Foreign Statesmen

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PHILIP II. OF SPAIN

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PHILIP  II.  OF  SPAIN

 
BY
MARTIN A. S. HUME
EDITOR OF
THE ‘CALENDAR OF SPANISH STATE PAPERS OF ELIZABETH’
(PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE)


Philippus ipse Hispaniæ desiderio magnopere aestuabat, nec aliud
quam Hispaniam loquebatur.

Sepulveda.


MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1911

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Copyright
First Edition 1897
Reprinted 1899, 1906, 1911

CONTENTS

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CHAPTER I

FOR three hundred years a bitter controversy has raged around the actions of Philip II. of Spain. Until our own times no attempt even had been made to write his life-history from an impartial point of view. He had been alternately deified and execrated, until through the mists of time and prejudice he loomed rather as the permanent embodiment of a system than as an individual man swayed by changing circumstances and controlled by human frailties.

The more recent histories of his reign—the works of English, American, German, and French scholars—have{2} treated their subject with fuller knowledge and broader sympathies, but they have necessarily been to a large extent histories of the great events which convulsed Europe for fifty years at the most critical period of modern times. The space to be occupied by the present work will not admit of this treatment of the subject. The purpose is therefore to consider Philip mainly as a statesman, in relation to the important problems with which he had to deal, rather than to write a connected account of the occurrences of a long reign. It will be necessary for us to try to penetrate the objects he aimed at and the influences, personal and exterior, which ruled him, and to seek the reasons for his failure. For he did fail utterly. In spite of very considerable powers of mind, of a long lifetime of incessant toil, of deep-laid plans, and vast ambitions, his record is one continued series of defeats and disappointments; and in exchange for the greatest heritage that Christendom had ever seen, with the apparently assured prospect of universal domination which opened before him at his birth, he closed his dying eyes upon dominions distracted and ruined beyond all recovery, a bankrupt State, a dwindled prestige, and a defeated cause. He had devoted his life to the task of establishing the universal supremacy of Catholicism in the political interests of Spain, and he was hopelessly beaten.

The reasons for his defeat will be seen in the course of the present work to have been partly personal and partly circumstantial. The causes of both these sets of reasons were laid at periods long anterior to Philip’s birth.

The first of the great misfortunes of Spain was an{3} event which at the time looked full of bright promise, namely, the marriage of Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabel, to Philip of Austria, son of the Emperor Maximilian. This marriage eventually burdened the King of Spain with the German dominions of the House of Austria, the imperial crown, with its suzerainty over Italy, the duchy of Milan, and, above all, the rich inheritance of the House of Burgundy, the Franche Comté, Holland, and the Netherlands. Even before this the crown of Aragon had been weakened rather than strengthened by the possession of Sicily and Naples, which latter brought it into inimical contact with France, and also necessitated the assertion and defence of its rights as a Mediterranean Power in constant rivalry with Turks and Algerians. This had been bad, but the vast and scattered territories of Charles V. cursed Spain with a foreign policy in every corner of Europe. In his Austrian dominions the emperor was the outpost of Christianity against the Turk, the bulwark which restrained the Moslem flood from swamping eastern Europe. His galleys were those which were to keep the Mediterranean a Christian sea. Flanders and the Franche Comté gave him a long flat frontier conterminous with France, whose jealous eyes had been fixed covetously for centuries on the fine harbours and flourishing towns of the Low Countries.

Most of these interests were of very secondary importance to Spain itself. The country had only quite recently been unified; the vast new dominions which had fallen under its sway in America might well have monopolised its activity for centuries to come. The geographical position of the Iberian peninsula itself{4} practically isolated it from the other countries of Europe, and rendered it unnecessary for it to take any part in the discords that prevailed over the rest of the continent; whilst the recent religious struggles with the Moors in Spain had consolidated Catholic Christianity in the country, and prevented the reformed doctrines from obtaining any footing there. Spain indeed, alone and aloof, with a fertile soil, fine harbours, and a well-disposed population, seemed destined to enjoy a career of activity, prosperity, and peace. But the possession of Flanders brought it into constant rivalry with France, and necessitated a close alliance with England, whilst the imperial connection dragged it into ceaseless wars with the Turks, and, above all, with the rising power of Protestantism, which ultimately proved its ruin. Philip, who succeeded to this thorny inheritance, was, on the other hand, bounded and isolated by mental limitations as irremovable as the Pyrenees which shut in his native land. As King of Spain alone, having only local problems to deal with, modest, cautious, painstaking, and just, he might have been a happy and successful—even a great—monarch, but as leader of the conservative forces of Christendom he was in a position for which his gifts unfitted him.

He was the offspring of the marriage of first cousins, both his parents being grandchildren of cunning, avaricious Ferdinand, and of Isabel the Catholic, whose undoubted genius was accompanied by high-strung religious exaltation, which would now be considered neurotic. Her daughter, Juana the Mad, Philip’s grandmother, passed a long lifetime in melancholy torpor. In Charles V. the tainted blood was mingled with the gross appetites{5} and heavy frames of the burly Hapsburgs. The strength and power of resistance inherited from them enabled him, until middle age only, to second his vast mental power with his indomitable bodily energy. But no sooner was the elasticity of early manhood gone than he too sank into despairing lethargy and religious mysticism. Philip’s mother, the Empress Isabel, came from the same stock, and was the offspring of several generations of consanguineous marriages. The curse which afflicted Philip’s progenitors, and was transmitted with augmented horror to his descendants, could not be expected to pass over Philip himself; and the explanation of his attitude towards the political events of his time must often be sought in the hereditary gloom which fell upon him, and in the unshakable belief that he was in some sort a junior partner with Providence, specially destined to link his mundane fortunes with the higher interests of religion. His slow laboriousness, his indomitable patience, his marble serenity, all seem to have been imitated, perhaps unconsciously, from the relentless, resistless action of divine forces.

On the other hand, his inherited characteristics were accentuated by his education and training. From the time of his birth his father was continually at war with infidels and heretics, and the earliest ideas that can have been instilled into his infant mind were that he and his were fighting the Almighty’s battles and destroying His enemies. In his first years he was surrounded by the closest and narrowest devotees, for ever beseeching the divine blessing on the arms of the absent emperor; and when the time came for Philip to receive political instruction from his father, at an age when most boys are frank{6} and confiding, he was ceaselessly told that his great destiny imposed upon him, above all, the supreme duty of self-control, and of listening to all counsellors whilst trusting none. No wonder, then, that Philip, lacking his father’s bodily vigour, grew up secret, crafty, and over-cautious. No wonder that his fervid faith in the divinity of his destiny and the sacredness of his duty kept him uncomplaining amidst calamities that would have crushed men of greater gifts and broader views. No wonder that this sad, slow, distrustful man, with his rigid methods and his mind for microscopic detail, firm in his belief that the Almighty was working through him for His great ends, should have been hopelessly beaten in the fight with nimble adversaries burdened with no fixed convictions or conscientious scruples, who shifted their policy as the circumstances of the moment dictated. Philip thought that he was fittingly performing a divine task by nature’s own methods. He forgot that nature can afford to await results indefinitely, whilst men cannot.

Philip was born at the house of Don Bernardino de Pimentel, near the church of St. Paul in Valladolid, on May 21, 1527. His mother was profoundly impressed with the great destiny awaiting her offspring, and thought that any manifestation of pain or weakness during her labour might detract from the dignity of the occasion. One of her Portuguese ladies, fearing that this effort of self-control on the part of the empress would add to her sufferings, begged her to give natural vent to her feelings. “Silence!” said the empress, “die I may, but wail I will not,” and then she ordered that her face should be hidden from the light, that no involuntary sign of pain should be seen.{7}

In this spirit of self-control and overpowering majesty the weak, sickly baby was reared by his devout mother. Two other boy infants who were born to her died of epilepsy in early childhood, and Philip, her first-born, remained her only son.

In the midst of the rejoicings that heralded his birth news came to Valladolid that the emperor’s Spanish and German troops had assaulted and sacked Rome, and that Pope Clement VII. was surrounded by infuriated soldiery, a prisoner in his own castle of St. Angelo. In the long rivalry which Charles had sustained with the French king, Francis I., who had competed with him for the imperial crown, one of the main factors was the dread of the entire domination of Italy by Spain, by virtue of the suzerainty of the empire over the country. The excitable and unstable pontiff, Clement VII., thought that his own interests were threatened, and made common cause with Francis. The emperor’s troops were commanded by Charles de Montpensier, Duke of Bourbon, who had quarrelled with his own sovereign, and was in arms against him, and he unquestionably exceeded the emperor’s wishes in the capture and sacking of the eternal city, the intention having been to have held the pontiff in check by terror rather than to degrade him in the eyes of the world. Charles made what amends he could for the blunder committed by Bourbon, and at once suspended the rejoicings for the birth of his heir. But the gossips in Valladolid gravely shook their heads, and prophesied that the great emperor’s first-born was destined to be a bane to the papacy in years to come. It will be seen in the course of the present book that during the whole of his life{8} Philip regarded the papacy and the persons of the pontiffs without any superstitious awe, and mainly as instruments in his hands to achieve the great work entrusted to him by Providence.

In April 1528, when Philip was eleven months old, he received the oath of allegiance as heir to the crown from the Cortes of Castile, and from that time until the return of his father to Spain in 1533 the royal infant remained under the care of his mother and one of her Portuguese ladies, Doña Leonor de Mascarenhas, to whom Philip in after-life was devotedly attached. He was even then a preternaturally grave and silent child, with a fair pink-and-white skin, fine yellow hair, and full blue lymphatic eyes, rather too close together. It is no uncommon thing for princes to be represented as prodigies, but Philip seems, in truth, to have been really an extraordinary infant, and exhibited great aptitude for certain studies, especially mathematics. Charles on his arrival in Spain decided to give to his heir a separate household and masters who should prepare him for the duties of his future position. A list was made of the principal priestly professors of the Spanish universities, which was gradually reduced by elimination to three names. These were submitted to the empress for her choice, and she selected Dr. Juan Martinez Pedernales (which name = flints, he ingeniously Latinised into Siliceo), a professor of Salamanca, who was appointed tutor to the prince, with a salary of 100,000 maravedis a year. The emperor probably knew little of the character of his son’s tutor. He had intended in the previous year to appoint to the post a really eminent scholar, the famous Viglius, but did not do so. Whatever{9} may have been Siliceo’s virtues, and according to priestly historians they were many, the emperor had subsequently a very poor opinion of the way in which he had performed his duty.

In a private letter from Charles to his son ten years afterwards, to which other reference will be made, the emperor says that “Siliceo has certainly not been the most fitting teacher for you. He has been too desirous of pleasing you. I hope to God that it was not for his own ends”; and again, “He is your chief chaplain, and you confess to him. It would be bad if he was as anxious to please you in matters of your conscience as he has been in your studies.” But Philip evidently liked his tutor, for later he made him Archbishop of Toledo and Primate of Spain. The prince must have been an apt pupil in the studies which most attracted him. He was never a linguist of any proficiency, but could read and write Latin well at quite an early age, and certainly understood French and Italian. But he was a Spaniard of Spaniards, and nothing shows the strict limitations of his capacity more than the clumsiness with which he expressed himself even in his own language, although he frequently criticised and altered the words and expressions employed by his secretaries.

The governor appointed to teach Philip the social duties and exercises fitting to his rank was an honest Spanish gentleman who possessed the full confidence of the emperor—Don Juan de Zuñiga, Comendador Mayor of Castile. From him he learnt fencing, riding, and warlike exercises, and especially dancing, of which during his youth he was very fond. Don Juan was somewhat uncompromising of speech, and apparently made no{10} attempt to flatter or spoil his pupil, for the emperor in 1543, when Philip was sixteen, warns him that he is to prize Don Juan the more for this quality, and is to follow his advice in all personal and social matters.

At the age of twelve Philip lost his mother, and two years afterwards, in 1541, his political instruction may be said to have commenced. The emperor, although still in the prime of life, was already tired of the world. His great expedition to Algiers, from which he had hoped so much, had brought him nothing but disaster and disappointment, and he arrived in Spain in deep depression. A letter supposed to have been written to him at the time by Philip, full of religious and moral consolation for his trouble, is quoted by Cabrera de Cordoba and subsequent historians; but on the face of it there are few signs of its being the composition of a boy of fourteen, and it is not sufficiently authenticated to be reproduced here. The emperor in any case was delighted with his son. He found him studious, grave, and prudent beyond his years, and during the period that the father and son were together the great statesman devoted a portion of every day to initiate his successor in the intricate task before him. In 1542 Philip was to receive his first lesson in practical warfare, and accompanied the Duke of Alba to defend Perpignan against the French, but he saw no fighting, and on his way back to Castile he received the oath of allegiance of the Aragonese Cortes at Monzon, Philip himself swearing in October at Saragossa to maintain inviolate the tenaciously-held privileges of self-government cherished by the kingdom of Aragon. How he kept his oath will be seen in a subsequent chapter. The{11} tendency of Charles’s policy was in favour of centralisation in the government of Spain, and he several times in writing to his son shows his dislike of the autonomy possessed by the stubborn Aragonese. He had completely crushed popular privileges in his kingdom of Castile, and would have liked to do the same in Aragon. This will probably explain Philip’s eagerness in subsequently seizing upon an excuse to curtail the rights of the northern kingdom. Before this period Charles had conceived another project in favour of the consolidation of Spain. Ferdinand the Catholic, with the papal authority, had seized the Spanish kingdom of Navarre, and added it to his own dominions. Thenceforward the titular sovereigns of Navarre were only tributary princes of France, but they did not lightly put up with their deprivation, and were a constant source of irritation and danger to Spain on the Pyrenean frontier. The design of the emperor was nothing less than to put an end to the feud, by marrying Philip to the heiress of Navarre, Jeanne d’Albret. It is idle to speculate upon the far-reaching results which might have ensued from such a match, but in all probability it would have changed the whole course of modern history. At the time this design was in view (1539) “to extinguish the quarrel of Navarre and tranquillise both our conscience and that of our son,” Philip and Jeanne were twelve years old, and the marriage would doubtless have taken place but for the vigilance of Francis I. To have brought the King of Spain over the Pyrenees as Prince of Béarn, and the semi-independent sovereign of a large part of the south of France, would have ruined the French monarchy, so poor little Jeanne was married by{12} force to a man she detested, and Philip had to look elsewhere for a bride.

On the occasion of Charles’s own marriage, the dowry from the wealthy royal family of Portugal had provided him at a critical juncture with money to carry on the war with France; and now again, with his exchequer chronically empty, and the demands upon it for warlike purposes more pressing than ever, the emperor sought to tap the rich stream of the Portuguese Indies by wedding his son to Princess Maria, daughter of John III. and of Charles’s sister Catharine, another consanguineous marriage of which we shall see the result later. Before the affair could be concluded the emperor was obliged to leave Spain (May 1543). In July of the previous year Francis I. had fulminated against his old enemy his famous proclamation of war, and to Charles’s troubles with the Protestants of Germany was now added the renewed struggle with France, in which he was to have the assistance of the English king. The emperor’s intercourse with his son during his stay in Spain had convinced him of Philip’s precocity in statesmanship, and so he determined to leave in his hands the regency of Spain in his absence.

This was one of the most important junctures of Philip’s life. He was barely sixteen years old, and was thus early to be entrusted with Charles’s secret system of government, an instruction which left deep marks upon Philip’s own method for the rest of his life. The two letters written by Charles to his son before his departure from Spain are of the utmost importance as providing a key for Philip’s subsequent political action. Although Philip was entrusted with the ultimate decision{13} of all subjects, he was to be guided by some of the most experienced and wisest of Charles’s councillors. First there was the Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo, Tavara, and next the Secretary of State, Francisco de los Cobos, who had been at the emperor’s right hand for so long. The young regent is secretly told by his father that the reason why these two were appointed as his principal councillors was because they were respectively heads of factions, and their rivalry would prevent the prince from falling under the influence of either political party. With merciless scalpel the great emperor lays bare, for the benefit of the lad of sixteen, the faults and failings of the statesmen who are to aid him in the government. He is warned not to trust any of them separately. Their hypocrisy, their greed, their frailties of character, and conduct are pointed out by the worldly-wise ruler to the neophyte; and the moral of it all is that he should listen to the opinions of every one, and especially of rivals, and then decide for himself.

The greatest of the emperor’s Spanish subjects was the Duke of Alba, yet this is how he is sketched for the benefit of Philip. “The Duke of Alba would have liked to be associated with them (i.e. Cardinal Tavara and Cobos), and I do not think that he would have followed either party, but that which best suited his interests. But as it concerns the interior government of the kingdom, in which it is not advisable that grandees should be employed, I would not appoint him, whereat he is much aggrieved. Since he has been near me I have noticed that he aims at great things and is very ambitious, although at first he was so sanctimonious, humble, and modest. Look, my son, how he will act{14} with you, who are younger than I. You must avoid placing him or other grandees very intimately in the interior government, because he and others will exert every means to gain your goodwill, which will afterwards cost you dear. I believe that he will not hesitate to endeavour to tempt you even by means of women, and I beg you most especially to avoid this. In foreign affairs and war make use of him, and respect him, as he is in this the best man we now have in the kingdom.” And so, one by one, the bishops and ministers who were to be Philip’s advisers are dissected for his benefit. The prince was ready enough to learn lessons of distrust, and it afterwards became one of the main principles of his system that only creatures of his own making should be his instruments for the political government of Spain.

Quite as extraordinary as the political instructions were the minute rules of conduct given by the emperor to his son for the regulation of his married life and the continuance of his studies. He is not to consider that he is a man with nothing to learn because he married early, and is left in so great a position, but is to study harder than ever. “If this, my son, be necessary for others, consider how much more necessary is it for you, seeing how many lands you will have to govern, so distant and far apart.... If you wish to enjoy them you must necessarily understand and be understood in them; and nothing is so important for this as the study of languages.” The coming marital relations of the young prince were in somewhat curious terms, left entirely to the guidance of Don Juan de Zuñiga, and the lessons enforced all through the proud and anxious father’s instructions, were piety, patience, modesty, and{15} distrust. These were Philip’s guiding principles for the rest of his long life. The prince fully answered the expectations of his father. During the next few years, full of stress and storm for the wearying emperor, a close correspondence was kept up between them, and the plans and principles of the father were gradually assimilated by the son.

In November 1543 the Portuguese princess crossed the frontier to marry Philip. She was of the same height and age as her bridegroom, a plump bright little creature; but he was already grave and reserved, short and dapper, but erect and well made, of graceful and pleasant mien. But for all his gravity he was still a boy, and could not resist the temptation of going out in disguise to meet her, and mixing in her train. His coming was probably an open secret, for the princess on the day of his arrival took care to look especially charming in her dress of crimson velvet, and with white feathers in her jaunty satin hat. The meeting took place in a beautiful country house of the Duke of Alba near Salamanca, and on November 15 the wedding procession entered the city itself. All that pomp and popular enthusiasm could do was done to make the marriage feast a merry one. Bulls and cane tourneys, dancing and buffooning, fine garments and fair faces, seemed to presage a happy future for the wedded pair. The bride was Philip’s own choice, for his father had at one time suggested to him Margaret, the daughter of his old enemy Francis, but the prince begged to be allowed to marry one of his own kin and tongue, rather than the daughter of a foe, and the emperor let him have his way.{16}

Little is known of the short married life of the young couple. It only lasted seventeen months, and then, after the birth of the unfortunate Don Carlos, the poor little princess herself died, it was said at the time from imprudently eating a lemon soon after her delivery. The birth of the heir had been hailed with rejoicing by the Spanish people, and the news of the death of the mother caused redoubled sorrow. Philip was already extremely popular with his people. His gravity was truly Spanish; his preference for the Spanish tongue, and his reluctance to marry the French princess, as well as his piety and moderation, had even now gained for him the affection of Spaniards, which for the rest of his life he never lost. His early bereavement was therefore looked upon as a national affliction. For three weeks after the death of his wife the young widower shut himself up in a monastery and gave way to his grief, until his public duties forced him into the world again. The Prince of Orange in his Apology, published in 1581, said that even before Philip had married Maria he had conferred the title of wife upon Doña Isabel de Osorio, the sister of the Marquis of Astorga. This has been frequently repeated, and much ungenerous comment founded upon it, strengthened, it is true, to some extent by the fact that subsequently for some years marital relations certainly existed between them. It is, however, in the highest degree improbable that Orange’s assertion was true. In the first place no Spanish churchman would have dared to marry the prince-regent before he was out of his boyhood without the knowledge of the emperor, and the matter is now almost placed beyond doubt by the already-mentioned document, which proves that Philip{17} had pledged his word of honour to his father that he had hitherto kept free of all such entanglements, and would do so in future. Whatever may have been Philip’s faults, he was a good and dutiful son, with a high sense of honour, and it is incredible that he would thus early have been guilty of deceit upon such a subject as this.

Founded upon the statements of so bitter an enemy of Philip’s as Orange, and upon the remarks of the Venetian ambassadors that he was incontinent “nelli piacere delle donne”; that, above all things, he delighted, “nelle donne; delle quali mirabilmente si diletta”; and that “molto ama le donne con le quali spesso si trattiene”—it has been usual to represent Philip as quite a libertine in this respect, and the lies and innuendoes of Antonio Perez have strengthened this view. That Philip was perfectly blameless in his domestic relations it would be folly to assert, but he was an angel in comparison with most of the contemporary monarchs, including his father; and probably few husbands of four successive wives have been more beloved by them than he was, in spite of his cold reserved demeanour. Behind the icy mask indeed there must have been much that was gentle and loving, for those who were nearest to him loved him best; his wives, children, old friends, and servants were devotedly attached to him, even when they disagreed with his actions; and in the rare intervals of his almost incessant toil at the desk no society delighted him so much as that of his children. Charles had on April 24, 1547, won the battle of Mühlberg, and had for the time utterly crushed the leaders of the Reformation in Germany. The Diet of Augsburg was summoned, and the Declaration of Faith, which it was hoped would reconcile{18} all difficulties, was drawn up. This perhaps was the highest point reached in Charles’s power. Now, if ever, was the time for carrying into effect his dream for assuring to his son the succession to almost universal domination. It had been the intention of Ferdinand the Catholic that Charles, his elder grandson, should succeed to the paternal dominions, the empire and Flanders, whilst Ferdinand the younger should inherit Spain and Naples. Charles, however, arranged otherwise, and made his brother King of the Romans, with the implied succession to the imperial crown on his elder brother’s death. But as Philip’s aptitude for government became more and more apparent to his father, the ambition of the latter to augment the heritage of his son increased. Ferdinand and his son Maximilian clung naturally to the arrangement by which the imperial crown should be secured to them and their descendants, but the emperor determined that as little power and territory as possible should go with it. Upon Philip accordingly the vacant dukedom of Milan was conferred in 1546 by special agreement with Ferdinand, who doubtless thought that it would not be bad for him to have his powerful nephew as prince of a fief of the empire, and so, to a certain extent, subordinate to him. But this was no part of Charles’s plan. Sicily had long been attached to the crown of Aragon, Naples had been added thereto by Ferdinand the Catholic, and now Milan was to be held by the King of Spain. Parma and Piacenza also had just been captured from the papal Farneses by the emperor’s troops (1547), and now Charles conceived an arrangement by which the suzerainty of the empire over Italy should be transferred to Spain, the states of{19} Flanders and Holland secured to the possessor of the Spanish crown, and the emperor consequently left only with his Austrian dominions, poor and isolated, with the great religious question rending them in twain. The transfer of the Italian suzerainty was to be announced later, but Charles secured the consent of his brother to the rest of his projects by promising to guarantee the succession of the imperial crown after the death of Ferdinand to his son, the Archduke Maximilian, who was to marry Charles’s eldest daughter, Maria.

As soon as this had been agreed to, the emperor sent the Duke of Alba to Spain with an able statement of the whole case for Philip’s information, setting forth the new combination and its advantages, and urging the prince to make a progress through the territories which were destined to be his. The voyage was to be a long, and, to a man of Philip’s habits and tastes, not an attractive one. Notwithstanding the emperor’s exhortations years before, he spoke no German or Flemish, and indeed very little of any language but Spanish. He was already of sedentary habits, and feasts and the bustle of state receptions were distasteful to him. But he was a dutiful son, and during all the summer of 1548 the splendid preparations for his voyage kept Castile busy, whilst Maximilian, the heir to the empire, was on his way to Spain to marry the Infanta Maria and assume the regency during Philip’s absence.{20}

CHAPTER II

ALBA left Germany for Spain at the end of January 1548, travelling by way of Genoa, and taking with him the exposition of the emperor’s new policy, which was to result in so much trouble and suffering to future generations. The lordships of Flanders and Holland had never up to this period been regarded by Charles as attached necessarily to the crown of Spain. Indeed at various times the cession of Flanders to France had been amicably discussed, and only shortly before Charles had considered the advisability of handing the Low Countries over to his daughter Maria as a dowry on her marriage with Maximilian. But the step of making them the inalienable possessions of the ruler of Spain would burden the latter country with an entirely fresh set of interests, and render necessary the adoption of a change in its foreign policy. Flanders once attached to the{21} crown of Spain could never fall into the hands of France, and the latter Power would find itself almost surrounded by Spanish territory, with its expansion to the northward cut off. In the event of the Spanish suzerainty over Italy being established also, French influence in Italy would be at an end, and the papal power dwarfed. This therefore meant that France and the pope would make common cause in a secular struggle against Spain. The dishonesty of Ferdinand the Catholic about Naples had begun the feud, the rivalry of Francis I. for the imperial crown had continued it, and now if Flanders and Holland, instead of belonging to harmless Dukes of Burgundy, were to be held permanently by France’s great rival, the whole balance of power in Europe would be changed, and France must fight for life.

The Dukes of Burgundy and Counts of Holland, as possessors of the Flemish seaboard, had for generations found it necessary to maintain a close alliance with England, whose interests were equally bound up in preventing France from occupying the coast opposite its own eastern shores, the principal outlet for its commerce. By Charles’s new resolve this obligation to hold fast by England was transferred permanently to Spain, which country had not hitherto had any need for intimate political relations with England, except such as arose out of mutual commercial interests. Spain itself—and no longer the emperor as Duke of Burgundy—was thus drawn into the vortex of Central European politics, and herefrom came its ruin.

That the emperor’s plans were not entirely to the taste of his son is certain, but whether in consequence of a dread of the new responsibilities to be forced upon{22} Spain, or from motives of ambition, is not quite clear. On the face of the correspondence between Alba and De Granvelle on the subject, it would appear that the latter was the case. The objection probably arose from the ambitious Alba, fresh from his German triumphs, who would point out to the young prince that the arrangement would permanently cut him off from the succession to the imperial crown, and that the interval of uncertainty which would elapse before his suggested suzerainty over Italy was established, would give time for intrigues to be carried on which might render it impracticable when the time came. At his instance, therefore, the question of his suzerainty over Italy was left open, and with it what was doubtless Alba’s objective point, the arrangement by which the succession to the empire was secured to Maximilian.

In pursuance of his plan of keeping the Spanish nobles busy in affairs other than the interior politics of their country, Charles in August 1548, before Philip’s departure on his travels, gave orders which had a considerable influence in the future history of Spain. The kings of the petty realms into which the Peninsula had been divided, constantly at war for centuries with the Moors, had been obliged to depend for their very existence upon their feudal semi-independent nobles. The kings at best were but first amongst their peers, and were constantly reminded of the fact. The “fueros” of each petty dominion were stubbornly upheld against the rulers, and in the north of Spain, at all events, it had been for some centuries past a continuous policy of the kings to curb the power for harm of the nobles and limit the autonomous privileges of the people. The policy{23} of the emperor, as we have seen, was to centralise the government of Spain, and to give to its rulers an overwhelming influence in the councils of Europe. This could only be effected by making the king the supreme master over the lives and property of all his subjects, drawing from Spain the growing stream of riches from the Indies, and attaching the powerful Spanish nobles personally to their prince.

The court life of Spain, except for a short time when Charles’s father, Philip the Handsome, had visited it, had been bluff and simple. The new order of the emperor introduced for the first time the pompous and splendid etiquette of the House of Burgundy, which has since been adopted in most monarchies. By virtue of this the proud Spanish nobility became personally attached to the household of the prince in nominally inferior capacities, chamberlains, equerries, ushers, and the like; and the young hidalgoes of the greatest Houses, all bedizened and bedecked in finery, no longer hunted the wild boar in their mountain homes, but dangled in the presence of the monarch and added lustre to his daily life.

The change was certainly not in consonance with Philip’s natural inclinations. His personal tastes were of the simplest; he was always sober and moderate in eating and drinking, looking with positive disgust on the excess of Flemings and Germans in this respect. He hated pomp and blare, and his attire on ordinary occasions was as modest and simple as it was handsome. But he was a slave to duty, and when the exigencies of his high station demanded magnificence, he could be as splendid as any man on earth. So henceforward in{24} public the quiet, modest man moved in a perfect constellation of glittering satellites. One great consolation the change gave him. In the emperor’s exhortation to him in 1543 he was told that in future his young friends must only approach him as his servants, and “that his principal companions must be elderly men and others of reasonable age possessed of virtue, wise discourse, and good example.” But Philip was yet (1548) only twenty-one, and was devotedly attached to some of the friends of his boyhood, such as Ruy Gomez de Silva and Gomez Suarez de Figueroa, Count de Feria, and to these and the like he gave offices which kept them constantly near him. Philip for the whole of his life was on his guard to prevent favourites from obtaining influence over him, and few monarchs have been less dominated by individual courtiers than he. But the man who gained most ascendency over him was Ruy Gomez, who, as will be shown later, led a party or school of thought whose policy was for many years followed by the king, and largely coloured subsequent events. On October 1, 1548, Philip left Valladolid on his voyage, leaving as regents his sister Maria and her bridegroom Maximilian. By slow stages, and followed by a great train of courtiers, he rode through Aragon and Catalonia, worshipping at the shrines of Saragossa and Monserrate on his way, and receiving the homage of Barcelona and Gerona. In the bay of Rosas, in the extreme north-east point of Spain, Andrea Doria awaited him with a splendid fleet of fifty-eight galleys and a great host of sailing ships.

Doria, the greatest sailor of his day, who had grown grey in the service of the emperor, knelt on the shore at the sight of the prince, overcome with emotion, and{25} said in the words of Simeon: “Now, Lord, let Thy servant depart in peace, for his eyes have seen Thy salvation.” It is no exaggeration to say that this intense devotion to the Spanish prince reflected generally the feeling with which he was regarded in Spain, at least. The prince landed at Savona in the territory of Genoa, where princes and cardinals innumerable awaited him. In the city of Genoa he stayed at the Doria palace, and there Octavio Farnese came to him from his uncle, Pope Paul III., with a significant message. The Farneses had but small reason to greet Philip with enthusiasm just then, for the plans afoot for the aggrandisement of Spain were a grave menace to the interests of the papacy, and Octavio himself was being kept out of his principality by the emperor’s troops. But the pope’s champion against the emperor, Francis I, had recently died, and the pontiff was obliged to salute the rising sun of Spain, in the hope that he would prove a better friend to Rome than his father was. So Farnese was fain to bear to Philip from the pope a sanctified sword and a hat of state, “hoping that some day he might behold in him the true champion of the Holy Church.” Milan and Mantua vied with Genoa in the splendour of their rejoicings for Philip’s arrival, and so through the Tyrol, Germany, and Luxembourg he slowly made his way to meet his father at Brussels. On April 1, 1549, he made his state entry into the city, but so great was the ceremonial, that it was almost night before he arrived at the palace. Charles was still ailing, but gained, it seemed, new life when he saw the heir of his greatness. Thenceforward for a time the festivals, tourneys, and rejoicings went on unceasingly, to a greater extent, say{26} eye-witnesses, than had ever been known before. Philip had no taste for such frivolities, but he did his best. He was a graceful, if not a bold, rider, and the custom of his time demanded that he should break lances with the rest. His courtly chroniclers relate how well he acquitted himself in these exercises, and the enthusiasm aroused by his gallant mien; but less partial judges do not scruple to say that at one of the tourneys during his stay in Germany on his way home “no one did so badly as the prince,” who was never able “to break a lance.” His inclinations were in a totally different direction. The drunken orgies and rough horseplay of the Germans and Flemings disgusted him, and he took but little pains to conceal his surprise at what appeared to him such undignified proceedings. He was unable, moreover, to speak German, and his voyage certainly did not help forward the project of securing to him the succession to the imperial crown.

For the next two years the emperor kept his son by his side, indoctrinating him with his principles and policy. For two hours nearly every day the Spanish prince learnt the profound lessons of government from the lips of his great father, government founded on the principle of making all other men merely instruments for carrying out the ends of one.

Philip had now been a widower for four years, and doubtless during this period contracted his connection with Doña Isabel de Osorio, by whom he had several children; and he had one at least by a Flemish lady in Brussels. His only legitimate son was the lame, epileptic Don Carlos, and the emperor had no other sons; so during the intimate conferences which followed Philip’s arrival{27} in Brussels, Charles pressed upon his heir the necessity of taking another wife, and once more brought forward Jeanne d’Albret, titular Queen of Navarre, who had claimed a divorce from the Duke of Cleves, whom she had been constrained to marry. But whether because cautious Philip saw that to extend his dominions into the south of France would be a source of weakness rather than strength to him, or whether he was influenced by the greed for dowry, and the persuasions of his widowed aunt Leonora, who was with his father in Brussels, he certainly leant to the side of her daughter, another Princess Maria of Portugal, aunt of his former wife, and negotiations were opened in this direction, although Ferdinand, King of the Romans, the brother of the emperor, tried his hardest to promote his own daughter to the place of Philip’s consort. Philip had contrived to persuade his probably not unwilling father to endeavour to promote his claims to the succession of the imperial crown in the place of Ferdinand, and the Austrian archives contain full details of the almost interminable family discussions with this end. At last, in March 1551, a compact was made with which Philip was forced to be satisfied. It was to the effect that Ferdinand should succeed Charles as emperor, but that on the death of Ferdinand the imperial crown should pass to Philip instead of to Maximilian, who was to govern the empire in his name, holding a similar position towards Philip to that occupied by Ferdinand towards Charles. The emperor’s suzerainty over Italy was to be exercised vicariously by Philip during the life of Ferdinand. This last provision was a bitter pill for Ferdinand to swallow, but it was, in Charles’s view, the{28} most important of them all. Spain, with a supremacy over the Italian states, would be the mistress of the Mediterranean, with infinite possibilities of extension to the east and in Africa, whilst France would be checkmated on this side, as she had been on the north. Philip, who had accompanied his father to Augsburg for the Diet, only stayed until this arrangement was settled and he had received the fiefs of the empire, and then (in May 1551) started on his way home to Spain.

The battle of Mühlberg, three years before, together with the ambition of Maurice of Saxony, had laid Lutheranism prostrate at the feet of Charles, but the plan to perpetuate Spanish domination over the empire once more aroused the spirit of the sovereigns to resistance, and the powerful Maurice of Saxony, the emperor’s own creature, joined his fellow-countrymen against him. Sent by Charles to besiege the Protestant stronghold of Magdeburg, he suddenly changed sides. The opportunity thus offered was too good to be neglected by France, where Henry II. was now firmly seated on the throne; and in October 1551 a compact was signed at Friedwald in Hesse, by which Maurice, the King of France, and the Protestant princes joined against the emperor. Henry II. had just made peace with England, and had recovered Boulogne, so that he was in a better position to face his enemy than ever before. Octavio Farnese, with the connivance of France, raised a tumult in Italy to recover his principalities of Parma and Piacenza; and thus Charles found himself suddenly confronted by war on all sides, just when the prospects of his House had looked brightest. There is no space in this work to follow the fortunes of the remarkable{29} campaign in which Maurice swept through Germany, capturing the imperial cities, surprising the emperor himself in Innspruck, and forcing Cæsar to fly for his life through the darkness. Suffice it to say that Charles was humbled as he had never been before, and was obliged to sign the peace of Passau at the dictation of Maurice (July 31, 1552) on terms which practically gave to the Lutheran princes all they demanded. This put an end for once and for all to the dream of making Philip Emperor as well as King of Spain. Nor had Henry II. been idle. On his way to join the German Protestants he had captured the strong places of Alsace and Lorraine, and Charles’s army before Metz was utterly defeated by Guise (January 1553). In Italy, too, the emperor was unfortunate, for the French had obtained a footing in Siena, and had overrun Piedmont. And thus the idea of a permanent supremacy of Spain over the Italian states also fell to the ground.{30}

CHAPTER III

IN the meanwhile Philip was doing well in Spain. He had raised both men and money in plenty to reinforce the emperor, and Alba himself was sent to command them. He pushed on vigorously the negotiations for his marriage with his Portuguese cousin, whose dowry would once more provide the sinews of war. But King John III. was less liberal with a dowry for his sister than he had been for his daughter, and the project hung fire month after month on this ground alone, notwithstanding the efforts of Ruy Gomez, who was sent by Philip to Portugal in June 1553 to persuade the king to loosen his purse strings and send his sister to Spain with a rich dowry.

Then, almost suddenly, the whole aspect of affairs changed. It had been known for some time that the{31} young King of England, Edward VI., was in failing health, and would probably die without issue, but the uncertain element in the situation had been the extent of the Duke of Northumberland’s power and the strength of Protestantism in the country. Hardly pressed as he was, Charles’s principal preoccupation with regard to England was to keep on good terms with it, although doubtless many a time his busy brain must have conjured up circumstances which would admit of fresh combinations being formed in which England should share. The events in Germany, the terms of the peace of Passau, and the unpopularity of Philip out of Spain, had convinced him that his dreams of ambition for his son in that direction were impossible of realisation. He must have seen also that the possessor of Flanders and Holland without the strength of the empire behind him, and with a covetous France on one flank and Protestant princes on the other, would be in an untenable position, unless he could depend upon England’s co-operation through thick and thin. This was the first manifestation of the evil results which logically followed his ill-starred action in attaching the dominions of the House of Burgundy permanently to the crown of Spain.

Edward VI. died on July 7, 1553, and the popular acclamation of Mary and the complete collapse of Northumberland’s house of cards, caused a new departure in the emperor’s political plans. The hollow crown of the empire might go, with its turbulent Lutheran princes and its poor patrimony, but if only rich England could be joined in a lasting bond to Spain, then France would indeed be humbled, Flanders and{32} Italy would be safe, the road to unlimited expansion by the Mediterranean would be open, and Spain could give laws to all Latin Christendom, and to heathendom beyond.

No time was lost in commencing the preliminaries. The first thing evidently for the emperor to do was to consolidate Mary’s position on the throne by counselling prudence and moderation in religious affairs. The imperial ambassador was instructed immediately (July 29, 1553) to urge upon the new queen not to be in a hurry openly to avow herself a Catholic until she had sounded public opinion and conciliated the nobles who had helped her to the throne.

Mary entered London on August 3, and in the place of honour near her rode Simon Renard, the emperor’s ambassador. Only four days afterwards, on the 7th, he first hinted to the queen that the Prince of Spain would be a fitting husband for her. She affected to laugh at the idea, but, Renard thought, not unfavourably. The English people had almost unanimously fixed upon young Courtney as the queen’s future consort, and Mary was as yet uncertain how far she could venture to thwart them. “Do not overpress her,” wrote Granvelle, “to divert her from any other match, because if she have the whim she will carry it forward if she be like other women.” But Renard knew the human heart as well as any man, and his report to the emperor was satisfactory as far as it went. The next step was to consult Philip himself, the person principally interested. He was a dutiful son, it is true, but Charles must have known of his domestic arrangements with Doña Isabel Osorio, and could not be certain that{33} a man of twenty-six would be absolutely docile. So Renard was instructed to say no more until a reply came from Spain. But tongues began to wag in London, and by September 6, Noailles, the French ambassador, knew what was in the wind. Henceforth it was a duel to the death between him and Renard. The emperor was still at war with France, burning to avenge the disaster of Metz; and if this marriage were effected it would be revenge indeed. From the French embassy accordingly flowed money in plenty to subsidise disaffection, hints that those who held Church property would be forced to disgorge it, and panic-striking rumours of what would happen if Spain got the upper hand in England. The hatred and prejudice aroused against Philip by Noailles for purely political reasons in 1553 have left an abundant crop of prejudice, even to our own times. Philip was a politician and a patriot before all things. However distasteful to him the marriage may have been, his own personal pleasure was never his aim, and he saw the increment of strength which the union with England would bring to his father’s cause and his own; so, like a dutiful son, he wrote, “I have no other will than that of your Majesty, and whatever you desire, that I will do.” On receipt of this news Renard opened the attack, and pressed Philip’s suit. Mary was coy and doubtful at first, mainly, it would seem, on personal grounds, but Renard’s persuasions prevailed even over the powerful Gardiner, and the Queen of England formally accepted the hand of the Spanish prince when Egmont came with his splendid embassy to offer it in January 1554. London was in a perfect whirlwind of{34} panic, thanks mainly to Noailles, and the gallant Egmont himself and his followers were attacked in the streets by London prentices. Carews, Wyatts, and Greys struggled, rebelled, and fell, but the queen knew her own mind now, and in her sight the Spanish marriage meant the resurrection of her country and the salvation of her people. Philip and his father doubtless thought so too, in a general way; but that was not their first object. What they wanted was to humble France for good and for all, and make Spain henceforward the dictatress of Europe. It was a disappointment to Philip when, at Valladolid in the early spring, he learnt the conditions by which he was to be bound for life. They were very hard, for Mary’s council were determined that the marriage should not mean the political subjugation of England by Spain, and all Renard’s cunning and the emperor’s bribes failed to move them.

