,

A Lutheran envoy came across the main.

With some six hundred followers in his train,--

All knaves of Luther's brood. His proud array

Cost us, in one fair fortnight and a day,

A million ducats of the gold of Spain,

In jewels, feasting crowds, and pageant play.

But then he brought us, for our greater gain,

The peace King James on Calvin's Bible swore.

Well! we baptized our Prince; Heaven bless the child!

But why make Luther rich, and leave Spain poor?

What witch our dancing courtiers' wits beguiled?--

Cervantes, write these doings: they surpass

Your grave Don Quixote, Sancho and his ass."

See also Cervantes' ballad of the Churching of Queen Margaret, in his

Exemplary Novel of _The Little Gipsy_, written, however, some years

after the event.

[5] Don Juan Fernandez de Velasco, hereditary Great Constable of

Castile, Duke of Frias, who in the previous year, 1604, had gone to

England to conclude with James I. the Treaty of Peace.

[6] So at least say the eye-witnesses; though it can hardly have been a

more violent downpour than that which overtook the present writer on

the same spot, and at a similar date, in a recent year, when, with

hardly five minutes' notice, the road was converted into a rushing

torrent several inches deep, though previously no rain had fallen for

months.

[7] Cabrera (_Documentos Ineditos_) says that care was taken that no

sacred pictures were placed in the rooms, for fear of offence, though

they were hung with fine tapestries. Three new beds, he says, were

bought for Howard and his sons, etc. As an instance of the great care

taken on both sides to avoid offence, Davila mentions that Howard,

having learnt that two of his gentlemen had brought English Bibles with

them, insisted upon their being returned to the ship; and Gascon de

Torquemada asserts that the Englishmen were forbidden to dispute with

Spaniards, right or wrong, on pain of death.

[8] "Todos tienen lindos trajes y altos cuerpos; y en habiendo entrado

en conversacion con nosotros se apartan luego, y hacen cabriolas,

cantando entre dientes: y aunque entre ellos usan esto no lo usava el

Almirante." Gascon de Torquemada's MS B.M., Add. MSS. 10,236. Cabrera

de Cordova (_Relacion de las Cosas Sucedidas desde 1599 hasta_ 1614)

also mentions the "cabriolas" or skipping of the English gentlemen in

the grand ball given in their honour on the 16th June by the King. The

passion for dancing "high and disposedly" was at the time considered

peculiarly English, and Englishmen are frequently referred to in

Spanish letters of the time as being naturally volatile and mercurial,

in marked contrast with their latter-day descendants.

[9] See Geronimo Gascon de Torquemada's MS. B.M., Add. MSS. 10,936.

[10] Full accounts of Howard's reception may be found in Torquemada's

MS. already quoted, in Novoa's relation (_Documentos Ineditos_, 60 and

61), in Cabrera de Cordova, in Davila already quoted, and in Yepes'

_Felipe III_. Madrid, 1723.

[11] Cervantes thus writes on the subject--

"This pearl that Thou to us hast given,

Star of Austria's diadem:

What crafty plans, what high designs,

Are shattered by this peerless gem.

What hopes within our breasts are raised,

What soaring schemes have come to nought,

What fears are by his birth aroused.

What havoc with ambition wrought!"

MacColl's translation of "The Exemplary Novels."

[12] With him, we are told, walked the Princes of Savoy and all the

grandees and prelates present in Valladolid, the household of each

parsonage being dressed in new liveries for the occasion, those of the

royal servants being white and crimson trimmed with gold. The English

ambassador Howard witnessed the procession, as he did later in the day

that of the baptism, from a corner balcony in Count Rivadavia's house,

his garments glittering with diamonds, and the collar of the Garter on

his shoulder. It was noticed that when the King passed beneath the

Englishman doffed his bonnet and made a deep reverence. Porreño, _Vida

y Hechos de Phelipe III_.

[13] Cabrera, _Relacion de las Cosas Sucedidas desde 1599 hasta 1614_.

