The Court of Philip IV.: Spain in Decadence

by Martin A. S. Hume

CHAPTER IX

DEATH OF RICHELIEU AND OF THE CARDINAL INFANTE—PHILIP'S GOOD RESOLUTIONS—HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE NUN OF AGREDA—PHILIP WITH HIS ARMIES—DEATH OF QUEEN ISABEL OF BOURBON—THE WAR CONTINUES IN CATALONIA—DEATH OF BALTASAR CARLOS—PHILIP'S GRIEF—HE LOSES HEART—INFLUENCE OF THE NUN—HIS SECOND MARRIAGE WITH HIS NIECE MARIANA—HIS LIFE WITH HER—DON LUIS DE HARO—NEGOTIATIONS WITH ENGLAND—CROMWELL'S ENVOY, ANTHONY ASCHAM—HIS MURDER IN MADRID—FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN PHILIP AND THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH—CROMWELL SEIZES JAMAICA—WAR WITH ENGLAND

Changed conditions

The disappearance from the scene of Olivares seemed to the people of Madrid to change the national winter into summer. All the evils under which Spain had groaned so long would vanish, they thought, like snow before the sunshine; and once more Spain, powerful and rich, would dictate the law to Europe. Philip swore in solemn fashion to forsake dissipation and devote himself thenceforward to the welfare of his people. It was a golden dream whilst it lasted, and for a time it really did lift Spaniards into some semblance of the old-time faith and confidence. All the gang of Guzmans were thrust into the background, and those who had stood aloof were now summoned to the Councils of the King. Quevedo came from his dungeon, cynically triumphant; the distribution of business amongst a multitude of unimportant juntas subservient to Olivares was abolished, and the great Councils again took executive and administrative charge of the affairs entrusted to them. The active and intelligent influence of the Queen was exerted everywhere; and new life was breathed for a time in the languishing body of the State.

There were also other great changes nearly coinciding with the fall of Olivares that increased the hopefulness of Spaniards for the future. Richelieu died some months before, and the personal rivalry between the two ministers, which had done so much to embitter the war, disappeared. Then, in May 1643, the King of France, Louis XIII., died, and Philip's sister, Anna of Austria, became Queen-regent of France for her five-year-old son, Louis XIV. Anna had always been a true daughter of Spain, and deplored the war between the land of her birth and that of her adoption; and it was hoped that she would find a means to end the differences. Another event had occurred at the end of 1641, which, whilst adding to Philip's gloom, made the continuance of the war in the Netherlands more hopeless than ever. The Cardinal Infante Fernando, his frail physique worn out by constant campaigning and enfeebled by fever, died at Brussels;[[1]] and Philip had no relative now to stand for Spain in the ancient patrimony of Burgundy.

With all these changes in the space of two years, the spring of 1643 seemed to blossom with hopes of peace once more, humiliating as the terms might be. But again Spanish pride stood in the way, and after long discussion Philip's new councillors determined that honour demanded the expulsion of the French from Spanish soil before any negotiations for peace with them were undertaken. With infinite difficulty money and men were got together somehow[[2]] for Philip to take the field again in Aragon, where the French had arrived within a few miles of Saragossa. Before he could start on his way thither, there came from Flanders news of a crushing defeat sustained by General Melo, who had replaced the Cardinal Infante in the command. Melo at first had done well; for he was skilled and bold, and had more than held his own against the allies. But on the 18th May 1643 the terrible battle of Rocroy was fought, in which Melo himself was captured, Count de Fuentes was killed, and the Spanish army of 20,000 men, the tried veterans who were the last remnant of the once invincible tercios, whose fame was world-wide, were put to utter rout by the genius of the youthful Enghien (Prince of Condé). The Spanish infantry never regained the prestige they lost at Rocroy, which was to the army of Spain what the defeat of the Armada was to her navy;[[3]] and with the knowledge that disaster was pursuing him on all sides, for the Portuguese were raiding far into Castile and the French were threatening the capital of Aragon, Philip left Madrid, his heart well-nigh breaking, early in June 1643.

The nun of Agreda

In the five months that had passed since he had dismissed Olivares the King had tried hard; but already his indolence was casting its paralysing blight over him; and most of the work of the Government was handed to Don Luis de Haro, the nephew of Olivares, who went with the King to Aragon. This time Philip was accompanied by a modest train, and by little of the ceremonial state that Olivares had deemed needful for his previous voyage. He travelled slowly, nevertheless, and on the 10th July, as he approached the Aragonese frontier city of Tarazona, he halted at the humble Convent of the Immaculate Conception at Agreda, which in the previous few years had been founded by a lady whose fame for sanctity and wisdom had already become wide, though she was but forty years of age yet. Maria Coronel had written several mystically religious books, and the convent under her rule was known for its rigidity in an age when most cloisters had grown lax. Philip probably visited the house and its abbess as a usual compliment and duty; but the visit, whatever its motive, set its mark upon him for the rest of his life.

The abbess, Sor Maria, as she was called, must have been a woman of worldly wisdom as deep as was her piety. She must have impressed the King, moreover, powerfully as being absolutely disinterested and free from mundane temptation. He was, as we have seen, almost in despair at the magnitude of the tasks before him; the strong spirit upon which he had leant since he was a boy had passed out of his life, and he knew not whither to turn for unselfish counsel. Sor Maria, saintly, but keen, with her sad yet half humorous face, and her shrewd, kindly eyes, seemed to him a very rock of refuge, and in the long talk he had with her she spoke so wisely, yet so fearlessly, of the oppressive governance and ungodly methods of Olivares, she urged the King so powerfully to trust to God and himself alone, to work and pray and make his people cleanly, that he went forth from Agreda refreshed in faith and hope, leaving with Sor Maria his command that she was to write to him her private counsel when she listed, and to pray for him and his unceasingly with all her saintly soul.

The nun of Agreda

Thenceforward until death snapped the spiritual link that joined them, the heart of Philip was bared in all its sorrow, its weakness, and its sin to Sor Maria alone. The haughty face with the pathetic eyes and great projecting jaw remained unmoved before the world, only the deepening furrows in it showing the storm that raged within. Men thought that he was callous and cold; for he suffered silently behind his mask. But Sor Maria knew, and none but she under heaven, the true secret of the King's gilded misery. His cry of agony, of remorse, of pity thenceforward came to the cloistered nun as a surer way to reach the throne of grace than to all the cardinals, confessors, and bishops who waited upon his smile, and gently hinted disapproval of kingly vice.

At the end of July 1643, Philip entered his city of Saragossa, this time, to the delight of the jealous Aragonese, unattended by the crowd of dissolute nobles and courtiers who made love to their wives and threatened their political liberty.[[4]] No time was lost now in moving against the French, who were threatening the centre of Aragon, and the new commander, Felipe de Silva, whom Olivares' jealousy had consigned to a prison, showed great energy, and soon changed the appearance of affairs. It will be useful for our purpose to reproduce the principal paragraphs of Philip's first letter to the nun on the 4th October 1643, five weeks after his arrival at Saragossa, the precursor of so long and important a correspondence.[[5]]

Philip and Sor Maria

"SOR MARIA,—I write to you leaving a half margin, so that your reply may come on the same paper, and I enjoin and command you not to allow the contents of this to be communicated to anybody. Since the day that I was with you I have felt much encouraged by your promise to pray to God for me, and for success to my realm; for the earnest attachment towards my well being that I then recognised in you gave me great confidence and encouragement. As I told you, I left Madrid lacking all human resources, and trusting only to divine help, which is the sole way to obtain what we desire. Our Lord has already begun to work in my favour, bringing in the silver fleet, and relieving Oran[[6]] when we least expected it; whereby I have been able, though with infinite trouble and tardiness for want of money, to dispose my forces here so that we shall, I hope, start work with them this week. Although I beseech God and His most holy Mother to succour and aid us, I trust very little in myself; for I have offended, and still offend very much, and I justly deserve the punishments and afflictions which I suffer. And so I appeal to you to fulfil your promise to me, to clamour to God to guide my actions and my arms, to the end that the quietude of these realms may be secured, and peace reign throughout Christendom. The Portuguese rebels still raid the frontiers of Portugal, acting against God and their natural sovereign. Affairs in Flanders are in great extremity, and there is risk of a rising unless God will intervene in my favour; and though affairs in Aragon have somewhat improved with my presence, I fear that unless we can gain some successes to encourage people here they are liable to lose heart and to take a course very injurious to the monarchy. The necessities, of course, are numerous and great; but I must confess that it is not that which distresses me most, but the certain conviction that they all arise from my having offended our Lord. As He knows, I earnestly wish to please Him and to fulfil my duty in all things; and I desire that, if by any means you arrive at a knowledge of what it is His holy will that I should do to placate Him, write to me here, for I am very anxious to do right, and I do not know in what I err. Some religious people give me to understand that they have revelations; and that God commands that I should punish certain persons, and that I should dismiss others from my service. But you know full well that in this matter of revelations one must be very careful, and particularly when these religious persons speak against those who are not really bad, and against whom I have never discovered anything injurious to me; whilst others are approved whose proceedings are not usually thought well of. The general opinion about these persons is that they love turning things over, and that their truth cannot be depended upon. I do hope that you will keep your word to me, and will speak with all frankness as to a confessor, for we kings have much of the confessor in us. Do not let yourself be influenced by what the world says, for that is little to be depended upon, seeing the aims of those who move such discourse; but be guided solely by the inspiration of God, before whom I protest (and I have just partaken of Him, in the Sacrament) that I desire in all things, and for all things, to fulfil His sacred law and the obligation which He has laid upon me as a King. And I hope in His mercy that He will take pity on our pains and help us out of those afflictions. The greatest favour that I can receive from His holy hands is that the punishment He lays upon these realms may be laid upon me; for it is I, and not they, who really deserve the punishment, for they have always been true and firm Catholics. I do hope you will console me with your reply, and that I may have in you a true intercessor with our Lord, that He may guide and enlighten me, and extricate me from the troubles in which I am now immersed.—I, THE KING. Saragossa, 4th October 1644."

Philip's inner self

In addition to the invaluable and unquestionable glimpse which this letter affords of public affairs, it gives us the key, more entirely perhaps than any of the six hundred letters that followed it, to the real character of the King. He was weak; he confesses to have no confidence in himself, although in his heart of hearts he is striving to live well and do his duty. He is unable to struggle successfully against the worldly pleasures that have captured him, and which he pursues still, whilst hating himself for doing so. Conscience-haunted, he is the only sinner, and the terrible conviction forces itself upon him that his personal sins of omission and commission are to be visited in awful punishment upon whole nations of innocent people. His natural justice and his knowledge of men cause him to rebel against the suggestions that come to him, even under the cloak of religion, to punish those who in his eyes have done no ill; and behind the regal purple and the stately port of his great office we see the poor soul, so remorseful in the knowledge of its sin and insignificance as to feel unworthy even to pray without a poor nun's intercession to the appalling deity he thinks he has incensed. And yet, with all this humility, how the true Spaniard peeps out in the conviction that God has His eyes specially on him; how God's designs for the universe revolve around his fortunes, his acts, and his transgressions. Only by the light of these self-revelatory letters can we see how penetrating was the genius of Velazquez. The tragic, haunted face of Philip, when age had palled his pleasures, only told its tale to the painter; and its pride, its weakness, its mercy and despair, an enigma until now, are explained to us when, after looking upon his portrait, we read the King's own words, meant for the eyes of the cloistered nun alone.

