CHAPTER I.

DOMESTIC AFFAIRS OF SPAIN.

Internal Administration of Spain--Absolute Power of the Crown--Royal Councils--Alva and Ruy Gomez--Espinoza--Personal Habits of Philip--Court and Nobles--The Cortes--The Guards of Castile.

Seventeen years had now elapsed since Philip the Second ascended the throne of his ancestors,--a period long enough to disclose the policy of his government; longer, indeed, than that of the entire reigns of some of his predecessors. In the previous portion of this work, the reader has been chiefly occupied with the foreign relations of Spain, and with military details. It is now time to pause, and, before plunging anew into the stormy scenes of the Netherlands, to consider the internal administration of the country and the character and policy of the monarch who presided over it.

The most important epoch in Castilian history since the great Saracen invasion in the eighth century, is the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, when anarchy was succeeded by law, and from the elements of chaos arose that beautiful fabric of order and constitutional liberty which promised a new era for the nation. In the assertion of her rights, Isabella, to whom this revolution is chiefly to be attributed, was obliged to rely on the support of the people. It was natural that she should requite their services by aiding them in the recovery of their own rights,--especially of those which had been usurped by the rapacious nobles. Indeed, it was the obvious policy of the crown to humble the pride of the aristocracy and abate their arrogant pretensions. In this it was so well supported by the commons, that the scheme perfectly succeeded. By the depression of the privileged classes and the elevation of the people, the different orders were brought more strictly within their constitutional limits; and the state made a nearer approach to a well-balanced limited monarchy than at any previous period of its history.

This auspicious revolution was soon, alas! to be followed by another, of a most disastrous kind. Charles the Fifth, who succeeded his grandfather Ferdinand, was born a foreigner,--and a foreigner he remained through his whole life. He was a stranger to the feelings and habits of the Spaniards, had little respect for their institutions, and as little love for the nation. He continued to live mostly abroad; was occupied with foreign enterprises; and the only people whom he really loved were those of the Netherlands, his native land. The Spaniards requited these feelings of indifference in full measure. They felt that the glory of the imperial name shed no lustre upon them. Thus estranged at heart, they were easily provoked to insurrection by his violation of their rights. The insurrection was a failure; and the blow which crushed the insurgents on the plains of Villalar, deprived them for ever of the few liberties which they had been permitted to retain. They were excluded from all share in the government, and were henceforth summoned to the Cortes only to swear allegiance to the heir apparent, or to furnish subsidies for their master. They were indeed allowed to lay their grievances before the throne. But they had no means of enforcing redress; for, with the cunning policy of a despot, Charles would not receive their petitions until they had first voted the supplies.

The nobles, who had stood by their master in the struggle, fared no better. They found too late how short-sighted was the policy which had led them to put their faith in princes. Henceforth they could not be said to form a necessary part of the legislature. For as they insisted on their right to be excused from bearing any share in the burdens of the state, they could take no part in voting the supplies; and as this was almost the only purpose for which the Cortes was convened, their presence was no longer required in it. Instead of the powers which were left to them untouched by Ferdinand and Isabella, they were now amused with high-sounding and empty titles, or with offices about the person of the monarch. In this way they gradually sank into the unsubstantial though glittering pageant of a court. Meanwhile the government of Castile, assuming the powers of both making the laws and enforcing their execution, became in its essential attributes nearly as absolute as that of Turkey.

Such was the gigantic despotism which, on the death of Charles, passed into the hands of Philip the Second. The son had many qualities in common with his father. But among these was not that restless ambition of foreign conquest which was ever goading the emperor. Nor was he, like his father, urged by the love of glory to military achievement. He was of too sluggish a nature to embark readily in great enterprises. He was capable of much labour; but it was of that sedentary kind which belongs to the cabinet rather than the camp. His tendencies were naturally pacific: and up to the period at which we are now arrived, he had engaged in no wars but those into which he had been drawn by the revolt of his vassals, as in the Netherlands and Granada, or those forced on him by circumstances beyond his control. Such was the war which he had carried on with the pope and the French monarchy at the beginning of his reign.

But while less ambitious than Charles of foreign acquisitions, Philip was full as tenacious of the possessions and power which had come to him by inheritance. Nor was it likely that the regal prerogative would suffer any diminution in his reign, or that the nobles or commons would be allowed to retrieve any of the immunities which they had lost under his predecessors.

Philip understood the character of his countrymen better than his father had done. A Spaniard by birth, he was, as I have more than once had occasion to remark, a Spaniard in his whole nature. His tastes, his habits, his prejudices, were all Spanish. His policy was directed solely to the aggrandisement of Spain. The distant races whom he governed were all strangers to him. With a few exceptions, Spaniards were the only persons he placed in offices of trust. His Castilian countrymen saw with pride and satisfaction that they had a native prince on the throne, who identified his own interests with theirs. They contrasted this conduct with that of his father, and requited it with a devotion such as they had shown to few of his predecessors. They not only held him in reverence, says the Venetian minister Contarini, but respected his laws, as something sacred and inviolable.[369] It was the people of the Netherlands who rose up against him. For similar reasons it fared just the opposite with Charles. His Flemish countrymen remained loyal to the last: it was his Castilian subjects who were driven to rebellion.

[Sidenote: ALVA AND RUY GOMEZ.]

Though tenacious of power, Philip had not the secret consciousness of strength which enabled his father, unaided as it were, to bear up so long under the burden of empire. The habitual caution of the son made him averse to taking any step of importance without first ascertaining the opinions of others. Yet he was not willing, like his ancestor, the good Queen Isabella, to invoke the co-operation of the Cortes, and thus awaken the consciousness of power in an arm of the government which had been so long smitten with paralysis. Such an expedient was fraught with too much danger. He found a substitute in the several councils, the members of which, appointed by the crown and removable at its pleasure, were pledged to the support of the prerogative.

