THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
Two royal lives practically extend throughout the sixteenth century,
or from the year 1500 to 1598. The lives and reigns of three of their
successors carry us forward exactly a century further, for Philip
III reigned from 1598–1621; Philip IV, 1621–1665; and Charles II,
1665–1700. The house of Hapsburg had come in with Charles I, who was
also Charles V of Germany; it terminated in Spain in the reign of
Charles II, after an even two hundred years of power.
It will do us no harm to recapitulate, that under Isabella and
Ferdinand the Spanish monarchy was consolidated; under Charles I it
grew to be an empire, wide–extended, world–embracing; and under Phillip
II began to shrink again to meaner proportions.
Charles could not secure the empire to his son, as it went to his
brother Ferdinand, neither could he bestow upon him transcendent
abilities; but Philip equalled him in his intensity of purpose, his
capacity for protracted labour, his inclination to provoke war,
and surpassed him in religious fanaticism. Both, however, were
self–sufficient, needing no counsellors, no outside help to formulate
their plans of action. With the incoming of Philip III we witness the
beginning of a long line of favourites, of irresponsible courtiers,
under whom Spain suffered for nearly two centuries more. The first was
Sandoval, whom his royal servant created Duke of Lerma, and under whom
(notwithstanding the death of Holland’s great ally, Elizabeth, in 1603)
the United Provinces gained their virtual independence by the Treaty
of Antwerp, in 1610. The Netherlands were under the comparatively mild
sway of the Infanta Isabella, her armies led by the Archduke Albert
and the Marquis Spinola, and opposed by Prince Maurice of Nassau.
By the end of the first decade of this century the Dutch East India
Company was established, and their fleets not only brought rich cargoes
to Holland, but they preyed upon Spanish commerce as well. To such a
condition, finally, had Philip II’s policy brought affairs, that after
thirty years his former vassals, the sturdy rebels of the northern
Netherlands, were rejoicing over inflowing wealth, while Spain’s
treasuries were empty, or exhausted as soon as replenished.
Though without that positive power for evil possessed by his father,
Philip III was malignant, capable at times of great evil, as was shown
in his expulsion of the Moriscoes, or the last of the Moors, in 1609.
At this time the bulk of them were living in Valencia, where they were
highly esteemed for their sobriety, diligence, conformity to the laws,
and as skilled artisans; but owing to the suggestion of the Archbishop
of Toledo, Sandoval’s brother, Philip banished them all to Africa,
to the number of more than half a million, where and in the voyage
thither they suffered incredible hardships. Their only blame lay in
their industry and thrift, and the country soon felt their loss through
a further decline of its agriculture, manufactures, and mining. Thus
departed from Spain the last vestige of the Moors, whose ancestors had
invaded the peninsula nine hundred years before. With them, and with
the Jews, departed also in great measure the country’s prosperity. The
Moors, says a writer on Spain, had brought here the cultivation of
the mulberry, sugar cane, cotton, and rice. The spices and sweets of
Valencia were famous, as well as the sword blades of Toledo, the silks
of Granada, and the leather of Cordova. Nobody knows the extent of
Moorish treasure still buried in Spain; but if the Spaniards had spent
as much time in tilling the soil as in hunting for the undiscovered
gold and jewels, the country would be more prosperous than it is to–day.
Weak, vacillating, swayed by his wife and his favourites, Philip III
was yet morose and melancholy, and eventually turned upon Lerma,
forcing him to retire to his country seat, but not until after the
Church had made him a cardinal.
The eldest son of Philip III succeeded him at his death, in 1521, which
is said to have been hastened by the punctilious etiquette of his
court, caused by delay in removing him from a fire, near which he had
been seated by one of the attendants.
As Philip IV, the new heir to the throne dabbled in disastrous wars to
even a greater extent than his father, and he could not prevent being
drawn into the vortex of that terrible Thirty Years’ War (1618–’48)
between the Catholics and Protestants of Europe. It was a legacy,
indeed, from his great–grandfather, Charles, who had been compelled to
a truce with the Lutherans, when he would fain have exterminated them,
eighty years before.
This, the fourth Philip of the Spanish line, although called “Philip
the Great,” must needs have a royal favourite in one Gasparo de Guzman,
Duke of Olivarez, for whose misfortunes he served as a scapegoat.
Olivarez began well, by executing a former sub–favourite, Calderon, and
prosecuting Lerma for his fraudulent practices—a proceeding which has
an aspect of grim humour, in view of his own subsequent venality and
official corruption. He sent Spinola to war again with the Netherlands,
that grave of so many Spanish soldiers; but the Dutch were now too
strong for the mother of tyrants, and not many years after, in 1628,
captured the Spanish treasure fleet, and in 1639 almost annihilated the
Spanish navy at Dunkirk. He was scarcely more fortunate in Italy; he
even ventured to match himself against that past–master of diplomacy
and intrigue, Cardinal Richelieu, with a result that might have been
expected. His tyranny and oppressive exactions raised a revolt in
Catalonia, which lasted thirteen years; and it was about this time that
Portugal threw off the coils which Philip II had wound around her and
regained an independence which she has ever since retained.
The reign of Olivarez came to an end after twenty years or so of
maladministration, but Spain’s territorial losses went on under
his nephew and successor, Luis de Haro. All through the history of
these times there was always an undercurrent of war between France
and Spain, now one nation and then the other being victorious.
