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
Prince Philip lay in his great square tentlike bedstead in the palace
of Madrid, at nine o'clock on the morning of the 31st March 1621, when
an usher announced his Dominican confessor, Sotomayor. The friar
entered, and, kneeling by the bedside with a grave face, saluted his
new sovereign as King Philip IV. For a moment the boy was overwhelmed
at the long-looked-for news, and bade the attendants draw the curtains
close that he might indulge his grief unseen. But soon the eager
worshippers of the risen sun flocked into the room to pay their court
to the new monarch when he should deign to show his face. Anon there
was stir in the antechamber, and the crowd divided, bowing low as the
stern, masterful man who was now lord over all stalked through the
room, accompanied by his aged uncle the white-haired {43} Don Baltasar
de Zuñiga, destined by him to be nominally the King's chief minister,
behind whom Olivares might rule unchecked. Advancing to the King's
bed, Olivares threw back the curtains and peremptorily told Philip that
he must get up, for there was much to be done. Uceda was still
officially first minister and great chamberlain, with right of free
access to the Sovereign; but when, a few moments later, he and his
secretary entered the antechamber, amidst the scarcely concealed sneers
of the courtiers, and the whisper reached Philip that they were coming,
the King leapt from his bed and cried out that no one else was to be
admitted until he was dressed.
[Sidenote: The rise of Olivares]
Dressing on this occasion was a long process, for the young King broke
down with grief and excitement several times whilst his attendants were
preparing him for public audience; and Uceda, in the antechamber, fumed
and fretted at the insult put upon him by the King, who thus
disregarded his father's dying injunctions in the first moments of his
bereavement. Whilst Uceda awaited the King's pleasure, Olivares,
leaving the bed-chamber, met his falling rival face to face, and a
violent altercation took place as to the premature action of Philip in
ordering the Duke of Lerma, a Prince of the Church now, and immune from
lay commands, to stay his journey to Madrid. Pointing to the State
papers, seals, and keys in the hands of the secretary who accompanied
him, Uceda asked who but the Duke of Lerma was worthy of taking charge
of them. "My uncle, Don Baltasar de Zuñiga is here," replied Olivares,
"to do so, and to give to the State the advantage {44} of his long
experience, and wisdom second to none." Uceda was then notified that
the King, being dressed, would receive him; and entering the room, he
knelt and proffered to Philip the seals and papers of his office.
Pouting and frowning, the King waved his hand towards the sideboard,
and said, "Put them there," and Uceda went out unthanked, to weep his
now certain ruin and disgrace.[1]
Whilst the King was busy condoling with his young wife and sister and
his two brothers Carlos and Fernando, and receiving the homage of his
nobles, the preparations were hastily made in the great hall of the
Alcazar for the lying in state of the body of Philip III. in his habit
as a friar of St. Francis. And as the muffled death bells boomed from
the steeples of the capital, one man at least there was whose heart
fainted at the sound. "The King is dead, and so am I," cried Don
Rodrigo de Calderon from the prison where he had suffered and
languished for years, the scapegoat for others, borne down by
accusations innumerable, from theft to witchcraft and regicide. In his
pride and power he had piled up wealth beyond compute, as his master
Lerma had done, but it is clear now that the other charges against him
were mainly false. His long trial had resulted in no mortal crime
being proved, and had Philip III. lived he would doubtless have been
pardoned; but he had belonged to the old greedy gang, and Olivares had
no mercy upon them. Before Philip's nine days mourning reclusion in
the {45} monastery of St. Geronimo was ended a clean sweep was made of
the men who had surrounded the dead King. Calderon's head fell on the
scaffold in the Plaza Mayor of Madrid; the great Duke of Osuna, who had
ruled Naples with so high a hand as to be accused of the wish to make
himself a King, was incarcerated and persecuted till his proud heart
broke; Uceda met with a similar fate; the powerful confessor Aliaga was
disgraced and banished; and even Lerma was not spared, though he fought
stoutly for his plunder; and all the clan of Sandoval and Rojas were
trampled under the heels of the Guzmans and their allies.
[Sidenote: Olivares supreme]
The state of things which the new Sovereign had to face was positively
appalling. The details of the abject penury and misery universal
throughout Spain, except amongst those who managed the public revenues
and their numerous hangers-on, sound almost incredible. Idleness and
pretence were everywhere. Insolent gentlemen in velvet doublets and no
shirts, workmen who strutted and clattered in ruffs and rapiers,
seeking prey as sham soldiers instead of earning wages by honest
handicrafts, led poets, and paid satirists, gamesters, swindlers,
bravos and cutpurses, pretended students who lived like the rest of the
idle crew on alms and effrontery, crowds of friars and priests whose
only attraction to their cloth was the sloth which it excused; ladies,
rouged and overdressed, who deliberately and purposely aped the look
and manners of prostitutes,--these were the prevailing types of the
capital, as described by eyewitnesses innumerable, as well as by the
romancers who revelled in the colour, movement, and squalid {46}
picturesqueness of such a society.[2] And to maintain the real and
false splendour in Madrid the starving agriculturists, who had not
abandoned their holdings in sheer despair, were ground down to their
last real by the crushing alcabala tax, by local tolls and octrois, and
by the heartless extortions of the tax farmers.
There is no doubt that, so far as their light extended, both the King
and Olivares sincerely wished to reform abuses of which the results
were patent to all. Young Philip himself was good hearted and kindly,
as his father had been, but far more sensual and less devout in his
habits. Though in public he assumed the marble gravity traditional
thenceforward in Spanish kings, he was gay and witty in private
discourse with those whose society he enjoyed, especially writers and
players. His love of books, music, and pictures, as well as of poetry
and the drama, made him, as time went on, the greatest patron of
authors and artists in Spain's golden age of social and political
decadence. But idleness marred all his qualities, and the lust for
pleasure which he was powerless to resist made him the slave of
favourites and his passions all his life. A man such as this, endowed
with a gentle heart and a tender conscience, was doomed to a life of
misery and remorse in the intervals of his thoughtless pleasures; and
in the course of this book we shall see that sorrow ever followed close
on joy's footsteps in the life of the "Planet King," until final ruin
overtook the nation, cursed with the gayest and wickedest Court since
that of {47} Heliogabalus, and all was quenched in a great wave of
tears.
[Sidenote: Philip and his minister]
The man to whom Philip handed his conscience, as has been described, on
the first day of his reign, was nearly twenty years his senior. An
indefatigable worker, with an ambition as voracious as his industry,
Olivares was the exact reverse of the idle, courtly, conciliatory
Lerma. His greed was not personal, as that of Lerma had been, though
his love of power led him to absorb as many offices as he. He was
vehement and voluble, arrogant and impatient even with the King, and
impressed upon Philip incessantly the need for exertion on his own
part.[3] Able as he unquestionably was, he appraised his ability too
highly, and contemned all opinions but his own; whilst his attitude
towards the foreign Powers was insolent in the extreme, and quite
unwarranted by Spain's position at the time. From an economic point of
view, Olivares, though he began his rule by cutting down expenses in
drastic fashion, was no wiser than his predecessors; though his ruling
idea that the political unity of Spain was the thing primarily needful
was sage and statesmanlike. But in this he was before his time, and
his disregard for provincial traditions and rights in his determination
to force unity of sacrifice upon the country, led to his own ruin and
the disintegration of Spain. The portraits of him by Velazquez enable
us to see the man as he lived,--stern, dark, and masterful, {48} with
bulging forehead and sunken eyes and mouth, his massive shoulders bowed
by the weight of his ponderous head, we know instinctively that such a
man would either dominate or die. He was the finest horseman in Spain,
and he treated men as he treated his big-boned chargers, breaking them
to obedience by force of will and persistence.