Under Ferdinand and Isabella there had been a complete reorganization of these councils. Their number was increased under Charles the Fifth, to suit the increased extent of the empire. It was still further enlarged by Philip.[370] Under him there were no less than eleven councils, among which may be particularly noticed those of war, of finance, of justice, and of state.[371] Of these various bodies the council of state, charged with the most important concerns of the monarchy, was held in highest consideration. The number of its members varied. At the time of which I am writing, it amounted to sixteen.[372] But the weight of the business devolved on less than half that number. It was composed of both ecclesiastics and laymen. Among the latter were some eminent jurists. A sprinkling of men of the robe, indeed, was to be found in most of the councils. Philip imitated in this the policy of Ferdinand and Isabella, who thus intended to humble the pride of the great lords, and to provide themselves with a loyal militia, whose services would be of no little advantage in maintaining the prerogative.

Among the members of the council of state, two may be particularly noticed for their pre-eminence in that body. These were the duke of Alva and Ruy Gomez de Silva, prince of Eboli. With the former the reader is well acquainted. His great talents, his ample experience both in civil and military life, his iron will, and the fearlessness with which he asserted it, even his stern and overbearing manner, which seemed to proclaim his own superiority, all marked him out as the leader of a party.

The emperor appears to have feared the ascendancy which Alva might one day acquire over Philip. "The duke," wrote Charles to his son in a letter before cited, "is the ablest statesman and the best soldier I have in my dominions. Consult him, above all, in military affairs. But do not depend on him entirely in these or any other matters. Depend on no one but yourself." The advice was good; and Philip did not fail to profit by it. Though always seeking the opinions of others, it was the better to form his own. He was too jealous of power to submit to the control, even to the guidance, of another. With all his deference to Alva, on whose services he set the greatest value, the king seems to have shown him but little of that personal attachment which he evinced for his rival, Ruy Gomez.

This nobleman was descended from an ancient house in Portugal, a branch of which had been transplanted to Castile. He had been early received as a page in the imperial household, where, though he was several years older than Philip, his amiable temper, his engaging manners, and above all, that tact which made his fortune in later life, soon rendered him the prince's favourite. An anecdote is reported of him at this time, which, however difficult to credit, rests on respectable authority. While engaged in their sports, the page accidentally struck the prince. The emperor, greatly incensed, and conceiving that such an indignity to the heir-apparent was to be effaced only by the blood of the offender, condemned the unhappy youth to lose his life. The tears and entreaties of Philip at length so far softened the heart of his father, that he consented to commute the punishment of death for exile. Indeed, it is hard to believe that Charles had ever really intended to carry his cruel sentence into execution. The exile was of no long duration. The society of Gomez had become indispensable to the prince, who, pining under the separation, at length prevailed on his father to recall the young noble, and reinstate him in his former situation in the palace.[373]

The regard of Philip, who was not of a fickle disposition, seemed to increase with years. We find Ruy Gomez one of the brilliant suite who accompanied him to London on his visit there to wed the English queen. After the emperor's abdication, Ruy Gomez continued to occupy a distinguished place in Philip's household, as first gentleman of the bedchamber. By virtue of this office he was required to attend his master both at his rising and his going to rest. His situation gave him ready access at all hours to the royal person. It was soon understood that there was no one in the court who exercised a more important influence over the monarch; and he naturally became the channel through which applicants for favours sought to prefer their petitions.[374]

Meanwhile the most substantial honours were liberally bestowed on him. He was created duke of Pastraña, with an income of twenty-five thousand crowns--a large revenue, considering the value of money in that day. The title of Pastraña was subsequently merged in that of Eboli, by which he has continued to be known. It was derived from his marriage with the princess of Eboli, Anna de Mendoza, a lady much younger than he, and, though blind of one eye, celebrated for her beauty no less than her wit. She was yet more celebrated for her gallantries, and for the tragic results to which they led--a subject closely connected with the personal history of Philip, to which I shall return hereafter.

Among his other dignities Ruy Gomez was made a member of the council of state, in which body he exercised an influence not inferior, to say the least of it, to that of any of his associates. His head was not turned by his prosperity. He did not, like many a favourite before him, display his full-blown fortunes in the eye of the world; nor, though he maintained a state suited to his station, did he, like Wolsey, excite the jealousy of his master by a magnificence in his way of living that eclipsed the splendours of royalty. Far from showing arrogance to his inferiors, he was affable to all, did what he could to serve their interests with the king, and magnanimously spoke of his rivals in terms of praise. By this way of proceeding he enjoyed the good fortune, rare for a favourite, of being both caressed by his sovereign and beloved by the people.[375]

[Sidenote: FIGUEROA AND ESPINOSA.]

There is no evidence that Ruy Gomez had the moral courage to resist the evil tendency of Philip's policy, still less that he ventured to open the monarch's eyes to his errors. He had too keen a regard to his own interests to attempt this. He may have thought, probably with some reason, that such a course would avail little with the king, and would bring ruin on himself. His life was passed in the atmosphere of a court, and he had imbibed its selfish spirit. He had profoundly studied the character of his master, and he accommodated himself to all his humours with an obsequiousness which does little honour to his memory. The duke of Alva, who hated him with all the hatred of a rival, speaking of him after his death, remarked: "Ruy Gomez, though not the greatest statesman that ever lived, was such a master in the knowledge of the humours and dispositions of kings, that we were all of us fools in comparison."[376]

Yet the influence of the favourite was, on the whole, good. He was humane and liberal in his temper, and inclined to peace,--virtues which were not too common in that iron age, and which in the council served much to counteract the stern policy of Alva. Persons of a generous nature ranged themselves under him as their leader. When John of Austria came to court, his liberal spirit prompted him at once to lean on Ruy Gomez as his friend and counsellor. The correspondence which passed between them when the young soldier was on his campaigns, in which he addressed the favourite by the epithet of "father," confessing his errors to him and soliciting his advice, is honourable to both.

