Houssaie, in his Mémoires, vol. i. p. 261, has given the following
curious particulars of this singular union:--
"The second wife of Philip was Mary Queen of England; a virtuous
princess (Houssaie was a good catholic), but who had neither youth
nor beauty. This marriage was as little happy for the one as for
the other. The husband did not like his wife, although she doted on
him; and the English hated Philip still more than he hated them.
Silhon says, that the rigour which he exercised in England against
heretics partly hindered Prince Carlos from succeeding to that
crown, and for _which purpose_ Mary had invited him in case she
died childless!"--But no historian speaks of this pretended
inclination, and is it probable that Mary ever thought proper to
call to the succession of the English throne the son of the Spanish
Monarch? This marriage had made her nation detest her, and in the
last years of her life she could be little satisfied with him, from
his marked indifference for her. She well knew that the Parliament
would never consent to exclude her sister Elizabeth, whom the
nobility loved for being more friendly to the new religion, and
more hostile to the house of Austria.
In the Cottonian Library, Vespasian F. III. is preserved a note of
instructions in the handwriting of Queen Mary, of which the
following is a copy. It was, probably, written when Philip was just
seated on the English throne.
"Instructions for my lorde Previsel.
"Firste, to tell the Kinge the whole state of this realme, wt all
things appartaynyng to the same, as myche as ye knowe to be trewe.
"Seconde, to obey his commandment in all thyngs.
"Thyrdly, in all things he shall aske your aduyse to declare your
opinion as becometh a faythfull conceyllour to do.
"MARY the Quene."
Houssaie proceeds: "After the death of Mary, Philip sought Elizabeth in
marriage; and she, who was yet unfixed at the beginning of her reign,
amused him at first with hopes. But as soon as she unmasked herself to
the pope, she laughed at Philip, telling the Duke of Feria, his
ambassador, that her conscience would not permit her to marry the
husband of her sister."
This monarch, however, had no such scruples. Incest appears to have had
in his eyes peculiar charms; for he offered himself three times to three
different sisters-in-law. He seems also to have known the secret of
getting quit of his wives when they became inconvenient. In state
matters he spared no one whom he feared; to them he sacrificed his only
son, his brother, and a great number of princes and ministers.
It is said of Philip, that before he died he advised his son to make
peace with England, and war with the other powers. _Pacem cum Anglo,
bellum cum reliquis_. Queen Elizabeth, and the ruin of his invincible
fleet, physicked his frenzy into health, and taught him to fear and
respect that country which he thought he could have made a province of
Spain.
On his death-bed he did everything he could for _salvation_. The
following protestation, a curious morsel of bigotry, he sent to his
confessor a few days before he died:--
"Father confessor! as you occupy the place of God, I protest to you that
I will do everything you shall say to be necessary for my being saved;
so that what I omit doing will be placed to your account, as I am ready
to acquit myself of all that shall be ordered to me."
Is there, in the records of history, a more glaring instance of the idea
which a good Catholic attaches to the power of a confessor, than the
present authentic example? The most licentious philosophy seems not more
dangerous than a religion whose votary believes that the accumulation of
crimes can be dissipated by the breath of a few orisons, and which,
considering a venal priest to "occupy the place of God," can traffic
with the divine power at a very moderate price.
After his death a Spanish grandee wrote with a coal on the
chimney-piece of his chamber the following epitaph, which ingeniously
paints his character in four verses:--
Siendo moço luxurioso;
Siendo hombre, fue cruel;
Siendo viejo, codicioso:
Que se puede esperar del?
In youth he was luxurious;
In manhood he was cruel;
In old age he was avaricious:
What could be hoped from him?