The Court of Philip IV.: Spain in Decadence

by Martin A. S. Hume

CHAPTER X

MORAL AND SOCIAL DECADENCE IN MADRID—PHILIP'S HABITS—POVERTY IN THE PALACE—VELAZQUEZ—THE MENINAS—BIRTH OF AN HEIR—THE CHRISTENING—THE PEACE OF THE PYRENEES—PHILIP'S JOURNEY TO THE FRONTIER—MARRIAGE OF MARIA TERESA—CAMPAIGNS IN PORTUGAL—DON JUAN—DEATH OF HARO—PHILIP BEWITCHED—DEATH OF PHILIP PROSPER—BIRTH OF CHARLES—FANSHAWE's EMBASSY—LADY FANSHAWE AND SPAIN—ROUT OF CARACENA IN PORTUGAL—PHILIP'S ILLNESS—THE INQUISITION AND WITCHCRAFT—DEATH OF PHILIP

By great good fortune there have survived descriptions and accounts of life in Philip's Court at the time of which we now write (1654-1660), so minute and so photographic in their fidelity, as to provide absolutely trustworthy material for a true comparison of the condition of affairs after five-and-twenty years of a disastrous reign, with that which had existed on the King's accession. A writer of keen observation, insatiable curiosity, ample opportunity, and much literary skill, the noble churchman and poet Jeronimo de Barrionuevo, from 1654 for several years wrote almost every week a chatty letter from Madrid to his friend the Dean of Saragossa and others, setting forth with perfect frankness everything worth recording that passed in Madrid. At the same time, an observant Hollander named Aersens van Sommerdyk visited Spain, and stayed in the capital long enough to write an account of the social and political condition of the Court as it appeared to an intelligent foreigner; whilst shortly afterwards the sparkling narrative of life in Madrid, written by the Frenchman Bonnecasse, came to confirm the impressions of the Spaniard and the Dutchman.[[1]] If we add to these Philip's own weekly letters to the nun, and the reports of the Venetian ambassadors, which are also in print, we have a mass of contemporary evidence which cannot be contradicted, especially in matters upon which all agree.

Madrid in 1655-1660

It is well that this should be so; for the picture to be presented of life in the capital of the Spains at the end of Philip's reign is so gloomy, that the historian who ventured to produce it without full contemporary warrant would be accused of bias and exaggeration. At the beginning of the reign we saw a fairly numerous class of nobles, churchmen, and officials, still rich with royal grants and government plunder; whilst the mass of the people were sunk in poverty. At the time of which we are now writing the nobles themselves had been bled to a state of bankruptcy. They and the Church were supposed to be exempt from taxation; but the demands made upon them, and especially upon the nobles, for funds for the war had ended by reducing most of them to the same poverty-stricken condition as their inferiors in rank. The financial and mercantile classes had lost all confidence; for the arbitrary seizure of their property again and again by the Government, and the crushing taxation on exports, even to Spanish colonies, had driven them to universal evasion and contraband, to the further depletion of Philip's resources.[[2]] Haro, who had a revenue of 130,000 ducats a year, and a few of his kinsmen, were still very rich, and continued to plunder all they could, though there was, indeed, little left to plunder; and in addition to these, the only people who had much ready money to spend were the colonial officials who had returned home with the booty of their offices.

The idleness and pretension of all classes in the capital had increased now to such an extent, that practically the whole of the necessary work had to be done by foreigners; there being as many as 40,000 French subjects in Madrid dressing as Spaniards, and calling themselves Burgundians or Walloons, to escape the special tax on foreigners.[[3]] By these people most crafts and callings were conducted, the Spanish working classes being occupied mainly in casual service, petty traffic, and mendicancy; whilst highway robbery and murder, even in Madrid, was so frequent as to cause no remark. The streets were more filthy and dilapidated than ever, and still the crowd of idlers on foot and in vast number of coaches, drawn by mules now, for the horses had been seized, thronged the promenades,—the Calle Mayor in the winter, the Prado and river bank in the summer; the humbler classes elbowing their social superiors with perfect effrontery, wearing swords and daggers, claiming equal respect, and, indeed, swaggering more than the nobles.

The two playhouses, which had been reopened on the King's second marriage, were crammed every day with artizans dressed in imitation or cast-off finery, and calling themselves caballeros, who had to pay from 10 to 15 sous in all for a seat;[[4]] and, whilst the fields were mostly tilled, if at all, and the urban labour was performed, by foreigners, the very cloth upon Spanish backs being made in Holland and England from Spanish wool, the native working classes still vociferously kept up the silly tradition of their own gentility, and of national potency and the overwhelming wealth of the King. The alternate appreciation and debasement of the coinage had enormously raised the price of commodities, and especially of house rent in Madrid; the houses being still low, shabby, and incommodious, for the most part, owing to the claim of the King to the first floor of every house or its equivalent in money.

But what struck foreigners, and indeed observant Spaniards, at this period, was the appalling profligacy still prevalent in Madrid. Public women almost monopolised the promenades; their shameless impudence in broad daylight having the effect of lowering the standard of behaviour, even of decent women, who thought it no insult, but rather the contrary, to be addressed in amorous terms by strange men in the street.[[5]] The women, for the most part, still went about, notwithstanding the prohibition, with shawls covering their faces except one eye, and this facilitated intrigue in all classes to a shocking extent. The Government were in despair about the utter disregard by women of the dress regulations; for the wide farthingales, stiff, extravagant wigs, and fine stuffs were worn in spite of all pragmatics, since the Queen and her ladies set the fashion; and the only persons punished were the unfortunate shopkeepers who supplied the offending things.

The whole moral situation in Spain was indeed a social problem which can only be explained by the lack of feminine influence in society at the time and previously. There had always remained a taint of Oriental tradition in the treatment of women in Spain. They had been kept in strict seclusion; they were for the most part entirely ignorant, and had never taken an equal social position with men, usually dining apart from their husbands, visiting each other in closed chairs or coaches, and spent their time squatting on the ground in circles talking trivialities or devotion, whilst the men were rarely accompanied by their woman-kind in public. It was therefore no wonder that in such a state of society as this, ladies and modest women for the most part abandoned the streets and public places to utter profligacy; and that men, free from the salutary influence exercised by the presence of good women, sank deeper and deeper into vice. Philip, under the influence of the nun, had striven hard to make his capital more decent; but the whole tide of feeling was contrary and too strong for him; whilst his own example in this respect was a very bad one, which seriously weakened his efforts. Barrionuevo, in one of his letters at this time, mentions the King as being "a fine hand at bastards, but with very poor luck as regards legitimate children"; and shortly afterwards, during one of Philip's spasmodic attempts to cleanse his capital, the same writer says: "They are arresting all the women they find wandering unoccupied about the streets, and hailing them off by tens and twenties to prison with their hands tied. The gaol is crammed full, so that they have hardly room to stand, and the house will have to be largely extended if this rigour is to go on, or vast supplies of wood will have to be laid in to burn some of them otherwise."

In the matter of men's dress Philip's example had agreed with his precept; and here he had succeeded in imposing the fashion of sombre modesty. No man was allowed to enter his presence, or even to tender a petition to him as he went to Mass through his lines of red and yellow halberdiers, unless apparelled entirely in black, and wearing a golilla. The style of dress had changed somewhat since the King's accession. The hats were much smaller, and often of silk instead of felt, and profusely trimmed with black lace. The doublet, trunks, and cape of the men were usually of black baize, as was the ropilla, a close-fitting unbuttoned tunic reaching to the thighs, with open sleeves hanging from the shoulder; though gentlemen often wore black silk doublets and trunks in the summer. The trunks or breeches were now cut quite narrow, with buttons at the knee, like modern knickerbockers; and the fashion was to wear thin black silk stockings over thick white ones, and the shoes were tied with very broad black ribbons.[[6]]

The King was now rarely seen in public, except that on two days in the week he sat almost motionless for an hour in public audience to receive petitions, which with a slight inclination of his head he referred to Don Luis de Haro. The various Councils, as before, discussed at great length every point touching their respective departments, and, unseen, the King might listen to their deliberations; but practically his intervention in their business was confined now to his sitting upon his throne every Friday morning, whilst the respective secretaries recited what had been done during the previous week. The King's assent to their recommendations was usually given simply by the words "Está bien," It is well; but if the matter appeared to demand further attention he turned to Don Luis de Haro, who stood by his side, and told him to speak to him later about it. Don Luis de Haro was in all but name a Vice-King. Everyone, even the Secretary of State, knelt whilst he addressed him, and Philip appended his signature "Yo el Rey," with little or no inquiry, to everything that the favourite placed before him.

His finances were more hopelessly involved than ever, especially after Cromwell joined the French against him: and he told the Cortes of Castile in the previous year, 1654, that out of the 10 million ducats voted to him by them he only received 3 millions. From the Indies in all he received in good years from 1½ to 2 millions of ducats;[[7]] whilst about 2 millions came from Aragon, etc. Out of a total nominal revenue, therefore, of about 18 million ducats he only received about 8 or 9 millions, the rest being either anticipated or intercepted by peculation; and in the year 1654 he confessed to an uncovered debt of 120 million ducats. But, withal, though Philip himself made no secret of his poverty, the country at large, and particularly the people of Madrid, insisted upon boasting still Of the boundless wealth at his disposal. There are in Barrionuevo's letters scores of references to the squalid penury that existed everywhere at this period,[[8]] even in the interior of Philip's palace; but the following short extract from one of them, belonging to the year 1657, will suffice.

Poverty in the palace

"For the last two months and a half the usual rations have not been distributed in the palace; for the King has not a real. On the day of St. Francis they served a capon to the Infanta (Maria Teresa), who ordered them to take it away, as it stank like a dead dog. They then brought her a chicken, of which she is fond, on sippets of toast, but it was so covered with flies that she nearly overturned the lot. This is how things go on in the palace.... It appears also that the Queen likes to finish her dinner with sweetmeats; but as none had been brought to her table for some days, she asked the lady whose business it is to attend to these things, why they were not served as usual. She replied that the confectioner refused to supply them because he could not get paid, and a large amount was owing to him. The lady then drew a ring from her finger, and said to a servant: 'Run out at once and get some sweetmeats, anywhere, with this jewel.' But the buffoon Manuelito de Gante was present, and cried: 'Put your finger in your ring again, mistress'; and with that he took a copper real from his pocket and said: 'Go and get some sweetmeats quickly, so that this good lady may finish her dinner.'"

With poverty touching even the Queen's own table, with Philip and his ministers in despair of finding fresh means to extort more money from the empty pockets of subjects, and from the hidden hoards of the Church, lavish waste still jostled carking poverty. Barrionuevo gives an account of an entertainment provided by the Marquis of Heliche, the eldest son of Haro, a few months only before the scene just described (January 1657), to celebrate the visit paid to him by Philip and his wife at the Zarzuela outside Madrid, where, in addition to comedies and the like, a great banquet was prepared.

A gargantuan feast

"It cost 16,000 ducats.... There was a dinner served of 1000 dishes; and there was one monstrous stew in a huge jar sunk in the ground with a fire beneath it.... It contained a three-year-old calf, 4 sheep, 100 pairs of pigeons, 100 partridges, 100 rabbits, 1000 pigs' trotters, and 1000 tongues, 200 fowls, 30 hams, 500 sausages, and 100,000 other trifles. They say it cost 8000 reals, though mostly presents. Everything I am telling you is true, and I minimise rather than exaggerate. There were three or four thousand persons present, and there was plenty for everybody, and to spare. So much was left, indeed, that it was brought back to Madrid in baskets, and I got some relieves and scraps. And all this was in addition to tarts and puffs and pasties, sweet cakes, preserves, fruits, and enormous quantities of wine and sweet drinks. The Venice ambassador presented 500 ducats' worth of glass, and Tutavilla gave a similar amount of crockery.... All the scenery and apparatus have been brought to the Retiro, to the new theatre which they have made in the St. Paul's Hermitage there, and the whole affair is to be repeated there this carnival."

It is hardly necessary to say that, in reward for this Gargantuan feast, Heliche was made a grandee a few days afterwards.

Philip took no pleasure personally now in these coarse frivolities; though Mariana hungered for them, to distract her from the fits of homesick depression into which she periodically sank in the dull monotony of her life and her frequently disappointed hopes of renewed motherhood. The King himself was well-nigh despondent: going through his life like a leaden automaton, signing papers placed before him by Haro, usually without discussion or remark.[[9]] His condition, indeed, now was closely akin to melancholy religious madness, such was the morbid misery that preyed upon him: in anticipation of an early death, weeping for his own sins, for the utter ruin that seemed impending, and for the continued absence of a male heir to his broken realms. One of his strange whims at this time was to pass hours alone in the new jasper mausoleum at the Escorial, to which he had transferred the bodies of his ancestors shortly before. After one of these visits in 1654, he wrote to Sor Maria: "I saw the corpse of the Emperor, whose body, although he has been dead ninety-six years, is still perfect; and by this it may be seen how richly the Lord has repaid him for his efforts in favour of the faith whilst he lived. It helped me much, especially as I contemplated the place where I am to lie when God shall take me. I prayed Him not to let me forget what I saw there." Soon afterwards, Barrionuevo records that the King had passed two solitary hours upon his knees in prayer on the bare stones of the mausoleum before the niche which was to be his own final resting-place; and that when he came out his eyes were red and swollen with weeping.