Philip was a gallant suitor withal, and determined to do the thing handsomely if it were to be done at all. First he sent a special envoy, the Marquis de las Navas, to England, sumptuously attended, with “a great table diamond mounted as a rose in a superb gold setting, valued at 50,000 ducats; a necklace of eighteen brilliants, worth 32,000 ducats; a great diamond with a fine pearl pendant from it, worth 25,000 ducats; and other jewels, pearls, diamonds, emeralds, and rubies of inestimable value for the queen and her ladies.” Never before had so much magnificence been witnessed in Spain as in the preparations for Philip’s voyage to England. He left Valladolid on May 14, with nearly 1000 horsemen and half the nobility of Spain, all glittering{35} and flashing with splendour. Puling little Carlos, with his big head and frail limbs, was by his side for a day on the way to Corunna, and when Philip left him he was to see him no more as a child. Passionate devotion and loyalty followed Philip on his progress through North-western Spain. He was a true national monarch, and his people knew it. Charles had always been a Fleming before all things, and his wide-spreading dominions had kept him mostly away from Spain; but the Spaniards knew well that, no matter what other nations fell under his sway, Philip would remain a true Spaniard to the end, and rule them all from the country he loved. It has been said that Philip was naturally grave and unexpansive, and in his previous voyage in Germany and Flanders his demeanour had made him extremely unpopular. Charles, indeed, had to remonstrate with him, when it was already too late, for his want of geniality. The emperor was determined that his son should not again fall into a similar error for want of timely warning, and sent him—as also did Renard—urgent exhortations to bear himself affably, and to conciliate the stubborn English by respecting all their prejudices and adopting their customs. It was against his very nature, but he had schooled himself to self-control and sacrifice, and his most intimate friends were astonished at the change in his manner from the day he set foot on English soil at Southampton on July 20, 1554. He was no longer the grave and moody prince they had known, but smiling, courteous, and frank. Gifts and favours were lavished on all sides, and although he came heavily handicapped by the prejudice against him, and London especially bitterly hated the{36} Spaniards, and did not hesitate to show it, Philip himself became personally not unpopular during his stay in England. He brought with him in his fine fleet of 100 sail 6000 or 8000 soldiers to reinforce the emperor in his war with the French, and not a man of them was allowed to land in England; they and many of Philip’s courtiers proceeding to Flanders as soon as might be. The nobles and gentlemen who accompanied the prince were warned that they must in all respects make way for the English and take a secondary place. This was gall and wormwood to them, and their scorn and hatred grew as they became convinced of the fruitlessness of their sacrifice and that of their master.

The queen’s first interview with her husband was at night on July 23 in the bishop’s palace at Winchester. He was dressed in a suit of white kid covered with gold embroidery, and wore a French grey satin surcoat, “and very gallant he looked.” He was surrounded by ten of the highest nobles in Spain, and from the first moment the queen saw him she seems to have fallen in love with him. She had fervently invoked divine guidance in her choice, and had managed to work herself into a condition of religious exaltation, which rendered her peculiarly open to hysterical influences—for she too was a granddaughter of Isabel the Catholic. All that pomp and expenditure could do to render the marriage ceremony at Winchester for ever memorable was done. Philip himself and his friends had no illusions about the matter. They all confess with depressing unanimity that the bride was a faded little woman with red hair, and no eyebrows, and that the Spanish objects in the marriage were purely political.{37} But Mary looked upon it in quite a different light. She was taking part in a holy sacrament which was to bring salvation to thousands of souls, and make her for ever memorable as the saviour of her country and her race. Philip acted like a gentleman, under very difficult circumstances. He treated his wife with gentle courtesy, returning her somewhat embarrassingly frequent endearments with apparent alacrity, and never by word or deed hinting that her charms were on the wane. On the day of the marriage Charles had equalised his son’s rank with that of Mary by making him King of Naples, but still English suspicion and jealousy resented the idea of his coronation, or even his aspiring to equal place with the queen. “He had only come,” said the Londoners, “to beget an heir to the crown, and then he might go—the sooner the better.” So by the time when the king and queen entered the city in state on August 27 it was clear that, come what might, Philip would never be allowed to govern England. “The real rulers of this country,” wrote one of Philip’s courtiers, “are not the monarchs, but the council,” and the councillors, though ready enough to accept Spanish gold, were Englishmen above all things, and would never submit to Spanish government. The hard terms of the marriage contract had been accepted by Charles and Philip in the belief that they could be nullified after the marriage by the influence of the husband over the wife. It was now seen that however great this influence might be, the queen herself was almost powerless in the hands of the council and the nobles who had raised her to the throne.

Philip whilst in England showed his usual diplomacy. He carefully abstained from publicly interfering in the{38} government, but he had not failed to draw to his side some of the principal members of the council, and his influence certainly made itself felt, if it was unseen. His efforts were at first entirely directed to the conversion of England to the faith by preaching and persuasion, the subsequent object, of course, being the complete return of the country to the papal fold, which would be but a stepping-stone to the political domination by Spain. But Charles and Philip were statesmen first, and religious zealots afterwards. On this occasion, as on several subsequent ones in Philip’s career, the zeal of the churchmen outran the discretion of the politicians, and the king-consort’s influence, such as it was, had to be exercised mainly in the direction of moderation and temporisation.

Immediately after Mary’s accession the pope had appointed Cardinal Pole to negotiate for the submission of England to the Holy See, and the cardinal was eager to set his hand to the work at once. He was an Englishman of royal blood, a firm Catholic, who had no other end in view than to bring back his country to what he considered the true faith. Mary at first was just as eager as Pole, but Charles saw from afar that, if affairs were to be directed into the course he wished, they must be managed gently. The new pope, Julius III., was a docile and vicious pontiff, and was soon brought round to the emperor’s views. He was induced to alter Pole’s appointment to that of legate, with instructions first to go to Brussels and endeavour to mediate in the pope’s name between the emperor and the King of France, and then await a favourable opportunity for proceeding to England.{39}

The great difficulty in the English question was the restitution of the property taken from the Church during the previous reigns. It was evident to the emperor that, if an uncompromising stand were taken up on that point, the whole edifice would collapse. Pole was all for complete and unconditional restitution, and his powers, indeed, gave him little or no discretion to compromise or abandon the claim of the Church. The first point therefore agreed upon by Charles and Philip was to delay Pole’s voyage to England until the pope had been induced to confer large discretionary powers on Pole, and the latter had been made to promise that he would do nothing except in accord with Philip. When this had been effected, and Renard, at Philip’s instance, had seen Pole and obtained a promise that he would not insist upon restitution of the property that had passed into private hands, he was allowed to proceed to England. Forty years afterwards, one of Philip’s English adherents, Father Persons, told him that all the ill-fortune that had attended his efforts in England was due to the impious omission at this juncture of insisting upon some sort of restitution of the ecclesiastical property in private hands.

In November 1554 England returned to the bosom of the Church, and Pole to this extent was satisfied; but he was no politician, and could never be brought round to the purely Spanish view of English politics, which may be said indeed of most of Mary’s advisers.

On the very day of Pole’s arrival it was officially announced that the queen was with child, and the new legate and the rest of the churchmen fell into what would now be looked upon as blasphemous comparisons,{40} the people at large being suddenly caught up by the wave of rejoicing at the promise of an heir to the throne. The opportunity was discreetly taken by Philip to cause his instruments to propose in Parliament the sending by England of armed aid to the emperor against France, and the nomination of himself as Regent of England in the event of the looked-for heir outliving his mother. But again the over-zeal of the churchmen spoilt his game. Bonner and Gardiner began to think that persecution of Protestants was necessary and holy. Reaction in the country was the natural result, and Philip and Mary were obliged to dissolve Parliament in a hurry, without the political plans being effected.

Philip’s Spanish chaplains had been extremely unpopular. Such insults indeed had been offered to them, that they dared not appear in the streets in priestly garb. But they were really mild and conciliating, and when the fierce zeal of the English bishops led them to burn the Protestants, Philip’s principal confessor openly denounced them from the pulpit, doubtless at his master’s instance—certainly with his approval. The cruel persecution of the Protestants, indeed, was dead against the realisation of Spanish aims. Philip and Renard clearly saw that it would bring about reaction and hatred, and used their influence to stay it. Charles himself was appealed to by Renard. “If,” he said, “this precipitancy be not moderated, affairs will assume a dangerous appearance.” For nearly six months Philip’s efforts stayed the storm of persecution, and his active intercession saved many condemned to the stake.

But Charles was impatient for his presence in{41} Flanders. The deadly torpor had already seized upon the great emperor. The man who had been indefatigable in his youth and prime had now sunk into indifference to the world. For weeks together no word could be got from him, and of action he was almost incapable. He had begged Philip to come to him before his honeymoon was over, and had continued to do so ever since. The king had waited and waited on, in the ever-deluded hope that Mary’s promise of issue would be fulfilled, but at last even she had become incredulous, and her husband could delay his departure no longer. By August 1555 the rogations and intercessions to the Almighty for the safe birth of a prince were discontinued, and the splendid plot was seen to be a failure.

Consider what this meant for Philip and for the Spanish power. An Anglo-Spanish dynasty ruling England, Spain, and Flanders, supreme over Italy and the Mediterranean, with the riches of the Indies in its hands, would have dominated the world. The German Protestant princes, without effective seaboard, must remain a negligeable quantity outside of their own country. France, shut in on every side by land and sea, could have progressed no more, and Spain would have become paramount more completely than if Charles’s first dream of the universal spread of the power of the Roman-Austrian empire had been realised.

But it was not to be, and Philip made the best of it without exhibiting disappointment. In vain Renard wrote to the emperor that as soon as Philip’s back was turned the fires of persecution would recommence in England; Charles would wait no longer, and peremptorily ordered his son to come to Flanders. On{42} August 26 Mary accompanied her husband to Greenwich, where he took leave of her three days later. The queen was in deep affliction, but she bore up before the spectators of the scene. With one close embrace she bade the king farewell, but so long as the boat in which he went to Gravesend remained in sight from the windows of the palace, the unhappy queen, her eyes overflowing with tears, watched the receding form of her husband, who on his part continued to wave his hand as a signal of adieu, a quiet, courteous gentleman to the last, though his heart must have been heavy with disappointment, and his crafty brain full of plans for remedying it.{43}

CHAPTER IV

BEFORE Philip left England he drew up for the guidance of the queen and council full instructions for the administration of affairs. Minutes were sent to him of the proceedings of the meetings of the council, upon which, as was his custom during the rest of his life, he made exhaustive notes and comments.

The month after his departure he was informed by the council that the bull had been promulgated surrendering the claim to Church property alienated to private persons, and against this information the king emphatically notes that it is “well done,” but in the same document an indication is given that the zeal of the Catholic council in England is outrunning discretion, and Philip’s hand is brought down heavily in favour of cautious{44} moderation. The proposal was that the first-fruits and tenths, and ecclesiastical revenues which had been suspended or alienated, should be brought back to their original uses. Here the king has no approving word to say. He recommends that the question should be considered by a committee of eight councillors, who should report to him for decision. He then goes on to urge caution, and to direct that the Government should not propose any measure to Parliament until it had been submitted to him. He evidently dreaded the rash zeal of the Catholic party in England, and did his best to hold it in check; but before he had been gone from England six months Renard’s prophecy came true, and the flames of persecution burst out, to be extinguished no more until the death of the queen. Philip was certainly not responsible for this; his influence was exerted in the contrary direction.

Religious persecution was with him simply a matter of political expediency, and in the existing state of affairs it was the most injudicious thing in the world for the Catholic party in England to run to extremes. Philip was a cold-blooded statesman, and was never really blinded by religious zeal. That he was a deeply religious man, according to his narrow view, with an all-consuming belief in the identity of interests between himself and the Almighty, is certain; but his motive was never the exaltation of the Church itself, or even of Catholicism, except as the most convenient instrument for establishing the political predominance of Spain over the rest of the world.

What Philip wanted of the English councillors was not the hellish bonfires of Smithfield, but ships and men{45} with which to fight the French. Here the fervid churchmen were not so ready. The English navy, the council told Philip, was unfit for sea; but the best of the ships, with the pick of the sailors and soldiers on board, should as soon as possible be sent to guard the Channel. This was not enough for the king, who wrote (September 1555) a vigorous marginal note on the minute, saying that “England’s chief defence depends upon its navy being always in good order to serve for the defence of the kingdom against all invasion. It is right that the ships should not only be fit for sea, but instantly available.” He wishes the fleet to be put in order, and sent, not to Dover but to Portsmouth, as the emperor is going to Spain in November, and wishes twelve or fourteen ships to accompany him beyond Ushant. This was, of course, the thin end of the wedge. What Philip really wanted, as will be seen, was to employ the English fleet against France.

On the much-desired arrival of Philip in Brussels he found the great emperor a prey to the last extreme of mental and bodily senile depression. Things had been going from bad to worse with Charles almost uninterruptedly since the defection of Maurice of Saxony in 1552. “Fortune is a strumpet,” he cried at his disaster before Metz, “and reserves her favours for the young.” And so to the young Philip he had determined to shift the burden he himself could bear no longer.

The emperor’s principal embarrassments had occurred in Italy. It will be recollected that Naples and Sicily belonged to the crown of Spain by conquest, and that the dukedom of Milan, a vacant fief of the empire, had been conferred upon Philip. Charles’s warlike and turbulent{46} representatives in these states had plunged him into endless troubles, first by their encroachment on the principalities of Parma and Piacenza, belonging to the papal Farneses, and, secondly, by the seizure of the republic of Siena. The discontent caused by these encroachments was taken advantage of by the French king to side with the Italians against their suzerain, the emperor. The French already held Piedmont, one of the fiefs of the empire, and now expelled the imperialists from Siena. The Pope and the Duke of Florence, who had hitherto been neutral, then sided with the French; the populations of Milan and Naples cried aloud against the oppression they suffered from the Spanish governors, and the Spanish imperial domination of Italy seemed tottering to its fall. The Spanish governors were hastily changed, and an arrangement patched up with the Medicis. Thenceforward the war was carried on against the French in Italy with varying success, the Turks frequently making diversions on the coast in the interest of France. The imperial and Spanish officials in the various states of Italy were quarrelling with each other in face of the common enemy, and all was in confusion when Philip made his marriage journey to England. It was then decided by the emperor to transfer to his son the crowns of Naples and Sicily, and the dukedom of Milan, with which he had been nominally invested in 1546, and the act of abdication of these dominions was read in Winchester Cathedral before the marriage ceremony. This was doubtless intended as a first step towards the old project of transferring to Spain the suzerainty of the empire over Italy, as Philip bad also received a transference of the rights of the{47} emperor over Siena as soon as the republic had been recaptured from the French. It will thus be seen how anomalous was Philip’s position in Italy. He was independent King of Naples, a tributary prince of the empire in Milan, and a substitute for the emperor in his suzerainty over Siena. The imperial troops in Milan had hitherto been a coercive power over the other imperial fiefs, but they could no longer be so regarded, as they were the forces of a Spanish prince, who in Milan was himself a tributary prince of the empire, with no rights over the rest. Philip soon found that it was practically impossible to govern from England his Italian states in this complicated condition of affairs, and in November 1554 appointed Alba with very full powers to exercise all his sovereignties in Italy, with supreme command of the army. The emperor did not like the idea. We have seen the opinion he held of Alba and how he dreaded making so great a noble too powerful, and it was only with great difficulty that he consented. Alba had been Philip’s principal mentor in England, chafing at being kept away from the wars, and condemned to humiliating subordination in a country he hated; but it may safely be assumed that this was not the only reason why Philip decided to remove him from his side.

Already the two political parties which were in after years alternately to influence Philip were being developed. Ruy Gomez de Silva, his bosom friend, upon whom he had bestowed the hand of the greatest heiress of Spain, and whom soon afterwards he was to load with titles, was an hidalgo of Portuguese birth, ten years older than his master. According to all contemporary{48} accounts never was royal favour better deserved. No person has an ill word for Ruy Gomez. Gentle, conciliatory, modest, and diplomatic, he was the very antithesis of the haughty and intolerant Alba, and found himself constantly at issue with him on every political point under discussion. His views and methods were more in consonance with those of Philip than were the harsh and violent counsels of the warlike Alba. He was, moreover, nearer the king’s age, and possessed his real regard. It is not surprising, therefore, that when an opportunity came for the removal of Alba from the king’s side, Ruy Gomez and his friends urged it; and in December 1554 the favourite himself went from England to Brussels to persuade the reluctant emperor to consent to the appointment. Alba’s administration of Italy opened an entirely new page in the relations between Spain, Italy, and the papacy, to which reference will be made in its proper place.

On October 25, 1555, the renunciation by the emperor of the sovereignty of the Netherlands took place in the great hall of the palace of Brussels. The scene, one of the most dramatic in history, has often been described, and need not here be repeated. All the circumstances added impressiveness and solemnity to the ceremony. The prematurely aged emperor, standing on a dais, leaning on the shoulder of the youthful William the Silent, in a broken voice took leave of the Flemish subjects, whom he loved best. He had always been a Fleming at heart, and the leave-taking was an affecting one on both sides. Philip, on the other hand, was to all intents a foreigner, and though Charles fervently prayed his son to treat his{49} people well, the Flemings present knew that his heart and sympathies were in Spain, and that Philip might be a ruler over them, but never a friend and father, as the emperor had been. Philip’s own impassibility for once gave way at the affecting scene, and for some time he could not summon sufficient composure to speak; and when he did, alas! it was only to confess that, as he could not address his new subjects in their own tongue, he must depute the task to another. We may be sure that the Bishop of Arras—the coming De Granvelle—was elegant, fluent, and appropriate in his speech; but the charm that loosely held together the states under the House of Burgundy was broken, and the sturdy burghers felt that henceforward they were to be regarded as a colony of Spain. On January 16, 1556, the crowns of Spain were also transferred to Philip, and Charles remained now only emperor nominally, until the German electors were prepared for the abdication in favour of Ferdinand. Before he left for Spain and turned his back upon the world for ever, he arranged (February 1556) a truce for five years, by the treaty of Vaucelles, with his old antagonist the King of France.

Philip now stands on the stage alone, the greatest monarch in the world, although disappointed of the apostolic crown. We have seen how his statecraft had been formed, and how from his childhood he had absorbed the worldly experience of his father. We can see how he had schooled himself to self-repression, concentration of effort to political ends, and profound distrust in all men. To his melancholy mysticism and belief in his divine inspiration, the result of his descent, had been superadded the teachings of his mentors, and{50} the result was the man who was to lead to defeat one of the two great forces into which the world was divided. The judgment on a great historical figure must be pronounced, not in view of what he achieved, so much as what he aimed at, and in the case of Philip the objects were great. These objects were not, however, conceived by him, but were imposed upon him by the accident of birth. He accepted the inheritance as a sacred duty and strenuously did his best, but his inherited personal qualities were not equal to his inherited task, and he failed.

The irony of events decreed that the very first task to which Philip was to put his hand was to fight with the Holy See. Charles and his predecessors had wrested from one pontiff after another the rights of presentation to all bishoprics, prelacies, and other preferments of the Church in Spain, so that the Spanish clergy depended now upon their sovereign more than upon the pope, and the king practically used the vast revenues of the Church as an instrument of his policy. The royal council, moreover, had the power of supervision over the ecclesiastical courts in Spain, nominally to protect Spanish priests from injustice, but really to make the civil power supreme, and give to the State a predominance over the Church. The Inquisition itself was quite as much a political as an ecclesiastical institution, and was jealously regarded by Philip and his predecessors as under their immediate control, and not that of the pope. Similar, and even greater power, was exercised by the king over the Spanish Church in Naples and Sicily, to the exclusion of papal influence. These facts, together with the encroachments of the Spaniards in Italy, had{51} been suffered with a bad grace by previous pontiffs, but Cardinal Caraffa, Paul IV., was a Neapolitan, and a deadly enemy of the Spanish power, and immediately after his accession began to intrigue with the King of France to join with him for the purpose of expelling the Spaniards from Naples, and curbing their power in Italy generally. The arrogant and intemperate pontiff launched against the emperor and his son invective more bitter even than he did against heretics. “The Spaniards,” he was wont to say, were “the vile and abject spawn of Jews, the dregs of the world,” and “now the time had come when they should be castigated for their sins, be expelled from their states, and Italy should be free.” The aid of the Grand Turk was also invoked, and Henry II., tempted by the bait of conquering Naples by such a coalition, signed the treaty with the pope in December 1555.

The emperor’s one desire, however, was to leave his son at peace, and he offered such terms that in February 1556 Henry II. withdrew from the papal alliance and signed the truce of Vaucelles. The defection of the French was only a temporary check to the fiery pontiff. Before four months had passed he had persuaded the King of France once more to enter into an offensive alliance with him, and the Sultan Solyman, to fight against the Catholic king. Wherever the pope’s voice or arm could reach, persecution and insult were heaped upon Spaniards. When once he had prevailed upon the King of France to break the truce of Vaucelles he thought he had his enemy at his mercy. All bounds of decency and decorum were abandoned, and a violent bull of excommunication was issued against the emperor and{52} King Philip. The latter is addressed as “the son of iniquity, Philip of Austria, offspring of the so-called Emperor Charles, who passes himself off as King of Spain, following in the footsteps of his father, rivalling, and even endeavouring to surpass him in infamy.”[1] Alba invaded the papal states, and nearly captured Rome itself, carrying fire and sword through Italy; but he was well matched by Guise, who commanded the Franco-Papal army. Then suddenly Henry II. found that the army from Flanders was marching on Paris, and Guise was recalled to France. By the intervention of the Doge of Venice a peace was patched up between the pope and Philip, Alba sulkily entering Rome, not as a conqueror but as a pretended penitent. The pope was conciliated with ceremonies and futile concessions, and France and Philip were again left face to face.

During the new coalition against him Philip had again urged the English council to join him in the war against France, but could get no satisfactory reply. The poor queen was wearing her heart away with sorrow and disappointment, and the English Catholics in power, from Pole downwards, were determined not to serve purely Spanish aims or allow themselves to be diverted from the holy task of extirpating heresy, so the king, sorely against his will, was obliged, himself, to go to England and exert his personal influence.{53}

CHAPTER V

PHILIP arrived in England on March 20, 1557, and at once tried to influence his wife to the ends he had in view. She on her part had not forgiven the intrigues of the French and De Noailles against her, and was willing to be revenged; but the council and, above all, the nation, had always dreaded this probable result of a Spanish match. They had no special quarrel with the King of France, and had no wish to be drawn into a war with him to benefit Philip’s Italian supremacy.

In the meanwhile Henry II. tried to counteract Philip’s efforts in England. The abortive risings at the beginning of Mary’s reign had cast a great number of refugee Englishmen on to the coast of France—Carews, Staffords, Tremaynes, and the like,—and these men had always been held by the French king as a card in his hand to play against Mary in need, for the purpose of{54} raising a diversion in her own country. He once more adopted the same policy, making much of the exiles, ostentatiously helping them, and hinting at hostile designs against Calais, and even England itself. Henry meant it for a feint, but hare-brained Stafford, with vague hopes of a crown, started from Dieppe with two ships on Easter Sunday 1557. He seized Scarborough Castle, but was seized himself directly afterwards, and he and his friends incontinently lost their heads. But it was enough that they had been cherished by the French king, and had started from a French port. With such an argument as this, Mary was able to persuade her council, and Philip had his way. On June 7 war against France was declared, and on July 3 the king bade his wife what was destined to be an eternal farewell, and left for Brussels. Eight thousand English troops were at once made ready to join Philip’s army in Flanders, under his young cousin Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, which amounted in all to 50,000 men. Constable Montmorenci commanded the French force, which was much inferior both in numbers and quality (24,000 men). Savoy began the campaign by feigned attacks upon several frontier fortresses, his object being suddenly to turn aside and attack St. Quintin, a town of wealth and importance whose defences were known to be ruinous. Savoy’s rapid and unexpected movements completely puzzled the French, and Coligny, with a small force of about 1200 men, was ordered to watch him. Coligny made an attempt to surprise Douai, but was unsuccessful, and then seems to have learnt that Savoy’s real objective was St. Quintin. He hurried back over the frontier, just in time to cast himself{55} into the town before it was invested, and then saw that he was in a trap. The place could not hold out for a week in its present condition, and he hastily begged Montmorenci to send him relief. Montmorenci’s idea of relief was to force a thousand men through Savoy’s lines into the town. In this he failed utterly. The way lay through a bog, in which the troops sank or were killed by Savoy’s men, and only a few stragglers reached the town. On the next day (August 10), Montmorenci brought up his main body, and tried to cast reinforcements into the town by boats across the Somme. This was found to be impracticable, and Montmorenci was urged by his men to retire. He had the river and a morass between himself and Savoy’s army, and thought he was safe, but by fords and causeways unknown to him, 6000 fine Burgundian cavalry and a body of the invincible Spanish infantry crossed to his side. Then when it was too late he gave the order to retire. The retreat soon became a rout. Six thousand French troops were killed, as many more captured, all the artillery taken, Montmorenci a prisoner, and there was no force between Savoy’s victorious army of 50,000 men and the gates of Paris.

Here was Philip’s chance—a chance never to occur again. During the short campaign he had remained at Valenciennes and Brussels, and on the day of St. Quintin he was in the city of Cambrai. His vocation was not war, and he knew it. Bells were rung, Te Deums were sung, and the day after the battle Philip visited his victorious army; but his professed regret at his absence from the fray was not so deep as that of his father when he heard the news. The Duke of Savoy begged to be{56} allowed to follow up his victory by a march upon the capital, but over-caution was always Philip’s fault, and he would take no undue risk. He doubtless recollected his own remarks about his father’s invasion of France and the disaster of Metz. “The emperor,” he said, “had marched into France eating peacocks, and had marched out eating turnips.” When Charles at Yuste heard of the victory, he at once asked whether Philip had yet arrived before Paris. But the war was not ended yet, and brave Coligny in the town of St. Quintin held out against terrible odds until August 27, when it was taken by assault. The sacking and pillage of the devoted town and the heartrending cruelty wreaked upon the defenceless people, mainly by the German mercenaries, will ever remain one of the most horrible episodes of history. Philip had given orders that women and children should be spared, but his instructions were set at naught, and when, on the third day after the capture, he entered the city, he saw such sights as left upon him impressions of horror which he never forgot.

Philip’s army, of various nationalities, was then divided amongst the French towns he had captured. The rascally German mercenaries quarrelled and left him in large numbers, many to join the French. The English were sulky—the Spaniards complained of their conduct before St. Quintin. Wages were in arrears, their hearts were not in the fight, and they demanded leave to go home. Philip could not risk unpopularity in England by refusal, and let them go.

The French, on the other hand, by the end of the year had a fine army in north-eastern France, which{57} Guise had hastily brought back from Italy. The English fortress of Calais had been neglected, and was in a poor condition for defence. Guise suddenly appeared before it, to the surprise of the defenders. The outworks were stormed and captured on January 2 and 3, 1558, and on the 8th the citadel itself was captured. Lord Wentworth was in command, but the resources at his disposal were utterly inadequate, and it was impossible with them to hold the place. As a natural result, the other English fortress of Guisnes, under Lord Grey, fell a few days afterwards, and the last foothold of the English in France was gone. Before this disaster had happened Philip had begged the English council to send him a fresh reinforcement of English troops, with the ostensible object of ensuring the safety of Calais; but there were no troops and little money available in England. The war was extremely unpopular; all the country insisted that they had been dragged into it to please Philip, and the queen, desirous as she was of pleasing her husband, was weak and weary, utterly unable to dominate her council, with whom religious matters in England were the first consideration, and the predominance of Spain in Europe a matter of no concern. When Guise’s designs upon Calais were evident, Philip sent his favourite. Count de Feria, post-haste to England to insist upon the need of sending troops, at least to defend the fortress. Before he started on his journey news came of the fall of Calais, but as Guisnes still held out, he proceeded on his way. Before he embarked from Dunkirk he heard of the surrender of Guisnes, and delayed his arrival in England, in order not to be the bearer of the evil tidings. He saw the council in{58} Cardinal Pole’s chamber on January 28, and presented his master’s demands. Heath was the spokesman. He was apologetic and sorrowful, but the state of England was such, he said, that instead of sending men away, they needed troops to be sent for defence. The south coast and the Isle of Wight were at the mercy of the French, the Scottish frontier was unprotected and threatened, and much to the same effect. But if King Philip would send them 3000 German mercenaries, for which they would pay, they would place them in Newcastle, and they could then arm 100 ships in the Channel, and embark 16,000 men, some of whom might be used for Philip’s purposes. The country was in complete disorder, and Feria says that if 100 men were to land on the south coast, the country would probably join them against its friends, by which he doubtless meant the Catholic Government.

Before this interview the king had written to Feria that Calais and Guisnes having fallen, it would be better to abandon the idea of sending English troops to France, but that the whole efforts of the council should be directed towards the defence of the country itself. From Feria’s own observation when he first landed at Dover it was indeed clear, both to him and his master, that in no case would any effective aid in men reach him from England.

With much ado Parliament was induced to vote the supplies necessary for the defence of the country. Feria’s scorn at such cumbrous methods knew no bounds, and his picture of the complete disorganisation of the government is most vivid. It was evident now to all that the queen had not very long to live, and that her renewed dreams of progeny were to be as baseless as before.{59} What was to come after her was the question, and each man was thinking of his own future. Philip was in dire want of money, and begged his wife not to depend upon Parliament alone for supplies. In vain Gresham tried to borrow large sums at Antwerp on the queen’s credit; only £10,000 could be got. Devices of all sorts were suggested, but to no purpose. But still the sums voted by Parliament, and what else could be collected or borrowed, were sent to Flanders to pay for the German levies, and spent in fitting out and manning the English fleet. The distracted English councillors were deluded into an idea that an attempt would be made to recover Calais; they were frightened with the false rumour that there was a large French fleet at Dieppe, that the Hanse towns and Denmark would attack them—anything to get them to provide a strong English fleet, not ostensibly for Philip’s purposes. But Philip took care that when the fleet was ready Clinton should use it as he desired, and the much-talked-of 3000 Germans never came to England, but when they were ready were utilised for Philip’s service. “I am writing nothing of this to the queen,” he informs Feria, “as I would rather that you should prudently work with the councillors to induce them to ask us to relieve them of these troops.”

When Feria had frightened the queen and council out of all that was possible, he left in July to join his master in Brussels, taking care to pay his visit to “Madam Elizabeth” at Hatfield, with all sorts of affectionate and significant messages from her loving brother-in-law. The plan had been, from the time of Mary’s own marriage, to fix Spanish influence in England, no matter what happened, by marrying Elizabeth to the Duke of{60} Savoy. But Mary would not restore her sister in blood—she could not indeed without bastardising herself—and without this the marriage would have been useless, from Philip’s point of view. But he temporised still, determined to keep Elizabeth in hand if possible, and lost no opportunity of showing his amiability to her.

When Feria left in July there remained in England a member of Philip’s Flemish council, named Dassonleville. On November 7 he wrote to the king informing him that Parliament had been called together to discuss the question of the succession, and pointing out the desirability of Philip himself being present to influence it in the way he desired, it being understood that the queen’s death was approaching.

But Philip had his hands full, and could not go, even on so important an errand as this. The success of Guise at Calais had emboldened the French, and at one time a march upon Brussels had appeared inevitable. Providentially, however, for Philip, the English naval squadron of twelve ships, already mentioned, was able at a critical moment to turn the tide of victory in an engagement near Gravelines (July 13, 1558). Marshal Termes was completely routed, and Guise thenceforward had to stand on the defensive. Philip’s treasury was quite empty, he was deeply in debt, his soldiers unpaid, and he hated war. The French king was in similar straits, and had, moreover, begun to look with apprehension on the increasing strength of the reform party in France. So a talk of arrangement began to prevail, and on October 15 the first meeting of commissioners for peace was held, De Granvelle, with Alba and the Prince of Orange, representing Philip, and Cardinal Lorraine, with Constable{61} Montmorenci and Marshal St. André, the French king; whilst English interests were safeguarded by the Earl of Arundel, Dr. Thirlby, and Dr. Wotton. Under these circumstances, Philip was obliged to send to England in his place his friend, the Count de Feria. He arrived on November 9, and found the queen almost unconscious, so he lost no time in trying to propitiate the coming queen. He summoned the council, and approved in Philip’s name of Elizabeth’s succession, and then took horse to salute the new sovereign. On the 17th, Mary Tudor died, and Philip had a new set of problems to face. England had slipped through his hands, but might still be regained if the new queen could be married to his nominee. Elizabeth showed in her very first interview with Feria that she would not allow herself to be patronised. She stopped him at once when he began to hint that she owed her new crown to his master’s support. “She would,” she said, “owe it only to her people.” The Duke of Savoy was the first idea of a husband for her in the Spanish interest, but he was warlike, and the French were still in possession of his territories, so the English dreaded that he might drag them into another war, and would not hear of him. Feria hinted to the queen that Philip himself might marry her, but she was diplomatically irresponsive. Philip’s conditions, indeed, as conveyed to his ambassador, were such that Elizabeth could not have accepted them. But it never came so near as the discussion of conditions. This is not the place to relate at length the endless intrigues by which it was sought to draw Elizabeth into a marriage which should render her amenable, or at least innocuous, to Spain, but it will suffice to say that she was fully a{62} match for the wily diplomatists who sought to entrap her, and never for a moment, through all her tergiversation, intended to allow Spanish interests to dominate English policy. The peace between Spain and France was easily settled at Cateau Cambresis, Henry being even more anxious for it than Philip, and he gave way upon nearly every point; but with regard to England the case was different, and for a long while the English envoys stood out persistently for the restoration of Calais. So long as there appeared any prospect of his being allowed to influence English government, Philip refused to make a separate peace, but at length he gave Elizabeth clearly to understand that if peace could not be made without the loss of Calais, then Calais must go. England was in a state of confused transition, the queen’s position was uncertain, the treasury was empty, and the war unpopular, so at last the bitter pill, slightly disguised, had to be swallowed, and the peace of Cateau Cambresis was signed on April 2, 1559.

The position was a critical one for Philip and his policy. This was the parting of the ways, and the course now adopted was to decide the fate of the Spanish domination. Feria, and after him the Bishop of Aquila, wrote incessantly during the first months of Elizabeth’s reign that Spain must dominate England, by force of arms, if need be. Most of the country was Catholic, many of the principal councillors were in Spanish pay or had Spanish sympathies, the queen was as yet an uncertain quantity, and there were several pretenders whose claim to the crown seemed better than hers. Philip was assured again and again that this was his chance. If England broke away from him, his own Low Countries were in{63} danger. Let him, said his councillors, subsidise the Catholic party, if necessary backed up by force, patronise one of the rival claimants—Catharine Grey for choice—and remove the troublesome young queen before her position became consolidated. But Philip was slow. The merits and objections of every course had to be weighed and discussed infinitely. By his side was already the young Bishop of Arras, De Granvelle, fresh from his diplomatic triumph at Cateau Cambresis, whose methods were modelled upon those of his master, and from whom no decision could be expected without protracted delay. There was also Ruy Gomez, always on the side of peace and moderation. In vain haughty Feria sneered at the timid councils of churchmen, and chafed at his master’s inaction. Philip would not be hurried. His one wish was to get back to his dear Spain, and stay there; and from this design, favoured as it was by Ruy Gomez, Feria and the politicians of the Alba party were powerless to move him. So England slipped further and further from hands too tardy to grasp it whilst there was yet time, and those who held as an article of political faith that the owner of the Netherlands must be in close alliance with England or perish, looked on in unconcealed dismay.{64}

CHAPTER VI

PHILIP was as fully alive as were his fiery advisers to the necessity of keeping friendly with England, but he would have no more war if he could help it. Moreover, an entirely new combination of a sort which exactly appealed to his character had suggested itself to him. One of the principal objects of Henry II., in his anxiety to make peace, was to unite with Philip in order to withstand the growing power of the reformers, especially in France. Philip was not actively responsive on this point, as at the time (early in 1559) it had not reached an acute stage in his Netherlands dominions, and for the moment it did not suit his English policy to appear as the champion of extreme Catholicism. It was settled, however, in the preliminary discussions of the peace envoys at Cateau Cambresis that Philip’s only son, Carlos, who was now fourteen years of age, should marry Henry’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth, who was three{65} months younger than the prince. When it became evident that Elizabeth of England might hold her own, and even in time oppose him, it must have appeared to Philip that an entire change of his policy might isolate her, and that a close union between the old enemies, France and Spain, would reduce England to impotence for harm. So Philip’s own name was substituted for that of his son when the treaty was finally drafted, and the new policy was inaugurated. This policy was, so far as Philip was concerned, not an aggressive one against England or against Elizabeth. The next Catholic heir to the English throne was Mary Stuart, practically a Frenchwoman, and married to the Dauphin Francis, the future King of France. It was therefore, above all, necessary for Philip that the way should not be opened for the Queen of Scots to mount the English throne. Better far for him that Elizabeth, heretic though she was, should be there than that a French king should reign over England and Scotland. Then, indeed, would the Netherlands have been in jeopardy. The new combination seemed to avert danger from every side. The coalition was too strong for England to trouble alone, whilst any design to depose Elizabeth in the interest of Mary Stuart and France could now be counteracted from the inside by Philip. The Duke of Alba, with a splendid train of Spanish and Flemish nobles, entered Paris on June 22, 1559, and married by proxy for his master the young French princess, Elizabeth of the Peace, as the Spaniards afterwards called her. She was but a child as yet, but already her striking beauty and sweetness had endeared her beyond compare to the French populace. Brantome and other contemporary writers describe her personal{66} appearance, but her own wise letters to her mother, her brother, and to her friend and sister, Mary Stuart, speak more eloquently still of her mental gifts, and explain the undoubted influence she gained over the spirit of her husband, who, notwithstanding the disparity of their years, loved her deeply, and mourned her sincerely when she died. The marriage rejoicings in Paris were brought to a sudden and untoward conclusion by the accidental killing of the King of France, Henry II., by a thrust in the eye at a tourney, at the hands of Montgomeri, captain of the Scots Guard.

Philip was still in Belgium, immersed in anxiety and trouble. Already the want of sympathy between himself and his Flemish subjects was bearing its natural fruit. Heresy was raising its head there as elsewhere. The Netherlands had on more than one occasion felt the heavy hand of the emperor both in matters of religion and in the autonomous privileges of the various states which constituted the dominions of the House of Burgundy. But Charles was one of themselves, and from him they would suffer much. With Philip, ostentatiously a foreigner, it was a very different matter, and all attempts from him, however innocent, towards the centralisation of power, which was the kernel of his system, were tacitly resented by them. The commercial and geographical position of the Netherlands, in constant touch with England and Germany—the highway between them indeed—especially exposed the country to the influence of the new religious ideas; and in Holland, at least, the Protestant doctrines had before Philip’s accession obtained firm root. The person of the new monarch was not popular with the Flemings. His dislike{67} of noisy enthusiasm, his coldness and reserve, his preference for Spaniards, had already widened the breach that his first appearance had occasioned, and his people were almost eager to place a bad interpretation upon all he did. His first step, if it had been taken by another sovereign, would have been a popular one, but with him it was the reverse. The three bishoprics of the Netherlands were unwieldy, and a considerable portion of the country was under the ecclesiastical control of German bishops. Philip desired to remedy this by the re-division of the various dioceses and the creation of fourteen new bishops and three archbishops, the lands of the monasteries being appropriated for the support of the new prelates. Philip had endeavoured to keep his plans secret, but they leaked out, and at Philip’s farewell visit to the States-General at Ghent, on the eve of his departure for Spain, the members of the assembly denounced in no uncertain terms the implied policy of Philip to rule them according to Spanish instead of Flemish ideas. The severe edicts of the emperor against heresy had been only partially enforced, and in most of the states had been controlled by the native civil tribunals; but it was concluded that Philip would inaugurate a new era of rigour, especially as he was retaining under arms in the Netherlands some 4000 Spanish infantry. Philip had to listen to some bold talk from the burghers. With him heresy had always been synonymous with resistance to authority—in his case, he thought, allied with divinity; and as he left the assembly of the States he must have made up his mind that here, in his own dominion, the hydra must be crushed at any cost. As was his wont, however, he dissembled, promised that the Spanish troops{68} should be withdrawn, and took leave of the States with fair words. The country was to be governed in his absence by the Duchess of Parma, daughter of the emperor by a Flemish lady, and now married to that Ottavio Farnese whose dukedoms had been taken and subsequently restored to him by the Spaniards. Her principal adviser was to be the Bishop of Arras (De Granvelle). He was the third son of Charles’s favourite minister, Secretary Perrennot, a Franche-Comtois, and consequently a foreigner in Flanders. Upon him the principal brunt of his master’s unpopularity fell. His appointment as prime minister, he being a foreigner, was, said the Flemings, a violation of their rights. But Philip was immovable. He knew by the signatories of the petition for the removal of the Spanish troops that many of the principal men in the Netherlands were disaffected, and his suspicions had been aroused against those prime favourites of his father, the young Prince of Orange and Count Egmont. But he was, as usual, careful to dissemble his distrust, and left Egmont as governor of the counties of Flanders and Artois, and Orange of those of Holland, Zeeland, etc.