The historian Cabrera, who had often seen him, sums up the character of Ruy Gomez by saying: "He was the first pilot who in these stormy seas both lived and died secure, always contriving to gain a safe port."[377] His death took place in July, 1573. "Living," adds the writer, in his peculiar style, "he preserved the favour of his sovereign;--dead, he was mourned by him,--and by the whole nation, which kept him in its recollection as the pattern of loyal vassals and prudent favourites."[378]

Besides the two leaders in the council, there were two others who deserve to be noticed. One of these was Figueroa, count, afterwards created by Philip duke, of Feria, a grandee of Spain. He was one of those who accompanied the king on his first visit to England. He there married a lady of rank, and, as the reader may remember, afterwards represented his master at the court of Elizabeth. He was a man of excellent parts, enriched by that kind of practical knowledge which he had gained from foreign travel and a familiarity with courts. He lived magnificently, somewhat encumbering his large estates indeed by his profusion. His person was handsome; and his courteous and polished manners made him one of the most brilliant ornaments of the royal circle. He had a truly chivalrous sense of honour, and was greatly esteemed by the king, who placed him near his person as captain of his Spanish guard. Feria was a warm supporter of Ruy Gomez; and the long friendship that subsisted between the two nobles seems never to have been clouded by those feelings of envy and jealousy which so often arise between rivals contending for the smiles of their sovereign.

The other member of the council of state was a person of still more importance. This was the Cardinal Espinosa, who, though an ecclesiastic, possessed such an acquaintance with affairs as belonged to few laymen. Philip's eye readily discovered his uncommon qualities, and he heaped upon him offices in rapid succession, any one of which might well have engrossed his time. But Espinosa was as fond of labour as most men are of ease; and in every situation he not only performed his own share of the work, but very often that of his associates. He was made president of the council of Castile, as well as that of the Indies, and finally a member of the council of state. He was inquisitor-general, sat in the royal chancery of Seville, and held the bishopric of Siguença, one of the richest sees in the kingdom. To crown the whole, in 1568, Pius the Fifth, on the application of Philip, gave him a cardinal's hat. The king seems to have taken the greater pleasure in this rapid elevation of Espinosa, that he sprang from a comparatively humble condition; and thus the height to which he raised him served the more keenly to mortify the nobles.

But the cardinal, as is too often the case with those who have suddenly risen to greatness, did not bear his honours meekly. His love of power was insatiable; and when an office became vacant in any of his own departments, he was prompt to secure it for one of his dependents. An anecdote is told in relation to a place in the chancery of Granada, which had become open by the death of the incumbent. As soon as the news reached Madrid, Hernandez de Cordova, the royal equerry, made application to the king for it. Philip answered that he was too late, that the place had been already given away. "How am I to understand your majesty?" said the petitioner; "the tidings were brought to me by a courier the moment at which the post became vacant, and no one could have brought them sooner unless he had wings." "That may be," said the monarch; "but I have just given the place to another, whom the cardinal recommended to me as I was leaving the council."[379]

Espinosa, says a contemporary, was a man of noble presence. He had the air of one born to command. His haughty bearing, however, did little for him with the more humble suitors, and disgusted the great lords, who looked down with contempt on his lowly origin. They complained to the king of his intolerable arrogance; and the king was not unwilling to receive their charges against him. In fact, he had himself grown to be displeased with his minister's presumption. He was weary of the deference which, now that Espinosa had become a cardinal, he felt obliged to pay him; of coming forward to receive him when he entered the room; of taking off his cap to the churchman, and giving him a seat as high as his own; finally, of allowing him to interfere in all appointments to office. It seemed incredible, says the historian, that a prince so jealous of his prerogatives should have submitted to all this so long.[380] Philip was now determined to submit to it no longer; but to tumble from its pride of place the idol which he had raised with his own hands.

He was slow in betraying his intention, by word or act, to the courtiers, still more to the unfortunate minister, who continued to show the same security and confidence as if he were treading the solid ground, instead of the crust of a volcano.

[Sidenote: THE COUNCIL OF STATE.]

At length an opportunity offered when Espinosa, in a discussion respecting the affairs of Flanders, made a statement which the king deemed not entirely conformable to truth. Philip at once broke in upon the discourse with an appearance of great indignation, and charged the minister with falsehood. The blow was the more effectual, coming from one who had been scarcely ever known to give way to passion.[381] The cardinal was stunned by it. He at once saw his ruin, and the vision of glory vanished for ever. He withdrew, more dead than alive, to his house. There he soon took to his bed; and in a short time, in September 1572, he breathed his last. His fate was that of more than one minister whose head had been made giddy by the height to which he had climbed.[382]

The council of state under its two great leaders, Alva and Ruy Gomez, was sure to be divided on every question of importance. This was a fruitful source of embarrassment, and to private suitors, especially, occasioned infinite delay. Such was the hostility of the parties to each other, that, if an applicant for favour secured the good-will of one of the chiefs, he was very certain to encounter the ill-will of the other.[383] He was a skilful pilot who in such cross seas could keep his course.

Yet the existence of these divisions does not seem to have been discouraged by Philip, who saw in them only the natural consequence of rivalry for his favour. They gave him, moreover, the advantage of seeing every question of moment well canvassed, and, by furnishing him with the opposite opinions of his councillors, enabled him the more accurately to form his own.

In the mean time, the value which he set on both the great chiefs made him careful not to disgust either by any show of preference for his rival. He held the balance adroitly between them; and if on any occasion he bestowed a mark of his favour on the one, it was usually followed by some equivalent to the other.[384] Thus, for the first twelve years of his reign, their influence may be said to have been pretty equally exerted. Then came the memorable discussion respecting the royal visit to the Netherlands, Alva, as the reader may remember, was of the opinion that Philip should send an army to punish the refractory and bring the country to obedience, when the king might visit it with safety to his own person. Ruy Gomez, on the other hand, recommended that Philip should go at once, without an army, and by mild and conciliatory measures win the malcontents back to their allegiance. Each advised the course most congenial to his own temper, and the one, moreover, which would have required the aid of his own services to carry into execution. Unfortunately, the violent measures of Alva were more congenial to the stern temper off the king, and the duke was sent at the head of his battalions.

But if Alva thus gained the victory, it was Ruy Gomez who reaped the fruits of it. Left without a rival in the council, his influence became predominant over every other. It became still more firmly established, as the result showed that his rival's mission was a failure. So it continued, after Alva's return, till the favourite's death. Even then his well-organized party was so deeply rooted, that for several years longer it maintained an ascendancy in the cabinet, while the duke languished in disgrace.