"The meninas"

The years went on, and still Mariana's repeated hopes of progeny were disappointed. Her own health was not good, for she fretted much, whilst Philip's troubles had crushed and aged him sadly. The Indian silver, which had previously been so precious a contribution to his revenue, was now regularly captured by Cromwell's cruisers, which closely beleaguered Cadiz. The French on the Flemish frontier and in Catalonia were still holding his territory, though Don Juan was doing his best and not unsuccessfully in Flanders (1656-57). Peace, as Philip well knew, was now a vital necessity for him; but pride still kept him from surrendering to the foreigner the land of his fathers, and Mazarin's terms were as yet too humiliating for acceptance by a Power which had for so long claimed predominance in Europe.

Girl children had been born to Mariana, but each one had died at, or soon after, birth, though the wildest caprice of the mother was complied with in order to produce favourable conditions; but after the simultaneous birth and death of the girl child which came in August 1656, all hope seemed gone, and a profound melancholy fell upon both husband and wife, unrelieved by one ray of light. Philip's principal pleasure now, with the exception of his prayers and the immoralities he deplored so much, were the visits he paid every few days to the studio of Velazquez in the old palace. There, beneath the magic brush of the painter, he saw grow in resemblance the portraits of those amongst whom his life was passed,—the dwarfs and buffoons, who tried now so fruitlessly to make him smile, the quaint characters about the palace, the generals and admirals, the councillors and secretaries, whose faces he knew so well; and, above all, his two little girls and his young wife, with her rouged cheeks, her stiff square wig and her hard eyes. The favourite child—for Mariana was jealous of the elder, Maria Teresa—was the little Infanta Margaret, born in 1651, a fragile, fair little flower of a girl, degenerate from her descent, but in childhood not showing excessively the unlovely features she inherited. The etiquette that surrounded the child and her sister was freezing in its formality. Those who served them knelt, and everything had to pass through several hands before reaching them. Their dress, with the wide-hooped farthingales and stiff long bodices, were utterly unchildlike and cumbrous, but, withal, the charm of youth could not be utterly crushed out of Margaret; and Velazquez has left us portraits of her as a child which will always remain the ideal of infancy.

THE MAIDS OF HONOUR.
Portrait of the Infanta Margaret;
from a picture by Velazquez at the Prado Museum

The finest painting that ever left the master's easel is that which presents not only a portrait of the little Princess, but also an interior which tells more of Court life at the time (1656) than pages of written description could do. The tiny Infanta stands in her white satin hooped dress, her fair hair parted at the side, in the studio of Velazquez, who, with the coveted cross of Santiago upon his breast,[[10]] is painting a portrait of the King and Queen, whose faces are seen reflected in a mirror at the back of the room, but who do not appear in the picture itself. The child had probably been brought to relieve the tedium of her parents in sitting for their portraits, and she seems herself to have grown fretful and needed amusing. The young maid of honour, Doña Maria de Sarmiento, kneels before her, handing her, on a gold salver, a cup of water in the fine red scented clay which it was a vicious fashion of ladies of the day to eat. In the foreground lies a mastiff dozing, and close by it are two of the ugly dwarfs who were such important personages in the Spanish Court, Mari Barbola and Nicolasico Pertusato; whilst behind them, slightly curtseying, is another maid of honour, Doña Isabel de Velasco; and still farther back in the gloom a lady and gentleman in attendance, the former in a conventual dress; whilst in the extreme rear of the picture stands the Queen's quarter-master, Don Jose Nieto, at the open door drawing back a curtain, perhaps that more light may be thrown upon the King and Queen, whom the painter is portraying. The interior of the room, with its special lighting and its unrivalled perspective, fixes for us, as if in a flashlight photograph, one unstudied moment of life in Philip's Court as it was actually passed, and for this reason the picture is invaluable. The existence it crystallises is a dull one, unrelieved from tedium for Philip except by the presence of his little child, and the trembling consolations of his religion.

Birth of an heir

Soon, however, hope for a time was to blossom again. After months of anxiety, in which his doubts and fears were laid before the nun again and again by the anxious father, he was assured that another child was yet to be born to him, and the astrologers and soothsayers predicted that this time it would be a son, and would live. Philip was in dire straits for money at the time (November 1657), and on the first day of the Vigil of the Presentation of the Virgin he had nothing to eat but eggs without fish; as his steward had not a real of ready money to pay for anything else, and the tradesmen would give no more credit.[[11]] But yet the most whimsical fancy of his wife now had to be gratified at any sacrifice, and the Buen Retiro soon again rang with jovial music and water parties on the lake, merry comedies, novel bull-fights, and diversions of all sorts, which were produced to make Mariana happy. Don Juan sent from Flanders a splendid silver bedstead, with brocade hangings; and all that care and solicitude could discover to ensure the happy arrival of the looked-for heir was forthcoming.

Prince Philip Prosper

At last, to the weary, worn-out King of fifty-two, a man-child was born at the end of November 1657. The mother was thought to be dying, but no one had thoughts for her, the birth of an heir to Philip being greeted by rejoicings so tumultuous in the capital as of themselves to prove the lawless condition into which the people had sunk.

"On the day of the birth," writes Barrionuevo (5th December 1657), "not a bench nor a table was left unbroken in the palace, nor a single pastry-cook's nor tavern that was not sacked. In the Admiral's house, too, one of his equerries, and riding-master to some of the greatest gentlemen in Madrid, named Chicho Cristalino, killed his groom in the stable, stabbing him for some trivial cause.... He has escaped. He was a Knight of Calatrava. The same night three or four other similar misfortunes happened, and in the rejoicings nobody's cape was safe.... To-morrow they say that his Majesty will go on horseback to the Atocha to give thanks to the Mother of God.... They say the Prince is a pretty little chap, and that the King wishes him to be baptized at once, before the extreme cold comes on.... There are to be masquerades, bullfights, and cane-tourneys as soon as the Queen gets up to see them, as well as plays with machinery invented by an engineer, a servant of the Nuncio, to be represented at the theatre at the Retiro, and in the saloon of the palace.... The municipality, following the lead of the Councils, have gone to congratulate the King, ... and no gentleman, great or small, has failed to do the like. There have been some funny incidents. Here are two. The little Count de Haro, the Admiral's child, six years old, went, and the King was much pleased with the little man, as he was so serious, and especially when he said to his Majesty, 'But, Sir! those buttons of yours are against the pragmatic; they are gold!' They were really diamond buttons that the King had put on for the celebration. The favourite (i.e. Haro) accompanied him, and one of the courtiers present came up to him and said: 'God bless your Excellency for the boon you have bestowed upon Spain in sending us a Prince,' as if Haro had been the artificer of the work. There was much laughter at this."

Astrologers were busy predicting all manner of glory and good fortune for the new-born Prince, and Philip was full of gratitude and hope that all would now be well. "Help me, Sor Maria," he wrote, "to give thanks to God; for I by myself am unable to do so adequately. Pray to Him to make me fully thankful for the signal favour conferred upon me, and to give me strength henceforward to do His holy will. The new-born babe is well, and I implore you to take him under your protection, and pray to our Lord and His holy Mother to keep him for their service, for the exaltation of the faith and the good of these realms. If this is not to be, then pray let him be taken from me before he reaches manhood."[[12]]

Baptism of Philip Prosper

For weeks the usual festivities in Madrid went on, though the general penury made them less brilliant than the occasion warranted. But Philip, for his part, seemed almost young again with joy. On the 6th December he rode through the decorated streets of his capital on a spirited Neapolitan charger. Dances, masques, and music greeted him on his way, and the public fountains ran wine instead of water, whilst the night was made as light as day by thousands of wax torches.[[13]] A week afterwards the baptism of the Prince was celebrated in the royal chapel by the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo (Borja), whose magnificent preparations of liveries, vestments, and equipages were to cost 50,000 ducats; though, says Barrionuevo, he had not a real.

"On Thursday the 13th, the corridors and courtyards of the palace were decorated with great splendour, and three canopies were erected, one in each corridor and one in the chapel." There was a very sumptuous bed adjoining the King's curtained closet, and a step away a staging, with two steps and a triangle of silver. Upon this was placed the font of St. Dominic's baptism, and six great silver braziers very full of fuel, which were replenished every now and then from the fireplaces, so that the air might be warmed, which it was until it was like an oven. There were also sconces which perfumed the air divinely. Shortly after two the ceremony commenced; the Inquisitor-General and the Bishop of Siguenza, apparelled in pontificals, assisting the Cardinal, who awaited the arrival of the Infante near the altar, whilst the whole chapel was hung with the most beautiful hangings the King possesses. Don Luis Ponce, without a cape, led the way with the Spanish Guard, followed by peers, nobles, and grandees; after whom came the Nuncio and ambassadors. Then came the minister (Don Luis de Haro), dressed in a gown of cloth of gold and a red sash.[[14]] Following him the Prince, richly adorned, was borne in the arms of the Countess of Salvatierra, seated in a crystal chair; and the Infanta (Maria Teresa) walked behind, her train carried by the Mistress of the Robes, after whom marched the heralds and archers of the Guard, who entirely surrounded the space. The Marquis of Priego carried the sacred taper, Alba bore the custode and napkins, the Admiral carried the ewer, which was of a single emerald, very large, and set with diamonds. The marchpane[[15]] fell to the Count of Oñate, the towels to Medina de las Torres, the salt-cellar to the Prince of Astillano, his son. The ladies of the Court followed the Infanta, their trains borne by pages. The presidents of the Councils, with their two senior officers on each side, were ranged around the chapel, with the grandees before them; and when the ladies entered they stood in front of the grandees. The lady-in-waiting handed the Prince to the Infanta naked, except for a very short little jacket of plush much adorned, and with false sleeves. The Infanta cried out in a very clear voice: 'Why have you not put his clothes on? Why do you give him to me so undressed?' The lady replied: 'That is done on purpose, Madam, that it may be seen that he is a male.' The water they baptized him with was from the Jordan, ... brought lately by some friars who came from the Holy House. The Prince screamed lustily when he was baptized, and, attracted by the loud resonant voice, the King, who was looking through his jalousies, exclaimed, "Ah! that does sound well; the house smells of a man now."[[16]]

Pride of the Constable

Then, after retailing the baby's names, Philip Prosper, "and the whole litany of saints to follow," and the magnificent presents given to the child's nurse, the narrator gives a curious instance of the overweening pride of the higher Spanish nobles of the time. A staircase had broken down with the crush of people, and the Duke of Bejar, whose duty it was to carry the marchpane, could not get through the crowd. The acting Lord Chamberlain, the Count of Puñonrostro, seeing that the ceremony was being delayed in consequence, asked the King what he should do. "Tell the Constable (i.e. the Grand Constable of Castile, the Duke of Frias) to carry the marchpane," said Philip. The proud noble replied that his arm was bad, and he could not do it. This answer only produced a repetition of the command from the King that the Constable was to carry the marchpane. "Tell his Majesty that the Constables of Castile are too big to serve as stopgaps for anybody," said the Constable. Two days later the Duke was being hurried off to Berlanga under arrest. If Dukes and Constables could be impracticably proud, so could scullions; for only a fortnight after this there was a regular pitched battle in the King's kitchen on some point of honour between the scullions and the guards, in which six of the combatants were killed outright, and twenty were wounded, many more being carried off to the prison of the Court to answer for their turbulence.

Admiration spent itself in praises of the beauty of the infant that had been born to Philip's decline. Never, sure, was such a babe vouchsafed to man as this. Verse and prose galore declaimed its present perfection and coming greatness. But alas! Philip Prosper, as might have been expected from the offspring of several generations of incest, was a poor epileptic monstrosity, who quietly made his exit from the world four years after he entered it with such a blare of trumpets. The good nun of Agreda, far away from the turmoil of rejoicing at the Prince's birth, had misgivings at the ungodliness and extravagance of the festivities, and remonstrated with Philip upon them. "It is good and politic for your Majesty to receive the congratulations of your subjects, ... but I do beseech you earnestly not to allow excessive sums to be spent on such festivities as these, when there is a lack of money needful even for the defence of your crown. Let there be no offence to God in what is done.... It is good to rejoice for the birth of the Prince; but pray let us do it with a clear conscience."[[17]]

Through all these years the wars in which Spain was engaged had gone on. Mazarin's many enemies in France had been encouraged and bribed largely by Spain, and the greatest of French commanders, Turenne and Condé, for a time entered Philip's service against their own country. This changed the aspect of affairs, especially on the Flemish frontier, whilst in the south of France the leaders of the Fronde with Spanish aid kept Mazarin's troops busy there. When Turenne again returned to the French side the tables were turned somewhat (1655), and after a series of defeats the Archduke Leopold, Philip's Governor of Flanders, had retired, leaving Condé in command of the troops, whilst Don Juan, King Philip's son, succeeded the Archduke as Governor (1656). This brilliant pair of young men did much to restore Spanish prestige in Flanders; but when the alliance between Cromwell and Mazarin was signed Spain was outmatched, and all observers could see that France in the end must be victorious.

