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

[Sidenote: Changed conditions]

The disappearance from the scene of Olivares seemed to the people of

Madrid to change the national winter into summer. All the evils under

which Spain had groaned so long would vanish, they thought, like snow

before the sunshine; and once more Spain, powerful and rich, would

dictate the law to Europe. Philip swore in solemn fashion to forsake

dissipation and devote himself thenceforward to the welfare of his

people. It was a golden dream whilst it lasted, and for a time it

really did lift Spaniards into some semblance of the old-time faith and

confidence. All the gang {377} of Guzmans were thrust into the

background, and those who had stood aloof were now summoned to the

Councils of the King. Quevedo came from his dungeon, cynically

triumphant; the distribution of business amongst a multitude of

unimportant juntas subservient to Olivares was abolished, and the great

Councils again took executive and administrative charge of the affairs

entrusted to them. The active and intelligent influence of the Queen

was exerted everywhere; and new life was breathed for a time in the

languishing body of the State.

There were also other great changes nearly coinciding with the fall of

Olivares that increased the hopefulness of Spaniards for the future.

Richelieu died some months before, and the personal rivalry between the

two ministers, which had done so much to embitter the war, disappeared.

Then, in May 1643, the King of France, Louis XIII., died, and Philip's

sister, Anna of Austria, became Queen-regent of France for her

five-year-old son, Louis XIV. Anna had always been a true daughter of

Spain, and deplored the war between the land of her birth and that of

her adoption; and it was hoped that she would find a means to end the

differences. Another event had occurred at the end of 1641, which,

whilst adding to Philip's gloom, made the continuance of the war in the

Netherlands more hopeless than ever. The Cardinal Infante Fernando,

his frail physique worn out by constant campaigning and enfeebled by

fever, died at Brussels;[1] and Philip had no relative now to {378}

stand for Spain in the ancient patrimony of Burgundy.

With all these changes in the space of two years, the spring of 1643

seemed to blossom with hopes of peace once more, humiliating as the

terms might be. But again Spanish pride stood in the way, and after

long discussion Philip's new councillors determined that honour

demanded the expulsion of the French from Spanish soil before any

negotiations for peace with them were undertaken. With infinite

difficulty money and men were got together somehow[2] for Philip to

take the field again in Aragon, where the French had arrived within a

few miles of Saragossa. Before he could start on his way thither,

there came from Flanders news of a crushing defeat sustained by General

Melo, who had replaced the Cardinal Infante in the command. Melo at

first had done well; for he was skilled and bold, and had more than

held his own against the allies. But on the 18th May 1643 the terrible

battle of Rocroy was fought, in which Melo himself was captured, Count

de Fuentes was killed, and the Spanish army of 20,000 men, the tried

veterans who were the last remnant of the once invincible _tercios_,

whose fame was world-wide, were put to utter rout by the genius of the

youthful Enghien (Prince of Condé). The Spanish infantry never

regained the prestige they lost at Rocroy, which was to the army of

Spain what the defeat of the Armada was to her {379} navy;[3] and with

the knowledge that disaster was pursuing him on all sides, for the

Portuguese were raiding far into Castile and the French were

threatening the capital of Aragon, Philip left Madrid, his heart

well-nigh breaking, early in June 1643.

[Sidenote: The nun of Agreda]

In the five months that had passed since he had dismissed Olivares the

King had tried hard; but already his indolence was casting its

paralysing blight over him; and most of the work of the Government was

handed to Don Luis de Haro, the nephew of Olivares, who went with the

King to Aragon. This time Philip was accompanied by a modest train,

and by little of the ceremonial state that Olivares had deemed needful

for his previous voyage. He travelled slowly, nevertheless, and on the

10th July, as he approached the Aragonese frontier city of Tarazona, he

halted at the humble Convent of the Immaculate Conception at Agreda,

which in the previous few years had been founded by a lady whose fame

for sanctity and wisdom had already become wide, though she was but

forty years of age yet. Maria Coronel had written several mystically

religious books, and the convent under her rule was known for its

rigidity in an age when most cloisters had grown lax. Philip probably

visited the house and its abbess as a usual compliment and duty; but

the visit, whatever its motive, set its mark upon him for the rest of

his life.

The abbess, Sor Maria, as she was called, must have been a woman of

worldly wisdom as deep as {380} was her piety. She must have impressed

the King, moreover, powerfully as being absolutely disinterested and

free from mundane temptation. He was, as we have seen, almost in

despair at the magnitude of the tasks before him; the strong spirit

upon which he had leant since he was a boy had passed out of his life,

and he knew not whither to turn for unselfish counsel. Sor Maria,

saintly, but keen, with her sad yet half humorous face, and her shrewd,

kindly eyes, seemed to him a very rock of refuge, and in the long talk

he had with her she spoke so wisely, yet so fearlessly, of the

oppressive governance and ungodly methods of Olivares, she urged the

King so powerfully to trust to God and himself alone, to work and pray

and make his people cleanly, that he went forth from Agreda refreshed

in faith and hope, leaving with Sor Maria his command that she was to

write to him her private counsel when she listed, and to pray for him

and his unceasingly with all her saintly soul.

[Illustration: The nun of Agreda]

Thenceforward until death snapped the spiritual link that joined them,

the heart of Philip was bared in all its sorrow, its weakness, and its

sin to Sor Maria alone. The haughty face with the pathetic eyes and

great projecting jaw remained unmoved before the world, only the

deepening furrows in it showing the storm that raged within. Men

thought that he was callous and cold; for he suffered silently behind

his mask. But Sor Maria knew, and none but she under heaven, the true

secret of the King's gilded misery. His cry of agony, of remorse, of

pity thenceforward came to the cloistered nun as a surer way to reach

the throne of grace than to all the cardinals, confessors, {381} and

bishops who waited upon his smile, and gently hinted disapproval of

kingly vice.

At the end of July 1643, Philip entered his city of Saragossa, this

time, to the delight of the jealous Aragonese, unattended by the crowd

of dissolute nobles and courtiers who made love to their wives and

threatened their political liberty.[4] No time was lost now in moving

against the French, who were threatening the centre of Aragon, and the

new commander, Felipe de Silva, whom Olivares' jealousy had consigned

to a prison, showed great energy, and soon changed the appearance of

affairs. It will be useful for our purpose to reproduce the principal

paragraphs of Philip's first letter to the nun on the 4th October 1643,

five weeks after his arrival at Saragossa, the precursor of so long and

important a correspondence.[5]

[Sidenote: Philip and Sor Maria]

"SOR MARIA,--I write to you leaving a half margin, so that your reply

may come on the same paper, and I enjoin and command you not to allow

the contents of this to be communicated to anybody. Since the day that

I was with you I have felt much encouraged by your promise to pray to

God for me, and for success to my realm; for the earnest attachment

towards my well being that I then recognised in you gave me great

confidence and encouragement. As I told you, I left Madrid lacking all

human resources, and trusting only to divine help, which is the sole

way to obtain what {382} we desire. Our Lord has already begun to work

in my favour, bringing in the silver fleet, and relieving Oran[6] when

we least expected it; whereby I have been able, though with infinite

trouble and tardiness for want of money, to dispose my forces here so

that we shall, I hope, start work with them this week. Although I

beseech God and His most holy Mother to succour and aid us, I trust

very little in myself; for I have offended, and still offend very much,

and I justly deserve the punishments and afflictions which I suffer.

And so I appeal to you to fulfil your promise to me, to clamour to God

to guide my actions and my arms, to the end that the quietude of these

realms may be secured, and peace reign throughout Christendom. The

Portuguese rebels still raid the frontiers of Portugal, acting against

God and their natural sovereign. Affairs in Flanders are in great

extremity, and there is risk of a rising unless God will intervene in

my favour; and though affairs in Aragon have somewhat improved with my

presence, I fear that unless we can gain some successes to encourage

people here they are liable to lose heart and to take a course very

injurious to the monarchy. The necessities, of course, are numerous

{383} and great; but I must confess that it is not that which

distresses me most, but the certain conviction that they all arise from

my having offended our Lord. As He knows, I earnestly wish to please

Him and to fulfil my duty in all things; and I desire that, if by any

means you arrive at a knowledge of what it is His holy will that I

should do to placate Him, write to me here, for I am very anxious to do

right, and I do not know in what I err. Some religious people give me

to understand that they have revelations; and that God commands that I

should punish certain persons, and that I should dismiss others from my

service. But you know full well that in this matter of revelations one

must be very careful, and particularly when these religious persons

speak against those who are not really bad, and against whom I have

never discovered anything injurious to me; whilst others are approved

whose proceedings are not usually thought well of. The general opinion

about these persons is that they love turning things over, and that

their truth cannot be depended upon. I do hope that you will keep your

word to me, and will speak with all frankness as to a confessor, for we

kings have much of the confessor in us. Do not let yourself be

influenced by what the world says, for that is little to be depended

upon, seeing the aims of those who move such discourse; but be guided

solely by the inspiration of God, before whom I protest (and I have

just partaken of Him, in the Sacrament) that I desire in all things,

and for all things, to fulfil His sacred law and the obligation which

He has laid upon me as a King. And I hope in His {384} mercy that He

will take pity on our pains and help us out of those afflictions. The

greatest favour that I can receive from His holy hands is that the

punishment He lays upon these realms may be laid upon me; for it is I,

and not they, who really deserve the punishment, for they have always

been true and firm Catholics. I do hope you will console me with your

reply, and that I may have in you a true intercessor with our Lord,

that He may guide and enlighten me, and extricate me from the troubles

in which I am now immersed.--I, THE KING. Saragossa, 4th October 1644."

[Sidenote: Philip's inner self]

In addition to the invaluable and unquestionable glimpse which this

letter affords of public affairs, it gives us the key, more entirely

perhaps than any of the six hundred letters that followed it, to the

real character of the King. He was weak; he confesses to have no

confidence in himself, although in his heart of hearts he is striving

to live well and do his duty. He is unable to struggle successfully

against the worldly pleasures that have captured him, and which he

pursues still, whilst hating himself for doing so. Conscience-haunted,

he is the only sinner, and the terrible conviction forces itself upon

him that his personal sins of omission and commission are to be visited

in awful punishment upon whole nations of innocent people. His natural

justice and his knowledge of men cause him to rebel against the

suggestions that come to him, even under the cloak of religion, to

punish those who in his eyes have done no ill; and behind the regal

purple and the stately port of his great office we see the poor soul,

so remorseful {385} in the knowledge of its sin and insignificance as

to feel unworthy even to pray without a poor nun's intercession to the

appalling deity he thinks he has incensed. And yet, with all this

humility, how the true Spaniard peeps out in the conviction that God

has His eyes specially on him; how God's designs for the universe

revolve around his fortunes, his acts, and his transgressions. Only by

the light of these self-revelatory letters can we see how penetrating

was the genius of Velazquez. The tragic, haunted face of Philip, when

age had palled his pleasures, only told its tale to the painter; and

its pride, its weakness, its mercy and despair, an enigma until now,

are explained to us when, after looking upon his portrait, we read the

King's own words, meant for the eyes of the cloistered nun alone.