Whilst Philip was, for the first time for twenty years, manfully struggling against his indolence, and facing his enemies in Aragon, the Queen, as regent of Castile, was straining every nerve to provide money for the campaigns; and during the autumn (1643) an army of 16,000 men was mustered in the various provinces, and sent to the King. Queen Isabel too put her hand to the Augean stable of Madrid. Murders in the streets and armed affrays upon trifling pretexts were as numerous as ever, one Newsletter (25th August) enumerating four or five of such fatal scandals during the previous few days;[[7]] one of which—although that was in Valencia and is given as an instance—is curious: one Iñigo Velasco, an actor, we are told, having been beheaded "because, forgetting the humility of his calling, he courted ladies as impudently as any gentleman could have done." But it was noticed in Madrid that the punishment now followed the crime more surely and more promptly:[[8]] that immorality was attacked more earnestly than before, and that the large public houses of ill-fame were being rapidly cleared out by the new President of the Council of Castile.

The financial officers and others were also having rather a ruthless time, for secret commissions descended upon them and their papers without notice one after the other, and scores of thousands of ducats of ill-gotten plunder had to be disgorged; whilst the friends of Olivares who had survived his fall, and kept their places, were gradually made to understand that things had altered for them.[[9]] The Countess of Olivares thus far had held firmly to her footing as Mistress of the Robes, notwithstanding the frowns of the Queen; but the Duchess of Mantua brought matters to a head with her. As the Countess aspired to sit upon a seat in the royal carriage instead of in the doorway, the Duchess rose and said that that was not her place, and she would leave the carriage. The Queen placated her, but a few days afterwards the Queen's coach was surrounded in Madrid by a crowd that cried, "Long live the Queen, and down with the Duchess of Olivares"; and soon orders came from the King in Aragon that the lady was to follow her husband into retirement.

The legitimated son, too, Enrique Felipe de Guzman, who had kept close to the King as a gentleman-in-waiting, found that the atmosphere at Court, and especially amongst Aragonese, was antagonistic to him; and he also was dismissed to join his father.[[10]]

Baltasar Carlos and Juan

The only subject of difference between Philip and his wife now was the rivalry between his two sons. Young Baltasar Carlos had been granted a separate household, and was already assuming the state befitting the heir of Spain. Philip was devotedly attached to him, as was his mother; for, after allowing for all the adulation of courtiers, the Prince must have been a manly and gracious youth. But Don Juan was infinitely more handsome, and it was said of extraordinary talent, although it is fair to say that the actions of his later life hardly justified the fame of his youth. In any case, Philip was very proud of him, and now gave him a separate household, with many noble attendants and officers about him, and, as a separate residence, the suburban pleasure house called Zarzuela. Don Juan was to be called Serene Highness, and was to address gentlemen as Vos, You, as if he had been a royal Prince. To add to his importance, he was now made Grand Master of St. John, and delighted the courtiers with his boyish assumption of sovereign dignity.[[11]] Isabel looked askance at all this, and Baltasar Carlos saw little of his half-brother; but Philip, having before him the example of his great-grandfather and the other Don Juan, evidently destined his left-handed son for great things. He had, moreover, no near male relatives now, and it is clear that there were ample opportunities for usefulness open to a semi-royal Prince in Philip's wide dominions.

Philip's reformation

Philip and his little army in Catalonia and Aragon did well. Monzon was captured by Silva from the French on the 3rd December, to the immense solace of the King, who had been beseeching the nun's prayers for the victory; and with the laurels still on him he returned in triumph to Madrid to pass the Christmas with his wife. The Queen had ordered dinner to be prepared for his reception at the Buen Retiro (14th December), and had gone to meet him at the Atocha, where the holy image had to be thanked for his safe return. But Philip was a changed man since the nun's weekly letters of exhortation and encouragement had reached him; and the palace of past frivolities was not in accordance with his mood. He would not even enter it, but went, gaily dressed, through the cheering crowds to the old palace, which if gloomy was yet kingly. Philip went the next day to the Discalced Carmelites to pray; but the Queen did not accompany him, for the proud, exacting Savoy Princess, Duchess of Mantua, who lived in the convent, occupied the royal apartments, and all manner of questions of etiquette would have arisen if the Queen had gone with her husband.

During the few days of staid rejoicings for Christmas, for the splendid old entertainments were now discontinued,[[12]] the King wrote to Sor Maria to ask her to help with her prayers the expected arrival of the silver fleet from Mexico; and as a mixture of mystic devotion and worldly aims the King's letter is quaint.

"The promise you gave me when I was with you, that your prayers should not fail me, delighted me much, and I remind you of it in the greatest necessities. We are expecting hourly, by God's help, the arrival of the galleons, and you may imagine what depends upon it for us; and although I hope that, in His mercy, He will bring them safely, I want to urge you to help me by supplicating His Divine Majesty to do me this favour. It is true, I do not deserve it, but rather great punishment; but I have full confidence that He will not permit the total loss of this monarchy, and that He will continue the successes that He has begun to give us. I should very much like to succeed in carrying out the advice you give me in your letter of the 6th instant.[[13]] I can assure you I will try to do so; and for my part, I will use every effort to comply with the will of God, both personally and in official matters. May He give me grace to do it. I cannot help telling you of the joy it gave me to come hither and see the Queen and my children, for my absence had seemed to me very long. They are, thank God, very well; and although I shall feel keenly leaving such company, I am preparing to return; for the welfare of my realms must be placed before all things, even before the pleasure of being with such treasures as these. God send me the time when I may enjoy them with more tranquillity."

The King's and the nun's prayers were satisfied. A few days after the letter was written, Madrid was rejoiced to know that the galleons had arrived safely, "which on this occasion were sorely needed; for the loans for the frontier fortresses, and for Italy and Flanders, were held back, and the lenders would not do business without this guarantee.... They bring five millions (of ducats) for the King, and almost as much for private owners, with much indigo, etc.... It is believed that the King will not take any from private people or from the treasury pensions, so that we all breathe again."[[14]] In these somewhat alleviated circumstances, Philip, full of hope, started for Aragon on 6th February 1644, having signalised his short stay in Madrid by giving the gold key of chamberlain to Diego Velazquez, "who, they say, is at the present time the greatest painter in Spain. I understand there are to be no more honours given this Twelfth Day, as in other years."[[15]]

Philip again in Aragon

Philip, with a very small suite, hurried to Aragon; for already in his absence his officers were quarrelling amongst themselves about ridiculous questions of style and precedence, and on the very frontier a deputation of Aragonese notables met him to ask for the dismissal of his Commander-in-chief, Felipe Silva, the most successful General he had; and, although not immediately, Silva, disgusted by the jealousy that surrounded him—a Portuguese—ultimately went into retirement, to the lasting loss of Spanish arms. Whilst Philip was busy in Aragon ordering the coming campaign, the welcome news came to him in March 1644 of the pregnancy of his wife; but soon his joy was dashed with the intelligence of her miscarriage and illness. The gossips said that, attended only by the Marquis of Aytona, he rushed to Madrid secretly for a few days to see her; but whether the cloaked cavalier who came post from Saragossa was indeed the King is uncertain. In any case, Philip was with his army during the summer, gradually making way before the French, and keeping up his resolution to live an exemplary life; although the nobles and others were beginning to grumble that Don Luis de Haro was almost as powerful a minister as his uncle Olivares had been.

Philip was still rejoicing over the capture of the important city of Lerida at the middle of August 1644, and the relief of Tarragona in September, when ill news came to him of his wife's health. She had, it seems, on the 28th September suffered some sort of choleraic attack with erysipelas. Messengers were sent to the King, whilst the doctors, as was their wont, bled the patient copiously until they had left her bloodless, though with symptoms which now would be recognised at once as those of diphtheria. Then, in their desperation, the dead body of St. Isidore the Husbandman and the sainted image of the Atocha were brought to the palace; though the dying woman protested that she was unworthy to have them brought to her bedside. But the inflammation of the throat increased, notwithstanding all the charms of the Church and the prayers of young Baltasar Carlos, who was devotedly attached to his mother. There was no church nor convent in Madrid that did not bring out in procession its crucifixes and most sacred images in Prayer for the Queen's restoration to health, and the fervent prayers of a whole people went up in rogation that her life might be spared.

Death of the Queen

On the 5th October the Queen tried to make a new will, but she was too weak to sign it, and only left verbal testamentary instructions before witnesses for the King to be informed of her wishes. At noon that day she sent for a fleur de lys which formed one of the ornaments of the crown, and in which there was a fragment of the true Cross. This she worshipped fervently, and her two children, Baltasar Carlos and Maria Teresa, were brought to her; but she would not suffer them to approach her for fear of infection, though she blessed them fervently from a distance. "There are plenty of Queens for Spain," she sighed; "but Princes and Princesses are rare." The next day, at a quarter past four in the afternoon, stout-hearted loyal Isabel of Bourbon breathed her last, aged 41. Garbed as a Franciscan nun, the body of the Queen was borne to the Convent of Discalced Carmelites, where she had so often prayed and diverted herself;[[16]] and thence soon afterwards it was carried back again to the palace in grand coffins of lead and brocade, to lie in state with flaring torches and all the pomp and circumstances of royal mourning. "Isabels always bring happiness to Spain," shouted the crowd that adored her, after the fall of Olivares. She, poor soul, had brought happiness neither to Spain nor to France, though she did her best and was truly mourned. She had always been devoutly Catholic; and since the commencement of the war she had grown stronger in her devotion, and in her determination to reform the scandalous licence of the Court.[[17]] Frenchwoman though she was, no breath of suspicion of her loyalty to her husband's people had ever been heard during all the years of war with her brother's realm.

Philip's grief

Philip hastened home as fast as relays of mules would carry him. At Maranchon, about fifty miles from Madrid, where the King had alighted to dine at a wretched venta, the courier bringing the news of the Queen's death met him. The ministers and courtiers around the King, knowing how he loved his wife, avoided telling him the evil tidings at first; for the anxiety and fatigue of the voyage had told upon him, "and he had only just dined." But a few miles farther on, at Almadrones, the news was broken to him in his carriage by the Marquis of Carpio and his son, the favourite Haro, and the bereaved King begged to be left alone with his grief. Turning aside from Madrid, now a city of mourning for him, Philip retired to the Pardo, where, with his son Baltasar—all that was left to him now, for Maria Teresa was but a child—for a few days he indulged his sorrow in private. Thence he went for the official mourning in the old apartment at San Geronimo; whilst, with the gloomy pomp traditional in Spain, the body of the Queen was carried at dead of night across the bleak Castilian plain, with hundreds of monks and nobles following, to the gorgeous new jasper pantheon at the Escorial reserved for Kings and mothers of Kings, which, from very dread, Isabel had never dared to enter in her lifetime.[[18]]

Three days after the Queen died her wraith appeared, it is said, before the nun of Agreda, asking for the prayers of the godly to liberate her from purgatory for the vain splendour of her attire during her life.[[19]] Philip himself was overwhelmed at his loss, and the nun wrote to him exhortations to resignation and patience; but it was a month before he could gather sufficient courage to reply: his grief, as he says, and the many calls upon him having prevented him from doing it before. "I find myself in the most oppressed state of sorrow possible," he wrote, "for I have lost in one person everything that can be lost in this world; and if I did not know, according to the faith that I profess, that the Lord disposes for us what is best, I do not know what would become of me."