Loss of Dunkirk

One after the other the Flemish frontier places surrendered to the allies; but the great blow to Philip's arms fell in the summer of 1658. Dunkirk, a Spanish port in Flanders, promised to Cromwell by Mazarin, was closely blockaded by an English fleet, and besieged on the land side by Turenne, who was accompanied by young Louis XIV. himself; whilst a Spanish army under Don Juan and Condé, with whom was James Duke of York, now nominal Admiral of the Spanish fleet, was endeavouring to break through Turenne's lines and relieve the place. By a coup de main Turenne outflanked the Spanish force, whilst Cromwell's fleet bombarded them from the sea. Panic overtook the Spaniards, who fled precipitately with great loss, and Dunkirk soon after capitulated. This Battle of the Dunes seemed the last drop in Philip's cup of sorrow, for by it all Flanders lay at the mercy of the French royalists, and city after city fell into their hands.

Shortly before this, and soon after the christening of Philip Prosper described above, an equally fatal catastrophe had fallen upon Philip on the Portuguese frontier. There for years a state of hostility had continued, with frequent raids on both sides; but, growing bolder with Philip's increased exhaustion, the masculine Spanish Queen Mother of Portugal[[18]] had laid regular siege to the great Spanish frontier fortress of Badajoz. At any cost this daring insolence had to be met, and Philip, with no able commanders now available, Don Juan being in Flanders, entrusted the leadership of his forces of 8000 men, raised with infinite sacrifice and difficulty, to his favourite, Don Luis de Haro. On the news of his approach the Portuguese raised the siege of Badajoz and recrossed the frontier; but Haro, utterly inexperienced in warfare, was drawn into pursuing them, led into an ambush and put to ignominious flight, with the loss of guns, baggage, and most of his men.

Peace with France

This defeat, followed by the Battle of the Dunes a few months afterwards, proved to all the world that Spain had come to the end of her tether and could struggle no more. Material resources, faith in herself, belief in her mission, even confidence in her God, had all fled, and nothing was left to her but besotted pride and a sanctimonious ritual devotion which lightly covered a scoffing mockery of the noble ideals that had made her temporarily great. Peace had now, indeed, become for Philip absolutely necessary. There had been many efforts made through the influence of Anna of Austria, Queen of France, to come to an understanding with her brother, ever since the treaty of Münster; but the demands of Mazarin, that the French should continue to hold all they had taken including Catalonia, had in every case frustrated the attempts. But the aspect of affairs was changing. Catalonia was heartily tired of the French, who left the province less liberty than it had enjoyed under the Castilian Kings, whilst the grave discontent and division in France against Mazarin's Government had rendered peace necessary even for him. But that which, above all, contributed to a peaceful agreement was the fact that Philip's health was evidently failing, and that only one life, that of the scrofulous epileptic infant, Philip Prosper, stood between the house of France and the Spanish throne. It is true that when Queen Anna had married Louis XIII. she had solemnly renounced for herself and her family the right of succession to Spain; but some of the dowry which was to have been paid to her had not been paid, and it might be contended that as one condition of the contract had not been fulfilled the others could not be enforced as against the house of France. Mariana, Philip's second wife, was at Madrid quite as much in the capacity of Austrian ambassador as of Philip's consort, and she had always tried to prevent any closer union between France and Spain; her object, aided by the German agents who prompted her, being to maintain the fatal alliance between the two branches of the house of Austria, which had dragged Spain to ruin.

In the summer of 1656 a sincere attempt had been made by France to come to an understanding with Philip. A skilled diplomatist, M. de Lionne, in the confidence of Mazarin, had arrived with great secrecy at Madrid, and was lodged at the Retiro, where he and Haro held many conferences, with a result that an agreement on many points was arrived at, especially upon the retrocession of Catalonia (though not of Roussillon) to Spain. In one of their conferences Lionne noticed that Haro was wearing in his hat, doubtless for a purpose, a medal impressed with the portrait of the Infanta Maria Teresa. "If your King would give to my master for his wife the original of the portrait you wear," said Lionne, "peace might soon be made."[[19]] Haro passed over the matter lightly, for in the absence of a male heir to Philip it would have been impossible to marry Maria Teresa to the King of France; but the idea was not a new one, and the possibility of bringing about such a match as a pledge of peace between France and Spain had often been mooted by the quidnuncs of Madrid.[[20]]

Peace negotiations

Lionne's negotiations came to nothing at the time, mainly because the knotty point of the Prince of Condé's position could not be settled; but when the birth of Philip Prosper provided Philip with an heir, the marriage idea again came to the front, and made both sides in the subsequent peace negotiations much more conciliatory than they otherwise would have been, especially when there was a talk of marrying Louis XIV. elsewhere. He was, indeed, on a courting expedition to the south of France to meet the Princess of Savoy, when Haro, in May 1659, sent Antonio Pimentel in a hurry to Mazarin reminding him of what Lionne had said three years before about a Spanish marriage. Anna of Austria and Mazarin were quite willing; and in a very few weeks the diplomatists on both sides had drawn up a protocol suspending hostilities, and providing for a meeting of plenipotentiaries of both Powers in the little Isle of Pheasants in the Bidosoa River that separates France and Spain. This was to take place in August, and in the meanwhile ministers were busy drawing up marriage settlements and agreeing upon the main points in dispute between the two Powers. Mariana struggled hard to prevent the agreement by proposing a marriage between the Infanta and the Archduke Leopold, the Emperor's heir. She even prevailed upon her brother to send the Archduke Sigismund to replace Don Juan in Flanders, and to bring a strong imperial army with him to defend Spanish territory there. Before they could meet the French, however, the truce between Philip and Louis was signed (June 1659), and the Austrian interest for the present had to accept defeat.

Peace or war, the stereotyped merrymaking never ceased for very long in the Court of Madrid. Like Olivares before them, Philip's ministers were constantly on the look-out for new musicians, buffoons, or beauties to distract him, and discovering fresh pretexts for shows.[[21]] To celebrate the birth of the sickly Philip Prosper, the festivities continued for months; and in answer to the nun's remonstrances about it, the King invites her to tell him how he can fulfil his desire to withdraw his mind from worldly things, "since it is obligatory for me to live amongst men, and to be present at festivities and other public occasions, which I cannot avoid attending. In the midst of all this turmoil I should like to execute your directions, if my frailty does not prevent me from doing so. Help me, Sor Maria, and pray to God and His holy Mother to aid me in attaining such a boon."[[22]] In one of Philip Prosper's frequent illnesses a saintly friar from Jerusalem, one Father Antonio, went to see Philip, and brusquely told him, in reply to his request for prayers for the Prince's health, "that he, the King, ought to pray also, and leave off all these comedies and other rejoicings."[[23]] The Madrileños of Philip's time would no more abandon their idle pleasures than they would their daily bread. Fresh taxes of 2 per cent. more were put upon food, and upon every payment made of any sort; even fireplaces and windows were taxed more heavily, the idea being to make people redeem these taxes by paying a sum down, and so, as Barrionuevo says, to get money quickly. "All this makes men of business desperate, for it is said that even upon loans and payments of every sort the tax is to be charged; so that we shall soon have nothing to pay with but water and sunshine."[[24]]

Poverty and waste

Only a few days after this was written, the municipality of Madrid gave a luncheon to the eleven Royal Councils, handsome presents being given to all the guests, the cost of the entertainment being over 550,000 ducats; and hardly a week passes without the record of two or three costly shows, bull-fights, masquerades, and tourneys, in which smart new clothes are always a notable feature, and the King and Queen are usually present, the young Marquis of Heliche being generally the busiest promoter. Madrid, although suffering from a winter more severe than had been known in the memory of man (February 1658), was full of foreigners and strangers, attracted by these continual shows, and doubtless much of the money squandered came ultimately from them; but the people themselves must have been in dire straits, for robbery seems to have been openly resorted to, even by priests; and so highly placed an ecclesiastic as Barrionuevo says of it: "I do not wonder, for the pinch of poverty is such that everybody is forced to do it."

Madrid, at the time, indeed, presented a strange picture of anarchy. The only rich people were the comparatively few who were concerned in the administration, either in Spain or the Colonies; and they spent their money with the utmost prodigality, whilst the great bulk of the population lived from hand to mouth on the proceeds of this expenditure, gained either by service, work, or robbery. There was practically no industry, except that carried on in a small way by foreigners; and the vast majority of the inhabitants of Madrid lived, directly or indirectly, by government expenditure. Philip looked on helplessly, convinced apparently that his calamities were unavoidable, because sent for a special purpose by the Almighty as a scourge for his and his people's transgressions. Preachers unrebuked thundered out of pulpits to him that most of the evils might be avoided by energy. "Your Majesty is poor, and your ministers are rich," cried one to him. "You give grants, favours, pensions, and double pay to people such as these, who beguile you with vain shows. The noblest eagle may be left bare if plucked feather by feather; and your Majesty is obliged to appeal to these very ministers, whom you enable to settle vast estates, for money necessary for your very food and garments."

Peace of the Pyrenees

In good truth, it was too late to preach to Philip now; for he did little but register the decisions of others, and go through his dull round of duties with despairing, earthy face; his great consolation, as he says again and again, being the letters of the nun, which assured him of the divine mercy and of the efficacy of constant prayer. To his great delight another son was born to him in December 1658, though the babe lived only for a few months; but Philip Prosper lingered on still, through a sickly infancy. In the meanwhile Don Luis de Haro and Cardinal Mazarin were in close confabulation on the Isle of Pheasants, settling the terms of the much-needed peace; and the death of Cromwell, and the probable restoration of the Stuarts to the English throne, gave a further hope that, after a long lifetime of constant war, Philip's days might end at peace with all the world.

In October 1659 the peace negotiations were sufficiently advanced for a formal demand to be made to Philip for his daughter's hand on behalf of her cousin Louis XIV. The ambassador was one of the greatest seigneurs of the Court of France, Marshal de Grammont; and though Madrid, with good reason this time, assumed its most pompous garb, and Spaniards held their heads high, yet de Grammont, as he entered with his brilliant suite into Philip's capital, consciously represented a new dispensation that was in process of supplanting that of Spain. For a century and a half Spain had claimed precedence over all earthly Powers: her language was that of culture and fashion; her literature, especially of the theatre and the novel, had given the tone to the writers of Europe; her dress had set the fashion; her soldiers had taught the art of war; and her explorers had borne to the four quarters of the earth her traditions, her tongue, and her religion. But the stately entrance of de Grammont with his new airs and graces into the palace of Madrid, after a devastating war extending over thirty years, marked the opening of a new epoch in the civilisation of the world. Spain was the waning force, France was the youthful giant with a long life before him; the Planet King Philip, spent and weary, was sinking to his yearned-for rest after a reign of tragic failure; the Roi Soleil was climbing in the sky. All the courtly conventions of diplomatists, all the gracious politeness of de Grammont, all the consideration shown by French statesmen to Spain in the treaty of peace, could not hide these facts; nor could it be concealed that this new friendship meant the end of the fatal union of Austria and Spain, whose aim had been to force orthodoxy upon the world.

Mariana frowned and pouted as Grammont and his company of princes and nobles bowed before her; and the gloomy grandeur of the old palace of Madrid, with the richly sombre dresses of Philip and his courtiers, seemed to the triumphant and gaily dressed Frenchman, fresh from the sprightly youthful Court of Louis, to be in harmony with the old obscurantist régime which was passing. The visitors were liberal in recording their impressions of a society which they regarded as romantic and antique.[[25]] The description of a theatrical representation in the old palace of Madrid in honour of Grammont, written by one of his chaplains, will give a good idea of a characteristic feature of Philip's Court at the time.