The atmosphere in Philip’s Netherlands dominions was thus full of gathering storm when he turned his back upon them for the last time to sail for Spain (August 1559). At the last moment, as he was about to embark, his indignation at the resistance to his authority seems to have overridden his reticence. He turned to Orange and told him that he knew that he was at the bottom of the opposition he had encountered in the States-General. Orange began by laying the responsibility upon the States themselves. “No,” said Philip, “not the{69} States, but you! you! you!” This was Orange’s first warning. In his heart he must have known now that in future it was to be war to the knife between his sovereign and himself. In any case he was prudent enough to stay on shore, and declined to accompany the other Flemish nobles on board the Spanish fleet.

If the sky was overcast in the Netherlands, it was almost as lowering in Spain itself; and this was a matter which lay nearer still to Philip’s heart. The country had been governed during the king’s absence by his sister, the widowed Princess Juana of Portugal, as regent. Civil affairs had shown no decided change. The money that flowed from the Indies had been mostly seized and squandered upon the foreign wars, and on one occasion the Seville merchants had ventured to remonstrate. But their leaders had been loaded with irons and cast into prison, and henceforward the people patiently bore their burden. Religious matters, however, were in a less satisfactory condition. It has already been observed that the policy of Charles and Philip had always been to bring the Church in Spain under subjection to the monarch, and to weaken the control of Rome over it. The ecclesiastical benefices were now practically all at the disposal of the sovereigns, and were distributed to a large extent with political objects, pensions and payment for national purposes frequently being charged upon episcopal, and other revenues, as a condition of presentation of a benefice. The royal council had assumed the power of reviewing the decisions of ecclesiastical tribunals, and the same civil power had now claimed the right of suspending the publication of papal bulls in Spain.{70}

For some years a controversy had been in progress with the papacy as to the right of the crown to insist upon the execution of a decision of the Council of Trent with regard to the reformation of the Spanish cathedral chapters, which had become very corrupt. The pope had considered this an interference with his prerogative, and had summoned to Rome the Spanish bishops who championed the right of the monarch over the Church. The royal council suspended the papal bulls and forbade the bishops to obey the pope’s summons. Paul IV. was furious, and this was one of the reasons for his attempts to ruin the Spanish power. When he fulminated his famous excommunication of Philip already mentioned, the king retorted by ordering through the Regent Juana that all the pope’s messengers bearing the bulls into Spain should be captured and punished. The council next recommended that Philip should insist upon all papal nuncios to Spain being Spanish prelates, and that they should be paid by the pope and not by the king. It did not, however, suit Philip to proceed too violently against the Church, upon which he knew he must depend largely as an instrument of his policy. When in 1557 he consented to the undignified peace with Paul IV., who had been so bitter an enemy to him, proud Alba said that, if he had had his way, he would have made Caraffa go to Brussels to sue the king for peace instead of Philip’s general having to humble himself before the churchman.

Matters were still extremely strained between Philip and the pope, Paul IV., when, almost simultaneously with the king’s departure from Flanders, the pontiff died (August 15, 1559), and during most of the rule of{71} his successor, Pius IV. (Angelo de Medici), Philip had a ready and pliant instrument in the chair of St. Peter.

The gradual slackening of the bonds which bound the Spanish Church to the papacy, and the laxity of the ecclesiastical control which was a consequence, had brought about scandalous corruption amongst the higher and cloistered clergy. The general tone of religion, indeed, at the time seems to have been one of extreme looseness and cynicism, accompanied by a slavish adherence to ritual and form. The terms in which the king and his ambassadors in their correspondence refer to the pontiffs and to the government of the Church in Rome, are often contemptuous in the last degree. They are always regarded as simple instruments for forwarding the interests of “God and your Majesty,” the invariable formula which well embodies Philip’s own conception of his place in the universe. Nothing is more curious than the free way in which religious matters were spoken of and discussed with impunity, so long as the speakers professed profound and abject submission to the Church, which in this case really meant the semi-political institution in Spain.

The Inquisition had from the first been jealously guarded from any real effective interference on the part of the pope, and by the time of Philip’s return to Spain had already begun to assume its subsequent character as a great political instrument in the hands of the monarch, working on ecclesiastical lines. So far as Philip’s personal experience extended, nearly all resistance to authority had begun with heresy, and, with his views as to the identity of his interests with those of the Almighty, it was evidently a duty to crush out ruthlessly{72} any manifestation of a spirit which tended to his prejudice.

There had gone with Philip to England as one of his confessors a learned and eloquent friar named Bartolomé de Carranza, of the Order of Preachers. He had been active in his efforts to bring England into the Catholic fold, and had especially devoted himself to refuting the arguments upon which the reformers depended. By his zeal and ability he had gained the good-will of Philip, who had, after his return to Brussels, raised him to the archbishopric of Toledo and the primacy of Spain. He shortly afterwards left for his diocese, with instructions to visit the emperor at Yuste on his way thither. He found Charles dying, and administered the last consolations to him, whilst another monk, a spy of the Inquisition, knelt close by, storing up in his mind for future use against him the words of hope and comfort he whispered to the dying man. It was afterwards alleged that he had dared to say that we might hope for salvation and justification by faith alone. Previous to this (1558) he had published in Antwerp a work called Commentaries on the Christian Catechism, in the preface of which certain words of a somewhat imprudent tendency were employed. “He wished,” he said, “to resuscitate the antiquity of the primitive church because that was the most sound and pure”; and in the body of the book certain propositions were cautiously advanced, which, however, nothing but the keenest sophistry could twist into heresy.

Carranza was at Alcalá de Henares in August 1559, shortly before Philip left Flanders, when he was summoned by the Regent Juana to Valladolid. The archbishop{73} had known for some time that the spies of the Inquisition were around him, and endeavoured diplomatically to delay his journey until the king should arrive; but Philip had deferred his departure for a fortnight, because a soothsayer had predicted heavy storms at sea, and before he could arrive the archbishop, who had then reached Torrelaguna, was taken from his bed at one o’clock in the morning and carried to the dungeons of the Inquisition at Valladolid. His arrest caused the greatest dismay throughout Spain. Contemporaries made no secret of their belief that he was not imprisoned for religion at all. His catechism was unanimously approved of by the pope, and by the Congregation of the Index in Rome. The Council of Trent solemnly and repeatedly protested against his arrest, and for many years it was a pitched battle between the Inquisition and the king on the one hand, and all the Catholic Church on the other. The documents in the case reached 25,000 folios of writing, some of the allegations against the archbishop being quite ludicrous in their triviality and looseness. In all probability the first cause of Carranza’s arrest was the jealousy of Valdes, Archbishop of Seville, the inquisitor-general. He was, like all the chief inquisitors, a Dominican, and during the many years he had been at the head of the Holy Office had become intolerably overbearing and ambitious. Carranza, on the other hand, was a much younger man (fifty-five), and had, after several years’ absence from Spain, been suddenly lifted from the position of a simple friar to that of Primate of Spain, the holder of the richest ecclesiastical benefice in the world. That Valdes should be jealous was only natural, and in the{74} absence of any adequate reason for his imprisonment in Carranza’s writings, it is almost certain that the cause for his first detention must be sought in this direction. Feria, who, of course, knew him well, writing from Brussels at the date of his first arrest to Bishop Quadra in England, says: “Things are going so badly in Spain, and they are coming to such a pass, that we shall soon not know who are the heretics and who the Christians. I will not believe evil of the archbishop, or of his companion, or of the Archbishop of Granada, who has also been summoned by the Inquisitors. What drives me crazy is to see the lives led by the criminals (i.e. the accused) and those led by their judges, and to compare their respective intelligence.” The bishop’s (Quadra’s) reply to this is almost as bold; and a priest sitting at table in Ruy Gomez’s house is reported to have said without rebuke, speaking of Carranza, “We shall see by and by whether he is a heretic, but we already see that he is being persecuted by envy.” When Philip arrived in Spain the archbishop was in the dark dungeon, where he stayed for two years, and churchmen everywhere were murmuring at the fate of the primate. Then the matter assumed a very different complexion. It was now a question of the vindication of Philip’s favourite tribunal against the demands of Rome, and for many years Philip held out, making use of every procrastination and subterfuge of which he was a master, until Pius V. in 1566 threatened to excommunicate Philip unless Carranza were sent to Rome. Then after some further delay Philip thought wise to cede the point, and the archbishop left in April 1567. But his troubles were not at an end. After a weary delay in Rome, he{75} was fully absolved and restored by the pope, and the decision sent to Spain for the king’s ratification. This was deferred until Pius V. died (1572), whereupon the new pope, Gregory XIII., commenced another interrogatory, which lasted three years. This ended in the absolution of the archbishop after a light penance, at the end of which, in a few days, Carranza died. Through all this the monarch seems to have had no personal feeling against the primate, but it was necessary at all costs to strengthen the Inquisition.

On the arrival of Philip in Spain in the autumn of 1559, his methods and character were well matured, and he began the regular routine of government which continued unbroken almost for the next forty years, endeavouring to rule his wide-spreading dominions from his desk, and trying to make puppets of all men for his own political ends. The government was divided into eleven departments, distributed between four secretaries of state. Letters and documents, after being deciphered, were sent to the king by the secretary of the department to which they belonged, often accompanied by a note explaining them or recommending a particular course. Every letter, to the most trivial detail, was read by Philip himself, who scrawled over the margins his acceptance or otherwise of the recommendations, or ordered them to be submitted to the inner council of state, Ruy Gomez, Alba, the confessor, and one or two other persons. The results of the conference were sent to the king in a memorandum from the secretary, and were once more considered. Every paper was therefore before the king several times. All letters or replies sent were submitted{76} to him in draft, and frequently amended by him. At the same time his secretaries kept up a copious semi-private correspondence with all the Spanish ambassadors and governors, which was also perused by the king, and frequently contained matters of the highest importance in secret diplomacy, which it was unadvisable to send by the usual official channels. It will be seen that this cumbrous system, by which every individual point was brought before the king’s personal consideration, entailed an immensity of work, and made prompt action impossible, even if the king’s own character was capable of promptitude. Ruy Gomez, Duke of Pastrana and Prince of Eboli, was high-chamberlain and state councillor, the inseparable friend of the king, over whom his influence was great. He had taken care to place around the king secretaries of state attached to his party, the principal of whom were Eraso and the two Perezes successively—Gonzalo and Antonio. The Duke of Alba, unlike the other political advisers of the king, was a great noble, ambitious, harsh, and turbulent, but partaking of Philip’s own view of the sacredness of the power of the crown. We have seen that Philip in his youth had been warned by his father not to trust Alba, or any other great noble, with power in Spain, and he never did. But the duke was useful in council, because he always opposed Ruy Gomez, whose soft and peaceful methods he contemned. This exactly suited Philip, who invariably wished to hear both sides of every question, and followed his father’s advice to keep rivals and enemies near him, in order that he might hear the worst that was to be said of each, whilst he held the balance.

The king loved to surround himself with mystery, to{77} be unseen by the crowd except on occasions of great ceremony; and as he got older he became in public graver and more reserved than ever. He had by this time probably persuaded himself that he really was a sacred being, specially selected as the direct representative of the Almighty, to whom Popes and Churches were merely tools. Certain it is that he considered it unfitting in him to exhibit any of the usual emotions of humanity. On his marble mask anger, surprise, or joy left no sign.

Philip landed in Spain on September 8, 1559, in great danger, the ship and all her rich freight sinking immediately after he left her. He had previously instructed the Regent Juana that heresy must be pursued without mercy in Spain, and she and young Carlos had sat through the horrors of a great auto de fé in Valladolid at the beginning of June, where some of the principal ladies of her own court were cruelly sacrificed. But this did not suffice for Philip. If he was to dominate the world from Spain, that country, at least, must be free from stain or suspicion. So the first great public ceremony he attended in the country that welcomed him was another stately auto at Valladolid. On Sunday, October 18, he sat on a splendid platform in the open space opposite the church of St. Martin. The judges of the Holy Office surrounded the throne, and the multitude, frantic with joy to see their beloved Philip again, and to enjoy a brilliant holiday, had flocked in for many miles around, attracted by the festival, and the forty days’ indulgence promised to them by the Church as a reward for their presence. Before the assembled multitude Philip solemnly swore to maintain{78} the purity of the faith and to support the Holy Office. As the condemned criminals passed his platform, one of them, a gentleman of high birth, married to a descendant of the royal house of Castile, cried out to the king, “How is it that a gentleman like you can hand over another gentleman such as I am to these friars?” “If my son were as perverse as you are,” said Philip, “I myself would carry the faggots to burn him.” Twelve poor wretches were then handed over to the civil power for execution, with a canting request for mercy from the Inquisition, for the Holy Office itself never officially carried out the last sentence, and invariably begged hypocritically for mercy for the poor wracked bodies it had doomed to the fire.

It is probable that Philip’s object in thus celebrating his return to his country was intended to give additional prestige to the institution which he intended to use as a main instrument in keeping his country free from the dissensions, such as he saw spreading over the rest of the world. But it will be a mistake to conclude that his proceeding, or even the Inquisition itself, was unpopular with Spaniards. On the contrary, Philip seems in this, as in most other things, to have been a perfect embodiment of the feeling of his country at this time. The enormous majority of Spaniards exulted in the idea that their nation, and especially their monarch, had been selected to make common cause with the Almighty for the extirpation of His enemies.{79}

CHAPTER VII

BUT it was time now for Philip to think of the reception of his new child-wife, whom Alba had married as his proxy in Paris five months before. Endless questions of etiquette had to be settled, political arrangements had to be made in Paris that should ensure to Philip the full benefit of the marriage, the bribing of ministers and the like; and it was far into the winter before the bride started from Paris, which she was to see no more. She was the flower of a bad flock, the most dearly beloved of any of her house, and her slow journey through France was a triumphal march. The splendid court in which her life had been passed was very dear to her, and she expected but little happiness in the rich squalor and rigid grimness of her husband’s palace. She was going, she knew, to be handed over like a chattel to the enemy of her country, but she kept up a brave heart, and daily wrote cheerful letters to her mother. So great was the distrust between the two countries that the most elaborate{80} precautions were taken on both sides to prevent surprise or treachery, and Elizabeth was kept for three days in the snow at Roncesvalles whilst Anthony de Bourbon was bickering with the Spaniards as to which frontier should be crossed first. Philip was not a very eager bridegroom this time, for he advanced no farther than Guadalajara to meet his wife (January 30, 1560). The poor child was so nervous when she first approached him, that she could only stare dumbly at his grave face, and made no sign of obeisance. Philip looked older than his thirty-three years, and doubtless read her dismay aright. His first rough greeting was, “What are you looking at? Are you looking to see whether my hair is grey?” But his gentleness soon came back, and, unpromising as was the commencement, their married life was not unhappy. He proved to be a most affectionate and devoted husband, as she was a sweet and tactful wife.

He soon had an opportunity of showing his devotion. No sooner had the marriage ceremony been performed in the cathedral of Toledo than the queen fell ill of smallpox, and in this crisis her husband’s care and tenderness to her were unremitting. Regardless of the remonstrances of those who feared for his own health, he was frequently by her side for long periods, and all through her tardy and critical convalescence his attentions and kindness were such as to excite the admiration even of the queen’s French ladies, who were certainly not prejudiced in Philip’s favour.

Very much depended upon preserving the life, and even the beauty, of the young queen. After years of neglect Catharine de Medici might now, by the death{81} of her husband, Henry II., become practically the ruler of France. She found the country reft in twain by religious faction, and she knew that the only means by which she could retain her power was by establishing herself as the balancing influence between the two factions. For the moment, with the accession of Francis II. and his wife, Mary, Queen of Scots, to the French throne, the Guises were paramount, and almost before the inauguration of the new policy of friendship between France and Spain, Catharine had begun to cast her eyes towards Vendôme, the Montmorencis and the Protestants to counterbalance them. The idea of Henry II. in giving his daughter to Philip was to cement a league of Catholics against the Huguenots; his widow’s aim was to secure a hold over Philip through his wife which should enable her to establish and retain her supremacy in France, come what might. The Guises had soon shown their power on the accession of their nephew to the throne by assuming in Mary Stuart’s name so aggressive an attitude towards Elizabeth that the latter was forced to resent it. An English force of 8000 infantry, 2000 cavalry, and 32 armed ships was sent to Scotland and attacked Leith, aided by a considerable Scottish rebel force. Opposed to them the Queen-mother of Scotland, Mary of Lorraine, had 5000 Frenchmen and a number of Scotsmen. Guise clamoured for Philip’s help to beat the English in the interests of his niece. But this was no part of Philip’s bargain. The most untoward thing that could happen to him was the deposition of Elizabeth and the union of England and Scotland under a French sovereign, and the next most inconvenient thing was that Elizabeth should be victorious over his allies, the{82} French. So he exerted every effort to frighten both sides into making a peace. Envoys were sent from Flanders and Spain to assure Elizabeth that if she did not withdraw her troops from Scotland he would send a great force to help the French, whilst the Guises were significantly told that they must be cautious, as their enemies in France were numerous. Philip’s envoys in England might threaten, but Elizabeth knew well that Spanish troops would never put a Frenchman in her place, and she made the most of her knowledge. The English troops in Scotland were victorious, and Elizabeth now could afford to hector about the terms of peace. She wanted Calais to be restored, a large indemnity, and much else, but she ended by accepting terms which humiliated the Guises, and ensured her against future French aggression from Scotland.

Materially the peace of Cateau Cambresis had been all in Philip’s favour, but he had hoped for advantages in other ways as well. The original idea had been to present a united front to advancing Protestantism both in France and Flanders, to which end he had hoped to make a tool of France. But the death of Henry II. and the appearance of Catharine de Medici in front of the stage had changed the problem. He now saw a clever intriguing woman, with no religious convictions at all, ready to rally to either party, and seeking to make a tool of him. This was a rôle that never suited Philip, and he soon made it clear that his marriage with a French princess had drawn him no closer to French interests than he was before. Frenchmen suspected of heresy in Spain were persecuted with greater barbarity than ever by the Inquisition. French commercial interests{83} were as ruthlessly disregarded as those of Protestant England itself, whilst the French expeditions to Florida and elsewhere aroused Philip to the utmost point of arrogance against his wife’s country. A bitter feud between the Spanish and French ambassadors in Rome on the point of precedence appears to have been directly fomented by Philip. The influence, therefore, of Philip’s young French wife had to be exerted to its utmost to prevent an open rupture between her brother and her husband.

Suddenly the whole prospect was again changed by the death of Francis II. There was no fear now of the French nation becoming dominant in Scotland and England through Mary Stuart, for Catharine de Medici hated her daughter-in-law and the Guises, and would not raise a finger to make them more powerful than they were. But the death of Francis made more difficult than ever a lasting and sincere alliance between Spain and France, for Catharine de Medici could not afford to adopt for long an extreme Catholic policy. Philip at this time was in the very depth of penury. Every ducat that could be extorted from the Seville merchants or borrowed from the Fuggers had been obtained. The revenues and remittances from the Indies had long been anticipated, the Spanish troops in Flanders were unpaid, and Philip was surrounded by claims that he could not meet. Under these circumstances he was fain to shut his eyes for a time to the favour Catharine was showing to the reformers in France, although he allowed his wife to threaten her with Spanish troops to help the Catholic party in France if necessary. Catharine knew that his hands were full, and practically{84} defied him, and Elizabeth of England did the same. He was powerless to injure them now, for his system of jealous centralisation and his cumbrous methods were already producing their disastrous effects.

The first misfortune, one of the greatest of his life, which resulted from the confusion of his administration, was the complete destruction of his fleet in the Mediterranean. When in 1558 the pope and Henry II. had not hesitated to accept the aid of the infidel against Philip, a hundred Turkish galleys had sailed from Constantinople under Piali Pacha, an Italian renegade, and, with the aid of the famous Barbary corsair, Dragut Reis, had scourged the coasts of Sicily and Naples, overrun Minorca, and even attacked Nice, and then had captured the fortress of Tripoli, which belonged to the Knights of St. John of Malta. When peace was made between France and Spain at Cateau Cambresis in the following year, the Grand Master of St. John urged Philip to employ the large force he then had free in Italy and elsewhere to recover Tripoli for the Order. The enterprise, he said, would be easy now, if it were done swiftly and secretly, for Dragut, who governed the new conquest, was busy raiding the interior, and the Barbary Moors, groaning under the yoke of the Turk, would aid the Christians. Philip’s viceroy in Sicily, the Duke of Medina Celi, anxious for personal distinction, seconded the petition of the Grand Master, and Philip consented. Medina Celi was appointed to the command, and orders were given to Andrea Doria, commanding the Spanish galleys, and to the viceroys of Naples and Milan, to aid the expedition with all the forces in their power. The Turkish fleet was, however,{85} still in the neighbourhood, and the viceroys did not think prudent to send any of their troops away until it had gone. Delay after delay took place whilst dispatches were slowly being exchanged and Philip continually being consulted on points of detail. The men-at-arms in large numbers broke up and went to their homes, and when at last the troops were got together and reached Genoa, they found that the Spanish ambassador there had dismissed the ships that had been freighted, in the belief that the expedition had been abandoned. Then when fresh ships had been obtained the soldiers refused to go on board until they received their over-due pay. With much persuasion and many promises they were at length embarked, and a shipload of them, 1500 in number, was wrecked at the mouth of the harbour, causing renewed delay. Then it was found that the aged Andrea Doria could not accompany the ships, and had delegated the command to his nephew, John Andrea, under whom some of the Spanish generals would not serve. But withal, by the beginning of October 1559, 12,000 good troops were mustered in Messina under Medina Celi. The Grand Master had originally, six months before, made promptness and secrecy conditions of success, but long ere this all the Mediterranean was ringing with the news, and Dragut was on the alert. Whilst Philip was tardily sending cautious dispatches to his viceroys, the Sultan had crowded men, ammunition, and stores into Tripoli, and when after two months’ further delay the Spanish force was ready to sail, it was found that the rascally contractors had provided rations which were mostly rotten—just as they did to the Invincible{86} Armada thirty years afterwards. When finally the fleet sailed (November 20, 1559) the men were sick and discontented, 3000 of them having already died or deserted. Many of the soldiers mutinied the first day. Head winds and want of food held them for weeks, and it was January 10, 1560, before the fleet was assembled at Malta. There fresh men had to be shipped to fill the places of those who had died, and sound rations procured, and finally, on February 10, 1560, the fleet, 100 sail and a contingent of galleys and men belonging to the Knights, left Malta. The small island of Gelves, in the Gulf of Khabes, was easily captured, but the next day there appeared a fleet of 74 great Turkish galleys full of janissaries, and 12 others under Dragut from Tripoli. Medina Celi lost his head, Doria lost his courage, and a hideous panic seized the Spaniards at the onslaught of the Turks. The commanders fled shamefully, and 65 ships and 5000 men fell to the tender mercies of the infidel. The Spaniards entrenched on the island of Gelves under the brave Alvaro de Sande, held out against terrible odds, 8000 men of them almost without provisions, quite without water, for six weeks, and then all that were left of them, about 1000, starved and naked, stood shoulder to shoulder in the breach to be killed by the victors or carried to Constantinople to a less worthy fate.

The Christian power in the Mediterranean was tottering; the fortresses held by Spain in North Africa especially seemed doomed to destruction, and Philip was forced to make a supreme effort, and was able in the next year, 1561, to send out a fresh fleet of 70 galleys, nearly all hired, to fight the Turk. The whole{87} fleet was lost in a storm before it left the coast of Spain, and the Turk once more seemed destined to dominate the Mediterranean. The defence of the Spanish settlement of Mers el Kebir in the spring of 1563 will always remain one of the most heroic in history. There a little garrison of barely 200 men held out against a Turkish force of 20,000, and although they were almost within sight of the Spanish coast, so cumbrous was Philip’s administration that it took two months for relief to reach them.{88}

CHAPTER VIII

DON CARLOS, Philip’s only son and heir, had grown to be a boy of fourteen. Considering his descent, it is not surprising that he was deformed both in mind and body, lame and stunted, an epileptic semi-imbecile. He had been left in charge of his widowed aunt, the Regent Juana, a gloomy, religious mystic, to whom he was violently attached, and whose side he could only with difficulty be prevailed upon to leave. Philip had appointed as his tutor the learned Honorato Juan, who certainly did his best for the royal pupil. But he could do little for such a mind as his. As early as October 1558 the tutor wrote to the king, then in Flanders, that his pupil obstinately refused to study anything and was beyond control. The king himself, he said, was the only person who could bring him to order. Philip’s answer was characteristically cold and inexpressive. Honorato Juan must continue to look after the{89} prince’s education and separate him from any companions who might divert him from his studies. But dry as was Philip’s letter to the tutor, it is clear that the news struck sorrow to his heart, for he loved his children dearly, and had great hopes for his heir. On a letter written on March 6, 1559, to Cardinal Pacheco respecting the need for settling ecclesiastical matters in the Netherlands, the king wrote the following words in his own hand: “Perhaps the prince my son will not be so careful of this as I am, and the people here may not try so hard as I should about it, seeing how desirable it is for the service of God, which is evidently the only end I aim at.” One of the first acts of Philip on his arrival in Spain was to take his son under his own care. When the new queen entered Toledo in state for the marriage ceremony (February 12, 1560) she was received by her stepson Carlos, yellow with recent fever, on his left being his young uncle, Don Juan of Austria, and on the right Alexander Farnese, the son and grandson, respectively, of the emperor.

When Elizabeth had left France, her mother, Catharine, had secretly instructed her to use every effort to win Don Carlos for her younger sister, Margaret de Valois, afterwards the famous first wife of Henry IV. Elizabeth’s fascination was great, and she very soon obtained absolute dominion over the sickly boy. The romantic stories of mutual love between them may be dismissed now as utterly exploded fables. Elizabeth had been born and bred in an atmosphere of political intrigue, she had gone to Spain purely for political reasons, and she was entrusted with the task of trying to win the greatest matrimonial prize in Europe for her sister, and to{90} strengthen the union between France and Spain. She naturally carried out her mission to the best of her ability. Her efforts with regard to the marriage were utterly fruitless, for Philip was in no mood for a closer alliance with Catharine de Medici; but she attached her stepson to her to such an extent by her pity and kindness during his continual attacks of fever, that at length the French ambassador could write to Catharine, “The more the prince hates his father, the greater grows his affection for his stepmother, the queen, for she has all his regard, and her Majesty is so wise that she discreetly manages to please both her husband and her stepson.”

Catharine de Medici’s instructions to her daughter were that if she could not bring about a marriage between Carlos and her sister Margaret, she was to strive to forward his union with his aunt, the former Regent Juana, who was herself anxious for marriage with her nephew of half her age—anything rather than allow the heir of Spain to marry Mary Stuart. This latter would have been the best match for Philip, and he knew it. England would once more have been brought into his grasp, France checkmated effectually, and Flanders safe. Mary and her minister, Lethington, were eager for it. But time went on whilst Philip was procrastinating—probably in consequence of the condition of Carlos. Elizabeth, Catharine, and the emperor who wanted the heir for his granddaughter Anne, all intrigued actively against the match, Mary drifted into her marriage with Darnley, and Philip once more missed his chance.

On February 22, 1560, Carlos received the oath of allegiance from the Cortes of Castile in Toledo, and afterwards returned to the University of Alcalá, where{91} he was supposed to be studying. His life there was violent and licentious, and in April 1562, in descending a dark stair to keep an assignation, he fell and suffered a severe fracture of the skull. The king, on receiving the news, at once set out from Madrid, his new capital, travelling through the night, full of anxiety for his son. He found him unconscious and partially paralysed; the doctors, ignorant beyond conception, treated him in a way that seems to us now to have made his death almost inevitable. Purges and bleedings, unguents and charms, ghastly quackery, such as putting a skeleton in bed with the invalid, were all tried in turn, until the Italian surgeon Vesale arrived and performed the operation of trepanning. The prince then recovered: but if he had been a semi-imbecile before, he now became at intervals a raving homicidal maniac. The prince and those around him attributed his recovery entirely to the skeleton of the monk that had been put to bed with him, and he promised to give four times his weight in gold for religious purposes. He was then seventeen years of age, and was found to weigh only 5 stone 6 lbs.

It was necessary that the heir should receive the oath of allegiance of the Cortes of Aragon, Cataluña, and Valencia. The Cortes of Castile, more submissive than the Aragonese, had, though not without some murmuring, voted the supplies needed by Philip, and were at once dismissed. The Aragonese Parliament, proud of its privileges, stubborn to rudeness whenever it was convoked, had not been called together since 1552, although the king was bound by oath to summon it every three years. The very existence of representative{92} assemblies was opposed to Philip’s dream of personal centralisation of power, and he detested the Aragonese Cortes heartily. The French ambassador at the time wrote to Catharine that the king, when he took the oath, secretly meant “to cut their claws and dock the privileges that make them insolent and almost free.” The court was therefore transferred in the autumn of 1563 to the obscure Aragonese town of Monzon, the king on his way from Madrid laying the first stone of his vast granite palace of St. Laurence of the Escorial. He found the rough Aragonese inclined to be fractious, jealous as usual at any interference of Castilians in their affairs. But Philip was pressed for money, and was obliged to dissemble. A crisis nearly occurred when the Cortes touched the mainspring of his governmental system. The members adopted a protest against the extending power of the Inquisition, and its interference with other matters than those of theology. Philip was cold and evasive; he said he would consider the matter when he returned to Castile. But the Cortes understood the rule of “grievance first” as well as the English Commons, and replied that no money should be voted until a satisfactory reply was given to them. Philip fell ill with rage, but money he must have; and at last he promised that a regular inspection and inquiry should be instituted into the powers of the Aragonese Inquisition. With this the Cortes voted him 1,350,000 ducats. They then took the oath of allegiance to Carlos, and were promptly dismissed. Philip did not forget his grudge against them, and it went hard with Aragon and its liberties when they gave him a chance for revenge.{93}

France had been engaged in the first war of religion, and the Catholic party had been hardly pressed. The Duke of Guise had recently been killed (February 24, 1563), the peace of Amboise had been patched up, and toleration had been established. Anthony de Bourbon, who had married Jeanne d’Albret, titular Queen of Navarre, had also been killed, and his widow and ten-year-old son, Henry, had retired to her castle at Pau to mourn their loss. For many years the rights of the royal house of Navarre to the kingdom which had been dishonestly filched from them by Ferdinand the Catholic had been a thorn in the side of Spanish sovereigns, for the Navarres were still powerful French tributary princes across the Pyrenees. After Philip’s own projected marriage with the heiress of the house in his boyhood had fallen through, she had married Anthony de Bourbon, Duc de Vendôme, a prince of the blood royal of France, and this had made the claim more dangerous for Philip. But worst of all, Jeanne was a strong Calvinist, and only three lives stood between her little son and the crown of France. The Guises and their Catholic followers saw that if he came to the throne their day was gone, and cast about for means to avert such a catastrophe. Pau was near the Spanish frontier. Why not seize the queen and two children and hand them over to the tender mercies of Philip? If they were out of the way, Navarre could cause no more anxiety, and the stronghold of Protestantism in France would be empty. So a certain Captain Dimanche was sent by the Guises secretly to Monzon to broach the matter to Philip. He was raising a large force at Barcelona to fight the Turks in the Mediterranean.{94} What would be easier than to send 10,000 of them secretly to creep along the Pyrenees, make a dash to Pau, and capture Jeanne d’Albret and her children? What indeed? This was exactly the enterprise to suit Philip, and Captain Dimanche saw him more than once at dead of night, and the whole plot was settled. The Guisan Monlucs and their Catholic friends were to hold the Protestants in check, whilst Philip’s men kidnapped their quarry. But Dimanche fell ill. He was a Frenchman, and sought aid of a countryman who lodged in the same house, an underling in the household of Philip’s French wife. Dimanche let out his secret to his countryman, who conveyed it to the queen. She was loyal to her husband’s country, but she was a Frenchwoman, a dear friend of Jeanne d’Albret, and a daughter of Catharine de Medici, so the news of the treachery went flying across the Pyrenees, and Jeanne, and Henry of Navarre were saved. Philip probably to the end of his life never knew that his wife had frustrated this dangerous plot against France, but it is all clear to us now, who have her secret correspondence before us.

But Philip was threatened at this time (the autumn of 1562) with a greater danger nearer home than France. As the French ambassador wrote, “The king intends principally to establish obedience to him by means of the Inquisition.” We have seen how the remonstrances of the Cortes of Aragon were received; we will now consider how Philip met a more dangerous attack upon his favourite institution. The Council of Trent, which had always been a trouble to Philip and his father, met, after several years’ suspension, early in 1562. Various moderate resolutions were discussed, but when the{95} French prelates arrived late in the year with Cardinal Lorraine at their head the blow fell. The French and German bishops, who had seen the effects of wars of religion, proposed a radical reform. The priests were to be allowed to marry and the sacrament to be administered in two kinds. This was bad enough, but, worst of all, some of the bishops—Philip’s own subjects—tried to shake off the heavy yoke of the Inquisition. The prosecution of Carranza had shown to the Spanish bishops that there was no safety for any of them. Prelates hitherto could only be tried for heresy by the pope, but now the weak Medici Pope, Pius IV., had been induced to delegate this power to the inquisitor-general. Most of the Spanish bishops had been in favour of strengthening the power of the monarch over the Church, but when it came to handing over their own liberties to the Inquisition it was another matter. Philip wrote in December 1562 deploring that the Spanish bishops were not showing fit zeal for the Holy Office, “which subject must not be touched upon either directly or indirectly.” The pope was also appealed to, to prevent the Council from interfering in any way with the Inquisition. When Pius IV., humble servant as he then was of Philip, mildly remonstrated with him for meddling with the Council, Vargas, the Spanish ambassador, scolded his Holiness roundly for his want of consideration for the interests of “God and his Majesty.” Gradually even Pius IV. began to lose patience. Philip’s grand promises to him and his needy nephews had been very sparely kept, and it was clear to the meanest intellect that his pious professions of attachment for the Church were only with the object of making use of it{96} for his own interests. At last Philip threatened to withdraw his ambassador, and the now angry pope defied him, threatening above all to withdraw from him the right of selling the Crusade bulls of indulgence, which produced a large revenue. He also began clamouring about Carranza’s treatment by the Inquisition, and the revenues of the archbishopric. When Philip asked in 1564 for a renewal of the subsidy he received from Rome, nothing but evasive answers were given to him. The breach grew wider and wider. “In Spain,” said the pontiff, “you all want to be popes and bring the king into everything. If the king wished to be King of Spain, he” (the pope) “intended to be Pope of Rome. Never,” he said, “was a pope so ill-treated as he was by the King of Spain and his ministers.” The death of Guise and the religious settlement in France, however, caused the withdrawal of many of the French bishops from the Council of Trent, and Philip, by bribes and threats, once more gained the upper hand in the assembly. Heretics were excluded, the celibacy of the clergy decided upon, and the administration of the sacrament in two kinds prohibited; but a decision was also arrived at which seemed distantly to affect the omnipotence of the king over the Spanish clergy. It gave the power to the provincial synods, and as a last resource to the pope, to examine into the morality of recipients of benefices. A slight attempt was also made to deprecate the extreme severity of the Inquisition. These mild resolutions were called by Philip’s ambassador “works of the devil,” and for over a year the decisions of the Council of Trent were not published in Spain. When, indeed, they were promulgated,{97} it was with the saving clause from the king that they should in no way abrogate or weaken his rights over the clergy, the benefices, or the tithes. The condition of armed truce between Philip and Rome continued until the death of Pius IV. in December 1565.

An attempt to introduce an inquisition of the Spanish type into Naples, with the avowed object of suppressing political disaffection, nearly lost Philip the realm. The city rose in revolt against it, and after a struggle Philip was obliged to give way, and consented to abolish the dreaded tribunal (1565). He was indeed at the time not in a condition to coerce Naples. The struggle with the Turks in the Mediterranean had dragged on almost without intermission. Don Garcia de Toledo had in the autumn of 1564 managed to capture Peñon de los Velez, a nest of pirates in the kingdom of Fez, which had been Philip’s main object for a year previously; but this was no check to the power of the Constantinople Turks, who were fitting out a great expedition for the purpose of hurling the Knights of St. John from their last stronghold at Malta. Don Garcia de Toledo, now Viceroy of Sicily, joined with the Grand Master Parisot in clamouring for Philip’s aid, unless, he said, all the Mediterranean was to fall under the rule of the infidel. But clamour as they might, no hurry could be expected from the king. Toledo was a host in himself. Men were sent from Sicily, others recruited in Corsica; Naples was put into a condition of defence, and Toledo, “bigger in spirit than in body,” complained, and rated soundly, almost rudely, the slow methods of his master in so great a crisis. At last, on May 19, Piali Pacha and Dragut Reis, with a vast force of 100,000 men,{98} appeared before Malta. There were about a tenth of that number of Christian fighting men on the island, but the isolated fort of St. Elmo, with a garrison of 600 men, had to bear the brunt of the Turkish attack. After a month’s hard fighting, when at length the Turks stormed the place only nine Christians were left alive. From this point of vantage the siege of the main fortress by the Turks was commenced, with the assistance of the fleet. The Grand Master had continued to reinforce St. Elmo with his best men until it fell, and now found himself short-handed. Fresh prayers went forth to distant Philip and persistent Don Garcia de Toledo. Strong swimmers carried the Master’s beseeching letters beyond the reach of the Turkish ships. He could only hold out, he said, twenty days at most. Sixteen thousand cannon-shots had been fired against his forts in the first month. All Christianity looked on aghast whilst Philip was spending his time in religious processions, fasts, and rogations for the delivery of Malta. Don Garcia’s activity made up for his master’s tardiness, and, thanks to him mainly, Malta was able to hold out month after month. When at last a relief squadron was got together somehow in Sicily, consisting of 28 galleys and 10,000 men, storm and tempest scattered it again and again, and it was not until the beginning of September 1565 that it approached Malta, landing its men and provisions. The defenders were at their last gasp, but this relief raised their hearts. Again Don Garcia returned with more men and stores, and after one last attempt to storm the stronghold, the Turks gave up the game and raised the siege. Malta was saved, but Philip complained that he did not get full credit for it, because the Grand Master was a Frenchman and the pope himself was jealous.{99}

CHAPTER IX

WE have seen that Philip had left his Flemish subjects (August 1559) in no very amiable mood. The opulent, independent communities of the Low Countries held firmly by the liberties they enjoyed. Every ruler had to swear—as Philip had done—to uphold and preserve them intact; on that point nobles and burghers were at one, and amongst the rights they prized most was that no foreigner should be appointed to any administrative post. The Burgundian rulers, although foreigners, had got on well enough with them, and so had the emperor. It was more a question of tastes and manners than of blood; superabundant hospitality, heavy eating, deep drinking, and rough speaking quickly commended a man to the Flemings. The Spaniard of that day was, as he{100} still remains, sober and abstemious to the highest degree, reticent, sensitive, and proud, and Philip was a Spaniard to the finger-tips.

The natural want of sympathy between sovereign and people arising out of these circumstances doubtless began the trouble which ended in Spain’s downfall. No part of Philip’s career shows so clearly as his treatment of the Netherlands the limited and inelastic character of his policy, the lack of adaptability of his methods; for how should a man be yielding or conciliatory who supposed that he was part and parcel of Divine Providence, the one man on earth selected by the Almighty to carry out His irresistible decrees? There is no reason to suppose that when he first decided upon the rearrangement of the Flemish dioceses he desired to offend his subjects; it was probably only a step in his persistent policy of bringing the clergy of his dominions under his more immediate control. But in order to pay his new bishops he designed to appropriate the large revenues of the conventual houses, and he thus raised up against him all the cloistered clergy. The pope was bribed to agree to the change, but the Flemings, already sulky, were willing to listen to the monks, who denounced the innovations of the foreigner which were to deprive them of their revenues, and what would have been under other circumstances a not unwelcome reform became a fruitful source of trouble. There is no doubt, moreover, that before the king attended the States-General just prior to his departure he had every intention of withdrawing the Spanish infantry from Flanders now that peace had been made with France, and the men were badly wanted in Naples, where his{101} principal danger at present lay. But when the States-General so roughly demanded of their sovereign the immediate withdrawal of the troops, Philip’s heart must have hardened and his pride revolted that these independent-minded Flemings should question his omnipotence. Another difficulty was that the troops obstinately refused to budge until they were paid, and the treasury was empty. The Flemings, who had been bled freely during the war, professed inability to find any more resources, and the Antwerp bankers shut their money-bags until some of their previous advances were paid. When Philip arrived in Spain, his sister Margaret, Duchess of Parma, governess of the Netherlands, ceaselessly urged him to withdraw the troops. She assured him that their further stay would cause trouble, and Granvelle warned him gravely of the results. With the first half of his French wife’s dowry of 400,000 ducats Philip was able to pay the troops in the autumn of 1560, and they left in January 1561; but by that time the evil seed had been sown, and Philip was pestered in every letter with reminders of the various rights and privileges which he had sworn to uphold in the respective states. Most of the unpopularity fell upon Granvelle, who had to carry out the arrangements for the new bishoprics. He found his task so difficult that before long he “wished to God that the erection of these new sees had never been thought of,” although the change made him Primate of the Netherlands, and gave the king the advantage of thirteen nominated members in the Assembly of Nobles. This latter fact, indeed, probably to a great extent was the original aim of the project, and was certainly one of the principal{102} reasons why the Flemish nobles opposed it so bitterly.