Whilst Philip was, for the first time for twenty years, manfully

struggling against his indolence, and facing his enemies in Aragon, the

Queen, as regent of Castile, was straining every nerve to provide money

for the campaigns; and during the autumn (1643) an army of 16,000 men

was mustered in the various provinces, and sent to the King. Queen

Isabel too put her hand to the Augean stable of Madrid. Murders in the

streets and armed affrays upon trifling pretexts were as numerous as

ever, one Newsletter (25th August) enumerating four or five of such

fatal scandals during the previous few days;[7] one of which--although

that was in Valencia and is given as an instance--is curious: one Iñigo

Velasco, an actor, we are told, having been beheaded "because,

forgetting the humility of his calling, he courted ladies as impudently

as any {386} gentleman could have done." But it was noticed in Madrid

that the punishment now followed the crime more surely and more

promptly:[8] that immorality was attacked more earnestly than before,

and that the large public houses of ill-fame were being rapidly cleared

out by the new President of the Council of Castile.

The financial officers and others were also having rather a ruthless

time, for secret commissions descended upon them and their papers

without notice one after the other, and scores of thousands of ducats

of ill-gotten plunder had to be disgorged; whilst the friends of

Olivares who had survived his fall, and kept their places, were

gradually made to understand that things had altered for them.[9] The

Countess of Olivares thus far had held firmly to her footing as

Mistress of the Robes, notwithstanding the frowns of the Queen; but the

Duchess of Mantua brought matters to a head with her. As the Countess

aspired to sit upon a seat in the royal carriage instead of in the

doorway, the Duchess rose and said that that was not her place, and she

would leave the carriage. The Queen placated her, but a few days

afterwards {387} the Queen's coach was surrounded in Madrid by a crowd

that cried, "Long live the Queen, and down with the Duchess of

Olivares"; and soon orders came from the King in Aragon that the lady

was to follow her husband into retirement.

The legitimated son, too, Enrique Felipe de Guzman, who had kept close

to the King as a gentleman-in-waiting, found that the atmosphere at

Court, and especially amongst Aragonese, was antagonistic to him; and

he also was dismissed to join his father.[10]

[Sidenote: Baltasar Carlos and Juan]

The only subject of difference between Philip and his wife now was the

rivalry between his two sons. Young Baltasar Carlos had been granted a

separate household, and was already assuming the state befitting the

heir of Spain. Philip was devotedly attached to him, as was his

mother; for, after allowing for all the adulation of courtiers, the

Prince must have been a manly and gracious youth. But Don Juan was

infinitely more handsome, and it was said of extraordinary talent,

although it is fair to say that the actions of his later life hardly

justified the fame of his youth. In any case, Philip was very proud of

him, and now gave him a separate household, with many noble attendants

and officers about him, and, as a separate residence, the suburban

pleasure house called Zarzuela. Don Juan was to be called Serene

Highness, and was to address gentlemen as _Vos_, You, as if he had been

a royal Prince. To {388} add to his importance, he was now made Grand

Master of St. John, and delighted the courtiers with his boyish

assumption of sovereign dignity.[11] Isabel looked askance at all this,

and Baltasar Carlos saw little of his half-brother; but Philip, having

before him the example of his great-grandfather and the other Don Juan,

evidently destined his left-handed son for great things. He had,

moreover, no near male relatives now, and it is clear that there were

ample opportunities for usefulness open to a semi-royal Prince in

Philip's wide dominions.

[Sidenote: Philip's reformation]

Philip and his little army in Catalonia and Aragon did well. Monzon

was captured by Silva from the French on the 3rd December, to the

immense solace of the King, who had been beseeching the nun's prayers

for the victory; and with the laurels still on him he returned in

triumph to Madrid to pass the Christmas with his wife. The Queen had

ordered dinner to be prepared for his reception at the Buen Retiro

(14th December), and had gone to meet him at the Atocha, where the holy

image had to be thanked for his safe return. But Philip was a changed

man since the nun's weekly letters of exhortation and encouragement had

reached him; and the palace of past frivolities was not in accordance

with his mood. He would not even enter it, but went, gaily dressed,

through the cheering crowds to the old palace, which if gloomy was yet

kingly. Philip {389} went the next day to the Discalced Carmelites to

pray; but the Queen did not accompany him, for the proud, exacting

Savoy Princess, Duchess of Mantua, who lived in the convent, occupied

the royal apartments, and all manner of questions of etiquette would

have arisen if the Queen had gone with her husband.

During the few days of staid rejoicings for Christmas, for the splendid

old entertainments were now discontinued,[12] the King wrote to Sor

Maria to ask her to help with her prayers the expected arrival of the

silver fleet from Mexico; and as a mixture of mystic devotion and

worldly aims the King's letter is quaint.

"The promise you gave me when I was with you, that your prayers should

not fail me, delighted me much, and I remind you of it in the greatest

necessities. We are expecting hourly, by God's help, the arrival of

the galleons, and you may imagine what depends upon it for us; and

although I hope that, in His mercy, He will bring them safely, I want

to urge you to help me by supplicating His Divine Majesty to do me this

favour. It is true, I do not deserve it, but rather great punishment;

but I have full confidence that He will not permit the total loss of

this monarchy, and that He will continue the successes that He has

begun to give us. I should very much like to succeed in carrying out

the advice you give me in your letter of the 6th {390} instant.[13] I

can assure you I will try to do so; and for my part, I will use every

effort to comply with the will of God, both personally and in official

matters. May He give me grace to do it. I cannot help telling you of

the joy it gave me to come hither and see the Queen and my children,

for my absence had seemed to me very long. They are, thank God, very

well; and although I shall feel keenly leaving such company, I am

preparing to return; for the welfare of my realms must be placed before

all things, even before the pleasure of being with such treasures as

these. God send me the time when I may enjoy them with more

tranquillity."

The King's and the nun's prayers were satisfied. A few days after the

letter was written, Madrid was rejoiced to know that the galleons had

arrived safely, "which on this occasion were sorely needed; for the

loans for the frontier fortresses, and for Italy and Flanders, were

held back, and the lenders would not do business without this

guarantee.... They bring five millions (of ducats) for the King, and

almost as much for private owners, with much {391} indigo, etc.... It

is believed that the King will not take any from private people or from

the treasury pensions, so that we all breathe again."[14] In these

somewhat alleviated circumstances, Philip, full of hope, started for

Aragon on 6th February 1644, having signalised his short stay in Madrid

by giving the gold key of chamberlain to Diego Velazquez, "who, they

say, is at the present time the greatest painter in Spain. I

understand there are to be no more honours given this Twelfth Day, as

in other years."[15]

[Sidenote: Philip again in Aragon]

Philip, with a very small suite, hurried to Aragon; for already in his

absence his officers were quarrelling amongst themselves about

ridiculous questions of style and precedence, and on the very frontier

a deputation of Aragonese notables met him to ask for the dismissal of

his Commander-in-chief, Felipe Silva, the most successful General he

had; and, although not immediately, Silva, disgusted by the jealousy

that surrounded him--a Portuguese--ultimately went into retirement, to

the lasting loss of Spanish arms. Whilst Philip was busy in Aragon

ordering the coming campaign, the welcome news came to him in March

1644 of the pregnancy of his wife; but soon his joy was dashed with the

intelligence of her miscarriage and illness. The gossips said that,

attended only by the Marquis of Aytona, he rushed to Madrid secretly

for a few days to see her; but whether the cloaked cavalier who came

post from Saragossa was indeed the King is uncertain. In any case,

Philip was with his army during the summer, gradually making way before

the French, and {392} keeping up his resolution to live an exemplary

life; although the nobles and others were beginning to grumble that Don

Luis de Haro was almost as powerful a minister as his uncle Olivares

had been.

Philip was still rejoicing over the capture of the important city of

Lerida at the middle of August 1644, and the relief of Tarragona in

September, when ill news came to him of his wife's health. She had, it

seems, on the 28th September suffered some sort of choleraic attack

with erysipelas. Messengers were sent to the King, whilst the doctors,

as was their wont, bled the patient copiously until they had left her

bloodless, though with symptoms which now would be recognised at once

as those of diphtheria. Then, in their desperation, the dead body of

St. Isidore the Husbandman and the sainted image of the Atocha were

brought to the palace; though the dying woman protested that she was

unworthy to have them brought to her bedside. But the inflammation of

the throat increased, notwithstanding all the charms of the Church and

the prayers of young Baltasar Carlos, who was devotedly attached to his

mother. There was no church nor convent in Madrid that did not bring

out in procession its crucifixes and most sacred images in Prayer for

the Queen's restoration to health, and the fervent prayers of a whole

people went up in rogation that her life might be spared.

[Sidenote: Death of the Queen]

On the 5th October the Queen tried to make a new will, but she was too

weak to sign it, and only left verbal testamentary instructions before

witnesses for the King to be informed of her wishes. At noon that day

she sent for a _fleur de lys_ which {393} formed one of the ornaments

of the crown, and in which there was a fragment of the true Cross.

This she worshipped fervently, and her two children, Baltasar Carlos

and Maria Teresa, were brought to her; but she would not suffer them to

approach her for fear of infection, though she blessed them fervently

from a distance. "There are plenty of Queens for Spain," she sighed;

"but Princes and Princesses are rare." The next day, at a quarter past

four in the afternoon, stout-hearted loyal Isabel of Bourbon breathed

her last, aged 41. Garbed as a Franciscan nun, the body of the Queen

was borne to the Convent of Discalced Carmelites, where she had so

often prayed and diverted herself;[16] and thence soon afterwards it

was carried back again to the palace in grand coffins of lead and

brocade, to lie in state with flaring torches and all the pomp and

circumstances of royal mourning. "Isabels always bring happiness to

Spain," shouted the crowd that adored her, after the fall of Olivares.

She, poor soul, had brought happiness neither to Spain nor to France,

though she did her best and was truly mourned. She had always been

devoutly Catholic; and since the commencement of the war she had grown

stronger in her devotion, and in her determination to reform the

scandalous licence of the Court.[17] Frenchwoman though {394} she was,

no breath of suspicion of her loyalty to her husband's people had ever

been heard during all the years of war with her brother's realm.

[Sidenote: Philip's grief]

Philip hastened home as fast as relays of mules would carry him. At

Maranchon, about fifty miles from Madrid, where the King had alighted

to dine at a wretched _venta_, the courier bringing the news of the

Queen's death met him. The ministers and courtiers around the King,

knowing how he loved his wife, avoided telling him the evil tidings at

first; for the anxiety and fatigue of the voyage had told upon him,

"and he had only just dined." But a few miles farther on, at

Almadrones, the news was broken to him in his carriage by the Marquis

of Carpio and his son, the favourite Haro, and the bereaved King begged

to be left alone with his grief. Turning aside from Madrid, now a city

of mourning for him, Philip retired to the Pardo, where, with his son

Baltasar--all that was left to him now, for Maria Teresa was but a

child--for a few days he indulged his sorrow in private. Thence he

went for the official mourning in the old apartment at San Geronimo;

whilst, with the gloomy pomp traditional in Spain, the body of the

Queen was carried at dead of night across {395} the bleak Castilian

plain, with hundreds of monks and nobles following, to the gorgeous new

jasper pantheon at the Escorial reserved for Kings and mothers of

Kings, which, from very dread, Isabel had never dared to enter in her

lifetime.[18]

Three days after the Queen died her wraith appeared, it is said, before

the nun of Agreda, asking for the prayers of the godly to liberate her

from purgatory for the vain splendour of her attire during her

life.[19] Philip himself was overwhelmed at his loss, and the nun

wrote to him exhortations to resignation and patience; but it was a

month before he could gather sufficient courage to reply: his grief, as

he says, and the many calls upon him having prevented him from doing it

before. "I find myself in the most oppressed state of sorrow

possible," he wrote, "for I have lost in one person everything that can

be lost in this world; and if I did not know, according to the faith

that I profess, that the Lord disposes for us what is best, I do not

know what would become of me."

