History of Civilization in England, Vol. 2 of 3

by Henry Thomas Buckle

These were the promises held out by the Church, and believed by the people. It is our business to inquire how far the expectations were fulfilled, and what the consequences were of an act which was instigated by the clergy, welcomed by the nation, and eagerly applauded by some of the greatest men of genius Spain has produced.[1309]

The effects upon the material prosperity of Spain may be stated in a few words. From nearly every part of the country, large bodies of industrious agriculturists and expert artificers were suddenly withdrawn. The best systems of husbandry then known, were practised by the Moriscoes, who tilled and irrigated with indefatigable labour.[1310] The cultivation of rice, cotton, and sugar, and the manufacture of silk and paper, were almost confined to them.[1311] By their expulsion, all this was destroyed at a blow, and most of it was destroyed for ever. For, the Spanish Christians considered such pursuits beneath their dignity. In their judgment, war and religion were the only two avocations worthy of being followed. To fight for the king, or to enter the Church was honourable; but everything else was mean and sordid.[1312] When, therefore, the Moriscoes were thrust out of Spain, there was no one to fill their place; arts and manufactures either degenerated, or were entirely lost, and immense regions of arable land were left uncultivated. Some of the richest parts of Valencia and Granada were so neglected, that means were wanting to feed even the scanty population which remained there.[1313] Whole districts were suddenly deserted, and down to the present day have never been repeopled. These solitudes gave refuge to smugglers and brigands, who succeeded the industrious inhabitants formerly occupying them; and it is said, that from the expulsion of the Moriscoes is to be dated the existence of those organized bands of robbers, which, after this period, became the scourge of Spain, and which no subsequent government has been able entirely to extirpate.[1314]

To these disastrous consequences, others were added, of a different, and, if possible, of a still more serious kind. The victory gained by the Church increased both her power and her reputation. During the rest of the seventeenth century, not only were the interests of the clergy deemed superior to the interests of laymen, but the interests of laymen were scarcely thought of. The greatest men, with hardly an exception, became ecclesiastics, and all temporal considerations, all views of earthly policy, were despised and set at nought. No one inquired; no one doubted; no one presumed to ask if all this was right. The minds of men succumbed and were prostrate. While every other country was advancing, Spain alone was receding. Every other country was making some addition to knowledge, creating some art, or enlarging some science. Spain, numbed into a death-like torpor, spellbound and entranced by the accursed superstition which preyed on her strength, presented to Europe a solitary instance of constant decay. For her, no hope remained; and, before the close of the seventeenth century, the only question was, by whose hands the blow should be struck, which would dismember that once mighty empire, whose shadow had covered the world, and whose vast remains were imposing even in their ruin.

To indicate the different steps which mark the decline of Spain would be hardly possible, since even the Spaniards, who, when it was too late, were stung with shame, have abstained from writing what would only be the history of their own humiliation; so that there is no detailed account of the wretched reigns of Philip IV. and Charles II., which together comprise a period of nearly eighty years.[1315] Some facts, however, I have been able to collect, and they are very significant. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the population of Madrid was estimated to be 400,000; at the beginning of the eighteenth century, less than 200,000.[1316] Seville, one of the richest cities in Spain, possessed in the sixteenth century upwards of sixteen thousand looms, which gave employment to a hundred and thirty thousand persons.[1317] By the reign of Philip V., these sixteen thousand looms had dwindled away to less than three hundred;[1318] and, in a report which the Cortes made to Philip IV., in 1662, it is stated that the city contained only a quarter of its former number of inhabitants, and that even the vines and olives cultivated in its neighbourhood, and which comprised a considerable part of its wealth, were almost entirely neglected.[1319] Toledo, in the middle of the sixteenth century, had upwards of fifty woollen manufactories; in 1665, it had only thirteen, almost the whole of the trade having been carried away by the Moriscoes, and established at Tunis.[1320] Owing to the same cause, the art of manufacturing silk, for which Toledo was celebrated, was entirely lost, and nearly forty thousand persons, who depended on it, were deprived of their means of support.[1321] Other branches of industry shared the same fate. In the sixteenth century, and early in the seventeenth, Spain enjoyed great repute for the manufacture of gloves, which were made in enormous quantities, and shipped to many parts, being particularly valued in England and France, and being also exported to the Indies. But Martinez de Mata, who wrote in the year 1655, assures us that at that time this source of wealth had disappeared; the manufacture of gloves having quite ceased, though formerly, he says, it had existed in every city in Spain.[1322] In the once-flourishing province of Castile, every thing was going to ruin. Even Segovia lost its manufactures, and retained nothing but the memory of its former wealth.[1323] The decay of Burgos was equally rapid; the trade of that famous city perished; and the deserted streets and empty houses formed such a picture of desolation, that a contemporary, struck by the havoc, emphatically declared that Burgos had lost every thing except its name.[1324] In other districts, the results were equally fatal. The beautiful provinces of the south, richly endowed by nature, had formerly been so wealthy, that their contributions alone sufficed, in time of need, to replenish the imperial treasury; but they now deteriorated with such rapidity, that, by the year 1640, it was found hardly possible to impose a tax on them which would be productive.[1325] During the latter half of the seventeenth century, matters became still worse, and the poverty and wretchedness of the people surpass all description. In the villages near Madrid, the inhabitants were literally famishing; and those farmers who had a stock of food refused to sell it, because, much as they needed money, they were apprehensive of seeing their families perish around them. The consequence was, that the capital was in danger of being starved; and ordinary threats producing no effect, it was found necessary, in 1664, that the President of Castile, with an armed force, and accompanied by the public executioner, should visit the adjacent villages, and compel the inhabitants to bring their supplies to the markets of Madrid.[1326] All over Spain, the same destitution prevailed. That once rich and prosperous country was covered with a rabble of monks and clergy, whose insatiate rapacity absorbed the little wealth yet to be found. Hence it happened, that the government, though almost penniless, could obtain no supplies. The tax-gatherers, urged to make up the deficiency, adopted the most desperate expedients. They not only seized the beds and all the furniture, but they unroofed the houses, and sold the materials of the roof, for whatever they would fetch. The inhabitants were forced to fly; the fields were left uncultivated; vast multitudes died from want and exposure; entire villages were deserted; and in many of the towns, upwards of two-thirds of the houses were, by the end of the seventeenth century, utterly destroyed.[1327]