Granvelle himself, be it recollected, was a foreigner, a Franche-Comtois, and his luxurious, ostentatious mode of life was an additional reason for his unpopularity. Margaret, on the other hand, whose mother had been a Fleming, and whose masculine manners and purely Flemish tastes commended her to her countrymen, was far from being unpopular.

The nobles who had first distinguished themselves by resisting the further stay of the Spanish troops were William, Prince of Orange, and Count Egmont. The former was not a Fleming in blood or education, his principality of Orange being in the south of France, and his descent mainly German Lutheran. By his county of Nassau, however, he was a Flemish prince, and had been brought up in the court of the emperor, of whom he had been a great favourite. His historical name of “the taciturn” gives a very false idea of his character, especially in his youth. He was like a Southern Frenchman in manners, gay, fascinating, prodigal, and voluble. His religious opinions, if he had any, were extremely lax, and he was as ready to seek his advantage on one side as another. His religion indeed was as purely political as that of Philip, but as a statesman he must be ranked far higher, for he had all Philip’s tenacity and foresight, with an opportunism almost as great as that of Elizabeth herself.

Count Egmont, on the other hand, was a dashing and fortunate soldier, chief of the Flemish nobility, handsome, vain, proud, and honest, but of limited intelligence, and exceedingly credulous. The first overt step of these{103} two nobles was to resign the commands they held over the Spanish troops, on the ground that, if they continued to hold them, they would lose all influence in the country. When the Spanish troops had left, Orange and Egmont continued, as usual, to attend the Flemish council of state appointed by Philip to advise Margaret. But the king before he departed had arranged that his own Spanish method of administration should be followed, namely, that the regent and the secretary of state, Granvelle, should practically manage everything, referring to the council only such points as they considered necessary.

As time went on, and Granvelle became more unpopular about the bishoprics, he referred less and less to the council, and in July 1561 Orange and Egmont wrote to the king resigning their seats and complaining bitterly. They had, they said, to bear a share of the unpopularity of the measures adopted, but had no part in controlling the policy of the Government. To this Philip returned, as was usual with him, a temporising answer. He would, he said, consider the matter and reply at length when Count Horn returned from Madrid to Flanders.

Horn’s mission to Flanders was to endeavour to reconcile Granvelle with the nobles, but this was a well-nigh impossible task. It was said that the cardinal and his parasites were plundering right and left, whilst public officers were unpaid and the treasury empty, that he was trying to substitute the unobnoxious inquisition of the Netherlands by the terrible tribunal of Spain, which certainly was not true, and that his arrogance and tyranny had become unbearable. Granvelle{104} indeed was the scapegoat, and had become hateful both to the nobles and to “that perverse animal called the people,” to use his own words. So Horn’s mission was too late, like most of Philip’s attempts at conciliation, and in the spring of 1562 Orange petitioned the Regent Margaret to convoke the States-General. The regent herself, though full of praise for the cardinal in her letters to Philip, had no desire to share his unpopularity, and consented to summon, not the States-General, but a Chapter of the Knights of the Golden Fleece, or in effect the high nobility of Flanders. The pretext for the assembly was that Philip had sent orders that a force of men should be raised in Flanders to be sent to the aid of the Catholic party in France, now in the midst of their first struggle with the Huguenots. The discontented Flemish nobles were in no humour to aid in this, and before the assembly Orange held a private meeting of them, to press upon them the undesirability of allowing Granvelle to have the disposal of troops. This was known to the regent, and she dismissed the assembly as soon as possible, an arrangement being settled for sending a money subsidy to the French Catholics instead of an armed force. But before the nobles separated they decided to send as a delegate to Philip one of their number, Florence de Montmorenci, Baron de Montigny, the brother of Count Horn, to represent to the king the unsatisfactory state of the country with regard to religion and the public finances. He and his brother were Catholics, but firm upholders of the autonomy of the States. Before he left, religious matters were indeed in a disturbed condition. Hainhault, on the French border, with its great commerce and industry in the cities of{105} Tournai, and Valenciennes especially, had largely accepted the Protestant faith from the neighbouring French Calvinists. Philip urged his sister to severity against them, but the magistrates, themselves Flemings, hesitated to torture their fellow-citizens, whose political privileges protected them against such treatment. Margaret threatened the magistrates, and the people of Valenciennes took the matter in their own hands, broke open the prison, and released the accused. Margaret might storm, as she did, Philip might cynically recommend that heads should be lopped, bodies burnt, and mouths gagged, but the Marquis de Bergues, the governor of Hainhault, was a Fleming, and would not countenance any infringement on the rights of his people. Upon him then fell the blame. Nothing that Granvelle could say to the king was bad enough for Bergues, and in return Egmont, Orange, and Horn ceaselessly cast the responsibility upon Granvelle. Letter after letter went to the king in this sense. Philip, as usual, was cool and unmoved. He is not, he says, in the habit of punishing his ministers without just cause. But proud Alba did not take it so coolly. “Every time I see the letters of these three Flemish lords I fall into such a rage, that, if I did not make a great effort to control myself, your Majesty would think me frantic.” Granvelle, on his part, tried to fan the flame. “They want to reduce this country to a sort of republic, in which the king can do more than they like,” and when the Marquis de Bergues was asked by the Duke of Arschot what course he would take if the king would not give way, his reply, as repeated to Philip, was, “By God! we will make him swallow it.”

Things thus went from bad to worse. Granvelle{106} at length saw that he must bend before the storm, and offered concessions to the nobles. But it was too late. Nearly all the nobles, governors, and Knights of Golden Fleece had now sworn to stand together to overthrow the hated foreign cardinal, and a formal letter was sent to the king in March 1563, signed by Orange, Egmont, and Horn, resigning all share in the government. The reply was again in Philip’s temporising vein. He was coming to Flanders himself shortly, and would then inquire into their complaints. In the meanwhile he could not dismiss Granvelle. The nobles sent another, and a stronger, letter to the king in answer to this (July 29, 1563), and said that in future they should absent themselves from the council. At the same time a formal “remonstrance” was addressed to the regent, and thenceforward she and Granvelle were left to govern alone. Margaret had no wish to be dragged down by the impending fall of the minister, and bluntly told Philip, by her trusty secretary, Armenteros, that, if the cardinal were maintained against the will of nobles and people, a revolution might result. Granvelle was assured by the king’s secretary that Philip would rather lose the States than sacrifice his minister. The king sent a curt peremptory letter to the nobles reproaching them for deserting the council for a trifle, and assured the cardinal that he would not deprive himself of his services. But they arranged between them that the cardinal should beg for leave of absence to visit his mother in the Franche Comté and, after much pretended reluctance on the part of Philip, Granvelle was allowed to depart, to the open rejoicing of the nobles, the people, and even of the regent. An elaborate appearance of his{107} departure being spontaneous and only temporary was made, but when two years afterwards his leave of absence had expired and he wanted to go back, the king advised him to pass a short time in Rome, and then he knew for certain that disgrace had fallen upon him. He would go thither—or to the farthest end of the world—he said, if the king ordered him, but he much feared that his absence from Flanders would not mend matters.

He had departed from Brussels in the spring of 1564, and the three nobles at once wrote dutiful letters to Philip, who replied graciously. They once more took an active part in the government, and in the first few months after Granvelle left, the relief and rejoicing were great. But the sore still remained behind. Granvelle, indeed, had only carried out the policy inaugurated by Philip of governing Flanders as a Spanish province. The policy was not dead though the instrument was disgraced. Such a system of government, where popular control is loosened, invariably leads to corruption; and this case was no exception to the rule. Granvelle’s parasites—Morillon, Bave, Bordey, and the rest of them—had made his patronage a crying scandal, the judges were shamelessly bought and sold, the administration was a sink of iniquity, the inquisitor Titelmans was ferociously hounding to death inoffensive citizens, even good Catholics, without legal form of trial, and now Margaret of Parma herself, and her pet secretary, Armenteros, thought it was time that they should reap a fat harvest; so, after the first joy of Granvelle’s retreat had passed, it was decided by the nobles to send Egmont to Spain to explain to the king how the rights{108} he swore to maintain were still being violated. Egmont might take with him the vigorous protest of his peers, but Egmont was one of those men whom princes like Philip have no cause to fear. He was vain and superficial, and easily soothed into satisfaction. Philip made much of him, promised him “mounts and marvels,” chided him a little; and sent him home rejoicing, full of praises for the generosity and magnanimity of the king. But Philip’s policy was not varied a hair’s-breadth nevertheless. On the contrary, there is no room for doubt that he had now made up his mind to break the spirit of the stubborn Flemings for once and for all, and to stamp out the rebellious talk about rights and privileges which he had sworn to maintain. There were no mundane rights and privileges that should stand against the will of God’s own vice-regent upon earth. “God and his Majesty” had willed that the Flemings must be governed like the Spaniards, and that was enough. No sooner had Egmont left Madrid than the king sent strict orders that nothing was to be changed, and that heresy was to be pursued without mercy or truce. Thousands of industrious citizens were flocking over to England, carrying their looms and their household gods with them, and English Protestants looked more sourly than ever upon Philip and all his works. Philip remained unmoved. The fewer heretics there were in Flanders the easier would it be for him to have his way later. “Kill! kill!” wrote one of Philip’s Spanish friars to him; “we must kill 2000 people all over the States. Your Majesty has the weapon which God has placed in your hand. Draw it, bathe it in the blood of heretics, unless you wish the blood of Christ to cry to God. Moderation{109} touches not your Majesty. Let them seek moderation in their heresies to save their lives.”

But Philip was in no hurry; he only told his sister that nothing was to be changed. “You know,” answered she, “how the Spanish Inquisition is hated here. I have already told you that to suppress heresy here I am asked to cast into the flames 60,000 or 70,000 people, and the governors of the provinces will not allow it. They wish to resign, and I also shall be obliged to do so.”

Philip’s answer in a few words gives a clearer idea of his character than a volume could do. For months he did not answer at all, and then wrote, “Why all these disquietudes? Are not my intentions understood? Is it believed that I have any intentions than the service of God and the good of the States?” Persecution might crush Latin peoples if continued long enough, but it could not crush the stubborn Dutchmen. There arose now a new element in the strife. Hitherto the motive power had mostly been the great nobles, Catholics nearly all of them, whose object was to prevent the extinction of the political liberties of the States; but now the religious power of resistance was aroused, and the bourgeoisie stood shoulder to shoulder crying aloud that no papist should burn them or theirs for the faith. Many such had fled to England, but the towns of Holland and Zeeland were full of them still. First the landed gentlemen protested, under the leadership of Orange’s brother, Louis of Nassau, and Saint Aldegonde, against the proceedings of the Inquisition; and they bound themselves by solemn oath to follow the recent example of the Neapolitans and withstand the “gang of strangers,{110}” who were seeking to impose the Spanish form of the Holy Office upon them. Then Brederode, the man of highest lineage and most insatiable thirst in Holland, joined them, and together they went, a couple of hundred of them, to hand their solemn protest to the regent. Tears fell from Margaret’s eyes as they filed past her, for she knew now that her brother’s stubborn spirit had met its match, and in future it must be war to the knife. Then the Gargantuan banquet at the hostelry of Culemburg unlocked their tongues still further, and tippling Brederode gave his memorable toast to the “Beggars.” No one knew what he meant, perhaps he did not himself know at the end of such an orgy, but the name caught on, and the sturdy “Beggars” arose thenceforward from their dykes and marshes to be quelled no more for good, but to hold for all time to come the country which they themselves had rescued from the sea.

The new turn of affairs did not please the great nobles. They were Catholics, though patriots, and they saw that the championship of the national cause was about to fall into the hands of the Protestants; so Egmont, Horn, Montigny, Arschot, and the rest of them did their best to stem the tide. All but Orange. He knew Philip better than any of them, and he foresaw that there would be no surrender or conciliation from him. Why should there be? Could the lieutenant of the Most High stoop to palter with sottish Brederode and his crew? If Philip had spies in Flanders, so had Orange in Madrid, and nothing passed without his knowledge. He had learned of the king’s plans of vengeance, but he could not afford yet to cast himself into the scale alone{111} with Brederode and the little gentry, leaving the great nobles on the side of the Spaniard; so for the moment he stood aloof saying no word either of praise or condemnation, but seeking to moderate the storm on both sides. But the spark had caught the tinder. Protestant fervour blazed up in every town in Flanders in open defiance of the edicts. The regent was powerless. She could not punish all Flanders, and violent councillors of the Alba school whispered distrust to Philip even of her, for she wrote ceaselessly to her brother urging him to gentler methods. His action was characteristic: at first he authorised his sister to pardon the confederates and suppress the Inquisition, and with reassuring words sought to gain Orange to his side. But only a week after (August 9, 1566) he signed a solemn document before a notary, setting forth that he was not bound by his promise, and would punish all those who had directly or indirectly aided the disturbances. He avowed to the pope that the Inquisition in Flanders should be upheld at all costs, and that his promise to suppress it was void. “Before allowing any backsliding in religion, or in the service of God, I will lose all my dominions and a hundred lives, if I had them, for I will never be a ruler of heretics.” Thus Philip threw down the gage. Then came the sacking of Catholic churches by the mob in Antwerp, St. Omer, Malines, and elsewhere, sacred images profaned, sacrilegious mockeries perpetrated, holy mysteries blasphemously parodied, and priceless treasures of art wantonly wrecked. The Protestant mob, in fact, was paramount, and the regent and her inquisition could only look on in dismay, until the former fell ill and lost all heart. Philip was very far{112} from doing that. Away in distant Spain, trying to pull the wires that move humanity from his work-room, his only policy was extermination of heresy, utter and complete.

Wise Granvelle, even the pope himself, warned him that too much severity might defeat his own purpose. The king scornfully and coldly rebuked even the pontiff for his weakness. In the meanwhile Alba was storming in the council at Philip’s delay in giving the orders for extermination. But Philip looked upon himself as one who turned the handle of the wheels of fate, and was in no hurry. He wanted to watch closely which were the tallest heads to be stricken first. The regent was working night and day, making such concessions as she dared, whilst putting down tumult by force of arms. The Catholic nobles too, Egmont especially, were doing their best with their armed Walloons to suppress with a strong hand rebellion at Valenciennes and elsewhere, but Orange was in Antwerp standing apart from both factions, and Saint Aldegonde with a rabble was in arms outside the city. At length even diplomatic Orange had to quit the mask. Distrusted by both parties, but idolised by the peaceful citizens of Antwerp, who only asked to be allowed to live in quietude, he saw the time had come; and early in 1567 reverted to the faith of his fathers, and promised to lead the cause of reform. Tumult immediately ceased; the regent’s severity and conciliation together, and the blind adhesion of the nobles, except Orange and Brederode, had suppressed all disorder by the spring, and “all the cities are coming now to us with halters round their necks.” Orange was in Germany making preparations for the fray, whilst Flemish Protestants were flying{113} to England again by the hundred, crying out that Orange and Brederode had betrayed and abandoned them. Margaret entered Antwerp in state and rejoicing, and all looked calm and happy, except to those who were led to the halter and the stake for the service of “God and his Majesty.” It was but the calm that precedes the storm; and if no one else perceived this, Philip and Orange certainly did so. The former knew that he must crush the national feeling, and the nobles that started it, that he must make Flanders a province of Spain before he could have his own way in all things, and he decided to go himself with Alba and superintend the killing, or at least he announced his intention of making the voyage, which gave him an excuse for raising a considerable fleet and a large force as an escort. The Queen of England affected to rejoice at her “good brother’s” coming; but the English fleet was hastily fitted out, and all England was in a panic of apprehension as to what it might forebode. In vain the Regent Margaret assured the king that all was quiet, and that no more punishment was now needed. The king replied that he wished personally to thank her and others who had brought about the pacification.

At last when all was ready in Spain, vast sums of money collected, and the troops under arms—no longer an escort but an avenging army—Philip announced that he could not go himself, but would send the Duke of Alba alone. Then all the world saw what it meant. The regent protested that the presence of Alba would be fatal, “as he is so detested in this country that his coming itself will be sufficient to make all the Spanish nation hated.” If he comes she must retire; and retire{114} she did. The news of Alba’s coming sped across the Channel by the Protestant fugitives, and Elizabeth at once retorted by renewed severity against the Catholics in England. Huguenots in France, Lutherans in Germany, Protestants in England, all knew now that the time of struggle was approaching for the faith, and messages of help and mutual support crossed from one to another. Philip, slaving night and day at his desk, had quietly planned long before that all the nobles who had dared to raise their voices in the national cause should be struck at first, and then that the brand of Spain should be stamped for ever on the rich and industrious burgesses of the Netherlands.{115}

CHAPTER X

WHILST Philip was engaged in his hopeless efforts to extirpate national feeling and the Protestant faith in his Flemish dominions, he was, on the other hand, carrying on a bitter contest with the Holy See. His arrogant claims had tired out even the erstwhile obedient Pius IV., but on his death in December 1565 a man of Philip’s own stamp mounted the chair of St. Peter. Michael Ghislieri, Pius V., was consumed with the one idea that the Church must be absolutely omnipotent through Christendom in all ecclesiastical affairs; and this was in direct opposition to the keynote of Philip’s policy, namely, that all power within his dominions must be concentrated in the sovereign. It did not take long, therefore, for matters to reach a crisis, the main bone of contention being the king’s direct control of the clergy, and his{116} claim to withhold the papal bulls from promulgation in Spain. The new pope issued a number of fresh orders for Church administration and discipline, which were promptly set aside by Philip’s council, and the contest then opened.

First, the pope turned his hand to the Spanish possessions in Italy, sending peremptory orders to the Neapolitan bishops for them to promulgate and obey the papal bulls without waiting for the royal confirmation. This was met by the viceroy, the Duke of Alcalá, by threatening any bishop who did so with summary imprisonment. Pius tried by every device imaginable for three years to circumvent the Spanish position in Naples, but at last in February 1569 had to confess himself beaten. The patronage was in the hands of Philip, which necessarily made the bishops his creatures. The pope was equally unsuccessful in Sicily and in Milan, notwithstanding the efforts of the great cardinal, Charles Borromeo, and the excommunication of Philip’s governor, the Duke of Albuquerque. The pope’s action in Spain itself was more effectual. The various pontiffs had from time to time regranted to the Spanish monarchs the revenues arising from the sale of the so-called Crusade bulls granting certain indulgences. Pius V. now refused to do this, on the ground that the government traffic in these indulgences had become a scandal. He also continued to worry Philip about Carranza and the appropriation of the great revenues of his vacant see of Toledo to the cost of the building of the Escorial. Bitter words and reproaches were used on both sides. Philip gave way on secondary points, such as the sending of Carranza to Rome, but he kept fast to his main idea of{117} retaining control over the clergy and benefices; and the constant menaces of the Turks in the Mediterranean made it impossible for the pope to carry to the last extreme the quarrel with the only prince to whom he could look for protection. Philip, indeed, was assailed by trouble at all points. His married life, in a domestic sense, was a happy one, though his constant labour left him but small leisure to enjoy it. All else was bitterness and disappointment, mostly, it is true, the result of his rigid unadaptability to circumstances.

His greatest trouble was undoubtedly the state of his son. His frantic excesses had become more and more scandalous as he grew older. The marriage with Mary Stuart had fallen through, in consequence of the superior quickness of Elizabeth of England, and perhaps in consequence of Carlos’s own condition. The emperor was working incessantly to gain the prince’s hand for his daughter Anne; and this was the match which seemed most probable, and indeed was in principle accepted by Philip. But the delicate state of health of the prince was Philip’s constant excuse for not carrying the project into effect. The matter was a delicate one, and the king was naturally desirous of making it as little public as possible, but as early as 1562 the king had clearly hinted to the imperial ambassador that the prince’s judgment and understanding were defective. Dietrichstein, the emperor’s envoy, saw the prince in 1564, and confirmed the impression already given of him. The Venetian ambassador in 1563 bluntly reported that the prince was a chronic lunatic. The oft-told story of his forcing a bootmaker to eat a pair of boots he had made too tight for him, and also of his murderous attack on{118} Cardinal Espinosa, need not be repeated here, but they are well authenticated; and although too much weight need not be given to Brantome’s repulsive account of the prince’s behaviour in the streets of Madrid, it is quite consistent with what we know positively of his character. Philip’s hopes and ambitions for his heir had been great, and he strove long before he abandoned them. In the hope that serious work might fix the prince’s mind, his father appointed him in 1567 to the presidency of the Council of State, but in this position his excesses and aberrations became the more conspicuous. He openly mocked at and derided his father, whom he cordially hated, and delighted to thwart. He had extorted a promise from the king that he should accompany him to Flanders, but when he learnt at length that Alba was going instead, his fury passed all bounds. When the duke went to take leave of the prince, the latter cast himself upon him with his dagger, and only with difficulty could the old warrior escape from his maniacal violence; and on another occasion in January 1567, when the Cortes of Castile presented a petition to the king that the prince should remain in Spain if his father went to Flanders, he made an open scandal, threatening with death those deputies who voted in favour of such a petition. This public exhibition of his lunacy opened the eyes of the world as to his condition, which could no longer be concealed, and in September of 1567 Ruy Gomez told the French ambassador that after the impending delivery of the queen of what, no doubt, would be a son, the future fate of Carlos would be decided.

But Carlos himself precipitated events. Philip had{119} decided that his son should remain in Spain. The prince was determined that he would not. Philip had gone in December 1567 to pass Christmas in his devotions at the Escorial as usual, and during his absence, on December 23, Carlos informed his young uncle, Juan of Austria, of his intention to escape. Don Juan lost no time. The next day he rode post-haste to the Escorial and told the king. Philip’s thoughts must have been bitter indeed that Heaven had afflicted him with such a son. He must have seen that the great patriotic task to which he had devoted all his life would be frustrated if handed to such a successor. But he was calm and rigid in outward guise, and returned to Madrid as intended on January 17, 1568. The next day he saw the French ambassador, and went with his son to mass, but still made no sign. Don Juan had before this endeavoured to dissuade the prince from his intention, and the madman had attempted to kill even him. It was evident now to the king that he must strike, however reluctantly. When he consulted his closest councillors on the subject, for once his feelings broke through his reserve, and his emotion was terrible. It was a duty he owed to his country and to the cause for which he lived, to protect them against falling into the hands of a congenital madman, and he took the course which duty dictated. Late at night, when the prince was asleep, the king himself, with five gentlemen and twelve guards, entered the chamber, in spite of the secret bolts and bars with which it was provided. The prince woke from sleep, started up, and tried to grasp a weapon; but the weapons were gone. The unhappy young man then{120} tried to lay violent hands upon himself, but was restrained. The issues of the room barred, the secret receptacles opened, the papers taken, himself restrained, the prince recognised his helplessness, and casting himself on to his bed he sobbed out, “But I am not mad! I am only desperate.” From that hour he was dead to the world, which saw him no more.

Couriers flew with the news all over Europe. Explanations must not be sought in Philip’s cold diplomatic letters giving foreign courts information of the event, but in other quarters. The Queen of England learnt the news on February 2, and on the 6th saw the Spanish ambassador, when she expressed her surprise, said that the king had acted with all dignity in the matter, but that she had not been informed of the reason for the arrest. Letters had come from France even thus early by which Cecil learnt that the prince had been implicated in a plot against his father’s life. The ambassador was very indignant at such an idea, which, he said, could only have emanated from heretics, children of the devil.

But it is clear to see that the ambassador himself is as much in the dark as every one else, for he prays his master to instruct him what attitude he is to assume, “as the matter has made great noise here, and no doubt elsewhere.” To this the king coldly replied that no more was to be said about it. Ruy Gomez was less reticent. He told the French and English ambassadors in Spain that the prince’s mind was as defective as his body, and had been getting steadily worse. The king had dissembled as long as he could, in the hope of improvement, but the prince’s violence had now become{121} intolerable, and it had been necessary to place him under restraint. Dr. Man, the English ambassador, fully agreed that the step had become inevitable, as did all the ambassadors then resident in Madrid. “It was not a punishment,” wrote Philip to his aunt and mother-in-law, the grandmother of Don Carlos, “if it were, there would be some limit to it; but I never hope to see my son restored to his right mind again. I have chosen in this matter to make a sacrifice to God of my own flesh and blood, preferring His service and the universal good to all other human considerations.”

It was a humiliating position for Philip, who had been so dutiful a son himself, and had such far-reaching ambitions to hand down to his heir. It is not surprising that he avoided reference to it as much as possible. Some sort of trial or examination of the prince took place in secret before Ruy Gomez, Cardinal Espinosa, and Muñatones, but the documents have never been found. The rumour that Carlos plotted against his father’s life was repudiated vigorously by the king and his ministers, but that he had been disobedient and rebellious is certain, and probably this was the foundation of the charge of treason brought against him. The Protestant party, in France and Flanders especially, were willing enough to wound Philip and discredit the Inquisition by saying that Carlos was punished for supposed Protestant leanings; and even in Spain such things were cautiously whispered. There is, however, not the slightest indication that such was really the case from the papers of the prince himself and those who surrounded him, unless perhaps the letter from his friend and almoner, Suarez, to him,{122} in which he reproaches him for not going to confession, and warns him that if he persisted in his present course every one would think him mad; “things so terrible, that in the case of other persons they have caused the Inquisition to inquire whether they were Christians.” Certainly to all appearance the prince was as devout a Catholic as his father, and the idea of attributing to this epileptic imbecile elevated ideas of political and religious reform is obviously absurd.

If we must hold Philip blameless with respect to his son’s imprisonment, we must still keep in suspense our judgment with regard to his responsibility for the prince’s death, because the evidence as to what passed after his arrest comes mainly from persons in the king’s interest and pay, and because the accusation that Carlos was murdered was formulated by Philip’s bitterest enemy, Antonio Perez, a man, moreover, utterly unworthy of credit, a murderer, a perjurer, and a traitor to his country.

The long secret trial of the prince dragged on. Neither his aunt Juana nor his beloved stepmother was allowed to see him, and Philip even forbade his brother, Don Juan, to wear mourning for the trouble that had befallen the royal house.

In the meanwhile the prince’s health visibly declined. At best he had been a continual invalid, burned up with fever and ague, but in captivity and under examination he became worse. He refused to receive the consolations of the Church, a freak upon which much superstructure has been raised. As his madness increased, like many lunatics he took to swallowing inedible things, jewelry, and other objects of the same sort, and finally refused{123} to eat anything at all for eleven days. Then in reply to the king’s remonstrances, he gorged himself, and this brought him a return of his fever in the worst form. Every sort of mad proceeding was adopted in turn by the unhappy youth. He would half roast himself by a fire, and then put ice in his bed. First he would scornfully refuse the sacraments, and then fulfil scrupulously all the forms of his Church. At length, probably from weakness, he became calmer, and there was a momentary hope of his recovery. Llorente (whose authority is not, however, to be accepted unquestioned) says that the result of his trial was that he was “found guilty of implication in a plot to kill the king and to usurp the sovereignty of the Netherlands, and that the only punishment for this was death.” There are no trustworthy official documents known which prove this to have been the case, but nature and the prince’s mad excesses had apparently condemned him to death, independently of his faults and failings. When he was told that he was dying he conformed fervently to the rites of his Church, and sent Suarez to beg his father’s forgiveness. On July 21 the French ambassador wrote to his master that Don Carlos had eaten nothing but a few plums and sweetmeats for eight days, and was dying of weakness. “The king, his father, is much grieved, because, if he die, the world will talk. I understand that if he live, the castle of Arevalo is to be put in order, so that he may be lodged in safety and comfort.”

On July 26 the same ambassador writes to Catharine de Medici saying that the prince had died the previous day. He attributes the death entirely to his curious{124} eccentricities of diet and hygiene. Llorente, enemy of Philip though he was, says that Carlos died a natural death. In face of this testimony it appears that Philip should be given the benefit of the doubt. In any case, the Abbé de St. Real’s romantic fictions, which have been drawn upon by so many historians, may be confidently dismissed as unworthy of any credit whatever, and Perez’s source is too tainted to be accepted. When the French ambassador notified the death of Don Carlos, he told Catharine de Medici that her daughter, the queen, was ill. The death, however, of her stepson was distinctly in her favour, as it made the elder of her two little daughters, Isabel Clara Eugenia, heiress to the crown of Spain. The queen saw this, and begged her mother to express emphatically her sorrow for the death of the prince. But the queen herself languished, crushed with the trouble that surrounded her, for Alba was drowning Flanders in blood, and her own beloved France was riven by religious disorder. In August it was announced that she was pregnant, and all Spain prayed that an heir might be born. But she was sacrificed to the unskilfulness of the Spanish doctors, and died on October 3, 1568, to the great grief of all Spain and France. The French ambassador relates the death-bed farewell of Philip and his wife, “Enough to break the heart of so good a husband as the king was to her.” And when all was over the king retired in the deepest grief to the monastery of San Geronimo in Madrid, but not before he had signed letters to the Duke of Alba and others giving the news of his bereavement. Nothing short of his own death could prevent Philip from attending to his beloved papers.{125}

Once only during Elizabeth’s short married life had the object for which she was sacrificed seemed on the point of realisation. The open sympathy manifested in England for the Flemish Protestants, the ever-increasing boldness of the English corsairs at sea, and the ferment of the Huguenots in France had caused Philip in 1565 to approve of a plan for binding Catharine de Medici to him in a league to utterly destroy and root out the reformed doctrines in their respective territories. The ostensible occasion was an interview between the Queen of Spain and her mother at Bayonne, the Duke of Alba being the negotiator of the treaty. Elizabeth of England was in a panic at the bare idea, and made one of her rapid movements in favour of Catholicism, and another to draw Catharine into a negotiation for the marriage of her young son, Charles IX., with the Queen of England. It was a mere feint, of course, but it helped towards its purpose. When Catharine reached Bayonne she found that Alba’s instructions were to pledge her to destroy and break every Huguenot noble or functionary in France, and to bind her hand and foot to the extreme Catholic party. The queen-mother affected to agree, but when she reached home she found all manner of impossible new conditions necessary. Her second son must marry an Austrian princess and receive a dominion. The league must also be joined by the emperor, the pope, and others. So the league at that time came to nothing, for Catharine could not afford to throw over the Huguenot nobles, who were her constant balance against the Catholics and the Guises.

With the death of his French wife it became evident to Philip that he could depend upon no enduring alliance{126} between the French nation and himself, and that he must face advancing Protestantism alone. It gave him no trouble in Spain, thanks mainly to the Inquisition, but in France, Germany, his own Netherlands, and, above all, in England, it grew more and more threatening to the basis of his power. Mary of Scotland, whom he had aided with counsel and money during her short married life with Darnley, was a prisoner, and the reformers were predominant in Scotland. Elizabeth of England was firmly established on the throne, more than holding her own, the English and Dutch corsairs were scouring the seas after Spanish shipping, and England was burning with indignation at Alba’s régime of blood in the Netherlands. But withal Philip had to speak softly and temporise, for he dared not go to war with Elizabeth whilst Holland was in arms, and the Huguenots strong. All he could do was by intrigue to endeavour to stir up civil dissensions both in France and England, and this he did ceaselessly, but with indifferent success, as will be seen, for both Elizabeth and Catharine, with their quick vigilance, were far more than a match for Philip’s slow ponderous methods. Powerless, however, as Philip might be to stay the progress of heterodoxy abroad, he was determined that it should gain no foothold in his own country. Early in 1568 he expelled the English ambassador, Dr. Man, ostensibly in consequence of his too open profession of the reformed faith, but really to anticipate a demand which he knew would be made for religious toleration for the ambassador in return for the similar privilege enjoyed by the Spanish ambassador in England. Although Protestantism was by the unsparing severity of the Inquisition stamped out{127} utterly in Spain, Philip’s principle of absolute uniformity of faith amongst his subjects had to encounter a serious resistance from another quarter. On the capture of Granada by the Catholic sovereigns, the most complete religious toleration had been promised to the Moors. The promise had been broken through the zeal of Ximenez, and, nominally at least, the whole of the Spaniards of Moorish descent had during the reign of the emperor been drawn into the Catholic Church. All the south of Spain was inhabited by a people in course of gradual amalgamation, and if time had only been given to them, they would eventually have mingled into a homogeneous race, to the enormous future advantage of the country. During the emperor’s time an edict had been issued ordering all people of Moorish blood to discontinue the use of their distinctive garb and language. It was naturally found impossible to enforce this within a short period, and the edict was allowed to fall nearly into abeyance, thanks, in a great measure, to the liberal contributions of the Moriscos to the cost of the emperor’s wars against his German Protestants. The Morisco population of the kingdom of Granada, and Valencia especially, had accordingly, although outwardly conforming Christians, really clung in secret to the faith and habits of their fathers, living in industry and usefulness, adding greatly to the national wealth both by their advanced agricultural science, and the perfection to which they had brought the production of silk. The prosperity they attained, and their distinct blood and customs, aroused the jealousy and hatred of their Christian neighbours, especially during the periodical struggle with the Turks, when the Moriscos were accused{128} of sympathy with the national enemy. Philip’s first action against these useful citizens was prompted—as were most royal edicts in Spain—by a representation made to him by the Cortes of Castile in 1560, to the effect that the introduction of African slaves by the Spanish Moriscos was a disadvantage to the country, and a royal pragmatica was issued forbidding this. It was a heavy blow, as much of the hard labour of mountain agriculture and irrigation was done by these slaves, but measures of a very different character were adopted as soon as possible after Cardinal Espinosa became inquisitor-general. In 1563 an edict had been issued prohibiting the Moriscos from wearing or possessing arms, which caused much discontent and resistance; but at the instance of the clergy, and more especially of Guerrero, the Archbishop of Granada, and of Espinosa, a far more serious step was taken early in 1567. The Moriscos were forbidden to wear their distinctive garb, and were ordered to dress as Christians, no silk garments being allowed, and the women going abroad with their faces uncovered. They were to have no locks or fastenings upon their doors, and within a term of three years were utterly to discontinue the use of their own language and also adopt Christian names. Above all, the use of warm baths was prohibited under brutal penalties. Their customs and traditions, indeed, were to be trampled upon with apparent wantonness. The Moriscos had always been quiet, docile people, and the local clergy and authorities had assured Philip that no difficulty would be experienced in enforcing the edict. At first the Moriscos adopted the same means of evasion as they had successfully employed on other occasions, namely, bribery{129} and cajolery. Espinosa belonged to the war party, and consequently had the Ruy Gomez party against him, and even the Governor-General of Granada, the Marquis de Mondejar, and much pressure was exerted upon Philip to induce him to relax the orders, but, influenced by Espinosa and the churchmen, he refused. For the first two years the Moriscos sulkily bowed beneath the yoke, evading and passively resisting as much as possible; but during this period the Mussulman fervour had been rising, and at length at Christmas 1568 the storm which had long been brewing burst. A youth, Aben Humeya, in the Alpujarras had distinguished himself in resisting the enforcement of the edicts. He was a descendant of the prophet himself, and was proclaimed by the Moriscos King of Granada. The Moorish force was organised in the almost inaccessible mountains, whilst envoys sped from the new king to his co-religionists at Constantinople and on the other side of the Straits of Gibraltar; but the Turk was busy organising an expedition against the Venetians, and the Barbary Moors were split up into independent tribes which could furnish no considerable combined force, so the Spanish Moriscos were left nearly unaided, although many isolated companies of Barbary Moors responded to the call and crossed to Spain. On December 26, 1568, a small body of 180 Moriscos, under Aben Farax, a dyer of Granada, came down from the mountains through the driving snow and forced their way into the city of Granada. The Morisco townspeople, terrified at the risk they ran in joining so small a force, turned a deaf ear to the exhortations of the chief. Through the sleeping city the little body of Moors rushed on, desecrating the Christian temples,{130} cursing the Christian gods, and killing such few Spaniards as resisted them. And then when a call to arms from the citadel sounded, Aben Farax and his little force withdrew once more to the mountains. The large Morisco population of Granada had made no move, or the city would have been taken, and the Governor Mendoza, Marquis de Mondejar, took counsel with their head men for resisting further attack, and urged them to stand loyal to the king against the mountain marauders.

In the meanwhile Aben Farax swept through the Vega, carrying death and torture with him to the Christians, burning villages, and submitting the defenceless inhabitants to the most heartrending cruelty. Mad with blood lust, the Moriscos of the band sought to avenge their race for endless ignominy by outrage upon the country folk of the Vega. Three thousand Christians were killed, before the king, Aben Humeya, put an end to the slaughter, and many hundreds of others were sold into slavery across the Straits in exchange for arms and men. Like wildfire ran the hope through all Andalucia that at last the resuscitation of the Moorish power in Spain had come, and the Moriscos from Valencia to the Sierra Nevada sprang to arms. The hate and rancour of centuries were concentrated in one mad week of slaughter. Mendoza, Marquis of Mondejar, with such forces as he could raise, sallied and met the Moors in the pass of Alfajarali, where he defeated them with great slaughter, and then pressed on, killing and plundering, until blood and booty themselves palled. When Mondejar re-entered the city of Granada he brought with him 800 rescued Christian women, who had been destined for sale to the Jews of Barbary, and the churchmen{131} made this an excuse for urging the townspeople to fresh vengeance. In the early spring the Marquis de los Velez set out with another force, gathered up from the idlers of the cities of Andalucia, with the avowed object of massacre. They came across 10,000 Morisco women and children fugitives, who had sought safety on the edge of the great red cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean. There was no mercy for them. Many cast themselves over the edge to escape outrage and a lingering death; others, whilst praying for mercy and avowing the Christian faith, were slaughtered. In two hours 6000 poor creatures were killed, 2000 of them little children, and the rest were distributed amongst the soldiers as slaves. But soon slaves were so plentiful that the value fell, and soldiers deserted to seek a better market for them, the Spanish forces became utterly demoralised, and plunder and anarchy spread all over the fertile and previously prosperous region. Deza, afterwards one of Philip’s cardinals in Rome, was the representative in Granada of the civil power and the Inquisition, and exceeded in violence and brutality even the lawless men-at-arms. He complained constantly to Philip and Espinosa of the slackness and want of authority of the Governor Mondejar, and at last the king decided to send to Andalucia a considerable force under his brother, Don Juan of Austria, to restore order. The young prince, who had been born in 1547, was one of the handsomest and most gifted men of his time. He had shared the studies of his unfortunate nephew, Don Carlos, and of his cousin, Alexander Farnese, and from the time of the emperor’s death had been treated as a prince of the blood. He had already distinguished himself{132} in the naval campaign against the Barbary corsairs in 1567, and now his royal brother sent him once more against the infidel. He entered Granada in April 1569. He was to do nothing without first communicating with the king, and was strictly enjoined not to expose himself to danger or to take any personal part in the mountain warfare, which was to be left to the Marquis de los Velez. The reasons probably why Don Juan had been chosen for the command were his youth, which would, it might be thought, render him amenable to guidance from Madrid, and the fact that he had from his childhood been indoctrinated in the diplomatic principles of Ruy Gomez’s party, to which Secretary Antonio Perez also belonged. But he was a youth of high courage and great ability, who could ill brook strict control, and he chafed at being kept in the city of Granada away from the fighting. Philip again and again directed him to do as he was told and stay where he was. The task confided to him was a pitiful one. Orders came from Madrid that every Morisco in Granada was to be sent to Castile. On the day of St. John 1569, writes the English spy Hogan, “Don Juan gathered together 13,000 Moriscos of Granada, and took 2000 for the king’s galleys, and hanged some; a great number were sent to labour in the king’s works and fortifications, and the rest, with their wives and children, kept as slaves.” Despair fell upon the poor people, innocent mostly of all participation in the mountain rising, at being dragged from their beautiful homes and smiling native land to be sent in slavery to arid Castile; but Deza and Espinosa were pitiless, and their advice alone was heard in Madrid.{133} The Marquis of Mondejar, the hereditary governor of Granada, could not brook such ruinous folly to the city he loved, and left in disgust.