The following spring again saw Philip in the field in Aragon. Things

were going badly with him now, and he was again losing heart. To the

nun he wrote on the 25th March 1645--

"Your letter indeed arrived at a good time; for the cares that surround

me had much afflicted me, and your words have encouraged me. I now

trust that God in His mercy, looking to all Christendom, and to these

realms, which are so pure in their {396} Catholic faith, will not allow

us to be ruined utterly, but will shield and defend them, and grant us

a good peace. Short are the human resources with which I have returned

hither; and what appals me most is to see that my faults alone are

sufficient to provoke the ire of our Lord, and to bring upon me greater

punishments than before. But the greater the punishment, the greater

will be my appeal to faith and hope, as you say; and I will continually

supplicate our Lord to supply with His almighty hand what we need. I

for my part will do all I can, trying not to displease Him, and to

comply with the obligations He has placed upon me, even though in doing

so I risk my own life. I have not hesitated to give up the comforts of

my home, in order to attend personally to the defence of these realms:

for, whilst I thus fulfil this duty, I trust our Lord will not fail me;

but in any extremity I submit to His holy will. I have wished for the

Prince to begin to learn what will fall upon him after my days are

done; and so, though alone, I have brought him with me, and have

confided his health to the hands of God, trusting in His mercy to guard

him, and to guide all his actions to His greater service."[20]

The campaign brought reverse after reverse to Philip. Jealousy had

lost him the services of Silva, his best General; and the new French

Viceroy of Catalonia, Count de Harcourt, scattered the Spaniards at

Balaguer, and all Catalonia and most of Aragon lay at his mercy, if he

had been sure of the loyalty of the Catalans, who, truth {397} to say,

were getting somewhat disappointed and tired of their French masters.

[Sidenote: War in Catalonia]

The Aragonese mostly remained faithful to Philip, but held firmly to

their privileges; and when in the autumn of 1645 he summoned the Cortes

of Saragossa and Valencia to swear allegiance to Baltasar Carlos, they

drove a hard bargain, and Philip was forced to concede many legislative

demands of the members, in return for sparing votes of supply. The

tale he told to the Castilian Cortes summoned early in 1646 in Madrid

was disconsolate in the extreme. All was spent: the wars still went on

in Flanders, Germany, Italy, and Catalonia, as well as on the

Portuguese frontier, and the regular revenue was utterly insufficient.

The deputies were as much afflicted by the penury of their constituents

as the King was by the emptiness of his treasury, but with many groans

they voted an immediate grant of a million and a half of ducats in

money, and in the following year an extension of the special war

taxation upon food, and leave to sell pensions was granted.

Almost every week beseeching letters went from Philip to the nun,

praying for her intercession with the Almighty to aid him in his

troubles; and the replies of the good woman were always wise, as she

inculcated hope and labour without remission. Sometimes Philip's faith

weakened, and he almost despaired, for he was convinced that all the

national trouble arose from his personal sins, and yet, as he says, he

could not help sinning. In the meanwhile disasters fell upon his arms

thick and fast, and the national distress became more intense. He

could suffer his own troubles, {398} wrote Philip, for he knew that he

had deserved them; "but to see the sufferings of so many poor innocent

people in these wars and conflicts pierces me to the very heart, and if

with my life's blood I could remedy it I would expend it most

willingly."

When Philip returned to Madrid for the winter of 1645-46, Sor Maria's

constant exhortations had prevailed upon him to make a determined

attempt to cleanse Madrid of some of its blatant vice in order to win

God's favour. She was particularly strong in her condemnation of the

dress and demeanour of the women of the capital, and a severe pragmatic

on the subject was issued: the playhouses, to the dismay of the

comedy-loving people, were rigorously closed,[21] the press-gangs that

scoured the country for recruits were enjoined to be merciful to the

poor in their operations, and other measures urged by the nun became

the law of the land, whilst the lethal crimes so common in Madrid were

prosecuted now with merciless severity.

Leaving his capital at least outwardly more decent, Philip travelled

north again in April 1646, accompanied by his promising young son, now

approaching manhood; Pamplona, the capital of Navarre, being taken on

the way, in order that the Navarrese Cortes might swear allegiance to

the heir. No sooner had they entered Pamplona, late in April, than

Baltasar Carlos fell seriously ill of tertian fevers; and the nun's

prayers were frantically supplicated for the boy by his afflicted

father, who would not leave his son's side, although the Aragonese were

getting clamorous for his coming to {399} direct the campaign, which

had already been opened by the enemy, who were actively besieging

Lerida. After two months' delay, Philip at length entered Saragossa in

June, when he received the news of the death of his sister, the Empress

Maria, who had been betrothed to Charles, Prince of Wales. This,

coming on the top of all his other troubles, almost broke the poor King

down. "If I did not recognise that my troubles are sent by God, as

warnings for me to prepare my own salvation, I could hardly tolerate

them.... Help me, Sor Maria, to pray to Him; for my strength is small,

and I fear my weakness."

[Sidenote: Baltasar Carlos dies]

A greater blow than all fell upon him soon afterwards. An insincere

embassy had been sent to England some little while before, in order to

frustrate the betrothal of Mary Stuart, daughter of Charles I., with

the Prince of Orange; and the means employed had been the old

suggestion of the marriage of an English Princess with Baltasar Carlos.

It came to nothing, and, so far as the Spaniards were concerned, was a

mere feint from the first, for the real wish of Philip's heart, as it

had been that of his father, was still further to cement the two

branches of the house of Austria, by marrying his heir to the Emperor's

daughter. Imperial ambassadors were at Saragossa when Philip arrived,

and the King wrote cheerfully to the nun soon after, saying that the

marriage of Baltasar Carlos had now been settled, and that his niece

Mariana of Austria was betrothed to his heir. "My son is very much

pleased with his new state, and I am so too, to have chosen such a good

daughter-in-law, as I hold this marriage {400} certain to produce very

beneficial effects to the Catholic religion, which is my sole

aspiration."[22]

Not many weeks afterwards, on the 7th October, the King in great

trouble writes to the nun--

"I have received your letter, but I confess that I am not in a

condition to reply to it, for our Lord has placed upon me a trial

through which I can hardly live. Since yesterday my son is oppressed

with very extreme fever. It began by severe pains in his body, which

lasted all day; and now he is delirious, and we are in such fear that

we hope it will turn to smallpox, ... of which the doctors say they see

signs. I know, Sor Maria, that I deserve heavy punishments, and that

all that may come to me in this life will be insufficient to repay my

sins; but I do cry now to the divine mercy of our Lord, and the

intercession of His holy Mother; and I beseech you to help with all

your strength."

[Sidenote: Philip's despair]

Three days afterwards, the heart-broken father writes in dull despair

that his son had died. "I have lost," he wrote, "my only son, and such

a son, as you know he was." And for this pain the consolations of the

good woman, though salutary, {401} were weak. Philip bowed his head,

and to all outward seeming was resigned to his loss. He did not rail

against the decrees of Providence that had left him alone in the world,

but his resignation now was a fatalistic hopelessness; for this blow

had finally convinced him that the Most High had doomed him to

affliction, and his people to suffering untold, solely for his sins.

There was no way out of it, even by prayer; and Philip for a time gave

up trying to be good.

Don Luis de Haro already did most of the work of the State, and Philip

grew still more idle after the death of his son, one of the results of

his indolence being a weakening of the struggle he had fought for four

years against the temptations of the flesh. Sor Maria from her convent

took him to task somewhat seriously for his remissness, and for the

first time Philip defended himself with some spirit[23] with regard to

his dependence upon others. He was anxious to do right, he assured

her; but his great predecessors and all other monarchs had been obliged

to employ ministers, and he did not think he could be doing wrong in

following their example. One man cannot, he says, look into the

execution of all his commands, and must trust to others; "for it does

not accord with the dignity of a monarch to go from one office to the

other to see personally that his decrees are being properly {402}

carried out." When he first came to the throne, he reminds the nun, he

was only sixteen, and, quite naturally in his inexperience, depended

upon a man of more knowledge than himself. Where he had erred was in

keeping that minister supreme too long. Since he dismissed Olivares he

had tried to avoid having a favourite; and the minister who people now

say does everything was brought up with him as a boy, and has always

been irreproachable; but even so, he (Philip) had always refused to

give him the post of sole minister, and he only does what the King

cannot do, namely, look after the raising of funds, and hear the

opinions of people with whom the King cannot discourse. "I, Sor

Maria," he wrote, "do not shirk any labour, for, as anyone can tell

you, I am here seated in this chair continually with my papers before

me and my pen in my hand, dealing with all the reports that are sent to

me here, and with the despatches from abroad; resolving points in

question immediately, and trying to adopt the most proper decision in

each case."

The nun even took upon herself, as the winter wore on, to tell the King

that it was high time to arrange the new campaign, and follow up the

brilliant defence of Lerida which had ended in the defeat of the French

under Condé himself. The Aragonese thought so too, for the troops

there refused to move for a time unless Philip would come to Saragossa,

as in previous years, to direct the campaign personally.

[Sidenote: Philip betrothed again]

The nun could hardly speak very clearly in reprehension of the King's

moral backsliding, although her hints even in this respect are pretty

{403} broad. But his confessor and the other friars around him did not

hesitate to do so; and people other than friars were saying that with

no heir to the crown the King must marry again. So long as Baltasar

Carlos lived, Philip had gently put aside these suggestions by saying

that his hopes were centred in his son; but when after his heir's death

his excesses in the intervals of his poignant contrition shocked the

devotees of his Court, and they added their censure to the pressure of

the laymen for another Queen-Consort, Philip consented, though without

enthusiasm, to marry again. He was only forty-two, but anxiety and

dissipation had aged him, and he was approaching the years when most of

his ancestors had developed the peculiar strain of mystic devotion that

borders upon madness, but his people clamoured for a male heir, for the

Infanta Maria Teresa was only eight, and Don Juan of Austria, popular

as he was, was impossible as King. In the letter which Philip wrote to

the nun, on the 9th January 1647, he says: "I have received a letter

from the Emperor condoling with me for the loss of my son, and at the

same time offering my niece to be my wife. As this agrees with my own

feelings, I think I may decide to accept this marriage, which is

doubtless the most fitting one for me; so I hope that our Lord will

help this with His powerful hand, so that the business may tend to His

service, and to that of my own country"; and a few weeks afterwards he

conveyed to her the intelligence that the match has been arranged.

Mariana was as yet a child, and the daughter of Philip's sister Maria.

That such a companion {404} can have been really congenial to him it is

difficult to believe, but his subjects needed an heir. The unhappy

tradition that imposed upon Spain the belief in its duty to dictate

orthodoxy to the world was not yet dead, and the solidarity of the

house of Austria was a first condition for its success. Spain had

already paid dearly for such Austrian help as she had obtained, and the

price now given for the further union was a high one indeed; for by

this dire incestuous union of Philip and his niece the consummation of

his country's ruin and the extinction of his dynasty was wrought. What

for the time being was worst of all was, that the support of Austria in

the wars that were finally to exhaust Spain was withdrawn even before

the marriage took place.