The following spring again saw Philip in the field in Aragon. Things were going badly with him now, and he was again losing heart. To the nun he wrote on the 25th March 1645—

"Your letter indeed arrived at a good time; for the cares that surround me had much afflicted me, and your words have encouraged me. I now trust that God in His mercy, looking to all Christendom, and to these realms, which are so pure in their Catholic faith, will not allow us to be ruined utterly, but will shield and defend them, and grant us a good peace. Short are the human resources with which I have returned hither; and what appals me most is to see that my faults alone are sufficient to provoke the ire of our Lord, and to bring upon me greater punishments than before. But the greater the punishment, the greater will be my appeal to faith and hope, as you say; and I will continually supplicate our Lord to supply with His almighty hand what we need. I for my part will do all I can, trying not to displease Him, and to comply with the obligations He has placed upon me, even though in doing so I risk my own life. I have not hesitated to give up the comforts of my home, in order to attend personally to the defence of these realms: for, whilst I thus fulfil this duty, I trust our Lord will not fail me; but in any extremity I submit to His holy will. I have wished for the Prince to begin to learn what will fall upon him after my days are done; and so, though alone, I have brought him with me, and have confided his health to the hands of God, trusting in His mercy to guard him, and to guide all his actions to His greater service."[[20]]

The campaign brought reverse after reverse to Philip. Jealousy had lost him the services of Silva, his best General; and the new French Viceroy of Catalonia, Count de Harcourt, scattered the Spaniards at Balaguer, and all Catalonia and most of Aragon lay at his mercy, if he had been sure of the loyalty of the Catalans, who, truth to say, were getting somewhat disappointed and tired of their French masters.

War in Catalonia

The Aragonese mostly remained faithful to Philip, but held firmly to their privileges; and when in the autumn of 1645 he summoned the Cortes of Saragossa and Valencia to swear allegiance to Baltasar Carlos, they drove a hard bargain, and Philip was forced to concede many legislative demands of the members, in return for sparing votes of supply. The tale he told to the Castilian Cortes summoned early in 1646 in Madrid was disconsolate in the extreme. All was spent: the wars still went on in Flanders, Germany, Italy, and Catalonia, as well as on the Portuguese frontier, and the regular revenue was utterly insufficient. The deputies were as much afflicted by the penury of their constituents as the King was by the emptiness of his treasury, but with many groans they voted an immediate grant of a million and a half of ducats in money, and in the following year an extension of the special war taxation upon food, and leave to sell pensions was granted.

Almost every week beseeching letters went from Philip to the nun, praying for her intercession with the Almighty to aid him in his troubles; and the replies of the good woman were always wise, as she inculcated hope and labour without remission. Sometimes Philip's faith weakened, and he almost despaired, for he was convinced that all the national trouble arose from his personal sins, and yet, as he says, he could not help sinning. In the meanwhile disasters fell upon his arms thick and fast, and the national distress became more intense. He could suffer his own troubles, wrote Philip, for he knew that he had deserved them; "but to see the sufferings of so many poor innocent people in these wars and conflicts pierces me to the very heart, and if with my life's blood I could remedy it I would expend it most willingly."

When Philip returned to Madrid for the winter of 1645-46, Sor Maria's constant exhortations had prevailed upon him to make a determined attempt to cleanse Madrid of some of its blatant vice in order to win God's favour. She was particularly strong in her condemnation of the dress and demeanour of the women of the capital, and a severe pragmatic on the subject was issued: the playhouses, to the dismay of the comedy-loving people, were rigorously closed,[[21]] the press-gangs that scoured the country for recruits were enjoined to be merciful to the poor in their operations, and other measures urged by the nun became the law of the land, whilst the lethal crimes so common in Madrid were prosecuted now with merciless severity.

Leaving his capital at least outwardly more decent, Philip travelled north again in April 1646, accompanied by his promising young son, now approaching manhood; Pamplona, the capital of Navarre, being taken on the way, in order that the Navarrese Cortes might swear allegiance to the heir. No sooner had they entered Pamplona, late in April, than Baltasar Carlos fell seriously ill of tertian fevers; and the nun's prayers were frantically supplicated for the boy by his afflicted father, who would not leave his son's side, although the Aragonese were getting clamorous for his coming to direct the campaign, which had already been opened by the enemy, who were actively besieging Lerida. After two months' delay, Philip at length entered Saragossa in June, when he received the news of the death of his sister, the Empress Maria, who had been betrothed to Charles, Prince of Wales. This, coming on the top of all his other troubles, almost broke the poor King down. "If I did not recognise that my troubles are sent by God, as warnings for me to prepare my own salvation, I could hardly tolerate them.... Help me, Sor Maria, to pray to Him; for my strength is small, and I fear my weakness."

Baltasar Carlos dies

A greater blow than all fell upon him soon afterwards. An insincere embassy had been sent to England some little while before, in order to frustrate the betrothal of Mary Stuart, daughter of Charles I., with the Prince of Orange; and the means employed had been the old suggestion of the marriage of an English Princess with Baltasar Carlos. It came to nothing, and, so far as the Spaniards were concerned, was a mere feint from the first, for the real wish of Philip's heart, as it had been that of his father, was still further to cement the two branches of the house of Austria, by marrying his heir to the Emperor's daughter. Imperial ambassadors were at Saragossa when Philip arrived, and the King wrote cheerfully to the nun soon after, saying that the marriage of Baltasar Carlos had now been settled, and that his niece Mariana of Austria was betrothed to his heir. "My son is very much pleased with his new state, and I am so too, to have chosen such a good daughter-in-law, as I hold this marriage certain to produce very beneficial effects to the Catholic religion, which is my sole aspiration."[[22]]

Not many weeks afterwards, on the 7th October, the King in great trouble writes to the nun—

"I have received your letter, but I confess that I am not in a condition to reply to it, for our Lord has placed upon me a trial through which I can hardly live. Since yesterday my son is oppressed with very extreme fever. It began by severe pains in his body, which lasted all day; and now he is delirious, and we are in such fear that we hope it will turn to smallpox, ... of which the doctors say they see signs. I know, Sor Maria, that I deserve heavy punishments, and that all that may come to me in this life will be insufficient to repay my sins; but I do cry now to the divine mercy of our Lord, and the intercession of His holy Mother; and I beseech you to help with all your strength."

Philip's despair

Three days afterwards, the heart-broken father writes in dull despair that his son had died. "I have lost," he wrote, "my only son, and such a son, as you know he was." And for this pain the consolations of the good woman, though salutary, were weak. Philip bowed his head, and to all outward seeming was resigned to his loss. He did not rail against the decrees of Providence that had left him alone in the world, but his resignation now was a fatalistic hopelessness; for this blow had finally convinced him that the Most High had doomed him to affliction, and his people to suffering untold, solely for his sins. There was no way out of it, even by prayer; and Philip for a time gave up trying to be good.

Don Luis de Haro already did most of the work of the State, and Philip grew still more idle after the death of his son, one of the results of his indolence being a weakening of the struggle he had fought for four years against the temptations of the flesh. Sor Maria from her convent took him to task somewhat seriously for his remissness, and for the first time Philip defended himself with some spirit[[23]] with regard to his dependence upon others. He was anxious to do right, he assured her; but his great predecessors and all other monarchs had been obliged to employ ministers, and he did not think he could be doing wrong in following their example. One man cannot, he says, look into the execution of all his commands, and must trust to others; "for it does not accord with the dignity of a monarch to go from one office to the other to see personally that his decrees are being properly carried out." When he first came to the throne, he reminds the nun, he was only sixteen, and, quite naturally in his inexperience, depended upon a man of more knowledge than himself. Where he had erred was in keeping that minister supreme too long. Since he dismissed Olivares he had tried to avoid having a favourite; and the minister who people now say does everything was brought up with him as a boy, and has always been irreproachable; but even so, he (Philip) had always refused to give him the post of sole minister, and he only does what the King cannot do, namely, look after the raising of funds, and hear the opinions of people with whom the King cannot discourse. "I, Sor Maria," he wrote, "do not shirk any labour, for, as anyone can tell you, I am here seated in this chair continually with my papers before me and my pen in my hand, dealing with all the reports that are sent to me here, and with the despatches from abroad; resolving points in question immediately, and trying to adopt the most proper decision in each case."

The nun even took upon herself, as the winter wore on, to tell the King that it was high time to arrange the new campaign, and follow up the brilliant defence of Lerida which had ended in the defeat of the French under Condé himself. The Aragonese thought so too, for the troops there refused to move for a time unless Philip would come to Saragossa, as in previous years, to direct the campaign personally.

Philip betrothed again

The nun could hardly speak very clearly in reprehension of the King's moral backsliding, although her hints even in this respect are pretty broad. But his confessor and the other friars around him did not hesitate to do so; and people other than friars were saying that with no heir to the crown the King must marry again. So long as Baltasar Carlos lived, Philip had gently put aside these suggestions by saying that his hopes were centred in his son; but when after his heir's death his excesses in the intervals of his poignant contrition shocked the devotees of his Court, and they added their censure to the pressure of the laymen for another Queen-Consort, Philip consented, though without enthusiasm, to marry again. He was only forty-two, but anxiety and dissipation had aged him, and he was approaching the years when most of his ancestors had developed the peculiar strain of mystic devotion that borders upon madness, but his people clamoured for a male heir, for the Infanta Maria Teresa was only eight, and Don Juan of Austria, popular as he was, was impossible as King. In the letter which Philip wrote to the nun, on the 9th January 1647, he says: "I have received a letter from the Emperor condoling with me for the loss of my son, and at the same time offering my niece to be my wife. As this agrees with my own feelings, I think I may decide to accept this marriage, which is doubtless the most fitting one for me; so I hope that our Lord will help this with His powerful hand, so that the business may tend to His service, and to that of my own country"; and a few weeks afterwards he conveyed to her the intelligence that the match has been arranged.

Mariana was as yet a child, and the daughter of Philip's sister Maria. That such a companion can have been really congenial to him it is difficult to believe, but his subjects needed an heir. The unhappy tradition that imposed upon Spain the belief in its duty to dictate orthodoxy to the world was not yet dead, and the solidarity of the house of Austria was a first condition for its success. Spain had already paid dearly for such Austrian help as she had obtained, and the price now given for the further union was a high one indeed; for by this dire incestuous union of Philip and his niece the consummation of his country's ruin and the extinction of his dynasty was wrought. What for the time being was worst of all was, that the support of Austria in the wars that were finally to exhaust Spain was withdrawn even before the marriage took place.