Things in the meanwhile were going badly for the Spaniards in the mountains. The king, Aben Humeya, gained a victory at Seron, and the main body of Spaniards, under the Marquis de los Velez, got out of hand, provisions and pay were short, and the men deserted in shoals, until at last Los Velez was left only with the veteran regiment of Naples. Then Philip and the churchmen saw that they must let Don Juan have his way and give him active command, whilst the king himself, to be nearer, came to Cordova.

But Aben Humeya’s power was slipping away. Dissensions had broken out in his own family. He had exercised his royal authority with as much harshness and arrogance as if it had been founded on a rock instead of on the desert sand, and soon a revolution of his people broke out. The young king, already sunk in lascivious indulgence, was strangled in his bed, and his cousin, Ben Abó, was proclaimed King of Granada.

The juncture was a favourable one for Don Juan, and he lost no time. With marvellous activity he collected the Spanish forces again around the Naples regiment; he brought men from all parts of Spain, and by the end of January 1570 he was besieging the fortress of Galera with 13,000 soldiers. For a month the siege lasted, and hardly a day passed without some act of daring heroism on one side or the other. At last by February 16 the place was taken by assault, and the defenders to the number of 3000 killed. Massacre, pillage, and lust again threw the Spanish troops into{134} a state of demoralisation, and a few days later, in attempting to recover Seron, an uncontrollable panic seized them, and the seasoned warriors fled like hares before an insignificant gang of Moors, with a loss of 600 men. All discipline and order were thrown to the winds; desertion, anarchy, and murder were all that could be got from Don Juan’s army, now a mere blood-thirsty rabble.

The Moorish king would fain make terms, and Don Juan was in favour of entertaining his approaches. Philip was at his wits’ end with two wars on his hands, both the result of his blind, rigid policy; his treasury, as usual, was well-nigh exhausted. Elizabeth of England had recently seized all the ready money he could borrow for the payment of Alba’s army, and the Turk was busy in the Mediterranean, with the more or less overt encouragement of Catharine de Medici. But though Don Juan begged for clemency for the submissive Moors, the fanatics Deza and Espinosa would have none of it, and Philip’s zeal was aroused again in the name of religion to strike and spare not for the interests of “God and your Majesty.”

Deza and one of his officials of the Inquisition managed to bribe a Moor to betray and kill the king, Ben Abó. The body of the dead king was brought into Granada, and Deza, churchman though he was, struck off the head and had it nailed to the gate of what was once the Moorish quarter, with a threat of death to the citizen who should dare to touch it.

There was to be no mercy to the vanquished, said the churchmen, and Philip obeyed them, in spite of Don Juan’s protests against their interference with the{135} clemency of a magnanimous victor. Death or slavery were the only alternatives, and no mercy was shown. From the fair plains they and theirs had tilled for eight centuries, from the frowning Alpujarras, which their tireless industry had forced to yield a grudging harvest; from the white cities, which had kept alive the culture of the east when the barbarians had trampled down the civilisation of the west, all those who bore the taint of Moorish blood were cast. Bound in gangs by heavy gyves, they were driven through the winter snow into the inhospitable north. Don Juan, soldier though he was, was pierced with pity at the sight. “They went,” he wrote to Ruy Gomez, “with the greatest sorrow in the world, for at the time they left, the rain, snow, and wind were so heavy that the daughter will be forced to leave the mother, the husband the wife, and the widow her baby by the wayside. It cannot be denied that it is the saddest sight imaginable to see the depopulation of a whole kingdom. But, sir, that is what has been done!”

By the end of November 1570 Andalucia was cleared of the Moriscos, and at the same time cleared of its industry, its prosperity, and its enlightenment. The fanatic churchmen had had their foolish way, and Philip went back to his desk, certain in his narrow soul that he had served the cause of God and the welfare of his country.{136}

CHAPTER XI

THE persistent plotting of Cardinal Lorraine and the Monlucs to bring about a union of Spain, France, and the pope, with the object of fighting Protestantism and placing Mary Stuart on the throne of a Catholic united kingdom, had failed. Catharine de Medici hated Mary Stuart and the Guises, and Philip had no wish, if even he had the power, to fight England for the purpose of making Mary’s French uncles paramount. Religion apart, it was better for Philip’s policy that England should remain Protestant than that this should happen, always provided that he could keep Elizabeth friendly, and either frighten or cajole her into a position of neutrality towards his rebellious Protestant subjects in the Netherlands. He could no longer attempt to dictate to her, as he had sought to do at the beginning of her reign, but only strove now to gain her goodwill; and{137} both parties were fully cognisant of their changed position towards each other.

It was only ten years since Elizabeth’s accession, and even in this short period Philip’s perverse and inelastic policy had reduced him to a position of comparative impotence. But with his views, it was hopeless to expect that he should learn wisdom from events. Reverses and disappointments usually make men consider whether the course they are pursuing is a wise one. No such doubt could assail Philip. He was in union with God to do His work, for the success of which it was necessary for Philip to have absolute power; and any reverses which occurred were sent by the Almighty for some good purpose of His own, not to prevent ultimate success, but to make it the more glorious when it came.

With such ideas as these, Philip was proof against adversity; it was impossible to defeat or degrade him. The considerations which rule the conduct of other men had no influence over him; he was above human laws, and, no doubt, thought that he was above human frailty. Subornation, treachery, and secret murder, odious and reprehensible in others, were praiseworthy in him, for was he not working with and for Providence for divine ends, before which all mundane and moral considerations must give way?

His haughty dismissal of the English ambassador in the spring of 1568 on religious grounds had been bitterly resented by Elizabeth, notwithstanding the palliative influence of Philip’s ambassador, Guzman de Silva. This, and rumours that Cardinal Lorraine had at last succeeded in obtaining armed help for Mary Stuart against Murray, caused Elizabeth to repeat her bold and previously successful{138} action. Fresh encouragement was sent to Condé and the Huguenots. Protestantism in the Netherlands, under the iron heel of Alba, was accorded a more hearty sympathy than ever, and expeditions of Flemish refugees were now allowed almost openly to fit out in English ports to go over and help their compatriots. Events fought on Elizabeth’s side, and threw Mary Stuart into her grasp, from which she never escaped. The captive queen clamoured for Philip’s help, but Philip had no help to give yet beyond procrastinating generalities. Elizabeth and her ministers were well served by spies, and were quite cognisant of Philip’s impotence for harm at present, so far as open hostility was concerned. All they feared was that he might seek to attain his end by secret plotting, and this was eventually the course he adopted. For the time, however,—in the autumn of 1568—he was sincerely desirous of keeping on good terms with Elizabeth, and instructed his new ambassador, Gerau de Spes, to use every effort to that end. Late in November 1568 the violence and indiscretion of De Spes, who began plotting with the English Catholic party in favour of Mary Stuart as soon as he arrived, had brought matters to a much less peaceful complexion between Philip and Elizabeth. This was from no fault of Philip, and was against the tenor of his instructions. Cardinal Chatillon was in England, arousing sympathy and obtaining aid for the Huguenots, the Flemish refugees were spreading abroad a feeling of indignation against Alba’s atrocities in the Netherlands, and money was being sent daily across to help their brethren against the oppressor. Privateers and pirates, who called themselves such, were swarming in the Channel, and few vessels bearing the{139} flag of Spain escaped their depredations. To escape them, some ships carrying money—mostly borrowed by Philip from Genoese bankers—to pay Alba’s troops had to run for refuge into Southampton, Plymouth, and Falmouth. On the pretence of protecting the specie from the pirates, most of it was landed, and retained by Elizabeth for her own purposes. Promises, professions of honesty, and specious excuses of all sorts were made; negotiations, open and secret, for its recovery went on for years, but the treasure was never restored to Philip. It was a great blow to him and a great help to Elizabeth, who was almost alarmed at her own temerity in seizing the money. Philip retaliated by seizing English property in Spanish and Flemish ports, immensely inferior in value to that seized by England. It was an unwise step, because it gave Elizabeth some ground for retaining what she had taken, and appropriating more, which she promptly did. Even then Philip could only plead futilely for restitution. His ambassador stormed and threatened, urged his master to assert his power and crush Elizabeth. But Philip, and even fiery Alba, knew better now, and both of them strained every nerve to avoid being drawn into open hostility towards England. The keynote of Philip’s foreign policy—that which he had inherited from his Burgundian forefathers—was to keep on good terms with England. It was only after many years that he was for a time absolutely driven by circumstances, and against his will, to fight England outright, and then only with the object of coercing her into a friendly attitude towards him. In view of De Spes’s constant assurance that the time had now come when, by giving a little aid to the English Catholics, Elizabeth{140} might be deposed and Mary Stuart made Queen of England, Philip referred the decision of the matter to Alba (February 1569). But Alba frankly told him that he had neither men nor money for the purpose, and that Elizabeth must be conciliated at all costs. Even when De Spes’s plotting and insolence became too much for Elizabeth to bear and she placed him under arrest, his master told him he must suffer everything patiently for the king’s sake. The humbler became Philip the more aggressive became Elizabeth. She refused to have anything to do with Alba, or to recognise him in any way, and the proud noble took this to heart more even than the seizure of the treasure. So when De Spes sent him news of the plot in progress with Arundel, Norfolk, and Lumley; and Ridolfi the banker went over to Flanders as their envoy to the duke, he was ready enough to listen, and try to effect by treason what he was powerless to do by war, if only it could be done without compromising Philip. The latter was more distrustful even than Alba, and it was only with much apparent hesitation that he consented to lend aid to Norfolk’s plot. After Norfolk’s folly and pusillanimity and Cecil’s vigilance had brought about the collapse of the first conspiracy, and the northern lords were in arms and, in their turn, begging for Philip’s aid, a good instance occurred of the inadequacy of the king’s timid temporising policy to the circumstances of the times. The crisis was really a dangerous one for Elizabeth, and a little prompt aid from Philip might have turned the scale. The Catholic north was all in arms, and Mary Stuart’s party was still a strong one, and yet these are the only words that Philip could find in answer to{141} the appeal written to Alba on December 16, 1569: “English affairs are going in a way that will make it necessary, after all, to bring the queen to do by force what she refuses to reason. Her duty is so clear that no doubt God causes her to ignore it, in order that by these means His holy religion may be restored in that country, and Catholics and good Christians thus be rescued from the oppression in which they live. In case her obstinacy and hardness of heart continue, therefore, you will take into consideration the best direction to be given to this. We think here that the best course will be to encourage with money and secret favour the Catholics of the north, and to help those in Ireland to take up arms against the heretics and deliver the crown to the Queen of Scotland, to whom it belongs. This course, it is presumed, would be agreeable to the pope and all Christendom, and would encounter no opposition from any one. This is only mentioned now in order that you may know what is passing in our minds here, and that, with your great prudence and a full consideration of the state of affairs in general, you may ponder what is best to be done.” What could be weaker than this in a great crisis?

Events marched too quickly for pondering, and the northern rebellion was stamped out by the promptness of Elizabeth’s Government whilst Philip was timidly weighing the chances. This was a fresh triumph for the Protestant cause throughout Europe, and a new impetus was given to it in France, Holland, Germany, and Scotland, as well as in England. De Spes continued to urge upon Philip plans for the overthrow of Elizabeth, but his charming fell upon deaf ears now. Only once{142} was the king tempted into any approach to hostility. Stukeley went to Spain with a great flourish of trumpets, and gave him to understand that Ireland was at his bidding if a little armed help were provided. At Madrid they thought for a time that Stukeley was a great man, and entertained him royally; but Philip and his councillors soon found he was but a windbag, and dropped him promptly.

A good example is provided of Philip’s subordination of religion to politics by his attitude when the pope’s bull excommunicating Elizabeth was fixed by Felton on the Bishop of London’s gate. The English Catholics had long been suggesting to Philip that such a bull should be obtained, but he had no desire to drive Elizabeth farther away from the Catholic Church than necessary. Her religion was a secondary consideration, if she would be friendly with him, and he was coldly irresponsive about the desired excommunication. The English Catholics then addressed the pope direct; and he, having no interests to serve other than those of his religion, promptly granted the bull. But when Philip learnt that the pope had excommunicated Elizabeth without consulting him, he was extremely indignant, and did not mince his words in reprehending the pontiff’s action.

At the instance of his over-zealous ambassador, Philip was induced to receive Ridolfi, who had again gone as an envoy from Norfolk and Mary to the pope, Philip, and Alba (July 1571) to seek aid for Norfolk’s second plot to destroy Elizabeth, whilst at the same time he (Philip) was negotiating in Madrid with Fitzwilliams a pretended plot by which John{143} Hawkins was to place his fleet at the disposal of the Spaniards. Philip’s reference to the subject of killing Elizabeth is characteristic. He “sincerely desires the success of the business, not for his own interest, or for any other worldly object, but purely and simply for the service of God. He was therefore discussing the matter, and in the meanwhile urged all people concerned not to be premature.” Whilst he was discussing with his council the murder of Elizabeth, the queen and Cecil were acting. They had known everything that had been going on in Madrid and elsewhere; Philip had been hoodwinked again. His ambassador was expelled with every ignominy, Norfolk deservedly lost his head, and Philip’s hesitancy once more convinced the English Catholics that no broad, bold, or timely action in their favour could be expected from him.

It had been constantly urged upon Philip that the best way to bring the English to their knees was to stop their trade with his dominions. He had always laid it down as a rule that no ships but Spanish should be allowed to trade in the Spanish territories in America, but the English adventurers made light of the prohibition, and the settlers were quite willing to wink at their distant sovereign’s edicts, if they could profitably exchange their drugs and dyewood for the slaves which the English brought from the African coast. After Elizabeth’s seizure of Spanish property the prohibition against English trade was extended to Spain and the Netherlands. The English clothworkers grumbled, but they found new outlets for their goods at Embden and Hamburg. On the other hand, the wine-growers of Spain and the merchants of Flanders were well-nigh{144} ruined. Spanish ships were harried off the sea, and Philip was ere long forced to connive at the violation of his own edict in face of the clamour of the Andalucian shippers, whose produce rotted for want of sea-carriage and a market. Alba held out as long as he could, but the persuasions of Orange that the Queen of England should assume the protectorate of Holland and Zeeland brought even him to his knees at last. He had always tried to make the restitution of Elizabeth’s seizures a condition of the reopening of trade, but early in 1573 he was obliged to give way, to the immense advantage of Elizabeth, who thus kept the bulk of what she had taken, whilst her subjects again obtained a free market for their cloth. This agreement alone would prove how completely Philip’s cumbrous policy of personal centralisation had failed when applied to a huge disjointed empire such as his. His selfish dread of responsibility and his constant aim of making catspaws of others had alienated him at this time from every power except perhaps for the moment the Venetians and the pope, who both had selfish reasons for adhering to him, the first as their chief bulwark against the Turk in the Mediterranean, and the latter because he was champion of the Church the world over. Alba’s policy of blood and iron had failed too, in the Netherlands. He had only succeeded in making his own and his master’s name execrated. From the day he left Spain his enemies there had been busy. In his absence the party of Ruy Gomez was almost supreme; the clever favourite had taken care to surround the king with promising young secretaries, and the failure of Alba to pacify the Netherlands was made the most of. The duke himself was heartsick of{145} his task, crippled for want of means, his troops unpaid and mutinous, his fleet destroyed; and Holland, Zeeland, and a good part of Flanders were still in the hands of Orange. The constant dropping of detraction at last had its effect upon Philip, and he was induced to try a new policy. Alba was allowed to withdraw, with rage at his heart for his failure, which he ascribed to the lack of support from Madrid, and Luis Requesens was sent by the influence of the Ruy Gomez party, to endeavour to bring about by conciliation and mildness the pacification which severity had been powerless to effect.

This is not the place for any detailed account to be given of the proceedings of Alba in the Netherlands, which have so often been recounted, but it may be interesting to consider how far Philip is personally responsible for them. It may be conceded at once that the king would have no sentimental scruples whatever in ordering the sacrifice of any number of lives he considered necessary for the success of his object, which in his eyes transcended all human interests. There is no doubt that when Alba was first despatched to Flanders it was for the express purpose of utterly stamping out the Flemish claims of autonomy. The first men to be struck at were the great nobles who had dared to formulate such a claim. The Regent Margaret was dismissed with every sign of disgrace. Her edict of toleration was revoked as “illegal and indecent,” and she herself was ordered to obey the Duke of Alba in all things. She was the king’s sister, however, and she was allowed to go to Parma, complaining bitterly of the outrages to which the king had submitted her. But with Orange, Egmont,{146} Horn, Montigny, and Bergues it was another matter. At some time or another all of these had raised their voices, however submissively, in favour of the national rights of self-government. The blow was carefully planned beforehand, and the treacherous seizure of Egmont and Horn after the dinner party on September 9, 1567, immediately after Alba’s arrival in Brussels, was promptly followed by the even more underhand detention and imprisonment of Bergues, Montigny, and Renard in Spain. Fortunately the greater wariness of Orange and Mansfelt saved them from falling victims to Alba’s lying caresses. The charge against the nobles was not religious, but purely political. It is true that Orange in his absence was accused of speaking disrespectfully of the Inquisition, but the real crime was for having requested the convocation of the States-General on the pretext that “the king could not determine anything in these provinces except with the approval of the States-General, which means stripping the king of all authority and power and adorning him merely with the title.” That Alba’s persecution was not a religious but a political one, is also proved by the fact that the conventual clergy were struck at the same time as the Catholic nobles because they had ventured to protest against Philip’s reorganisation of the ecclesiastical establishment in Flanders, which was intended to make him supreme over the clergy, as he was in Spain. The abbots and monks, we are told, were the first that fled on Alba’s advent. They were followed by rich burgesses, Catholics almost to a man. They fled not for religion yet, but because the ruffianly Spanish and Italian soldiers whom Alba had brought with{147} him were quartered in all the houses—six in each house—and were robbing, murdering, and ravishing right and left. They were an unpaid mutinous rabble, who respected no distinction of nationality, faith, or sex, and their function was utterly to terrorise the Flemings into abject submission. When the people began to escape in shoals Alba considered it necessary to prevent this evasion of his terrorism, and began by hanging 500 citizens who were suspected of attempting to emigrate or to send property abroad. The people, in fact, were absolutely unresisting, and flocked to church, as Alba himself records, as plentifully as did “Spaniards at jubilee time.” At the execution of Egmont and Horn, Alba expressed his surprise to the king that the populace was so unmoved—much less so, indeed, than the Spanish soldiers who surrounded the scaffold—and he feared that the king’s clemency might raise their courage. Alba was determined that this should not happen if he could help it. Thus far, then, Philip must be held responsible for Alba’s acts, namely, for the first seizure of the nobles, and their condemnation by the tribunal of blood, to the number of about twenty, and for the terrorism over the friars and the citizens. But here probably Philip’s personal responsibility ends. He was not wantonly and fiercely cruel as Alba was. No consideration of any sort was allowed to stand in the way of what he held to be his sacred task, but he did not kill for the sake of killing. The flight of Orange’s mercenary Germans at Heliger Lee, and the consequent collapse of his first attempt at armed resistance, had been looked upon by most Flemings without any outward sign of sympathy, and the unprovoked, horrible holocaust of innocent citizens{148} all over Flanders and Brabant which followed, must be laid at the door of Alba alone, who intended thus to strike such terror into the townsfolk as should effectually bridle them if Orange tried his fortune again; so with the nobles dead or in exile, the townspeople might be crushed without a show of resistance. As long as only their national or religious liberty was at stake, the Flemings bent their necks to the yoke, and Orange in his despairing attempt depended mainly upon German mercenaries and French Calvinists. On July 14, 1570, Alba the merciless could read from his gold-covered throne in Antwerp the amnesty of forgiveness and peace to all the subjects of the king: but when he ventured to lay hands on the wealth of the Netherlands, then the blood of the burgesses rose, and those who meekly saw themselves despoiled of their national rights stood up sturdily against the depletion of their fat money-bags. The seizure of the treasure by Elizabeth had been the last stroke to complete Alba’s penury. He had been importuning plaintively for money almost since his arrival; his troops had not been paid for two years, and were almost out of hand. Money he must have, and, certainly without Philip’s consent, he took the fatal step that at last aroused the slumbering people. The various provincial assemblies were terrorised into voting a tax of one per cent on all property, five per cent on sales of land, and, above all, ten per cent on sales of all other property. Utrecht refused to accept the impossible tax, and the tribunal of blood condemned the whole property of the citizens to confiscation. A tax of ten per cent upon commodities every time they changed hands was proved to be absurd. Alba’s most faithful henchmen, and even his confessor,{149} pointed this out to him, but to no purpose. Business was suspended, factories closed. Their proprietors were threatened with heavy fines if trade was not carried on as usual. It was obviously impossible, but still the duke would not give way.

Philip’s council were indignant at such a measure, and Alba wrote to Madrid, “Let the tax be reduced as much as may be necessary, but the king cannot have an idea of the obstacles I encounter here. Neither the heads smitten off nor the privileges abolished have aroused so much resistance as this.”

Nearly all the great bankers upon whom Philip had depended for loans became insolvent, and appeals against the unwise tax reached Philip by every post. He knew money must be obtained somehow, and hesitated to condemn Alba unheard, but he ordered an inquiry to be made, and the protests grew louder and deeper. Bishops, councillors, loyal servants of the Spaniards, joined in condemnation. “Everybody turns against me,” wrote the duke, and for once he was right.

The “beggars of the sea” seized Brille on April 1, 1572; all Holland and Zeeland rose. Help and money came from England, and Alba saw himself face to face with an enraged nation instead of downtrodden serfs. First he crushed the south and then held the French Huguenots out of Brabant. Mons was captured, Genlis’s Frenchmen massacred, and swift and relentless as a thunderbolt swept Alba’s vengeance through the southern provinces of Flanders. Submission the most abject, or slaughter was the only alternative. But Holland and Zeeland were made of sterner stuff, and the shambles of Naarden only made Haarlem{150} the more obstinate. Then followed that fell struggle which lasted until Alba’s confession of failure. Cruelty could not crush the Dutchmen, for they were fighting for their faith now as well as their money, and by the end of 1572 Philip had become tired of the useless slaughter. It was difficult for him to revoke or interfere with his commander-in-chief in the midst of such a war, but long before Alba’s final retirement from Flanders at the end of 1573, the king showed his displeasure with his proceedings unmistakably, and it well-nigh broke the old duke’s heart, hard as it was. When at last Philip wrote that his successor, Requesens, was on his way to replace him with an amnesty, these were the king’s words: “I am quite aware that the rebels are perfidious. I understand all your arguments in favour of a continuance of the system of severity, and I agree that they are good; but I see that things have arrived at such an extreme that we shall be obliged to adopt other measures.” Alba’s fall had been decided upon long before, and Medina-Celi had actually been sent to Flanders to replace him, but Philip had always hesitated to withdraw him while he was actually in arms against the enemy. Thirty years before his father had told him that Alba was the best soldier in Spain, and Philip knew that he was so still. But how deeply Philip disapproved of his wanton cruelty in time of peace will be seen by the words already quoted above, and by his sudden degradation of the powerful Cardinal Espinosa when the king discovered that he was being deceived with regard to Alba’s proceedings (September 1572). The number of victims and the reasons for the sacrifices were kept back{151} by the favourite, for Espinosa was for crushing the Dutchmen as he had crushed the Moriscos. But there were others, like Antonio Perez, by Philip’s side to open his eyes to Alba’s enormities, and one day in the council the king turned upon the astounded Espinosa and told him roundly that he lied. When Philip, usually so impassible, said such a thing it meant disgrace and death, and Cardinal Espinosa promptly went home and died the same night.

After that Alba’s disgrace was inevitable, even if it had not been in principle already decided upon. The evidence, therefore, seems to prove that Philip did not consider Alba’s cruelty necessary or politic for the ends he had in view, which, be it repeated, were ultimately political and not religious.

Requesens’ new policy at first was eminently successful in drawing away the Walloons and Catholic Flemings from the side of Orange, and by the late autumn of 1575 the position of the Protestants had become critical. Money was running short, the mercenaries were unpaid, and Elizabeth would not be forced by any persuasion from the position which she had taken up of helping Orange with money and men, but never pledging herself so deeply that she could not recede and become friendly with Philip if it suited her. She had, indeed, managed to get the whole of the cards in her hand, and could secure his friendship at any time without cost to herself. But this non-committal policy did not suit Orange in his present straits, and he began to make approaches to the French Huguenots. Elizabeth was perfectly willing that he should get their aid, as in the long-run they too had mainly to depend upon her;{152} but she changed her tone directly when she learnt that the King of France and his mother where to be parties to the arrangement. Anything that should mean a French national domination of Flanders she would never allow. Better, far better, that Philip and the Spaniards should stay there for ever, than that the French flag should wave over Antwerp. So an English envoy, Henry Cobham, was sent to Madrid in August 1575, with all sorts of loving messages, to open Philip’s eyes to Orange’s intrigues with the French court. Philip received Cobham coldly, and referred him to Alba for his answer, which was to the effect that the king was as willing to be friendly as Elizabeth, and would receive a resident English ambassador, on condition that he made no claim to exercise the reformed religion. Not a word about Orange and the French. Whatever the Huguenots might do, he knew full well that he had only to hold out his hand to the Guises and the Catholic party, and Catharine and her son would be paralysed for harm against him.{153}

CHAPTER XII

PHILIP was left a widower for the third time in 1568, at the age of forty-two, with two children, both girls, by his beloved third wife. With such an empire as his, and with his views of his mission, it was most undesirable that he should be succeeded by a female, and especially one of French extraction, and he had already recognised this by causing some of his young Austrian nephews to be brought up in Spain under his influence. The emperor, however, largely dependent as he was upon the Lutheran princes, could not look quite unmoved at Alba’s barbarities in the ancient patrimony of his House, and became uncomfortably pressing upon the matter at the commencement of Alba’s rule. Philip resented his interference, but thought well to disarm him for the future by marrying the Archduchess Anne, the emperor’s daughter, whom her father had so persistently put forward as a bride for the unfortunate Carlos.{154} The preliminaries were easily arranged. Philip was more than double the bride’s age, and was her uncle, but that mattered nothing. The pope’s dispensation was obtained, and in August 1570 the new consort travelled in state through Flanders to take ship for Spain. The fleet which was to escort the queen was a powerful one, and threw Elizabeth of England into a fever of alarm until it had safely passed. On her way through Antwerp the new queen was appealed to by the sorrowing mother of Horn and Montigny. Her eldest son had fallen on the scaffold, but her second was alive, a prisoner in the castle of Segovia. He had been smiled upon by Philip until Alba’s blow had fallen upon his brother and the rest of the Flemish nobles, and had then suddenly been imprisoned. He was innocent of all offence, said his mother, a loyal subject, and a good Catholic, and she prayed the queen earnestly to plead for her son. Anne arrived at Santander on October 12, 1570, and slowly progressed through Spain to Segovia for the wedding. For two years the tribunal of blood in Flanders had been trying the Flemish nobles for treason in absentia. Bergues had died in semi-arrest, and faithful Renard, the victim of Granvelle’s hate, had also died mysteriously a week after his imprisonment. But Montigny—Florence de Montmorenci—still remained in seclusion in the strong castle of Segovia. Philip was always a stickler for the fulfilment of legal forms, and awaited the result of the trial in Flanders with ill-disguised impatience. At last the decision came, the finding being that which might have been foreseen. Montigny was condemned for treason in defending the action of the Flemish nobles before the{155} king’s secretary. The judgment was submitted to the council—Ruy Gomez, Espinosa, and the rest of the camarilla—who advised that Montigny should be poisoned slowly. But no, the king would have none of that. The law prescribed death by strangulation for the crime, and the law must be carried out. A public execution was out of the question, and the marriage festivities were to be held at Segovia; so Montigny was spirited away to the bleak castle of Simancas, and on the very day (October 1) that Philip arranged the pompous ceremony of the queen’s reception at Segovia he penned an order to the gaoler of Simancas to hand over to the alcalde of the chancery of Valladolid the person of Florence de Montmorenci. Arellano had been an inquisitor at Seville, and was appointed specially to the chancery of Valladolid for the purpose in hand. To him the most minute instructions were given for the execution of Montigny. The priest that was to administer the last consolations to the dying man was named, and at the same time a doctor was instructed to visit the prisoner daily, ostentatiously taking with him from Valladolid the usual medicines for fever. The hour of the night that the alcalde and the executioner were to leave the city and the smallest particulars were set forth for their guidance, but before and above all, no one was to know that Montigny had not died a natural death. His property had been confiscated for his crime, and so, said Philip, he has nothing to leave; but still he may make a will, and dispose of the property, if he will consent to do so, in the form of a man who knows he is dying of a natural illness. He might write to his wife, too, in the same way. The king is{156} careful to repeat that he had been tried and condemned by a legal tribunal, and it was only out of mercy and consideration for his rank that he was to be saved the ignominy of a public execution. The poor creature expressed his thanks for the king’s clemency, avowed his unshaken fidelity to the Catholic Church, and the shameful deed was done in that same round turret room in which the bishop Acuña, the leader of the Comuneros, lived for years, before he met a similar fate fifty years previously. Montigny was executed on October 16, whilst Anne was on her way to Segovia. The first favour she asked of her husband was to spare the life of Montigny. Philip replied that he could not have refused to grant her request, but unfortunately the prisoner had died of sickness. Couriers, swifter than the queen, had long ago brought to Philip the tidings of the promise made to Montigny’s mother. Forewarned, forearmed, he doubtless thought, and the hapless Montmorenci’s fate was sealed by his mother’s apparently successful intercession with the queen.

Philip’s fourth wife was a devout, homely, prolific creature, intensely devoted to her husband and children, of whom she bore many, though most of them died in early childhood. “She never leaves her rooms, and her court is like a nunnery,” wrote the French ambassador. All around her was frigid, gloomy etiquette and funereal devotion. As years and disappointments gathered on Philip’s head his religious mysticism deepened. “For God and your Majesty,” was now the current phrase in all addresses to him. He never gave an order—hardly an opinion—without protesting that he had no worldly end in all his acts. It was all for the sake of God, whose{157} instrument he was. For his own part, his life was a constant round of drudgery and devotion. The smallest details of government went through his hands, besides the most trivial regulations with regard to the lives and habits of his subjects. Their dress and furniture were prescribed with closest minuteness, their styles of address, number of servants and horses, their amusements, their funerals, their weddings, their devotions were settled for them by the gloomy recluse whom they rarely saw. Whilst he was busy with such puerilities, affairs of great moment were set aside and delayed, his ambassadors in vain praying for answers to important despatches, his armies turning mutinous for want of money, and his executive ministers through his wide domains alternately despairing and indignant at the tardiness of action which they saw was ruining the cause he championed.

The king’s only relaxations now were the few hours he could spare in the bosom of his family, to which he was devotedly attached, especially to his elder daughter, Isabel. But even in his home life his care for detail was as minute as it was in public affairs. The most unimportant trifle in the dress, management, studies, or play of his children came within his purview. The minutiae of the management of his flower-gardens, the little maladies of his servants, the good-or ill-temper of his dwarfs and jesters did not escape his vigilance. The private and financial affairs of his nobles came as much within his province, almost, as his personal concerns, the furnishing and decoration of his rooms had to be done under his personal supervision, and the vast task of building the stupendous pile of the Escorial on an arid{158} mountain-side, and adorning it with triumphs of art from the master hands of all Christendom, was performed down to the smallest particular under his unwearied guidance. With all his prodigious industry and devotion to duty, it is no wonder that this want of proportion in the importance of things clogged the wheels of the great machine of which he was mainspring, and that the nimble wit of Elizabeth of England and Catharine de Medici foresaw, in ample time to frustrate them, the deep-laid ponderous plans against them which he discussed ad infinitum before adopting. His favourite place for work was at the Escorial, where, said the prior, four times as many despatches were written as in Madrid. As soon as a portion of the edifice could be temporarily roofed in, the monks were installed, and thenceforward Philip passed his happiest moments in the keen, pure air of the Guadarramas, superintending the erection of the mighty monument which forms a fitting emblem of his genius—stupendous in its ambition, gloomy, rigid, and overweighted in its consummation. Here he loved to wander with his wife and children, overlooking the army of workmen who for twenty years were busy at their tasks, to watch the deft hands of the painters and sculptors—Sanchez Coello, the Carducci, Juan de Juanes, the Mudo, Giacomo Trezzo, and a host of others—whom he delighted to honour. As a patron of art in all its forms Philip was a very Mæcenas. He followed his great father in his friendship for Titian, but he went far beyond the emperor in his protection of other artists. Illuminators, miniaturists, and portrait painters were liberally paid and splendidly entertained. The masterpieces of religious art, the{159} cunning workmanship of the Florentine goldsmiths and lapidaries, the marvels of penmanship of the medieval monks, the sculptures of the ancients, were all prized and understood by Philip, as they were by few men of his time. This sad, self-concentrated man, bowed down by his overwhelming mission, tied to the stake of his duty, indeed loved all things beautiful: flowers, and song-birds, sacred music, pictures, and the prattle of little children, a seeming contradiction to his career, but profoundly consistent really, for in the fulfilment of his task he considered himself in some sort divine, and forced to lay aside as an unworthy garment all personal desires and convenience, to suppress all human inclinations. He was a naturally good man, cursed with mental obliquity and a lack of due sense of proportion.

Whilst Alba was pursuing his campaign of blood in the Netherlands, Philip found it necessary once more to struggle for the supremacy of Christianity in the Mediterranean. It has been related how, after the heroic defence of Malta, the Turks and Algerines had been finally driven off with the death of Dragut in 1565. A new sultan, Selim II., had arisen in the following year, and he had determined to leave Spanish interests alone and to concentrate his attacks upon the Venetians, through whom most of the Eastern trade of the Levant passed. Philip’s interests and those of Venice had not usually been identical, as Spain aspired to obtain a share of the oriental commerce, and France and the Venetians had made common cause, more or less openly, with the Turk against Spain. When the republic saw its great colony of Cyprus attacked by the Turks, it consequently appealed in the first place to Pius V.{160} Piala Pasha, the Italian renegade, was already (1569) besieging Nicosia with a great fleet, whilst the Moriscos were yet in arms in Andalucia. The inhabitants of Cyprus were welcoming the infidel, and without prompt and powerful help Cyprus would be lost to Christianity. The pope, at all events, acted promptly, and sent his legate to Philip with proposals for an alliance with the Venetians against the common enemy of their faith. He arrived in Andalucia at the time when the Moriscos had been finally subdued, and entered Seville with Philip. Alba for the moment had crushed out resistance in Flanders, and had not yet aroused the fresh storm by his financial measures. Philip therefore willingly listened to the pope’s proposal, backed energetically, as it was, by the young victor of the Moriscos, Don Juan of Austria, all eager to try his sword against an enemy worthy of his steel; and after three days of devotion and intercession before the bones of St. Ferdinand in Seville, Philip decided to lay aside his unfriendliness with the merchant republic and join it to beat the infidel (spring of 1570).

By the summer Nicosia had fallen, and before Doria’s galleys from Genoa and Colonna’s galleys from the pope could be ready for service, private negotiations were in progress between Venice and the Turks for a separate peace. Here was always the danger for Philip. His Neapolitan and Sicilian possessions, as well as the Balearics and the African settlements, were very open to the Turk, and if the Venetians deserted him, he would have brought upon his own coasts the scourge of Piali and his three hundred sail with a fierce army of janissaries. It was not until the end of 1570, therefore,{161} that Philip was satisfied that the Venetians would stand firm. Philip’s views undoubtedly extended far beyond the recapture of Cyprus for the Venetians. This was the first opportunity that had fallen to him of joining together a really powerful league to crush the strength of Islam in the Mediterranean. Cardinal de Granvelle was in Rome, and at last, through his persuasions, Pius V. regranted to the Spanish king the much-desired privilege of selling the Crusade bulls, and other financial concessions. Pius had also to give way on another point which was very near Philip’s heart, for the king never missed an opportunity of gaining a step forward in his policy of centralisation of power in himself. Undeterred by the ill success of the Aragonese in their protest against the abuses in the civil jurisdiction of the Inquisition, the Catalans had proceeded still further, and had taken the dangerous step of sending an envoy direct to the pope to beg him to put an end to the oppression of the Holy Office, by virtue of an old bull which gave to the pontiff the right to decide in all doubtful cases, and limited the jurisdiction of the Inquisition to matters of faith. The pope dared not go too far in offending Philip, but he went as far as he could, and issued a bull reasserting the right of appeal to Rome in certain cases. Philip did as he had done before, simply prohibited the promulgation of the bull in Spain, and clapped the leaders of the Catalans into the dungeons of the Inquisition. Things had arrived at this stage when Pius had to beg Philip’s aid for the Venetians. Then he was obliged to cede to the king’s instances, and promise not to interfere in any way with the prerogatives of the Spanish crown. The league against Islam was to be a permanent one,{162} and the urgent prayers of Don Juan obtained for him the supreme command of the expedition. He was a fortunate and a dashing young officer, but he was in no sense the great commander that he has often been represented, and the work of organisation of his force on this occasion must be credited mainly to the famous seaman Alvaro de Bazan, Marquis of Santa Cruz; whilst De Granvelle, who had been appointed Viceroy of Naples, was indefatigable in his efforts to collect the resources and men necessary for the struggle. By the summer of 1571, when the Spanish fleet was gathered at Messina, Cyprus had fallen amidst scenes of hellish carnage which aroused the Christian force to fury. The fleet of Venice had suffered much, and notwithstanding the reproaches of the pope for his tardiness in following up the Turks, who were now harrying the Adriatic, it was September 1571 before Don Juan and his combined fleets left Messina. He had 208 galleys, 6 galleasses, and 50 small boats, 29,000 men-at-arms, and 50,000 sailors and rowers. The force was a great one, but it had a great task before it. Piali and Uluch Ali had joined, and had a fleet which had never yet been beaten at sea in the Mediterranean. Time after time the Turks had shown that in a sea-fight they were superior to any power in the world; but this was a holy war. The pope had sent to Don Juan in Naples a blessed banner of blue damask covered with sacred emblems; all the pomp and solemnity that the Church could confer upon an expedition was extended to this; prayers and rogations for its success were sounding through every church in Catholic Christendom, and, above all, the hearts of men, and women too, were aflame with enthusiasm when they{163} saw the fervent zeal of the splendid young prince who was to lead the hosts of Christ against the infidel. Dressed in white velvet and gold, with a crimson scarf across his breast, his fair curls glinting in the sun, he looked, they said in Naples, like a prince of romance, and men, high and low, upon his fleet were ready to go whithersoever he might lead them. Every man on the fleet fasted, confessed, and received remission of his sins, and all felt that they were engaged in a struggle for the Cross. The Turks were still ravaging the Venetian territories, as they had ravaged Corfu, but the experienced commanders of Don Juan’s force were opposed to attacking the dreaded enemy in the open. Better repeat the policy of the past, and lay siege to some fortified place. Doria especially, was for turning back and awaiting the spring. But Don Juan would have no such timid tactics, and decided to attack the Turkish fleet, which, his spies told him, was lying in the bay of Lepanto. He sighted the enemy at daybreak on October 7—Sunday—advancing with flags flying and cymbals clashing; and after giving orders for the fray, Don Juan knelt with all his army before the crucifixes, the whole of the force being solemnly absolved by the Jesuits and other monks, who swarmed on the ships. Then through the fleet in a pinnace the young general sailed, crying out words of exhortation to his men. “Christ is your general!” “The hour for vengeance has come!” “You are come to fight the battle of the Cross, to conquer or to die,” and so forth. There is no space here to describe the battle in detail. The story is a familiar one; how the Turks were swept from the seas and their power on the Mediterranean gone for ever. There was no resisting{164} a force worked up to the pitch of fervour which Don Juan had infused into his. Much of the glory must be given to the cool and timely support afforded at a critical moment by the Marquis of Santa Cruz, but Don Juan, exalted in fervour and enthusiasm, personified the victory; and to him the palms of conquest were awarded. The world rang with adulation of the young hero. The pope forgot his dignity, Titian forgot his ninety-five years, the Christian world forgot prudence and restraint, and talked of conquering anew the empire of Constantine, of which Don Juan was to be the ruler. There was one man, however, who did not move a muscle when he heard the stirring news, and that man was Philip II. He was at vespers when the courier came, but after he read the despatch he said no word until the sacred service was over, and then a solemn Te Deum was sung. But when he wrote to Don Juan it was in no uncertain words. With his views he was of course incapable of personal jealousy, though not of suspicion, and he wrote: “Your conduct undoubtedly was the principal cause of victory. To you, after God, I owe it, and I joyfully recognise this. I am rejoiced that He has deigned to reserve the boon for a man who is so dear to me, and so closely allied in blood, thus to terminate this work, glorious to God and men.”