Such was the man who led Spain during the crucial period which was to
decide, not only whether France or Spain should prevail politically,
but whether the culture and civilisation of Europe should in future
receive its impulse and colour from Spanish or French influences. In
that great contest Spain was beaten, not so much because Olivares was
inferior to Richelieu, as because of the old tradition that hampered
Spain at home and abroad and pitted a decentralised country, where
productive industry had been stifled and the sources of wealth choked,
against a homogeneous nation where active work was fostered, and whose
resources were at the command of the central authority.[4]
[Sidenote: Olivares made a grandee]
This much it was necessary to say in order to make clear the manner of
men that in future ruled the Court of which we have to write: a King to
whom pleasure was a business; and a minister to whom business alone was
pleasure, who loved the reality of rule whilst his master loved the
ceremonial of it. Not many days passed before the ambition of the
Guzmans for the grandeeship was satisfied. The King was still passing
his first days of mourning in the monastery of St. Geronimo when the
sermon of the day, either by chance or {49} design, inculcated the need
for properly rewarding services done to us. The sermon over, Philip
went to dinner, the room being crowded with nobles, amongst whom was
Uceda, not yet finally banished. When the King had finished his meal
and the cloth was drawn, Olivares entered very unobtrusively, and
sidled against the wall behind the other nobles in attendance, well
knowing, probably, what was coming. The King, catching his eye, said:
"Let us obey the good friar who preached to-day; Count of Olivares, be
covered!" This was the form used in the raising of a peer to the
grandeeship, and Olivares, putting on his wide-brimmed hat, threw
himself at the King's feet with his uncle and those of his kin who were
in the room, overjoyed at the honour done to their house; and their joy
was increased when, a few hours later, Uceda was told that he must
surrender to Olivares at once one of his two great offices in the
household.
Offices and honours thenceforward crowded upon the favourite, who was
soon made Duke of San Lucar and principal chamberlain. Almost
ostentatiously he professed a desire to leave politics entirely to his
uncle, and to confine himself to the duties of his household offices
near the King. Nobody was deceived by his apparent modesty, for even
before Zuñiga's death, which happened in a year, it was known that his
nephew's long personal conversations with the King, facilitated by his
courtly palace duties, were mainly concerned with questions of
Government and State. The Count-Duke, as he came to be called
universally, would allow nothing to be done for the King but by
himself. Before Philip was out of bed the minister {50} was the first
to enter the room, draw the curtains and open the window. Then on his
knees by the bedside he rehearsed the business of the coming day.
Every garment that the King put on passed first through the hands of
Olivares, who stood by whilst Philip dressed. After the midday meal,
at which Olivares was often present, the minister was wont to amuse the
King by entertaining chat, detailing the gossip of the capital, and
late in the evening he attended to give him an account of the
despatches received, and consult him as to the answers, after which he
saw the monarch to bed.[5] This constant attendance upon the King made
it impossible for any person not an absolute creature of Olivares to
approach Philip's ear with doubt as to the policy of the favourite in
political matters.
[Sidenote: State of Spain]
When Philip's first parliament met, a few months after his accession,
it was stated in the assembly that so terrible was the distress that
"people had abandoned their lands and were now wandering on the roads,
living on herbs and roots, or else travelling to provinces where they
had not to pay the awful food excises and alcabalas"; whilst every
source of revenue was anticipated for years to come on usurious
terms.[6] Philip himself, in an important original paper hitherto
unpublished (British Museum, Egerton MSS. 338), gives the following
account of the state of affairs he had to face on his accession, whilst
complaining of the little help he had received from his officers: "I
found {51} finance so exhausted (apart from the dreadful state it had
been left in at the death of Philip II., who had pledged it deeply)
that all resources were anticipated for several years, and my patrimony
had been so reduced that in my father's time alone 96,000,000 crowns
had been granted in gifts, etc.; besides what had been spent in the
other realms (_i.e._ Aragon, Catalonia, etc.), from which no returns
have been received. The currency had been raised to three times its
face value, an unheard-of thing in any realm.... Ecclesiastical
affairs were in such disorder, that it was asserted from Rome that
innumerable dispensations for simony had been obtained for
archbishoprics, bishoprics, prebends, etc.... As for justice, on the
very first day of my reign I was obliged to put my foot down, as will
be recollected, ... for the ministers who received bribes were more
numerous than those who did not ... My State, too, was so discredited
that in the truce that the Dutch had made with my father they were
treated as independent sovereigns, although every minister, from the
King my father and the Archduke downward, refused to acknowledge such a
claim.... I had only seven ships of war in the fleet.... India and
the Indies were well-nigh lost.... The truce with Flanders was just
expiring.... German affairs were more pressing than ever.... The
marriage of the Prince of Wales with my sister was so far advanced that
it seemed impossible to avoid it without a great war, which, indeed,
followed, as we could not give way on the religious point.[7] Portugal
was discontented {52} with the Viceroy, ... whilst all the other parts
of the monarchy was neglected or misgoverned.... We were at war with
Venice; the Kingdom of Naples was almost in revolt, and the money there
was utterly corrupted. All this was from no fault of my father, nor of
his predecessors, as all the world knows, but simply because God so
ordained it."
This document, written by Philip himself a few years afterwards for his
own justification, proves how pressing was the need for an abatement of
untenable claims on the part of Spain to interfere with the affairs of
other nations, and the absolute necessity for a policy of retrenchment.
And yet at the bidding of Olivares, against the opinion even of wise
old Zuñiga, the first minister, the interminable war with the Dutch for
the assertion of Spain's sovereignty over Holland was resumed as soon
as the truce ended, only a few months after the young King's accession.
[Sidenote: Philip's policy]
In his address to his first Cortes, Philip struck the unwise note of
Dominican intolerance and pride {53} which had pervaded his baptism,
setting forth in the midst of the miserable state of things just
described that his first duty as a Spanish sovereign was, "with holy
zeal befitting so Catholic a Prince, to undertake the defence and
exaltation of our holy Catholic faith; ... to aid the Emperor in
Bohemia; to fight the rebel Hollanders again, and to defend everywhere
our sacred faith and the authority of the Holy See." So, whilst
Olivares made efforts to stop the peculation of high officers of State,
to compel restitution of past plunder, to prevent further alienation of
national property, and to reduce to a minimum the cost of the royal
establishment, and whilst he passed ferocious sumptuary laws enjoining
modesty and economy in dress, the real root of the evil was not
touched; for taxation continued to strangle production and fell mainly
upon the poor, and the wasteful drain of unnecessary wars for an
exploded idea continued as if Spain was still wallowing in wealth.
Good, therefore, as the intentions of Olivares may have been, it is
clear that he was a disastrous adviser for an inexperienced, idle young
sovereign of sixteen.
And if his political influence was unfortunate, his social and moral
influence was no less evil. There exists, for instance, in manuscript
in various collections, and notably in the British Museum (Egerton MSS.
329), a pregnant correspondence between the Archbishop of Granada,
Philip's tutor, and Olivares, written shortly after the accession, in
which the Archbishop indignantly reproaches the favourite, who was
certainly old enough to know better, for taking the young King out into
the streets of the capital at night, and introducing him {54} into evil
company. "People," says the prelate, "are gossiping about it all over
Madrid, and things are being said about it which add little to the
Sovereign's credit or dignity." Madrid is, even now, fond of scandal,
but early in the seventeenth century, isolated as it was from the
world, Philip's capital found its most piquant pursuit from morn till
night in slander and tittle-tattle, both in the form of malicious
satirical verses that passed from hand to hand, and in whispered
immoralities touching high and low. The long raised walk by the side
wall of the Church of St. Philip at the entrance of the Calle Mayor
(High Street), from the Puerta del Sol, opposite the still standing
Oñate Palace, was the recognised centre of such confidences, and came
to be called by the appropriate name of the Mentidero (Liars' Walk).
The Archbishop in his letter proceeds to say that not only have these
people begun to whisper things about the King's proceedings which were
better unsaid; but the example shown of a young monarch and his
principal minister scouring the streets at night in search of adventure
is a bad one for the people at large; and he reminds Olivares of the
great grief and anxiety of the late King on this very account, and of
his dread that his youthful heir was already before his death being
inducted into dissipation. The answer to the bold prelate's
remonstrance is just such as might have been expected from the arrogant
favourite. He tells him, in effect, that he is an impertinent meddler,
and ought to be ashamed, at his age and in his high position, to
trouble him with the vulgar gossip of the streets! "The King is
sixteen," he says, "and he (Olivares) is thirty-four, {55} and it is
not to be expected that they are to be kept in ignorance of what is
going on in the world. It is good that the King should see all phases
of life, bad as well as good. Besides, he never trusts the King with
anyone else"; and the favourite's letter ends with a barely concealed
threat that if the Archbishop does not mind his own business in future,
ill might befall him.