The treaty of Münster

For three years the representatives of the Powers of Europe, invited by the Emperor, had been laboriously discussing terms for a general pacification at Osnabrück and Münster. Philip wrote to the nun that the French demands were so insolent that it was clear that they did not want peace;[[24]] but the Hollanders were more inclined to an accommodation, for they had grown suspicious of the ultimate designs of Mazarin. After interminable intrigues and self-seeking, however, an arrangement was arrived at which practically ended the Thirty Years War; and Spain, beaten to her knees, still burdened with war in Catalonia, on the Portuguese border, and in Flanders, with her kingdom of Naples in full revolt, was obliged to accept, at last, what the world had seen to be inevitable for many years past, the recognition of Protestant Holland as an independent Power. For nearly a hundred years the war with her Protestant former dependency had dragged Spain down, and made her an easy prey to the French, and at last from the sheer impotence of Spain to struggle longer the Treaty of Münster (October 1648) was signed by her, which made Holland free and gave Alsace to France. The central European Powers were satisfied, the religious compromise was ratified, there was nothing more for the Emperor to fight for, and he retired from the war with France, leaving Philip to fight her enemy alone. The long dream of Spain's supremacy over an orthodox Catholic Europe was indeed dissipated at last; she had now to fight for the integrity of her own soil and her continued existence as a great nation, and in this hard strait the empire deserted her.

All through the year 1647, Philip remained in Madrid, whilst the wars in Flanders and Catalonia, as well as on the Portuguese frontier, dragged on with various fortunes, but on the whole not disastrously for Spain. The great revolt of Massaniello in Naples for a time threatened Philip with the loss of the kingdom; when the happy thought came to him of sending his brilliant young son, Don Juan, thither as his Commander-in-chief. He arrived at a time when Guise, the French pretender to the Neapolitan crown, had disgusted the fickle populace which had formerly acclaimed him, and by a fortunate coup de main Don Juan recaptured the city for his father in February 1648, to the joy of most of the inhabitants, who were tired of the anarchy which had lasted for a year. The exploit raised the popularity of the young Prince almost as high as that of his famous namesake after Lepanto, and the rejoicings in Madrid to celebrate the victory made the capital for a time seem its old self again.

But though the lieges might still enjoy their brilliant shows as of yore, Philip himself had become introspective and gloomy; and he attended the bull-fights and parades with sad, weary face. He wrote weekly to the nun deploring his frailty, and beseeching her intercession; but it is clear that he had thrown over most of his good resolutions, for Don Luis de Haro was as necessary to him as Olivares had been; and the fragile beauties of the capital found in him again as ardent an admirer as ever.[[25]] The departure of the bride who was to rescue him from his evil life was long delayed for want of money, both on the part of her father the Emperor, and of Philip;[[26]] and, notwithstanding the King's saintly contrition after his faults, the talk of his loose and idle life began to make him personally unpopular with many, who thought that his place was with his army in Catalonia rather than in the Retiro sunk in slothful pleasures.[[27]]

An execution

In September, a great Aragonese noble of turbulent antecedents, the Duke of Hijar, with three other nobles of rank, were suddenly seized and committed to prison in Madrid. The accusation against them was that they had plotted against the crown: some said in favour of the King of Portugal, others in favour of France; but the King specially assured the nun that there had not been discovered any design against his life. The Duke, as soon as he was arrested, endeavoured to implicate Sor Maria in the plot, and produced a letter from her to him. In a note in her own hand on the King's account written to her of the execution of the prisoners in December, she explains the matter. Hijar, it appears, had written to her hinting at some plan against the Government being in contemplation, and asking her advice. She had replied deploring such wickedness, and had referred him to the King. The nun says that many had been the attempts to bring her into trouble about it; but that in all his letters to her referring to the plot the King had never even mentioned her connection with the matter, which showed that he, at least, did not believe that she was culpably concerned. The King, indeed, in his letters rather makes light of the affair, as being "the most foolish conspiracy ever conceived," and he evidently did not think that the Duke of Hijar was the prime mover in the affair; as repeated torture having failed to wring any incriminatory admissions from the Duke, the judges sentenced him to perpetual imprisonment only, though we are told that the torture had made him a cripple for life, both hand and foot. One of the other conspirators died of a fit in the prison soon after the death sentence was passed, his fate, as Philip wrote to the nun, being worst of all, since he had died unabsolved.

The "Hijar conspirators"

The public execution in the Plaza Mayor of the two principal conspirators, both nobles, Don Pedro de Silva, Marquis de la Vega de Sagra, and Don Carlos de Padilla, moved excitement-loving Madrid profoundly, and several eye-witnesses of the scene have left their impressions of it. From one unpublished account in the British Museum[[28]] the following description is condensed as an example of a Spanish execution, of the first importance at the time.

Shortly before noon, on Saturday, the 5th December 1648, the massive doors of the Carcel de la Corte, opposite the Plaza de Santa Cruz, near the Atocha entrance of the Plaza Mayor,[[29]] opened for a sombre procession to issue therefrom. First came seventy alguacils of the Court; then followed, amidst tapers and swinging censers, two famous figures of Christ from the parish church of Santa Cruz opposite, with the attendant clergy. Then came a saddle mule covered to the ground with housings of black baize, and led by an executioner. Upon the mule sat Don Carlos de Padilla, who only on the previous day had been divested of his honourable habit of a Knight of Santiago. Now, as he rode disconsolate, a crucifix in his hand and closely surrounded by many Jesuit fathers, he wore a long gown of black baize, with a cap of the same, and a steel chain dangled from his right foot. It was noticed, too, that instead of the almost universal golilla he wore a white starched Walloon collar unblued.

After him came on another draped mule the Marquis, Don Pedro, similarly garbed; but, instead of the collar, wearing the tippet of a Fellow of the College, of Cuenca at Salamanca. Following the condemned men came crowds of alguacils, notaries, and officers of justice; and as the procession swept along dismally, heralded by tolling bells and the dreary call of the criers for the people to pray for the souls of the departing, vast crowds stood at every coign of vantage, and were held back at the end of each side street by guards and alguacils. The procession did not enter the Plaza by the nearest gate, that of the Atocha, but debouched into the Calle Mayor, in order to enter the Plaza by a principal, Guadalajara, portal. It was noticed that as Don Carlos Padilla reached the entrance by the Guadalajara gate his face lit up radiantly, and the word passed along the awestruck crowd that a heavenly vision had brought comfort to him, now that all earthly comfort had fled.

The Plaza Mayor itself had been cleared of all its fruit stalls, as if for a bull-fight; and in the centre (where now stands the statue of Philip III.) was erected a scaffold, upon which were two uncovered chairs side by side. Don Carlos de Padilla ascended first the fatal stair, and, taking his seat upon the left-hand chair with much serenity, slowly arranged his long gown decorously, whilst the swarm of priests and friars around him continued their sacred ministrations. The doomed noble's hands and feet were firmly bound to the chair, and a strip of black baize blinded his eyes. Then the executioner, stepping forward, with a large butcher's knife slashed the throat across again and again. It was remarked that Don Carlos, being a robust man, shed an immense quantity of blood. Then going behind him, the executioner with several heavy blows on the nape of the neck severed the head entirely, and the deed was finished.

Then came the turn of the Marquis, Don Pedro de Silva, to mount; and as he reached the top his eyes perforce rested upon the dead body of his comrade, still bound to the chair. "Blessed be the name of the Lord," he exclaimed in horror at the ghastly sight, as he took his seat on the adjoining chair. The strip of baize that had bound the eyes of Don Carlos was too much soaked with blood to be used for the second time, and another had to be brought; Don Pedro devoutly repeating the Creed in the meanwhile. It was noticed that Don Pedro, being a dry, shrunken little man, shed but little blood; and when his head at last was severed from the back, as that of Don Carlos had been, the King's justice was satisfied. The bodies remained in the chairs all that day; but at one o'clock in the morning the executioner and the widows shrouded the bodies by the light of two candle-ends, and enclosed them in rough coffins, in which they were carried in procession, with the parish cross and eight wax tapers before them, across the Calle Mayor to the churchyard of St. Gines for burial. The two Christs of Santa Cruz went with them too, though the clergy were not allowed to accompany them; for they had claimed the right of burying the bodies in their own church, which is the parish in which the prison is situated, and the King had ordered the sepulchre at St. Gines.

The King had taken no part in the trial of the prisoners, and had strictly enjoined the five judges specially appointed to investigate the case to be absolutely impartial, though the nun herself had almost violently urged that no mercy should be shown against men who aimed at overturning the Government. The real object of the conspiracy appears to have been the overthrow of Don Luis de Haro, and the adoption of a conciliatory policy which would end the warfare in Catalonia and Portugal, even at the cost of a sacrifice of pride and territory to Spain.

Already, when the impressive sight just described was passing in Madrid, the new girl Queen-Consort was slowly, very slowly, making her way from city to city of her father's dominions, Tyrol, Hungary, and Italy, on her way to the expectant arms of her elderly avuncular bridegroom. Festivities and celebrations greeted her in every town she entered, and everywhere the inexperienced girl enjoyed her new importance without restraint. At Trent, Philip's representatives met her, and thenceforward she travelled as Queen of Spain, staying on her way for many weeks at each place.[[30]] The reasons for so long a delay were several. First, money was scarce for the conveyance of the tremendous company of 160 Spanish nobles with their households who accompanied the Queen; secondly, the plague was raging throughout eastern Spain, where she had to land; and thirdly, she herself was as yet quite immature, being barely fifteen.

During all this long delay, which lasted until the late autumn of 1649, Philip continued to write to the nun, deploring his inability to overcome the frailty of the flesh, and fervently invoking her aid in prayer to make him as perfect as he wished to be. Though the world knew it not at the time, it is quite certain from these letters that the ecstatic religious mysticism that had taken possession of his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather at a similar age, had at this time firmly captured Philip IV. But he, unlike them, still retained his pleasure-seeking instincts, and with him it was a never-ending battle between the spirit and the flesh which prevented him subsequently from sinking into the monkish seclusion of his ancestors.

Queen Mariana

At length, whilst Philip was in Madrid in September, a messenger, bringing for him a beautiful jewel from his bride, came to announce her landing on Spanish soil at Denia;[[31]] and the King at once wrote in delight to the nun, to tell her the news and ask her blessing, to which the good woman replied by urging him to begin a new life on his marriage. Mariana had been received at Denia by all the nobles of Valencia, where the Sandoval interest was strong, and jealousy surrounded her from the first hour; the Duke of Najera and Maqueda, who had conducted her from Italy, being dismissed in disgrace as soon as he landed for some lack of respect reported of him.