The next year Pius V. died and the league was loosened. Don Juan, full of vast projects of conquest in Tunis, Constantinople, and elsewhere, with encouragement of Rome and the churchmen, kept his fleet together for two years, always clamouring for money for his great projects. But Philip had his hands full now with Alba’s second struggle in the Netherlands, and had no{165} wish or means for acquiring a great Eastern empire which he could not hold, and he was already looking askance at his brother’s ambitious dreams. The mercantile Venetians too, had justified Philip’s distrustful forebodings and had made a submissive peace with the Turk, who kept Cyprus, and Philip could not fight the Turks alone. But Don Juan was not to be entirely gainsaid. In October 1573 he sailed for Tunis, which he captured, almost without resistance, and then returned to the splendour of Naples, still full of projects for a vast North African Christian empire, of which he hoped to obtain the investiture from the new pope, Gregory XIII. Such ambitious dreams as these had floated through Don Juan’s mind after he had suppressed the Morisco rising in Andalucia; and even then prudent Ruy Gomez, whose pupil he had been, took fright, and warned the prince’s secretary, Juan de Soto, one of his own creatures, that these plans must be nipped in the bud. The prince was over headstrong then, but he had got quite out of leading strings now.

When the king’s orders were sent to him to dismantle Tunis and make it powerless for future harm, he disobeyed the command. He wanted Tunis as strong as possible as his own fortress when he should be the Christian emperor of the East. All this did not please Philip, and he simply cut off the supply of money. Artful De Granvelle too, the Viceroy of Naples, saw which way the tide was setting, and took very good care not to strengthen Don Juan’s new conquest. Within a year Tunis and Goleta were recovered by the Turk, and the 8000 Spaniards left there by Don Juan were slaughtered. Neither Philip nor De Granvelle{166} could or would send any help. Better that the two fortresses should be lost for ever, as they were, than that the king’s base brother should drag him into endless responsibilities with his high-flown schemes.

Don Juan, in fact, was evidently getting out of hand. Ruy Gomez had recently died; Cardinal Espinosa had also gone, and the most influential person with the king now was his famous secretary, Antonio Perez. He was the legitimised son of Charles V.’s old secretary of state, and had been brought up by Ruy Gomez in his household. Young as he was, he was already famous for his extravagance, luxury, and arrogance, which added to the hatred of the nobles of the Alba school against him. He was overpoweringly vain and ambitious, but was facile, clever, and ingratiating, and, above all, had the king’s confidence, which once gained was not lightly withdrawn. Philip, in pursuance of his father’s principle, liked to have about him as ministers men whom he himself had raised from the mire, and whom he could again cast down.

Perez aspired to succeed to Ruy Gomez, and was dismayed to lose so promising a member of his party as Don Juan. He therefore persuaded the king to recall Don Juan’s secretary, Soto, who was blamed for encouraging his young master’s visions; and, to be quite on the safe side, sent in his place as the prince’s prime adviser another pupil and page of Ruy Gomez, also a secretary to the king—Juan de Escobedo—with strict orders that he was to bring Don Juan down from the clouds and again instil into him the shibboleths of the party of diplomacy, chicanery, and peace. With such a mentor surely the young prince could not go wrong, they{167} thought. But Don Juan was stronger than the secretary. Juan de Escobedo was quickly gained over to his ambitious views, more completely than Soto had been, and was soon perfectly crazy to make his master Emperor of the Catholic East.{168}

CHAPTER XIII

REQUESENS, the Governor of the Netherlands, had died whilst his policy of conciliation was as yet incomplete. The Catholic Flemings had been to a great extent reconciled by promises of concessions and through their jealousy of the Protestant Dutchmen, but the new governor had been surrounded with insuperable difficulties from the first, legacies from the Duke of Alba. Most of the seamen were disloyal, and the Flemish clergy were disaffected, but withal Requesens had not been unsuccessful amongst the peoples of the Walloon and southern states. No blandishments, however, could win over the stubborn Dutchmen, now that they were fighting for the faith and were supported by English and French Protestants, as well as by the questionable German levies, who generally turned tail at the critical moment. The Spaniards were beaten out of their last{169} foothold on Walcheren by the destruction of Julian Romero’s relieving fleet, and the indomitable determination of the citizens of Leyden overcame attack after a year of siege; but, worst of all, the clamour of the Catholic Flemings that they should be relieved of the presence of the mutinous, murderous, unpaid Spanish soldiery could not be complied with, although promised, for there was no money to pay the troops, and they would not budge without it. Philip, in despair, at one time decided either to drown or burn all the revolting cities of the Netherlands—burning he thought preferable, as it would seem less cruel—but Requesens told him that his army was a mutinous mob, who would not do either without pay. Attempts then were made to come to terms with Orange, but without success, for, said Requesens, they are not fighting for their heresy but for their independence. In despair at last, Requesens died on March 5, 1576. The Spanish troops were more mutinous than ever now, mere bandits most of them, and Philip was made to understand clearly by his most faithful adherents in Flanders that unless these ruffians were withdrawn, Brabant and Hainhault, Artois and Flanders would follow Holland and Zeeland, and slip out of his grasp.

Philip bent to the inevitable, and ordered Don Juan to go to Flanders as governor to carry out the policy of pacification at almost any cost. He was instructed to proceed direct to his new post, and doubtless Philip congratulated himself upon so good an opportunity of removing without offence his ambitious brother from the neighbourhood of the Mediterranean. Escobedo, his mentor, was warned strictly before he left Spain that{170} there must be no nonsense. Peace must be made with the Flemings at all sacrifice and the Spanish troops withdrawn from the country. Don Juan’s ambition, however, was bounded by no frontiers, and the pope (Gregory XIII.) had sent instructions to his nuncio to urge a new plan upon Philip, namely, that he should allow Don Juan to invade England from Flanders, liberate and marry the captive Queen of Scots, and rule over a Catholic kingdom of Great Britain. Philip, as was his wont, was vaguely benevolent to a plan which did not originate with himself, but had no intention of allowing his policy to be dictated or forced by others. Suddenly, to his dismay, Don Juan himself, in disobedience to orders, came to Spain instead of going direct to Flanders, the idea being doubtless to add his influence to that of the pope and to prevail upon Philip to adopt his new plans. The king gently evaded his brother’s importunities and his claims to be treated as an imperial prince, and without losing temper dispatched Don Juan as soon as possible on his uncongenial mission. But in his secret way he was offended at the prince’s disobedience and the attempts to force his hand, and thenceforward kept a sharp eye and a tight rein on Don Juan and his adviser Escobedo. False Perez in the meanwhile wormed himself into the confidence of Don Juan, and learnt that, in despite of the king, he intended to swoop down upon the coast of England with the Spanish troops which were to be withdrawn from Flanders.

But the loss of time by Don Juan’s disobedience and stay in Madrid was fatal. Soon after Requesens’ death the Council of State, nominated by Philip as temporary{171} governors of Flanders, found themselves face to face with a great crisis. The Spanish and Italian troops rebelled for want of pay and broke into open mutiny, plundering friends and foes without distinction. The council consisted mostly of Flemish and Walloon Catholics, and was profoundly divided in sight of the murderous excesses of the king’s soldiers. Brussels was held in the interests of the council by Walloon troops, but they were surrounded by Spanish mutineers outside. During the panic-stricken attempts of the council to bribe the mutineers into obedience, a plot was formed by Barlemont, one of the councillors, to admit the Spaniards into the city; but it was discovered, and Barlemont deprived of the keys. Massacres were reported at Alost and other towns; the excesses of the mutineers grew worse and worse. Flemings of all sorts, Catholic and Protestant, lost patience, and swore they would stand no more of it, but would fight for their lives and homes. The council was forced to side with the Flemings, except the Spanish member Rodas, who assumed alone the character of Philip’s representative, and henceforward the Spanish army of cut-throats, with their commanders, Sancho de Avila, Vargas, Mondragon, and Romero, harried, burnt, and killed right and left.

Philip was in deep distress at the news. Money should be sent; Don Juan would soon arrive; the offended Flemings should have justice done to them, and so forth. But the blood-lust of the mutineers could not be slaked now with fine promises. The council’s troops were defeated again and again, town after town was ravaged, and at last came the time when the bands of savage soldiers effected a junction and fell upon{172} the richest prey of all—the city of Antwerp. On the fatal November 4, 1576, six thousand mutinous troops, panting for blood and plunder, swooped down from the citadel on to the town. The citizens had done their best. Barricades had been raised, the burgesses stood to their arms, and brave Champigny, the governor,—De Granvelle’s brother, and hitherto a staunch friend of the Spaniards,—worked heroically. But the Walloons fled, young Egmont was captured, the citizens, unused to arms, were no match for the veteran infantry of Sancho de Avila, and Antwerp soon lay a panting quarry under the claws of the spoiler. Neither age, sex, nor faith was considered, and when the fury had partly subsided it was found that 6000 unarmed people, at least, had been slaughtered, 6,000,000 ducats’ worth of property stolen, and as much again burnt. The States troops were all killed or had fled, and the only armed forces in the country were the unbridled Spanish mutineers and the troops of Orange. Flemings of each faith were welded together now against the wreckers of their homes, and even those nobles who through all the evil past had stood by Spain were at one with Orange and the Protestants of the north.

Don Juan had posted through France in the guise of a Moorish slave to prevent delay and discovery, but when he reached Luxembourg he was given to understand by the States that he could only be received as Philip’s governor now, on certain terms to be dictated to him. This was gall and wormwood to the proud young prince. Orange knew all about the fine plans for the invasion of England, secret though they were thought to be, and at his instance the States insisted upon the Spanish troops{173} being withdrawn overland, and not by sea. During the winter of 1576 and early spring of 1577 Don Juan was kept haggling over the terms upon which he was to be allowed by the Flemings to assume his governorship. The States-General were assembled at Ghent, and consulted Orange at every turn. They said that they had bought their liberty now with their blood, and were not going to sell it again to a new master. Passionate prayers from Don Juan and his secretary came to Philip by every post that they should be allowed to fight it out; imploring requests for money and arms to beat into “these drunken wineskins of Flemings” a sense of their duty; often wild, incoherent, half-threatening expressions of disgust and annoyance at the uncongenial task committed to the victor of Lepanto. He was a soldier, he said, and could not do it; the more he gave way the more insolent the Flemings became; a woman or a child could do the work better than he. Escobedo’s letters to Perez, which of course were shown to the king, were more desperate still. On February 7, 1577, he wrote: “Oh, I am ready to hang myself, if I were not hoping to hang those who injure us so. O Master Perez! how stubborn and hateful these devils have been in hindering our plan. Hell itself must have spewed forth this gang to thwart us so.” Don Juan himself was just as violent in his letters. “O Antonio!” he wrote, “how certain for my sorrow and misfortune is the frustration of our plans, just as they were so well thought out and arranged.” Herein, it is clear, was the grievance; and Philip’s grim face must have darkened as he saw the deceit his brother sought to practise upon him, and{174} how he was to be dragged by the ambition of a bastard into a struggle with England, at a time when his treasury was empty, his own states of Flanders in rebellion, and his mind bent upon far-reaching combinations, which would all be frustrated if his hand had thus been forced. Humiliating reconciliation with the Catholic Flemings was nothing to this; and to his brother’s wild remonstrance and protest he had but one answer, cold and precise—peace must be made with any sacrifice, consistent only with his continued sovereignty. At last by pledging his own honour and credit—for he insolently told the king that no money could be obtained on his—Escobedo borrowed means sufficient to persuade the troops to march, and the mutinous rascals who had disgraced the name of soldiers crossed the frontier to Italy amidst the curses of all Flanders. Then Don Juan entered Brussels at last with the frantic rejoicing of a people who had emancipated their country by their firmness. But his own face was lowering, and rage and disappointment were at his heart. He had been threatening for months to come back to Spain whether the king liked it or not, and Perez ceaselessly whispered to Philip that now that the prince’s ambition had been thwarted in one direction, it would strike higher in another. We now know that Perez garbled and misrepresented Don Juan’s words, suppressed portions of his letters, and persuaded Philip that his brother designed treachery to him in Spain. The reason for this is obvious. Don Juan and Escobedo had definitely drifted away from the old party of Ruy Gomez, and his return to Spain would have secured a preponderance to the Duke of Alba, and{175} probably caused Perez’s downfall. The principal members of the camarilla now were Perez’s friends, the Marquis de los Velez and Cardinal Quiroga, both of whom where in favour of peace; but with Don Juan and Alba present they would be overruled, especially as Zayas, the other secretary of state, was a creature of Alba.

When therefore Escobedo rushed over to Spain in July 1577 to arrange about the payment of the loan he had guaranteed, Perez, after making two unsuccessful attempts to poison him, had him stabbed one night (March 31, 1578) in the streets of Madrid. Perez asserted that the king had authorised him to have the deed done six months before, and in this, no doubt, he told the truth. In any case, great events followed upon this apparently unimportant crime, as will be related in the proper place. The Spanish troops had marched out of Flanders in the spring of 1577, and before many weeks had passed Don Juan again found his position intolerable. The tone of the Catholic Flemings had quite changed now. They were loyal and cordial to him, but they let him see that they had the whip hand, and meant to keep it. His plans had all miscarried; his brother was cold and irresponsive and kept him without money; he was isolated, powerless, and heartsick, and determined to end it. Margaret de Valois, Catharine de Medici’s daughter, had gone to Hainhault on a pretended visit to the waters of Spa, but really to sound the Catholic Flemings about their accepting her brother Alençon for their sovereign. Don Juan feigned the need to receive her, but he had plotted with Barlemont to get together a force of Walloons upon whom he could depend. They{176} were hidden in a monastery, and after the prince had hastily greeted Margaret, he suddenly collected his men, threw himself into the fortress of Namur, and defied the States. Then began a fresh war, in which Orange himself for the first time since his rebellion became the arbiter of the Catholic Flemish States. Here was a fresh blow to Philip. It was evident that his brother was one of those flighty, vaguely ambitious, turbulent people, who are the worst possible instruments of an absolute ruler. For over three months no letter reached Don Juan from the king, whilst he chafed in Namur. “If,” he wrote to a friend, “God in His goodness does not protect me, I do not know what I shall do, or what will become of me. I wish to God I could, without offending my conscience or my king, dash my brains out against a wall, or cast myself over a precipice. They neglect me even to the extent of not answering my letters.” In the meanwhile Orange entered Brussels in triumph, and Catholics and Protestants made common cause for a time. But not for long. The extreme Catholic party, under the Duke of Arschot, invited secretly Philip’s young nephew and brother-in-law, the Archduke Mathias, to assume the sovereignty of Flanders. The young prince—he was only twenty, and a fool—escaped from Vienna and arrived at Brussels on October 26, 1577. This was a blow to Don Juan in Namur, to Orange in Brussels, and to Philip in Madrid. Philip met the danger at first by masterly inactivity—in fact the solution might have been made not altogether distasteful to him; Orange cleverly took the young archduke under his wing, patronised, adopted, and disarmed him; and Don Juan busied himself in his fortress settling{177} with his friends outside the recruiting of a Catholic force, whilst he was still quarrelling with the States by letter. But by the end of October the Protestants in the south, encouraged by the turn of affairs and the presence of Orange in Brussels, turned upon their Catholic fellow-townsmen in Ghent, Bruges, and elsewhere, and sought to avenge the cruelties perpetrated upon them in the past by the Catholic Church. The Duke of Arschot and the representatives of the Catholic States were seized and imprisoned whilst in session at Ghent, and everywhere the Protestants and Orange seemed to be sweeping the board. This was too much for Philip. The Archduke Mathias as tributary sovereign under him of a Catholic Flanders, he might have accepted, but the Prince of Orange and the Lutherans paramount from Zeeland to the French frontier he could not stomach. So the veteran Spanish and Italian infantry who had scourged Flanders before, were recalled, under Alexander Farnese, the son of Margaret, who had been the ruler of Flanders when the dissensions began, to the help of Don Juan and to crush the Protestants. When Alexander and his troops approached Namur, Orange and Mathias, side by side, were entering Brussels in state. Elizabeth had insisted upon Orange being made lieutenant-general with the real power, as a condition of her continued aid to the States, for she was quite determined upon two points—first, that no matter what union was effected between the States, the Catholic party should never be paramount; and secondly, that the French should not gain a footing there except under her patronage. She had some fear on this latter point, for Catharine de Medici had long been intriguing to obtain the sovereignty{178} for her young son Alençon, who was already on the frontier with a force of Huguenots, whilst the Guises had been actively helping Don Juan in his recruiting of Catholics. When Parma had arrived, and Don Juan’s new levies were ready, he marched out of Namur on the last day of January 1578. The States troops, mostly Netherlanders and German mercenaries, mustered 20,000 men, and Don Juan’s forces about the same number. The prince, with Parma, led the centre of the latter with the pope’s sacred banner floating over their heads. The same spirit that had led him against the infidel inspired him now, and the banner testified to it, for it bore the words under a crucifix: “Under this emblem I vanquished the Turks; under the same will I conquer the heretics.” And he did so, for on the plain of Gemblours the States troops under De Goigny, with Egmont, Bossu, Champigny, La Marck, and Arschot’s brother Havré, were routed completely, without loss on the Spanish side. The honour of the day belongs to Alexander Farnese, who with a dashing cavalry charge broke the enemy at a critical moment, the only men who made any real resistance being the Scottish levies, 600 strong, under Colonel Balfour. These were saved from the carnage by Don Juan’s intercession, but of the rest 6000 men were killed in fight, and the prisoners hanged to a man.

Philip had had enough of his turbulent brother. He had promised the envoys from the Catholic States that he should be withdrawn, and it was privately understood when Alexander Farnese was appointed to go thither that he should succeed the prince. But the latter for the present still continued in command, reducing the towns of South Flanders one after the other,{179} and again issuing a proclamation in Philip’s name offering peace to the States, on condition of the recognition of the Spanish sovereignty and the predominance of the Catholic religion. The latter condition meant the extermination of the Protestants by fire and sword, and Orange could never accept it.

By the pacification of Ghent, which Don Juan had in principle confirmed, religious toleration had been secured, and the States refused to go back from that position, and again demanded the withdrawal of the impracticable governor. Philip was, in fact, at his wits’ end what to do with his brother. Perez had succeeded in persuading the king that Don Juan’s object was to raise a revolution in Spain and try to grasp the crown. He could not, therefore, be allowed to come back freely, nor would the States endure him longer on any terms. He himself felt the position to be an impossible one, and his letters to his private friends in Madrid constantly hint at suicide as the only way out of the difficulty, for he knew now that his faithful secretary Escobedo had been assassinated in Madrid, and anticipated a similar shameful end for himself. War to the knife against the States was his only resource, for he was no diplomatist, but Philip, over his head, left no stone unturned to try to tempt Orange to abandon his cause. Orange had a restive team to drive, what with the Catholic majority and nobles, the Protestant Dutchmen, the extreme Puritans, like Saint Aldegonde; Elizabeth of England, the French Huguenots, the German mercenaries, and poor Mathias, now an acknowledged failure. Nothing but the most consummate statesmanship would serve him, and that he employed. Philip’s temptations and{180} Don Juan’s storming were equally disregarded. Alençon and the Frenchmen were invited across the frontier to replace Mathias as sovereign, and Havré was sent to Elizabeth to assure her that, unless she helped the States effectually with men and money, they would be obliged to accept the Frenchmen. This they knew she would never stand. She disarmed Catharine de Medici with fresh approaches for a marriage with Alençon, whilst she threatened to help Philip if the French were allowed to set foot in Flanders except under her auspices. She smiled upon Philip’s new ambassador Mendoza, and so managed that very shortly Alençon had to retrace his steps to France, and the States had to look to her alone for assistance, which she doled out judiciously, and so kept them firm against the Spaniards. All through the spring and summer of 1578 Don Juan struggled in toils from which he had not wit enough to free himself. Heartrending appeals to his brother for guidance, for money to organise a sufficient force to crush the States for good and for all, prayers to be allowed to retire, were met with cold irresponsiveness by Philip, prompted by Perez’s slanders, for Don Juan must be ruined or Perez himself must fall. At last his chafing spirit wore out his body. Constant fevers beset him, and in his letters to his friends he began to predict that his days were drawing to an end, whatever doctors might say. By the end of September he was delirious, and on October 1 he died of malignant fever. There were naturally whispers of poison, even from his confessor, but the details of his illness given by the physicians in attendance leave no doubt that he died a natural death, although his death certainly relieved Philip of an unendurable{181} position, and allowed Farnese, an infinitely superior man, to take advantage of the strong Catholic national feeling in Belgium to separate the nobles and peoples of the south from Orange and the Dutchmen, and so eventually to reserve Catholic Flanders to the Spanish connection for many years to come.{182}

CHAPTER XIV

PHILIP’S advisers had for many years been urging him to adopt reprisals against Elizabeth for her treatment of him. We have seen why, on account both of policy and necessity, he had not done so by a direct attack. His indirect attempts at retaliation had been quite ineffectual. He had subsidised Mary Stuart, he had found money for the northern rebellion, he had listened to proposals for killing the Queen of England at his cost, he had countenanced Stukeley’s wild plans for the capture of Ireland, and he had attempted to avenge the English depredations on his commerce by stopping English trade and persecuting English traders for heresy. But in every{183} case the result had been disastrous for him. Elizabeth’s aid to the Protestants in Holland was bolder and more effectual than ever, English sailors mocked at his attempts to stop trade by ruining his own ports, and the Englishmen punished by the Inquisition were avenged by increased severity against the Catholic party in England and Ireland. But still he was constantly assured that the only way to disarm Elizabeth against him was to “set fire to her own doors” by arousing rebellion in Ireland and aggression of the Catholic party in Scotland.

Dr. Sanders had induced the pope to interest himself in favour of James Fitzmaurice, the brother of the Earl of Desmond, and had himself obtained the title of the pope’s nuncio. They landed in Ireland with a small Spanish and Italian force in June 1579, but Elizabeth, through Walsingham’s spies, was well informed of the movement, and was quite prepared to deal with it. Philip was willing that others should weaken his enemy so long as no responsibility was incurred by him, and Elizabeth was not further irritated against him. When, however, Fitzmaurice and Sanders found themselves overmatched, and appeals were made direct to Philip to aid them by sending an armed force to Ireland, he demurred. Fitzmaurice was ready to promise anything for aid, and the nuncio at Madrid did his best to inflame Philip’s religious zeal. But he could not afford to come to open war with England, and, although he consented to subscribe 25,000 ducats out of the revenues of the archbishopric of Toledo if the pope would subscribe a similar amount, and promised to find arms and ammunition, he provided that the fresh expedition should{184} sail from Spain under the papal flag and be organised ostensibly by the nuncio. The commanders, moreover, were to be all Italians, and the Spanish recruits were to be enlisted privately. The semi-concealment was quite ineffectual in hoodwinking Elizabeth, and the ill-starred little expedition was all slaughtered at Smerwick in Dingle Bay (November 1580), as James Fitzmaurice’s force had been previously. John of Desmond and the Italian commanders had assured Philip only a month before the massacre, that they would require 8000 footmen and large stores of arms before they could effect any useful end. But this would have meant open war with England, and for this he was not prepared. Once more he proved that his advisers were wrong, and that he could only curb Elizabeth with overwhelming force, which he had neither the means nor the desire to employ at the present juncture. He continued to urge upon his new ambassador that she must be kept in a good humour at all costs. It was not an easy task, for she was more defiant than ever now. She knew Philip had his hands full, and the attempted invasion of Ireland was made the most of for years by her, as an excuse for all she did in Flanders and elsewhere to injure him. It was an unfortunate move for Philip, as it afforded Elizabeth a good grievance against him, and forced him into the weak position of having to justify his action by throwing the responsibility upon the pope.

Philip had at this time (1579) special reasons for dreading an open rupture with England, for he had for some time past been planning a stroke which would, if successful, enormously increase his power for harm at{185} sea, in relation to both France and England. In August 1578 Sebastian of Portugal, the only son of Philip’s sister, Juana—as much a victim of atavism as was his cousin, Don Carlos—perished in his mad crusade against the Moors, and his successor on the throne was the aged, childless cardinal, King Henry. He was recognised as being only a stop-gap, and after him the claimants were numerous, mostly descended, although in different degrees, from the king, Don Manoel. The Duchess of Braganza was daughter of his son Duarte, Philip was son of the elder daughter of Don Manoel, the Duke of Savoy was a son of the younger daughter, Beatrix, whilst the children of Alexander Farnese were the offspring of a younger sister of the Duchess of Braganza. The most popular pretender, however, was Don Antonio, Prior of O Crato, an illegitimate son of Luis, a younger son of Don Manoel.

The fundamental laws of Lamego, now believed to be apocryphal, but then accepted as genuine, excluded foreigners from the throne, but Philip asserted that a Spanish king was not a foreigner in Portugal, and began his intrigues for the succession immediately after Sebastian’s death. The Perez party had managed to get the old Duke of Alba disgraced and sent into arrest on an absurdly inadequate charge of conniving at his son’s marriage against the king’s wish, and De Granvelle had remained in honourable exile from Spain for many years. But when the great task of winning Portugal had to be undertaken, Philip knew that glib, brilliant Perez, with his biting tongue and ready pen, was not the instrument he wanted; so the stern soldier and the crafty statesman were recalled to their master’s councils.{186} It was a black day for Perez, although he probably did not realise at the time how fatal it was to be. During the short reign of the cardinal-king, money and intrigue were lavished on all hands to corrupt and terrorise the Portuguese nobles to Philip’s side; the aged king himself was finally worried into his grave by pressure exerted upon him to approve of Philip’s claim, and when he died, the council of regency left by him were by various means coerced into accepting the King of Spain as their sovereign. But not so the Portuguese people or the clergy; they clung, almost all of them, to the Prior of O Crato, the popular native claimant, ambitious, ready, and sanguine, for the Portuguese bitterly hated the Spaniards, and the true native heiress, the Duchess of Braganza, was timid and unready; and before Philip and Alba could arrive Antonio was acclaimed the national sovereign. Around him all that was patriotic grouped itself, and for a short time he ruled as king. Philip was moving on to Portugal with that “leaden foot” of which he was so proud, and by the autumn of 1580 he had reached Badajoz, on the frontier. Here he fell ill of the mysterious disease we call influenza, which was afflicting Europe at the time. His devoted fourth wife, Anne, who accompanied him, prayed that her life might be taken for his. Her prayer was heard. She died (October 25) and Philip lived, but the loss deepened his gloom, and in the two years that he was away from Madrid his yellow beard turned nearly white, and he came back an old and broken man. How his icy heart turned to his children at the time may be seen by the letters he constantly wrote to his elder girls during his absence, full of love and tenderness. However{187} weary and sad he might be, no courier was allowed to leave without playful accounts of his adventures, and kindly little messages to the three orphan children of his last wife. Soon two out of the three followed their mother to the grave, and only three-year-old Philip was left as his father’s heir.

Relentlessly Alba swept down upon Lisbon, as years before he had pounced upon the Netherlands, and crushed the life out of Portuguese patriotism. There was no question of creed to stiffen men’s backs here, no William of Orange to organise and lead them. The yielding Portuguese were made of different stuff from the stubborn “beggars of the sea,” and Alba rode roughshod over them with but little resistance. King Antonio was soon a fugitive, hunted from town to town, holding out for a few weeks in one fortress, only to be starved into another, proclaimed a bastard and a rebel, with a great price upon his head; and yet he wandered for eight months amongst the mountains, safe from betrayal by the peasants whose native king he was. In the meanwhile Philip was solemnly accepted as king by the Portuguese Cortes at Thomar (April 3, 1581) with all the pomp of ancient ceremonial. He was in the deep mourning which he wore for the rest of his life, and he tells his little girls in a letter at the time how his heart turned away from the finery which accompanied him. Then slowly he came to Lisbon to be crowned, whilst the defeated Antonio fled to France and thence to England, to be a thorn in his side for the rest of his life.

The accession of power thus accruing to Philip was a great blow both to England and France. Granvelle{188}’s management of affairs had been so masterly that all legal forms had been complied with in Portugal; the regents and the Cortes had acknowledged Philip as king, and Elizabeth and Catharine had no excuse for open interference, although what could be done by private intrigue was effected. Catharine, indeed, had set up a nebulous far-fetched claim of her own to the Portuguese crown, to obtain some locus standi in the affair, but this did not prevent her from opening her arms to the other claimant, Don Antonio, when he arrived in France. He came to England in July 1581, and was made much of by the queen. In vain did Mendoza, Philip’s ambassador, demand his surrender as a rebel. Elizabeth said that she had not yet made up her mind to help him, though he was no rebel, but King of Portugal, but she had quite decided not to surrender him to be killed. He was too valuable a card in her hand for her to let him go, and she made the most of him. Elizabeth’s and Catharine’s first retort to Philip’s assumption of the Portuguese sovereignty was a pretence of cordial friendship for each other, and the resumption of active negotiations for Elizabeth’s marriage with Alençon. Orange was determined to attract once more to his side the Flemish Catholics, whom Parma’s diplomacy had estranged from the rebel cause. He considered that the best way to do this was to invest Alençon—a Catholic prince—with the sovereignty of the States. Elizabeth would not allow the French as a nation to gain a footing in Flanders, but her plan was to make Alençon dependent upon her in hopes of a marriage, to disarm his brother by the same means, and to secure that any French interference with Flanders must be of Huguenots, under her{189} control. It suited Catharine to play the game for the purpose of reducing Philip to extremities in Flanders, and rendering him less able to resist attack in Portugal, whilst giving him no excuse for an open quarrel with the French nation. All the aid, therefore, given to Don Antonio was in the name of Catharine herself, as a claimant to the Portuguese crown, and both in this matter and in Flemish affairs Henry III. himself affected to stand aloof in disapproval.

It was an artful plan, but it was not to be expected that the Guises would stand by inactive whilst they saw their king’s only brother and heir being drawn further into the toils of the Huguenots and the Protestant Queen of England, and they soon delivered their counter-blow. As Catharine’s enmity to Philip became more pronounced, the Guises had drawn closer to him as the champion of Catholicism, of which cause they were the representatives in France. In February 1580, accordingly, the Archbishop of Glasgow, the Scottish ambassador in Paris, told Philip’s ambassador there that he and Guise had prevailed upon Mary Stuart to place her interests and influence unreservedly in Philip’s hands, and to send her son James to Spain, to have him brought up and married there, as the King of Spain wished. This was very important, because Philip had always been paralysed in his action with regard to Mary by the consideration that her accession to the throne of England would make the Guises—Frenchmen—paramount there. But if Mary and the Guises were henceforward to be his humble servants, the whole position was changed. Vargas, the ambassador, so understood it. “Such,” he says, “is the present condition of England,{190} with signs of revolt everywhere, the queen in alarm, the Catholic party numerous, Ireland disturbed, and distrust aroused by your Majesty’s fleet, ... that if so much as a cat moved, the whole fabric would crumble down in three days, beyond repair.... If your Majesty had England and Scotland attached to you, directly or indirectly, you might consider the States of Flanders conquered, in which case you ... could lay down the law for the whole world.” Guise’s detachment from French interests made all the difference, and this marked a change of Philip’s policy towards England, which, as will be shown, ultimately led him into the quagmire of the Armada. Mary, unfortunately for herself, was always ready for a plot against her enemy; and Beaton assured Vargas shortly afterwards that she would not leave prison except as Queen of England. The Catholics were so numerous, said Beaton, that if they rose, it would be easy, even without assistance; but if the King of Spain helped, the result would be prompt and undoubted. Almost simultaneously with this Morton fell, and the Catholic party in Scotland gained the upper hand.

James’s cousin, D’Aubigny, Lennox, was now paramount in Scotland, and with his connivance the country had been flooded by Jesuit missionaries from seminaries largely depending upon Philip’s bounty. The priests had gone with the single-hearted desire to re-convert Scotland to the faith, and innocent of political aims at first; but the Jesuit organisation, which in its earlier years had met with much opposition from the Spanish clergy, and especially the Inquisition, had now been assimilated with Philip’s policy, and doubtless its leaders{191} foresaw the political uses to which the propaganda might be turned, as certainly did Mary Stuart and Mendoza, Philip’s ambassador in London, who were prime movers in it. Philip was willing enough to accept the tempting offer of Mary and Guise, especially when it reached him soon after in a more direct way by the despatch of Fernihurst by D’Aubigny to Madrid. The death of Vargas, the Spanish ambassador in Paris, shelved the matter for a time, but in April 1581 Mary Stuart reopened negotiations with the new ambassador, Tassis. She assured him, for Philip’s information, that things were never more favourably disposed for Scotland to be taken in hand, with a view to dealing with England subsequently. She begged that a formal alliance should be signed between Scotland and Spain, and that a Spanish force should then be sent to Ireland, to be ready for the invasion of Scotland when summoned. Her son, she said, was determined to return to the Catholic faith, and she intended that he should be sent to Spain for that purpose, and for his marriage to Philip’s satisfaction.

Philip, however, wished to be quite sure that James was sincere in his religious professions before helping him to the English succession. He knew that the King of Scots, young as he was, had already established his fame as a master of deceit. He, James, had told the Jesuit fathers who were labouring in Scotland that “though for certain reasons it was advisable for him to appear publicly in favour of the French, he in his heart would rather be Spanish”; but he knew Father Persons and his companions were sustained by Spanish money, and that his expressions would eventually reach Philip. But, to{192} his mother’s despair, he would never pledge himself too firmly. In January 1582 Mary herself was somewhat doubtful of her son’s religious sincerity. “The poor child,” she said, “is so surrounded by heretics that she had only been able to obtain the assurance that he would listen to the priests she sent him.” For her own part, she was determined that in future she would bind herself and her son exclusively to Philip, and to none other.

James blew hot and cold, and the Catholic nobles began to recognise that he was too slippery to be depended upon; so they came to a very momentous conclusion. They sent Father Holt to London to convey a message to a person to whom he was to be introduced by a disguised priest. To Holt’s surprise and alarm, the person was Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, for he, like most of the missionaries, had up to that time no idea that a political object underlay their propaganda. His message was to the effect that if James remained obstinate, the Catholic nobles had decided to depose him, and either convey him abroad or hold him prisoner until Mary arrived in Scotland. They besought the guidance of Philip in the matter, and begged that 2000 foreign troops might be sent to them to carry out their design. The message was conveyed to Mary in a softened form, in order not to arouse her maternal solicitude, and Mendoza begged Philip to send the troops, “with whom the Scots might encounter Elizabeth, and the whole of the English north country, where the Catholics are in a majority, would be disturbed. The opportunity would be taken by the Catholics in the other parts of the country to rise{193} when they knew they had on their side a more powerful prince than the King of Scotland.”

Philip was on the Portuguese frontier at the time, and De Granvelle was the principal minister in Madrid. He warmly seconded Mendoza’s recommendations that troops should be sent to the Scots Catholics. “The affair is so important,” he says, “both for the sake of religion and to bridle England, that no other can equal it, because by keeping the Queen of England busy we shall be ensured against her helping Alençon or daring to obstruct us in any other way.” The Scots nobles were anxious that the foreign force should not be large enough to threaten their liberties, and De Granvelle agreed with this. “This is not what his Majesty wants, nor do I approve of it, but that we should loyally help the King of Scots and his mother to maintain their rights, and by promoting armed disturbance, keep the Queen of England and the French busy at a comparatively small cost to ourselves, and so enable us to settle our own affairs better.... It is very advantageous that the matter should be taken in hand by the Duke of Guise, as it will ensure us against French obstruction. Since we cannot hope to hold the island for ourselves. Guise will not try to hand it over to the King of France to the detriment of his own near kinswoman.” Thus far it is evident that there was no thought in Philip’s councils of invading and absorbing England in his own dominions.

It will be noted that these new proposals of the Scots Catholics had not been made through Tassis and Guise in Paris, as the previous approaches had been, but through Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in London,{194} who had been very active in the matter of the religious propaganda, and who had entirely gained Mary’s confidence. So long as the negotiations were kept in their hands, all was conducted wisely and prudently, and doubtless some such arrangement as that suggested would have resulted. But the folly of Lennox and the political ineptitude of the Jesuit missionaries frustrated the whole design. In March 1582 the former wrote a foolish letter to Tassis, which he sent to Paris by Creighton, laying bare the whole plan and giving his adhesion to it, but making all manner of inflated demands. Creighton, he said, had promised him 15,000 foreign troops, of which he was to have the command; and he asked for a vast sum of money, and a personal guarantee against loss of fortune. Creighton also sent to Guise and brought him into the business, and Jesuit emissaries were appointed to go direct to Rome and Madrid to ask for aid. Mary and Mendoza were furious, particularly the former, that she should be endangered by her name being used as the head of the conspiracy. Creighton had no authority whatever to promise 15,000 men, nor would the Scottish nobles have accepted such a number, and the idea that Lennox should command them was absurd. Philip took fright at the large number of persons who were now privy to the affair, and gave orders that nothing further was to be done. Guise, ambitious and officious, as usual, also wanted to take a prominent share in the direction of the enterprise. He began to make large and vague proposals for a strong mixed force to be sent from Italy under the papal flag, whilst he and his Frenchmen made a descent upon the coast of Sussex, his evident object{195} being to prevent a purely Spanish expedition being sent. Granvelle and Philip very soon saw whither the affair was drifting, and nipped it in the bud. They had only been induced to listen to it on the assumption that the Guises where to work exclusively for Spanish interests. The moment the contrary appeared, the proposal lost its attractions for them. It is true that at this time Philip had no intention of conquering England for himself, but Mary and James must owe their crown to him alone, and be forced to restore the close alliance between England and the House of Burgundy, or the change would be useless to him. Too much French or Italian aid or Guisan influence spoilt the business for his purpose. But there was still another reason. He had a large number of English Catholic refugees living on pensions from him in France, Flanders, and Spain; and they and Sir Francis Englefield, his English secretary, ceaselessly represented to him their national dislike and distrust of the French, their secular enemies, and their jealousy of any plan that should make the Frenchified Scots masters of England. Almost with one accord the English Catholics urged this view upon Philip and the Spaniards. All England, they said, would welcome a Catholic restoration if it came from their old friends, the Spaniards, but the attempt would fail if it were made under the auspices of their old enemies, the French. Philip’s policy thenceforward gradually changed. With the Raid of Ruthven and the fall of Lennox he saw that for the time the Protestants had conquered, and the plans of the Scottish Catholics were at an end. Guise was to be flattered and conciliated, but all Philip’s efforts in future were to confine his attentions to France, and to alienate{196} him from English and Scottish affairs. He was told how dangerous it would be for him to leave France with the Huguenots in possession, and Spanish support was lavishly promised to him for his ambitious plans at home.

Guise was flattered but dissatisfied, and sent emissaries to Scotland and the pope to endeavour to keep alive the plan of landing foreign troops in Scotland. James pretended to be strongly favourable, but Philip purposely threw cold water on the plans whilst appearing to entertain them, to prevent anything being done without his knowledge. In May 1583 Guise had a new design. Philip and the pope were to find 100,000 crowns, and Guise would have Elizabeth murdered, whilst he landed in England and raised the country. Father Allen and the English exiles frowned upon such “chatter and buckler-play,” as they called it. They would not have any Scotch control over England, they declared, but would rather the affair were carried through by Spaniards.

They had a plan of their own. A Spanish force was to be landed in Yorkshire, accompanied by Westmoreland, Dacre, and other nobles, with Allen as papal nuncio. Guise heard of this, and wished to co-operate by landing 5000 men in the south of England at the same time. He sent word of it to James, who professed to be favourable; he sent Charles Paget in disguise to England to arrange a place for his landing; he despatched an envoy to the pope to ask for money and to explain the whole plan. When Philip learned all this he was naturally angry, and it is clear, from the notes he has scrawled upon the papers sent to him, that he was determined that in future Guise should have nothing more to do with his English and Scottish policy. What{197} opened Philip’s eyes more than anything else was Guise’s pledge to the English Catholics that his one object was to restore religion in England and place Mary Stuart on the throne; “and when this is effected, the foreigners will immediately retire. If any one attempts to frustrate this intention, Guise promises that he and his forces will join the English to compel the foreigners to withdraw.” Well might Philip scatter notes of exclamation around this passage, for thenceforward he knew that in English affairs Guise was his rival, and that Allen and the English Catholics were wise in insisting that England must be taken in hand directly by Spain, and not through Scotland and the Guises. The Marquis of Santa Cruz, Philip’s great admiral, had just scattered the fleet that Catharine de Medici had aided Don Antonio to fit out to hold the Azores; and in the flush of victory he wrote, in August 1583, begging his master to let him conquer England in the name of God and Spain. Philip was not quite ready for this yet, but the idea was germinating, for the English exiles were for ever pointing out that this was the only course, and that his own descent from Edward III. Plantagenet gave him a good claim to the crown after Mary Stuart, her son being excluded by his heresy.