[Sidenote: Philip's early profligacy]
Early, however, as was Philip's introduction into the profligacy that
was the curse of his life, and the endless subject of his remorse in
later years, he was a gallant young husband to his pretty French wife,
though with the fall of her mother, Marie de Medici, and her Italianate
crew the political object of the marriage had already failed, and
France and Spain, once more at issue, were rapidly drifting into war.
Scandalous and notorious as Philip's infidelity to his wife very soon
became, he appears to have been devotedly attached to her, and was
violently jealous of any appearance of special love or homage to her
beauty. She, on her part, true daughter of the gallant _Béarnais_ as
she was, was gay and debonair in her bearing, and followed, though
decorously, the fashion in Spain of her time, which allowed women an
amount of licence of speech with gallants impossible in other countries
or at other periods.[8] As {56} with all other ladies of the Court,
there was unkind tittle-tattle about the gay young Queen; but
apparently without the slightest foundation, though a supposed passion
for her on the part of one of the most brilliant nobles of the Court
led to tragic results for the gallant.
[Illustration: ISABEL DE BOURBON, FIRST WIFE OF PHILIP IV. _From a
portrait by Velazquez in the possession of Edward Huth, Esq._]
At a royal bull-fight--one of the earliest shows to celebrate the
King's accession in the summer of 1621--the Count of Villa Mediana, Don
Juan de Tassis, rode into the arena at the head of his troop of
cavaliers, bearing as his device a mass of silver coins called "reals"
(or royals), and above them the audacious motto of "My loves are ----,"
which was taken to mean, in conjunction with his daring glances and
marked salutes, that his love was set upon the Queen. The Count was
over forty years of age, and no beauty; and his malicious satirical
verses had been aimed at everybody in Court, from the King downward.
He was therefore well provided with enemies, who were ready to place
the worst construction on his acts. It is now proved--as far as any
such thing can be proved[9]--that the real object of the Count's
regards was a lady named Doña Francisca de Tavara, with whom the King
was carrying on an intrigue at the time. But in either case the young
King's jealousy was aroused, and his annoyance was increased by an
innocent {57} remark of his wife that "Villa Mediana aimed well." "Ah!"
replied Philip crossly, "but he aims too high"; and soon the
ill-natured story with due embellishments was being whispered all over
Madrid.[10]
[Sidenote: Count de Villa Mediana]
But in the following spring of 1622 there was a great series of
festivals at Aranjuez, where the Court was then in residence, to
celebrate Philip's seventeenth birthday. Already the glamour of the
stage had seized upon Philip and his wife, and one of the attractions
of the rejoicings was the representation in a temporary theatre of
canvas erected amidst the trees on the "island garden," and beautifully
adorned, of a comedy in verse by Count de Villa Mediana dedicated to
the Queen. The comedy was called _La Gloria de Niquea_, and Isabel
herself was to personate the goddess of beauty. It was night, and the
flimsy structure of silk and canvas was brilliantly lit with wax lights
when all the Court had assembled to see the show; the young King and
his two brothers and sister being seated in front of the stage, and the
Queen in the retiring-room behind the scenes. The prologue had been
finished successfully, and the audience were awaiting the withdrawing
of the curtain that screened the stage, when a piercing shriek went up
from the back, and a moment afterwards a long tongue of flame licked up
half the drapery before the stage, and immediately the whole place was
ablaze. Panic seized upon the splendid mob, and there was a rush to
escape. The King succeeded in fighting his way out with difficulty,
and made his {58} way to the back of the stage in search of his wife.
In the densely wooded gardens that surrounded the blazing structure he
sought for a time in vain, but at last found that Villa Mediana had
been before him, and that the half-fainting figure of the Queen was
lying in the Count's arms. Whatever may have been the truth of the
matter, this, at all events, made a delightful _bonne bouche_ for the
scandal-mongers, who hated Villa Mediana for his atrabilious gibes, and
it soon became noised abroad that the Count had planned the whole
affair, and had purposely set fire to the theatre that he might gain
the credit of having saved the Queen, and enjoy the satisfaction of
having clasped her in his arms, if but for a moment.
[Sidenote: Murder of Villa Mediana]
Four months afterwards, in August 1622, Villa Mediana was returning
home in his coach soon after dark, when, from an archway in the Calle
Mayor, opposite the alley leading to the Church of St. Gines, there
darted the cloaked figure of a man, who discharged at him a bolt from a
crossbow which pierced his chest. The Count had just time to leap from
the coach and draw his sword, shouting "It is done," when he fell dead
upon the road. Villa Mediana had been noted in a splendid Court as the
most splendid and extravagant courtier. Amongst men to whom gallantry
was an obsession, he was looked upon as the most gallant; in a society
of literary and artistic dilettanti, he was held to be the most
critical and refined; and his murder, almost at his own door in the
midst of the capital, caused a profound sensation. Murders in the open
streets, it is true, had become scandalously frequent, mostly, it was
said, prompted {59} by private vengeance, and rarely punished; but the
killing of Villa Mediana in the circumstances related set tongues
wagging in a way that had not been equalled since that luckless
secretary of Don Juan of Austria, Escovedo, had been assassinated
nearly fifty years before by the secret orders of Philip II. As if by
common consent, all fingers pointed at young King Philip as the
instigator of the crime.[11] It was asserted that the man who struck
the blow was one Alonso Mateo, a crossbowman of the King; but though
hundreds affirmed it, neither he nor any other was ever prosecuted for
the crime, and the immortal Lope de Vega, who firmly believed that the
young Sovereign connived at the murder of the Duke of Lemos, the former
minister of his father, in November 1622, only interpreted the general
belief in the capital, if it was indeed he who wrote that whoever
struck the fatal blow at Villa Mediana, "_the impulse that guided it
was sovereign_."
Whilst murders such as this were of frequent occurrence in the capital,
whilst war was looming daily closer, whilst industry lay ruined and the
fields unproductive, whilst poverty and famine stalked unchecked
through the land, the nobles and officials dependent upon the Court
grew richer in plunder and more insolent in ostentation, {60}
notwithstanding the sumptuary decrees and the frantic efforts of Philip
and Olivares to impose strict economy in one direction, as a
counterbalance to lavish squandering in others. Almost any pretext was
good enough for Philip to seize for a wasteful show. In after-times
people blamed Olivares for purposely leading the lad into these
frivolous extravagances, with the set object of diverting him from his
duty; but I am inclined to believe that this view is an unjust one as
regards the beginning of the reign. Olivares, of course, wished to
please and flatter his master; but whilst he worked like a giant
himself, and behind a perfect multitude of boards and juntas contrived
to keep in his own hands supreme control of national affairs, he
unquestionably urged Philip again and again to apply himself diligently
to work and to spend less time in pleasure.[12]
[Sidenote: Devotions and diversions]
Philip's own inclinations led him to idle and profitless pleasures,
especially those which lent themselves to theatrical display or
ostentatious decorations. The bull-fights, combats between wild
beasts, equestrian parades, cane tourneys, masques, balls, comedies and
banquets, alternated with religious processions and church ceremonies.
In these rejoicings Philip and his wife took equal pleasure. It was
the Augustan age of Spanish literature, and the drama of intrigue which
Spaniards had invented to delight Europe in future was then in its full
flood of malicious fertility. From October 1622 every Sunday and
Thursday, except during the height of summer, dramas {61} were
performed by regular actors and actresses in the private theatre of the
palace, the Queen being nominally the principal patron of the pastime.
