Philip II. of Spain

by Martin A. S. Hume

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

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

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

CHAPTER VI

Philip’s plan for a French alliance—His marriage with Elizabeth de Valois—Philip’s embarrassments in the Netherlands—De Granvelle—Philip’s departure from Flanders—Condition of affairs in Spain—The Spanish Church—Death of Paul IV.—The Inquisition—Bartolomé de Carranza—Philip’s arrival and routine in Spain—The auto de fé at Valladolid.

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

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

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

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

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