Philip II. of Spain

by Martin A. S. Hume

Couriers flew with the news all over Europe. Explanations must not be sought in Philip’s cold diplomatic letters giving foreign courts information of the event, but in other quarters. The Queen of England learnt the news on February 2, and on the 6th saw the Spanish ambassador, when she expressed her surprise, said that the king had acted with all dignity in the matter, but that she had not been informed of the reason for the arrest. Letters had come from France even thus early by which Cecil learnt that the prince had been implicated in a plot against his father’s life. The ambassador was very indignant at such an idea, which, he said, could only have emanated from heretics, children of the devil.

But it is clear to see that the ambassador himself is as much in the dark as every one else, for he prays his master to instruct him what attitude he is to assume, “as the matter has made great noise here, and no doubt elsewhere.” To this the king coldly replied that no more was to be said about it. Ruy Gomez was less reticent. He told the French and English ambassadors in Spain that the prince’s mind was as defective as his body, and had been getting steadily worse. The king had dissembled as long as he could, in the hope of improvement, but the prince’s violence had now become intolerable, and it had been necessary to place him under restraint. Dr. Man, the English ambassador, fully agreed that the step had become inevitable, as did all the ambassadors then resident in Madrid. “It was not a punishment,” wrote Philip to his aunt and mother-in-law, the grandmother of Don Carlos, “if it were, there would be some limit to it; but I never hope to see my son restored to his right mind again. I have chosen in this matter to make a sacrifice to God of my own flesh and blood, preferring His service and the universal good to all other human considerations.”

It was a humiliating position for Philip, who had been so dutiful a son himself, and had such far-reaching ambitions to hand down to his heir. It is not surprising that he avoided reference to it as much as possible. Some sort of trial or examination of the prince took place in secret before Ruy Gomez, Cardinal Espinosa, and Muñatones, but the documents have never been found. The rumour that Carlos plotted against his father’s life was repudiated vigorously by the king and his ministers, but that he had been disobedient and rebellious is certain, and probably this was the foundation of the charge of treason brought against him. The Protestant party, in France and Flanders especially, were willing enough to wound Philip and discredit the Inquisition by saying that Carlos was punished for supposed Protestant leanings; and even in Spain such things were cautiously whispered. There is, however, not the slightest indication that such was really the case from the papers of the prince himself and those who surrounded him, unless perhaps the letter from his friend and almoner, Suarez, to him, in which he reproaches him for not going to confession, and warns him that if he persisted in his present course every one would think him mad; “things so terrible, that in the case of other persons they have caused the Inquisition to inquire whether they were Christians.” Certainly to all appearance the prince was as devout a Catholic as his father, and the idea of attributing to this epileptic imbecile elevated ideas of political and religious reform is obviously absurd.

If we must hold Philip blameless with respect to his son’s imprisonment, we must still keep in suspense our judgment with regard to his responsibility for the prince’s death, because the evidence as to what passed after his arrest comes mainly from persons in the king’s interest and pay, and because the accusation that Carlos was murdered was formulated by Philip’s bitterest enemy, Antonio Perez, a man, moreover, utterly unworthy of credit, a murderer, a perjurer, and a traitor to his country.

The long secret trial of the prince dragged on. Neither his aunt Juana nor his beloved stepmother was allowed to see him, and Philip even forbade his brother, Don Juan, to wear mourning for the trouble that had befallen the royal house.

In the meanwhile the prince’s health visibly declined. At best he had been a continual invalid, burned up with fever and ague, but in captivity and under examination he became worse. He refused to receive the consolations of the Church, a freak upon which much superstructure has been raised. As his madness increased, like many lunatics he took to swallowing inedible things, jewelry, and other objects of the same sort, and finally refused to eat anything at all for eleven days. Then in reply to the king’s remonstrances, he gorged himself, and this brought him a return of his fever in the worst form. Every sort of mad proceeding was adopted in turn by the unhappy youth. He would half roast himself by a fire, and then put ice in his bed. First he would scornfully refuse the sacraments, and then fulfil scrupulously all the forms of his Church. At length, probably from weakness, he became calmer, and there was a momentary hope of his recovery. Llorente (whose authority is not, however, to be accepted unquestioned) says that the result of his trial was that he was “found guilty of implication in a plot to kill the king and to usurp the sovereignty of the Netherlands, and that the only punishment for this was death.” There are no trustworthy official documents known which prove this to have been the case, but nature and the prince’s mad excesses had apparently condemned him to death, independently of his faults and failings. When he was told that he was dying he conformed fervently to the rites of his Church, and sent Suarez to beg his father’s forgiveness. On July 21 the French ambassador wrote to his master that Don Carlos had eaten nothing but a few plums and sweetmeats for eight days, and was dying of weakness. “The king, his father, is much grieved, because, if he die, the world will talk. I understand that if he live, the castle of Arevalo is to be put in order, so that he may be lodged in safety and comfort.”