Some of the comedies then first represented may be mentioned as
indicating the taste of the time. "The Scorned Sweetheart," "Jealousy
of a Horse," and "The Loss of Spain" were three plays by Pedro Valdes,
for which the Queen paid 300 reals, or £6 each. "The Fortunate
Farmer," "The Woman's Avenger," "The Husband of his Sister," and "The
Power of Opportunity" were other plays paid for by the Queen; and the
total number of new dramas represented in the Queen's apartments in the
palace during the winter of 1622-23 was forty-three, the fees for which
reached 13,500 reals, equal to £270.[13]
The favourite convent of the Discalced Carmelites, by the Church of St.
Martin, was the scene of constant royal visits and semi-religious
dissipations, and one of the most pompous of the ceremonious
festivities that beguiled the dazzled crowd at the beginning of the
reign was the series of shows that celebrated the canonisation of three
of the most popular of Spanish saints in 1622, when all Madrid, in
alternating devotional ecstasy and frivolous jollity, followed the King
and his wife in honouring St. Isidore, the husbandman, now the patron
of Madrid, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the
Jesuits. Accompanied by the bull-fights and ceremonial trials of
accused heretics, called _autos-de-fe_, which specially delighted the
crowd, this canonisation fete also {62} revived an ancient Spanish
diversion, which thenceforward became under Philip's patronage one of
the most highly appreciated of the pleasures of his literary Court,
namely, the Literary Academies, as they were called, and Floral Games,
or poetical competitions, in which the poetasters tried their mettle
one against the other, in hope of gaining the ear of powerful patrons
for their verses. It was a struggle of keen wits; for in no time or
court was poetry, especially satirical and dramatic poetry, ever so
fashionable; and that it degenerated later into preciosity,
extravagance, and affectation was the natural result of the universal
struggle to gain a hearing in a chorus of verse.
[Sidenote: An equestrian masque]
There are abundant and for the most part tedious contemporary
descriptions of these various courtly festivities, descriptions usually
as pompous and dry as is to our taste the affected frivolity of the
festivities themselves.[14] But though these turgid productions cannot
be quoted to any great length in a book like the present, which is
intended to suggest a general picture of the Court and times rather
than a series of minute sectional photographs, an idea may be gained of
the scale upon which the festivities were arranged, by giving a rigidly
condensed translation of the account of a great masque and equestrian
display given by Philip and his brother Carlos on the 26th February
1623.[15]
{63}
"All the Court was anxious for the day when his Majesty and the Infante
Don Carlos should honour and delight it with the promised feast. It
took place on Palm Sunday, with a magnificent mask notable not only for
its beauty, its ingenuity, and costly garments, and the high nobles and
gentlemen who took part, but also because his Majesty and his Highness
appeared in it.
"Four enclosed courses had been made; the principal one before the
palace, and the others before the Convent of Discalced Carmelites, in
the Plaza Mayor, and at the Gate of Guadalajara,[16] many (side)
streets being barricaded and occupied by mounted alguacils
(constables), and no coaches being allowed in the streets. The best
horses Andalucia could breed or the world could see were brought out
that day, with glittering trappings and harness, liveries, devices and
accoutrements, richer than had ever been beheld. The King had ordered
all the maskers to be ready mounted at the Convent of the
Incarnation[17] at one o'clock, a stage and canopy having been erected
there from which his Majesty was to mount. At about two o'clock the
Spanish and German Guards arrived,[18] very smart and handsome, under
Don Fernando Verdugo and the Marquis de Rentin; and soon afterwards the
{64} royal horses came, having gone in procession through the streets
where the maskers were to pass. This was the order in which they came.
First twelve drummers, thirty trumpeters, and eight minstrels, all on
horseback, and dressed in white and black velvet; after them came the
pioneers on foot, and then the royal grooms, and thirty-six splendidly
caparisoned horses covered with housings of crimson velvet fringed with
gold, bearing upon each a crown of cloth of gold and a cipher of
"Philip IV." They were led by thirty-six lackeys, some in black and
some in crimson, their garments being trimmed with frizzed velvet, like
embroidery. The farriers came next, distinguished from the lackeys by
wearing caps instead of hats. Thirty-six postillions followed, dressed
like slaves in silvered plush on a black ground, with hats to match....
[Sidenote: An equestrian parade]
"The first noble to put in an appearance (_i.e._ at the Incarnation)
was Don Pedro de Toledo, Marquis of Villafranca, general of the Spanish
cavalry. He was dressed in black, with cape and bonnet, and bore the
insignia and baton of a general. With him came twelve lackeys in
liveries of black velvet trimmed with gold, and twelve pages dressed
similarly, but with white plumes in their caps. In like guise came the
Marquis of Flores D'Avila, chief equerry of the King, whose noble
presence and snowy hair, even if he had been alone, would have sufficed
to dignify the feast. When the greater part of the nobles, the flower
of Spain, had collected, the sun, to speak in poetical terms, envious
of so much splendour and majesty, summoned up dark clouds which for a
long time ceased not to pour water upon the festival. The {65}
feelings on the matter of the rain were divided. First it was a pity
if the show were spoilt, the preparations being more beautiful and
costly than had ever been made for a masquerade at Court, there being
forty-eight pairs of horsemen, each with different liveries, besides
his Majesty and his brother. The livery of the King and the Count of
Olivares was steel grey with white plumes, whilst those of the Infante
and the Marquis de Carpio were black and white with plumes to match.
The second emotion aroused by the rain was rejoicing at the good it
would do to the poor people who needed it so much for their crops, even
though the maskers and merry-makers had to take shelter under the
eaves. But soon the sky cleared, and the rain ceased; so that all were
satisfied. The clarions by and by rang out and announced that the King
and the Infante had mounted, and the maskers did the same. Then Don
Fernando Verdugo and the Guards clearing the way, Don Pedro de Toledo
led the cavalcade to the palace, where the course ended in front of the
balcony in which our lady the Queen with the Infanta Maria, and the
Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, the Infante Fernando, were seated, the
ladies in waiting occupying the rest of the balconies of the royal
apartment. If I described the precious stones, the gold, the rich
dresses and the wealth displayed, this work would be a long one. The
first to run was Don Pedro de Toledo, with his accustomed gravity and
dignity; and, having reached the end of the course, he bowed low to the
Queen and their royal Highnesses, and then made a signal for the rest
of the maskers to follow one {66} another along the course. (Here
follow the resounding names of the ninety-six Spanish nobles, dukes,
marquises, and counts who formed the company.) The last pair to run
were his Majesty the King and the Count of Olivares, with the dexterity
and gallantry to be expected of them. The effect was strange and
brilliant in the extreme, for each pair of horsemen wore different
colours and devices. The splendid squadron was closed by the Spanish
and German Guards and other troops, led by Verdugo. All the horsemen
rode with great rapidity, but the Infante Carlos and the Marquis of
Carpio went by like a flash of lightning, to the astonishment of
everyone. This pair had hardly covered half the course when the Queen
and the Infanta and the Cardinal Infante stood up in their balcony,
because they saw that the King and the Count of Olivares were starting
out, they being the last to run. They swept by, not on steeds, as it
seemed, but on the wind itself, wafted onward by the blessings of those
who saw them. Again they covered the course thus, and then the whole
cavalcade rode to the plaza before the Convent of the Discalced
Carmelites."
At various parts of the capital the same sumptuous show was repeated;
the most popular and crowded exhibition being in the great square (the
Plaza Mayor) then recently built, and but little altered since that
time. The King, we are told, rode a beautiful bay stallion presented
to him by the Marquis of Carpio; and when the running was over and
night fell the horsemen still paraded the streets, which were
illuminated by thousands {67} of torches, the cost of the feast having
amounted to more than 200,000 ducats.
[Sidenote: Two strangers in Madrid]
But ten days after the wasteful ostentation just described an event
happened which not only stirred Spain and all Europe, but was an
occasion for the display of lavishness by Philip that threw into the
shade all the festivities that had gone before it. Between five and
six in the evening of the 7th March 1623, as the twilight began to
fall, two young Englishmen, travel-stained and unaccompanied, rode into
the noisome, unpaved streets of Madrid. Inquiring the way to the house
of the English ambassador, the Earl of Bristol, they were directed to
the "house of the seven chimneys," lying in a retired street off the
Calle de Alcalá. When they arrived there, the elder of the two
travellers was told, in answer to his summons at the wicket, that his
Excellency the ambassador was busy, and could not be disturbed. The
visitor persisted, and sent word that he brought an important letter
from Sir Francis Cottington, who was on his way from England, and had
broken down on the road a day's journey away. At length, upon being
admitted, the cloaked and dishevelled stranger, shouldering a small
valise that formed their only luggage, left his younger companion in
the shadow of the wall across the way to guard the horses during his
parley with the ambassador.