Mariana troubled her head little about such things. She was a red-cheeked, full-blooded lass, with bright black eyes, and an insatiable ambition to enjoy and make the most of life. Selfish and hard-hearted she proved herself to be later, but now in her florid spring she seemed a gay, happy girl, whose high spirits nothing could damp, even the prospect of matrimonial life with a worn-out, disillusioned voluptuary in chronic anxiety about his soul. As she slowly moved onward through Valencia and Castile, she was entertained everywhere with feastings and shows which delighted her. At one place, after dinner, some of the King's dwarfs and buffoons were introduced to amuse her, at whose antics she screamed with laughter. The stately Countess of Medillin, a Sandoval, her Mistress of the Robes, shocked at such a breach of etiquette, reminded her that sovereigns of Spain never laughed in public. But Mariana snapped her fingers at such stiffness, and avowed that she should laugh as often as she saw anything to laugh at; and when the same great lady informed her that it was a violation of all the Court traditions for her to walk, she obtained a similar answer.

As she approached Madrid, Philip, with his young daughter, Maria Teresa, moved to the Escorial, to be within easy riding distance of the village of Navalcarnero, where the royal wedding was to be celebrated.[[32]] Every few days, letters, gifts, and loving messages had passed between Philip and his bride since her arrival on Spanish soil, and he evidently desired to act his part of the anxious lover irreproachably. When, therefore, he learnt that the Queen was to arrive at Navalcarnero, on the 6th October, he complied with the traditional usage of the Spanish Court, and set forth on horseback, and in perfectly transparent disguise, to look upon his new wife incognito and without formality for the first time. That he did so to his satisfaction is on record in his subsequent letters to the nun, for Mariana was a buxom lass, and as she sat gaily smiling at the comedy with which she was being entertained before her evening meal, she doubtless looked an attractive bride. The King retired that night to a little neighbouring hamlet called Brunete; and betimes in the morning, with a brave array of courtiers, he rode up to the humble house in which Mariana was temporarily lodged, whilst she stood smiling and blushing beneath her plentiful rouge until he approached, when she made as if to kneel; but he raised her without a word, and led her to the adjoining chapel, where mass was celebrated before them, and the marriage was performed by the Primate of Spain, Cardinal Moscoso Sandoval, with all the state which Navalcarnero could contain.

After their dining in public at noon, there was a long series of bull-fights and comedies to go through before the royal pair and their Court in the great swaying coaches moved on the Escorial, where the early days of the honeymoon were to be passed. A league from the palace they were met by the Infanta Maria Teresa, who at once became the friend and play-fellow of her stepmother, only five years older than herself, and thenceforward her inseparable companion. The stern old monastery palace of Philip II. tried its hardest to look gay for the occasion, with its 11,000 wax lights and its array of fine courtiers; but gaiety sits badly upon it. Here in diversions, especially in hunting, the time passed happily for three weeks before the pair proceeded to the Pardo, nearer Madrid, whilst the capital was busy putting on the festal garb it loved so much, and had missed for so long.

At length all was ready. From the Retiro to the old palace, the entire length of Madrid, a series of beautiful triumphal arches were erected, spanning the road. All the fountains, which were ordinarily unpretending enough, had been turned to account and made to appear classic temples, whence the Olympian gods and goddesses dispensed refreshing nectar to the world. The shabby house-fronts were masked by erections of imitation marble, or hung with splendid tapestries and armorial shields; in fact, Madrid once more, almost ruined though she was, managed somehow to raise money enough to make herself handsome again for a space. Mariana, with her white teeth, rosy painted cheeks, so full and round, and her frank, unabashed gaiety, captured the hearts of the Madrileños at once, as she, rode on her splendidly caparisoned milk-white palfrey, from the Buen Retiro by the Carrera de San Geronimo, across the Puerta del Sol, and up the Calle Mayor to the palace. They did not know yet, as they learned later, that she was greedy and hard, caring nothing for Spain except for what it could give her.[[33]]

Philip's second marriage

Philip was too much immersed in the delights of his honeymoon to write to the nun for several weeks after his marriage; but when he did write, on the 17th November, he testified to his full satisfaction with his new wife. "I confess to you that I do not know how I can thank our Lord for the favour he has shown me in giving me such a companion; for all the qualities I have seen up to the present in my niece are great, and I am extremely content, and desirous not to be ungrateful to Him who has granted me so singular a boon: showing my gratitude by changing my life and executing His will in all things." The nun in her reply places much stress upon the need of the country for an heir to the crown, and urges the King to be faithful to his wife, if only for that end; "trying to fix your whole attention and goodwill upon the Queen, without turning your eyes to other objects strange and curious." Philip had no great difficulty at the time in following his friend's advice; for he really was smitten with the fresh charms of his fifteen-year-old niece-wife. He was full of good resolves and saintly protestations; he would never go astray again, for he was as anxious for a son as his people were, though he confided to the nun that he was in doubt whether his wife was as yet mature enough to bear children, "although others of her age, which is fifteen years, are so. But it is easy for our Lord to remedy this, and I hope in His mercy that He will do so."[[34]]

MARIANA DE AUSTRIA: SECOND WIFE OF PHILIP IV.
From a portrait by Velazquez at the Prado Museum

In the meanwhile, Mariana, the depository of all these hopes, was diverting herself as best she could, in girlish romps with Maria Teresa, and in the constant shows, comedies, and masques which were offered for her pleasure. Once more the Buen Retiro rang with mirth and blazed with lights. The playhouses of the capital again were allowed to open their doors; and the Madrileños did their best to evade, bit by bit, the sumptuary enactments that had kept them in sober garb and outward gravity of demeanour for seven years of war and trouble. Neither the war nor the trouble was yet over, for the plague came almost to the doors of Madrid, and scourged whole provinces; whilst the war with the French still went on in Catalonia and Flanders, and Portugal continued to defy successfully the arms of Philip. But, withal, the drain upon Castile, bad as it still was, became somewhat less pressing; for Mazarin had his hands full in France with the revolt of the Fronde, which, of course, Spain helped to the extent of her possibilities; and the Catalans were far less enamoured with their French masters than they were at first. Don Juan, the King's son, moreover, who was now in command in Catalonia, was doing well, and winning popularity on all sides, whilst the recognition of Dutch independence by Philip had freed his Indies fleets from their greatest danger.

The novelty of the King's honeymoon soon wore off, and in his letters to the nun he refers to his wife thenceforward kindly and with solicitude, but as it seems somewhat wearily, and usually in connection with her many more or less disappointed hopes of maternity, or to her love for shows and festivities; which it is quite evident from his tone now palled upon him. Pleasure and the joy of living absorbed most of Mariana's attention, and, immersed as the King was in business and devotion, he could have little in common with his young wife. His own habits were absolutely fixed, and an observer at his Court at the time says that it was possible to foretell a year beforehand exactly what the King would do on a given day and hour.[[35]] His demeanour in public was like that of a statue, and when he received ambassadors or ministers it was noticed that no muscle of his face moved but his lips, and he rarely showing any emotion, even by a smile. Already the haughty disillusionment, represented by Velazquez so finely in the later portraits, had been fixed indelibly upon his features, and his eyes had grown blear with remorseful tears.

In 1651 a daughter was born to Philip and Mariana, and christened with the usual extravagant pomp Margaret Maria,[[36]] but, though oft expected, the longed-for son came not. Mariana felt her husband growing colder, and guessed his infidelity. Then she fell homesick and disappointed, and Philip became anxious. A splendid series of festivities were arranged at the Buen Retiro to solace and enliven her, an ingenious Florentine being requisitioned to invent novelties to attract her attention. But it was all dust and ashes to Philip now. He speaks in his secret letters always gently of his young wife, sometimes even almost with enthusiasm of her goodness; but it is plain to see that there was little sympathy between them,[[37]] for his terrible remorse at his moral fragility and evil life, and his grief at the troubles he firmly believed he was bringing upon his people by his own backsliding, show that the struggle between the spirit and the flesh had begun again as severely as ever, and that Mariana was powerless to keep him entirely faithful to her. She, on her side, had soon learnt the lesson of the Court. Her face grew cold and haughty, and her ostentatious German sympathies and repellent Austrian manner cooled the warm-blooded spontaneous Spaniards towards her. Thus, with all stately dignity, decorum, and solemnity in outward seeming, the ill-matched pair lived: passing from Madrid to Aranjuez and the Escorial at stated seasons, wearily going through the dull, depressing tale of prearranged devotions and duties; the Queen seeking such distraction as was possible in comedies and the like, the King spending much time at his desk, reading the never-ending reports of his Councils brought to him by Don Luis de Haro, and scribbling in his big straggling hand on the margins "Como parece," or some similar sentence signifying his acquiescence in the conclusions arrived at by his advisers.

Philip's changed life

And behind this dreary changeless round there was, unknown to all but one lonely cloistered woman, a human soul in mortal pain for transgressions real and imaginary, which it was unable to avoid, and yet was convinced were dragging the man it animated and millions of the people that he loved and pitied to suffering and sorrow. Philip's constant correspondence with the nun had changed him much; for it is evident, whatever may have been his shortcomings, that her exhortations to him to be brave, dutiful, and faithful, and her wise insistence upon unceasing work and prayer, had made the King watchful of his own weakness, and kept him from sinking into indifference. It is highly probable, indeed, that in his constant self-reproach his failings at this time were exaggerated by him, as those of his father had been on his deathbed. Certainly, from this time forward he tried his best, according to his lights and strength, to live worthily, and to rescue his country from the trouble into which the policy of his ancestors and himself had dragged it; though still there was no glimmering of true statesmanship such as was needed in circumstances so difficult. Philip's spirit was a poor one; and his faith, notwithstanding his devotion, was far from robust. He continued to look upon himself and his country as doomed irrevocably by the Almighty to suffer for his personal sins and those of his generation, and the only remedy presented to his mind was to plead fervently for mercy through a saintly soul untouched by the sins of the time. Of the efficiency even of this resource he needed constant reassurance, and for ever foresaw disaster whilst he was frantically praying for triumph.

Lacking in statesmanship as were Philip and all his advisers, it would nevertheless be unjust to attribute to their ineptitude alone the troubles that overwhelmed Spain. It has been pointed out that Philip inherited both his policy and his methods; and so fixed were they upon the tradition of Charles V. and Philip II., that nothing short of a real genius or a sudden great catastrophe could have altered them. But Philip was specially unfortunate in the international circumstances of his time. The deadly rivalry between the house of Austria and the house of France had existed since the earliest years of the sixteenth century; and wars between them had been frequent since that period. But England had always provided a check to prevent such wars being fought to the bitter end. It had been a fixed canon of English foreign policy that the Flemish dominions of the house of Burgundy, that had descended to the Spanish Kings, must never be allowed to fall into the hands of France, and when such a danger threatened, England invariably interfered in favour of Spain; whilst any aggressive action of France against England, either in Scotland or elsewhere, usually brought Spain to the side of the English sovereigns. But the revolutionary war which had overthrown the monarchy of the Stuarts had for years doomed England to impotence in the struggles of Europe; and Richelieu and his successor Mazarin had been able to disregard an influence which had always previously stepped in to prevent the final humiliation of Spain. Without this immunity from England's interference, France would never have been free to foment rebellion in Catalonia and Portugal; and it may be said that Philip to a great extent owed the extremity of his tribulation to the internal disturbance in England.