Philip, unlike most of his predecessors, rarely took his seat in the council of state. It was his maxim that his ministers would more freely discuss measures in the absence of their master than when he was there to overawe them. The course he adopted was for a consulta, or a committee of two or three members, to wait on him in his cabinet, and report to him the proceedings of the council.[385] He more commonly, especially in the later years of his reign, preferred to receive a full report of the discussion, written so as to leave an ample margin for his own commentaries. These were eminently characteristic of the man, and were so minute as usually to cover several sheets of paper. Philip had a reserved and unsocial temper. He preferred to work alone, in the seclusion of his closet, rather than in the presence of others. This may explain the reason, in part, why he seemed so much to prefer writing to talking. Even with his private secretaries, who were always near at hand, he chose to communicate by writing; and they had as large a mass of his autograph notes in their possession, as if the correspondence had been carried on from different parts of the kingdom.[386] His thoughts too--at any rate his words--came slowly; and by writing he gained time for the utterance of them.

Philip has been accused of indolence. As far as the body was concerned, such an accusation was well founded. Even when young, he had no fondness, as we have seen, for the robust and chivalrous sports of the age. He never, like his father, conducted military expeditions in person. He thought it wiser to follow the example of his great-grandfather, Ferdinand the Catholic, who stayed at home and sent his generals to command his armies. As little did he like to travel,--forming too in this respect a great contrast to the emperor. He had been years on the throne before he made a visit to his great southern capital, Seville. It was a matter of complaint in Cortes that he thus withdrew himself from the eyes of his subjects. The only sport he cared for--not by any means to excess--was shooting with his gun or his crossbow such game as he could find in his own grounds at the wood of Segovia, or Aranjuez, or some other of his pleasant country seats, none of them at a great distance from Madrid.

On a visit to such places he would take with him as large a heap of papers as if he were a poor clerk, earning his bread; and after the fatigues of the chase, he would retire to his cabinet and refresh himself with his despatches.[387] It would, indeed, be a great mistake to charge him with sluggishness of mind. He was content to toil for hours, and long into the night, at his solitary labours.[388] No expression of weariness or of impatience was known to escape him. A characteristic anecdote is told of him in regard to this. Having written a despatch, late at night, to be sent on the following morning, he handed it to his secretary to throw some sand over it. This functionary, who happened to be dozing, suddenly roused himself, and, snatching up the ink-stand, emptied it on the paper. The king, coolly remarking that "it would have been better to use the sand," set himself down, without any complaint, to rewrite the whole of the letter.[389] A prince so much addicted to the pen, we may well believe, must have left a large amount of autograph materials behind him. Few monarchs, in point of fact, have done so much in this way to illustrate the history of their reigns. Fortunate would it have been for the historian who was to profit by it, if the royal composition had been somewhat less diffuse and the handwriting somewhat more legible.

[Sidenote: PERSONAL HABITS OF PHILIP.]

Philip was an economist of time, and regulated the distribution of it with great precision. In the morning, he gave audience to foreign ambassadors. He afterwards heard mass. After mass came dinner, in his father's fashion. But dinner was not an affair with Philip of so much moment as it was with Charles. He was exceedingly temperate both in eating and drinking, and not unfrequently had his physician at his side, to warn him against any provocative of the gout,--the hereditary disease which at a very early period had begun to affect his health. After a light repast, he gave audience to such of his subjects as desired to present their memorials. He received the petitioners graciously, and listened to all they had to say with patience,--for that was his virtue. But his countenance was exceedingly grave,--which, in truth, was its natural expression; and there was a reserve in his deportment which made the boldest feel ill at ease in his presence. On such occasions he would say, "Compose yourself,"--a recommendation that had not always the tranquillizing effect intended.[390] Once when a papal nuncio forgot, in his confusion, the address he had prepared, the king coolly remarked: "If you will bring it in writing, I will read it myself, and expedite your business."[391] It was natural that men of even the highest rank should be overawed in the presence of a monarch who held the destinies of so many millions in his hands, and who surrounded himself with a veil of mystery which the most cunning politician could not penetrate.

The reserve so noticeable in his youth increased with age. He became more difficult of access. His public audiences were much less frequent. In the summer he would escape from them altogether, by taking refuge in some one of his country places. His favourite retreat was his palace-monastery of the Escorial, then slowly rising under his patronage, and affording him an occupation congenial with his taste. He seems, however, to have sought the country not so much from the love of its beauties as for the retreat it afforded him from the town. When in the latter, he rarely showed himself to the public eye, going abroad chiefly in a close carriage, and driving late, so as to return to the city after dark.[392]

Thus he lived in solitude even in the heart of his capital, knowing much less of men from his own observation than from the reports that were made to him. In availing himself of these sources of information he was indefatigable. He caused a statistical survey of Spain to be prepared for his own use. It was a work of immense labour, embracing a vast amount of curious details, such as were rarely brought together in those days.[393] He kept his spies at the principal European courts, who furnished him with intelligence; and he was as well acquainted with what was passing in England and in France, as if he had resided on the spot. We have seen how well he knew the smallest details of the proceedings in the Netherlands, sometimes even better than Margaret herself. He employed similar means to procure information that might be of service in making appointments to ecclesiastical and civil offices.

In his eagerness for information, his ear was ever open to accusations against his ministers, which, as they were sure to be locked up in his own bosom, were not slow in coming to him.[394] This filled his mind with suspicions. He waited till time had proved their truth, treating the object of them with particular favour till the hour of vengeance had arrived. The reader will not have forgotten the terrible saying of Philip's own historian, "His dagger followed close upon his smile."[395]

Even to the ministers in whom Philip appeared most to confide, he often gave but half his confidence. Instead of frankly furnishing them with a full statement of facts, he sometimes made so imperfect a disclosure, that, when his measures came to be taken, his counsellors were surprised to find of how much they had been kept in ignorance. When he communicated to them any foreign despatches, he would not scruple to alter the original, striking out some passages and inserting others, so as best to serve his purpose. The copy, in this garbled form, was given to the council. Such was the case with, a letter of Don John of Austria, containing an account of the troubles of Genoa; the original of which, with its numerous alterations in the royal handwriting, still exists in the archives of Simancas.[396]

But though Philip's suspicious nature prevented him from entirely trusting his ministers,--though with chilling reserve he kept at a distance even those who approached him nearest,--he was kind, even liberal, to his servants, was not capricious in his humours, and seldom, if ever, gave way to those sallies of passion so common in princes clothed with, absolute power. He was patient to the last degree, and rarely changed his ministers without good cause. Ruy Gomez was not the only courtier who continued in the royal service to the end of his days.