"The great saloon was lit only by six enormous wax candles in gigantic silver stands. On each side of the saloon, facing each other, were two boxes or tribunes with iron grilles before them. One of these was occupied by the Infanta, whilst the other was destined for the Marshal (Grammont). Two benches covered with Persian rugs ran along the sides beneath the boxes, also facing each other, upon which sat about twelve ladies of the Court, whilst we Frenchmen stood behind them.... The Queen and the little Infanta entered, preceded by a lady holding a candle. When the King appeared he saluted the ladies and took his seat in the box on the right hand of the Queen, whilst the little Infanta sat on her left. The King remained motionless during the whole of the play, and only once said a word to the Queen; although he occasionally cast his eyes round on every side. A dwarf was standing close by him. When the play was ended, all the ladies rose and gathered in the middle, as canons do after a service. Then joining hands in a row they made their courtesies, one by one, a ceremony that lasted some seven or eight minutes. In the meanwhile the King was standing, and he then bowed to the Queen, who bowed to the Infanta, after which they all joined hands and retired."[[26]]

It was far into the winter (1659) before the terms of the pregnant peace of the Pyrenees could be finally settled by the plenipotentiaries on the Isle of Pheasants. More than once the negotiations came to a deadlock, for, comparatively easy as the French conditions were, they were very bitter for the pride of Spain to swallow.[[27]] She had to surrender the province of Roussillon and most of Artois, as well as many of the principal cities of French Flanders, whilst the English kept her port of Dunkirk. But in return Catalonia willingly became Spanish again under its old constitution, whilst the new King of England and his friends the Portuguese were excluded from the treaty. The rejoicings in Madrid, and the adulation of the favourite Haro, who was made Prince of the Peace, knew no bounds. At last, no matter, thought the lieges, at what cost, Spain was free from the war that had weighed her down for a whole generation; and now the rebel Portuguese might be punished for their contumacy, and Philip be King of the Peninsula again. Don Juan, the King's son, was to have the honour of reconquering Portugal for Castile; but for the present all minds were occupied by the ceremonious journey of King Philip and all his Court to the French frontier to conduct his daughter, the Infanta, to her waiting bridegroom.

Marriage of Maria Teresa

For many months, notwithstanding Philip's expressed desire that things should be done as economically as possible, the preparations for the voyage had been carried out on a scale of magnificence surpassing that of all previous bridal progresses between Spain and France. The Spanish nobles and courtiers, taking their tone from Haro himself, were determined, even at the cost of their last ducat, that the Frenchmen should see that the country was neither exhausted materially nor humiliated morally. So again the old prodigal pride asserted itself, and Madrid pushed its poverty in the background, as it spent its money on gew-gaws, or flocked to see the preliminary turnout of the royal equipages prepared for the King's journey to France.

"There were four litters, and fourteen coaches with six mules each;—a fine sight! The table services, newly made with the arms of Spain and France, which her Highness is to take with her, are a marvel of richness and beauty. The jewels for presents and for adornment exceed all price and praise. Each of the gentlemen who is to accompany the royal party is making preparations more in accordance with his spirit than with his means. They say that the Duke of Medina de las Torres will distinguish himself specially. He gives five suits of livery to each of his servants, one set alone of which made in Naples will cost 65,000 ducats; whilst, as to his Excellency's own dresses, wonderful stories are told of them, and also of the jewels he is taking with him, worthy as they are of the greatness of his heart. The preparations of Don Luis de Haro can only be conceived by those who recollect that he is the luminary of the world upon which reflects and radiates most fully the majesty and brilliancy of our Sun-Monarch. The value of the horses and hackneys, with their harness and housings, alone are said to be worth a vast treasure; but when we consider the rank of the persons with whom the horses of the Sun will enter Irun, these latter, richly caparisoned as they may be, will be unworthy of an occasion so supreme. It is likely enough that when our Infanta took leave of the altars of Madrid her eyes were wet with tears; but our muffled women, who spare nobody, said so in such a way as to hint that the tears were really hearty smiles. The Queen looks very sad at the King's going away."[[28]]

Journey to the frontier

On the 15th April 1660, Philip set forth on his famous journey to the French frontier to give his daughter Maria Teresa to his young nephew Louis XIV. for his wife, and meet in peace once more his sister Anna, whom he had not seen since their early youth, over forty years before. The train that accompanied him surpassed anything of the sort ever seen before in Spain. Don Luis de Haro himself was served by a household of 200 persons, and scores of other nobles vied with him in magnificence.[[29]] All the sumptuary pragmatics were suspended, and as a reaction after the long insistence upon plain, sombre attire for men, Philip's courtiers were gorgeous in the costly richness of their garb, determined as they were to impress the Frenchmen.

The land through which the long procession slowly made its way, at the rate of about six miles a day, was stark and ruined; and provisions, as well as beds and all other necessaries, had to be carried for the whole multitude, the cavalcade covering over twenty miles of road. Such of the wretched peasants as were left in Castile[[30]] saluted their King with frantic joy as he passed; for he looked so sad and sorry for them, and with so much wealth as he now displayed before their famished eyes, surely he would not grind them down to utter famine as he had done for these unhappy years of strife. All would be well now. The Infanta was to be Queen of France, and she would not allow her father's realm to be laid desolate again by those over whom her young husband reigned. Everywhere hope blossomed again. The towns on the way regaled the vast concourse of courtiers with shows, banquets, and bull-fights; long-hidden hoards of money were brought out and spent in rejoicing now, even by the humbler farmer folk, for the great fear that all would be taken from them by the tax farmers had passed away. At length, after six weeks of tedious travel over miserable roads, where overturns and other mishaps were frequent, the King and his Court entered St. Sebastian, where the first marriage ceremony was to be performed, on the 2nd June 1660. In the crowds of splendidly apparelled Spanish courtiers, whose names were as resounding as their pedigrees were long, there was one olive-skinned man, with a touzled mop of wavy black hair streaked with grey, whose fame was to outlive them all. His office, that of the King's quarter-master, and one of his chamberlains, kept him close to the person of Philip, who loved his company. Upon the breast of his dark, closely fitting tunic was embroidered in scarlet the long sword-shaped cross of Santiago, whilst an enamelled and diamond pendant hung from a rich gold chain around his neck; and Diego Velazquez, the painter, now growing old with his master, looked as distinguished as any in the throng, doing his courtier's service in the famous journey as if he had been merely a grandee of long lineage instead of a poor gentleman who happened to be a genius.[[31]]

All the magnificence that could be crammed into the humble town of St. Sebastian was there on the morning of the 2nd June 1660.[[32]] In the principal house, under canopies of damask stiff with bullion armorial embroideries, sat upon thrones side by side Philip and his daughter, the Patriarch of the Indies and the Bishop of Pamplona standing in their robes near to them, with Haro upon the steps of the dais. Every inch of standing room was filled with the proudest nobles of Spain, intermingled with many masked and cloaked figures whom all knew or guessed were French princes, princesses, and nobles, who had crossed the frontier disguised to witness the ceremonies which some still hoped, notwithstanding the failures of past similar attempts, would "level the Pyrenees." One who was there writes: "The ladies-in-waiting were dazzlingly handsome, and all the multitude of people, grandees, peers, noble gentlemen, and others, stood with uncovered heads, their Majesties alone being seated; whilst Don Fernando de Contreras, the Secretary of State, read aloud the solemn document in which the Queen of France, by oath on a Christ crucified, renounced for herself and hers for ever all claim to the succession of the Spanish throne." For a long hour and more the Secretary of State, on his knees, read the pompous sentences of the act which was in after years to convulse all Europe in war, and change the dynasty of Spain; but those who listened to it were more concerned with their own fatigue at standing in a crowd so long than at the vast import of the renunciation, whose effects were hidden in the womb of time.[[33]] When, at last, Contreras had finished reading, the Bishop stepped forth, and upon the Gospels and the crucifix Maria Teresa swore to keep inviolate the pledge contained in the act.

The wedding

The next morning the humble parish church of St. Sebastian was transformed, by the "richest hangings and adornments necessary for the greatest wedding that ever was seen in the world, whilst their Majesties and the Court were a blaze of magnificence." Advancing with his daughter, Philip took his seat upon the curtained throne by the side of the high altar, whilst Maria Teresa stood beneath the canopy, and Don Luis Haro, who was honoured by holding the proxy of King Louis to marry her, stood a step below her. The church was crowded with French princes, princesses, and nobles in disguise intermingled with the Spaniards, and, as the pontifical mass was sung with its beautiful ceremonial, appealing to all the senses before that gorgeous assembly, St. Sebastian reached the apogee of its glory, never to be surpassed. When the sacrament was ended the Bishop descended to the canopy, where the Infanta and Haro were standing before the King. In answer to the ritual question whether she would take his Majesty the most Christian King for a husband, the Infanta with streaming eyes turned and sank upon her knees before her father. Philip, himself overcome with emotion, bowed his head and gave his blessing to the daughter who was to be the pledge of future peace between Spain and France; and the Bishop had to repeat his question three times before the weeping Princess could summon composure enough to reply in the affirmative. Then she and Haro together placed their hands in a great gold dish that stood upon a side table, whilst Haro in the name of King Louis XIV. accepted Maria Teresa of Austria as his legitimate wife. Taking a gold ring from the centre of the salver upon which their hands rested, the Spanish minister placed it upon the rim near the fingers of the Infanta, but without touching them; and then with a sweeping flood of melody the Te Deum burst out, whilst the great guns of the fortress upon the crag overhanging the church thundered their message to the two realms that another Spanish Princess was Queen of France.[[34]] In the midst of the uproar King Philip led his daughter from the church, followed by all the glittering crowd.

Marriage of Maria Teresa

That afternoon the royal party rode to the neighbouring land-locked Port of Pasages three miles away, and so to Renteria for dinner, and by Oyarzun to the ancient fortress village of Fuentarrabia on its jutting peninsula, from which you may cast a stone to France on the other side of the river mouth. The roads were so narrow and bad that the maids of honour were upset on the way; and Don Luis de Haro, anxious as he was to do honour to the Sovereign who had made him little less than a King, he was unable to meet him on the narrow rocky causeway, but perforce had to stand, surrounded by the King's Guards in their new yellow uniforms, at the gate of the ancient palace fortress upon its cliff, that twenty-two years before had so stoutly withstood the siege of the French by land and sea.

The following day, whilst preparations for the public interviews upon the Isle of Pheasants were being made, Philip embarked with his daughter, Haro, and a very few attendants, amongst whom was Diego Velazquez, and landed privately upon the little island in mid stream. The buildings, which had been specially erected for the peace conference of the previous autumn, were constructed with the jealous punctiliousness which always characterised the intercourse between France and Spain. The eyot was divided into a Spanish and a French half, and the houses, each in its respective territory, were connected by a corridor, the conference hall, which stood upon the dividing line, being half upon Spanish and half on French soil. Even in Philip's private meeting with the sister from whom he had been separated and at war so long, the utmost precision of etiquette was preserved. Landing on the Spanish part of the island, and entering the Spanish house, he bade all his attendants stay behind, except Haro, Velazquez, and one or two more, who alone accompanied him to the hall, where, on the French side of the dividing line across the hall, stood Anna of Austria.

The meeting was a painful one, for when they had last met Philip and his sister had been in the flower of youth, full of hope and bright ambition; and now both were old and broken, with lives of bitterness behind them. Both brother and sister had been slaves of their passions, and had surrendered their regal power to other hands. They had been but figureheads of State; and though, as was the case with all their house, their family affection had been strong, national aspirations had been too powerful for them, and victor and vanquished, brother and sister, must have felt themselves, for all their grandeur, the helpless victims of forces beyond their control or understanding. Anna of Austria broke down into piteous tears when she saw the unhappy face of her brother; and, after a few low-spoken words of comfort had passed between them, there came tiptoeing silently behind the Cardinal and Don Luis, who stood behind Queen Anna, a handsome young man with aquiline features and a nascent black down upon his upper lip. He wore, in the French fashion of the time, high red heels to his shoes; and a flowing black curled periwig fell upon the wide Walloon collar of fine lawn that covered the shoulders of his satin skirted-coat. Peeping over the shoulders of those before him,[[35]] himself supposed to be unseen, thus Louis XIV. first looked upon his bride, and upon the King the ruin of whose realm and dynasty was to make way for the supremacy of France and the Roi Soleil.

The wedding

At length, on Sunday, 6th June, all was ready for the ceremonial meeting and delivery of the bride to her new country. At a signal both monarchs stepped into their boats at the same time, Philip in Fuenterrabia and Louis in St. Jean de Luz, followed soon by crowds of other boats filled with courtiers as fine as silks and satins and bullion tissues could make them, for sumptuary decrees were all thrown to the winds now; whilst strong armed forces, 12,000 troops in all, with loaded arms and new uniforms, stood upon each side of the tiny stream, as many as 4000 cavalry being arrayed on the French bank, with numbers of pikemen and guards; "all smart looking troops, but both men and horses small," said a Spanish expert, who thought Philip's fine array of red and yellow guards "better troops, smarter and with better horses."[[36]] As far as the eye reached on either side, crowds of people stood upon the banks, and far away upon the hills overlooking the scene, which for most of them promised peace and renewed prosperity; whilst the ante-rooms of the conference hall which was to be the scene of the interview were packed to suffocation by a privileged crowd of nobles and courtiers of both nations.

