THE KING’S CONSCIENCE
/You/ have beheld an unusual spectacle. That of King Philip II of
Spain acting upon impulse and under the sway of passion. It was
conduct very far from his habit. Patience was the one
considerable--perhaps the only--virtue in his character, and to his
constant exercise of it he owed such greatness as he had won.
‘God and Time and I are one,’ was his calm boast, and sometimes he
asserted that like God he moved against his enemies with leaden feet,
but smote with iron hands.
It was not by any means the only matter in which he perceived a
likeness between God and himself, but it is the only one with which at
the moment we need be concerned. For here, for once, you behold him
departing from it, yielding to an impulse of rage provoked by the
outrageous tone of that message from the detestable Elizabeth.
This letter, with its cold threat of perpetrating an abomination
revolting to all equity and humanity, he must regard as an impudent
attempt to intimidate and coerce him. And further to incense him there
had been added to the incredible insolence of the letter, the even
more incredible insolence of its bearer.
As he presently informed Father Allen, it was as if, having slapped
his face with that impudent communication, she had entrusted its
delivery to a messenger who was to administer a kick on his own
behalf. In all his august career he could not remember to have had a
man stand before his face with such contumely and so little awe of his
quasi-divinity. Is it any wonder that this demigod accustomed only to
incense should have found his nostrils irritated by that dose of
pepper, and that under this irritation he should have become so human
as to sneeze?
He was certainly the wrong man with whom such liberties could be
taken, and of all moments in his life the present was certainly the
moment in which his temper could least brook them. At another time he
might have sustained his patience by the conviction of a heavy
reckoning to be presented to that arrogant bastard who usurped the
throne of England; he might have smiled at these stings of a gnat
which in his own good time his mighty hand should crush. But now, in
the season of his humiliation, his great fleet dispersed and
shattered, with scarcely a noble house in Spain that did not mourn a
son, his strength so exhausted that it would hardly be in his own
lifetime that the King of Spain would recover sufficiently to make
himself feared again upon the seas, he was denied even this
consolation. To the shattering blow delivered to his consequence in
the world were added now such personal insults as these, which he
could only punish by petty vengeances upon worthless underlings.
He bethought him of other letters which Elizabeth of England had
written him, defiant, mocking letters, now bitter-sweet, now
caustically sarcastic. He had smiled his patient, cruel smile as he
read them. He could afford to smile then, in his assurance that the
day of reckoning would surely come. But now that by some
incomprehensible malignity of fortune he was cheated of that
assurance, now that the day of reckoning was overpast, having brought
him only shame and failure, he could smile no longer at her insults,
could bear them no longer with the dignified calm that becomes a
monarch.
But if weakened, he was not yet so weak that he could with impunity be
mocked, coerced, and threatened.
‘She shall learn,’ he said to Father Allen, ‘that the King of Spain is
not to be moved by threats. This insolent dog who was here and those
others with him on that ship at Santander, heretics all, like her
pestilent, heretical self, are the concern of the Holy Office.’ He
turned to the bulky figure in the window-embrasure. ‘Frey Diego, this
becomes your affair.’
Frey Diego de Chaves stirred at last to life again, and moved slowly
forward. His dark eyes under bushy grey eyebrows were preternaturally
solemn. He delivered himself now of some common-sense in a deep rich
voice.
‘It is not Your Majesty who is threatened so much as those unfortunate
gentlemen who have served you well and who languish now in an English
prison awaiting the ransoms that are being sent from Spain.’
The King blinked his pale eyes. Sullenly, impatiently he corrected the
Prior’s statement.
‘They are being threatened only in their lives. I am threatened in my
dignity and honour, which are the dignity and honour of Spain.’
Frey Diego had come to lean heavily upon the heavy oaken table. ‘Will
the honour of Spain be safe if she suffers this threat to be executed
upon her sons?’
The King gave him one of his furtive glances; whereupon the Dominican
continued:
‘The nobility of Spain has been bled white in this disastrous
enterprise against England. Can Your Majesty afford to add to the
blood that has been already shed, that of so great and valuable a
servant as Valdez, the greatest of your surviving admirals; that of
Ortiz, of the Marquis of Fuensalida, of Don Ramon Chaves, of…’
‘Your brother, eh?’ the King snapped to interrupt him. ‘Behold your
impulse! A family concern.’
‘True,’ said the friar gravely. ‘But is it not a family concern also
for Your Majesty? Does not all Spain compose the family of the King,
and are not her nobles the first-born of that family? This insolent
Englishman who was lately here and his shipmates at Santander, what
are they to set in the balance against those Spanish gentlemen in
London? You may fling them to the Holy Office for heretics as is your
right, indeed, almost your duty to the Faith, but how will that
compensate for the eight noble heads--eight truncated, bleeding
heads--which the Queen of England will cast into Your Majesty’s lap?’
His Majesty started visibly, appalled by the vivid phrase. It was as
if he beheld those bleeding heads in his lap already. But he recovered
instantly.
‘Enough!’ he rapped. ‘I do not yield to threats.’ But the source of
his strength of spirit was revealed by what he added: ‘They are
threats which that woman will not dare to execute. It would earn her
the execration of the whole world.’ He swung to the Jesuit. ‘Am I not
right, Allen?’
The Englishman avoided a direct answer. ‘You are dealing, Majesty,
with a Godless, headstrong woman, a female antichrist, without regard
for any laws of God or man.’