Hitherto the prestige of the Spanish soldiery had been sufficient to
hold the French in check; but Turenne took from them Roussillon, in
1642, and at the battle of Rocroi, the next year, the great Condé
administered a crushing defeat, so that their century–long reputation
for invincibility was shattered. Condé again defeated the famous
Spanish infantry at the battle of Lens, in 1648, and that same year
a final peace was concluded with the Netherlands. On the sea Spanish
ships were again defeated by the renowned Van Tromp, the same Dutch
admiral who sailed with a broom at his mast head in token that he had
swept the seas clean of his country’s enemies. Until this period the
transatlantic possessions of Spain had been kept intact, though many
coast cities and towns had been bombarded, and fleets of treasure
galleons destroyed; but in 1665 one of Cromwell’s admirals took the
island of Jamaica, and this was the beginning of such losses by Spain.
All these defeats, with but few redeeming victories, reduced Spain from
the once proud position she had held as dictator in European affairs
to become subordinate to France, her ancient enemy. By the Peace of
Westphalia, in 1648, Spain had suffered indirect defeat, as thereby the
Protestants had secured religious toleration, against which Charles
I and the three Philips had fought for more than a century. By this
peace, also, France and Spain were left the only combatants on the
field of European warfare, but in 1659 they came to terms by the Treaty
of the Pyrenees; France gave back to Spain her territory of Catalonia,
and Spain ceded to France Artois and Roussillon. Further, a promising
guaranty of the stability of this present peace was the marriage the
following year of the Infanta Maria Teresa, Philip’s eldest daughter
by his first wife, to the great king, Louis XIV of France. Six years
later, after a protracted struggle, the decisive battle of Villaviciosa
lost Portugal finally to Spain, at the news of which the king was so
affected that he swooned away, his death occurring shortly afterward,
September 17, 1665.
One would think that peace might now reign between France and Spain,
since Philip IV left his throne to a helpless child of four years,
whose brother–in–law was King Louis XIV. But Louis the despot was a law
unto himself. He no sooner saw the opportunity, with Spain powerless
to oppose him, and his hands free in other directions, than he promptly
sent his armies into the Netherlands. Alarmed at his schemes of
conquest, England, Sweden, and Holland joined together in the “Triple
Alliance,” which for a while held him in check, until they tied his
hands again in 1668 by the Treaty of Aix–la–Chapelle. At the Spanish
court, meanwhile, affairs were in a scandalous condition, for the queen
regent was ruled at first by a German Jesuit, and later foisted into
favour an agreeable young man who had been merely a page, and whose
highest conception of pleasure was to occupy the place of honour at a
bullfight. If it may be said of the reign of Philip IV that it was the
most disastrous to Spain since that of King Roderick the Goth, little
more can be claimed for that of Charles II, his son, who came into
the succession in 1675, at the age of fourteen. Like all the issue of
Philip II, he was weak almost to idiocy, and so superstitious that in
later life he had himself exorcised for witchcraft.
His uncle, Don John, at first assisted him with his counsels, but after
his death a favourite named Eguya succeeded him, to be followed by the
Duke of Medina Celi, then by the Count of Oropesa; and none of them
laboured for the aggrandizement of Spain. By the Treaty of Nimeguen,
in 1678, and by the Twenty Years’ Truce of Ratisbon, Louis XIV should
have abstained from further aggressions, but his mischief–loving spirit
was not to be curbed. He invaded Catalonia in 1689, bombarded Alicante
and Barcelona, capturing the latter, and acted in a manner altogether
in keeping with the character of this treacherous and unfaithful
monarch, whose long life is but a record of infamy.
By the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, Louis unexpectedly gave back to Spain
all the territory he had conquered, an act inexplicable until the terms
of the secret “Partition Treaty” became known, when it was found that
he had arranged for the partition of Spain, with the assistance of
other powers, by which his son the dauphin was to have the bulk of the
dominions, including the Italian possessions.
Spain had now become so weak that the expected death of her king was
the signal for a gathering of her royal neighbours, who sat around
like vultures expectant of their prey until the pitiful apology of a
monarch at last shuffled off this mortal coil. The last of his house
to reign in Spain, intellectually degenerate and physically impotent,
Charles II passed away, leaving no direct heir to the throne. Before
his death, however, aware of the coalition against the throne in the
event of no successor being named, Charles willed his dominions to the
electoral Prince of Bavaria, whose mother was a daughter of Philip IV.
But the prince died before the king, and this reopened the question of
succession, which will be treated in the next chapter.
* * * * *
It is one of the paradoxes of civilization that a barren or a
blood–fertilized soil sometimes produces the most luxuriant growth and
yields the richest harvests. So with Spain. During the century of her
greatest oppression, during the years of her decadence, she brought
forth the flower of her literature and of her art. We may call the era
of intellectual and artistic development, or rather inflorescence,
by whatever name we will—Augustan, Elizabethan, or Victorian—but the
fact is, the sovereign has no claim to this distinction, for he or she
merely happened to reign when this took place.
Thus we find during the reigns of the three Philips such world–renowned
names as Garcilasso de la Vega, the historian; Las Casas, Oviedo,
Bernal Diaz, and Cortes, military writers; Cervantes, author of the
immortal Don Quixote; Lope de Vega, the dramatist, minor poets in
great numbers, and great painters like Murillo, Ribera, and Velasquez.
Titian, even, was a friend of his patron Charles I, and spent some of
his last years painting portraits for Philip II.
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