In the midst of these calamities, the spirit and energy of Spain were extinguished. In every department, all power and life disappeared. The Spanish troops were defeated at Rocroy in 1643; and several writers ascribe to that battle the destruction of the military reputation of Spain.[1328] This, however, was only one of many symptoms.[1329] In 1656, it was proposed to fit out a small fleet; but the fisheries on the coast had so declined, that it was found impossible to procure sailors enough to man even the few ships which were required.[1330] The charts which had been made, were either lost or neglected; and the ignorance of the Spanish pilots became so notorious, that no one was willing to trust them.[1331] As to the military service, it is stated, in an account of Spain, late in the seventeenth century, that most of the troops had deserted their colours, and that the few who were faithful were clothed in rags, received no pay, and were dying of hunger.[1332] Another account describes this once mighty kingdom as utterly unprotected; the frontier towns ungarrisoned; the fortifications dilapidated and crumbling away; the magazines without ammunition; the arsenals empty; the workshops unemployed; and even the art of building ships entirely lost.[1333]

While the country at large was thus languishing, as if it had been stricken by some mortal distemper, the most horrible scenes were occurring in the capital, under the eyes of the sovereign. The inhabitants of Madrid were starving; and the arbitrary measures which had been adopted to supply them with food, could only produce temporary relief. Many persons fell down in the streets exhausted, and died where they fell; others were seen in the public highway evidently dying, but no one had wherewithal to feed them. At length the people became desperate, and threw off all control. In 1680, not only the workmen of Madrid, but large numbers of the tradesmen, organized themselves into bands, broke open private houses, and robbed and murdered the inhabitants in the face of day.[1334] During the remaining twenty years of the seventeenth century, the capital was in a state, not of insurrection, but of anarchy. Society was loosened, and seemed to be resolving itself into its elements. To use the emphatic language of a contemporary, liberty and restraint were equally unknown.[1335] The ordinary functions of the executive government were suspended. The police of Madrid, unable to obtain the arrears of their pay, disbanded, and gave themselves up to rapine. Nor did there seem any means of remedying these evils. The exchequer was empty, and it was impossible to replenish it. Such was the poverty of the court, that money was wanting to pay the wages of the king's private servants, and to meet the daily expenses of his household.[1336] In 1693, payment was suspended of every life-pension; and all officers and ministers of the crown were mulcted of one-third of their salaries.[1337] Nothing, however, could arrest the mischief. Famine and poverty continued to increase;[1338] and, in 1699, Stanhope, the British minister then residing in Madrid, writes, that never a day passed in which people were not killed in the streets scuffling for bread; that his own secretary had seen five women stifled to death by the crowd before a bakehouse; and that, to swell the catalogue of misery, upwards of twenty thousand additional beggars from the country had recently flocked into the capital.[1339]