‘But this!’ cried the King, clinging to the belief in what he hoped.
‘Execrable as it would be, it is no more execrable than the murder of
the Queen of Scots. That, too, was a deed that all the world believed
she would never dare.’
Here was a blow to the faith he built on Elizabeth’s fear of the
world’s judgment. It brought him to doubt whether, indeed, he might
not be building upon sand. It was a doubt that angered him. That he
should yield to that detestable woman’s threats was a draught too
bitter for his lips. He could not, would not swallow it, however men
might seek to press the cup upon him. He said so harshly, and upon
that dismissed both the Jesuit and the Dominican.
But when they were gone, he found it impossible to resume, as he had
intended, work upon those documents awaiting his attention. He sat
there, shivering with anger as he read again the offensive letter or
recalled again the offensive bearing of the messenger.
At long last his mind came to the matter which had provoked the
threat. In his wrath at the effect, he had hitherto neglected to cast
so much as a glance upon the cause. He pondered it now. What tale was
this? Was it even true? The Concepción which Don Pedro de Mendoza had
commanded had been definitely reported lost with all hands. How then
came Don Pedro alive? The letter, itself, told him. He had been
sheltered in an English household. He had escaped, then. And according
further to this letter, he had returned to Spain bringing with him the
daughter of the house in question. But if so, how came it that there
was no word of this return, that Don Pedro had not come to report
himself and pay his duty to his King?
One man might know: The Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo who was Don
Pedro’s uncle.
His Majesty summoned the secretary Rodriguez, and dictated a brief
command to the Primate to wait upon him instantly at the Escurial. The
Cardinal might enlighten him upon this, and at the same time he would
take order with him, as Inquisitor-General, for dealing with these
other English heretics now lying in his power.
A courier was instantly despatched, with orders to ride all night and
spare neither himself nor horseflesh.
On that the King sought to dismiss the matter for the present from his
mind, to be resumed anon in consultation with the Inquisitor-General.
But the matter would not be dismissed. The image excited by the vivid
phrase of Frey Diego de Chaves persisted. Ever and anon as the King
looked into his lap he beheld there a little heap of bleeding,
truncated heads. One of them showed him the stern features of the
brave Valdez who had served him so well, and might but for this have
lived to serve him better; the glazed eyes of the Marquis of
Fuensalida looked up at him with undying reproach, as did the others.
He had let those heads fall so that he might preserve his dignity. But
how had he preserved it? If the act should bring execration upon
Elizabeth who had executed it, what must it bring upon him who might
have averted it, but would not? He covered his reptilian eyes with his
corpse-like hands in a futile attempt to shut out a vision that lay
within his brain. Obstinately his purpose hardened before an
opposition arising, as he accounted it, from a weakness in his nature.
He would not yield.
Late on the following evening, whilst the King was at supper, eating,
as he did all things, alone, Cardinal Quiroga was announced. He bade
him in at once, and only momentarily interrupted his consumption of
pastry to greet the Primate.
From this interview he derived at last great comfort and assurance.
Not only was Don Pedro in the prison of the Inquisition, but so was
the woman he had carried off from England. She was accused of heresy
and witchcraft. It was the exercise of her arts upon Don Pedro which
had plunged him into offences against the Faith. He was to expiate
these offences by doing penance in the great Auto de Fé which was to
be held in Toledo on the following Thursday. In that same Auto the
woman would be abandoned to the secular arm to be burnt as a witch,
together with some others whom the Cardinal enumerated. He expressed
a hope in passing that His Majesty would grace the Auto by his royal
presence.
The King took a fresh piece of pastry from the gold dish, crammed it
into his royal mouth, licked his fingers, and asked a question. What
was the evidence of witchcraft against this woman?
The Inquisitor-General, familiar now with the particulars of a case
which so closely concerned his nephew, returned a full and detailed
answer.
The King sat back and half-closed his eyes. His lips smiled a little.
He was extremely satisfied. The ground was cut from under his feet.
His duty to the Faith made it impossible for him to yield to the
demands of Elizabeth. Aforetime and successfully when protests had
been addressed to him from England on behalf of seamen who had fallen
into the hands of the Inquisition, he had replied that it was idle to
appeal to him for anything that lay outside the province of the
secular power in Spain. In matters of the Faith, in the province of
God, he had no power to interfere with the proceedings of the Holy
Office to which he might himself be amenable did he offend against
religion. And this was no piece of hypocrisy. It was entirely sincere.
As sincere as was now his thankfulness that, if those noble Spanish
heads must fall as a consequence, none could reproach him with it. The
whole world should hear his answer to the Queen of England: that not
by him, but by the Holy Office, had judgment been passed upon crimes
against the Faith; if meanly to avenge this upon guiltless gentlemen
she took their innocent lives, there being against them no charge to
warrant putting them to death, the responsibility for that dark deed
must lie upon her evil soul as surely as it must earn her the contempt
and reprobation of the world.
And since his duty to the Faith, whose foremost champion he was, now
bound his hands, he need fear no more the vision of those bloody heads
in his lap.
Of all this, however, he said nothing to Quiroga. He thanked His
Eminence for information which he had been driven to seek, because a
rumour had reached him that Don Pedro de Mendoza was alive, and so
dismissed him.
That night the King of Spain slept peacefully as do men whose
consciences are tranquil.