Philip was of a careful, or, to say truth, of a frugal disposition, which he may well have inherited from his father; though this did not, as with his father in later life, degenerate into parsimony. The beginning of his reign, indeed, was distinguished by some acts of uncommon liberality. One of these occurred at the close of Alva's campaigns in Italy, when the king presented that commander with a hundred and fifty thousand ducats, greatly to the discontent of the emperor. This was contrary to his usual policy. As he grew older, and the expenses of government pressed more heavily on him, he became more economical. Yet those who served him had no reason, like the emperor's servants, to complain of their master's meanness. It was observed, however, that he was slow to recompense those who served him until they had proved themselves worthy of it. Still it was a man's own fault, says a contemporary, if he was not well paid for his services in the end.[397]

[Sidenote: THE ROYAL ESTABLISHMENT.]

In one particular he indulged in a most lavish expenditure. This was his household. It was formed on the Burgundian model,--the most stately and magnificent in Europe. Its peculiarity consisted in the number and quality of the members who composed it. The principal officers were nobles of the highest rank, who frequently held posts of great consideration in the state. Thus the duke of Alva was chief major-domo; the prince of Eboli was first gentleman of the bedchamber; the duke of Feria was captain of the Spanish guard. There was the grand equerry, the grand huntsman, the chief muleteer, and a host of officers, some of whom were designated by menial titles, though nobles and cavaliers of family.[398] There were forty pages, sons of the most illustrious houses in Castile. The whole household amounted to no less than fifteen hundred persons.[399] The king's guard consisted of three hundred men, one-third of whom were Spaniards, one-third Flemings, and the remainder Germans.[400]

The queen had also her establishment on the same scale. She had twenty-six ladies-in-waiting, and, among other functionaries, no less than four physicians to watch over her health.[401]

The annual cost of the royal establishment amounted to full two hundred thousand florins.[402] The Cortes earnestly remonstrated against this useless prodigality, beseeching the king to place his household on the modest scale to which the monarchs of Castile had been accustomed.[403] And it seems singular that one usually so averse to extravagance and pomp should have so recklessly indulged in them here. It was one of those inconsistencies which we sometimes meet with in private life, when a man, habitually careful of his expenses, indulges himself in some, which taste, or, as in this case, early habits, have made him regard as indispensable. The emperor had been careful to form the household of his son, when very young, on the Burgundian model; and Philip, thus early trained, probably regarded it as essential to the royal dignity.

The king did not affect an ostentation in his dress corresponding with that of his household. This seemed to be suited to the sober-coloured livery of his own feelings, and was almost always of black velvet or satin, with shoes of the former material. He wore a cap garnished with plumes after the Spanish fashion. He used few ornaments, scarce any but the rich jewel of the Golden Fleece, which hung from his neck. But in his attire he was scrupulously neat, says the Venetian diplomatist who tells these particulars; and he changed his dress for a new one every month, giving away his cast-off suits to his attendants.[404]

It was a capital defect in Philip's administration, that his love of power and his distrust of others made him desire to do everything himself; even those things which could be done much better by his ministers. As he was slow in making up his own opinions, and seldom acted without first ascertaining those of his council, we may well understand the mischievous consequences of such delay. Loud were the complaints of private suitors, who saw month after month pass away without an answer to their petitions. The state suffered no less, as the wheels of government seemed actually to stand still under the accumulated pressure of the public business. Even when a decision did come, it often came too late to be of service; for the circumstances which led to it had wholly changed. Of this the reader has seen more than one example in the Netherlands. The favourite saying of Philip, that "time and he were a match for any other two," was a sad mistake. The time he demanded was his ruin. It was in vain that Granvelle, who at a later day came to Castile to assume the direction of affairs, endeavoured, in his courtly language, to convince the king of his error, telling him that no man could bear up under such a load of business, which sooner or later must destroy his health, perhaps his life.[405]

A letter addressed to the king by his grand almoner, Don Luis Manrique, told the truth in plainer terms, such as had not often reached the royal ear. "Your majesty's subjects everywhere complain," he says, "of your manner of doing business; sitting all day long over your papers, from your desire, as they intimate, to seclude yourself from the world, and from a want of confidence in your ministers.[406] Hence such interminable delays as fill the soul of every suitor with despair. Your subjects are discontented that you refuse to take your seat in the council of state. The Almighty," he adds, "did not send kings into the world to spend their days in reading or writing, or even in meditation and prayer,"--in which Philip was understood to pass much of his time,--"but to serve as public oracles, to which all may resort for answers. If any sovereign have received this grace, it is your majesty; and the greater the sin, therefore, if you do not give free access to all."[407] One may be surprised to find that language such as this was addressed to a prince like Philip the Second, and that he should have borne it so patiently. But in this the king resembled his father. Churchmen and jesters--of which latter he had usually one or two in attendance--were privileged persons at his court. In point of fact, the homilies of the one had as little effect as the jests of the other.

The pomp of the royal establishment was imitated on a smaller scale by the great nobles living on their vast estates scattered over the country. Their revenues were very large, though often heavily burdened. Out of twenty-three dukes, in 1581, only three had an income so low as forty thousand ducats a year.[408] That of most of the others ranged from fifty to a hundred thousand; and that of one, the duke of Medina Sidonia, was computed at a hundred and thirty-five thousand. Revenues like these would not easily have been matched in that day by the aristocracy of any other nation in Christendom.[409]

[Sidenote: POMP OF THE NOBLES.]