In addition to the authorities already quoted, there is a curious

account of the celebrations referred to, sometimes attributed to

Cervantes, called _Relacion de lo Subcedido en la Ciudad da

Valladolid_, etc. Published at Valladolid in 1605.

[14] A detailed account of these attempts will be found in _Treason and

Plot_, by the present writer, and in the fourth volume of his

_Calendars of Spanish State Papers of the Reign of Elizabeth_.

[15] When the capital of Spain was again transferred to Madrid in 1606,

Queen Margarita was much opposed to and distressed at the change.

Porreño relates that she went to take leave of her favourite nuns at

Valladolid with tears in her eyes, and when asked by the nuns why she

did not persuade the King to remain at Valladolid, which agreed so well

with his wife and children, she replied that "nothing on earth could

move the King now, as the removal of the capital to Madrid had now been

presented to him as a case of conscience." "Thus," says Porreño, in

admiration, "he was ready to sacrifice the welfare of his wife and

children, and all earthly considerations, for his conscience' sake!"

Spaniards of the period thought that no higher praise than this could

be given to any man.

[16] For instance, Charles' unblushing manipulation of the Council of

Trent in 1545-46, the juggle with Paul III. about the Italian

principalities, and the clever hoodwinking of Sixtus V. as to the real

objects of the Armada of 1588.

[17] It must be borne in mind that the Cortes of Castile (which

comprised Castile, Leon, Andalucia, etc., and consisted of thirty-six

deputies for eighteen cities) had, after the abortive rising of the

Comuneros early in the reign of Charles V., in a great measure allowed

the control of supply to slip from its hands, and was rapidly becoming

effete; all the members being bribed and influenced by grants and

favours of the Court. The three Cortes of the Crown of Aragon,

however, still held their own purse-strings, and always made supply a

matter of bargain. For this reason practically the whole of the

growing national burden rested upon wretched Castile.

[18] Danvila y Collado, _El Poder Civil en España_, vol. 6. In this

petition the Cortes told the King that, whereas it had cost twelve

years previously 60 ducats to maintain a student and his servant at

Salamanca for a year, it now cost 120. Wages had risen for a

bricklayer from 4 reals to 8, and for a labourer from 2 reals to 4; a

trimmed felt hat which had previously cost 12 reals now cost 24.

Segovia cloth, of which the price was formerly 3 ducats a piece, now

fetched nearly double. The ducats quoted are the so-called copper

ducat of 2_s._ 5-1/3_d._, the real being the silver real worth about

6_d._

[19] The quantity of copper coin in circulation increased in five or

six years from 6 millions of ducats' worth to 28 millions.

[20] Contarini to the Doge and Senate of Venice (_Relazioni degli

Ambasciatori Veneziani_).

[21] Navarrete says, speaking of the luxury of the Court at this

period--and we shall see that it was exceeded later--"The smallest

hidalgo insisted upon his wife only going out in a carriage, and that

her equipage should be as showy as that of the greatest gentleman at

Court. Not even a carpenter or a saddler, or any other artizan, was

seen but he must be dressed in velvet or satin like a nobleman. He

must needs wear his sword and his dagger, and have a guitar hanging on

the wall of his shop." When it is remembered that the production and

distribution in Spain itself of the precious stuffs mentioned were

hampered at every point, it will be understood how great and constant

the drain of wealth was from a country which now exported little but

the products of its soil.

[22] For details of the expulsion see, _inter alia_, Fray Jaime Bleda's

_Cronica de los Moros de España_ (Valencia, 1618); _The Moriscos of

Spain_, by C. H. Lea (London, 1901); _Memorable Expulsion_, etc., by

Guadalajara (Pamplona, 1614); and Porreño's _Felipe III_.

[23] The wise minister of Philip II., Idiaquez, in 1595 almost alone

saw the economical evil of the expulsion. In an important letter to a

colleague (MS. Loyola No. 1., 31, Royal Academy of History, Madrid) he

rebuked the general idea that Spain would be richer for the expulsion

of the Moriscos, and pointed out that they almost alone were creating

national wealth by their industry, frugality, and skill in agriculture.