Philip and England

It will be recollected that after the diplomacy of Olivares had secured the neutrality of England in the war with France, Sir Arthur Hopton remained in Madrid as English ambassador, having little to do but to press the constant complaints of English shipmasters against the authorities of Spanish ports, and other maritime questions. But in the late summer of 1641, Olivares had sent to Hopton, and in a long interview with him had complained that Charles I. had received an ambassador from the Duke of Braganza, the usurping King of Portugal. Hopton says[[38]] that the Count-Duke spoke modestly and without much bitterness in the matter, and the English envoy at once pointed out that Charles did not presume to judge of the Duke of Braganza's right to the crown, but that as English interests in Portugal were very large, it was needful that he should negotiate with the power wielding effective control in the country. Sir Arthur, moreover, slyly pointed out that words only had passed between his King and the Portuguese envoy, whereas it was with much more than words that the King of Spain had aided Bavaria to keep the Palatinate. Indeed, with the exception of constantly harping on the Palatinate in his discussions with Philip and his ministers, and complaining of the action of the Spanish ambassador in London, Don Alonso de Cardenas, against Charles I., Sir Arthur Hopton confined himself practically to the negotiation of shipping claims,[[39]] until affairs in England and his lack of money necessitated his return home in 1644.

When at last the axe fell in Whitehall, on the 30th January 1649, upon the neck of the Stuart King, Don Alonso de Cardenas, who was accredited to Charles and not yet to the Parliament, was without definite instructions how to proceed, and for that or some other reason he did not identify himself with the Dutch ambassadors in their protest against the death sentence pronounced upon the King. This may have been an accident; but it is certain that there was little love lost between Charles I. and Philip since the visit of the former to Madrid, and his French marriage. It is true that large numbers of Irish and English troops had been raised for the Spanish service with his consent even during the course of the civil war, but his sympathy with Braganza, and the ostentatiously French leanings of Henrietta Maria, had, as Charles's troubles increased, estranged Philip from him personally. It was, moreover, of the highest importance to Philip that, whoever had command of the English fleet and the Channel, should be friendly with him.

Spain and the Commonwealth

It was a serious thing, nevertheless, for Philip, the soul of legitimacy, to have dealings with rebels and regicides; and when Cardenas conveyed to Secretary Geronimo de la Torre in Madrid the news of the tragedy of Whitehall, Philip and his Councils discussed as usual interminably the best course to be pursued.

"Truly," wrote Cardenas, three days after Charles's execution, "I am as grieved as so dreadful a tragedy as that which has befallen this unhappy Prince demands. The events both in this country and abroad have contributed to it, and especially the turmoils in France.... You will now see that what I wrote to you on the 20th August was a true forecast, and indeed I wrote it from certain knowledge I possessed of the designs of these people; namely, that they would try to do without a King, and if they could not succeed in that they would choose the Duke of Gloucester.... We are here in utter chaos, living without religion, King, or law, subject entirely to the power of the sword, and this faction is bearing itself as the conqueror of the realm, wherefrom many novelties will spring."[[40]]

The next letter from Cardenas, on the 19th March (N.S.), warned the Spanish Government that the English were in negotiation with the French, and that unless prompt steps were taken the danger to Spain would be great. This intelligence set Philip's Councils considering again; for unpleasant as it would be to make friends with these "heretic" regicides, their threatened alliance with France in the war would have meant certain ruin for Spain. As usual, the Councils deliberated frequently and at length, and, equally as usual, followed their tradition of avoiding as long as possible decisive action of any sort. An agent of the Parliament came to Cardenas in April 1649 to say that the English Government was desirous of continuing in friendly relations with Spain, and desired to know if King Philip would receive an ambassador from them. This was disconcerting; but the embarrassment was increased by a letter which Sir Francis Cottington wrote to Cardenas from the Hague, saying that the Prince of Wales (Charles II.) had instructed him to go to Madrid as his ambassador, and to ask assistance in his attempts to regain the crown of England. The Council was determined, if possible, to prevent Cottington from coming until the attitude of the French towards Charles was known, but they were very doubtful, on the other hand, about receiving a republican envoy, and accrediting the Spanish ambassador to the Parliament, and thus putting Philip in the unenviable position of offending Charles II. and the legitimist elements in Europe.

The result of many weeks of deliberation in Madrid was that which might have been confidently foretold from the first, namely, to cast upon someone else the responsibility of deciding. Philip accordingly wrote to the Archduke Leopold, his Governor of Flanders, asking him, in the first place, to stop Cottington by any pretext until he discovered what his instructions and object were, or to prevent his going to Madrid at all if possible without offending him. Cottington was to be assured secretly of Philip's sympathy with Charles, but to be told that the best way for Charles to regain his father's crown was to bring about peace between Spain and France. The Archduke was instructed to rap Cardenas sharply over the knuckles for saying so much to the agent of the Parliament, and to instruct him to hold the English revolutionary Government at arm's length for the present, "until at least it was solidly established."[[41]]

In the meanwhile no formal declaration was to be made on behalf of Spain, either to Charles II. or to the Parliament; although, with characteristic duplicity, the former was given the title of Majesty in a letter antedated, so that the Parliament, if they learnt of it, might think that it was written before the Stuarts had been excluded from the succession.[[42]] And, as if to counterbalance this, Cardenas was unofficially to convey to the Parliament Philip's satisfaction at their friendliness. This non-committal attitude, of which Spanish statesmen were always so fond, soon tired the downright English politicians of the Parliament, and they began to show their teeth. In July Cardenas was informed that he would not be treated as an envoy unless he produced new credentials addressed to the Parliamentary Government, and he begged Philip either to recall him or to send new credentials. Philip and his Councils were very loth to do either, intent, as usual, upon running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. At first it was agreed by Philip's Council that the King should not recognise the English Parliament until it was quite clear whether it or Charles II. was likely to prevail in the end; whilst the Stuart Prince in Holland was to be treated with full ceremony, but nothing else. Other Councillors consulted later thought that, as the Parliament was strong and threatening, the Archduke Leopold in Flanders should be empowered to give Cardenas temporary leave to go to Belgium on the pretext of ill-health; but that if any grave occasion should arise another envoy might be sent temporarily, duly accredited to the Parliament of England; and a small number of Councillors, whilst deploring the necessity, were in favour of new credentials being sent to Cardenas at once. The matter was finally submitted to Philip himself, who decided that the Archduke should act as he thought best.[[43]] Being in closer touch with the realities and dangers of the situation in Flanders than were Philip and his Councillors, the Archduke promptly sent credentials to Cardenas addressed to the Parliamentary Government of England; and thus it happened that the ultra-Catholic King of Spain was the first sovereign in Europe formally to recognise the Puritan revolution in England, and the Stuarts had to pay thus for the reception of an envoy of the Braganza King of Portugal by Charles I. years before.

The chain of grievances between the Stuarts and Philip was unbroken. The rebuff in Madrid in 1623, the insincere juggling of the Spaniards about the Palatinate, the marriage of Charles I. to a French Princess, and the recognition of the Portuguese pretender led now, in 1649, to the strange and paradoxical position in which Philip, whose Dominican baptism was described in the first pages of this book, and who ever since had been the champion of Catholic orthodoxy, made friends with the stern Ironsides and Puritans of the Long Parliament.[[44]] It was important also for Cromwell so to deal with the continental Powers as to prevent them from extending to Charles the aid he was so industriously soliciting for the re-establishment of his family on the throne of England; and if France and Spain, from which Cromwell had most to fear, could be conciliated, the main danger from without which threatened the English republic would be avoided.

It was therefore natural that the Parliamentary Government should be desirous of establishing as early as possible full diplomatic relations with Spain. The question was on several occasions pressed upon Cardenas in London; but it went against the grain for so proud a sovereign as Philip to receive an ambassador from a Government whose very existence was a negation of the principle of Spanish sovereignty. He dared not, however, drive England into the arms of France against him, and after the usual protracted deliberation the Spanish Council of State reported upon the letter from Cardenas in these words: "It was a matter of the gravest importance to pass over so serious an excess as that which the English had committed in publicly beheading their King and born ruler; and it would be very worthy of great monarchs to contribute to the punishment of those who were guilty of such an atrocious crime."[[45]] But, nevertheless, whilst they recognised this, they saw the difficulties in the way of Philip's doing so. Again they took shelter behind the former reception of the Portuguese envoy by Charles I., and decided that as yet no other Power had recognised Charles II. there was no reason why they should take the lead in doing so, especially as Prince Rupert's fleet was still finding welcome in Portuguese ports with his prizes. After much preamble of this sort, Philip's Council made a clean breast of it to each other: the Parliament of England, with its fleet, was too strong for Spain to offend, and, distasteful as it might be, the ambassador from the English Parliament must be allowed to reside in Madrid. Cardenas had recommended that a bargain should be made, and that Cromwell, in return for the reception of his envoy in Spain, should refuse to receive a Portuguese envoy in England; but Philip was afraid of drawing the cord too tight, and gave orders that the Puritan ambassador should be placed upon the same footing as the other ministers from foreign Powers resident in his Court.

A Republican envoy

The man chosen for the post was one Anthony Ascham. He must have been in an advanced stage of consumption; for, when he was first appointed in October 1649, he was doubtful if he could go, and wrote to Lord President Bradshaw, saying that the haemorrhage of the lungs from which he suffered was so bad that he must go to his father's house at Boston to recover before he could set out.[[46]] However, although still in wretched health, he safely arrived at Cadiz, though not without an attack on the voyage from a French man-of-war, on the 17/27 March 1650. The great Andalucian magnate, Duke of Medina Celi, received him with all honour, and took him across to Port St. Mary to lodge at his palace. Ascham wished to go to St. Lucar, as being a quieter place, and better fitted for an invalid; but, to his surprise and indignation, he learnt from the Duke that he was not to be allowed to leave Port St. Mary until instructions came from Madrid. The Duke, indeed, expressed haughty astonishment that the Parliament should have presumed to send an envoy at all until they learnt King Philip's pleasure in the matter. Philip knew all about his coming months before, Ascham replied; and whatever orders came from Madrid to the Duke, he, Ascham, would only acknowledge a direct reply to the letter of the Parliament to King Philip.

It was clear that, although fear forced the Government in Madrid to receive the envoy, they were determined to snub him as much as possible, and during the time Ascham was detained at Port St. Mary, not unwillingly, for he was still very ill, it was decided that although he might be sent to Madrid with an escort to ensure his safety, when he arrived there he was to be kept waiting on various pretexts as long as possible before even being received by Don Luis de Haro, who was to avoid all negotiations or agreements when he did see him, until he knew the tenour of his instructions and his object in coming to Spain;[[47]] the intention of Philip and his Councillors evidently being to compromise themselves as little as possible until it was proved which party in England would ultimately triumph. Ascham was kept in Port St. Mary's until almost the middle of May, though treated with ostentatious respect; and at last, with an escort of six Spanish officers, headed by a colonel, slowly moved on through the burning Andalucian summer to Madrid.