[Sidenote: The treaty of Münster]

For three years the representatives of the Powers of Europe, invited by

the Emperor, had been laboriously discussing terms for a general

pacification at Osnabrück and Münster. Philip wrote to the nun that

the French demands were so insolent that it was clear that they did not

want peace;[24] but the Hollanders were more inclined to an

accommodation, for they had grown suspicious of the ultimate designs of

Mazarin. After interminable intrigues and self-seeking, however, an

arrangement was arrived at which practically ended the Thirty Years

War; and Spain, beaten to her knees, still burdened with war in

Catalonia, on the Portuguese border, and in Flanders, with her kingdom

of Naples in full revolt, was obliged to accept, at last, what the

world had seen to be inevitable for many {405} years past, the

recognition of Protestant Holland as an independent Power. For nearly

a hundred years the war with her Protestant former dependency had

dragged Spain down, and made her an easy prey to the French, and at

last from the sheer impotence of Spain to struggle longer the Treaty of

Münster (October 1648) was signed by her, which made Holland free and

gave Alsace to France. The central European Powers were satisfied, the

religious compromise was ratified, there was nothing more for the

Emperor to fight for, and he retired from the war with France, leaving

Philip to fight her enemy alone. The long dream of Spain's supremacy

over an orthodox Catholic Europe was indeed dissipated at last; she had

now to fight for the integrity of her own soil and her continued

existence as a great nation, and in this hard strait the empire

deserted her.

All through the year 1647, Philip remained in Madrid, whilst the wars

in Flanders and Catalonia, as well as on the Portuguese frontier,

dragged on with various fortunes, but on the whole not disastrously for

Spain. The great revolt of Massaniello in Naples for a time threatened

Philip with the loss of the kingdom; when the happy thought came to him

of sending his brilliant young son, Don Juan, thither as his

Commander-in-chief. He arrived at a time when Guise, the French

pretender to the Neapolitan crown, had disgusted the fickle populace

which had formerly acclaimed him, and by a fortunate _coup de main_ Don

Juan recaptured the city for his father in February 1648, to the joy of

most of the inhabitants, who were tired of the anarchy which had lasted

for a year. The exploit {406} raised the popularity of the young

Prince almost as high as that of his famous namesake after Lepanto, and

the rejoicings in Madrid to celebrate the victory made the capital for

a time seem its old self again.

But though the lieges might still enjoy their brilliant shows as of

yore, Philip himself had become introspective and gloomy; and he

attended the bull-fights and parades with sad, weary face. He wrote

weekly to the nun deploring his frailty, and beseeching her

intercession; but it is clear that he had thrown over most of his good

resolutions, for Don Luis de Haro was as necessary to him as Olivares

had been; and the fragile beauties of the capital found in him again as

ardent an admirer as ever.[25] The departure of the bride who was to

rescue him from his evil life was long delayed for want of money, both

on the part of her father the Emperor, and of Philip;[26] and,

notwithstanding the King's saintly contrition after his faults, the

talk of his loose and idle life began to make him personally unpopular

with many, who thought that his place was with his army in Catalonia

rather than in the Retiro sunk in slothful pleasures.[27]

{407}

[Sidenote: An execution]

In September, a great Aragonese noble of turbulent antecedents, the

Duke of Hijar, with three other nobles of rank, were suddenly seized

and committed to prison in Madrid. The accusation against them was

that they had plotted against the crown: some said in favour of the

King of Portugal, others in favour of France; but the King specially

assured the nun that there had not been discovered any design against

his life. The Duke, as soon as he was arrested, endeavoured to

implicate Sor Maria in the plot, and produced a letter from her to him.

In a note in her own hand on the King's account written to her of the

execution of the prisoners in December, she explains the matter.

Hijar, it appears, had written to her hinting at some plan against the

Government being in contemplation, and asking her advice. She had

replied deploring such wickedness, and had referred him to the King.

The nun says that many had been the attempts to bring her into trouble

about it; but that in all his letters to her referring {408} to the

plot the King had never even mentioned her connection with the matter,

which showed that he, at least, did not believe that she was culpably

concerned. The King, indeed, in his letters rather makes light of the

affair, as being "the most foolish conspiracy ever conceived," and he

evidently did not think that the Duke of Hijar was the prime mover in

the affair; as repeated torture having failed to wring any

incriminatory admissions from the Duke, the judges sentenced him to

perpetual imprisonment only, though we are told that the torture had

made him a cripple for life, both hand and foot. One of the other

conspirators died of a fit in the prison soon after the death sentence

was passed, his fate, as Philip wrote to the nun, being worst of all,

since he had died unabsolved.

[Sidenote: The "Hijar conspirators"]

The public execution in the Plaza Mayor of the two principal

conspirators, both nobles, Don Pedro de Silva, Marquis de la Vega de

Sagra, and Don Carlos de Padilla, moved excitement-loving Madrid

profoundly, and several eye-witnesses of the scene have left their

impressions of it. From one unpublished account in the British

Museum[28] the following description is condensed as an example of a

Spanish execution, of the first importance at the time.

Shortly before noon, on Saturday, the 5th December 1648, the massive

doors of the Carcel de la Corte, opposite the Plaza de Santa Cruz, near

the Atocha entrance of the Plaza Mayor,[29] opened for {409} a sombre

procession to issue therefrom. First came seventy alguacils of the

Court; then followed, amidst tapers and swinging censers, two famous

figures of Christ from the parish church of Santa Cruz opposite, with

the attendant clergy. Then came a saddle mule covered to the ground

with housings of black baize, and led by an executioner. Upon the mule

sat Don Carlos de Padilla, who only on the previous day had been

divested of his honourable habit of a Knight of Santiago. Now, as he

rode disconsolate, a crucifix in his hand and closely surrounded by

many Jesuit fathers, he wore a long gown of black baize, with a cap of

the same, and a steel chain dangled from his right foot. It was

noticed, too, that instead of the almost universal golilla he wore a

white starched Walloon collar unblued.

After him came on another draped mule the Marquis, Don Pedro, similarly

garbed; but, instead of the collar, wearing the tippet of a Fellow of

the College, of Cuenca at Salamanca. Following the condemned men came

crowds of alguacils, notaries, and officers of justice; and as the

procession swept along dismally, heralded by tolling bells and the

dreary call of the criers for the people to pray for the souls of the

departing, vast crowds stood at every coign of vantage, and were held

back at the end of each side street by guards and alguacils. The

procession did not enter the Plaza by the nearest gate, that of the

Atocha, but debouched into the {410} Calle Mayor, in order to enter the

Plaza by a principal, Guadalajara, portal. It was noticed that as Don

Carlos Padilla reached the entrance by the Guadalajara gate his face

lit up radiantly, and the word passed along the awestruck crowd that a

heavenly vision had brought comfort to him, now that all earthly

comfort had fled.

The Plaza Mayor itself had been cleared of all its fruit stalls, as if

for a bull-fight; and in the centre (where now stands the statue of

Philip III.) was erected a scaffold, upon which were two uncovered

chairs side by side. Don Carlos de Padilla ascended first the fatal

stair, and, taking his seat upon the left-hand chair with much

serenity, slowly arranged his long gown decorously, whilst the swarm of

priests and friars around him continued their sacred ministrations.

The doomed noble's hands and feet were firmly bound to the chair, and a

strip of black baize blinded his eyes. Then the executioner, stepping

forward, with a large butcher's knife slashed the throat across again

and again. It was remarked that Don Carlos, being a robust man, shed

an immense quantity of blood. Then going behind him, the executioner

with several heavy blows on the nape of the neck severed the head

entirely, and the deed was finished.

Then came the turn of the Marquis, Don Pedro de Silva, to mount; and as

he reached the top his eyes perforce rested upon the dead body of his

comrade, still bound to the chair. "Blessed be the name of the Lord,"

he exclaimed in horror at the ghastly sight, as he took his seat on the

adjoining chair. The strip of baize that had bound the {411} eyes of

Don Carlos was too much soaked with blood to be used for the second

time, and another had to be brought; Don Pedro devoutly repeating the

Creed in the meanwhile. It was noticed that Don Pedro, being a dry,

shrunken little man, shed but little blood; and when his head at last

was severed from the back, as that of Don Carlos had been, the King's

justice was satisfied. The bodies remained in the chairs all that day;

but at one o'clock in the morning the executioner and the widows

shrouded the bodies by the light of two candle-ends, and enclosed them

in rough coffins, in which they were carried in procession, with the

parish cross and eight wax tapers before them, across the Calle Mayor

to the churchyard of St. Gines for burial. The two Christs of Santa

Cruz went with them too, though the clergy were not allowed to

accompany them; for they had claimed the right of burying the bodies in

their own church, which is the parish in which the prison is situated,

and the King had ordered the sepulchre at St. Gines.

The King had taken no part in the trial of the prisoners, and had

strictly enjoined the five judges specially appointed to investigate

the case to be absolutely impartial, though the nun herself had almost

violently urged that no mercy should be shown against men who aimed at

overturning the Government. The real object of the conspiracy appears

to have been the overthrow of Don Luis de Haro, and the adoption of a

conciliatory policy which would end the warfare in Catalonia and

Portugal, even at the cost of a sacrifice of pride and territory to

Spain.

Already, when the impressive sight just described {412} was passing in

Madrid, the new girl Queen-Consort was slowly, very slowly, making her

way from city to city of her father's dominions, Tyrol, Hungary, and

Italy, on her way to the expectant arms of her elderly avuncular

bridegroom. Festivities and celebrations greeted her in every town she

entered, and everywhere the inexperienced girl enjoyed her new

importance without restraint. At Trent, Philip's representatives met

her, and thenceforward she travelled as Queen of Spain, staying on her

way for many weeks at each place.[30] The reasons for so long a delay

were several. First, money was scarce for the conveyance of the

tremendous company of 160 Spanish nobles with their households who

accompanied the Queen; secondly, the plague was raging throughout

eastern Spain, where she had to land; and thirdly, she herself was as

yet quite immature, being barely fifteen.

During all this long delay, which lasted until the late autumn of 1649,

Philip continued to write to the nun, deploring his inability to

overcome the frailty of the flesh, and fervently invoking her aid in

prayer to make him as perfect as he wished to be. Though the world

knew it not at the time, it is quite certain from these letters that

the ecstatic religious mysticism that had taken possession of his

father, grandfather, and great-grandfather at a similar age, had at

this time firmly captured Philip IV. But he, unlike them, still

retained his pleasure-seeking instincts, and with him it was a {413}

never-ending battle between the spirit and the flesh which prevented

him subsequently from sinking into the monkish seclusion of his

ancestors.

[Sidenote: Queen Mariana]

At length, whilst Philip was in Madrid in September, a messenger,

bringing for him a beautiful jewel from his bride, came to announce her

landing on Spanish soil at Denia;[31] and the King at once wrote in

delight to the nun, to tell her the news and ask her blessing, to which

the good woman replied by urging him to begin a new life on his

marriage. Mariana had been received at Denia by all the nobles of

Valencia, where the Sandoval interest was strong, and jealousy

surrounded her from the first hour; the Duke of Najera and Maqueda, who

had conducted her from Italy, being dismissed in disgrace as soon as he

landed for some lack of respect reported of him.

Mariana troubled her head little about such things. She was a

red-cheeked, full-blooded lass, with bright black eyes, and an

insatiable ambition to enjoy and make the most of life. Selfish and

hard-hearted she proved herself to be later, but now in her florid

spring she seemed a gay, happy girl, whose high spirits nothing could

damp, even the prospect of matrimonial life with a worn-out,

disillusioned voluptuary in chronic anxiety about his soul. As she

slowly moved onward through Valencia and Castile, she was entertained

everywhere with feastings and shows which delighted her. At one place,

after dinner, some of the King's {414} dwarfs and buffoons were

introduced to amuse her, at whose antics she screamed with laughter.