At last, in 1583, Philip instructed his ambassador in Paris to hint discreetly at his claims to the English crown. If he was to keep in close alliance with England, which was necessary for him, it is difficult to see what other course he could have taken. James was out of the question now as a successor to his mother, and Elizabeth’s action in allowing her suitor Alençon to cross over from England to Flanders, and under her{198} auspices receive the investiture of the sovereignty of Philip’s patrimonial domain, proved finally that reconciliation with her personally was impossible. Mendoza, Philip’s ambassador in England, had been implicated in Throgmorton’s plot, and was ignominiously expelled from the country. Thenceforward for twenty years all direct diplomatic relations between the two countries ceased, and a state of war practically existed. Slowly the idea of the invasion of England grew under the influence of the English exiles, but the Scottish Catholics, the Guises, and the papacy were unwearied in their attempts to alter the plan. James himself, seeing how matters were drifting, again feigned a desire to become a Catholic, and sent fervent protestations to Philip and the pope, whilst Guise continued to urge his plan for a landing in Scotland and an invasion of England over the Border under James. The English exiles declared that, if such a course were taken the English Catholics themselves would resist the invasion, as they were determined the Scots should not rule their country. At last Philip had seriously to warn the pope that, if the English affair was to be effected, it must be done by Spain in a very powerful way, and with large money aid from the pope, Guise being told from Rome that he must not leave France, where he might serve the Catholic cause better than elsewhere. To aid in this Philip took care to promote religious disturbance in France, which would paralyse Henry III. and the Huguenots from helping Elizabeth, and Guise from promoting the interests of his kinsman James.

Sixtus V. was elected pope as the result of a secret intrigue, after the nominees of Philip and the French{199} had both been set aside. He was therefore not a humble instrument of the Spanish policy, and was a wise, frugal, and moderate pontiff, ambitious to signalise his reign by some great religious service, but not desirous of serving Philip’s political ends. The College of Cardinals was divided into three parties: those who were strongly in favour of the French view, which aimed at an arrangement with Elizabeth and James, and desired to exclude Spanish influence from England; those who were for Philip through thick and thin; and the “politicals,” who went with the stronger party.

Olivares, the ambassador, and the Spanish cardinals were bold and untiring in forwarding Philip’s wishes; but the pope was to be carefully kept in the dark with regard to his intention to claim the English crown for himself. The cause of religion was invoked as being his only motive, inconvenient points were left indefinite, with the certainty that Caraffa, the secretary of state, would take a pro-Spanish view when the time came. It was to be hinted to the pope that Philip could not undertake the invasion to benefit the heretic James, and that the cause of religion demanded that a sovereign whose orthodoxy was undoubted should be substituted for him as Mary’s successor; but, if the pope asked questions as to who was indicated, only vague answers were to be given to him. At last, partly by cajolery, partly by threats, Olivares contrived to obtain a written pledge that the pope would give the investment of the English realm to the person to be nominated by Philip, and would subscribe 1,000,000 gold crowns to the enterprise, the first instalment of which was only to be paid after the landing on English soil. Sixtus was only brought{200} to this after infinite haggling and misgiving, for Olivares represents him in most insulting and undiplomatic language to Philip, as a silly, miserly, petulant, garrulous old man, which probably meant that the pontiff did not meekly accept the orders of the arrogant minister, at all events without some slight hesitation. Philip was told that the pope did not dream that the crown of England would be claimed by him, but that when he learned the truth he would certainly oppose it. To this the invariable reply was that he must be shown how necessary it was for a good Catholic to be chosen to succeed Mary, and, if he mentioned the name of any particular person, he was to be reminded that he had agreed to abide by Philip’s nomination.

In the meanwhile Allen and the English pensioners continued to propagate the idea of Philip’s own right by birth to succeed Mary owing to the heresy of James, and this view was forced upon Mary herself by Mendoza and her confidants in Paris, who were all in Philip’s pay. At length she was convinced, and in June 1586 she wrote to Mendoza in Paris, giving the important news that by her will she had disinherited her son in favour of the King of Spain.

Just previous to this, Ballard had called upon Mendoza in Paris, and said he had been sent by certain Catholic gentlemen in England to say that they had arranged to kill Elizabeth, either by poison or steel, and they begged for Philip’s countenance and reward after the deed was done. This was the first word of the Babington plot, and after the reception of Mary’s important letter by Mendoza, Gifford arrived in Paris, and gave full particulars of the widespread conspiracy for Philip{201}’s information. By this time too many people were concerned in the affair to please Philip’s stealthy methods. Mendoza’s zeal had already outrun his discretion; he had written a letter to the conspirators hotly approving the design as one “worthy of the ancient valour of Englishmen,” and promising them ample support from the Netherlands when the deed was done. He proposed, further, that they should kill Don Antonio and his adherents, Cecil, Walsingham, Hunsdon, Knollys, and Beal. Philip was not squeamish, but even he disapproved of the proposal to murder Cecil, who, he said, was “very old and had done no harm.” His approval of the rest of the plan is very characteristic of him. “The affair is so much in God’s service that it certainly deserves to be supported, and we must hope that our Lord will prosper it, unless our sins be an impediment thereto.” He for his part will do all that is asked of him “as soon as the principal execution is effected. Above all, that should be done swiftly.” But he blamed Mendoza for his incautious letters, and expressed fears that they might be betrayed. He himself was so careful of secrecy that he even kept the matter from Farnese. He sent two letters for him to Mendoza, the first simply instructing him to prepare the forces, and the other only to be delivered after the queen’s murder, giving him final instructions as to their destination. This was in September 1586, and before Mendoza received the letters Walsingham’s heavy hand had fallen on the conspirators. It was all confessed, the letters had been intercepted, the great conspiracy was unmasked, and Mary Stuart’s doom was sealed, whilst Mendoza’s proved complicity still further embittered Elizabeth against Philip.{202}

CHAPTER XV

THE principle of a direct Spanish invasion of England had now been adopted by Philip as the only means of getting rid of Elizabeth, and again uniting the country to him in a close alliance. He clearly foresaw that the absorption of Great Britain into his own dominions would be resisted to the last by France, the pope, and most of the Italian princes, as well as by Protestants everywhere, and that the opposition would be too strong for him to overcome. He therefore decided to nominate as sovereign his favourite elder daughter, Isabel Clara Eugenia, whose mother, it will be recollected, was a French princess, and a daughter of Catharine de Medici. He probably thought by this nomination to minimise the opposition of France, and that the pope would be conciliated.{203}

The Scottish Catholics and Guise, however, did not relish the changed position. They were being thrust further and further into the background, and they accordingly made a determined attempt once again to place themselves in the forefront. Guise saw that the influence of the Scottish-French party in the Vatican and near Philip was powerless to overcome that of the Jesuits, Allen and the English exiles, supplemented by Philip’s own interests, and he therefore intrigued for the pressure to be brought to bear from Scotland itself upon Philip. He arranged for Huntly, Morton, and Claude Hamilton to send an emissary, Robert Bruce, under his (Guise’s) auspices to Philip, offering him, if they where supported, to restore the Catholic religion in Scotland, to compel James to become a Catholic, and to release Mary, and, above all, “to deliver into his Majesty’s hands at once, or when his Majesty thinks fit, one or two good ports in Scotland near the English border to be used against the Queen of England.” They asked for 6000 foreign troops paid for a year and 150,000 crowns to equip their own clansmen.

There had been great difference of opinion in Philip’s councils as to the advisability of invading England through Scotland or direct. It was conceded that the former would be more convenient, but that for the reasons already stated it would be unpopular with the English Catholics. But Santa Cruz and all of Philip’s most experienced advisers had continued to urge upon him the need of having some ports of refuge in the Channel or the North Sea; and the offer of the Scottish nobles seemed to provide this, as well as furnishing a diversion in the north, which would greatly harass{204} Elizabeth. Bruce arrived in Madrid in September 1586, and met with kindly but vague encouragement from Philip, who suggested that Bruce should go to Rome and ask the pope for the money, which he knew to be impracticable. In fact, the plans of the Armada were now matured and in full preparation, and although the offer of the Scottish lords was tempting, Philip was determined that Guise should have no share in his enterprise. Farnese and Mendoza were requested to report upon the proposal, with a view of obtaining, if possible, the advantages offered by the Scots without Guise’s interference. Mendoza was strongly favourable; Farnese was cool and doubtful. He resented Philip’s half confidence in him, and perhaps also the complete ignoring of his children’s claim to the English crown, which was at least as good as Philip’s. He declined to give an opinion until he knew what were Philip’s real intentions in the invasion.

Mendoza was strongly in favour of immediately closing with the Scottish offer. He pointed out that to attack England by sea was to strike her in her strongest place, whilst a disaster to the Armada, in which all the national resources had been pledged, would bring irretrievable ruin. But Philip and Farnese were slow, and wanted all sorts of guarantees and assurances, which kept Bruce in Flanders and France for months, whilst his principals, sick of vague half-promises, lost heart, and talked of going over to the Protestant side, on a pledge that their religion should be tolerated. Then Bruce was sent back with 10,000 crowns to freight a number of small boats at Leith and send them to Dunkirk for Parma’s troops; and the 150,000 crowns demanded by{205} the Scottish lords were promised when they rose. This was kept from Guise, but he knew all about it from his spies in Scotland, and was intensely wroth. Catharine de Medici also learnt of the matter, and thought it a good opportunity of ridding herself of Guise and checkmating Philip at the same time. She therefore offered Guise a large subsidy if he would go and help his kinsman James to the crown. He thought wiser, however, to divulge the Spanish plot to James himself. Elizabeth also informed James, so that when Bruce arrived in Scotland the artful young king was forewarned, and was only vaguely courteous in his reception of the hints that the Spaniard would help him to avenge his mother. He was indeed now surrounded by Protestant ministers, and fully understood that he had more to hope for from Elizabeth than from Philip, a view indeed which Elizabeth and her party lost no opportunity of impressing upon him.

In the meanwhile the execution of Mary Stuart had somewhat altered Philip’s position in relation to England. It became now necessary that the question of his title to the crown should be settled at once, and the pope was cautiously approached with the suggestion that he should give the investiture to the Infanta Isabel. Allen was employed to assure his Holiness of the desire of the English Catholics that she should be their sovereign, and to ply him with genealogical essays and pedigrees proving her right. Cardinal Deza too, the savage bigot who had so fiercely harried the Moriscos in Andalucia, was prompted to inflame the pope’s zeal by showing him that only under Philip’s auspices could Catholicism be firmly established in England. In the meanwhile the{206} Scottish party, led by Chisholm, Bishop of Dunblane, with the English Pagets and others, were full of plans for converting James. One persuasive churchman after another was sent to tackle him, but the wily Stuart was not to be caught, and it came to nothing. Philip expressed and showed the deepest grief for the death of Mary Stuart, and fulfilled her dying wishes most scrupulously, at great cost to himself. There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of his sorrow, especially as her death added considerably to the immediate difficulties he had to overcome. Whilst the intrigues continued in Rome—on Philip’s side to obtain further aid from the pope, to secure the appointment of Allen as cardinal, and the recognition of the Infanta as Queen of England, and on the other side to secure the pontiff’s support of the Franco-Scottish plans for James Stuart’s conversion, or even an arrangement with Elizabeth—through all the year 1587 the ports and arsenals of Spain and Portugal were busy with the preparations for the great expedition. Don Antonio was in England now, clamouring for armed aid against his enemy, his every action watched by Philip’s spies; and from them news reached Spain that a considerable force was being fitted out under Drake in England in Antonio’s interests again to attack the Azores, or to plunder the treasure ships from the Indies. But suddenly the dreaded Drake with his fleet appeared off Cadiz on April 18.[2] Elizabeth had{207} only with great unwillingness allowed him to sail for Spain, and had warned him not to do too much harm, but to watch what was being done. As usual, as soon as he was out of sight of England he took his own course, placed his vice-admiral, Borough, under arrest for reminding him not to exceed the queen’s orders, and entered Cadiz harbour, to the dismay of the Spaniards. He plundered, burned, and sunk all the ships in the port, and destroyed all the stores he could lay hands upon, and then quietly sailed out again unmolested. He did damage to the extent of a million ducats, and if he had disobeyed the queen’s orders still further, he might have stopped the Armada for good, by burning the ships in Lisbon, for we now know from Santa Cruz’s own confession that there were no men or guns on board to protect them. But he no doubt thought he had done enough, for he knew that his mistress was now engaged in peace negotiations with Farnese on account of Philip.[3] The English commissioners, the traitor Crofts, controller of the household, amongst them, after endless bickering and delay, arranged a place of meeting agreeable to both parties, and every effort to drag matters out was made by Farnese, in order to give Philip more time for preparations, whilst the English were to be lulled by false hopes of peace. How far Elizabeth herself was deceived in these negotiations is uncertain, but the commissioners,{208} and the experienced Dr. Dale with them, were not very long before they came to the conclusion that they were insincere. The most extraordinary element in the case is that Farnese was at first ignorant of Philip’s real intention, and wrote strongly urging the king to let him make peace in earnest and abandon his plans for the invasion of England. From first to last, indeed, Farnese had no heart or belief in the enterprise. He foresaw all the difficulties which ultimately befell it and more, and, although he vehemently justified himself for his share in the catastrophe, his contemporaries were firm in the belief that he purposely failed to do his best. It is certain, from frequent complaints in his letters, that he considered himself aggrieved, and resented the cool half-confidence with which his uncle treated him. “How can I,” he says, “give sound advice or make fitting arrangements unless I am informed of the real objects in view?”

In the early spring of 1586 Santa Cruz had furnished a complete estimate of all that would be required for the Armada—a perfect monument of knowledge and foresight. There were to be 150 great ships, 320 smaller vessels of from 50 to 80 tons each, 40 galleys and 6 galleasses, 556 in all, besides 240 flat boats and pinnaces. There were to be 30,000 seamen and 63,890 soldiers, with 1600 horses; and the extra expenditure was calculated at 3,800,000 ducats. But to concentrate so powerful a force as this in Spain itself was too great a task for Philip’s haste, and he took the first fatal step by arranging that one-half was to be raised by Farnese in Flanders, for now Philip, like most slow men when they have once made up their minds, was in a desperate hurry. For thirty{209} years he had driven his most faithful servants to despair by his stolid impassibility to English insult and aggression. He had seen his colonies sacked, his commerce destroyed by English privateers; he had been robbed of treasure beyond calculation, and suffered every imaginable insult from a queen whom he could have crushed a dozen times over in the earlier years of her reign. Leicester, who had fawned upon him, and had sworn eternal fealty to him, had commanded an army against him in his own territory; and the English privy councillors, who for years had battened on his bribes, had connived at the placing on the brows of a foreigner one of his own ancestral crowns. He had stood all this without revolt, in the face of his councillors, but, when at last he had lifted his ponderous “leaden foot,” he must needs do things in haste. Santa Cruz, old sailor as he was, could ill brook divided command with Parma, knowing that he must in the end take second place, and he became discontented and jealous at the alterations of his plans. He urged—as did every one else—that some safe ports of refuge must first be secured in the North Sea; but Philip was in a hurry, and trusted to happy chance. In September 1587 Santa Cruz received his instructions. He was to go direct to Margate and protect the passage of Parma’s troops across, and he was on no account to allow himself to be diverted from this course until he had joined hands with Parma. In vain the old sailor represented the danger of adopting this plan until they could be sure of harbours of refuge in case of need. The king still hoped to beguile the English with thoughts of peace, and answered with harsh hauteur Santa Cruz’s assurance that hurry meant failure.{210} The old hero, who would have stood unmoved before an army, incontinently went home and died of a broken heart (February 1588). Philip so rarely said a hasty word, that when he did so, the effect was terrible.

The commanders and nobles on the Armada were jealous and quarrelsome, already chafing at the delay and appalling mismanagement which resulted from Philip’s insistence that all details must go through him. The only man whose rank and power would ensure respect from all of them was the most splendid noble in Spain, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, who was under orders to take the Andalucian squadron from Cadiz to Lisbon; and him Philip appointed to the command. He protested plaintively, and truly, that he was entirely unfit for the task. He had no experience or knowledge of the sea, he was always sea-sick, and had no mental capacity which fitted him to a great command. Philip probably knew this as well as the duke, or even the duchess, who was very emphatic on the subject; but it suited him, he thought, to have such a man, because he would be certain to obey the king’s orders strictly, and Philip was anxious, as usual, to control the whole expedition with unerring precision from his cell in the Escorial, hundreds of miles away. When the duke arrived in Lisbon he found everything in utter confusion. Arms, ammunition, stores, and men were short. Orders given had not been fulfilled, and many weeks passed before Medina Sidonia could report that all was ready, notwithstanding the king’s urgent requests that not a day should be lost. The most trifling matters were considered and decided by the king himself in Madrid. Nothing could be done without him. The stronger sorts of wine must{211} be mixed with a certain quantity of water; the men on the fleet must be confessed and take the communion before sailing, and must not use bad language; no private berths or bunks must be erected on the ships, and scores of similar orders were sent from Madrid solemnly signed by the king, whilst the duke was praying for men, money, and stores, and the victuallers, with the connivance of the pursers, were shipping rotten food, fraudulent both in quantity and quality. At length in April the preparations had sufficiently advanced for Philip to send his final instructions to the duke. He is reminded that he is going on a holy errand in God’s service, and divine aid may therefore be counted upon. He is to go direct to Margate and then join hands with the Duke of Parma and protect his passage across, and is not to be diverted from this even if he hears that Drake has come to Spain. If possible, he was to send to Parma the promised contingent of 6000 soldiers; and, if by any mishap he could not join hands with him, he was to capture the Isle of Wight, and then communicate with Parma, who, in union with him, would settle the next step. With this instruction a very important closed despatch was sent, to be delivered to Parma only after he had landed in England.

This despatch is of the greatest possible interest as fixing definitely what where Philip’s ultimate aims in the invasion, and the irreducible minimum with which he would have been satisfied. If Parma found that conquest was not easy, and considered it advisable to make peace, there were three points upon which he was to base his negotiations. First, that free exercise of the Catholic religion should be allowed; secondly, that the{212} fortresses occupied by the English in the Netherlands should be restored to him; and, thirdly, that the damage done to Spain and Spanish subjects should be made good. The third condition was to be used mainly as a lever to obtain the other two; but the first condition, namely, religious toleration, was to be the main object, and with this, as a last resource, Philip would have been contented.

On April 25 the sacred standard was delivered to Medina Sidonia with great pomp in Lisbon. Rogations, prayers, fastings, and propitiatory masses were performed ceaselessly, not only on board the Armada, but all over Spain. In the most solemn manner the soldiers and sailors were inflamed with the idea that they were God’s own chosen warriors, going under His divine protection to restore the faith to millions of English people, who were yearning for their coming—to millions held in subjection by a wicked queen and a few heretics. The weather was bad—like December, said the duke,—and it was May 30 before the great fleet could be got out of the Tagus. Head winds and heavy weather kept them off the coast—some of the ships drifting as far down as Cape St. Vincent—for a fortnight. By that time the victuals on board were going bad and running short. Many had to be thrown overboard, and sickness began to prevail, mainly in consequence of overcrowding and putrid food and water. By June 14, when the duke was off Finisterre, it became evident that if the expedition was to continue, fresh provisions would have to be obtained, and despatch boats were sent to the ports begging that supplies might be sent to them. Before they could{213} reach the fleet—June 19—a heavy gale came on, and the duke’s flagship, with forty other vessels, ran for refuge into Corunna. During the night it blew a hurricane, and the rest of the ships, scattered as they were and unable to bear up to windward, were driven far apart and in great peril. Some of them ran into various Biscay and Galician ports, others were driven as far north as the Scilly Isles and the English coast, many were badly damaged, and for days the fate of the majority of them was uncertain. The duke lost what little heart he had for the expedition, and seriously advised the king to abandon it. It had been proved now that the water was putrid and insufficient, the food rotten, except the rice, and that fraud of the most shameful description had been practised by the victuallers. The officers, said the duke, did not know their duty; the whole force was disorganised and too weak to undertake the task in hand. This was a counsel of despair, and Philip’s only answer was that not a moment was to be lost in revictualling and refitting the fleet and proceeding on the voyage. The rough old sea-dogs on the fleet—Bertondona, Recalde, and Oquendo—were scornful at the timid fine gentlemen who surrounded them and trembled at the perils of the sea. They had been breasting the gales of the North Atlantic since they were boys, and could not understand the doubts and fears which assailed the crowds of silken-clad landsmen who swarmed on board and got in the way of the sailormen. The king had appointed a council of officers to advise the duke. Don Pedro de Valdes was for sailing at once, before even waiting for the scattered ships to come in. This annoyed the duke,{214} who was all for delay, and Don Pedro himself ascribed to this feeling his subsequent abandonment and capture by the English. The king continued to urge Medina Sidonia to activity, sometimes almost chidingly, and at last, tired of the obviously wilful delay, he gave peremptory orders that the Armada was to sail at once. The men were once more confessed and absolved, and finally on July 22 (N.S.), 1588, the great fleet left Corunna harbour, not without grave misgivings of the timid duke, which were openly scoffed at by the sailors. The whole fleet consisted of 131 sail, with 7050 sailors, 17,000 soldiers, and 1300 officers, gentlemen-adventurers, priests, and servants. The four galleys soon found themselves unable to live through the Biscay seas and abandoned the Armada, taking refuge in various French and Spanish ports. The rest of the fleet first sighted the Lizard at four o’clock in the afternoon of Friday, July 30 (N.S.). The moment land was discovered the blessed flag with the crucifix, the Virgin, and the Magdalen was hoisted, and signals fired that every man on board the fleet should join in prayer. Then a council was called, and for the first time the admirals were informed of the king’s orders. They were dismayed to find that they were to sail up the Channel to the Straits of Dover, leaving Plymouth, and perhaps the English fleet, behind them untouched. Recalde warned the duke against ruining the king’s cause by a too slavish obedience to his orders, and almost violently urged him to attack and take Plymouth before going further. The duke replied that “the king had ordered him strictly to join hands with Parma before anything else, and he had no discretion in the matter;{215} nor was he so vain as to suppose that the king would allow him to violate his commands on this, his first expedition.” The commanders, however, sufficiently worked on the duke’s fears to prevail upon him to write to the king that night, saying that as he had not received any reply from Parma to all his despatches, he purposed to remain off the Isle of Wight until he heard whether the Flemish forces were quite ready, because, as they had no ports of refuge in the Channel, he could not wait for Parma off the shoally Flemish coast.

The first panic in England had been succeeded by feverish activity; all that could inflame patriotic zeal was done. The Spaniards, it was said, were bringing cargoes of scourges and instruments of torture, all adults were to be put to death, and 7000 wet-nurses were coming in the Armada to suckle the orphan infants. Such nonsense as this was firmly believed, and the echoes of it have not even yet entirely died out. Corporations and individuals vied with each other in providing means for defence; but withal the land forces, assembled in two corps d’armée, one on each side of the Thames, were but hasty levies, half drilled and armed, and commanded by the incompetent Leicester. The queen was personally popular, but if Parma had landed and she had fallen, it is probable that there would have been no great resistance on the part of the people at large to the adoption of the Catholic religion. They had changed too often to care very much about it, if they were allowed to go about their business without molestation and had a firm, peaceful government. Parma had from the first insisted that his force was purely for land warfare, and his boats were merely flat-bottom barges{216} for the transport of his men. He had been kept terribly short of money, and had borrowed the last ducat he could get at most usurious interest. His army, moreover, was small for the work it had to do, and he continued to insist that he must have the 6000 Spanish soldiers from the Armada which had been promised him. The English fleets consisted of 197 sail in all, with, at most, 18,000 men on board. Most of these ships—as also was the case with the Spaniards—were small cargo boats, lightly armed, and quite unfit for severe fighting. The largest Spanish ship, the Regazona, was 1249 tons burden, and the largest English ship, the Triumph, 1100 tons, but, generally speaking, the Spanish fighting ships were much larger, as they certainly were of much higher build than the English, the tactics of the latter always being to fire low into the hulls of their opponents and avoid grappling and boarding, which they could do, as their lines were finer and the vessels much more handy.

The Armada sailed up Channel in a curved line seven miles in extent, with a light west wind, and at dawn on Sunday the English fleet was sighted off Plymouth to the number of about fifty sail. The latter soon gained the wind, and began firing into the Spanish rear-squadron. Then began the memorable series of skirmishes which decided the fate of Europe for all time to come. The Spanish ships were out-manœuvred from the first. They found that the English vessels could sail round them easily, their superior speed and sailing qualities enabling them to harass their enemies without coming to close quarters. It was purely artillery fighting, and in this the English were immensely superior. The Spaniards shouted defiance and taunts that the{217} English were afraid of them and dared not approach. Drake and Howard knew where their strength lay; kept the wind and followed the Armada, always harassing the rear and flanks. Recalde’s flagship of the rear-squadron was for a time exposed to the united fire of seven English galleons and became almost a wreck. This first fight on Sunday demoralised the Spaniards. They felt they were fighting a defensive battle and were running away from the enemy. The contempt for their commander, and the knowledge of their helplessness, crept over them like a paralysis. When late in the afternoon the duke gave orders for the squadrons to be re-formed and proceed on their way, Recalde’s damaged ship was found to be unable to keep up with them. Don Pedro de Valdes went to her assistance, and in doing so fouled one of his own ships, breaking his bowsprit and foremast. His ship too became unmanageable. She had 500 men on board and a large amount of treasure. An attempt was made to take her in tow, but unsuccessfully. Night was coming on, and the duke himself wanted to get away from the English, who hung upon his rear only a couple of miles away. He would fight no more that night if he could help it, and he abandoned two of the finest ships of his fleet without striking a blow. Then Oquendo’s great ship, Our Lady of the Rose, was accidentally blown up, and soon became a blazing wreck. The duke ordered the men and treasure to be taken out of her and the ship sunk. But the heart of the crews had gone, and such was the panic, that the unwounded survivors scrambled out of the ship as best they might, leaving the vessel and their scorched and wounded comrades to their fate. And so from day{218} to day the spirits of the men fell as they realised their powerlessness, and the Armada crept up the Channel with the English fleet always hanging on their rear and to windward of them. Every day the duke sent beseeching letters to Parma to come out and help him. Parma was indignant. Help him! How could he help him with flat-bottom barges that would not stand a freshet, much less a gale? Besides, said he, the arrangement was that you were to help me, not I help you. Justin of Nassau, with the Dutch fleet, moreover, was watching as a cat watches a mouse, and Parma could not stir. The officers sent by the duke declared that Parma was not ready to come out, even if the Armada had fulfilled its task. He gave them the lie, and with one of them nearly came to blows. What if he had no water, or guns, or food on his boats? They were only barges to carry men across, and were not meant either for fighting or for a voyage of more than a few hours. Besides, how could he come out with the wind dead in his teeth and Nassau and Seymour watching him? And so on Sunday, August 7 (N.S.), just one week after the Lizard was sighted, the great Spanish fleet was huddled, all demoralised and confused, in Calais roads, at anchor, whilst the duke in vain sent hourly petitions to Parma to come out and reinforce him. The crews were ripe for panic now, and when at midnight eight fireships came flaring down upon them with the wind from the English fleet, the duke seems to have lost his head. He did not tow the fireships out of reach, in accordance with his own previous instructions, but gave orders for his cables to be cut. All the great ships had two anchors each out, and these were left at the bottom{219} of the sea, whilst the invincible Armada crowded and hurtled away. The duke’s intention had been to come back in the morning, pick up his anchors, and resume his position until Parma could come out. But if Parma was shut up before, when only Lord Henry Seymour and Justin of Nassau were watching him, much less could he stir now that the lord admiral and Drake had joined Seymour.

The duke brought up in a dangerous position near Gravelines, and when the morning of Monday dawned he found his fleet scattered and demoralised, with a stiff west wind blowing and most of his ships drifted far to leeward. He had only forty ships with him now—one of his great galleasses, the San Lorenzo, had been wrecked at the mouth of Calais harbour in the confusion of the night—to fight the united English fleets. The engagement was terrible, lasting from nine o’clock in the morning till six o’clock at night, the English tactics continuing to be the same, keeping up a tremendous artillery fire on particular ships until they were utterly crippled. The Spaniards fought desperately, but they could rarely come to close quarters, and their gunnery was greatly inferior to the English. The result, consequently, was never in doubt. The duke’s ship was in the hottest of the fight, and her decks were like shambles, for she had been hit by 107 shot. At the end of the dreadful day she and her consorts were utterly beaten and riddled; two of the finest galleons, completely unseaworthy, drifted on to the Flemish coast and were captured, and at dawn on Tuesday what was left of the Armada was dragging heavily in a strong westerly gale, with sandbanks on the lee. All spirit and discipline{220} were lost now. The one idea was to get away from these “devilish people,” who would only fight with big guns and would not come to close quarters. The duke himself was for surrender, but Oquendo swore he would throw overboard the first man who attempted such a thing. He brought his ship alongside the duke’s and yelled sailor curses upon the landlubber that wanted to run away. “Go back to your tunny ponds, you chicken-hearted craven,” he cried again and again; and so the poor duke, in complete collapse, shut himself in his cabin and was seen no more till he arrived in Spain. At noon a providential—the Spaniards called it miraculous—wind came from the south-west, and they were able to weather the dreaded shoals. Oquendo and the old sailors were now for turning about and fighting again. But the duke had had enough fighting for the rest of his life, and would have no more. Besides, there was no ammunition on most of the ships. So the fatal order was given to run up the North Sea with the wind to the north of the Orkneys, make a long leg to the west, far out into the Atlantic, and thence set a course for home. Off the Scottish border the English fleet left them to their fate. Assailed by tempests almost unexampled, rotting with pestilence, the water quite putrid now and the food worse, they struggled to the north and west. Many fell off to leeward and were seen no more; many sank riddled like sieves in the wild Atlantic gales; seventeen could not beat far enough to the west and were dashed to pieces on the frowning coasts of Ulster and Connaught, where the men who escaped drowning were slaughtered—several thousands of them—by the English garrisons and the wild Irish kerns.{221} Only sixty-five ships ever got back to Spain, and of the 24,000 men who sailed, full of hope that they were going on a sacred crusade to certain victory, only 10,000 poor, starved, stricken creatures crept back to Santander.

A wail of grief went up through Spain. The little-hearted duke abandoned his ships and men as soon as he sighted Spanish land, and went to his home in the south in shameful, selfish luxury, with the curses and insults of a whole populace ringing in his ears. Some said it was Parma’s jealousy that caused the disaster, others that it was the duke’s cowardice. Be it as it may, the old sailors, Oquendo and Recalde, who had borne themselves like the heroes that they were, died of grief and shame as soon as they brought their battered hulls to port.

It is difficult to apportion the blame, but one thing is certain, that the germ of the disaster lay in Philip’s rigid, blighting system, by which everything, great and small, had to be worked by one weary, overburdened man from a cell in the Escorial. Spain might curse and clamour for vengeance, but Philip said not a word. He saw the efforts and hopes of years scattered like scudding clouds. He saw his impotence made patent to a scoffing world. He saw his enemies exulting in his downfall, and his rebel Netherlanders at last free from his grasp. He saw his treasury empty and his credit ruined, for the pope himself mocked him, and refused to pay the subsidy he had promised, because the conditions had not been fulfilled. He saw himself an old and ailing man, with only a dull child to succeed him; and yet in the face of all this his marble equanimity never left him. He had, he said, only striven to{222} do God’s work, and if God in His inscrutable wisdom had ordained that he should fail, he could only humbly bow his head to the divine decree and bless Him for all things.

There was no defeat for such a man as this; and he could afford to be generous and magnanimous, as he was, to the men whose shortcomings were the immediate cause of the great catastrophe which ruined the power of a nation, but could not break the faith or spirit of a man who regarded himself as the fly-wheel of the machine by which the Almighty worked the earth.{223}

CHAPTER XVI

WHEN Don Antonio fled from Portugal in 1581, Elizabeth and Catharine de Medici vied with each other in the welcome they extended to him. The English queen gave him a pension, and he was splendidly lodged at Eton College, Somerset House, and elsewhere at her expense. Hopes were held out to him that a fleet should be raised in England for him to hold those isles of the Azores which continued favourable to him and capture the rest. He was encouraged to pledge his priceless jewels, the finest in the world, and whilst his money lasted, privateers and ships were busily fitted out in his name. But though most of the gems were ultimately juggled into the hands of Elizabeth and Leicester, the queen had always stopped short of allowing a hostile fleet openly to leave her shores to attack Philip in the pretender’s interest.{224}

Antonio at last got tired of this, and with some difficulty fled to France. There he found Catharine more ready. He promised her the great empire of Brazil in exchange for aid, and in 1582 a fleet was got together under her auspices, commanded by her cousin, Philip Strozzi. In August the small Spanish garrison at St. Michaels was surrounded by 1500 Frenchmen on shore, and Strozzi’s fleet of about 40 ships lay off to blockade the island. Suddenly Santa Cruz’s squadron appeared, somewhat stronger than Strozzi’s. Antonio seems to have lost heart and fled in the night with some of the ships; the English privateers which were expected to join Strozzi did not put in an appearance; Santa Cruz fell upon the French fleet and utterly destroyed it, Strozzi being killed; and every prisoner who fell into the hands of the Spaniards instantly slaughtered. They had no commission from the King of France, and were treated as pirates. But Catharine was bent upon troubling her late son-in-law to the utmost, and Antonio still had jewels to pledge, so in the following year another fleet was got together in France, under Aymar de Chaste, to hold Terceira. The French were received with open arms by the islanders who were firm for Antonio, but Santa Cruz swooped upon this fleet, as he had done on the previous one, with a similar result, and Catharine became convinced that the Azores, the key as they were to Philip’s western empire, were his least vulnerable point whilst his fleets held the sea. But this attitude of the French queen and her son, and the open patronage and aid she gave to her younger son, Alençon, in his attempts with Huguenot help to seize the sovereignty{225} of the Netherlands, convinced Philip that, unless something was done to withstand the advance of the Protestant power in France, he would in time find himself surrounded by opponents on all sides. He did his best to dispose of some of his personal enemies. He approved of Babington’s plot to kill Elizabeth, he subsidised many unsuccessful attempts to murder Don Antonio, and certainly two to assassinate the Prince of Orange, one nearly successful, before the final foul blow was struck by Gérard in 1584. It is evident, however, from the manner in which he usually received such proposals, that he did not deceive himself as to the inefficacy of murder as a political method. He treated it merely as a palliative, to be used in conjunction with broader action. From the time when it became evident that Catharine and her son mainly leant to the side of the Huguenots and the politicians, and that Henry of Navarre, the head of the reformers in France and the hereditary enemy of the House of Aragon, would probably succeed to the crown of France, some bolder action than assassination was necessary for Philip.

It has been seen how close had grown the connection between him and the Guises, and how cleverly he had worked upon their hopes and fears to bring them entirely under his thumb. Alternate flattery, bribes, and veiled threats at length made Guise the humble servant of Spain. It suited Philip to feed his ambitious dream of grasping all, or part, of the French realm, to promise and pay him great subsidies, as he did, to carry on war in his own country, because, in the first place, it weakened Catharine and the Huguenots; and, secondly, it left Philip a free hand in England and Scotland. By the{226} aid of Spanish money and his own dashing popularity, Guise began by completely gaining to his side the mob of Paris, and then through all France the Catholic party was gradually drawn into a great organisation, which enabled Guise to treat with Philip on something like reciprocal terms. By the spring of 1585 the bases of the Holy League had been established. The idea was an ambitious one, but doubtless many of its principal adherents had no inkling of how completely the ultimate object of the whole organisation was designed for the furthering of Philip’s political ends, under cover of a purely religious movement. The dismemberment of France under his auspices would have been a master-stroke of policy, and such a consummation seemed at one time to be almost a certainty. To begin with, an attempt was made to seduce Henry of Navarre into the League; but he was wary and would not be caught, and consequently, in Philip’s view, must be crushed. If he had consented to be satisfied with Béarn and the south-west, Guise might well have had the east, the Duke of Savoy Provence, and Philip’s daughter, Isabel, in right of her mother, would have inherited Brittany, whilst Philip would have had a slice of Picardy and French Flanders. When it was found that Henry of Navarre would not be cajoled into abandoning any portion of his rightful claim to the whole realm, the League and Philip induced Sixtus V. to fulminate his famous bull (September 1585) excommunicating him, his cousin Condé, “and the whole of this bastard and detestable race of Bourbon.” They and theirs were to be deprived of all their principalities for ever, and the excommunication extended to all their adherents. Henry’s reply was as{227} violent as the provocation. “The man who calls himself Pope Sixtus is himself a liar and a heretic.” It only needed this bull again to set flame to the smouldering ashes of the religious war. Henry III. had already been forced into signing the infamous treaty of Nemours, depriving the Huguenots of all toleration, and he became for a time, with bitter hatred in his heart, the bond-slave of Guise. The poor wretch tried in his weak, silly way to get free by forming fresh connections with Elizabeth, with the German Lutherans, with Henry of Navarre, but no party took much notice of him now, and the war went on, the king being a fugitive from his own capital, and Philip afar off smiling at the success of his schemes for setting his neighbours by the ears and paralysing the arms of France that might help Elizabeth against the Armada. For one moment it looked possible, after Philip’s weakness had been demonstrated at sea, that all Frenchmen might band together, forget their dissensions, and turn upon the common enemy; but Guise was tied hard and fast to Philip by this time, and his ambitions were high. The Paris mob was at his bidding, and the clergy throughout France. The wretched king, Henry III., saw no other way out of his dilemma than to have Guise and his brother killed (December 23, 1588). They had been warned by Philip’s agents and others many times that this was intended, but Guise scorned to show any fear, and he fell. With the murder of Guise it seemed for a time as if the Spanish king’s intrigues in France had turned out as fruitless as his efforts against England.

Nor was he much happier at home. It has already been related how, on March 31, 1578, Escobedo, the{228} secretary of Don Juan, had been murdered by men in Antonio Perez’s pay, by virtue of an order given by Philip six months before. However desirable it may have been to put this firebrand out of the way in the autumn of 1577, when Don Juan was ostensibly friendly with the States, the murder served no useful purpose whatever when it was committed, for by that time Don Juan and Farnese were at war openly with the States. Philip doubtless ascribed the assassination at first to over-zeal on the part of Perez, and was inclined to condone it. But it was part of his system to promote rivalry amongst the people who served him, and another of his secretaries, Mateo Vasquez, whose duty it was to convey to the king the gossip of the capital, continued, with perhaps unnecessary insistence, to inform the king that all Madrid was connecting the name of Perez and the widowed Princess of Eboli with the murder. The princess was the greatest lady in Spain, a haughty, passionate termagant, who had borne to Ruy Gomez a very numerous family, and who since her husband’s death had given a great deal of trouble to the king, by her erratic and impracticable conduct in the care of her children and the management of her great household and estates. The supposed amours between her and Philip have been disproved, but there is no doubt that the vain, immoral Perez had become her lover, and that Escobedo, who had formerly been a page of her husband’s, had discovered this and resented it. There is but little doubt that the princess had in consequence urged Perez to have the man killed under cover of the king’s authorisation of many months before. The princess, when she heard that Vasquez had mentioned{229} her name to the king in connection with the murder, flew into a violent rage and demanded his punishment. Thereupon began a great feud between Perez and the princess on the one hand, and Vasquez on the other, which doubtless caused Philip much inconvenience and annoyance. He tried his hardest to reconcile the parties, keeping Perez still in high favour. The princess and Perez were, however, so persistent that the king at last lost patience, and in July 1579 had them both arrested. The princess never entirely regained her liberty, but Perez’s confinement was merely nominal, and he was assured by the king that he would not be seriously inconvenienced. He was more extravagant and arrogant than ever under his semi-arrest, and the princess and he continued to press that he might be tried for the murder. They knew that he could plead the king’s order, as indeed he ultimately did, and that Philip hated an open scandal.

But a great change came when Philip wanted to conquer Portugal, and restored Alba and his party to favour. For years Perez had been the bitter enemy of Alba. He had scoffed and mocked at his appearance and methods; he had been the prime cause of his downfall. Now was the time for Alba’s revenge. Gradually he surrounded the king with those who took his view, and the shadows grew deeper and deeper over Perez. For years the trail was steadily followed, his relations with the princess unravelled, his own incautious words taken down, until at the end of 1584 all his papers were seized, and Philip learnt how, for his political ends, Perez had poisoned his ears against Don Juan. It was seen that the accusations of intended treason in Spain were Perez’s own interpretation{230} of perfectly innocent passages in Don Juan’s and Escobedo’s excited letters. Philip learnt also that Perez must have divulged to the princess the authority given by the king to Perez for the murder—a state secret. For these offences, and not for murder, Perez was condemned to ten years’ imprisonment, escaped to sanctuary, was taken thence, and kept in a dungeon for three years whilst the case was being completed against him. In 1588 he was put on his trial for murder, and was ordered to confess all. He feared a trap, and refused. He was put to the torture, and promised to tell everything. No one could understand this at the time, but we can see now that, if he had confessed why the king ordered the murder, and when, he must have condemned himself, as it would have shown that the “execution,” as it was euphemistically called, was unnecessary when it was committed and had been done for private revenge. Before his confession could be taken, he therefore escaped from prison and fled to Aragon. This, he well knew, was the course which would distress the king most.

