Philip II. of Spain

by Martin A. S. Hume

Don Juan had posted through France in the guise of a Moorish slave to prevent delay and discovery, but when he reached Luxembourg he was given to understand by the States that he could only be received as Philip’s governor now, on certain terms to be dictated to him. This was gall and wormwood to the proud young prince. Orange knew all about the fine plans for the invasion of England, secret though they were thought to be, and at his instance the States insisted upon the Spanish troops being withdrawn overland, and not by sea. During the winter of 1576 and early spring of 1577 Don Juan was kept haggling over the terms upon which he was to be allowed by the Flemings to assume his governorship. The States-General were assembled at Ghent, and consulted Orange at every turn. They said that they had bought their liberty now with their blood, and were not going to sell it again to a new master. Passionate prayers from Don Juan and his secretary came to Philip by every post that they should be allowed to fight it out; imploring requests for money and arms to beat into “these drunken wineskins of Flemings” a sense of their duty; often wild, incoherent, half-threatening expressions of disgust and annoyance at the uncongenial task committed to the victor of Lepanto. He was a soldier, he said, and could not do it; the more he gave way the more insolent the Flemings became; a woman or a child could do the work better than he. Escobedo’s letters to Perez, which of course were shown to the king, were more desperate still. On February 7, 1577, he wrote: “Oh, I am ready to hang myself, if I were not hoping to hang those who injure us so. O Master Perez! how stubborn and hateful these devils have been in hindering our plan. Hell itself must have spewed forth this gang to thwart us so.” Don Juan himself was just as violent in his letters. “O Antonio!” he wrote, “how certain for my sorrow and misfortune is the frustration of our plans, just as they were so well thought out and arranged.” Herein, it is clear, was the grievance; and Philip’s grim face must have darkened as he saw the deceit his brother sought to practise upon him, and how he was to be dragged by the ambition of a bastard into a struggle with England, at a time when his treasury was empty, his own states of Flanders in rebellion, and his mind bent upon far-reaching combinations, which would all be frustrated if his hand had thus been forced. Humiliating reconciliation with the Catholic Flemings was nothing to this; and to his brother’s wild remonstrance and protest he had but one answer, cold and precise—peace must be made with any sacrifice, consistent only with his continued sovereignty. At last by pledging his own honour and credit—for he insolently told the king that no money could be obtained on his—Escobedo borrowed means sufficient to persuade the troops to march, and the mutinous rascals who had disgraced the name of soldiers crossed the frontier to Italy amidst the curses of all Flanders. Then Don Juan entered Brussels at last with the frantic rejoicing of a people who had emancipated their country by their firmness. But his own face was lowering, and rage and disappointment were at his heart. He had been threatening for months to come back to Spain whether the king liked it or not, and Perez ceaselessly whispered to Philip that now that the prince’s ambition had been thwarted in one direction, it would strike higher in another. We now know that Perez garbled and misrepresented Don Juan’s words, suppressed portions of his letters, and persuaded Philip that his brother designed treachery to him in Spain. The reason for this is obvious. Don Juan and Escobedo had definitely drifted away from the old party of Ruy Gomez, and his return to Spain would have secured a preponderance to the Duke of Alba, and probably caused Perez’s downfall. The principal members of the camarilla now were Perez’s friends, the Marquis de los Velez and Cardinal Quiroga, both of whom where in favour of peace; but with Don Juan and Alba present they would be overruled, especially as Zayas, the other secretary of state, was a creature of Alba.