The stately Countess of Medillin, a Sandoval, her Mistress of the

Robes, shocked at such a breach of etiquette, reminded her that

sovereigns of Spain never laughed in public. But Mariana snapped her

fingers at such stiffness, and avowed that she should laugh as often as

she saw anything to laugh at; and when the same great lady informed her

that it was a violation of all the Court traditions for her to walk,

she obtained a similar answer.

As she approached Madrid, Philip, with his young daughter, Maria

Teresa, moved to the Escorial, to be within easy riding distance of the

village of Navalcarnero, where the royal wedding was to be

celebrated.[32] Every few days, letters, gifts, and loving messages

had passed between Philip and his bride since her arrival on Spanish

soil, and he evidently desired to act his part of the anxious lover

irreproachably. When, therefore, he learnt that the Queen was to

arrive at Navalcarnero, on the 6th October, he complied with the

traditional usage of the Spanish Court, and set forth on horseback, and

in perfectly transparent disguise, to look upon his new wife incognito

and without formality for the first time. That he did so to his

satisfaction is on record in his subsequent letters to the nun, for

Mariana was a buxom lass, and as she sat gaily smiling at the comedy

with which she was being entertained before her evening meal, she

doubtless looked an attractive bride. The King {415} retired that

night to a little neighbouring hamlet called Brunete; and betimes in

the morning, with a brave array of courtiers, he rode up to the humble

house in which Mariana was temporarily lodged, whilst she stood smiling

and blushing beneath her plentiful rouge until he approached, when she

made as if to kneel; but he raised her without a word, and led her to

the adjoining chapel, where mass was celebrated before them, and the

marriage was performed by the Primate of Spain, Cardinal Moscoso

Sandoval, with all the state which Navalcarnero could contain.

After their dining in public at noon, there was a long series of

bull-fights and comedies to go through before the royal pair and their

Court in the great swaying coaches moved on the Escorial, where the

early days of the honeymoon were to be passed. A league from the

palace they were met by the Infanta Maria Teresa, who at once became

the friend and play-fellow of her stepmother, only five years older

than herself, and thenceforward her inseparable companion. The stern

old monastery palace of Philip II. tried its hardest to look gay for

the occasion, with its 11,000 wax lights and its array of fine

courtiers; but gaiety sits badly upon it. Here in diversions,

especially in hunting, the time passed happily for three weeks before

the pair proceeded to the Pardo, nearer Madrid, whilst the capital was

busy putting on the festal garb it loved so much, and had missed for so

long.

At length all was ready. From the Retiro to the old palace, the entire

length of Madrid, a series of beautiful triumphal arches were erected,

spanning the road. All the fountains, which were ordinarily {416}

unpretending enough, had been turned to account and made to appear

classic temples, whence the Olympian gods and goddesses dispensed

refreshing nectar to the world. The shabby house-fronts were masked by

erections of imitation marble, or hung with splendid tapestries and

armorial shields; in fact, Madrid once more, almost ruined though she

was, managed somehow to raise money enough to make herself handsome

again for a space. Mariana, with her white teeth, rosy painted cheeks,

so full and round, and her frank, unabashed gaiety, captured the hearts

of the Madrileños at once, as she, rode on her splendidly caparisoned

milk-white palfrey, from the Buen Retiro by the Carrera de San

Geronimo, across the Puerta del Sol, and up the Calle Mayor to the

palace. They did not know yet, as they learned later, that she was

greedy and hard, caring nothing for Spain except for what it could give

her.[33]

[Sidenote: Philip's second marriage]

Philip was too much immersed in the delights of his honeymoon to write

to the nun for several {417} weeks after his marriage; but when he did

write, on the 17th November, he testified to his full satisfaction with

his new wife. "I confess to you that I do not know how I can thank our

Lord for the favour he has shown me in giving me such a companion; for

all the qualities I have seen up to the present in my niece are great,

and I am extremely content, and desirous not to be ungrateful to Him

who has granted me so singular a boon: showing my gratitude by changing

my life and executing His will in all things." The nun in her reply

places much stress upon the need of the country for an heir to the

crown, and urges the King to be faithful to his wife, if only for that

end; "trying to fix your whole attention and goodwill upon the Queen,

without turning your eyes to other objects strange and curious."

Philip had no great difficulty at the time in following his friend's

advice; for he really was smitten with the fresh charms of his

fifteen-year-old niece-wife. He was full of good resolves and saintly

protestations; he would never go astray again, for he was as anxious

for a son as his people were, though he confided to the nun that he was

in doubt whether his wife was as yet mature enough to bear children,

"although others of her age, which is fifteen years, are so. But it is

easy for our Lord to remedy this, and I hope in His mercy that He will

do so."[34]

[Illustration: MARIANA DE AUSTRIA: SECOND WIFE OF PHILIP IV. _From a

portrait by Velazquez at the Prado Museum_]

In the meanwhile, Mariana, the depository of all these hopes, was

diverting herself as best she could, in girlish romps with Maria

Teresa, and in the constant shows, comedies, and masques which were

offered for her pleasure. Once more the {418} Buen Retiro rang with

mirth and blazed with lights. The playhouses of the capital again were

allowed to open their doors; and the Madrileños did their best to

evade, bit by bit, the sumptuary enactments that had kept them in sober

garb and outward gravity of demeanour for seven years of war and

trouble. Neither the war nor the trouble was yet over, for the plague

came almost to the doors of Madrid, and scourged whole provinces;

whilst the war with the French still went on in Catalonia and Flanders,

and Portugal continued to defy successfully the arms of Philip. But,

withal, the drain upon Castile, bad as it still was, became somewhat

less pressing; for Mazarin had his hands full in France with the revolt

of the Fronde, which, of course, Spain helped to the extent of her

possibilities; and the Catalans were far less enamoured with their

French masters than they were at first. Don Juan, the King's son,

moreover, who was now in command in Catalonia, was doing well, and

winning popularity on all sides, whilst the recognition of Dutch

independence by Philip had freed his Indies fleets from their greatest

danger.

The novelty of the King's honeymoon soon wore off, and in his letters

to the nun he refers to his wife thenceforward kindly and with

solicitude, but as it seems somewhat wearily, and usually in connection

with her many more or less disappointed hopes of maternity, or to her

love for shows and festivities; which it is quite evident from his tone

now palled upon him. Pleasure and the joy of living absorbed most of

Mariana's attention, and, immersed as the King was in business {419}

and devotion, he could have little in common with his young wife. His

own habits were absolutely fixed, and an observer at his Court at the

time says that it was possible to foretell a year beforehand exactly

what the King would do on a given day and hour.[35] His demeanour in

public was like that of a statue, and when he received ambassadors or

ministers it was noticed that no muscle of his face moved but his lips,

and he rarely showing any emotion, even by a smile. Already the

haughty disillusionment, represented by Velazquez so finely in the

later portraits, had been fixed indelibly upon his features, and his

eyes had grown blear with remorseful tears.

In 1651 a daughter was born to Philip and Mariana, and christened with

the usual extravagant pomp Margaret Maria,[36] but, though oft

expected, the longed-for son came not. Mariana felt her husband

growing colder, and guessed his infidelity. Then she fell homesick and

disappointed, and Philip became anxious. A splendid series of

festivities were arranged at the Buen Retiro to solace and enliven her,

an ingenious Florentine being requisitioned to invent novelties to

attract her attention. But it was all dust and ashes to Philip now.

He speaks in his secret letters always gently of his young wife,

sometimes even almost with enthusiasm of her goodness; but it is plain

to {420} see that there was little sympathy between them,[37] for his

terrible remorse at his moral fragility and evil life, and his grief at

the troubles he firmly believed he was bringing upon his people by his

own backsliding, show that the struggle between the spirit and the

flesh had begun again as severely as ever, and that Mariana was

powerless to keep him entirely faithful to her. She, on her side, had

soon learnt the lesson of the Court. Her face grew cold and haughty,

and her ostentatious German sympathies and repellent Austrian manner

cooled the warm-blooded spontaneous Spaniards towards her. Thus, with

all stately dignity, decorum, and solemnity in outward seeming, the

ill-matched pair lived: passing from Madrid to Aranjuez and the

Escorial at stated seasons, wearily going through the dull, depressing

tale of prearranged devotions and duties; the Queen seeking such

distraction as was possible in comedies and the like, the King spending

much time at his desk, reading the never-ending reports of his Councils

brought to him by Don Luis de Haro, and scribbling in his big

straggling hand on the margins "_Como parece_," or some similar

sentence signifying his acquiescence in the conclusions arrived at by

his advisers.

[Sidenote: Philip's changed life]

And behind this dreary changeless round there was, unknown to all but

one lonely cloistered woman, a human soul in mortal pain for

transgressions real and imaginary, which it was unable to avoid, and

yet was convinced were dragging the {421} man it animated and millions

of the people that he loved and pitied to suffering and sorrow.

Philip's constant correspondence with the nun had changed him much; for

it is evident, whatever may have been his shortcomings, that her

exhortations to him to be brave, dutiful, and faithful, and her wise

insistence upon unceasing work and prayer, had made the King watchful

of his own weakness, and kept him from sinking into indifference. It

is highly probable, indeed, that in his constant self-reproach his

failings at this time were exaggerated by him, as those of his father

had been on his deathbed. Certainly, from this time forward he tried

his best, according to his lights and strength, to live worthily, and

to rescue his country from the trouble into which the policy of his

ancestors and himself had dragged it; though still there was no

glimmering of true statesmanship such as was needed in circumstances so

difficult. Philip's spirit was a poor one; and his faith,

notwithstanding his devotion, was far from robust. He continued to

look upon himself and his country as doomed irrevocably by the Almighty

to suffer for his personal sins and those of his generation, and the

only remedy presented to his mind was to plead fervently for mercy

through a saintly soul untouched by the sins of the time. Of the

efficiency even of this resource he needed constant reassurance, and

for ever foresaw disaster whilst he was frantically praying for triumph.

Lacking in statesmanship as were Philip and all his advisers, it would

nevertheless be unjust to attribute to their ineptitude alone the

troubles that overwhelmed Spain. It has been pointed out {422} that

Philip inherited both his policy and his methods; and so fixed were

they upon the tradition of Charles V. and Philip II., that nothing

short of a real genius or a sudden great catastrophe could have altered

them. But Philip was specially unfortunate in the international

circumstances of his time. The deadly rivalry between the house of

Austria and the house of France had existed since the earliest years of

the sixteenth century; and wars between them had been frequent since

that period. But England had always provided a check to prevent such

wars being fought to the bitter end. It had been a fixed canon of

English foreign policy that the Flemish dominions of the house of

Burgundy, that had descended to the Spanish Kings, must never be

allowed to fall into the hands of France, and when such a danger

threatened, England invariably interfered in favour of Spain; whilst

any aggressive action of France against England, either in Scotland or

elsewhere, usually brought Spain to the side of the English sovereigns.

But the revolutionary war which had overthrown the monarchy of the

Stuarts had for years doomed England to impotence in the struggles of

Europe; and Richelieu and his successor Mazarin had been able to

disregard an influence which had always previously stepped in to

prevent the final humiliation of Spain. Without this immunity from

England's interference, France would never have been free to foment

rebellion in Catalonia and Portugal; and it may be said that Philip to

a great extent owed the extremity of his tribulation to the internal

disturbance in England.

[Sidenote: Philip and England]

It will be recollected that after the diplomacy {423} of Olivares had

secured the neutrality of England in the war with France, Sir Arthur

Hopton remained in Madrid as English ambassador, having little to do

but to press the constant complaints of English shipmasters against the

authorities of Spanish ports, and other maritime questions. But in the

late summer of 1641, Olivares had sent to Hopton, and in a long

interview with him had complained that Charles I. had received an

ambassador from the Duke of Braganza, the usurping King of Portugal.