Lord Bristol (Sir John Digby) was full of care, for matters were not
going very smoothly with the difficult negotiation upon the successful
issue of which his whole future depended, as well as great
international issues. For twelve years he {68} had been backwards and
forwards to Spain as King James' ambassador to bring about a marriage
of the Prince of Wales with the Infanta Maria. James Stuart was a
cunning fool, who was easily beaten in diplomacy, because he flattered
himself that he could beat everybody else in duplicity. Most of his
life, from long before he inherited the English crown, he had been
playing the same game: trying to make other men his tools by pretending
to agree with them. He had professed himself both Catholic and
Protestant so often that now no one believed or trusted him, least of
all the Catholics, whom he had deceived again and again.
[Sidenote: The English match]
When it had been necessary for Philip III. and Lerma to divert England
from a threatened coalition with France, they had feigned to listen to
the British King's advances, which they had previously repelled with
scorn. Though insincere, they always had in view the prospect of
gaining great immediate advantages for the Catholics of England, and
subsequently they hoped the re-entry of Great Britain into the fold of
the Church. The King of Spain and his minister had also been somewhat
led astray by the sanguine hopes in this direction, given by their own
ambassador in London, Count de Gondomar, whose diplomatic position was
as much at stake as that of the Earl of Bristol. Gondomar, confident,
as well he might be, of his power to bend King James ultimately to his
will, had, there is no doubt, systematically minimised for years the
obstacles to the match on both sides, and had led both his own
Government and King James to believe that the other side would
ultimately make concessions, which {69} we now see clearly would have
been impossible for either. James or his son dared not become openly
Catholic, nor could they force the English Parliament to reverse the
whole religious policy of the last half century at the bidding of a
foreign Power; whilst, with their traditions behind them, it was
equally impossible for Philip and Lerma to mate their Princess with a
"heretic." In order to keep James from breaking away from Spain, the
intrigue had for some years past been transferred to Rome, where a
dispensation from the Pope for the marriage was being interminably
discussed.
This was the position when Philip IV. ascended the throne, and it is
quite certain that, whatever may have been the real intentions of the
ministers of Philip III. at an earlier period, neither Philip IV. nor
Olivares, with their revived arrogant claims for Spain as the
dictatress of Europe, meant to marry the Infanta to the English Prince
against the dying injunction of Philip III., unless, indeed, and even
that is doubtful, upon terms quite impossible for the English to
accept.[19] Bristol had {70} been sent once more to Madrid as
ambassador in June 1622. He had found Olivares and Philip full of soft
words about the match, though he promptly guessed that their real aim
was still to delay matters, whilst securing Catholic concessions from
England, and he urged King James to insist upon a settlement of the
points at issue.[20]
Whilst he was labouring at his impossible task, and almost despairing
of success, an underhand intrigue was carried on behind his back by
those who thought that his diplomatic caution stood in the way of a
settlement of the affair. James badly wanted ready money in form of a
dowry for his son's bride, and a guarantee that the Palatinate should
be restored by the Emperor to his son-in-law, Frederick. Olivares
wanted to lead England on to the slope of Catholicism, and to ensure
Spain's hegemony over Europe. Gondomar, who had returned to Spain, and
Buckingham, whom he had bought, wanted to gain the honour and profit of
having effected so important a match. So, at Gondomar's instance,
Buckingham sent his half-Spanish secretary, Endymion Porter, a late
page of Olivares, to Madrid with secret orders to promise religious
concessions, which, had they been known in England, would have caused
serious trouble, and to hint that the Prince himself might come to
Spain to fetch his bride. Porter, who was no diplomatist, saw Olivares
early in November 1622, and bluntly asked for assurance that in return
for the concessions promised, Spain would at once consent to the
marriage and force the Emperor to restore the Palatinate to the
Elector, {71} at which Olivares haughtily scoffed, and said that, as
for the match, he did not know what Porter meant.[21] Bristol soon
heard of this, and quite lost heart, but he did not know that Endymion
took back to London a private message from Gondomar to Buckingham,
telling him that the only way to make the match was for the Prince to
come suddenly to Madrid incognito and force the hands of the
slow-moving diplomatists, who would be unable to draw back when the
honour of England was so far pledged.
Poetic and romantic Prince Charles was soon won over to so compromising
and dangerous a course; but King James wept and slobbered like a
frightened infant when "Baby" and "Steenie" wrung from him unwilling
permission to undertake so hare-brained an adventure.[22] Only
Cottington and Porter were to go with them to Spain, and the former at
least, who knew Spain well, was dead against the voyage; but
Buckingham's violence gained the day. Distancing all posts, and riding
for a fortnight an average of sixty miles a day, through France and
over the rough mule tracks in the north of Spain, {72} the little party
pushed onwards. Cottington and Porter were distanced and left behind a
day's journey from Madrid; and when the man with the valise, who gave
his name as Thomas Smith, entered Lord Bristol's study, and, throwing
aside his cloak and hat, disclosed the handsome face of "Steenie," the
Marquis of Buckingham, the King's favourite, the ambassador was in
dismay, increased almost to terror when he learnt that the Prince of
Wales, the only son of King James, masquerading under the name of John
Smith, was holding the horses on the other side of the dark street.[23]
[Sidenote: Charles and Buckingham]
What was to be done? The presence of the heir of England could not be
hidden for many hours from gossiping Madrid, for the couriers from
Paris, where he had been recognised, were following close upon his
heels. A voyage to Spain in those days was a far greater adventure
than an expedition to Thibet would be now, and the temerity, nay the
foolhardiness, of putting such a pledge as the Prince of Wales
unconditionally in the hands of the Spaniards, who if they chose to
detain him could exact what terms they liked as the price of his safe
return, struck the harassed ambassador with alarm. "My Lord Bristol in
a kind of astonishment brought him (_i.e._ Prince Charles) up to his
chamber, where he presently called for pen and ink, and despatched a
post that night to England to acquaint his Majesty how in less than
sixteen days he was come safely to the Court of Spain."[24]
After grave discussion in Bristol's room, it was {73} decided to send
at once for Gondomar, to whom, as Buckingham well knew, the arrival of
the Prince would cause no surprise. It was past nine o'clock at night
when Gondomar entered the "house with the seven chimneys," full of glee
at the success of his bold diplomacy; and not long afterwards he was at
the door of Olivares' rooms' in the palace, anxious to give to the
favourite the first news of the great event. The Count-Duke was seated
at supper as Gondomar entered the apartment. The famous Spanish
ambassador in England owed much of his success to the assumed bluff
jocosity with which he was wont to cover his cunning; but when he
bounced into the Count-Duke's supper chamber on this occasion, he was
so exuberant in his joy that grave Olivares looked up in surprise, and
said: "Ah, Count! what brings you here at such an hour as this? You
look as jolly as if you had the King of England himself in Madrid."