On July 26 the same ambassador writes to Catharine de Medici saying that the prince had died the previous day. He attributes the death entirely to his curious eccentricities of diet and hygiene. Llorente, enemy of Philip though he was, says that Carlos died a natural death. In face of this testimony it appears that Philip should be given the benefit of the doubt. In any case, the Abbé de St. Real’s romantic fictions, which have been drawn upon by so many historians, may be confidently dismissed as unworthy of any credit whatever, and Perez’s source is too tainted to be accepted. When the French ambassador notified the death of Don Carlos, he told Catharine de Medici that her daughter, the queen, was ill. The death, however, of her stepson was distinctly in her favour, as it made the elder of her two little daughters, Isabel Clara Eugenia, heiress to the crown of Spain. The queen saw this, and begged her mother to express emphatically her sorrow for the death of the prince. But the queen herself languished, crushed with the trouble that surrounded her, for Alba was drowning Flanders in blood, and her own beloved France was riven by religious disorder. In August it was announced that she was pregnant, and all Spain prayed that an heir might be born. But she was sacrificed to the unskilfulness of the Spanish doctors, and died on October 3, 1568, to the great grief of all Spain and France. The French ambassador relates the death-bed farewell of Philip and his wife, “Enough to break the heart of so good a husband as the king was to her.” And when all was over the king retired in the deepest grief to the monastery of San Geronimo in Madrid, but not before he had signed letters to the Duke of Alba and others giving the news of his bereavement. Nothing short of his own death could prevent Philip from attending to his beloved papers.

Once only during Elizabeth’s short married life had the object for which she was sacrificed seemed on the point of realisation. The open sympathy manifested in England for the Flemish Protestants, the ever-increasing boldness of the English corsairs at sea, and the ferment of the Huguenots in France had caused Philip in 1565 to approve of a plan for binding Catharine de Medici to him in a league to utterly destroy and root out the reformed doctrines in their respective territories. The ostensible occasion was an interview between the Queen of Spain and her mother at Bayonne, the Duke of Alba being the negotiator of the treaty. Elizabeth of England was in a panic at the bare idea, and made one of her rapid movements in favour of Catholicism, and another to draw Catharine into a negotiation for the marriage of her young son, Charles IX., with the Queen of England. It was a mere feint, of course, but it helped towards its purpose. When Catharine reached Bayonne she found that Alba’s instructions were to pledge her to destroy and break every Huguenot noble or functionary in France, and to bind her hand and foot to the extreme Catholic party. The queen-mother affected to agree, but when she reached home she found all manner of impossible new conditions necessary. Her second son must marry an Austrian princess and receive a dominion. The league must also be joined by the emperor, the pope, and others. So the league at that time came to nothing, for Catharine could not afford to throw over the Huguenot nobles, who were her constant balance against the Catholics and the Guises.