"But all this," he says, "is of no consideration in exchange for

putting away from our throat the knife which threatens it so long as

these people remain amongst us in their present condition and we in

ours."

[24] The ancient church in the Prado where this ceremony always took

place, and where the young King of Spain and his English bride were

married recently.

[25] "His Majesty wore a white doublet and trunks with a grey satin

cloak, all embroidered with bugles and gold spangles and lined with

ermine. White shoes and a black velvet cap with strings of pearls and

diamonds and a plume of white feathers sprinkled with magnificent

diamonds; a sword beautifully chased and an embroidered belt; a ruff

with crimson silk ribs and the grand collar of the Golden Fleece." See

a curious contemporary MS. account of the ceremony. British Museum

MSS., Egerton, 367.

[26] The Prince was nevertheless so frightened that the silken bands

necessary in the ceremony meant an intention to bleed him, and he cried

so much in consequence, that he had to be led to a little chair at his

mother's knee before he could be pacified; and there his sister, the

Infanta Ana, weighed down by her stiff gorgeousness, knelt and did

homage, to be followed by the cardinal, the nobles, and the Cortes.

_Ibid_.

[27] Gil Gonzalez de Avila, in his MS. _Historia de Phelipe III._,

gives many admiring instances of the King's mystic communications with

the heavenly powers, and of his attacks of religious panic. (Original

MS. in my possession.)

[28] Cabrera de Cordova, _Cosas Sucedidas a la Corte_, etc., _desde_

1599 á 1614.

[29] A full account of the crazy magnificence on the occasion will be

found in _Documenios Ineditos_, lxi.

[30] An unpublished account of the progress by an eye-witness is in

Add. MSS. 102,36, British Museum. See also _Queens of Old Spain_, by

Martin Hume, and _Documenios Ineditos_, lxi.

[31] Malvezzi, _Historia de Felipe III._, Yañez.

[32] Matias de Novoa, _Felipe III_. _Doctimentos Ineditos_, lxi. This

writer was a chamberlain of Philip IV. and an agent of Olivares; but

receiving from the latter no reward, he wrote a series of bitter

attacks upon him.

[33] The King's and the Prince's splendid dresses and adornments on

this occasion are described fully by Porreño in _Dichos y Hechos de Don

Felipe III_.

[34] His recovery from this grave illness after the doctors had given

up hope was ascribed to the miraculous effect produced by the dead body

of the newly beatified Saint Isidore of Madrid, which was brought to

his bedside at Covarrubias. The King kissed and embraced the corpse,

and improved from that hour.

[35] The ridiculous story, related by entirely untrustworthy French

travellers, of the cause of Philip's fatal illness being the Court

etiquette, which forbade any attendant but a high noble who happened to

be absent to remove a brazier from too close proximity to the King, may

be dismissed as a fable. Anything which exaggerated the strangeness,

the romance, and the inflation of Spanish manners found ready belief in

seventeenth-century France, and has done so ever since. The absurd

ideas relative to Spain even at the present time are mainly due to this

insistence on the part of French writers in seeing everything Spanish

through the coloured medium of the romantic school. Madame D'Aulnoy's

overdone "local colour" and evidently invented stories are largely

responsible for this, aided by Bassompiere Saint Simon, Mme. Villars,

and the later romantic school of French novelists.

[36] Terrible accounts of Philip's awful deathbed are given by Gil

Gonzales de Avila, his chronicler and friend, in his _Historia de

Felipe III._, original MS. in my possession, in Yañez's additions to

Malvezzi, and in Novoa, _Documentos Ineditos_, lxi.; all contemporaries.

[37] Novoa, _Documentos Ineditos_, lxi.

[38] Novoa says that when the Archbishop signed the order he broke into

tears and cast away the pen he had used.

[39] _Fragmentos Historicos de la Vida de D. Caspar de Guzman_, etc.

Unpublished contemporary MS. biography of Olivares in my possession;

the work of his partisan Vera y Figueroa, Count de la Roca.

{42}