"If we have not the King," chuckled Gondomar, "we have the next best
thing to him,--the Prince of Wales."[25]
Olivares was far from sharing Gondomar's delight. To him the news
meant infinite anxiety, danger, and expenditure; for not only must the
Prince be entertained lavishly, but somehow he must be got rid of
without marrying the Infanta, and if possible without a national war
with England for the slight put upon the Prince. The Count-Duke
hurried to the King's apartments with the great news, and Philip was as
much taken aback as his minister, for young as he was he fully
understood the gravity of the situation. One thing, however, {74} he
was quite determined upon. Already the adulation of which he had been
made the object, and the high hopes aroused by the new measures and men
that had been introduced upon his accession, had convinced the lad he
was the heaven-sent instrument destined to restore to Spain its proud
supremacy over a united Christendom, and religious exaltation had
claimed him henceforth for its own, however ungodly his daily life
might be. When Olivares had laid before him the difficulties that
arose from the unexpected descent of Charles Stuart upon them, Philip
rose, and walking to where a figure of Christ crucified hung at the
head of his bed, he kissed the feet of the figure, and burst out into
the following impassioned oath: "O Lord! I swear to Thee by the human
and divine alliance crucified that in Thee I adore, and upon whose feet
I seal this pledge with my lips, that not only shall the coming of this
Prince be powerless to make me concede one point in the matter of the
Catholic religion, not in accordance with what Thy Vicar the Pontiff of
Rome may resolve, but even if I were to lose all the realms I enjoy, by
Thy grace I will not give way a single iota." Then turning to Olivares
(who says that this was one of the only two oaths he ever knew the King
to take), Philip told him they must nevertheless fulfil the duties of
hospitality that the Prince had thrown upon them.[26]
For the greater part of that night the minister worked hard laying out
all the plans for the entertainment of the Prince, and for avoiding
without giving mortal offence the marriage he sought. At {75} eight
o'clock next morning a meeting of high councillors, with Gondomar and
the King's confessor, met in the Count-Duke's room in the palace, the
result of their deliberations, being highly characteristic: namely,
"first, to offer public prayers to God in thanks for the event, and in
supplication for His guidance"; and secondly, to instruct Gondomar to
sound Buckingham and Cottington (who was expected to arrive that day)
as to how far the King of England might be squeezed, "in order to bring
this visit to be a great and very signal service to the Church."[27]
[Sidenote: Olivares meets Buckingham]
A dozen knotty points of etiquette had to be settled, and Gondomar was
busy all day speeding backward and forward between the palace and the
"house with the seven chimneys";[28] but at last it was arranged that
the pride of Olivares should be saved from making the first visit, by
the device of an apparently chance meeting with Buckingham. Already
Madrid was agog with the news that some great personage, the King of
England some said, had arrived in disguise; and when, late on Saturday
afternoon, the great swaying gilded coach of Olivares, with its leather
curtains, its six gaudily decked mules, and its crowd of liveried
servants and pages around it, was seen threading the green {76} alleys
of the gardens below the palace on the banks of the Manzanares, all the
idlers on "Liars Walk" knew that the Count-Duke was going to meet, "by
chance," the Admiral of England, the favourite of his King. When the
carriages met, Olivares alighted and greeted Buckingham half-way
between their coaches, where, with carefully arranged politeness and
high-flown compliments, as false as they were pompous, the great Guzman
first measured his strength with brilliant, rash, unscrupulous George
Villiers.
After many professions of delight on both sides, the Count-Duke entered
the English coach with Buckingham, Bristol, and Cottington, and for an
hour they drove in close confabulation. On their return they entered
the palace gateway, and Olivares secretly led Buckingham into the
King's presence, where again the compliments were repeated. There is
no doubt that the Spaniards, from the King downward, were flattered
with the embarrassing visit, which was a patent proof, it was proudly
claimed, of the reality of Spain's regained power and superiority under
the new régime, when the heir of England came wooing her at so great a
risk. So Philip was all smiles to Buckingham; and when the latter
returned to the "house with the seven chimneys," Olivares insisted upon
accompanying him to greet the Prince personally in the King's name, the
Spanish narratives say that the Count-Duke performed his part with all
the dignity and splendour characteristic of him; but Howel, who was in
Madrid at the time, and knew Porter well, writes that the Count-Duke
"knelt, and kissed his (_i.e._ the Prince's) hands and hugged his
thighs, {77} and delivered how immeasurably glad his Catholic Majesty
was at his coming, and other high compliments, which Mr. Porter did
interpret."[29]
During the interview Charles expressed his ardent desire to see his
lady love, the Infanta--"to discover the wooer," as Buckingham called
it; and it was agreed that on the next day, Sunday, 9th March, the
coaches of the royal family should parade the Prado, where the Infanta
should be distinguished by a blue ribbon tied round her arm; and the
Prince in Bristol's coach might meet the royal party as if by chance,
and incognito. Little enough of incognito there was about the affair,
when, at four o'clock in the afternoon the ambassador's coach with the
Prince, Buckingham, Aston, Gondomar, and Bristol in it, stood in the
narrow street of the Puerta de Guadalajara in the Calle Mayor to await
the coming of the King's party. Every foot of the streets was crowded
with sightseers, and the pride and joy of the show-loving Madrileños
knew no bounds. By and by the long line of coaches accompanying the
King rumbled by, and at last young Philip with his pretty dark-eyed
girl wife, his two young brothers, Carlos and Fernando, almost exact
replicas of himself, with their lank sandy hair, their long white
faces, thick red lips, under-hung jaws and great pale eyes. In the
door-seat of the carriage sat the Infanta Maria. She was much like her
brothers: "a very comely lady, rather of Flemish complexion than
Spanish, fair haired, and carrying a most pure mixture of red and white
in her face. She is full and big lipped, {78} which is held a beauty
rather than a blemish."[30] As the King's carriage passed that of the
Prince, Philip, who was not supposed to see Charles, bowed low, as did
his brothers, to Lord Bristol; but it was noticed that the Infanta
first flushed and then turned deadly pale as her lover's eyes fell upon
her.
The poor girl, indeed, was getting seriously alarmed. She was, of
course, devout and ignorant. To her heretics were an abomination, and
the prospect of living amongst such was worse than death. Her monkish
confessor painted in lurid colours the horror of the fate that
threatened her; worse than hell it was, he said, to lie by a heretic's
side, and bear heretic children. Only that morning she had sent her
confidential lady, Margaret Tavara, to Olivares, passionately
protesting against the marriage being seriously negotiated. She would,
she said, take refuge in the Convent of the Discalced Carmelites, and
assume the nun's veil the moment she heard that the capitulations were
signed. Charles on his part appears to have been really smitten with
the pink and white charms of the little lady, and played the eager
wooer well. The Prince and Buckingham writing to their "Dear Dad and
Gossip" (the King) calls this first meeting "a private obligation
hidden from nobody; for there was the Pope's Nuncio, the Emperor's
ambassador, the French, and all the streets filled with guards and
other people. Before the King's coach went the best of the nobility,
after followed by the ladies of the Court. We sat in an invisible
coach, because nobody was suffered {79} to take notice of it, though
seen by all the world."[31] The cavalcades then wended their ways by
different roads to the Prado, where, parading up and down, the Prince
had several opportunities of looking upon his blushing sweetheart.
Soon Olivares came and entered the Prince's coach; and again fulsome
compliments passed as they drove back to the English embassy.[32]
Buckingham, indeed, was fairly dazzled and deceived, for both he and
Charles believed now that the match was as good as completed. Alas!
they did not know Olivares or Spanish methods so well as Bristol did.
[Sidenote: "Steenie's" letter to James I.]
"If we can judge by outward shows," wrote Charles and Steenie to the
King, "or general speeches, we have reason to condemn your ambassadors
for rather writing too sparingly than too much. To conclude, we find
the Conde de Olivares so overvaluing our journey, he is so full of real
courtesy, that we can do no less than beseech your Majesty to write the
kindest letter of thanks and acknowledgment you can unto him. He said,
no later to us than this morning, that if the Pope would not give a
dispensation for a wife they would give the Infanta to thy Baby as his
wench,[33] {80} and hath this day written to Cardinal Ludovico, the
Pope's nephew, that the King of England hath put such an obligation
upon this King in sending his son hither, that he entreats him to make
haste of the dispensation, for he can deny nothing that is in his
kingdom.... The Pope's Nuncio works as maliciously and as actively as
he can against us, but receives such rude answers that we hope he will
soon weary on't. We make this collection that the Pope will be very
loth to grant a dispensation, which, if he will not do, then we would
gladly have your directions how far we may engage you in the
acknowledgment of the Pope's special power, for we almost find, if you
will be contented to acknowledge the Pope as chief head under Christ,
that the match will be made without him."[34]
It is difficult to know what to condemn most in this astounding
letter,--whether the simplicity that made Buckingham so easy a dupe of
Olivares' soft speeches, or the proposal at the end, which, as the
reply shows, was too much even for King James, that the latter should
abandon the main condition upon which he held the Protestant crown of
England. It is clear that the intention of {81} Olivares was to cast
upon the Pope the whole of the blame for the failure of the match, and
this, at least from the Spanish point of view, was a statesmanlike
policy, although the full falsity of it is evident to us now that we
have before us the communications that passed between Madrid and Rome
on the subject.[35]
[Sidenote: Charles in Madrid]
Leaving Charles at the embassy after the drive, Olivares and
Buckingham, with Porter as their interpreter, re-entered a coach and
drove off in the gathering darkness to the gardens behind the palace,
to arrange the details of the coming private interview to be held that
night between Philip and the English Prince. Whilst the coach, with
Olivares and Buckingham, was in the green alleys of the garden, a man,
unaccompanied, with his cloak masking his face, and sword and buckler
by his side, was seen walking towards them. "This is the King," said
Olivares, to Steenie's intense astonishment. "Is it possible,"
exclaimed Buckingham, "that you have a King who can walk like that?