When he had taken his younger daughter, Catharine, to Zaragoza in 1585 to be married to Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy (whom Catharine de Medici had been trying to attract to her side), Philip had taken the opportunity of making a stay of some duration in his kingdom of Aragon and Catalonia, and had summoned the Aragonese Cortes at Monzon to swear allegiance to his young son Philip as heir to the crown. As we have seen in previous chapters, the Aragonese were extremely jealous of their representative institutions, and resented all interference from Castile. Philip had no love for these rough-spoken{231} vassals of his, and their constant assertion of their liberties, and had only recently been obliged to bend to a decision of the Aragonese tribunals with regard to a large semi-independent fief belonging to an illegitimate member of the royal house, the Duke of Villahermosa, which fief Philip wished to re-incorporate with the rest of his Aragonese kingdom. Amongst their other liberties the Aragonese exacted from their sovereign an oath to maintain what was called the “Manifestacion,” which was not unlike the English “Habeas Corpus.” Any person accused of crime who set foot in Aragon could claim to be lodged in the Aragonese prison, in which case he was certain of enjoying the full rights of defence, protection from violence or torture, and the benefit of a most enlightened judicial procedure. The Aragonese had their own judges and laws, the principal judge—the grand justiciary—being appointed by the king; but the latter had no power to remove him, and the office was practically hereditary. When, therefore, Perez reached Aragon he knew he was safe from arbitrary action, and took refuge first in a Dominican monastery at Calatayud. Orders arrived a few hours afterwards that he was to be captured, dead or alive, at any risk or cost, and taken back to Castile. Perez was the depositary of Philip’s secrets for years. He had taken a quantity of important papers with him (some of which are now in the British Museum), and the king was willing to brave the obstinate Aragonese and their liberties, rather than allow so dangerous a man to slip through his fingers. Perez claimed the protection of the “Manifestacion,” and on the news coming to Calatayud of the king’s orders, a rebellious crowd at once arose and{232} swore that their privileges should not be infringed; and even the priests in the monastery where Perez had taken refuge flew to arms to repel any attack by the king’s messengers. Perez was rescued by the Aragonese police and people, and safely lodged in the gaol of the “Manifestacion.” All the king could do then was to prosecute him by law—firstly, for having pretended to possess the royal authority for killing Escobedo; secondly, for having tampered with despatches and betrayed state secrets; and thirdly, for having fled whilst proceedings against him were pending. But Perez did not want to be tried, for upon these charges he could hardly be acquitted by any tribunal. He accordingly begged Philip to let him alone, and threatened, if not, to publish his secret papers; but Philip was resolved to fight it out to the death now. To be thwarted and threatened by such a man was too much, even for his patience. Perez must die. For once, however, the king had to deal with a man even more crafty than himself, who knew every trick in his armoury and was fighting for his life. Perez drew up a most masterly exposition of his case, painting the king in his blackest colours, and presented it to his judges. The tribunal called upon the king for a refutation. “If,” replied Philip, “it were possible for me to give an answer in the same public way that Perez has done, his guilt would be made manifest. My only object in the prosecution has been the public good. I cannot answer him further without betraying secrets which must not be revealed, involving persons whose reputation is of more importance than the punishment of this man, who is a traitor worse than ever before has sinned against his sovereign.” And{233} with this Philip allowed his prosecution before the Aragonese tribunal to lapse. It was a bitter pill for him to swallow. To answer Perez he must have confessed that the lying scoundrel had made him believe that his own brother, Don Juan, was a traitor, and that, under this belief, he had allowed him to die broken-hearted and forsaken in Flanders.

But he tried another course. The constitution of Aragon provided that the king’s own servants, even Aragonese, might not claim against him the protection of their laws, and under this clause Philip claimed to have Perez delivered to him. The judges decided that Perez did not come under this provision, and refused to deliver him. Perez was now acquitted, but was still kept in the prison of the Manifestacion. There his monstrous vanity had led him to boast of what he would do abroad to avenge himself. He would bring back Henry of Navarre and the Protestants, and make him King of Spain. He would make Aragon a republic, and much else of the same sort. But, above all, he had used expressions which seemed of doubtful religious orthodoxy. Notes were taken of all his loose babble, and, as a consequence, the Holy Office in Madrid sent orders to the Inquisitors at Zaragoza to take him out of the Manifestacion and lodge him in their own dungeons. The judges of Aragon were now tired of Perez, who was obviously a scoundrel. They had no wish to quarrel about him with the king, and, above all, with the Inquisition. They had vindicated their privileges, and that was enough for them. They were willing to let the Holy Office have their prisoner. But Perez had no wish for such a result. His friends aroused the city.{234} The Aragonese liberties were in peril from the tyrant, they said; and a dangerous popular rising was the result. On May 21, 1591, the Aragonese authorities determined to get rid of such a troublesome guest, and quietly smuggled him into the hands of the Inquisition. With this the people rose. From the watch towers boomed the alarm bells, furious men swarmed into the streets, the king’s representative was dragged from his palace, stripped, stoned, scourged, and nearly killed; the palace of the Inquisition was besieged; faggots were piled up to burn it and the Inquisitors inside, as they had burnt others, said the mob. Then the Inquisitors gave way, and surrendered their prisoner to the populace, who took him back to the Manifestacion. He tried to escape and failed. He kept popular ebullition at fever-heat with artful proclamations and appeals, and unfortunately the hereditary office of grand justiciary fell at that time to a young man in Perez’s favour, who assumed office without Philip’s confirmation. To avoid further conflict, after the authorities had decided that Perez should be restored again to the Inquisition, the prisoner was secretly hurried out of Zaragoza into the mountains by his friends, and he escaped, after many wanderings, into France. He was supremely self-conscious—a monster of misfortune, a pilgrim of pain, as he called himself,—but he was clever and plausible, and was received with open arms by Catharine de Bourbon, Henry’s sister, in her castle of Pau. Henry himself made much of him, and so did Elizabeth and Essex. Pensions and gifts were showered upon him for years, for he knew all the weak places in Philip’s armour, and was ready to sell his knowledge to the highest bidder. Facile, witty,{235} and utterly unscrupulous, he mingled the most sickening servility with the haughtiest arrogance. He betrayed and defamed in turn every person who trusted him, and, whenever he dared, bit the hand upon which he fawned. For years he tried unsuccessfully to crawl back into the favour of Philip III., the son of the man whom he had lived by libelling; and long before his death in Paris, in the midst of poverty (1611), he was contemptuously forgotten by his benefactors.

Philip was in no hurry for revenge. An army of 15,000 men was sent from Castile to occupy Zaragoza under Alonso de Vargas, one of the butchers of Antwerp. The townspeople were disinclined to hopeless resistance, and only some of the nobles, the friars, and the country people made any attempt at it. Anarchy was rife all over Aragon, and Philip’s troops made a clean sweep of such marauding bands of rebels as stood in their way. The Aragonese of the richer burgher class were indeed by this time somewhat ashamed of having championed the cause of such a man as Perez, and Vargas was soon master of Aragon, the young justiciary and the other leaders of the rebellion having fled. For a time Philip made no attempt to punish them, and they were gradually lured back home on promises of forgiveness. Then suddenly fell Philip’s vengeance. At the end of December 1591 Vargas was ordered without previous warning to seize and behead the justiciary, in defiance of the Aragonese constitution, and at the same time the net of the Inquisition was spread far and wide, and swept into the dungeons all those who had offended. The few refugee nobles and Perez thereupon prevailed upon Henry IV. to send a body of Béarnais troops into{236} Aragon, but the Aragonese joined with Philip’s troops to expel them, and nothing serious came of the attempt. Some of the higher nobles of Aragon died mysteriously in the dungeons, and seventy-nine citizens were condemned to be burnt alive in the market-place of Zaragoza. Philip, however, intervened, and urged clemency upon the Holy Office, and only six were actually executed at the great auto de fé, the rest of the seventy-nine suffering other punishments, perhaps hardly less severe. The spectacle, and the stern repression that preceded it, were dire lessons for the Aragonese, who were thus made to understand that their free institutions must not be exercised against the will of their sovereign. The constitution was not formally revoked, in accordance with Philip’s promise, but all men now understood that henceforward, at least whilst Philip lived, it must be a dead letter, and no more vain dreams of autonomy were allowed to interfere with the system of personal centralisation upon which his government rested.{237}

CHAPTER XVII

HENRY III. thought by one stroke to rid himself of his enemies by killing Guise, and terrorising his party. “At last,” he said to his mother, immediately after the execution, “at last I am King of France.” “You have plunged your country into ruin,” replied Catharine. “You have boldly cut out the cloth, but do not know how to sew the garment together.” She spoke truly, for she knew her son. When the news reached Paris a great gust of rage passed over the city. It was Christmas Day, but all rejoicing turned to sorrow, and dirges took the place of Te Deums. From the pulpits thundered denunciations of the royal murderer, and by the middle of January (1589) the Sorbonne, under the promptings of the Spanish party, had declared that the subjects of Henry III. were released from their allegiance. A council of government was formed, with Mayenne, Guise’s brother, as president and lieutenant-general{238} of the realm. All through France the example of Paris was followed, and the League was soon the great governing power of the country, Henry finding himself little more than King of Blois. He was therefore obliged to draw closer to Henry of Navarre; and at first Philip feared that this coalition would unite all Frenchmen against him, now that the popular Guise had fallen. But Mayenne had no one else to lean upon, and in the first letter after his brother’s death told the Spanish king that the whole of the Catholics of France threw themselves at his feet. Henceforward the springs that moved the puppets in Catholic France obtained their impulsion from Madrid. Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, although he had kept a few miles from the king’s court at Blois, had since the murder of Guise become more and more incensed with him, as he drifted nearer to the Huguenot cause, and now fled from the king’s court without a word of farewell to Paris, in the pretended fear that Henry intended to have him poisoned. Henceforward the old soldier, the last disciple of Alba, as he called himself, was tireless in organising and stimulating the resistance of the people of Paris against the king and the Huguenots. He was old and blind, but he went from outpost to outpost animating the soldiers; he laboured day and night with the nuncio, Gaetano, in stiffening Mayenne, and until his last ducat was spent and he had no food or firing for himself, he sheltered and fed the starving and homeless Leaguers. Through all the weary sieges of Paris, until broken and blind at last he went to end his days in despair as a monk, Mendoza continued to urge Philip to action against the Huguenots, to resist the{239} insults offered to himself, to harry France with fire and sword in the name of the faith—the counsels, indeed, of the old Alba school to which he belonged. Philip, as usual, was cool and irresponsive. He told his minister—when he condescended to write to him at all, which was very rarely—that he must be patient and prudent, and must seek to be friendly with all parties. Philip, indeed, was far from pleased at the drift of affairs in France. It was evident thus early that Mayenne was a weak reed upon whom to depend, and now that Protestantism and legitimate royalty in France were united, he (Philip) did not believe in the permanency of the League. All his life he had been manœuvring against France becoming officially Protestant, which would have foreboded the dreaded coalition of France, England, Holland, and the northern powers against him. His treasury, moreover, was drained almost to its last ducat by the catastrophe of the Armada, and terrifying rumours were reaching him from his spies in England of a great fleet of revenge being fitted out by Drake to invade his own shores, in conjunction with an attack across the Pyrenees by the forces of Henry of Navarre. Drake and Norris, however, with their joint-stock fleet in the interests of Don Antonio, turned out to be less formidable opponents on this occasion than had been feared. Philip was dangerously ill, and sick at heart. The Portuguese populace was almost entirely in favour of the native pretender, and was pledged to rise when he appeared. There were no adequate forces in Spain to resist an attack, and if the English expedition had not been entirely mismanaged from the first, there is but little doubt that Philip’s rule in Portugal might easily have been ended. Want of{240} money, shortness of provisions, and utter indiscipline of the men on the English fleet, contributed the germs of failure to the enterprise, and the waste of ten days in burning and sacking the lower town at Corunna, where the sickness and laxity caused by the drunkenness of the men practically disabled the English force, gave the stout-hearted Archduke Albert in Lisbon time to organise the defence and dominate the Portuguese by terror. In the meanwhile, too, Philip’s council in Madrid conquered their first paralysis of dismay, and took such hasty measures as were possible to repel the invasion. The fatal insistence also of Norris and Don Antonio to leave Drake and his fleet at Peniche whilst they marched overland to besiege Lisbon, placed the crown of disaster on the attempt. For Antonio had overrated his support. Only priests and a few peasants joined his standard. Lisbon was completely dominated by the archduke, and no Portuguese dared to raise a head, for fear of losing it. So when Norris and his 12,000 Englishmen appeared outside Lisbon (May 21, 1589), without siege-train or battering guns, they found the gates fast closed against them, and after a week of fruitless bloodshed they had sadly to retrace their steps again and join Drake’s fleet at the mouth of the river. Of 18,000 men that sailed out of Plymouth only about 6000 ever returned, and Don Antonio’s chance of reigning again in Portugal had gone for ever.

In August 1589 Mendoza wrote from Paris in jubilant strains. The king (Henry III.) had been besieging the capital with 40,000 men, and it could have held out no longer. Mayenne had lost heart, the much-prayed-for Spanish troops to help them came not.{241} Despair reigned in the League, when suddenly the last of the Valois, Henry III., in his turn, fell under the dagger of the fanatic monk Jacques Clement. “It was the hand of God,” said Mendoza, “that has done this for His greater glory, and for the advantage of His religion.” Philip, however, never loved the idea of the killing of kings, and was not so enthusiastic about this as was his ambassador. He was no hero; and if fanatics began killing anointed monarchs there was no telling where such an example would stop.

The event, moreover, added much to his present perplexity. If Guise had lived, and Henry of Navarre had been amenable to reason, the realm of France might have been divided between Guise, Navarre, the Infanta, the Duke of Savoy, and Philip; but the Huguenot king had assumed the sovereignty of the whole country as soon as Henry III. fell, and had already shown that he was a soldier and diplomatist of the highest order, whom no cajolery would induce to surrender any portion of his birthright. And yet it was a matter of life and death to Philip that France should not become a heretic power, and he was obliged to tackle the monster with what strength he had left.

The first impulse of the governing council of the League in Paris on the news of the death of the king was to elect Philip sovereign of France, but the idea of the Guises had always been to obtain all or part of the realm for themselves, and consequently Mayenne procured the proclamation in Paris of Henry of Navarre’s uncle, Cardinal de Bourbon, as Charles X. He was understood to be only a stop-gap, for he was old, foolish, and childless, and the problem of the fate of France was still held in{242} suspense. But they could never even catch their king, for his nephew Henry seized him before the Leaguers could reach him, and he never let him go again. It is certain that by this time Philip had slowly made up his mind that, as he mainly would have to fight and destroy Protestantism in France, he alone should enjoy the reward. If the affair could have been settled cheaply and without fighting, the Lorraines, the Savoys, the Bourbons, and his own House might have divided the spoil; but if his arms and money had to win the reward, it must be his, and his alone. It was the most disastrous resolution he could have taken in his own interest, for it enabled Henry of Navarre to assume the position of the patriot withstanding foreign aggression; and gradually drew to him crowds of Frenchmen, who otherwise would have stood aloof. After the king’s death Henry IV. abandoned the siege of Paris and rapidly moved to Normandy, where Elizabeth’s subsidies and the aid from his own Rochelle might reach him. Then he began that brilliant series of victories over Mayenne that commenced at Arques. Through a country already rallying to his national banner, he marched to Paris again. He struck terror into the Leaguers and Spanish inside, who were intriguing for the crown of France, which the great Bourbon was winning by his sword; and, after harrying St. Germains, he again marched on to attack Mayenne’s main army at Dreux. The Spanish Leaguers from Flanders were commanded by Egmont, the son of the man whom Alba had killed. His cavalry at first charged Henry’s infantry and broke it. Then the king himself, with his white plume for a guide, led his 2000 horsemen like a whirlwind against the Leaguers. Nothing could stand{243} before them. The German mercenaries dropped their arms and fled, the Lorrainers and Egmont’s Walloons were swept away by the irresistible avalanche, and the battle of Ivry was won (March 14, 1590). Then without a pause Paris found itself again encircled with the victorious troops of the Béarnais. The sufferings of the rebel city and the events of the struggle cannot be recounted here. Philip’s far-off share in them alone concerns us for the moment. It is said by those who were near Philip at the time, that the news of Mayenne’s rout at Ivry was not entirely displeasing to him. It had been evident to the Spaniards for some time that Mayenne would take the first opportunity of causing himself to be proclaimed king in Paris. Mendoza and Moreo, the Spanish agents in Paris, were already sounding notes of alarm about him in their letters to the king, and Philip must have known, now he had lost Ivry, that, come what might, Mayenne’s chance had gone. It had become certain that, if Henry IV. was to be beaten at all, it must be by an experienced warrior like Alexander Farnese with great national forces, that France indeed must be conquered before Philip could be called its king. The alternative, however, seemed to be a Protestant rival nation on his frontier, and an entire alteration of the balance of Europe, in which he would be left isolated and impotent; and he must fight to the death to prevent that. Farnese had lost much of his popularity since the Armada, and he fretted at the fact. He knew that doubts wore whispered to his uncle, not only of his loyalty, but even of his orthodoxy; and, although Philip expressed himself as being quite satisfied with his explanations about the Armada, Farnese feared that his constant ill-health{244} foreboded death by poison. He was weary, too, with the petty war of treachery, surprises, and skirmishes which still continued between him and the Dutchmen under William the Silent’s son, Maurice. It was like new life to him when at last he got the stirring news from Philip that he was to conquer France for the Church and for the House of Spain. But for the Salic law, the Infanta would undoubtedly have been the heiress to the crown, and Philip made light of the Salic law, and boldly asserted his daughter’s right. Farnese was, above all things, a prudent commander, and insisted upon having sufficient resources for the business he had to do, and his persistence on this point again raised rumours against him. Philip’s principal agent in France, Moreo, did not hesitate to say that he was a traitor, who was plotting for his own ends; and the Spanish nobles about Farnese’s person, seeing which way the tide was running, joined in the sneers at his slowness. But he would not move, leaving Flanders unprotected, and risking his fame and life, by crossing the frontier with an inadequate force. His insistence at length gained his point, and large remittances were sent to him from Madrid, with which he could organise a good force of 13,000 men; and by August 23 he joined Mayenne at Meaux and marched to attack Henry’s besieging army before Paris. Some provisions were passed into the famished city, the siege was partly raised, and soon the tactical skill of Farnese began to tell upon Henry’s army, which was melting away with discouragement. He once more abandoned the siege, and the League army entered Paris on September 18, 1590. But then began the feeling that eventually led even the Parisians to{245} welcome Henry. Farnese made no pretence to respect Mayenne’s authority, and the Frenchmen who had looked upon the Spanish forces as their allies found now to their dismay that they were their masters. Mayenne himself was inclined to be sulky and rebellious, and it was necessary for Farnese to teach him and Paris that they were powerless without Spanish troops; so he and his force once more marched towards the Flemish frontier, and Paris was again invested. Philip’s fanatic councillors insisted that Farnese had abandoned the task because of his want of sympathy, and the king grew colder still towards his nephew, and somewhat changed his plans. It must now have been evident to him that the French nation would not willingly accept him or his daughter as sovereign, and he reverted to his former idea of dismemberment. The Infanta really had a good claim to the duchy of Brittany, which had never formed part of the French realm, and was excepted from the action of the Salic law. The Duke of Mercœur, whose wife was also descended from the House of Brittany, had been holding the province for the League, and was hard pressed. He begged for aid from Philip, who sent him a force of 5000 men under Don Juan del Aguila, whilst the Duke of Savoy, Philip’s son-in-law, had entered Marseilles with his army, Toulouse was garrisoned by 4000 Spaniards, and all Provence and Dauphiné was falling under the Savoy-Spanish yoke. The Spaniards in Brittany were not long in showing their teeth. They seized and fortified Blavet and other ports against Mercœur himself, and this brought Elizabeth on the scene with 3000 English troops. She could never have the Spaniards in ports opposite her shores, she said. And so practically{246} all over France little wars were being waged. The country, utterly desolated and exhausted, yearned for peace and firm government before all things, and gradually came to the conclusion that they were more likely to obtain them from their own countryman, Henry, than from the Spanish king and his hangers-on. At the same time Philip’s treasury had become more and more depleted and his credit quite ruined with the bankers. He was, moreover, himself old and weary with never-ending labour at small details, and decided to strike a supreme blow once more to end heresy in France before he gave up the struggle in despair. Farnese therefore, to his annoyance this time (for he was obliged to leave Maurice of Nassau in undisturbed possession of Holland), received fresh orders from the king in September 1591 once more to cross the frontier and end the fight.

He found the leaders of the League all at discord one with the other and with the Spaniards. Mayenne’s vanity and greed had disgusted every one, and it soon became apparent to Farnese that no aid towards Spanish aims could be gained from him. He had, indeed, selfishly done his best only a few months before to impede the solution which might have drawn a majority of Frenchmen to the side of the League and the Spaniards, namely, the marriage of the Infanta with the young Duke of Guise. Henry IV. was besieging Rouen with an army of 20,000 men, nearly all mercenary Germans and English, and although his energy somewhat delayed Parma’s advance, when the latter reached Rouen he found Mayenne disinclined to accept the assistance of the Spaniards, such was his growing{247} jealousy of them, owing partly to the diplomacy of Henry. It was not until the end of April 1592 that Parma entered Rouen in triumph. But the triumph did not last long. Parma was wounded and seriously ill, and found his supplies cut off and his force hemmed in by Henry. It was only by consummate strategy that he withdrew with the loss of nearly half his men to Flanders, there to die in December of the same year (1592). Philip could not now shut his eyes to the fact that he had lost. Frenchmen of all classes hated the idea of Spanish domination, Mayenne and the Catholics understood that the Béarnais was going to win, for he had taken the patriotic side, and they began to cast about for means to secure themselves from ruin. If the king would only go to mass, all might be well. Henry on his side was also desirous of coming to terms. The war had desolated France, and the time was ripe for an arrangement. When, however, in January 1593, the Estates met in the Louvre, a last attempt was made by the Spanish party to have their way by diplomacy. Feria, the son of Philip’s old friend by his English wife, entered Paris as the king’s representative to claim the crown for the Infanta, who might be married to a French prince, to be chosen by Philip, or if the Estates refused this, that the crown should be given to the Duke of Guise, who might marry the Infanta. If Philip had proposed the latter solution first, it might have been accepted; but whilst Feria was bickering over the Infanta’s impossible claim, and losing precious weeks in communicating with his distant master almost daily, Henry, outside the city, was busy gaining over the Estates, showing himself gay, confident, conciliating, and,{248} above all, French. Gabrielle d’Estrées, the politicians, the Leaguers, the clergy, and his own interests, all urged him to conform to the Catholic faith. On July 25, 1593, he took what he called “the mortal leap,” and attended mass at St. Denis. In March 1594 the Béarnais entered Paris as king. The next day, through a pitiless storm, the Spanish garrison, with Feria, marched out of the gate of St. Denis. “Commend me to your master, gentlemen,” cried Henry, “but come back hither no more.” The war lingered on until Philip was nearly dying in 1598. Spanish troops still held parts of Picardy and French Flanders, and once Amiens fell into their hands, but at the end of the period even Mayenne commanded the French forces against them; and pride, and belief in the divine support, alone prevented Philip from making terms before. Henry at last listened to the promptings of the pope, and made peace with his enemy alone. He broke faith with Elizabeth and the Dutch, but he consolidated once more the French nation. Philip’s ill-starred attempts to dominate France had thus failed, but he had succeeded in preventing it from becoming a Protestant Power.{249}

CHAPTER XVIII

THE death of Alexander Farnese had removed from Philip’s service the last of the great men of his reign. He had been treated by his master in the same way that all the rest of them had been—with cold half-confidence and veiled suspicion. There is nothing more surprising—more pitiable—in the phenomena of Philip’s reign than the way in which he pressed men of the highest gifts into his service, only to break their hearts and spirits by his tardiness of action and inexpansiveness of mind. His system left no room for independent judgment on the part of his instruments, and any attempt to exercise it met with the passive, stony resistance, against which one ardent soul after another dashed itself to death. As Philip grew older, and his periodical attacks of illness became more frequent, the vast tide of papers which flowed into the king’s cell became more{250} and more unmanageable. He had no sense of proportion whatever, and would frequently waste hours of precious time over ridiculous trifles—the choice of an unimportant word, the ordering of a religious procession, or the strictly private affairs of his subjects,—whilst matters of the highest import to the welfare of his great empire were allowed to drag on for months without decision.

The centralising system had now been established to his satisfaction, and from all four quarters of the earth viceroys, governors, ministers, and spies sent their contribution of papers to Madrid. Everything came under the eyes of the monarch, toiling early and late, even when his malady stretched him on a sick-bed. The council that surrounded him in his last years was composed of very different men from the Granvelles, the Albas, the Ruy Gomezes, or even the Perezes, who had served him in his prime. The principal secretary of state was Don Juan de Idiaquez, one of the indefatigable writers whom Philip loved. No detail was too small for Idiaquez. With his swift-current clerkly hand he wrote day and night, deciphering, drafting, annotating. Every day after the king’s frugal early dinner Idiaquez came with his bundle of papers, and was closeted with him until nightfall. The communications had been opened, considered, and reported upon by the council during the previous night, and the results were now submitted to Philip. The second secretary, Don Cristobal de Moura, had charge especially of Portuguese and Castilian affairs. He had to report his budget of council minutes whilst the king was dressing in the morning, and the Count de Chinchon had audience for the affairs of Italy, Aragon, and the south of Spain at, and after, the{251} king’s dinner. Every draft despatch was read and noted by the king; Mateo Vasquez, the sly enemy who had hunted Perez, being always at his side to help him. Whilst the king of the greatest realm on earth, and four men with the minds of superior clerks, were thus immersed in endless papers, the social condition of Spain went from bad to worse. The efforts of Philip had been directed towards making his people as rigid as monks. Pragmatics had been showered upon Spain, prohibiting for the hundredth time luxury or splendour in dress, furniture, and appointments, restricting the use of carriages, abolishing courtesy titles. No person was allowed to be educated out of Spain, and all attempts at introducing science in any form were sternly suppressed by the Inquisition. The most slavish and extravagant conformity in religious observance was enforced, but the loosest and most licentious conversation was tolerated. The women of Spain had in previous times been modest, almost austere and oriental in their retirement. They now became perfectly scandalous in their freedom, and remained a bye-word for the rest of civilised Europe for a century afterwards. Camillo Borghese was sent by the pope to Madrid in 1593, and thus speaks of the state of affairs at that time: “The main street of Madrid ... is unutterably filthy, and almost impassable on foot. The better class of ladies are always in carriages or litters, whilst the humbler folk ride on donkey-back or pick their way through the mire. The ladies are naturally shameless, presumptuous, and abrupt, and even in the streets go up and address men unknown to them, looking upon it as a kind of heresy to be properly introduced. They admit all sorts of men to{252} their conversation, and are not in the least scandalised at the most improper proposals being made to them.” Philip’s pragmatics were useless. Extravagance checked in one direction broke out in others, and in the midst of the most appalling poverty, luxury and waste ran riot. The immense loss of life in constant wars, and the vast emigration to America, had depopulated wide tracts of country, and the laws which favoured the aggregation of property in the hands of the Church had turned whole towns into ecclesiastical settlements. The friars had grown more insolent as their riches increased, and as the king’s slavishness to their cloth became more abject, and now during his last years their power was practically supreme in the king’s court.

Whilst Philip’s system had reduced his own country to this state, the ships of Drake, Ralegh, Hawkins, Cumberland, and the rest of them were harrying the Indies, the English were trading openly with Spanish settlements in spite of royal prohibition, and in the insensate thirst for gold, the Spanish colonists were wiping out whole nations of inoffensive Indians who were unable or unwilling to satisfy their greed. The missionary friars sometimes raised their voices against the wholesale murder of their possible converts, but they cried in vain, for Philip’s hide-bound system only referred the protests against the slaughter to the men who perpetrated it. Philip’s American possessions consequently were enriching his enemies rather than himself, and, as Ralegh said, were furnishing the means for them to carry on war against him. In the meanwhile his own coasts, both of Italy and Spain, were practically undefended. The loss of the Armada had been a blow both to his{253} credit and to his naval power, from which he could never entirely recover, and neither men, money, nor ships could easily be obtained.

Perez lived caressed and flattered in Essex House, and knew all that passed in Spain. Everything which his wickedness and malice could devise to injure his enemy he urged with ceaseless pertinacity. He persuaded the queen that her physician, the Jew Dr. Lopez, had plotted with Philip to murder her. There was just enough foundation to give a plausible appearance to the assertion, and Lopez was executed (June 7, 1594). That he was ready to undertake such commissions is doubtless true, but evidence is now forthcoming which tends to show that in this case Perez lied, and that Lopez was innocent.[4]

The accusation, however, was believed by Elizabeth and her ministers, and when Perez proposed to his ambitious patron Essex a plan for revenging his mistress he was eager to listen. But there was another reason as well. The English Catholic refugees were still intriguing, and urging Philip to take action to secure the crown of England for the Infanta on Elizabeth’s death, whilst the Scots Catholics were endeavouring to gain it for James, under their auspices if possible. Now that a direct invasion of England by Philip was acknowledged to be impossible, it was constantly pressed upon him by the English exiles that he might disturb and paralyse Elizabeth by sending armed support to the Irish Catholics. The complete collapse of the Desmond rebellion in Munster, and the slaughter of the papal{254} Spanish contingent (1580) had made Philip cautious; so when Irish priests and emissaries came to him from Tyrone and O’Donnell, he had been, as usual, vaguely sympathetic, and took means to discover the real strength behind them before he pledged himself. Spanish officers were sent to spy out the land and report upon the capabilities of Tyrone. The latter was still keeping up an appearance of great loyalty to the English, but his correspondence with Philip was well known in London, as well as the hopes and promises sent from Spain to the Irish Catholics. It would be a great stroke if the fleet, which spies stated was fitting out for Ireland, could be destroyed. As a matter of fact, Philip was so poor that he could do but little to help Tyrone; and for years afterwards the agonised appeals of the Irish Catholics were only answered by fair words and tardy, inadequate, and ineffectual assistance. But for the moment Elizabeth was led to believe that a powerful invasion of Ireland was imminent.

When it came to finding the money and incurring the responsibility of a direct invasion of Spain, however, the queen more than once drew back, and it required all hot-headed Essex’s personal influence to bring her to the point. At last when the commission was granted, the precedent of the ill-fated Portuguese expedition of 1589 was followed. The first object was, as then, stated to be the destruction of the King of Spain’s fleet, and, secondly, the attack upon the homeward-bound Indian flotilla. Only as a doubtful resource was a rich town to be attacked. As in 1589, the command was to be divided—on this occasion between Lord-Admiral Howard and Essex, with Ralegh as lieutenant. It was difficult to{255} get men to serve. “As fast as we press men on one day,” writes Ralegh, “they run away the next.”

The fleets left Plymouth on June 3, 1596. They were divided into four English squadrons of nearly equal strength, the aggregate consisting of 17 queen’s ships, 76 freighted ships, and some small craft, while the Dutch squadron had 24 sail. The crews in all amounted to 16,000 men.

It was known that in Cadiz was concentrated the greater part of what was left of Philip’s naval strength, and the city was the richest in Spain. Ranged underneath the walls were 8 war galleys, and 17 galleons and frigates were in the harbour, whilst 40 great ships were loading for Mexico and elsewhere.

On June 20 (O.S.) the fleets appeared before Cadiz, and, thanks to Ralegh’s intervention, a combined attack was first made upon the shipping. Essex cast his plumed hat into the sea in his exultation when he heard the news. At dawn next morning Ralegh led the van in the War-sprite. The city was taken by surprise and was panic-stricken, but the Spanish ships in harbour had assumed some attitude of defence. The effect of Philip’s system had been, as we have seen, to paralyse initiative in his officers, and when there was no time to communicate with him they were lost. After a few shots had been fired, Sotomayor, the admiral, withdrew the ships he could save to the end of the bay at Puerto Real, out of reach of the English guns. At night, before the decisive attack, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the craven of the Armada, but still Philip’s high admiral, arrived. As usual, he could only look on helplessly, whilst the English squadrons{256} sailed into the harbour, sank two great galleons, then landed the soldiers, stormed the old crumbling walls and seized the city, almost without resistance. The terror inspired now by the English at sea perfectly dominated the Spaniards. The fortress of Cadiz was ruinous, the guns were old and dirty, ammunition was short, and after two days of starvation the defenders made terms of surrender. Every ship in harbour was burnt or sunk, either by the English or the Spaniards themselves, and the terrified sailors had been drowned by hundreds, out of sheer fright at the “devilish folk.” There were 5000 Spanish women who had taken refuge in the fortress. They were allowed to leave without the slightest molestation, and the English commanders even provided boats to convey the nuns and sick from the hospitals to a place of safety. Then for fifteen days the city was submitted to a systematic pillage. Nothing was left, and the richest city in Spain was reduced to a smoking wreck.

“Neither ship, nor fleet, nor Cadiz remains,” wrote Medina Sidonia to Philip. The fighting, such as it was, had only lasted three hours, and there had been destroyed, mostly by the Spaniards, 13 Spanish men-of-war, all the war galleys, and 40 of the best merchantmen in Spain, with merchandise worth 11,000,000 ducats. The fortresses and defences were razed to the ground, the first maritime city in the country was destroyed, and the seal stamped deep on the final decadence of Spain.

Philip’s system had brought him to this. He could not defend his own harbours, much less avenge the injuries done to him. Henry IV. had beaten him in{257} France, the Nassaus had beaten him in Holland, the English had beaten him on the sea. He was utterly bankrupt, his country ruined, his dream of the universal predominance of Catholicism, and the omnipotence of Spain proved to be a chimera. He was old and weary, suffering incessant bodily agony, and yet with all this he never lost his faith in his divine mission and the final success of his cause. “Thy will, God, be done, not mine,” says an eye-witness of his last days, were the words constantly on his lips.

During the spring of 1598 the king was almost unable to move from gout, but still continued his work at his papers. At the end of June he was carried to the Escorial in a litter, and soon afterwards malignant tumours broke out in various parts of his limbs. The pain of his malady was so intense that he could not even endure a cloth to touch the parts, and he lay slowly rotting to death for fifty-three dreadful days, without a change of garments or the proper cleansing of his sores.

Through all the repulsive and pitiful circumstances that accompanied his last illness his patience and serenity never left him. His awful sufferings were borne without a plaint, and his constant words were those of resignation and assurance of divine forgiveness for his sins. Night and day, ceaselessly around him, went on the propitiatory offices of his Church; through the weary hours of pain the eyes of the dying king were fixed in ecstasy on the holy emblems, and often in his anguish of devotion he would bite and worry the coarse crucifix which never left him, the same crucifix that had been grasped by the dying hands of the emperor.{258} On August 16 the nuncio brought him the papal blessing and plenary absolution. Philip by this time was incapable of moving, a mere mass of vermin and repulsive wounds, but his spirit conquered the frailty of the flesh, and he fervently repeated his immovable faith in the Church and the cause to which he had devoted his life. On September 1, in the presence of his son and daughter Isabel, the extreme unction for the dying was administered, and although he had hitherto been so weak as to be inaudible, he suddenly surprised the priests by himself reading in a loud voice the last office of the Church. When the administrant, fearing to tire him, said that it was unnecessary to repeat the office when the sacrament was administered, the dying man objected: “Oh yes, say it again and again, for it is very good.”

Then all the attendants were sent from the room, and Philip was left alone with his son. “I meant to save you this scene,” he said, “but I wish you to see how the monarchies of the earth end. You see that God has denuded me of all the glory and majesty of a monarch in order to hand them to you. In a very few hours I shall be covered only with a poor shroud and girded with a coarse rope. The king’s crown is already falling from my brows, and death will place it on yours. Two things I especially commend to you: one is that you keep always faithful to the Holy Catholic Church, and the other is that you treat your subjects justly. This crown will some day fall away from your head, as it now falls from mine. You are young, as I was once. My days are numbered and draw to a close; the tale of yours God alone knows, but they too must end.{259}”

This was Philip’s farewell to his royal state, for he concerned himself no more with mundane affairs. Patient, kindly solicitous for those around him, in gentle faith and serene resignation, he waited for his release. On September 11, two days before he died, he took a last farewell of his son, and of his beloved daughter, the Infanta Isabel, who for years had been his chief solace and constant companion, even in his hours of labour. He was leaving her the sovereignty of the Netherlands, in union with the Archduke Albert, whom she was to marry, and he urged her to uphold inviolate the Catholic faith in her dominions. The farewell was an affecting one for the Infanta, but the father was serene through it all. When it was ended he gave to his confessor, Father Yepes, his political testament for his son, copied from the exhortations of St. Louis. He would fain have taken the sacrament again, but Moura was obliged to tell him that the physicians feared he was too weak to swallow the host. Towards the next night Moura warned him that his hour had nearly come, and he smiled gratefully when he heard it. All through the dragging night in the small gloomy chamber the prayers and dirges for the dying went on. When for a moment they ceased, the dying king would urge their continuance. “Fathers,” he said, “go on. The nearer I draw to the fountain, the greater grows my thirst.” During the night the watchers thought the great change had come, and hastily placed in the king’s hand a blessed candle he had kept for many years to illumine his last moments upon earth. But he was still collected. “No,” he said, “not yet. The time has not come.”

Between three and four in the morning, as the first{260} pale streaks of coming dawn glimmered beyond the stony peaks of the Guadarramas, Philip turned to Fernando de Toledo, who was at his bedside, and whispered, “Give it to me; it is time now”; and as he took the sacred taper, his face was all irradiated with smiles. His truckle bed almost overlooked the high altar of the cathedral, the building of which had been his pride, and already the shrill voices of the choristers far below were heard singing the early mass which he had endowed long ago for his own spiritual welfare. With this sound in his ears and prayers upon his lips, his last moments ebbed away. When those around him thought that all was over and had fallen to weeping, he suddenly opened his eyes again and fixed them immovably on the crucifix. He shut them no more, and as they glazed into awful stoniness he gave three little gasps, and Philip the Prudent had passed beyond. He died gripping the poor crucifix which still rests upon his breast, and he was buried inclosed in the coffin he had had made from the timbers of the Cinco Chagas, one of the great galleons that had fought the heretics. In the awful jasper charnel-house at the Escorial, which will ever be the most fitting monument of his hard and joyless life, his body has rested through three centuries of detraction and misunderstanding.

Through all the tribulations and calamities that have afflicted his country, the affectionate regard in which Spaniards bear the memory of Philip the Prudent has never waned. His father was an infinitely greater man, but he has no such place in the hearts of his countrymen, for Philip was a true Spaniard to the core, a faithful concentration of the qualities, good and evil, of{261} the nation he loved. If Spaniards were narrow and rigid in their religious views, it was the natural result of centuries of struggle, foot to foot with the infidel; if they were regardless of human suffering in the furtherance of their objects, it was because they lavishly and eagerly gave up their own lives for the same ends, and oriental fatalism had been grafted upon Gothic stubbornness in their national character. But they, like their king, were patient, faithful, dutiful, and religious.

Philip was born to a hopeless battle. Spain, always a poor country of itself, was saddled by the marriage of Philip’s grandparents with a European foreign policy which cursed it with continuous wars for a century. The tradition he had inherited, and his own knowledge, showed him that his only chance of safety was to maintain a close political alliance with England. We have seen how, by fair means and by foul, he strove to this end through a long life, and how from the mere force of circumstances it was unattainable. Spain’s power was imperilled from the moment that Philip the Handsome brought the inheritance of Burgundy to Jane the Mad, and the doom was sealed when Henry Tudor cast his eyes upon Anne Boleyn; for the first event made a fixed alliance with England vital, and the second made it impossible. It may be objected that if a man of nimble mind and easy conscience had been in Philip’s place, and had fought Elizabeth, Catharine, and Orange with their own weapons of tergiversation and religious opportunism, the result might have been different, as it also might have been if he had opened his mind to new ideas and accepted the reformed faith. But apart from his mental qualities, and his monastic training, which{262} made such an attitude impossible for him, his party had been chosen for him before his birth, and he inherited the championship of obscurantism, as he inherited the task which obscurantism was powerless to perform. Burdened thus, as he was, with an inherited work for which neither he, nor his inherited means, was adequate, it was only natural that he should adopt the strange views of the semi-divinity of himself and his mission that so deeply coloured most of the acts of his life. The descendant and the ancestor of a line of religious mystics, he looked upon himself as only an exalted instrument of a higher power. Philip of Austria could not be defeated, because Philip of Austria was not fighting. It was God’s battle, not his; and he might well be calm in the face of reverses that would have broken another man’s heart; for he knew, as he often said, that in the long-run the Almighty would fight for His own hand, and that defeat for Him was impossible. Where his reasoning was weak was in the assumption that the cause of the Almighty and the interests of Philip of Austria were necessarily identical.{263}

{264}

{265}

APPENDIX

A LIST of some of the printed authorities upon which the present monograph has been based, in addition to the unpublished State papers at Simancas, in the Archives Nationales (Paris), and in the British Museum, etc.:—

THE END

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