At the same moment the two Kings landed upon their respective ends of the island, and at the same moment they and their suites entered the conference hall by opposite doors, Philip leading his daughter, followed by Haro and a great household, and Louis his mother with Mazarin, and forty ladies-in-waiting behind. Advancing to the line that divided the room, Louis made as if to kneel to Philip, who prevented him from doing so by clasping him in his arms. "My son," said Philip, "I welcome you. For me this has been the happiest day I have ever known or shall know; for I see your Majesty is as well as I can wish"; and then, pointing to the Infanta, he continued: "the only person after your Majesty who could have brought me on this journey is this piece of my own heart, that I have brought to give you for your wife; and I trust that your Majesty will hold her in the esteem she deserves, not only as Queen of France and my daughter, but also in consideration of the goodwill with which I give her to you."[[37]] Anna of Austria was weeping copiously the while; but Louis himself, not to be outdone in courtesy, was fully equal to the occasion. "My father," he said, "only the favours I am receiving from the generous and potent hands of your Majesty could force me to confess myself not only unworthy to be the son of so powerful a monarch, but also your humble vassal," and with that he warmly returned his uncle's embrace.

Much more flattering talk there was about Philip's potency and strength, and the obligation of France to him. It pleased the Spaniards vastly; for words with them ever took the place of deeds when their pride was touched, and every courteous word of the Frenchmen was as balm in Gilead to men who, in their heart of hearts, knew that poverty, humiliation and defeat had befallen them and their country. Many tears there were, too, when Philip formally handed his daughter to her new husband, and the four sovereigns took their seats side by side on thrones arranged for them across the line. Then Mazarin came forward with a missal in his hand, upon which Philip on his knees swore to keep the terms of the peace, and the Patriarch of the Indies administered a similar oath to Louis. The public act being thus ended, the hall was cleared of the crowds of nobles that encumbered it, and for four hours the royal party gave themselves up to familiar intercourse; after which Louis with his Court, "the most enchanting sight ever seen in the world," says the Spanish chronicler, rode off to St. Jean de Luz, and Philip returned by Irun to Fuenterrabia.

Of the costly presents on both sides, of the overwhelming magnificence of the subsequent ceremonies in St. Jean de Luz, where the personal marriage took place,[[38]] and of the delight of the gallant Spanish courtiers at the nice French fashion of kissing all the ladies, it boots not here to tell; but as Philip and his cumbrous Court slowly wended their way home again to Madrid, the younger courtiers of both sexes, at all events, took back with them something like a contempt for the old Spanish fashions which had persisted so long.[[39]] The golilla was voted stiff and ungraceful when compared with the fine lace cravats of the French; black-framed goggles looked frumpish; the ropilla and close doublet were not half so modish as the full skirted long tunics, open in the front and showing a smart vest, that Louis and his gentlemen had worn; and who would care to wear thin lank hair, even when a topknot on the brow and guedejas before the ears adorned it, when he could buy a splendid flowing curly periwig such as made the French look so stately? It is true that the change of fashion that began on the banks of the Bidasoa did not go very deep or far away from Court; for the common people clung to the old modes still, and the wars that divided Spain forty years afterwards caused French fashions, or anything but Spanish, to be loathed by all ranks as unpatriotic. But, nevertheless, this great transmigration of Spanish courtiers to the French frontier in 1660 was the first opening of the door by which some glimpses of light from a new Europe entered Spain, the first inkling to Spaniards that anything outside their own frontiers could be estimable and worth imitating.

Death of Don Luis de Haro

Philip was welcomed back to Madrid by his wife and his people, with great rejoicing for his safety, on the 26th June, and even poor suffering little Philip Prosper, tricked out in a military uniform with a sword by his side, was carried in his nurse's arms to greet his father as he ascended the stairs of his palace, though the child fell into a series of exhausting fevers immediately afterwards. The King's base-born son, Don Juan, of whom Queen Mariana was bitterly jealous, was impatiently waiting outside Madrid[[40]] for troops and means to be provided for him to conquer Portugal; Don Luis de Haro, who had ignominiously failed in the task himself, not being at all active in forwarding Don Juan's ambition. It was six months more before an army was at last got together, and, early in 1661, Don Juan crossed the frontier with 20,000 men, whilst Osuna's force of 15,000 co-operated with him in the north. But the marriage of Charles II. of England with a Portuguese wife had given to Portugal the aid of England; and though Don Juan fought well, he had now Marshal Schomberg with an English force to cope with, in addition to the Portuguese, and he made but little way. Bitter complaints came from him to his father that Haro would not provide him with the resources necessary for the task he had to do. But Haro died at the end of the year 1661,[[41]] and after that Mariana's influence against him crippled Don Juan more than ever, though at one period the civil dissensions in Portugal enabled him to overrun for a time some of the central provinces of the country.

The loss of Don Luis de Haro affected Philip greatly. The minister was not a strong man, but his conciliatory manner and quiet industry had prevented the existence of such violent antagonism to him as had ruined his predecessors. The nun of Agreda had never ceased to urge upon Philip the need for hard work on his part, and the King had wearily defended himself, again and again, by saying that it was impossible for him to do everything. Indeed, the whole system was so cumbrous that under it the monarch's whole time was taken up in reviewing the interminable reports of the various Councils, and signing papers placed before him, leaving him no opportunity for initiating policies. When Count Castrillo, Haro's uncle, entered the King's chamber one morning late in 1661, and announced Haro's sudden death, he told the King that all the official papers had been locked up, and requested the King's instructions as to who should take charge of the key. Philip meditated for a while, and then replied: "Put it on that table," much to Castrillo's disappointment, as he expected to be appointed chief minister. Philip, however, thought this time really to do without an all-powerful vice-king, such as he had had all his life; and as soon as Haro was buried he issued decrees dividing the administration between Castrillo, the Duke of Medina de las Torres, the Inquisitor-General, and himself, and ordering that every question from all quarters should be submitted to him before decision. Entering the Queen's apartments a few days afterwards, he found all the ladies chattering upon the floor, as usual, about what a bold preacher had said in the pulpit that morning: that the King was going to show the Councils now that he was really King. Hearing this talk, Philip said: "I am quite old enough now to see things for myself, and I shall be glad if those who know of anything that needs remedying will advise me of it, and I will see to it. Things are not going on as they had been doing."

Heliche's plot

There appears, indeed, to have been a dead set against Haro's family as soon as he died. The Marquis of Heliche, his son and heir, claimed, amongst other lucrative offices held by his father, the Keepership of the Retiro. This offended Philip, who refused him the office, and gave it to the Duke of Medina de las Torres. Heliche was soon afterwards accused of a plot to blow up the Retiro, which brought him and his family into the deepest disgrace. One morning in March 1662, three packets of gunpowder, connected by a train with a slow match, was found under the stage of the Retiro Theatre among a lot of heavy stage machinery, which had been used in a comedy recently represented, and designed and paid for by Heliche, but which was now to be used for a play to be produced before the King and Queen under other auspices. As soon as the discovery, was made (in time to avert disaster), five underlings connected with the theatre, two of them being Moorish slaves, were arrested; and when Heliche heard of it he went to the gaoler, saying that as one of the Moors had been punished by him, and had his ears cut off, he would probably say that he, Heliche, had prompted the crime. He therefore offered the gaoler a bribe to kill the Moor, by giving him a slight wound and anointing it with a poisonous unguent which Heliche would send. The gaoler divulged the plot, and the page of the Marquis was captured with the unguent in his possession. The Marquis was then arrested, and though great efforts were made by his kinsmen to obtain his release, four Duchesses kneeling before Philip at one time to beg for mercy, the King refused to interfere, though he said he was sorry the lad had not escaped. In the end the Marquis was let off with a term of banishment, apparently on the ground that he was bewitched. His own excuse for the crime was that he did not wish his scenery and stage effects to be used by the Duke of Maqueda. The whole case is an interesting illustration of the morals of the time.

Soon Madrid had something more piquant to talk about even than this; though for days no one dared to whisper it above his breath. But by and by Liars' Walk became bolder, and, with the accompaniment of many a sign of the cross, the story ran through the city, growing ever larger with additions as it ran, that devilish arts were being practised upon the King. It appears that a certain alcalde suspected that the house in Madrid of a lady, the sister of a judge at Granada, was being used as a factory of base money; and on going thither to search the premises and arrest the inmates, he discovered amongst the instruments for counterfeit coining, two engraved metal plates, each of which bore the device of a heart pierced with an arrow, one being inscribed with the name of "Philip IV., son of Philip III. and Margaret," and the other with the name and parentage of Don Luis de Haro, with other words taken from the Scriptures; the hearts themselves bearing the words, "I am thine, and thou art mine."[[42]] The alcalde thought that this looked serious, and carried the incised plates to the Inquisition, which promptly decided that it was a case of witchcraft, and at once sent its hosts of familiars to worm out the rest of the dreadful story, whilst sweeping into their silent dungeons all who might be suspected of complicity or knowledge, and giving occasion thus for all Madrid to invent its own details. The case dragged on in secret, as was the wont of Inquisition investigations, but thenceforward until his death the awe-stricken whisper was never long silent that the King lay under a maleficent charm; and grave heads were shaken knowingly, and crossed fingers kissed devoutly, when any fresh misfortune befell him.

Death of Philip Prosper

Evil fate, indeed, gave Philip little truce from sorrow. The frail life of his only son Philip Prosper flickered out on the 1st November 1661, and a week later the bereaved father wrote to the nun—

"The long illness of my son and my constant attendance at his bedside have prevented me from answering your letter, nor has my grief allowed me to do so, until to-day. I confess to you, Sor Maria, that my grief is great, as is natural after losing such a jewel as this. But in the midst of my sorrow I have tried to offer it to God, and to submit to His divine will; believing most earnestly that He will order all things for the best, which is the most important thing. I can assure you that what grieves me even more than my loss is that I see clearly that I have angered God, and that these punishments are sent in retribution for my sins. I only yearn to know how to amend myself, and to fulfil the divine will by avoiding transgression, with which end I will try my hardest, surrendering my life, if necessary, in order to succeed. Help me, as a true friend, with your prayers to placate the ire of God, and supplicate Him, since He has taken away my son, to send a safe delivery to the Queen, whose confinement we expect every hour; to protect her and grant that her offspring should be for His service, for otherwise I desire it not. The Queen has borne the blow as a true Christian, though sorrowfully. I am not surprised at this, for she is an angel. O Sor Maria! if I had been able to carry out your doctrines, perhaps I should not find myself in this state. Pray to God that my eyes may be opened, so that I may comply with His will in all things."

And then in a postscript, written a day later, the King, full of gratitude, conveys the happy news to his friend that another son had been born to him.

"Our Lord has deigned to send me back my son, by bringing me another; for which I am as grateful as so signal a boon and mercy demands. Help me, Sor Maria, to prostrate myself at His feet and beseech Him to preserve this pledge, if it be for His service, otherwise I desire it not, but to bow my head to His will. The Queen and the child are well, and I am content."

Fresh attempts at reform

The child that was born to Philip's old age was greeted, as his many predecessors had been, by violent rejoicings in the capital, though the King took little or no part in them beyond the religious ceremonies; for he really was trying hard now to do without a minister, working early and late at the drudgery of administration, drafting new stern pragmatics to reform the corruption of his capital, which had become more scandalous than ever, and bringing to book many of those who had grown rich under Don Luis de Haro. Money was needed for the Portuguese war, and the coinage was again debased; clothes were ordered to be plainer than ever, no silk was to be worn by officials, and no one was to have more than two mules to his coach; the owners of carriages were to pay for the paving of the streets of Madrid, which had become simply quagmires, whilst, to the joy of the populace, the taxes on food entering Madrid were reduced by one half. The speculators who farmed these dues cried out that they were being defrauded, and they were recompensed by a cession to them of half the 10 per cent. property tax on Madrid.

Thus, with reforms in judicial procedure, the cancelling of grants and pensions which could not be justified, and desperate efforts to suppress the open vice that paraded the capital, Philip, for the third time in his life (in 1661-1662), tried to carry into effect the saintly precepts in which he believed. Much of this new zeal for reform was evidently owing to the insistence of Sor Maria, who was never tired of pointing her lesson. Soon after Haro's sudden death she wrote—

"Let your Majesty order your ministers strictly to punish the rich and powerful people who cheat the poor by usurping their property, make your inferior ministers do justice with equity and impartiality, let them punish foul vices and all sorts of sin, and let the superior government of your Court assume a better form. And, for God's sake, moderate some of the taxes the poor people pay, for I know that villages have been depopulated in consequence of them; and that the poor people only keep body and soul together on barley-bread and the herbs of the fields.... So many changes in the coinage, too, are most injurious."[[43]]

Philip did his best, but he was sick and weary, and soon slackened in his personal efforts. Nothing that he did, indeed, seemed to prosper, and in his constant letters to Sor Maria his despairing references to his own sins being the cause of all his troubles became increasingly poignant. With infinite trouble and scraping together of resources, he managed to raise another army and full campaign material, with which his son Don Juan was to reconquer Portugal for the crown.[[44]] At first in the spring of 1663 all went well with Don Juan, who invaded Portugal and captured the important city of Evora, but he was met near that place by the English and Portuguese and defeated on the 8th June. Attempting to retreat into Spain, he was overtaken, and again the Spanish army suffered a disastrous rout, with a loss of 8000 men, with baggage, standards, and arms. Don Juan himself fought bravely, pike in hand, but was borne away in the flight, and with difficulty escaped to Badajoz. He was then recalled to Madrid, and in long conferences with his father's ministers[[45]] arranged a new campaign for the following year, though it was evident now to everyone that the reconquest of her lost dominion was beyond the material and moral strength of Spain.