When therefore Escobedo rushed over to Spain in July 1577 to arrange about the payment of the loan he had guaranteed, Perez, after making two unsuccessful attempts to poison him, had him stabbed one night (March 31, 1578) in the streets of Madrid. Perez asserted that the king had authorised him to have the deed done six months before, and in this, no doubt, he told the truth. In any case, great events followed upon this apparently unimportant crime, as will be related in the proper place. The Spanish troops had marched out of Flanders in the spring of 1577, and before many weeks had passed Don Juan again found his position intolerable. The tone of the Catholic Flemings had quite changed now. They were loyal and cordial to him, but they let him see that they had the whip hand, and meant to keep it. His plans had all miscarried; his brother was cold and irresponsive and kept him without money; he was isolated, powerless, and heartsick, and determined to end it. Margaret de Valois, Catharine de Medici’s daughter, had gone to Hainhault on a pretended visit to the waters of Spa, but really to sound the Catholic Flemings about their accepting her brother Alençon for their sovereign. Don Juan feigned the need to receive her, but he had plotted with Barlemont to get together a force of Walloons upon whom he could depend. They were hidden in a monastery, and after the prince had hastily greeted Margaret, he suddenly collected his men, threw himself into the fortress of Namur, and defied the States. Then began a fresh war, in which Orange himself for the first time since his rebellion became the arbiter of the Catholic Flemish States. Here was a fresh blow to Philip. It was evident that his brother was one of those flighty, vaguely ambitious, turbulent people, who are the worst possible instruments of an absolute ruler. For over three months no letter reached Don Juan from the king, whilst he chafed in Namur. “If,” he wrote to a friend, “God in His goodness does not protect me, I do not know what I shall do, or what will become of me. I wish to God I could, without offending my conscience or my king, dash my brains out against a wall, or cast myself over a precipice. They neglect me even to the extent of not answering my letters.” In the meanwhile Orange entered Brussels in triumph, and Catholics and Protestants made common cause for a time. But not for long. The extreme Catholic party, under the Duke of Arschot, invited secretly Philip’s young nephew and brother-in-law, the Archduke Mathias, to assume the sovereignty of Flanders. The young prince—he was only twenty, and a fool—escaped from Vienna and arrived at Brussels on October 26, 1577. This was a blow to Don Juan in Namur, to Orange in Brussels, and to Philip in Madrid. Philip met the danger at first by masterly inactivity—in fact the solution might have been made not altogether distasteful to him; Orange cleverly took the young archduke under his wing, patronised, adopted, and disarmed him; and Don Juan busied himself in his fortress settling with his friends outside the recruiting of a Catholic force, whilst he was still quarrelling with the States by letter. But by the end of October the Protestants in the south, encouraged by the turn of affairs and the presence of Orange in Brussels, turned upon their Catholic fellow-townsmen in Ghent, Bruges, and elsewhere, and sought to avenge the cruelties perpetrated upon them in the past by the Catholic Church. The Duke of Arschot and the representatives of the Catholic States were seized and imprisoned whilst in session at Ghent, and everywhere the Protestants and Orange seemed to be sweeping the board. This was too much for Philip. The Archduke Mathias as tributary sovereign under him of a Catholic Flanders, he might have accepted, but the Prince of Orange and the Lutherans paramount from Zeeland to the French frontier he could not stomach. So the veteran Spanish and Italian infantry who had scourged Flanders before, were recalled, under Alexander Farnese, the son of Margaret, who had been the ruler of Flanders when the dissensions began, to the help of Don Juan and to crush the Protestants. When Alexander and his troops approached Namur, Orange and Mathias, side by side, were entering Brussels in state. Elizabeth had insisted upon Orange being made lieutenant-general with the real power, as a condition of her continued aid to the States, for she was quite determined upon two points—first, that no matter what union was effected between the States, the Catholic party should never be paramount; and secondly, that the French should not gain a footing there except under her patronage. She had some fear on this latter point, for Catharine de Medici had long been intriguing to obtain the sovereignty for her young son Alençon, who was already on the frontier with a force of Huguenots, whilst the Guises had been actively helping Don Juan in his recruiting of Catholics. When Parma had arrived, and Don Juan’s new levies were ready, he marched out of Namur on the last day of January 1578. The States troops, mostly Netherlanders and German mercenaries, mustered 20,000 men, and Don Juan’s forces about the same number. The prince, with Parma, led the centre of the latter with the pope’s sacred banner floating over their heads. The same spirit that had led him against the infidel inspired him now, and the banner testified to it, for it bore the words under a crucifix: “Under this emblem I vanquished the Turks; under the same will I conquer the heretics.” And he did so, for on the plain of Gemblours the States troops under De Goigny, with Egmont, Bossu, Champigny, La Marck, and Arschot’s brother Havré, were routed completely, without loss on the Spanish side. The honour of the day belongs to Alexander Farnese, who with a dashing cavalry charge broke the enemy at a critical moment, the only men who made any real resistance being the Scottish levies, 600 strong, under Colonel Balfour. These were saved from the carnage by Don Juan’s intercession, but of the rest 6000 men were killed in fight, and the prisoners hanged to a man.

Philip had had enough of his turbulent brother. He had promised the envoys from the Catholic States that he should be withdrawn, and it was privately understood when Alexander Farnese was appointed to go thither that he should succeed the prince. But the latter for the present still continued in command, reducing the towns of South Flanders one after the other, and again issuing a proclamation in Philip’s name offering peace to the States, on condition of the recognition of the Spanish sovereignty and the predominance of the Catholic religion. The latter condition meant the extermination of the Protestants by fire and sword, and Orange could never accept it.