What a marvel!" and, leaping from the carriage, he knelt and kissed the
young King's hand. Entering the coach again, the party, accompanied
now by the King, were driven through the quiet streets of the unlit
capital, for it was ten o'clock at night, to the Prado, where the
Prince, with Gondomar, Bristol, Aston, and Cottington, in another
coach, awaited their coming. Descending and embracing warmly, the King
and Prince then re-entered the carriage with Bristol alone, and for
more than half an hour discoursed amiable banalities in the darkness
under the overhanging trees of the promenade.
{82}
Thenceforward Buckingham and Olivares by agreement changed offices, the
former constituting himself chief equerry in waiting to Philip, whilst
Olivares attended Prince Charles. In pursuance of this idea, the suite
of apartments in the palace occupied by Olivares as master of the horse
were hastily prepared with great magnificence for the occupation of the
English Prince; and whilst their redecoration and furnishing were being
accomplished, Charles was invited to transfer his lodging to the rooms
in the monastery of St. Geronimo in the Prado, to which the Kings of
Spain usually retired in times of mourning, and previous to state
entries to the capital, an invitation which he did not accept.
In the week that followed the first meeting of Charles and his host,
until Sunday the 16th March,[36] which was the day fixed for his public
entry into the city, Madrid was astir with excitement. The pragmatic
decrees recently promulgated forbidding starched and fluted ruffs,
embroidered dresses, and the use of gold in tissues, and generally
suppressing extravagance of living, were all suspended by proclamation
during the visit of the Prince; the streets were ordered to be swept
and garnished, and the houses on the line of route richly adorned; and
Madrid, by the morning of the day fixed for the public entry, had
covered its squalor and dirt by an overcoating of finery. All the
gaols, too, were emptied of prisoners, by way of welcoming the English
guest.[37]
In the week of waiting Charles sought permission {83} to visit Philip
privately in return for the interview in the Prado on Sunday night, and
he and Buckingham gave the following account of the meeting to their
"Dear Dad and Gossip."
"The next day your Baby desired to kiss the King's hand privately in
the palace, which was granted, and thus performed. First, the King
would not suffer him to come to his chamber, but met him at the
stair-foot, then entered into the coach and walked in his park. The
greatest matter that passed between them was compliments, ... and then
by force he would needs convey him (_i.e._ Charles) half way home, in
which doing they were both almost overthrown in brick pits. Two days
after we met his Majesty again in his park with his two brothers; they
spent their time in seeing his men kill partridges flying and conies
running with a gun."[38]
In the meanwhile the people with pride and delight had quite satisfied
themselves that the coming of the Prince meant the intended conversion
of himself to Catholicism and the return of England to the fold of the
Church,[39] and Olivares pressed this {84} point so persistently and
publicly upon Charles, that Buckingham himself began to take fright.
He noticed that whenever the Count-Duke found himself near Charles,
which indeed was continually, he turned the conversation towards the
Catholic religion. Charles was young, the son of a Catholic mother,
and was certainly for the time smitten by the Catholic Infanta: his
father had professed himself Catholic again and again; and at this
moment was writing thus to his "Sweet boys": "I send you, my Baby, two
of your fittest chaplains for this purpose, Mawe and Wren, together
with all stuff and ornaments fit for the service of God. I have fully
instructed them, so as all their behaviour and service shall, I hope,
prove decent and agreeable to the service of the primitive Church; _and
yet as near the Roman form as can lawfully be done; for it hath ever
been my way to go with the Church of Rome usque ad aras_." But
whatever may have been the tendencies of Charles himself, Buckingham in
his saner moments, and certainly Bristol, must have seen the pitfall
laid for the Prince, and thus early, in the midst of all the
complimentary billing and cooing before the state entry, the young
adventurers began to realise the {85} difficulty of the task, which
looked so easy from a distance.
On the day following the state entry, Charles and Buckingham wrote to
the King--
"For our chief business, we find them by outward shows as desirous of
it as ourselves, yet they are hankering upon a conversion; for they say
that there can be no firm friendship without union in religion, but
they put no question in bestowing their sister, and we put the other
quite out of the question, because neither our conscience nor the time
serves for it."[40]
Delay, as they said, was the worst denial; for King James was in a
hurry,--in a hurry to get his heir married, in a hurry for the
Infanta's dowry, and in a hurry to get the Palatinate back for his
son-in-law; and as yet the priests were still squabbling over the
dispensation in Rome, and Olivares, equally with his master, was
determined to delay until either England became practically Catholic,
or the English themselves broke off the negotiations by refusing the
terms upon which Rome, prompted by the Spanish agents, alone would
consent to the match. This, indeed, as Olivares saw, was the only
slender chance of preventing war with England, and to avoid throwing
James into the arms of France.
[1] Novoa, who was present at the scene described, _Documentos
Ineditos_, lxi.
[2] Especially Gil Blas, Guzman de Alfarache, Marcos de Obregon,
Estevanillo Gonzales, and El Diablo Cojuelo.
[3] This was constantly denied by his many enemies, but original
documents, to which I shall refer later, will prove that in this as in
so many other things they did him an injustice, whatever his real aim
might have been.
[4] _Cambridge Modern History_, vol. iv. "Spain," by Martin Hume.
[5] _Fragmentos Historicos MSS._, by Vera y Figueroa, also Novoa, and
Yañez,; and _Relazioni degli Ambassciatori Veneti_, British Museum
MSS., Add. 8701.
[6] _Discursos y Apuntamientos_, by Lison y Biedma, a member of this
Parliament. (Secretly printed book of the period in my possession,
which gives a sad picture of affairs.)
[7] There are two letters in _Cabala_--the first from Philip to
Olivares, and the second the minister's reply to the King--which show
that there was never any intention on their part of carrying the
English match through. The long letter from Olivares to the King is an
adaptation of a Spanish original which is well known, and to which I
shall refer later, proposing the marriage of Charles with the Emperor's
daughter; but the King's letter which produced Olivares' reply is not,
to my knowledge, printed elsewhere.
"The King my father declared at his death that his intention never was
to marry my sister the Infanta Doña Maria with the Prince of Wales,
which your uncle Don Baltasar well understood; for he so treated this
match with an intention to delay it, notwithstanding it is so far
advanced that, considering with all the averseness unto it of the
Infanta, it is high time to seek some means to divert the treaty which
I would have you discover, and I will make it good whatsoever it may
be; but in all other things procure the satisfaction of the King of
Great Britain, who hath deserved very much, and it shall content me, so
that it be not the match." This must have been written before Charles'
arrival in Madrid.