With the death of his French wife it became evident to Philip that he could depend upon no enduring alliance between the French nation and himself, and that he must face advancing Protestantism alone. It gave him no trouble in Spain, thanks mainly to the Inquisition, but in France, Germany, his own Netherlands, and, above all, in England, it grew more and more threatening to the basis of his power. Mary of Scotland, whom he had aided with counsel and money during her short married life with Darnley, was a prisoner, and the reformers were predominant in Scotland. Elizabeth of England was firmly established on the throne, more than holding her own, the English and Dutch corsairs were scouring the seas after Spanish shipping, and England was burning with indignation at Alba’s régime of blood in the Netherlands. But withal Philip had to speak softly and temporise, for he dared not go to war with Elizabeth whilst Holland was in arms, and the Huguenots strong. All he could do was by intrigue to endeavour to stir up civil dissensions both in France and England, and this he did ceaselessly, but with indifferent success, as will be seen, for both Elizabeth and Catharine, with their quick vigilance, were far more than a match for Philip’s slow ponderous methods. Powerless, however, as Philip might be to stay the progress of heterodoxy abroad, he was determined that it should gain no foothold in his own country. Early in 1568 he expelled the English ambassador, Dr. Man, ostensibly in consequence of his too open profession of the reformed faith, but really to anticipate a demand which he knew would be made for religious toleration for the ambassador in return for the similar privilege enjoyed by the Spanish ambassador in England. Although Protestantism was by the unsparing severity of the Inquisition stamped out utterly in Spain, Philip’s principle of absolute uniformity of faith amongst his subjects had to encounter a serious resistance from another quarter. On the capture of Granada by the Catholic sovereigns, the most complete religious toleration had been promised to the Moors. The promise had been broken through the zeal of Ximenez, and, nominally at least, the whole of the Spaniards of Moorish descent had during the reign of the emperor been drawn into the Catholic Church. All the south of Spain was inhabited by a people in course of gradual amalgamation, and if time had only been given to them, they would eventually have mingled into a homogeneous race, to the enormous future advantage of the country. During the emperor’s time an edict had been issued ordering all people of Moorish blood to discontinue the use of their distinctive garb and language. It was naturally found impossible to enforce this within a short period, and the edict was allowed to fall nearly into abeyance, thanks, in a great measure, to the liberal contributions of the Moriscos to the cost of the emperor’s wars against his German Protestants. The Morisco population of the kingdom of Granada, and Valencia especially, had accordingly, although outwardly conforming Christians, really clung in secret to the faith and habits of their fathers, living in industry and usefulness, adding greatly to the national wealth both by their advanced agricultural science, and the perfection to which they had brought the production of silk. The prosperity they attained, and their distinct blood and customs, aroused the jealousy and hatred of their Christian neighbours, especially during the periodical struggle with the Turks, when the Moriscos were accused of sympathy with the national enemy. Philip’s first action against these useful citizens was prompted—as were most royal edicts in Spain—by a representation made to him by the Cortes of Castile in 1560, to the effect that the introduction of African slaves by the Spanish Moriscos was a disadvantage to the country, and a royal pragmatica was issued forbidding this. It was a heavy blow, as much of the hard labour of mountain agriculture and irrigation was done by these slaves, but measures of a very different character were adopted as soon as possible after Cardinal Espinosa became inquisitor-general. In 1563 an edict had been issued prohibiting the Moriscos from wearing or possessing arms, which caused much discontent and resistance; but at the instance of the clergy, and more especially of Guerrero, the Archbishop of Granada, and of Espinosa, a far more serious step was taken early in 1567. The Moriscos were forbidden to wear their distinctive garb, and were ordered to dress as Christians, no silk garments being allowed, and the women going abroad with their faces uncovered. They were to have no locks or fastenings upon their doors, and within a term of three years were utterly to discontinue the use of their own language and also adopt Christian names. Above all, the use of warm baths was prohibited under brutal penalties. Their customs and traditions, indeed, were to be trampled upon with apparent wantonness. The Moriscos had always been quiet, docile people, and the local clergy and authorities had assured Philip that no difficulty would be experienced in enforcing the edict. At first the Moriscos adopted the same means of evasion as they had successfully employed on other occasions, namely, bribery and cajolery. Espinosa belonged to the war party, and consequently had the Ruy Gomez party against him, and even the Governor-General of Granada, the Marquis de Mondejar, and much pressure was exerted upon Philip to induce him to relax the orders, but, influenced by Espinosa and the churchmen, he refused. For the first two years the Moriscos sulkily bowed beneath the yoke, evading and passively resisting as much as possible; but during this period the Mussulman fervour had been rising, and at length at Christmas 1568 the storm which had long been brewing burst. A youth, Aben Humeya, in the Alpujarras had distinguished himself in resisting the enforcement of the edicts. He was a descendant of the prophet himself, and was proclaimed by the Moriscos King of Granada. The Moorish force was organised in the almost inaccessible mountains, whilst envoys sped from the new king to his co-religionists at Constantinople and on the other side of the Straits of Gibraltar; but the Turk was busy organising an expedition against the Venetians, and the Barbary Moors were split up into independent tribes which could furnish no considerable combined force, so the Spanish Moriscos were left nearly unaided, although many isolated companies of Barbary Moors responded to the call and crossed to Spain. On December 26, 1568, a small body of 180 Moriscos, under Aben Farax, a dyer of Granada, came down from the mountains through the driving snow and forced their way into the city of Granada. The Morisco townspeople, terrified at the risk they ran in joining so small a force, turned a deaf ear to the exhortations of the chief. Through the sleeping city the little body of Moors rushed on, desecrating the Christian temples, cursing the Christian gods, and killing such few Spaniards as resisted them. And then when a call to arms from the citadel sounded, Aben Farax and his little force withdrew once more to the mountains. The large Morisco population of Granada had made no move, or the city would have been taken, and the Governor Mendoza, Marquis de Mondejar, took counsel with their head men for resisting further attack, and urged them to stand loyal to the king against the mountain marauders.