He had naturally expected to be taken, as was usual, to some good private house retained by the King for his accommodation; but, much to his surprise, the colonel who was the chief of his escort led him on the day of his arrival, Sunday, 5th June, to a poor inn kept by a widow named Pandes in the Calle del Caballero de Gracia. Ascham, who was accompanied by a secretary named Fischer, an Italian interpreter, and an English servant, remonstrated against being thus exposed to the discomfort and danger of lodging in an open posada without locks or bolts upon the doors. The colonel was very haughty and off-handed about it, doubtless prompted by his superiors, and told the envoy that his duty was ended in bringing him safely to Madrid; but that he would return in the morning. Ascham, in high dudgeon, remained at the inn that night, and early in the morning sent for an Englishman named Marston resident in Madrid, who came at once, accompanied by another Englishman who was with him at the time, one Laurence Chambers.[[48]] To them Ascham, in alarm, stated the case. Here he was, he said, without even a lock on his door, in a Catholic country swarming with enemies of his Government and his religion; with Sir Francis Cottington posing at the Spanish Court as the representative of Charles Stuart; and yet the colonel, who had just visited him, had told him that he must look after his own safety, for he had done with him.

Murder of Ascham

Ascham had that morning sent his interpreter to see Secretary Geronimo de la Torre, who had expressed surprise at the colonel's action; and had promised to place some of the King's own guard at Ascham's disposal. "But in the meanwhile," said Ascham, "here I am in hourly danger of my life, for I cannot trust these people." His own ignorance of Spanish had prevented his understanding his escort's instructions, and whether the safe-conduct sent to Medina Celi covered his stay in Madrid and his return to the coast. "If not," said poor Ascham, "I am a dead man." Marston and Chambers agreed as to his danger, and at once set out to find him a fitting lodging in a safe house.

Whilst the Englishmen were house-hunting for the unfortunate ambassador in the forenoon of the 6/16 June, another party of their countrymen were drinking in a tavern within a few doors of the posada where Ascham was lodged. For years Catholic Irish and North and West countrymen from England had been incorporated in the Spanish armies; and at the final break up of the royalist forces in England many of Charles's late soldiers enlisted under the same banner. They were a turbulent, swaggering lot, though good soldiers, and were wont to hang about the Catholic Flemish cities and Madrid until new companies were formed in which they could serve. Five or six men of this sort it was who were drinking in the tavern in the Calle del Caballero de Gracia. There was Major Halsey, a man from Lancashire; Captain Prodgers, a Welshman; Captain Williams, his compatriot; Valentine Roche, an Irishman; and one Sparkes, a merchant's book-keeper from Oxford, as well as a Scottish trumpeter named Arnet. The talk turned upon the arrival in Madrid on the previous evening of the Roundhead ambassador, sent by the men who had murdered his Sacred Majesty King Charles. It were a good deed to kill such a crop-eared knave, said one of the swashbucklers; for he had even written a scurvy book defending the regicides. The wine was heady and cheap; and as they talked thus and drank, the project grew in favour, for were they not in Catholic Spain, where to kill a heretic and a rebel, envoy or no envoy, was a godly deed that all men praised?

In the meanwhile Marston and Chambers came back to the posada, which was still without a guard, and informed Ascham that they had found an excellent and secure lodging for him. Mr. Fischer was asked to go with them to see the house and settle the bargain; but dinner being on the table in the room on the first floor occupied by Ascham, the latter asked his countrymen to partake of the meal before going. Marston declined, and earnestly recommended the envoy to forego his dinner and move to the new lodgings instantly, since the guard had not come, and he had reason to feel apprehensive for the envoy's safety. The Italian interpreter, John Baptist Arribas, made light of the danger, and persuaded Ascham to dine first and then to transfer his lodging, whether the King's guard came or not. With this Marston and Chambers, accompanied by the secretary Fischer, went out, leaving Ascham and his interpreter at dinner, attended by the English serving-man.

Presently a tramping upon the stairs was heard, and the Lancashire soldier, Major Edward Halsey, entered the room, followed by Williams, Sparkes, and Arnet; whilst the others remained at the door and the head of the stairs. Halsey advanced as if to salute the envoy, and the latter rose, but seeing the three others following Halsey he drew back towards a side table upon which some loaded pistols were lying. Before he could reach it Halsey seized him by the hair and cried out, "Traitor!" whilst Williams thrust him through the arm with a dagger, and another stabbed him in the temples. The unhappy envoy fell at once, and the murderers hacked him about the head and body as he lay; whilst the Italian, in mortal fear, made as if to fly, crying out in Spanish, "I am not the man!" But as he ran towards the door he was slashed across the stomach by Halsey and another of the ruffians, and was just able to stagger into the bedroom beyond, where he fell dead.

Then the six assassins fled, as they had arranged to do, to the Church of St. Andres, a door or two away in the same street, where before the high altar they claimed sanctuary. In a few minutes all the quarter was in an uproar, from the Red de San Luis at the top of the street to the Convent of St. Hermenegildo at the bottom. Grave alcaldes carrying white wands, and followed by alguacils, surrounded the posada, and on entering the upper room they found Ascham and the Italian interpreter lying dead, and the English serving-man uninjured, but almost beside himself with terror. The case was so scandalous that the alcalde ordered the murderers to be taken from sanctuary, a most unusual thing, which was looked upon askance by those who saw it. But Philip had been determined, since he had enjoyed the support of the nun, to allow no immunity to open assassination in the capital; and with shouts of indignant protest five of the prisoners were led off to gaol.

Spain and Cromwell

Much interrogation there was of Mr. Fischer. Why had they come to Spain? What was their religion? and finally, the poor secretary had his money and papers seized, and was borne off to remain in strict seclusion in the alcalde's house pending the orders of His Majesty. Philip was intensely annoyed at the news of the crime, which rendered his position with Cromwell's Government more difficult than ever. He found himself, to begin with, at issue with the ecclesiastical authorities, who peremptorily demanded the restoration of the prisoners to sanctuary; the murderers, moreover, openly boasted of their deed, and competed with each other in claiming the leading part in it. The feeling in Madrid was, of course, strongly in favour of them; for was it not a virtue to kill an unrepentant heretic and rebel regicide? Every Madrileño who had enjoyed himself at an auto-de-fé knew that it was a saintly act and not murder which these men had done; and they in their prison were the heroes of the hour.

Philip personally could hardly be expected to look upon it otherwise; for in his eyes a King, however bad, was sacrosanct. Yet how could he let the murderers of a political envoy under his safe-conduct go free, and thus arouse the ire of Cromwell, who with his Council now wielded the power of England, and could ruin Spanish commerce as well as ensure the victory of the French in the lingering war. Again political expediency won the day; for Philip refused to surrender the prisoners to the Church or to the Inquisition, and they remained in prison until the affair blew over and circumstances changed; when all but one of them, who had died, were quietly let out and disappeared.

In the meanwhile Fischer assumed the part of agent in Madrid for the Parliament, and was treated by Haro with marked politeness and respect. "Had Fischer any authority to negotiate an alliance?" asked Don Luis. "No," replied Fischer. "The Parliament is not so much perplexed at the murder of their agent as at the tardance thereby of a firm league between the two countries." Haro said that the King was still just as anxious to be friendly as the English were. "Are not the French and the Portuguese the enemies both of the Parliament and of King Philip?" "Yes," replied Fischer; "but the Parliament will be very scrupulous about sending another envoy until they know how Ascham's murderers are to be punished."[[49]] "Cottington," writes Fischer, "is still here, and lives in good fashion, by his Catholic Majesty's charity; although I am confident he can work little with him,—but he passeth better here than he can elsewhere, so he thinks not of departure. Had the Parliament once capitulated with his Majesty (i.e. Philip) I suppose he would be quickly cashiered."[[50]]

Fischer was not a man of sufficient standing to bring about an international agreement; and by Cromwell's orders he returned to England in 1651, without having negotiated an alliance. But thenceforward Cromwell and Philip were polite and friendly to each other to an extent that filled English royalists and Catholics with indignant surprise. A high noble, the Marquis de Lede, was sent from Spanish Flanders to congratulate the Lord Protector upon the assumption of his new dignity; and Cardenas had nothing but kind messages to give from his master to the English Puritans. Cromwell, however, wanted something more solid than amiable messages. He knew full well, as indeed Fischer wrote, that fear, not love, made the Spanish King so courteous. Cromwell had, it is true, secured something when he prevented Spain from helping the Stuarts, but he wanted also as conditions of the proposed alliance with Spain that freedom should be given to English ships to trade in the West Indies, that the power of the Inquisition over Englishmen in Spain should be limited, that reciprocal advantages in the matter of duties should be given to English and Spanish trade, and that English merchants should be allowed to buy wool in Spain.

Cromwell seizes Jamaica

The two first demands were flatly and haughtily refused by Cardenas in Philip's name, and Cromwell looked around for a means of coercion, for he was in no humour to take the traditional view of Spain's awesome superiority. He found it in Mazarin's difficulties in France, and his urgent need to end the war quickly at any cost. The aid of England on the sea would make all the difference, and if he obtained it Spain must bow the head and accept the terms he offered them. So he bade higher than Philip for Cromwell's friendship,—Dunkirk, a Spanish Flemish port to be jointly captured, being the bribe; and Blake, who had long been co-operating with Philip to suppress Moorish piracy in the Mediterranean, suddenly sailed with the Parliament fleet, and without a declaration of war fell upon the Spanish silver fleet in the Atlantic, whilst Penn and Venables attacked Mexico and St. Domingo unsuccessfully, and without warning captured from the Spaniards the rich island of Jamaica.

This was in May 1655; and the news fell upon Philip like an avalanche. Panic spread through Seville and Cadiz, and curses loud and deep of the falsity of heretics rang through Liars' Walk and the Calle Mayor. For all these years poor overburdened Spain had kept at bay half the world in arms, but hitherto the diplomacy which had successfully kept England neutral had saved her from being utterly overwhelmed. Now, as hope was dawning that her great antagonist was fainting from the domestic strife which crippled Mazarin, and that terms honourable to Philip's pride and respectful to the integrity of his territory could be attained, the new and strong republican England had cast her glaive into the scale on the side of France; and Spain, already exhausted, plague-ridden, and bankrupt, was face to face with two great enemies instead of one. Well might Philip write to the nun when he heard of the intentions of the English fleets, and the probable outbreak of hostilities: "If this should happen it would be the final ruin of this realm; and no human power would be able to stop it: the Almighty hand of God alone could do it; and so I beseech you most earnestly to supplicate Him to take pity upon us, and not to allow the infidels to destroy realms so pure in the faith and so religious as these are. Blessed be His holy name!"[[51]]

[[1]] A pathetic account of his deathbed is given by Novoa. After eighty-eight days of continual fever, the miraculous image of Our Lady of Bois le Duc was brought to his sick chamber. As the image entered the door the Prince chanted the hymn, "Mater, Mater Gratia," and when he reached the words "Mater Misericordia" he faltered and died.

[[2]] The Cortes of Castile voted 4,000,000 ducats a year for six years in June 1643, and the silver fleet arrived in Seville intact with a large treasure, which was seized by the Government as a forced loan.

[[3]] The story of the battle of Rocroy is told in minutest detail by Canovas del Castillo in Estudios de Reinado de Felipe IV., vol. ii.

[[4]] Newsletter, Valladares' Semanario Erudito, vol. xxxiii.