Ever since the Restoration in England, Charles II. had been making tentative efforts to bring about peace with Spain. Philip it was certain would not officially recognise the independence of Portugal; but perhaps a modus vivendi might be arranged, by means of a long truce or otherwise, so that direct trade between England and Spain might be restored, and the mutual injuries inflicted at sea be stopped. The advantage to Spain would, of course, be great, because the silver fleets were constantly preyed upon by English privateers; but the English shipmasters and merchants also had felt severely the deprivation of Spanish trade; and after the crushing defeat of Don Juan at Amegial, just referred to, in June 1663, it seemed a good opportunity for Charles II. to suggest directly to Philip the advisability of an agreement.

Fanshawe's embassy

The envoy chosen was that Dick Fanshawe who had been in Spain in the time of Bristol and Aston, and had lately negotiated the marriage with Catharine of Braganza. He, stout loyalist as he had been during all the Commonwealth, was Sir Richard Fanshawe, Baronet, now, and in high favour with Charles, who, it was thought, would have made him Secretary of State. He was instructed to set forth to Philip the benefit that would accrue to both States from a reopening of maritime trade, and to say how anxious the King of England was to be friendly with the Catholic King, whom he esteemed so highly, notwithstanding the refusal of Spain to deal with him during the Commonwealth and the expulsion of his agents from Madrid at that time, as well as the closing of the Spanish ports to Prince Rupert's fleet. The matter of Portugal was to be very tenderly handled. Fanshawe was instructed to say that the King of Spain "cannot imagine that we will ever persuade him to deprive himself of his reputed right to the kingdom of Portugal, but whether the determination of that difference may not be advantageously suspended till a more favourable conjuncture, and until the crown of Spain be less liable to accidents, will be his part to judge."[[46]]

Fanshawe arrived in Cadiz on the 24th February (O.S.) 1664, and nothing could exceed the honour shown to the English ambassador and his wife by the magnates of Andalucia. The keys of the city were tendered to him in a "great silver basin," and he was asked to give the password for the night, which, courtier like, he did in the form of "Viva el Rey Catolico." Very different was the welcome that had awaited poor Ascham in the same port fourteen years before; though Fanshawe, overcome by all this ceremonious posturing, hoped that it was "not instead of substance, for then it would be very tedious and irksome to me, indeed, but an earnest prognostick of it, which time will try when I come to treat."[[47]] Everywhere, as Fanshawe travelled towards the capital, he was treated with almost royal honours; bull-fights, cane-tourneys, and, of course, the usual comedies being offered by nobles on the way: and it was the 7th May before he reached Vallecas in the outskirts of Madrid, where he remained for a time, as Philip was staying at Aranjuez, and no house had been provided in the capital for Fanshawe's accommodation; the famous "house with the seven chimneys" being then occupied by the Venetian ambassador.

For the next five weeks the exchange of visits of compliment and ceremonial generalities with the Duke of Medina de las Torres, now Philip's principal minister, and many other nobles and officials, occupied the time of Fanshawe and his clever wife; who wrote, "Though the men visited my husband, I could not suffer the ladies to visit me, though they much desired it, because I was so straitened in lodgings that in no sort were they convenient to receive persons of that quality, in not being capacious enough for my own family." The gossips of the Calle Mayor were full of the visit of the English peace-envoy, and saw all manner of grave political import in the difficulty of finding him a house; though Fanshawe himself attributes it to its true cause, namely, the insufficient house room in the capital; though he offered carte blanche as to terms, and to pay a year's rent in advance in silver. After much delay and resistance on the part of the Venetian ambassador, who wished to retain the house after his departure for the accommodation of his successor, the English ambassador was once more housed in the "house with the seven chimneys," after he had stayed for a time at a house standing in its own grounds outside the Fuencarral gate at Santa Barbara.

Fanshawe's state entry

At length, Philip having returned from Aranjuez, Fanshawe made his state entry into the capital, and had his first audience of Philip.

"On Wednesday the 8/18th June," says Lady Fanshawe, "my husband had his audience of his Catholic Majesty, who sent the Marquis de Malpica to conduct him, bringing him a horse of his Majesty for my husband to ride on, and thirty more for his gentlemen, and his Majesty's coach with his guard, that he (i.e. Malpica) was captain of. No ambassador's coach accompanied my husband but the French, who did it contrary to the King's command, who had before, upon my husband's demanding the custom of ambassadors accompanying all other ambassadors that came to this Court at their audience, replied that, although it had been so it should never be again; saying that it was a custom brought into this Court within less than twenty-five years.[[48]] My husband, about eleven of the clock, set forth out of his lodgings thus. First went all those gentlemen of the town and palace that came to accompany my husband, then went twenty footmen, all in new liveries of the same colour we used to give, which is dark green cloth with a frost upon green lace. Then went all my husband's gentlemen, and next before himself his camarados, two and two (here follow the eight names). Then my husband, in a very rich suit of clothes, of a dark fille (feuille) morte brocade laced with silver and gold lace, nine laces, every one as broad as my hand, and a little silver and gold lace laid between them, both of very curious workmanship. His suit was trimmed with scarlet taffeta ribbon, his stockings of white silk upon long scarlet silk ones, his shoes black with scarlet shoe-strings and garters, his linen very finely laced with very rich Flanders lace, a black beaver buttoned on the left side with a jewel of twelve hundred pounds, a curious wrought old gold chain made at the Indies, at which hung the King his master's picture richly set with diamonds, cost three hundred pounds, which his Majesty in great grace and favour had been pleased to give him at his coming home from Portugal. On his fingers he wore two very rich rings, his gloves trimmed with the same ribbon as his clothes. All his whole family (i.e. suite) was very richly clothed according to their several qualities."[[49]]

In this great magnificence Sir Richard Fanshawe rode through Madrid with the Marquis of Malpica by his side, followed by the Teuton guard, groups of pages and lackeys, and then the royal coach. After that came a coach drawn by four black horses, the finest state coach, says Lady Fanshawe, that ever came out of England, and to describe its grandeur nothing but the lady's own words will do justice.

"It was of rich crimson velvet, laced with broad silver and gold lace, fringed round with a massy gold and silver fringe, and the falls of the boots so rich that they hung almost down to the ground. The very fringe cost almost four hundred pounds. The coach was very richly gilt on the outside, and very richly adorned with brass work, with rich tassels of gold and silver hanging round the top of the curtains round about the coach. The curtains were of rich damask fringed with silver and gold. The harness for six horses was richly embossed with brass work, with reins and tassels for the horses of crimson silk, silver and gold. That coach is said to be the finest that ever entered Madrid."

After it followed a host of other coaches, which, fine as they were, must have appeared dull by the side of such a chariot as this. Fanshawe passed through an admiring crowd both outside and inside the palace, for the Madrileños ever loved finery; and at length reached the presence of Philip, who received him courteously, and many complimentary speeches, meaning nothing, were exchanged; after which ceremonious visits had to be paid to Queen Mariana and her children, the Infanta Margaret, now called the Empress, by virtue of her betrothal to her uncle, and the scrofulous rickety infant, Don Carlos, now Philip's only son.

Lady Fanshawe in Madrid

A week afterwards, Sir Richard had his first private interview with the King at the Buen Retiro. Philip was ill, and unequal now to much exertion, so that after Fanshawe's long address on the need for peace, and the conditions upon which it might be attained, he could only request that the whole of the points might be put in writing for his careful consideration. Soon after this, on the 27th June, Lady Fanshawe first went to salute Queen Mariana, and thus gives her impressions of what she saw—

"I waited on the Queen and the Empress (i.e. the little Infanta Margaret) with my three daughters and all my train. I was received at the Buen Retiro by the guard, and afterwards when I came upstairs by the Marquesa de Hinojosa, the Queen's Camarera Mayor. Through an infinite number of people I passed to the Queen's presence, where her Majesty was seated at the upper end under a cloth of state upon three cushions, and on her left hand the Empress upon three more. The ladies were all standing. After making my last reverence to the Queen, her Majesty and the Empress, rising up and making me a little curtsey, sat down again. Then I, by my interpreter, Sir Benjamin Wright, said those compliments that were due from me to her Majesty, to which her Majesty made a gracious and kind reply. Then I presented my children, whom her Majesty received with great grace and favour. Then her Majesty, speaking to me to sit, I sat down upon a cushion laid for me above all the ladies, but below the Camarera Mayor (no woman taking place of her but Princesses). The children sat on the other side, mingled with the Court ladies that are maids-of-honour. Thus, after passing half an hour in discourse, I took my leave of her Majesty and the Empress, making reverences to all the ladies in passing."

Of the various times the Fanshawes saw the King or Queen no detailed account need be given here, as the descriptions add nothing to our knowledge; nor is it necessary to dwell upon the accounts given of the Court diversions, which have already been described fully in the earlier pages of this book. Lady Fanshawe's opinions, however, of Spain and Spaniards generally are quaint. She thinks that the usually accepted English idea that Spain is a land of famine is unjust, especially for those who could afford to pay.

"There is not in the Christian world," she says, "better wines than their midland (i.e. southern) wines, especially sherry and canary. Their water tastes like milk, and their wheat makes the sweetest and best bread in the world. Bacon is beyond belief good; the Segovia veal much whiter, larger, and fatter than ours. They have a small bird that lives and fattens on grapes and corn—so fat that it exceeds the quantity of flesh. They have the best partridges I ever ate, and the best sausages, and salmon, pike, and seabream, which they send up in pickle called escabeche in Madrid; and dolphins, which are excellent meat,[[50]] besides carps and many other sorts of fish. The cream called nata is much sweeter and thicker than ever I saw in England. Their eggs much exceed ours; and so all sorts of salads, roots, and fruits.... Besides that, I have ate many sorts of biscuits, cakes, cheese, and excellent sweetmeats.... Their olives, which are nowhere so good. Their perfumes of amber excel all the world in their kind, both for clothes, household stuff, and fumes; and there is no such waters made as at Seville."

The good lady, too, was much enamoured of the courtesy of Spaniards.

"They are civil to all, as their qualities require, with highest respect; so I have seen a grandee and a duke stop his horse, when an ordinary woman passeth over a kennel, because he would not spoil her clothes, and put off his hat to the meanest woman that makes reverence, though it be to their footmen's wives.... They are punctual in visits, men to men and women to women. They visit not together, except their greatest ministers of State to wives of public ministers from Princes.... They are generally pleasant and facetious company, but in this their women exceed, who seldom laugh and never aloud, but are the most witty in repartees and stories and notions in the world.... They work little, but that rarely well, especially in monasteries (i.e. convents). They all paint white and red, from the Queen to the cobbler's wife, old and young, widows excepted, which never go out of close mourning, nor wear gloves nor show their hair after their husband's death, and seldom marry. They delight much in the feasts of bulls and in stage plays, and take great pleasure to see their little children act before them in their own houses, which they will do to perfection.... Until their daughters marry they never stir so much as down stairs, nor marry for no consideration under their quality, which to prevent, if their fortunes will not procure them husbands, they make them nuns. They are very magnificent in their houses, furniture, pictures of the best, jewels, plate, and clothes; most noble in presents, entertainments, and in their equipage."[[51]]

Fanshawe's mission made but slow progress, for the pride of Spain with regard to Portugal still stood in the way, and Philip was hoping against hope that the campaign of the following year, 1665, would restore to him the crown he had lost. He was still straining every nerve to get money; and as a last fatal resource in order to relieve as he hoped the distress of the treasury, he now reduced the value of the silver money to half, so that, as Lady Fanshawe says, "the pistole that was this morning at 82 reals was now proclaimed to go but for 48, which was above £800 loss to my husband."[[52]] At length, in the spring, by such devices as this—seizing all the securities lodged for loans, etc.—another army was got together. Don Juan, by the intrigues of the Austrian faction, was recalled and sent into semi-disgrace to Consuegra; the Count of Caracena, distinguished in the war with the Turks on the frontier of Hungary, being entrusted with the task of reconquering Portugal.

Philip, indeed, at this time, as his health and strength decayed, was surrounded by intrigue, intended, as it did, to drag unhappy Spain once more into the fatal alliance with the Emperor, in which Spain was made the catspaw of Austrian ambition, and the milch-cow of Austrian greed. It was no longer to suppress freedom of conscience in the German States. That had been conceded long ago; and against that alone had it been Spain's traditional policy to fight. The German Queen and her confessor Nithard, with Pöetting, the Austrian ambassador, were all intent now upon obtaining Spanish aid to the wars with the Turk on the Hungarian frontiers.[[53]] Philip still treated it as a question of conscience, and his letters to the nun breathed continual sorrow at having to deplete his own poverty-stricken subjects to help the Emperor. But it never seems to occur to him that he was really under no obligation whatever to do so, and that Spain would not have been seriously affected even if the Turk had been victorious in Hungary.