The Spanish grandees preferred to live on their estates in the country. But in the winter they repaired to Madrid, and displayed their magnificence at the court of their sovereign. Here they dazzled the eye by the splendour of their equipages, the beauty of their horses, their rich liveries, and the throng of their retainers. But with all this the Castilian court was far from appearing in the eyes of foreigners a gay one; forming in this respect a contrast to the Flemish court of Margaret of Parma. It seemed to have imbibed much of the serious and indeed sombre character of the monarch who presided over it. All was stately and ceremonious, with old-fashioned manners and usages. "There is nothing new to be seen there," write the Venetian envoys. "There is no pleasant gossip about the events of the day. If a man is acquainted with any news, he is too prudent to repeat it.[410] The courtiers talk little, and for the most part are ignorant; in fact, without the least tincture of learning. The arrogance of the great lords is beyond belief; and when they meet a foreign ambassador, or even the nuncio of his holiness, they rarely condescend to salute him by raising their caps.[411] They all affect that imperturbable composure, or apathy, which they term sosiego."[412]

They gave no splendid banquets, like the Flemish nobles. Their chief amusement was gaming,--the hereditary vice of the Spaniard. They played deep, often to the great detriment of their fortunes. This did not displease the king. It may seem strange that a society so cold and formal should be much addicted to intrigue.[413] In this they followed the example of their master.

Thus passing their days in frivolous amusements and idle dalliance, the Spanish nobles, with the lofty titles and pretensions of their ancestors, were a degenerate race. With a few brilliant exceptions, they filled no important posts in the state or in the army. The places of most consideration to which they aspired were those connected with the royal household; and their greatest honour was to possess the empty privileges of the grandee, and to sit with their heads covered in the presence of the king.[414]

From this life of splendid humiliation they were nothing loth to escape into the country, where they passed their days in their ancestral castles, surrounded by princely domains, which embraced towns and villages within their circuit, and a population sometimes reaching to thirty thousand families. Here the proud lords lived in truly regal pomp. Their households were formed on that of the sovereign. They had their major-domos, their gentlemen of the bedchamber, their grand equerries, and other officers of rank. Their halls were filled with hidalgos and cavaliers, and a throng of inferior retainers. They were attended by body-guards of one or two hundred soldiers. Their dwellings were sumptuously furnished, and their sideboards loaded with plate from the silver quarries of the New World. Their chapels were magnificent. Their wives affected a royal state: they had their ladies of honour; and the page who served as cupbearer knelt while his mistress drank. Even knights of ancient blood, whom she addressed from her seat, did not refuse to bend the knee to her.[415]

Amidst all this splendour, the Spanish grandees had no real power to correspond with it. They could no longer, as in the days of their fathers, engage in fends with one another; nor could they enjoy the privilege, so highly prized, of renouncing their allegiance and declaring war upon their sovereign. Their numerous vassals, instead of being gathered as of yore into a formidable military array, had sunk into the more humble rank of retainers, who served only to swell the idle pomp of their lord's establishment: they were no longer allowed to bear arms, except in the service of the crown; and after the Moriscoes had been reduced, the crown had no occasion for their services, unless in foreign war.[416]

The measures by which Ferdinand and Isabella had broken the power of the aristocracy had been enforced with still greater rigour by Charles the Fifth, and were now carried out even more effectually by Philip the Second; for Philip had the advantage of being always in Spain, while Charles passed most of his time in other parts of his dominions. Thus ever present, Philip was as prompt to enforce the law against the highest noble as against the humblest of his subjects.

Men of rank commanded the armies abroad, and were sent as viceroys to Naples, Sicily, Milan, and the provinces of the New World. But at home they were rarely raised to civil or military office. They no longer formed a necessary part of the national legislature, and were seldom summoned to the meetings of the Cortes; for the Castilian noble claimed exemption from the public burdens, and it was rarely that the Cortes were assembled for any other purpose than to impose those burdens. Thus, without political power of any kind, they resided like so many private gentlemen on their estates in the country. Their princely style of living gave no umbrage to the king, who was rather pleased to see them dissipate their vast revenues in a way that was attended with no worse evil than that of driving the proprietors to exactions which made them odious to their vassals.[417] Such, we are assured by a Venetian envoy--who, with great powers of observation, was placed in the best situation for exerting them--was the policy of Philip. "Thus," he concludes, "did the king make himself feared by those who, if they had managed discreetly, might have made themselves feared by him."[418]

While the aristocracy was thus depressed, the strong arm of Charles the Fifth had stripped the Castilian commons of their most precious rights. Philip, happily for himself, was spared the odium of having reduced them to this abject condition. But he was as careful as his father could have been, that they should not rise from it. The legislative power of the commons--that most important of all their privileges--was nearly annihilated. The Castilian Cortes were, it is true, frequently convoked under Philip--more frequently, on the whole, than in any preceding reign; for in them still resided the power of voting supplies for the crown. To have summoned them so often, therefore, was rather a proof of the necessities of the government than of respect for the rights of the commons.

[Sidenote: THE CORTES.]

The Cortes, it is true, still enjoyed the privilege of laying their grievances before the king; but as they were compelled to vote the supplies before they presented their grievances, they had lost the only lever by which they could effectually operate on the royal will. Yet when we review their petitions, and see the care with which they watched over the interests of the nation, and the courage with which they maintained them, we cannot refuse our admiration. We must acknowledge that, under every circumstance of discouragement and oppression, the old Castilian spirit still lingered in the hearts of the people. In proof of this, it will not be amiss to cite a few of these petitions, which, whether successful or not, may serve at least to show the state of public opinion on the topics to which they relate.