[[5]] Many isolated letters have been known, and some of them published, at various times; but in 1885 the whole correspondence, so far as it is known, was published by my lamented friend, Don Francisco Silvela.

[[6]] Oran, a Spanish fortress on the African coast, was closely beleaguered by land and sea by the Moors, at the instance, so it was said, of the new King of Portugal. The Duke of Arcos, Governor of Valencia, managed to run the blockade with two English ships full of provisions, and the place was thus relieved. The superstitious Madrileños of the time attributed the relief to a miraculous painting of the Virgin that had just been discovered in Madrid. A servant girl had begun to sing a hymn of praise and dance before the figure, when she saw the fingers of the painting move. Her cries brought the crowd to see the miracle, and all Madrid was stirred. The painting was taken to the convent of Discalced Carmelites. The next day it was exposed in the church, and the news came of the relief of Oran. Newsletters, Valladares.

[[7]] Villadares' Newsletter.

[[8]] The punishments were terrible. In a Newsletter written during this winter it is mentioned that two young gentlemen of birth had been hanged that week as known thieves. "A young girl who was their accomplice did not accompany them, as she was not old enough to be hanged, but they gave her two hundred lashes, and cut off her ears under the scaffold, after which they kept her all day hanging by the hair in sight of the public; so that she died of the punishment within two days." Valladares.

[[9]] The famous Villanueva, we are told, had to dance attendance upon Secretary Andres de Rozas instead of keeping everybody waiting in his antechamber; and the King's former confessor had to pay his respects in the cell of Friar Santo Tomas, who was now the King's spiritual guide.

[[10]] A Newsletter of the time gives rather a quaint instance of the feeling against him at Saragossa. Don Antonio de Mendoza, the poet, entered a room where Guzman was playing cards. Guzman impatiently said: "How tiresome that man is to me." Mendoza stood behind his chair to watch the game. "Get away from there," said Guzman, addressing the noble as "Vos," You, instead of "Your Worship." This was repeated, when Mendoza in a rage said: "I am not 'Vos' to you, and don't intend to be," and flung off to complain to the King.

[[11]] Valladares' Newsletter, 28th July 1643.

[[12]] The King's good example had as yet done but little to wean the Madrid people from their bad habits. On the 26th December a gentleman was shot dead before the Church of St. Sebastian, and the next day a murderous affray in a playhouse about a seat ended in two deaths.

[[13]] The advice to which this refers is significant, and was evidently intended to be so by the nun, although the words she uses are very cautious and involved. "I supplicate your Majesty, as your servant, to make yourself thoroughly versed in everything touching you. This admonition is very important, and in order to adopt it with full knowledge of facts, your Majesty should choose, guided by your own sound judgment, someone whom you can depend upon, and listen to him with the fitting dissimulation. God will not deny this boon to your Majesty; and when you have learnt the truth, the execution should be rapid; for the evil is great and the remedy needs resolution. God assist your Majesty and rule your heart." This probably refers to the reform of the social and moral evils in Madrid, as that subject had been broached by the nun in her first interview with Philip.

[[14]] Valladares' Newsletter.

[[15]] Ibid.

[[16]] Only a few weeks before her death, she had gone to the Discalced Convent to visit the Duchess of Mantua with Baltasar Carlos. When she entered the apartment she noticed that the cushions placed under the canopy for her to sit upon were of black velvet. She thought black unlucky, as the King was in danger; and she made an excuse not to sit down. When she had sent her son off to play about the convent, she sat upon the carpet rather than risk the ill-luck of sitting on black cushions. Valladares' Newsletter.

[[17]] One of her last acts had been to issue a stringent decree—probably suggested to Philip by the nun of Agreda, with regard to the comedies, of which in her happier days she had been so inordinately fond. In future it was ordered that no fictitious plots should be represented, but only scenes from the Scriptures or from history. No actors, male or female, were to dress in gold cloth; and no unmarried woman nor widow was to be allowed to appear on a stage, only married women, whilst gentlemen were not permitted to visit an actress more than twice. New plays were not allowed to be produced more than once a week; and plays in private houses were forbidden; whilst the managers were not to receive in their companies any actors but those known to be decent and well behaved. Valladares' Newsletter, March 1644.

[[18]] Novoa; Valladares' Newsletters; Florez, Reinas Catolicas, and Martin Hume's Queens of Old Spain.

[[19]] Life of Sor Maria, quoted by Florez.

[[20]] Cartas de Sor Maria.

[[21]] Avisos de Pullicer.

[[22]] The Prince, who had seen the nun on his way to Saragossa, wrote the following artless letter to her about his betrothal. "Mother, two or three days ago my father gave me a letter from you congratulating me on the marriage that my father has made for me with the Archduchess Mariana. I am the most pleased in the world to have taken this state, especially with my cousin, who was the one I wished for ever since I had use of my reason; and it seems impossible to me that I could have come across any other woman so much to my taste. So I hope His Divine Majesty will let us be very happily married, which is all I can hope for. I ask you to pray for this. Our Lord guard you.—I, THE PRINCE. Saragossa, 20th July 1646."

[[23]] Her reproaches were curiously framed. Just as after the Queen's death she had tried to reform the extravagance of women's dress by pretending to have seen Isabel's ghost in trouble for her fine garments on earth, so she now appealed to Philip to keep hard at work, by saying that the soul of Baltasar Carlos had told her that he was troubled to see his father surrounded by people who looked after their own interests rather than after those of the nation. Cartas de Sor Maria, 30th January 1647.

[[24]] One of their proposals was to evacuate Catalonia in exchange for Spanish Flanders.

[[25]] Writing to the nun on 15th July 1648 from Madrid, in reply to her expressions of sorrow at the vice prevalent, he says: "It pierces my heart, too, to see the vicious state at which the world has arrived. I recognise it as clearly as you do, and as I cannot remedy it so quickly as I should like I am greatly troubled; although I do what I can. God grant that I may succeed in remedying it, and that I may begin by my own amendment; for there is no doubt that I need it more than anyone. Pray for me, Sor Maria, ... for I have need of your help against my own frailty." Cartas de Sor Maria.

[[26]] Ibid.

[[27]] How deep this feeling was is seen by the courtier Novoa's words at the time (Memorias). "The only place where the war was carried on with activity was here in Castile, and that in a most unheard-of way, by disarming subjects and divesting them of their property on the pretext of the war. Even the treasury warrants which had been specially exempt from deduction were again seized and forced to yield a half. When those who had to pay were advised not to do so, because whilst the war lasted so long would the Government cut their purses and would soon take everything, a certain person asked: 'Why do they give habits? (of knighthood).—'Because they are cloth,' was the reply. 'Why do they give keys?' (i.e. the office of chamberlain).—'Because they are iron.' 'Why do they give titles?'—'Because they are air.' 'Why do they not give money?'—'Because that is the essence and substance of everything, and they do not wish anyone to have it.' And he added: 'God save us from him who is liberal to vice and stingy to virtue, for the only people now who are comfortable and placed aloft are concubines and the women who look after them, low and common women, and those men who have been base enough to marry them.'" This was pretty plain speaking for a courtier; but, of course, the Memoirs were not made public for many years after.

[[28]] Egerton MSS., 367, 181.

[[29]] The "prison of the Court" still stands nearly opposite the Plaza de Santa Cruz, at the end of the Calle de Atocha, and near the entrance to the Plaza Mayor. It was built in 1634 by the same Italian architect who had designed the Buen Retiro, and is a very handsome building. It is now used as the Spanish Foreign Office, which was formerly housed in the basement floor of the royal palace.

[[30]] A tedious account from day to day of her doings was written by Mascarenhas, Bishop of Leiria, who accompanied her. Viage de la Serenisima Reina, etc., Madrid, 1650.

[[31]] Some days before arriving at Denia the Queen's flotilla had anchored at Tarragona to water, and amongst other ceremonies the Queen was amused during the necessary delay by the representation of a comedy by Roque de Figueroa on the quarter-deck of her vessel. Pinelo, Anales.

[[32]] I have remarked in my Queens of Old Spain that the reason why these wretched villages were often chosen for royal weddings was the custom to free them thenceforward from seigniorial tributes.

[[33]] Soto y Aguilar gives interminable accounts of the festivities to celebrate the entrance of the Queen into Madrid. The entertainments lasted nearly a month. Novoa says that on the 27th November the King himself took part in a "masquerade" on horseback, as in old times, running in a pair with his first minister and favourite, Don Luis de Haro: "all the nobles and gentles in the realm taking part in this show, which in liveries and splendid appointments surpassed all others. It was indeed a day of marvellous brilliancy. A proclamation was issued by sound of drum, by which the King gave leave to men of business and capitalists trading abroad for them to fit out eighty ships and trade with them in his ports and those of his allies, but not with the French Catalans or Portuguese. Politicians talked much of this, thinking it would be of the greatest advantage to the country." The chronicler, however, says that no advantage was taken of the permission, as merchants thought that the ships would be seized for the King. This shows how completely confidence had been lost in the honesty of Philip's Government, even by his friends.

[[34]] Cartas de Sor Maria.

[[35]] Aersens van Sommerdyk.

[[36]] Florez relates that at this sumptuous christening the little Infanta Maria Teresa was god-mother, and in drawing off her glove she dropped a very precious bracelet of brilliants. A lady in the crowd picked it up and offered it to the Infanta, who even thus early had learnt the haughty traditions of her house, to take nothing from the hand of anyone but certain officials, made a sign that the lady was to keep the bracelet, Reinas Catolicas.

[[37]] He usually speaks of her in the earlier years as "my niece," not as "my wife," or "the Queen," and very frequently mentions her and his daughter together as "the girls."

[[38]] Record Office MSS., S.P. Spain 42.

[[39]] See Hopton's summary of his proceedings in Spain. Record Office MSS., S.P. Spain 42.

[[40]] MSS. Simancas, Estado, 2526; Canovas, del Castillo, Estudios del Reinado de Felipe IV.

[[41]] Simancas MSS., Estado, 2526; Canovas del Castillo.

[[42]] Simancas MSS., Estado, 2526; Canovas del Castillo.

[[43]] Canovas del Castillo.

[[44]] I have remarked elsewhere (Spanish Influences in English Literature) the strange approximation of the Spanish mystics (such as Sor Maria) with the English Puritans.

[[45]] MSS. Simancas, Estado, 2526; Canovas del Castillo.

[[46]] MSS. Record Office. S.P. Spain 42.

[[47]] Consultas del Consejo de Estado, Simancas.

[[48]] The present narrative is compiled from (1) the details of Ascham's murder, given to the English Council by Laurence Chambers on his return to England (Record Office MSS., S.P. Spain 43); (2) the letters of Fischer, the secretary, in the same packet; and (3) an unpublished manuscript deposition of the prisoners in Bib. Nat., Madrid, i. 325, transcribed by me.

[[49]] Fischer's letters and full account of his negotiations are in Record Office MSS., S.P. Spain 43.

[[50]] Fischer to the Council, 26th November 1650. MSS. Record Office.

[[51]] Cartas de Sor Maria, 30th June 1655.