Hopton says[38] that the Count-Duke spoke modestly and without much

bitterness in the matter, and the English envoy at once pointed out

that Charles did not presume to judge of the Duke of Braganza's right

to the crown, but that as English interests in Portugal were very

large, it was needful that he should negotiate with the power wielding

effective control in the country. Sir Arthur, moreover, slyly pointed

out that words only had passed between his King and the Portuguese

envoy, whereas it was with much more than words that the King of Spain

had aided Bavaria to keep the Palatinate. Indeed, with the exception

of constantly harping on the Palatinate in his discussions with Philip

and his ministers, and complaining of the action of the Spanish

ambassador in London, Don Alonso de Cardenas, against Charles I., Sir

Arthur Hopton confined himself practically to the negotiation of

shipping claims,[39] until affairs in England and his lack of money

necessitated his return home in 1644.

{424}

When at last the axe fell in Whitehall, on the 30th January 1649, upon

the neck of the Stuart King, Don Alonso de Cardenas, who was accredited

to Charles and not yet to the Parliament, was without definite

instructions how to proceed, and for that or some other reason he did

not identify himself with the Dutch ambassadors in their protest

against the death sentence pronounced upon the King. This may have

been an accident; but it is certain that there was little love lost

between Charles I. and Philip since the visit of the former to Madrid,

and his French marriage. It is true that large numbers of Irish and

English troops had been raised for the Spanish service with his consent

even during the course of the civil war, but his sympathy with

Braganza, and the ostentatiously French leanings of Henrietta Maria,

had, as Charles's troubles increased, estranged Philip from him

personally. It was, moreover, of the highest importance to Philip

that, whoever had command of the English fleet and the Channel, should

be friendly with him.

[Sidenote: Spain and the Commonwealth]

It was a serious thing, nevertheless, for Philip, the soul of

legitimacy, to have dealings with rebels and regicides; and when

Cardenas conveyed to Secretary Geronimo de la Torre in Madrid the news

of the tragedy of Whitehall, Philip and his Councils discussed as usual

interminably the best course to be pursued.

"Truly," wrote Cardenas, three days after Charles's execution, "I am as

grieved as so dreadful a tragedy as that which has befallen this

unhappy Prince demands. The events both in this country {425} and

abroad have contributed to it, and especially the turmoils in

France.... You will now see that what I wrote to you on the 20th

August was a true forecast, and indeed I wrote it from certain

knowledge I possessed of the designs of these people; namely, that they

would try to do without a King, and if they could not succeed in that

they would choose the Duke of Gloucester.... We are here in utter

chaos, living without religion, King, or law, subject entirely to the

power of the sword, and this faction is bearing itself as the conqueror

of the realm, wherefrom many novelties will spring."[40]

The next letter from Cardenas, on the 19th March (N.S.), warned the

Spanish Government that the English were in negotiation with the

French, and that unless prompt steps were taken the danger to Spain

would be great. This intelligence set Philip's Councils considering

again; for unpleasant as it would be to make friends with these

"heretic" regicides, their threatened alliance with France in the war

would have meant certain ruin for Spain. As usual, the Councils

deliberated frequently and at length, and, equally as usual, followed

their tradition of avoiding as long as possible decisive action of any

sort. An agent of the Parliament came to Cardenas in April 1649 to say

that the English Government was desirous of continuing in friendly

relations with Spain, and desired to know if King Philip would receive

an ambassador from them. This was disconcerting; but the embarrassment

was increased by {426} a letter which Sir Francis Cottington wrote to

Cardenas from the Hague, saying that the Prince of Wales (Charles II.)

had instructed him to go to Madrid as his ambassador, and to ask

assistance in his attempts to regain the crown of England. The Council

was determined, if possible, to prevent Cottington from coming until

the attitude of the French towards Charles was known, but they were

very doubtful, on the other hand, about receiving a republican envoy,

and accrediting the Spanish ambassador to the Parliament, and thus

putting Philip in the unenviable position of offending Charles II. and

the legitimist elements in Europe.

The result of many weeks of deliberation in Madrid was that which might

have been confidently foretold from the first, namely, to cast upon

someone else the responsibility of deciding. Philip accordingly wrote

to the Archduke Leopold, his Governor of Flanders, asking him, in the

first place, to stop Cottington by any pretext until he discovered what

his instructions and object were, or to prevent his going to Madrid at

all if possible without offending him. Cottington was to be assured

secretly of Philip's sympathy with Charles, but to be told that the

best way for Charles to regain his father's crown was to bring about

peace between Spain and France. The Archduke was instructed to rap

Cardenas sharply over the knuckles for saying so much to the agent of

the Parliament, and to instruct him to hold the English revolutionary

Government at arm's length for the present, "until at least it was

solidly established."[41]

In the meanwhile no formal declaration was {427} to be made on behalf

of Spain, either to Charles II. or to the Parliament; although, with

characteristic duplicity, the former was given the title of Majesty in

a letter antedated, so that the Parliament, if they learnt of it, might

think that it was written before the Stuarts had been excluded from the

succession.[42] And, as if to counterbalance this, Cardenas was

unofficially to convey to the Parliament Philip's satisfaction at their

friendliness. This non-committal attitude, of which Spanish statesmen

were always so fond, soon tired the downright English politicians of

the Parliament, and they began to show their teeth. In July Cardenas

was informed that he would not be treated as an envoy unless he

produced new credentials addressed to the Parliamentary Government, and

he begged Philip either to recall him or to send new credentials.

Philip and his Councils were very loth to do either, intent, as usual,

upon running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. At first it

was agreed by Philip's Council that the King should not recognise the

English Parliament until it was quite clear whether it or Charles II.

was likely to prevail in the end; whilst the Stuart Prince in Holland

was to be treated with full ceremony, but nothing else. Other

Councillors consulted later thought that, as the Parliament was strong

and threatening, the Archduke Leopold in Flanders should be empowered

to give Cardenas temporary leave to go to Belgium on the pretext of

ill-health; but that if any grave occasion should arise another envoy

might be sent temporarily, _duly accredited to the Parliament of

England_; and {428} a small number of Councillors, whilst deploring the

necessity, were in favour of new credentials being sent to Cardenas at

once. The matter was finally submitted to Philip himself, who decided

that the Archduke should act as he thought best.[43] Being in closer

touch with the realities and dangers of the situation in Flanders than

were Philip and his Councillors, the Archduke promptly sent credentials

to Cardenas addressed to the Parliamentary Government of England; and

thus it happened that the ultra-Catholic King of Spain was the first

sovereign in Europe formally to recognise the Puritan revolution in

England, and the Stuarts had to pay thus for the reception of an envoy

of the Braganza King of Portugal by Charles I. years before.

The chain of grievances between the Stuarts and Philip was unbroken.

The rebuff in Madrid in 1623, the insincere juggling of the Spaniards

about the Palatinate, the marriage of Charles I. to a French Princess,

and the recognition of the Portuguese pretender led now, in 1649, to

the strange and paradoxical position in which Philip, whose Dominican

baptism was described in the first pages of this book, and who ever

since had been the champion of Catholic orthodoxy, made friends with

the stern Ironsides and Puritans of the Long Parliament.[44] It was

important also for Cromwell so to deal with the continental Powers as

to prevent them from extending to Charles the aid he was so

industriously {429} soliciting for the re-establishment of his family

on the throne of England; and if France and Spain, from which Cromwell

had most to fear, could be conciliated, the main danger from without

which threatened the English republic would be avoided.

It was therefore natural that the Parliamentary Government should be

desirous of establishing as early as possible full diplomatic relations

with Spain. The question was on several occasions pressed upon

Cardenas in London; but it went against the grain for so proud a

sovereign as Philip to receive an ambassador from a Government whose

very existence was a negation of the principle of Spanish sovereignty.

He dared not, however, drive England into the arms of France against

him, and after the usual protracted deliberation the Spanish Council of

State reported upon the letter from Cardenas in these words: "It was a

matter of the gravest importance to pass over so serious an excess as

that which the English had committed in publicly beheading their King

and born ruler; and it would be very worthy of great monarchs to

contribute to the punishment of those who were guilty of such an

atrocious crime."[45] But, nevertheless, whilst they recognised this,

they saw the difficulties in the way of Philip's doing so. Again they

took shelter behind the former reception of the Portuguese envoy by

Charles I., and decided that as yet no other Power had recognised

Charles II. there was no reason why they should take the lead in doing

so, especially as Prince Rupert's fleet was still finding welcome in

Portuguese ports with his prizes. After much preamble of this {430}

sort, Philip's Council made a clean breast of it to each other: the

Parliament of England, with its fleet, was too strong for Spain to

offend, and, distasteful as it might be, the ambassador from the

English Parliament must be allowed to reside in Madrid. Cardenas had

recommended that a bargain should be made, and that Cromwell, in return

for the reception of his envoy in Spain, should refuse to receive a

Portuguese envoy in England; but Philip was afraid of drawing the cord

too tight, and gave orders that the Puritan ambassador should be placed

upon the same footing as the other ministers from foreign Powers

resident in his Court.

[Sidenote: A Republican envoy]

The man chosen for the post was one Anthony Ascham. He must have been

in an advanced stage of consumption; for, when he was first appointed

in October 1649, he was doubtful if he could go, and wrote to Lord

President Bradshaw, saying that the haemorrhage of the lungs from which

he suffered was so bad that he must go to his father's house at Boston

to recover before he could set out.[46] However, although still in

wretched health, he safely arrived at Cadiz, though not without an

attack on the voyage from a French man-of-war, on the 17/27 March 1650.

The great Andalucian magnate, Duke of Medina Celi, received him with

all honour, and took him across to Port St. Mary to lodge at his

palace. Ascham wished to go to St. Lucar, as being a quieter place,

and better fitted for an invalid; but, to his surprise and indignation,

he learnt from the Duke that he was not to be allowed to leave Port St.

Mary until instructions came from Madrid. The Duke, indeed, {431}

expressed haughty astonishment that the Parliament should have presumed

to send an envoy at all until they learnt King Philip's pleasure in the

matter. Philip knew all about his coming months before, Ascham

replied; and whatever orders came from Madrid to the Duke, he, Ascham,

would only acknowledge a direct reply to the letter of the Parliament

to King Philip.

It was clear that, although fear forced the Government in Madrid to

receive the envoy, they were determined to snub him as much as

possible, and during the time Ascham was detained at Port St. Mary, not

unwillingly, for he was still very ill, it was decided that although he

might be sent to Madrid with an escort to ensure his safety, when he

arrived there he was to be kept waiting on various pretexts as long as

possible before even being received by Don Luis de Haro, who was to

avoid all negotiations or agreements when he did see him, until he knew

the tenour of his instructions and his object in coming to Spain;[47]

the intention of Philip and his Councillors evidently being to

compromise themselves as little as possible until it was proved which

party in England would ultimately triumph. Ascham was kept in Port St.

Mary's until almost the middle of May, though treated with ostentatious

respect; and at last, with an escort of six Spanish officers, headed by

a colonel, slowly moved on through the burning Andalucian summer to

Madrid.