One, of repeated recurrence, is a remonstrance to the king on the enormous expense of his household--"as great," say the Cortes, "as would be required for the conquest of a kingdom."[419] The Burgundian establishment, independently of its costliness, found little favour with the honest Castilian; and the Cortes prayed his majesty to abandon it, and to return to the more simple and natural usage of his ancestors. They represented "the pernicious effects which this manner of living necessarily had on the great nobles and others of his subjects, prone to follow the example of their master."[420] To one of these petitions Philip replied, that "he would cause the matter to be inquired into, and such measures to be taken as were most for his service." "No alteration took place during his reign; and the Burgundian establishment, which in 1562 involved an annual charge of a hundred and fifty-six millions of maravedis, was continued by his successor."[421]

Another remonstrance of constant recurrence--a proof of its inefficacy--was that against the alienation of the crown lands, and the sale of offices and the lesser titles of nobility. To this the king made answer in much the same equivocal language as before. Another petition besought him no longer to seek an increase of his revenue by imposing taxes without the sanction of the Cortes, required by the ancient law and usage of the realm. Philip's reply on this occasion was plain enough. It was, in truth, one worthy of an eastern despot. "The necessities," he said, "which have compelled me to resort to these measures, far from having ceased, have increased, and are still increasing, allowing me no alternative but to pursue the course I have adopted."[422] Philip's embarrassments were indeed great,--far beyond the reach of any financial skill of his ministers to remove. His various expedients for relieving himself from the burden which, as he truly said, was becoming heavier every day, form a curious chapter in the history of finance. But we have not yet reached the period at which they can be most effectively presented to the reader.

The commons strongly urged the king to complete the great work he had early undertaken, of embodying in one code the municipal law of Castile.[423] They gave careful attention to the administration of justice, showed their desire for the reform of various abuses, especially for quickening the despatch of business, proverbially slow in Spain, and, in short, for relieving suitors, as far as possible, from the manifold vexations to which they were daily exposed in the tribunals. With a wise liberality they recommended that, in order to secure the services of competent persons in judicial offices, their salaries--in many cases wholly inadequate--should be greatly increased.[424]

The Cortes watched with a truly parental care over the great interests of the state--its commerce, its husbandry, and its manufactures. They raised a loud, and as it would seem not an ineffectual, note of remonstrance against the tyrannical practice of the crown in seizing for its own use the bullion which, as elsewhere stated, had been imported from the New World on their own account by the merchants of Seville.

Some of the petitions of the Cortes show what would be thought at the present day a strange ignorance of the true principles of legislation in respect to commerce. Thus, regarding gold and silver, independently of their value as a medium of exchange, as constituting in a peculiar manner the wealth of a country, they considered that the true policy was to keep the precious metals at home, and prayed that their exportation might be forbidden. Yet this was a common error in the sixteenth century with other nations besides the Spaniards. It may seem singular, however, that the experience of three-fourths of a century had not satisfied the Castilian of the futility of such attempts to obstruct the natural current of commercial circulation.

In the same spirit, they besought the king to prohibit the use of gold and silver in plating copper and other substances, as well as for wearing-apparel and articles of household luxury. It was a waste of the precious metals, which were needed for other purposes. This petition of the commons may be referred in part, no doubt, to their fondness for sumptuary laws, which in Castile formed a more ample code than could be easily found in any other country.[425] The love of costly and ostentatious dress was a passion which they may have caught from their neighbours, the Spanish Arabs, who delighted in this way of displaying their opulence. It furnished accordingly, from an early period, a fruitful theme of declamation to the clergy, in their invectives against the pomp and vanities of the world.

Unfortunately Philip, who was so frequently deaf to the wiser suggestions of the Cortes, gave his sanction to this petition; and in a pragmatic devoted to the object, he carried out the ideas of the legislature as heartily as the most austere reformer could have desired. As a state paper, it has certainly a novel aspect, going at great length into such minute specifications of wearing-apparel, both male and female, that it would seem to have been devised by a committee of tailors and milliners, rather than of grave legislators.[426] The tailors, indeed, the authors of these seductive abominations, did not escape the direct animadversion of the Cortes. In another petition they were denounced as unprofitable persons, occupied with needlework, like women, instead of tilling the ground or serving his majesty in the wars, like men.[427]

In the same spirit of impertinent legislation, the Cortes would have regulated the expenses of the table, which, they said, of late years had been excessive. They recommended that no one should be allowed to have more than four dishes of meat and four of fruit served at the same meal. They were further scandalized by the increasing use of coaches, a mode of conveyance which had been introduced into Spain only a few years before. They regarded them as tempting men to an effeminate indulgence, which most of them could ill afford. They considered the practice, moreover, as detrimental to the good horsemanship for which their ancestors had been so renowned. They prayed, therefore, that, considering "the nation had done well for so many years without the use of coaches, it might henceforth be prohibited."[428] Philip so far complied with their petition, as to forbid any one but the owner of four horses to keep a coach. Thus he imagined that, while encouraging the raising of horses, he should effectually discourage any but the more wealthy from affecting this costly luxury.

[Sidenote: THE CORTES.]

There was another petition, somewhat remarkable, and worth citing, as it shows the attachment of the Castilians to a national institution which has often incurred the censure of foreigners. A petition of the Cortes of 1573 prayed that some direct encouragement might be given to bull-fights, which of late had shown symptoms of decline. They advised that the principal towns should be required to erect additional circuses, and to provide lances for the combatants, and music for the entertainments, at the charge of the municipalities. They insisted on this as important for mending the breed of horses, as well as for furnishing a chivalrous exercise for the nobles and cavaliers. This may excite some surprise in a spectator of our day, accustomed to see only the most wretched hacks led to the slaughter, and men of humble condition skirmishing in the arena. It was otherwise in those palmy days of chivalry, when the horses employed were of a generous breed, and the combatants were nobles, who entered the lists with as proud a feeling as that with which they would have gone to a tourney. Even so late as the sixteenth century it was the boast of Charles the Fifth, that, when a young man, he had fought like a matador, and killed his bull. Philip gave his assent to this petition, with a promptness which showed that he understood the character of his countrymen.