By the pacification of Ghent, which Don Juan had in principle confirmed, religious toleration had been secured, and the States refused to go back from that position, and again demanded the withdrawal of the impracticable governor. Philip was, in fact, at his wits’ end what to do with his brother. Perez had succeeded in persuading the king that Don Juan’s object was to raise a revolution in Spain and try to grasp the crown. He could not, therefore, be allowed to come back freely, nor would the States endure him longer on any terms. He himself felt the position to be an impossible one, and his letters to his private friends in Madrid constantly hint at suicide as the only way out of the difficulty, for he knew now that his faithful secretary Escobedo had been assassinated in Madrid, and anticipated a similar shameful end for himself. War to the knife against the States was his only resource, for he was no diplomatist, but Philip, over his head, left no stone unturned to try to tempt Orange to abandon his cause. Orange had a restive team to drive, what with the Catholic majority and nobles, the Protestant Dutchmen, the extreme Puritans, like Saint Aldegonde; Elizabeth of England, the French Huguenots, the German mercenaries, and poor Mathias, now an acknowledged failure. Nothing but the most consummate statesmanship would serve him, and that he employed. Philip’s temptations and Don Juan’s storming were equally disregarded. Alençon and the Frenchmen were invited across the frontier to replace Mathias as sovereign, and Havré was sent to Elizabeth to assure her that, unless she helped the States effectually with men and money, they would be obliged to accept the Frenchmen. This they knew she would never stand. She disarmed Catharine de Medici with fresh approaches for a marriage with Alençon, whilst she threatened to help Philip if the French were allowed to set foot in Flanders except under her auspices. She smiled upon Philip’s new ambassador Mendoza, and so managed that very shortly Alençon had to retrace his steps to France, and the States had to look to her alone for assistance, which she doled out judiciously, and so kept them firm against the Spaniards. All through the spring and summer of 1578 Don Juan struggled in toils from which he had not wit enough to free himself. Heartrending appeals to his brother for guidance, for money to organise a sufficient force to crush the States for good and for all, prayers to be allowed to retire, were met with cold irresponsiveness by Philip, prompted by Perez’s slanders, for Don Juan must be ruined or Perez himself must fall. At last his chafing spirit wore out his body. Constant fevers beset him, and in his letters to his friends he began to predict that his days were drawing to an end, whatever doctors might say. By the end of September he was delirious, and on October 1 he died of malignant fever. There were naturally whispers of poison, even from his confessor, but the details of his illness given by the physicians in attendance leave no doubt that he died a natural death, although his death certainly relieved Philip of an unendurable position, and allowed Farnese, an infinitely superior man, to take advantage of the strong Catholic national feeling in Belgium to separate the nobles and peoples of the south from Orange and the Dutchmen, and so eventually to reserve Catholic Flanders to the Spanish connection for many years to come.

CHAPTER XIV

Philip’s ineffectual action against Elizabeth—The Desmond rebellion—Philip’s conquest of Portugal—Recall of Alba and Granvelle to Philip’s councils—Don Antonio, Prior of O Crato—Death of Anne of Austria—Philip in Portugal—Flight of Antonio—His reception in England and France—The Duke of Alençon—Philip and Mary Stuart—James Stuart—Fresh proposals of the Scottish Catholics to Philip—Philip and Granvelle’s views with regard to England—Lennox and the Jesuits mismanage the plot—Philip’s claim to the English crown—Expulsion of Mendoza from England—The English exiles urge Philip to invade England—Sixtus V.—Intrigues in Rome—The Babington plot.

PHILIP’S advisers had for many years been urging him to adopt reprisals against Elizabeth for her treatment of him. We have seen why, on account both of policy and necessity, he had not done so by a direct attack. His indirect attempts at retaliation had been quite ineffectual. He had subsidised Mary Stuart, he had found money for the northern rebellion, he had listened to proposals for killing the Queen of England at his cost, he had countenanced Stukeley’s wild plans for the capture of Ireland, and he had attempted to avenge the English depredations on his commerce by stopping English trade and persecuting English traders for heresy. But in every case the result had been disastrous for him. Elizabeth’s aid to the Protestants in Holland was bolder and more effectual than ever, English sailors mocked at his attempts to stop trade by ruining his own ports, and the Englishmen punished by the Inquisition were avenged by increased severity against the Catholic party in England and Ireland. But still he was constantly assured that the only way to disarm Elizabeth against him was to “set fire to her own doors” by arousing rebellion in Ireland and aggression of the Catholic party in Scotland.