He had naturally expected to be taken, as was usual, to some good

private house retained by the King for his accommodation; but, much to

his {432} surprise, the colonel who was the chief of his escort led him

on the day of his arrival, Sunday, 5th June, to a poor inn kept by a

widow named Pandes in the Calle del Caballero de Gracia. Ascham, who

was accompanied by a secretary named Fischer, an Italian interpreter,

and an English servant, remonstrated against being thus exposed to the

discomfort and danger of lodging in an open posada without locks or

bolts upon the doors. The colonel was very haughty and off-handed

about it, doubtless prompted by his superiors, and told the envoy that

his duty was ended in bringing him safely to Madrid; but that he would

return in the morning. Ascham, in high dudgeon, remained at the inn

that night, and early in the morning sent for an Englishman named

Marston resident in Madrid, who came at once, accompanied by another

Englishman who was with him at the time, one Laurence Chambers.[48] To

them Ascham, in alarm, stated the case. Here he was, he said, without

even a lock on his door, in a Catholic country swarming with enemies of

his Government and his religion; with Sir Francis Cottington posing at

the Spanish Court as the representative of Charles Stuart; and yet the

colonel, who had just visited him, had told him that he must look after

his own safety, for he had done with him.

[Sidenote: Murder of Ascham]

Ascham had that morning sent his interpreter to see Secretary Geronimo

de la Torre, who had {433} expressed surprise at the colonel's action;

and had promised to place some of the King's own guard at Ascham's

disposal. "But in the meanwhile," said Ascham, "here I am in hourly

danger of my life, for I cannot trust these people." His own ignorance

of Spanish had prevented his understanding his escort's instructions,

and whether the safe-conduct sent to Medina Celi covered his stay in

Madrid and his return to the coast. "If not," said poor Ascham, "I am

a dead man." Marston and Chambers agreed as to his danger, and at once

set out to find him a fitting lodging in a safe house.

Whilst the Englishmen were house-hunting for the unfortunate ambassador

in the forenoon of the 6/16 June, another party of their countrymen

were drinking in a tavern within a few doors of the posada where Ascham

was lodged. For years Catholic Irish and North and West countrymen

from England had been incorporated in the Spanish armies; and at the

final break up of the royalist forces in England many of Charles's late

soldiers enlisted under the same banner. They were a turbulent,

swaggering lot, though good soldiers, and were wont to hang about the

Catholic Flemish cities and Madrid until new companies were formed in

which they could serve. Five or six men of this sort it was who were

drinking in the tavern in the Calle del Caballero de Gracia. There was

Major Halsey, a man from Lancashire; Captain Prodgers, a Welshman;

Captain Williams, his compatriot; Valentine Roche, an Irishman; and one

Sparkes, a merchant's book-keeper from Oxford, as well as a Scottish

trumpeter named Arnet. The talk {434} turned upon the arrival in

Madrid on the previous evening of the Roundhead ambassador, sent by the

men who had murdered his Sacred Majesty King Charles. It were a good

deed to kill such a crop-eared knave, said one of the swashbucklers;

for he had even written a scurvy book defending the regicides. The

wine was heady and cheap; and as they talked thus and drank, the

project grew in favour, for were they not in Catholic Spain, where to

kill a heretic and a rebel, envoy or no envoy, was a godly deed that

all men praised?

In the meanwhile Marston and Chambers came back to the posada, which

was still without a guard, and informed Ascham that they had found an

excellent and secure lodging for him. Mr. Fischer was asked to go with

them to see the house and settle the bargain; but dinner being on the

table in the room on the first floor occupied by Ascham, the latter

asked his countrymen to partake of the meal before going. Marston

declined, and earnestly recommended the envoy to forego his dinner and

move to the new lodgings instantly, since the guard had not come, and

he had reason to feel apprehensive for the envoy's safety. The Italian

interpreter, John Baptist Arribas, made light of the danger, and

persuaded Ascham to dine first and then to transfer his lodging,

whether the King's guard came or not. With this Marston and Chambers,

accompanied by the secretary Fischer, went out, leaving Ascham and his

interpreter at dinner, attended by the English serving-man.

Presently a tramping upon the stairs was heard, and the Lancashire

soldier, Major Edward Halsey, entered the room, followed by Williams,

Sparkes, {435} and Arnet; whilst the others remained at the door and

the head of the stairs. Halsey advanced as if to salute the envoy, and

the latter rose, but seeing the three others following Halsey he drew

back towards a side table upon which some loaded pistols were lying.

Before he could reach it Halsey seized him by the hair and cried out,

"Traitor!" whilst Williams thrust him through the arm with a dagger,

and another stabbed him in the temples. The unhappy envoy fell at

once, and the murderers hacked him about the head and body as he lay;

whilst the Italian, in mortal fear, made as if to fly, crying out in

Spanish, "I am not the man!" But as he ran towards the door he was

slashed across the stomach by Halsey and another of the ruffians, and

was just able to stagger into the bedroom beyond, where he fell dead.

Then the six assassins fled, as they had arranged to do, to the Church

of St. Andres, a door or two away in the same street, where before the

high altar they claimed sanctuary. In a few minutes all the quarter

was in an uproar, from the Red de San Luis at the top of the street to

the Convent of St. Hermenegildo at the bottom. Grave alcaldes carrying

white wands, and followed by alguacils, surrounded the posada, and on

entering the upper room they found Ascham and the Italian interpreter

lying dead, and the English serving-man uninjured, but almost beside

himself with terror. The case was so scandalous that the alcalde

ordered the murderers to be taken from sanctuary, a most unusual thing,

which was looked upon askance by those who saw it. But Philip had been

determined, since he had enjoyed the support of the nun, {436} to allow

no immunity to open assassination in the capital; and with shouts of

indignant protest five of the prisoners were led off to gaol.

[Sidenote: Spain and Cromwell]

Much interrogation there was of Mr. Fischer. Why had they come to

Spain? What was their religion? and finally, the poor secretary had

his money and papers seized, and was borne off to remain in strict

seclusion in the alcalde's house pending the orders of His Majesty.

Philip was intensely annoyed at the news of the crime, which rendered

his position with Cromwell's Government more difficult than ever. He

found himself, to begin with, at issue with the ecclesiastical

authorities, who peremptorily demanded the restoration of the prisoners

to sanctuary; the murderers, moreover, openly boasted of their deed,

and competed with each other in claiming the leading part in it. The

feeling in Madrid was, of course, strongly in favour of them; for was

it not a virtue to kill an unrepentant heretic and rebel regicide?

Every Madrileño who had enjoyed himself at an _auto-de-fé_ knew that it

was a saintly act and not murder which these men had done; and they in

their prison were the heroes of the hour.

Philip personally could hardly be expected to look upon it otherwise;

for in his eyes a King, however bad, was sacrosanct. Yet how could he

let the murderers of a political envoy under his safe-conduct go free,

and thus arouse the ire of Cromwell, who with his Council now wielded

the power of England, and could ruin Spanish commerce as well as ensure

the victory of the French in the lingering war. Again political

expediency won the day; for Philip refused to surrender the {437}

prisoners to the Church or to the Inquisition, and they remained in

prison until the affair blew over and circumstances changed; when all

but one of them, who had died, were quietly let out and disappeared.

In the meanwhile Fischer assumed the part of agent in Madrid for the

Parliament, and was treated by Haro with marked politeness and respect.

"Had Fischer any authority to negotiate an alliance?" asked Don Luis.

"No," replied Fischer. "The Parliament is not so much perplexed at the

murder of their agent as at the tardance thereby of a firm league

between the two countries." Haro said that the King was still just as

anxious to be friendly as the English were. "Are not the French and

the Portuguese the enemies both of the Parliament and of King Philip?"

"Yes," replied Fischer; "but the Parliament will be very scrupulous

about sending another envoy until they know how Ascham's murderers are

to be punished."[49] "Cottington," writes Fischer, "is still here, and

lives in good fashion, by his Catholic Majesty's charity; although I am

confident he can work little with him,--but he passeth better here than

he can elsewhere, so he thinks not of departure. Had the Parliament

once capitulated with his Majesty (_i.e._ Philip) I suppose he would be

quickly cashiered."[50]

Fischer was not a man of sufficient standing to bring about an

international agreement; and by Cromwell's orders he returned to

England in {438} 1651, without having negotiated an alliance. But

thenceforward Cromwell and Philip were polite and friendly to each

other to an extent that filled English royalists and Catholics with

indignant surprise. A high noble, the Marquis de Lede, was sent from

Spanish Flanders to congratulate the Lord Protector upon the assumption

of his new dignity; and Cardenas had nothing but kind messages to give

from his master to the English Puritans. Cromwell, however, wanted

something more solid than amiable messages. He knew full well, as

indeed Fischer wrote, that fear, not love, made the Spanish King so

courteous. Cromwell had, it is true, secured something when he

prevented Spain from helping the Stuarts, but he wanted also as

conditions of the proposed alliance with Spain that freedom should be

given to English ships to trade in the West Indies, that the power of

the Inquisition over Englishmen in Spain should be limited, that

reciprocal advantages in the matter of duties should be given to

English and Spanish trade, and that English merchants should be allowed

to buy wool in Spain.

[Sidenote: Cromwell seizes Jamaica]

The two first demands were flatly and haughtily refused by Cardenas in

Philip's name, and Cromwell looked around for a means of coercion, for

he was in no humour to take the traditional view of Spain's awesome

superiority. He found it in Mazarin's difficulties in France, and his

urgent need to end the war quickly at any cost. The aid of England on

the sea would make all the difference, and if he obtained it Spain must

bow the head and accept the terms he offered them. So he bade higher

than Philip for Cromwell's friendship,--Dunkirk, {439} a Spanish

Flemish port to be jointly captured, being the bribe; and Blake, who

had long been co-operating with Philip to suppress Moorish piracy in

the Mediterranean, suddenly sailed with the Parliament fleet, and

without a declaration of war fell upon the Spanish silver fleet in the

Atlantic, whilst Penn and Venables attacked Mexico and St. Domingo

unsuccessfully, and without warning captured from the Spaniards the

rich island of Jamaica.

This was in May 1655; and the news fell upon Philip like an avalanche.

Panic spread through Seville and Cadiz, and curses loud and deep of the

falsity of heretics rang through Liars' Walk and the Calle Mayor. For

all these years poor overburdened Spain had kept at bay half the world

in arms, but hitherto the diplomacy which had successfully kept England

neutral had saved her from being utterly overwhelmed. Now, as hope was

dawning that her great antagonist was fainting from the domestic strife

which crippled Mazarin, and that terms honourable to Philip's pride and

respectful to the integrity of his territory could be attained, the new

and strong republican England had cast her glaive into the scale on the

side of France; and Spain, already exhausted, plague-ridden, and

bankrupt, was face to face with two great enemies instead of one. Well

might Philip write to the nun when he heard of the intentions of the

English fleets, and the probable outbreak of hostilities: "If this

should happen it would be the final ruin of this realm; and no human

power would be able to stop it: the Almighty hand of God alone could do

it; and so I beseech you most {440} earnestly to supplicate Him to take

pity upon us, and not to allow the infidels to destroy realms so pure

in the faith and so religious as these are. Blessed be His holy

name!"[51]

[1] A pathetic account of his deathbed is given by Novoa. After

eighty-eight days of continual fever, the miraculous image of Our Lady

of Bois le Duc was brought to his sick chamber. As the image entered

the door the Prince chanted the hymn, "Mater, Mater Gratia," and when

he reached the words "Mater Misericordia" he faltered and died.

[2] The Cortes of Castile voted 4,000,000 ducats a year for six years

in June 1643, and the silver fleet arrived in Seville intact with a

large treasure, which was seized by the Government as a forced loan.