It would be an error to regard the more exceptionable and frivolous petitions of the Cortes, some of which have been above enumerated, as affording a true type of the predominant character of Castilian legislation. The laws, or, to speak correctly, the petitions of that body, are strongly impressed with a wise and patriotic sentiment, showing a keen perception of the wants of the community, and a tender anxiety to relieve them. Thus we find the Cortes recommending that guardians should be appointed to find employment for such young and destitute persons as, without friends to aid them, had no means of getting a livelihood for themselves.[429] They propose to have visitors chosen, whose duty it should be to inspect the prisons every week, and see that fitting arrangements were made for securing the health and cleanliness of the inmates.[430] They desire that care should be taken to have suitable accommodations provided at the inns for travellers.[431] With their usual fondness for domestic inquisition, they take notice of the behaviour of servants to their masters, and, with a simplicity that may well excite a smile, they animadvert on the conduct of maidens who, "in the absence of their mothers, spend their idle hours in reading romances full of lies and vanities, which they receive as truths for the government of their own conduct in their intercourse with the world."[432] The books thus stigmatized were doubtless the romances of chivalry, which at this period were at the height of their popularity in Castile. Cervantes had not yet aimed at this pestilent literature those shafts of ridicule which did more than any legislation could have done towards driving it from the land.

The commons watched over the business of education as zealously as over any of the material interests of the state. They inspected the condition of the higher seminaries, and would have provision made for the foundation of new chairs in the universities. In accordance with their views, though not in conformity to any positive suggestion, Philip published a pragmatic in respect to these institutions. He complained of the practice, rapidly increasing among his subjects, of going abroad to get their education, when the most ample provision was made for it at home. The effect was eminently disastrous; for while the Castilian universities languished for want of patronage, the student who went abroad was pretty sure to return with ideas not the best suited to his own country. The king, therefore, prohibited Spaniards from going to any university out of his dominions, and required all now abroad to return. This edict he accompanied with the severe penalty of forfeiture of their secular possessions for ecclesiastics, and of banishment and confiscation of property for laymen.[433]

This kind of pragmatic, though made doubtless in accordance with the popular feeling, inferred a stretch of arbitrary power that cannot be charged on those which emanated directly from the suggestion of the legislature. In this respect, however, it fell far short of those ordinances which proceeded exclusively from the royal will, without reference to the wishes of the commons. Such ordinances--and they were probably more numerous than any other class of laws during this reign--are doubtless among the most arbitrary acts of which a monarch can be guilty; for they imply nothing less than an assumption of the law-making power into his own hands. Indeed, they met with a strong remonstrance in the year 1579, when Philip was besought by the commons not to make any laws but such as had first received the sanction of the Cortes.[434] Yet Philip might vindicate himself by the example of his predecessors--even of those who, like Ferdinand and Isabella, had most at heart the interests of the nation.[435]

It must be further admitted, that the more regular mode of proceeding, with the co-operation of the Cortes, had in it much to warrant the idea, that the real right of legislation was vested in the king. A petition, usually couched in the most humble terms, prayed his majesty to give his assent to the law proposed. This he did in a few words; or, what was much more common, he refused to give it, declaring that, in the existing case, "it was not expedient that any change should be made." It was observed that the number of cases in which Philip rejected the petitions of the commons was much greater than had been usual with former sovereigns.

[Sidenote: THE GUARDS OF CASTILE.]

A more frequent practice with Philip was one that better suited his hesitating nature and habit of procrastination. He replied in ambiguous terms, that "he would take the matter into consideration," or "that he would lay it before his council, and take such measures as would be best for his service." Thus the Cortes adjourned in ignorance of the fate of their petitions. Even when he announced his assent, as it was left to him to prescribe the terms of the law, it might be more or less conformable to those of the petition. The Cortes having been dismissed, there was no redress to be obtained if the law did not express their views, nor could any remonstrance be presented by that body until their next session, usually three years later. The practice established by Charles the Fifth, of postponing the presenting of petitions till the supplies had been voted, and the immediate adjournment of the legislature afterwards, secured an absolute authority to the princes of the house of Austria, that made a fearful change in the ancient constitution of Castile.

Yet the meetings of the Cortes, shorn as that body was of its ancient privileges, were not without important benefits to the nation. None could be better acquainted than the deputies with the actual wants and wishes of their constituents. It was a manifest advantage for the king to receive this information. It enabled him to take the course best suited to the interests of the people, to which he would naturally be inclined when he did not regard them as conflicting with his own. Even when he did, the strenuous support of their own views by the commons might compel him to modify his measures. However absolute the monarch, he would naturally shrink from pursuing a policy so odious to the people that, if persevered in, it might convert remonstrance into downright resistance.

The freedom of discussion among the deputies is attested by the independent tone with which in their petitions they denounce the manifold abuses in the state. It is honourable to Philip, that he should not have attempted to stifle this freedom of debate; though perhaps this may be more correctly referred to his policy, which made him willing to leave this safety-valve open for the passions of the people. He may have been content to flatter them with the image of power, conscious that he alone retained the substance of it. However this may have been, the good effect of the exercise of these rights, imperfect as they were, by the third estate, must be highly estimated. The fact of being called together to consult on public affairs gave the people a consideration in their own eyes which raised them far above the abject condition of the subjects of an Eastern despotism. It cherished in them that love of independence which was their birthright, inherited from their ancestors, and thus maintained in their bosoms those lofty sentiments which were the characteristics of the humbler classes of the Spaniards beyond those of any other nation in Christendom.

One feature was wanting to complete the picture of absolute monarchy. This was a standing army,--a thing hitherto unknown in Spain. There was, indeed, an immense force kept on foot in the time of Charles the Fifth, and many of the troops were Spaniards. But they were stationed abroad, and were intended solely for foreign enterprises. It is to Philip's time that we are to refer the first germs of a permanent military establishment, designed to maintain order and obedience at home.

The levies raised for this purpose amounted to twenty companies of men-at-arms, which, with the complement of four or five followers to each lance, made a force of some strength. It was further swelled by five thousand ginetes, or light cavalry.[436] These corps were a heavy charge on the crown. They were called "the Guards of Castile." The men-at-arms, in particular, were an object of great care, and were under admirable discipline. Even Philip, who had little relish for military affairs, was in the habit of occasionally reviewing them in person. In addition to these troops there was a body of thirty thousand militia, whom the king could call into the field when necessary. A corps of some sixteen hundred horsemen patrolled the southern coast of Andalusia, to guard the country from invasion by the African Moslems; and garrisons established in fortresses along the frontiers of Spain, both, north and south, completed a permanent force for the defence of the kingdom against domestic insurrection, as well as foreign invasion.