The nun's last letter

His personal health was now very bad, gallstones and other painful maladies keeping him in almost constant agony. To a letter from the nun, imploring him to care for his health, in March 1665, he answered that he would do so; "but I can assure you that I only want what may be best for God's service, and neither health, nor anything else, but that the divine will should be executed upon me. This is what I wish you to supplicate His Divine Majesty to grant me, and my salvation, which is my main concern." A few weeks after this was written, in March 1665, the nun sent to her royal friend another letter full of goodly counsel and encouragement; and then the pen fell from her hands for ever, and Philip was left utterly alone. His wife, working hard for her future influence, and in favour of the Austrian policy, had no sympathy to spare for the sufferings of the declining old uncle-husband, to whom political ambitions had given her as his wife. The only son who lived to succeed him was a scrofulous degenerate, who presented, even in his infancy, an exaggeration of his inherited type, which made him a monstrosity, a poor creature who never emerged from puerility, and finally died of senile decay at forty.

There was literally no ray of light on earth for Philip, now that Sor Maria was dead. Around him, as he knew and saw, plans and intrigues were anticipating the time when he should be no more. There were those in the Court, looking mostly to Don Juan, who dreaded to see Spain dragged once more at the tail of the Empire; for Louis XIV. was already threatening, and most Spaniards hankered for the closer alliance, meaning peace with France, that seemed so firm on the Isle of Pheasants only five years before; whilst Mariana and the Austrians had gained to their side a large party of nobles, pledged for their own greedy ends to support the Queen when she should succeed to the Regency and hold in her hands the resources of Spain.

The last blow

On the 20th June 1665 the terrible news had to be broken to the King, that his forlorn hope had been defeated. Count Caracena, from whom so much had been hoped, had been utterly crushed by the Portuguese and their English auxiliaries. Eight hours of carnage had reduced the Spanish army from 15,000 men to 7000, and all the guns had been lost. Philip could, in very truth, do no more. To raise this army every means, legal and illegal, had been resorted to; private property had been violated, pledges had been broken, injustice had been perpetrated, and suffering had been inflicted upon poor people already sorely oppressed. To this had the great dream come at last: that the King who was held to be the proudest and wealthiest in Christendom was unable to hold even his own territory. For the first time Philip broke down in the sight of men; for Sor Maria was dead, and to none could he turn now for comfort. Heart-broken, he cast himself upon the ground in a paroxysm of grief, and sobbed out the formula that was his only refuge, "Oh God! Thy will be done," almost the same words as those which his grandfather uttered when he received the news of the catastrophe that had overtaken his great Armada. But Philip IV.'s case was worse, by far, than that of Philip II. Behind the latter there was still a nation full of faith in its divine selection to dominate the world for the glory of God and His chosen King: behind Philip IV., himself aged and worn with sickness of body and disillusion of spirit, there was a people who had lost all confidence in themselves and their mission, ready to scoff and spit upon the idols that had failed them; a people whom sloth, vanity, and epicureanism had robbed for a time of their nobleness, and who yet had to pass through the consummation of their woe before, cleansed in the fires of suffering, they should arise again.

Philip knew it; and, looking back over his long reign, he must have cursed the fate that condemned him from his birth to the performance of an almost impossible task with utterly inadequate means. He had been dedicated at his baptism to the Dominican ideal of a Christian church purged of dissent at any cost; and yet, from the time when the Protestant ambassadors of England were the honoured guests at his christening, until now in his despairing age Fanshawe was reminding him daily of his impotence both on land and sea, he had been obliged to woo heretics, and to fight a great Catholic Power which was bent upon the final humiliation of his house. Thus, with bitter irony, some mightier power, with ends incomprehensible to men, mocked at the great designs of those who thought that they and theirs were but junior partners with providence, the chosen agents of the Almighty; and Philip, in whose days the scales had fallen from the nation's eyes, ascribed the agonised awakening, and the ruin it disclosed, to the vengeance of an offended deity for his own puny sins.

Philip bewitched

Philip was tired of the struggle, weary of the sordid intrigues around him, and he fell into gloomy despondency that banished from him all interest in life. His bodily sufferings were intense, for the malady that afflicted him was a cruel one. Again the rumour ran that the King was bewitched, and that the late Inquisitor-General had been arranging means to remove the spell when he died. The great ecclesiastics in attendance were convinced that Satan was at the bottom of the King's troubles; and asked Philip's permission to proceed in their incantations to defeat the evil one who was thus persecuting him. There were those at Court who sneered at the absurdity of attempting to cure a physical malady by such means;[[54]] but the Inquisition insisted, and took over the management of the case. The acting Inquisitor-General, Gonzalez, accompanied by Philip's confessor, Juan Martinez, went to the patient and asked him for a little bag of relics which he always wore around his neck, for they feared some evil charm might be amongst them. Then to the Dominican monastery of the Atocha they solemnly carried "an old book of sorcery, some prints of his Majesty transfixed with pins," and other rubbish, all of which they solemnly burnt with much sacred mummery.

This did the King no good, and then the doctors tried their hand with a sweet conserve of mallow leaves, not, one would think, a sovereign remedy for gall-stones. On Monday, 14th September, the physicians confessed themselves hopeless. The hemorrhage was very great, and the patient utterly exhausted with frequent paroxysms of fever, in one of which he was thought to be dead, and the news spread through the capital that he was so. When he was restored to consciousness, he summoned the new Secretary of State, Loyola, and entrusted him with official papers and his will for Queen Mariana, and then demanded the last sacrament. When the friars brought the viaticum and told the dying man that all hope was gone, he was resigned; though the Holy Virgin of the Atocha was taken in procession past his windows, and the body of St. Diego, with scores of other grisly remains, were kept in the sick-room itself, in the hope that good would come of them. Mariana and her two children came to say good-bye to the dying man on Monday afternoon, and, with tears in his eyes, Philip sighed to the five-year-old weakling who was to succeed him: "God make you happier than He has made me."[[55]] He took an affecting leave, too, of the Duke of Medina de las Torres, and the other nobles who were attached to him; pardoned the Marquis of Heliche for the attempt to blow up the Retiro, and granted many titles and knighthoods to his gentlemen-in-waiting. Count Castrillo, always self-seeking, had the bad taste to pester the King, both personally and through the friars, that he should be made Grandee, but Philip angrily referred him to the Queen.

For three days the King lingered on in suffering, confessing again and again and receiving absolution; never for long abandoning his hold upon the rough crucifix that had comforted the last moments of his saintly predecessors on the throne. The jealous friars and confessors about him quarrelled so violently in the death chamber on one occasion, about administering the last sacrament again, that the Marquis of Aytona turned the King's confessor out of the room and forbade his return. On Wednesday, Castrillo came in full of the great news that Don Juan had presented himself at the palace, and Philip, disturbed and unhappy at the trouble that this portended, sternly sent orders for the Prince to return instantly; for this, he said, was only the time for him to die, not to enter into mundane disputes.

Death of Philip IV.

All that night the King was delirious, until he suddenly recovered consciousness just before dawn on Thursday, 17th September 1665, and then quietly passed away. He had been beloved by those around him, and had been prodigal all his life of favour to the men who served him; but Mariana and her son were the source of bounty now, and human nature showed its baseness at such a crisis, as it is wont to do in palaces; for, as my eye-witness authority avers,[[56]] "Of all his Majesty's household, the Marquis of Aytona and two other servants alone wept for the death of their King and master; and in all the rest of the capital there was not one person who shed a tear." The Marquis of Malpica, captain of the Guard, came from the death chamber first to the anteroom filled with guards on duty, and announced the King's passing by shouting: "Now, comrades, your duty is to go upstairs[[57]] and guard his Majesty King Charles." Courtiers were too busy thence-forward looking towards the future to care much for the unhappy Planet King who had laid down his heavy burden. The reading of the will which made Mariana Regent, the constant meetings, and the coming and going of the ministers, kept the palace astir from morning till night; but a few faithful souls dressed the poor remains of the King in a musk-coloured velvet suit, embroidered with silver, placed a silver sword by his side, a diamond cross in his hands folded upon his breast, which was embroidered with the great red dagger of Santiago, and covered the head with a beaver hat. And so, garbed and enclosed in gorgeous silver and red velvet coffins, he was placed high upon a dais under a canopy illumined by great wax torches, surrounded with the insignia of imperial majesty, and guarded by the faithful halberdiers of Espinosa; whilst friars chanted and prayed around the bier hour after hour. The hall in which the body of Philip lay thus in deathly state was that which had seen so many gay hours of his hopeful youth; for it was the room devoted to the stage-plays that he had loved not wisely but too well.

Lady Fanshawe, like the rest of the great people in Madrid, went to see the sight, and thus records her impressions—

"The body of Philip IV. lay exposed from the 18th September, Friday morning, till the night of Saturday the 19th, in a great room in his palace, in which they used to act plays. The room was hung with fourteen pieces of the King's best hangings, and over them rich pictures round about, all of one size placed close together. At the upper end of the room was raised a throne of three steps, upon which there was placed a bedstead raised at the head. The throne was covered with a rich Persian carpet, and the bottom of the bedstead with a counterpoint of cloth of gold. The bedstead was of silver, the valance and headcloth of gold wrought in flowers with crimson silk. Over the bedstead was placed a cloth of state of the same as the valance and headcloth of the bedstead, upon which stood a silver gilt coffin raised a foot or more at the head than at the feet, and in the coffin lay Philip IV. with his head on a pillow, upon it a white beaver hat, his hair combed, his beard trimmed, his face and hands painted. He was clothed in a musk-coloured silk suit embroidered with gold, a golilla about his neck, cuffs on his hands, which were clasped on his breast, holding a globe and a cross therein. His cloak was of the same, with his sword on his side; stockings, shoe-strings, and garters of the same, and a pair of white shoes upon his feet."

The burial of Philip

Seven altars and scores of lighted tapers were erected in the chamber, and offices for the dead King's soul went ceaselessly on, as the courtiers came and went before the painted clay that had been once so potent; but when, late on Saturday, the time came to carry the body through the night across the plains to the snow-tipped Guadarramas glimmering afar off, where in the stately jasper chamber he had wrought for his royal house Philip IV. was to lie amongst the greater dead, few of the high nobles and officers cared to absent themselves from Madrid in these early days; and one after the other they refused to do the last sad offices to him who had so often commanded them with a glance. At last the Duke of Medina de las Torres peremptorily ordered a kinsman of his own to take charge of the body to the Escorial. Even the bearing of the body to the mule litter that awaited it gave rise to a hot dispute, in which threats of violence between two sets of officials were flung across the coffin.[[58]]

With fourscore friars and the great officers of the palace who were obliged to accompany the corpse, the litter, surrounded by torches, travelled throughout the night, and on Sunday, 20th September 1655, the prior of the Escorial relieved the courtiers of the burden of which they were so glad to be free; whereafter they all scurried back, as fast as horses could carry them, to make the preparations and ensure their own important participation in the glorious series of bull-fights, cane-tourneys, masques, and sumptuous parades which within a fortnight were to greet the accession of his Catholic Majesty King Charles II.

The end

There were still thirty-five years more of national humiliation and grief for Spain before the great convulsion that awoke her to a new life; but these years were but a prolongation of the agony preceding the dissolution that had been made inevitable during the reign of Philip IV. The Court over which he was the presiding spirit had exhibited in the forty-five years he ruled it the strange phenomenon of corruscating intellectual activity, accompanied by unexampled moral and social corruption. Literature and art had blazed up with sudden refulgence before they too sank into twilight; and when Philip passed in, the generation of geniuses that illumined his Court were dead or hastening to the grave, whilst all else was sinking deeper and deeper into darkness.

It needed the formation of new ideals, the evolution of a new patriotism, to make Spain worthy of her history again; and the outworn, incestuous blood of the Philips was powerless to lead the nation back to health and sanity after its splendid epoch of heroics. Philip did his best, but he himself was but a product of his time and country: a kindly gentleman of noble aspirations and ignoble practice, weak of will and tender of conscience, a poet and a dilettante, doomed to an overwhelming task for which he was unfit. In his long reign he saw moral decadence that he could not arrest, national ruin that even his frantic prayers were powerless to avert; and he lived through half a lifetime of martyrdom, because he ascribed his failure to the vengeance of a ruthless deity whom he had offended by his sins, and believed that he, gentle-hearted as he was, had brought upon the people that he loved the wide-spread woe he saw around him.