[8] Nearly all foreigners who visited Madrid during the reign of Philip
IV. remarked the extraordinary liberty which existed in the demeanour
of the women, even ladies of high birth and position, no doubt a
reaction from the conventual strictness with which they had been kept
during the two previous reigns. There is no need to multiply
authorities; but the following passage, from the report of the Venetian
ambassador in Spain at the time of Olivares' fall, will give an idea of
the prevailing laxity--even in the royal entourage. "In the royal
palace the gentlemen are permitted to carry on with the ladies of the
Queen the relations they call 'gallanting,' in which lavishness,
ostentation, and expenditure are carried to such an extraordinary
excess as to be beyond belief, although here it is considered the most
ordinary thing in the world, for rivalry and competition do away with
all moderation. Those who go the greatest lengths are held in the
highest esteem, not only by the courtiers in general, but also by the
royal personages, who make quite a recreation of hearing the accounts
of the presents given and attentions paid to them, that the ladies
narrate daily to their Majesties." British Museum MS., Add. 8701.
[9] Address; by J. E. Hartzenbusch, _Transactions of the Royal Spanish
Academy_, 1861.
[10] It is fair to say that this story depends upon the very
untrustworthy evidence of Mme. D'Aulnoy.
[11] The tradition that this was the case existed from the first, and
has never been lost; although most of the stories of the relations of
Villa Mediana with the Queen are quite unsupported by serious
contemporary evidence. Lord Holland, in his _Lope de Vega_, says that
only a few days after Philip's accession, the Prime Minister Zuñiga,
Olivares' uncle, warned Villa Mediana that his life was in danger. The
tradition that Philip was involved in the murder from motives of
jealousy is too firm and long-standing to be ignored, though whether
his jealousy concerned his wife is very doubtful.
[12] Transcripts (contemporary) of these letters, etc., to which
reference will be made later, are in British Museum, Egerton MSS. 338.
[13] _Historia del Arte Dramatica en España_, from the German of A. F.
Schack.
[14] Especially in the MS. of the Royal Academy of History, Madrid by
Soto y Aguilar, one of the courtiers and writers of the time, and in
the MS. at the National Library at Madrid (M. 299) called Noticias de
Madrid. These are contemporary news letters from 1621 to 1627.
[15] From the Soto y Aguilar MS. already mentioned.
[16] This was a narrow street forming part of the line of the Calle
Mayor, in which it is now incorporated. It is quite close to the other
three courses.
[17] A tremendous and costly monastic house (of which the church still
stands in the Calle Mayor) upon which Philip III. and his wife had
squandered incredible sums.
[18] This is very Spanish. The whole of the company had been ordered
to be ready mounted at one o'clock, and yet the royal guard which was
to keep the space and maintain order did not appear until an hour
later, the maskers of course coming later still.
[19] In a document quoted on page 51, it will have been noticed that
Philip refers to the match as being one that it was necessary to avoid,
even at the cost of a war with England. In a notable document in
Spanish in the British Museum (MSS. Add. 14,043), reproduced by the
Camden Society under the editorship of Dr. Gardiner (_El Hecho de los
Tratados de Matrimonio_, etc.), there is a long memorandum written by
Olivares for Philip's information in 1622, proposing as a way out of
the difficulty the marriage of the Infanta to the son of the Emperor,
the marriage of the Prince of Wales with the Emperor's elder daughter,
and the betrothal of the Palatine's eldest son Maurice to the second
daughter on condition that the Prince was sent to Vienna to be brought
up as a Catholic, the Palatinate being restored to him after his
marriage. This solution, however, it is quite evident, would have been
unacceptable to James for many reasons. In any case it is quite clear
that when Charles appeared in Madrid, Olivares had no intention of
allowing the Infanta to marry him, unless indeed England became
Catholic.
[20] The Earl of Bristol's defence. _Camden Society Miscellany_, vol.
vi.
[21] A very interesting and, as I believe, unpublished contemporary
manuscript account of the proceedings of Charles and Buckingham in
Madrid, and of the events that followed their return to London, so far
as regards the Spanish match, has been brought to my notice whilst this
chapter is being written. The manuscript, evidently an original,
appears to have been the work of someone who accompanied the Prince in
his journey. Many expressions in it are the same as those which I have
quoted from other sources, especially from certain letters of Endymion
Porter in the Record Office, and from those of Buckingham to the King,
most of which were written by Porter. I am therefore led to the
conclusion that this interesting new document, which is the property of
Dr. Rosedale of the Royal Society of Literature, is the work of
Endymion Porter. I am informed that it will shortly be published by
the Society.
[22] Clarendon, _Great Rebellion_.
[23] Howel's _Familiar Letters_. Howel was in Madrid at the time.
[24] Howel's _Familiar Letters_.
[25] _Fragmentos Historicos de la Vida de Caspar de Guzman_, etc. MS.
by Count de la Roca in my possession.
[26] _Fragmentos Historicos_, etc. MS. by Count de la Roca, the great
friend and confidant of Olivares.
[27] _Hecho de los Tratados_, etc., British Museum MS., Add. 14,043,
and Camden Society.
[28] Gondomar had been raised to the Council of State during the early
morning sitting, and on his first visit that day (Saturday) to the
English embassy he came rushing to the Prince in his usual boisterously
jocose fashion, saying that he had a strange piece of news to convey.
"An Englishman had been sworn a Privy Councillor of Spain," meaning, as
Howel (who tells the story) says, himself, who, he professed, was an
Englishman at heart. This was the kind of joke by which he had managed
to dominate King James.
[29] _Familiar Letters_. The sequence of events, meetings, etc., as
given in _Life and Times of James I._, is untrustworthy.
[30] Howel.
[31] Hardwicke, _State Papers_. Charles and Buckingham to the King.
[32] We are told that on this occasion Olivares, notwithstanding the
Prince's remonstrance, insisted upon taking the humble seat at the
carriage doorstep; and that throughout the whole visit he treated
Charles with the same honours as he did the King, kneeling when he
spoke to him, kissing his hand, etc. Charles, on the other hand,
appears to have been equally polite to Olivares; but Buckingham soon
got tired of an attitude so unusual to him, and behaved himself with
extraordinary rudeness and ill-breeding, as will be told later. _Hecho
de los Tratados_, etc.
[33] Lord Bristol, in his defence (Camden Miscellany, vi.) gives an
account of a conversation in the coach when the Prince, Bristol,
Gondomar, Olivares, Buckingham, and Aston were waiting for the royal
party to pass on the Sunday referred to in the text. This shows how
entirely Olivares had convinced them all of his sincerity. Gondomar in
boastful mood had asked Olivares if he was not justified now in all he
had written from England about the real desire of King James for the
marriage; and whether Bristol and himself had not proved themselves
honest men. "Yes," replied Olivares, "you may both say your _Nunc
Dimitis_ now, and trouble no more about it, except to claim the reward
of success." No blame, he said, could attach to them in any case.
[34] Hardwicke, _State Papers_.
[35] _Hecho de los Tratados_, etc. B.M. MSS. Add. 14,043.
[36] The dates given throughout are old style, according to the English
calendar of the time. The Spanish dates are ten days later.
[37] MSS. Soto y Aguilar.
[38] Hardwicke, _State Papers_.
[39] Most of the poets and poetasters of the Court were convinced of
this, and the romantic love-making of the Prince, who for the sweet
eyes of the Infanta was to make England Catholic, inspired many verses.
Howel sends to a friend in England one stanza of such a poem written at
this time, he says by Lope de Vega--
Carlos Estuardo, soy,
Que siendo amor mi guia.
Al cielo de España voy.
Par ver mi estrella Maria.
Charles Stuart, here am I,
Guided by love afar
Into the Spanish sky,
To see Maria my star.
Gongora's fine sonnet, translated by Churton, is worth quoting entire--
Fair from his cradle springs the star of day,
Rock'd on bright waves fair sinks his parting light:
Such be thy course, in sunlike beauty bright,
Daughter of kings and born to be as they.
The world's majestic wonder. Lo! thy ray
Hath called a royal bird, in venturous flight,
From realms where keen Arcturus fires by night
The polar skies: from regions far away
He wheels on swiftest wing: within thy sphere
Secure his bold eye drinks the soft clear fires.
Now Heaven and Love be kind; and both ordain
What time his suit shall win thy beauty's ear.
The Northern Eagle won with chaste desires,
By Truth's pure light may live to God again.
[40] Hardwicke, _State Papers_.
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