Dr. Sanders had induced the pope to interest himself in favour of James Fitzmaurice, the brother of the Earl of Desmond, and had himself obtained the title of the pope’s nuncio. They landed in Ireland with a small Spanish and Italian force in June 1579, but Elizabeth, through Walsingham’s spies, was well informed of the movement, and was quite prepared to deal with it. Philip was willing that others should weaken his enemy so long as no responsibility was incurred by him, and Elizabeth was not further irritated against him. When, however, Fitzmaurice and Sanders found themselves overmatched, and appeals were made direct to Philip to aid them by sending an armed force to Ireland, he demurred. Fitzmaurice was ready to promise anything for aid, and the nuncio at Madrid did his best to inflame Philip’s religious zeal. But he could not afford to come to open war with England, and, although he consented to subscribe 25,000 ducats out of the revenues of the archbishopric of Toledo if the pope would subscribe a similar amount, and promised to find arms and ammunition, he provided that the fresh expedition should sail from Spain under the papal flag and be organised ostensibly by the nuncio. The commanders, moreover, were to be all Italians, and the Spanish recruits were to be enlisted privately. The semi-concealment was quite ineffectual in hoodwinking Elizabeth, and the ill-starred little expedition was all slaughtered at Smerwick in Dingle Bay (November 1580), as James Fitzmaurice’s force had been previously. John of Desmond and the Italian commanders had assured Philip only a month before the massacre, that they would require 8000 footmen and large stores of arms before they could effect any useful end. But this would have meant open war with England, and for this he was not prepared. Once more he proved that his advisers were wrong, and that he could only curb Elizabeth with overwhelming force, which he had neither the means nor the desire to employ at the present juncture. He continued to urge upon his new ambassador that she must be kept in a good humour at all costs. It was not an easy task, for she was more defiant than ever now. She knew Philip had his hands full, and the attempted invasion of Ireland was made the most of for years by her, as an excuse for all she did in Flanders and elsewhere to injure him. It was an unfortunate move for Philip, as it afforded Elizabeth a good grievance against him, and forced him into the weak position of having to justify his action by throwing the responsibility upon the pope.

Philip had at this time (1579) special reasons for dreading an open rupture with England, for he had for some time past been planning a stroke which would, if successful, enormously increase his power for harm at sea, in relation to both France and England. In August 1578 Sebastian of Portugal, the only son of Philip’s sister, Juana—as much a victim of atavism as was his cousin, Don Carlos—perished in his mad crusade against the Moors, and his successor on the throne was the aged, childless cardinal, King Henry. He was recognised as being only a stop-gap, and after him the claimants were numerous, mostly descended, although in different degrees, from the king, Don Manoel. The Duchess of Braganza was daughter of his son Duarte, Philip was son of the elder daughter of Don Manoel, the Duke of Savoy was a son of the younger daughter, Beatrix, whilst the children of Alexander Farnese were the offspring of a younger sister of the Duchess of Braganza. The most popular pretender, however, was Don Antonio, Prior of O Crato, an illegitimate son of Luis, a younger son of Don Manoel.

The fundamental laws of Lamego, now believed to be apocryphal, but then accepted as genuine, excluded foreigners from the throne, but Philip asserted that a Spanish king was not a foreigner in Portugal, and began his intrigues for the succession immediately after Sebastian’s death. The Perez party had managed to get the old Duke of Alba disgraced and sent into arrest on an absurdly inadequate charge of conniving at his son’s marriage against the king’s wish, and De Granvelle had remained in honourable exile from Spain for many years. But when the great task of winning Portugal had to be undertaken, Philip knew that glib, brilliant Perez, with his biting tongue and ready pen, was not the instrument he wanted; so the stern soldier and the crafty statesman were recalled to their master’s councils. It was a black day for Perez, although he probably did not realise at the time how fatal it was to be. During the short reign of the cardinal-king, money and intrigue were lavished on all hands to corrupt and terrorise the Portuguese nobles to Philip’s side; the aged king himself was finally worried into his grave by pressure exerted upon him to approve of Philip’s claim, and when he died, the council of regency left by him were by various means coerced into accepting the King of Spain as their sovereign. But not so the Portuguese people or the clergy; they clung, almost all of them, to the Prior of O Crato, the popular native claimant, ambitious, ready, and sanguine, for the Portuguese bitterly hated the Spaniards, and the true native heiress, the Duchess of Braganza, was timid and unready; and before Philip and Alba could arrive Antonio was acclaimed the national sovereign. Around him all that was patriotic grouped itself, and for a short time he ruled as king. Philip was moving on to Portugal with that “leaden foot” of which he was so proud, and by the autumn of 1580 he had reached Badajoz, on the frontier. Here he fell ill of the mysterious disease we call influenza, which was afflicting Europe at the time. His devoted fourth wife, Anne, who accompanied him, prayed that her life might be taken for his. Her prayer was heard. She died (October 25) and Philip lived, but the loss deepened his gloom, and in the two years that he was away from Madrid his yellow beard turned nearly white, and he came back an old and broken man. How his icy heart turned to his children at the time may be seen by the letters he constantly wrote to his elder girls during his absence, full of love and tenderness. However weary and sad he might be, no courier was allowed to leave without playful accounts of his adventures, and kindly little messages to the three orphan children of his last wife. Soon two out of the three followed their mother to the grave, and only three-year-old Philip was left as his father’s heir.