[[1]] Avisos de Barrionuevo (Coleccion de Autores Castellanos), Madrid, 1892; Voyage en Espagne (1655), Aersens Van Sommerdyk, Amsterdam, 1666; Relation de l'État et Gouvernement d'Espagne, Bonnecasse, Cologne, 1667. Barrionuevo, who was brother of the Marquis of Cusano, was a "character." He was a jovial priest, not ashamed to boast of his love affairs, of his good looks, of his bravery: and he belonged to a turbulent family who were always getting into affrays of some sort, He himself records without any word of reprobation a murder committed in the open streets of Madrid by his kinsman, Francisco Barrionuevo, upon a man who had boasted of making love to his wife; and the chronicler quite unconcernedly predicts that the murderer, who had fled to sanctuary, will get off. Barrionuevo confesses that he is insatiably curious, and gathers news from everyone, going every morning to the palace to learn what was passing there. His brother, who was Spanish ambassador in London, also kept him well posted as to what happened in England. See Barrionuevo's biography by Señor Paz y Melia in the first volume of the Avisos.

[[2]] Van Sommerdyk.

[[3]] Ibid. The population at this time was between 250,000 and 300,000.

[[4]] Aersens and Bonnecasse. The charge for entrance was 1½ sous, which went to the actors; 2 sous were charged for admission to the seated part, which went to the Town Council; and 7 sous was the cost of a seat in the cheapest part, 1½ sous of which went to charity, and the rest for the lessee.

[[5]] Bonnecasse says that at this time there were 30,000 women of evil life in Madrid. Even now strangers in Madrid are surprised to see the impunity with which well-dressed, respectable young men dare to make audible remarks of an amorous or complimentary nature intended to reach the ears of ladies unknown to them in the streets.

[[6]] A curious craze was universal amongst men in Madrid at this time, and for some years previously, namely, that of wearing large round horn framed spectacles such as are seen in the portrait of Quevedo. The modern name for goggles in Spanish is "Quevedos." The habit of snuff-taking was also a fashionable affectation of the time.

[[7]] Worth 2s. 8d. each.

[[8]] He also cites, however, very numerous cases of professedly poor people having large secret hoards of money. The universal want of confidence had undoubtedly led to the hoarding of coin—especially silver—to a very great extent by all classes, and this will to some extent explain the strange facility with which money was found on emergency even in the midst of poverty.

[[9]] Barrionuevo mentions a malicious caricature which was current in the palace (1655, satirising Philip's helpless despondency in the face of universal corruption.) A group represents Haro, the chief minister, saying: "I can do everything"; the Secretary of State, Contreras, saying: "I want everything"; the King saying: "I see everything"; his Confessor saying: "I absolve everything"; and the devil saying: "I shall fly away with the lot." Aersens, as an instance of the ineptitude and corruption everywhere at the same period, mentions that he saw on the beach at St. Sebastian a great warship in course of construction, but which had not been touched for a long time; "but upon which more millions had already been spent than would have built a dozen such; but those who have spent it have alone profited by it."

[[10]] The tradition is that Philip himself painted the cross of Santiago on the representation of Velazquez as a token of his delight at the masterpiece. This, however, is hardly likely to be the case, as the rank was not granted to the painter until two years later. It was no doubt eventually added by Philip's orders, but Velazquez was not a Knight of Santiago when the painting was executed.

[[11]] Barrionuevo.

[[12]] Curias de Sor Maria. Philip evidently recollected the bitterness of his losing Baltasar Carlos in the flower of his youth.

[[13]] In a long doggerel ballad on the occasion, quoted by Barrionuevo, many lines are devoted to the King's delight. These are specimens—

Salio el Rey á verlo todo,
y tambien á que le viesen;
porque todos conociesen
en el regocijo el modo
de salir....

En toda mi vida vi
hacer locuras mayores
a plebeyos y señores;
y sin reparar, entrando
al rey le iban hablando
desde el Grande hasta el rapaz.

Fué el Rey el dia noveno
a dar las gracias á Atocha
mas tierno que una melcocha,
y, por Dios, que iba muy bueno
de diamantes todo lleno,
a ese cielo parecia.

The King came out to see the show,
And also that he might be seen;
For by his gay and happy mien
Thus all the world his joy might know.

Sure never in my life before
Did such mad pranking meet my eye,
By rich and poor and low and high.
For no one cared, but in did walk,
And to the King himself did talk,
From great grandee to urchin poor.

And when nine days had taken flight,
Atocha's saint with thanks to greet,
Our King did ride, as honey sweet,
By God! he was a gallant sight,
From top to toe with diamonds fine,
Like starlit heaven did he shine.

[[14]] It will be recollected that this was the same costume as that which Olivares wore at the baptism of Baltasar Carlos, and which then puzzled people. The dress, whatever it was, seems only to have been worn at christenings.

[[15]] What was called "marchpane" at royal baptisms was not really marchpane, which is of course a sweetmeat compounded of almond paste and honey, but a piece of crumb of bread upon which the bishop wiped his fingers of the holy oil after anointing the royal infant during the ceremony. The crumb of bread was often enclosed in an envelope of marchpane and was carried in the procession wrapped in a beautifully embroidered cloth upon a gold salver.

[[16]] Barrionuevo.

[[17]] Cartas de Sor Maria.

[[18]] Braganza himself, John IV., had died in 1656, leaving his son, Alfonso VI., a minor.

[[19]] Lionne's own account of his negotiations in Recueil des Instructions données aux Ambassadeurs Français. Ed. Morel Fatio, Paris, 1894.

[[20]] On Good Friday, 1657, for instance, the procession, as usual, passed before the palace of Madrid, and as the carved group representing the Flight into Egypt passed the royal balconies a large flight of white doves was let loose. One of the doves, Barrionuevo says, flew direct to the window where the Infanta was standing, and settled upon her head, whilst another alighted upon the King's hat. Both birds were caught and liberated by the King's command, and all Madrid was soon talking of the good omen the event presented.

[[21]] On the day of St. Blas, writes Barrionuevo, the King and Queen go to the Retiro, and on the 8th February (1658) there will be the great comedy there which will cost 50,000 ducats, with unheard of machines. There will be 132 performers, 42 of them musical women brought from all parts of Spain.... One of them, the Bezona, is a very fine lady from Seville, and another one, the Grifona, has escaped from her prison, so that the feast will be brilliant, and will last from Shrove Sunday to Ash Wednesday.

[[22]] Cartas de Sor Maria.

[[23]] Barrionuevo.

[[24]] Barrionuevo.

[[25]] There are three French MS. narratives of it in the Bibliotheque Nationale, written by various hands, as well as a Journal du Voyage d'Espagne, by Bertaut, in print, Paris, 1669, and La Veritable Rélation du Voyage, etc., Toulouse, 1659. Several Spanish narratives of the embassy also exist in print and MS. in the Biblioteca Nacional.

[[26]] Journal du Voyage d'Espagne, par l'Abbe Bertaut, Paris, 1669.

[[27]] So jealous were the nations of one another still, that Mazarin strictly forbade any of his French followers from crossing the Spanish line during the conference: "Dans la crainte qu'il avail que les Français, accoutumés à mépriser les étrangers et à se moquer de tous ceux qui ne sont pas vétus à leur mode, ne fissent quelques déplaisirs aux espagnols, dont le procédé est plus serieux et plus modeste." "L'isle de la Conference et le Mariage du Roi," 1660.

[[28]] Avisos anonimos. Appendix to Barrionuevo.

[[29]] A full account of the progress from day to day, written by an eyewitness, is Viage del Rey Nuestro Señor à la Frontera de Francia. Madrid, 1667.

[[30]] So few were they at this time, that it was projected to repopulate the rural districts by large immigration of Irish and Dalmatian families (Barrionuevo).

[[31]] Palamino, Life of Velazquez.

[[32]] An eye-witness, from whose unpublished MS. description of these ceremonies I have condensed some passages, says they were "de los mayores y de mayor lucimiento que ha visto Europa en muchos siglos." MS. Biblioteca Nacional, P. v. c. 27.

[[33]] In one of the narratives of the ceremonies from day to day, written by Roque de la Luna, one of Philip's household (MS. Biblioteca Nacional, P. v. c. 31, transcribed by me), he says "Don Francisco took an hour and a half to read it, and as we were all standing it seemed a very long time to us."

[[34]] "The noise was so great that it seemed as if the world was crumbling," says the narrator from whose manuscript I am quoting.

[[35]] Narrative of Roque de Luna, MS., Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid. P. v. c. 31.

[[36]] Narrative of Roque de Luna, MS., Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, P. v. c. 31.

[[37]] MS. narrative of an anonymous eye-witness. Biblioteca National, Madrid, P. v. c. 27.

[[38]] Contemporary descriptions of these ceremonies in French are numerous. One, published in Paris in June 1660, is specially interesting. It is called "Le mariage du Roy, célébré à St. Jean de Luz." The occasion remains one of the great glories of St. Jean de Luz, where the house in which Maria Teresa lodged still stands, and is called "La maison de l'Infante." A series of interesting tapestry pictures of the ceremonies may be seen in the exhibition palace in the Champs Elysées, Paris.

[[39]] Some of the Spanish narrators mention with surprise and chagrin that neither the Spanish troops nor courtiers were so fine as the French. The anonymous Newsletter writer (sequel to Barrionuevo) says: "Many of our courtiers write (i.e. to Madrid) that the French gentlemen and ladies who came to the ceremonies were so numerous, and the adornments they wore were so rich and abundant, that we were evidently inferior to them, although much care had been taken on our side to excel, and no expense had been spared. So we cannot say this time, as we have said before, that the French finery was nothing but frills, furbelows, and feathers."

[[40]] It was against the etiquette of the Court for a left-handed son of the sovereign to stay in Madrid, or even to visit it without special permission. The rumour, though untrue, that Don Juan was to be allowed to come to Madrid and welcome Philip at this time caused much heart-burning.

[[41]] The Newsletter writer (Avisos anonimos) says that when Don Juan was told of Haro's death, he replied: "My father has lost a great minister; Let us go hunting," which he did immediately, to show his satisfaction.

[[42]] Avisos. Sequel to Barrionuevo.

[[43]] Cartas de Sor Maria, 25th November 1661.

[[44]] It was necessary for Philip to seize all the securities lodged in the hands of the contractors and money-lenders for the raising and provision of this army, the excuse being that the contractors were swindling him. It appears that they bought barley in Estremadura at 8 reals the fanega (1½ bushels), and sold it to the army for 56 reals. The contractors (Genoese and Portuguese) offered 3½ million ducats for the securities back again, but it was refused. Another seizure of securities left with loan-mongers and contractors was made in the following year, which completed the ruin of several of them. Avisos. 1660-1664.

[[45]] Don Juan was kept in Madrid for many months, much to his own disgust, as he saw that it was in consequence of the intrigues of Queen Mariana to separate him from the army altogether. One of her plans was to induce the King to order Don Juan to conduct to Germany the young Infanta Margaret, who had just been betrothed to her uncle, the Emperor. Don Juan stood out firmly against this. He hated the Austrian connection, and Mariana and her German advisers were his enemies. Affairs came to a head in October 1663, when Don Juan forced the pace by boldly urging his father to make him an Infante of Spain and first minister. This frightened Mariana and her alter ego, Father Nithard, her Jesuit confessor; and it had the effect desired by Don Juan, of obtaining his despatch from Madrid to the army at Badajoz. During his stay in the capital he had offended nearly all the nobles by his haughty arrogance. Avisos.

[[46]] Instructions to Sir Richard Fanshawe. Original Letters of Sir Richard Fanshawe, London, 1702.

[[47]] Fanshawe's Original Letters. A most naive and amusing account of his embassy in Spain, where he died, is in Lady Fanshawe's Memoirs. of which a new and fully annotated edition has recently been published.

[[48]] The controversy on this point is fully set forth in Fanshawe's own letter to Lord Holles. The French ambassador's exceptional courtesy to the Englishman somewhat disconcerted the Spaniards, who thought there was some political significance behind it.

[[49]] Lady Fanshawe's Memoirs.

[[50]] The fish she calls dolphins were probably tunny.

[[51]] Lady Fanshawe's Memoirs.

[[52]] Whilst the penury of the country led Philip to adopt such measures as this, the influence of Mariana and her German entourage induced him at this very time—November 1664—to send a contribution of 500,000 ducats to the Emperor's needs.

[[53]] An interesting volume founded upon Pöetting's correspondence, and dealing with the connection between Spain and the Empire at this time, has recently been published by his Excellency Don W. de Villa Urrutia, Spanish ambassador in England. It is called Relaciones entre Espana y Austria, Madrid, 1905.

[[54]] There is a very minute account of Philip's illness and death written by one of his attendants, from which I take some of the particulars. Biblioteca National, Madrid, P. v. c. 24. Manuscript, 15 pages transcribed by me.

[[55]] Muerte del Rey Felipe IV., a contemporary account by an eyewitness. British Museum MSS., Add. 8703.

[[56]] MSS. Bib. Nac., Madrid, P. v. c. 24.

[[57]] Philip had died in the entresol-room in the palace, which he always occupied in summer, as it was shady and cool.

[[58]] MSS. Biblioteca National, Madrid, p. v. c. 24.