[3] The story of the battle of Rocroy is told in minutest detail by

Canovas del Castillo in _Estudios de Reinado de Felipe IV._, vol. ii.

[4] Newsletter, Valladares' _Semanario Erudito_, vol. xxxiii.

[5] Many isolated letters have been known, and some of them published,

at various times; but in 1885 the whole correspondence, so far as it is

known, was published by my lamented friend, Don Francisco Silvela.

[6] Oran, a Spanish fortress on the African coast, was closely

beleaguered by land and sea by the Moors, at the instance, so it was

said, of the new King of Portugal. The Duke of Arcos, Governor of

Valencia, managed to run the blockade with two English ships full of

provisions, and the place was thus relieved. The superstitious

Madrileños of the time attributed the relief to a miraculous painting

of the Virgin that had just been discovered in Madrid. A servant girl

had begun to sing a hymn of praise and dance before the figure, when

she saw the fingers of the painting move. Her cries brought the crowd

to see the miracle, and all Madrid was stirred. The painting was taken

to the convent of Discalced Carmelites. The next day it was exposed in

the church, and the news came of the relief of Oran. Newsletters,

Valladares.

[7] Villadares' Newsletter.

[8] The punishments were terrible. In a Newsletter written during this

winter it is mentioned that two young gentlemen of birth had been

hanged that week as known thieves. "A young girl who was their

accomplice did not accompany them, as she was not old enough to be

hanged, but they gave her two hundred lashes, and cut off her ears

under the scaffold, after which they kept her all day hanging by the

hair in sight of the public; so that she died of the punishment within

two days." Valladares.

[9] The famous Villanueva, we are told, had to dance attendance upon

Secretary Andres de Rozas instead of keeping everybody waiting in his

antechamber; and the King's former confessor had to pay his respects in

the cell of Friar Santo Tomas, who was now the King's spiritual guide.

[10] A Newsletter of the time gives rather a quaint instance of the

feeling against him at Saragossa. Don Antonio de Mendoza, the poet,

entered a room where Guzman was playing cards. Guzman impatiently

said: "How tiresome that man is to me." Mendoza stood behind his chair

to watch the game. "Get away from there," said Guzman, addressing the

noble as "Vos," You, instead of "Your Worship." This was repeated,

when Mendoza in a rage said: "I am not 'Vos' to you, and don't intend

to be," and flung off to complain to the King.

[11] Valladares' Newsletter, 28th July 1643.

[12] The King's good example had as yet done but little to wean the

Madrid people from their bad habits. On the 26th December a gentleman

was shot dead before the Church of St. Sebastian, and the next day a

murderous affray in a playhouse about a seat ended in two deaths.

[13] The advice to which this refers is significant, and was evidently

intended to be so by the nun, although the words she uses are very

cautious and involved. "I supplicate your Majesty, as your servant, to

make yourself thoroughly versed in everything touching you. This

admonition is very important, and in order to adopt it with full

knowledge of facts, your Majesty should choose, guided by your own

sound judgment, someone whom you can depend upon, and listen to him

with the fitting dissimulation. God will not deny this boon to your

Majesty; and when you have learnt the truth, the execution should be

rapid; for the evil is great and the remedy needs resolution. God

assist your Majesty and rule your heart." This probably refers to the

reform of the social and moral evils in Madrid, as that subject had

been broached by the nun in her first interview with Philip.

[14] Valladares' Newsletter.

[15] _Ibid._

[16] Only a few weeks before her death, she had gone to the Discalced

Convent to visit the Duchess of Mantua with Baltasar Carlos. When she

entered the apartment she noticed that the cushions placed under the

canopy for her to sit upon were of black velvet. She thought black

unlucky, as the King was in danger; and she made an excuse not to sit

down. When she had sent her son off to play about the convent, she sat

upon the carpet rather than risk the ill-luck of sitting on black

cushions. Valladares' Newsletter.

[17] One of her last acts had been to issue a stringent

decree--probably suggested to Philip by the nun of Agreda, with regard

to the comedies, of which in her happier days she had been so

inordinately fond. In future it was ordered that no fictitious plots

should be represented, but only scenes from the Scriptures or from

history. No actors, male or female, were to dress in gold cloth; and

no unmarried woman nor widow was to be allowed to appear on a stage,

only married women, whilst gentlemen were not permitted to visit an

actress more than twice. New plays were not allowed to be produced

more than once a week; and plays in private houses were forbidden;

whilst the managers were not to receive in their companies any actors

but those known to be decent and well behaved. Valladares' Newsletter,

March 1644.

[18] Novoa; Valladares' Newsletters; Florez, _Reinas Catolicas_, and

Martin Hume's _Queens of Old Spain_.

[19] _Life of Sor Maria_, quoted by Florez.

[20] _Cartas de Sor Maria_.

[21] Avisos de Pullicer.

[22] The Prince, who had seen the nun on his way to Saragossa, wrote

the following artless letter to her about his betrothal. "Mother, two

or three days ago my father gave me a letter from you congratulating me

on the marriage that my father has made for me with the Archduchess

Mariana. I am the most pleased in the world to have taken this state,

especially with my cousin, who was the one I wished for ever since I

had use of my reason; and it seems impossible to me that I could have

come across any other woman so much to my taste. So I hope His Divine

Majesty will let us be very happily married, which is all I can hope

for. I ask you to pray for this. Our Lord guard you.--I, THE PRINCE.

Saragossa, 20th July 1646."

[23] Her reproaches were curiously framed. Just as after the Queen's

death she had tried to reform the extravagance of women's dress by

pretending to have seen Isabel's ghost in trouble for her fine garments

on earth, so she now appealed to Philip to keep hard at work, by saying

that the soul of Baltasar Carlos had told her that he was troubled to

see his father surrounded by people who looked after their own

interests rather than after those of the nation. _Cartas de Sor

Maria_, 30th January 1647.

[24] One of their proposals was to evacuate Catalonia in exchange for

Spanish Flanders.

[25] Writing to the nun on 15th July 1648 from Madrid, in reply to her

expressions of sorrow at the vice prevalent, he says: "It pierces my

heart, too, to see the vicious state at which the world has arrived. I

recognise it as clearly as you do, and as I cannot remedy it so quickly

as I should like I am greatly troubled; although I do what I can. God

grant that I may succeed in remedying it, and that I may begin by my

own amendment; for there is no doubt that I need it more than anyone.

Pray for me, Sor Maria, ... for I have need of your help against my own

frailty." _Cartas de Sor Maria_.

[26] _Ibid._

[27] How deep this feeling was is seen by the courtier Novoa's words at

the time (_Memorias_). "The only place where the war was carried on

with activity was here in Castile, and that in a most unheard-of way,

by disarming subjects and divesting them of their property on the

pretext of the war. Even the treasury warrants which had been

specially exempt from deduction were again seized and forced to yield a

half. When those who had to pay were advised not to do so, because

whilst the war lasted so long would the Government cut their purses and

would soon take everything, a certain person asked: 'Why do they give

habits? (of knighthood).--'Because they are cloth,' was the reply.

'Why do they give keys?' (_i.e._ the office of chamberlain).--'Because

they are iron.' 'Why do they give titles?'--'Because they are air.'

'Why do they not give money?'--'Because that is the essence and

substance of everything, and they do not wish anyone to have it.' And

he added: 'God save us from him who is liberal to vice and stingy to

virtue, for the only people now who are comfortable and placed aloft

are concubines and the women who look after them, low and common women,

and those men who have been base enough to marry them.'" This was

pretty plain speaking for a courtier; but, of course, the Memoirs were

not made public for many years after.

[28] Egerton MSS., 367, 181.

[29] The "prison of the Court" still stands nearly opposite the Plaza

de Santa Cruz, at the end of the Calle de Atocha, and near the entrance

to the Plaza Mayor. It was built in 1634 by the same Italian architect

who had designed the Buen Retiro, and is a very handsome building. It

is now used as the Spanish Foreign Office, which was formerly housed in

the basement floor of the royal palace.

[30] A tedious account from day to day of her doings was written by

Mascarenhas, Bishop of Leiria, who accompanied her. _Viage de la

Serenisima Reina_, etc., Madrid, 1650.

[31] Some days before arriving at Denia the Queen's flotilla had

anchored at Tarragona to water, and amongst other ceremonies the Queen

was amused during the necessary delay by the representation of a comedy

by Roque de Figueroa on the quarter-deck of her vessel. Pinelo,

_Anales_.

[32] I have remarked in my _Queens of Old Spain_ that the reason why

these wretched villages were often chosen for royal weddings was the

custom to free them thenceforward from seigniorial tributes.

[33] Soto y Aguilar gives interminable accounts of the festivities to

celebrate the entrance of the Queen into Madrid. The entertainments

lasted nearly a month. Novoa says that on the 27th November the King

himself took part in a "masquerade" on horseback, as in old times,

running in a pair with his first minister and favourite, Don Luis de

Haro: "all the nobles and gentles in the realm taking part in this

show, which in liveries and splendid appointments surpassed all others.

It was indeed a day of marvellous brilliancy. A proclamation was

issued by sound of drum, by which the King gave leave to men of

business and capitalists trading abroad for them to fit out eighty

ships and trade with them in his ports and those of his allies, but not

with the French Catalans or Portuguese. Politicians talked much of

this, thinking it would be of the greatest advantage to the country."

The chronicler, however, says that no advantage was taken of the

permission, as merchants thought that the ships would be seized for the

King. This shows how completely confidence had been lost in the

honesty of Philip's Government, even by his friends.

[34] _Cartas de Sor Maria._

[35] Aersens van Sommerdyk.

[36] Florez relates that at this sumptuous christening the little

Infanta Maria Teresa was god-mother, and in drawing off her glove she

dropped a very precious bracelet of brilliants. A lady in the crowd

picked it up and offered it to the Infanta, who even thus early had

learnt the haughty traditions of her house, to take nothing from the

hand of anyone but certain officials, made a sign that the lady was to

keep the bracelet, _Reinas Catolicas_.

[37] He usually speaks of her in the earlier years as "my niece," not

as "my wife," or "the Queen," and very frequently mentions her and his

daughter together as "the girls."

[38] Record Office MSS., S.P. Spain 42.

[39] See Hopton's summary of his proceedings in Spain. Record Office

MSS., S.P. Spain 42.

[40] MSS. Simancas, _Estado_, 2526; Canovas, del Castillo, _Estudios

del Reinado de Felipe IV._

[41] Simancas MSS., _Estado_, 2526; Canovas del Castillo.

[42] Simancas MSS., _Estado_, 2526; Canovas del Castillo.

[43] Canovas del Castillo.

[44] I have remarked elsewhere (_Spanish Influences in English

Literature_) the strange approximation of the Spanish mystics (such as

Sor Maria) with the English Puritans.

[45] MSS. Simancas, _Estado_, 2526; Canovas del Castillo.

[46] MSS. Record Office. S.P. Spain 42.

[47] _Consultas del Consejo de Estado_, Simancas.

[48] The present narrative is compiled from (1) the details of Ascham's

murder, given to the English Council by Laurence Chambers on his return

to England (Record Office MSS., S.P. Spain 43); (2) the letters of

Fischer, the secretary, in the same packet; and (3) an unpublished

manuscript deposition of the prisoners in Bib. Nat., Madrid, i. 325,

transcribed by me.

[49] Fischer's letters and full account of his negotiations are in

Record Office MSS., S.P. Spain 43.

[50] Fischer to the Council, 26th November 1650. MSS. Record Office.

[51] _Cartas de Sor Maria_, 30th June 1655.

{441}