In the meanwhile Aben Farax swept through the Vega, carrying death and torture with him to the Christians, burning villages, and submitting the defenceless inhabitants to the most heartrending cruelty. Mad with blood lust, the Moriscos of the band sought to avenge their race for endless ignominy by outrage upon the country folk of the Vega. Three thousand Christians were killed, before the king, Aben Humeya, put an end to the slaughter, and many hundreds of others were sold into slavery across the Straits in exchange for arms and men. Like wildfire ran the hope through all Andalucia that at last the resuscitation of the Moorish power in Spain had come, and the Moriscos from Valencia to the Sierra Nevada sprang to arms. The hate and rancour of centuries were concentrated in one mad week of slaughter. Mendoza, Marquis of Mondejar, with such forces as he could raise, sallied and met the Moors in the pass of Alfajarali, where he defeated them with great slaughter, and then pressed on, killing and plundering, until blood and booty themselves palled. When Mondejar re-entered the city of Granada he brought with him 800 rescued Christian women, who had been destined for sale to the Jews of Barbary, and the churchmen made this an excuse for urging the townspeople to fresh vengeance. In the early spring the Marquis de los Velez set out with another force, gathered up from the idlers of the cities of Andalucia, with the avowed object of massacre. They came across 10,000 Morisco women and children fugitives, who had sought safety on the edge of the great red cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean. There was no mercy for them. Many cast themselves over the edge to escape outrage and a lingering death; others, whilst praying for mercy and avowing the Christian faith, were slaughtered. In two hours 6000 poor creatures were killed, 2000 of them little children, and the rest were distributed amongst the soldiers as slaves. But soon slaves were so plentiful that the value fell, and soldiers deserted to seek a better market for them, the Spanish forces became utterly demoralised, and plunder and anarchy spread all over the fertile and previously prosperous region. Deza, afterwards one of Philip’s cardinals in Rome, was the representative in Granada of the civil power and the Inquisition, and exceeded in violence and brutality even the lawless men-at-arms. He complained constantly to Philip and Espinosa of the slackness and want of authority of the Governor Mondejar, and at last the king decided to send to Andalucia a considerable force under his brother, Don Juan of Austria, to restore order. The young prince, who had been born in 1547, was one of the handsomest and most gifted men of his time. He had shared the studies of his unfortunate nephew, Don Carlos, and of his cousin, Alexander Farnese, and from the time of the emperor’s death had been treated as a prince of the blood. He had already distinguished himself in the naval campaign against the Barbary corsairs in 1567, and now his royal brother sent him once more against the infidel. He entered Granada in April 1569. He was to do nothing without first communicating with the king, and was strictly enjoined not to expose himself to danger or to take any personal part in the mountain warfare, which was to be left to the Marquis de los Velez. The reasons probably why Don Juan had been chosen for the command were his youth, which would, it might be thought, render him amenable to guidance from Madrid, and the fact that he had from his childhood been indoctrinated in the diplomatic principles of Ruy Gomez’s party, to which Secretary Antonio Perez also belonged. But he was a youth of high courage and great ability, who could ill brook strict control, and he chafed at being kept in the city of Granada away from the fighting. Philip again and again directed him to do as he was told and stay where he was. The task confided to him was a pitiful one. Orders came from Madrid that every Morisco in Granada was to be sent to Castile. On the day of St. John 1569, writes the English spy Hogan, “Don Juan gathered together 13,000 Moriscos of Granada, and took 2000 for the king’s galleys, and hanged some; a great number were sent to labour in the king’s works and fortifications, and the rest, with their wives and children, kept as slaves.” Despair fell upon the poor people, innocent mostly of all participation in the mountain rising, at being dragged from their beautiful homes and smiling native land to be sent in slavery to arid Castile; but Deza and Espinosa were pitiless, and their advice alone was heard in Madrid. The Marquis of Mondejar, the hereditary governor of Granada, could not brook such ruinous folly to the city he loved, and left in disgust.