Philip II. of Spain

by Martin A. S. Hume

Blighting influence of Philip’s system on his officers—Effects of Philip’s routine on the administration—Social condition of Spain and the colonies—Dr. Lopez and Antonio Perez—Philip II. and Tyrone’s rebellion—The English sacking of Cadiz—Philip’s resignation—His last illness and death—Results of his life—Causes of the decadence of the Spanish power.

THE death of Alexander Farnese had removed from Philip’s service the last of the great men of his reign. He had been treated by his master in the same way that all the rest of them had been—with cold half-confidence and veiled suspicion. There is nothing more surprising—more pitiable—in the phenomena of Philip’s reign than the way in which he pressed men of the highest gifts into his service, only to break their hearts and spirits by his tardiness of action and inexpansiveness of mind. His system left no room for independent judgment on the part of his instruments, and any attempt to exercise it met with the passive, stony resistance, against which one ardent soul after another dashed itself to death. As Philip grew older, and his periodical attacks of illness became more frequent, the vast tide of papers which flowed into the king’s cell became more and more unmanageable. He had no sense of proportion whatever, and would frequently waste hours of precious time over ridiculous trifles—the choice of an unimportant word, the ordering of a religious procession, or the strictly private affairs of his subjects,—whilst matters of the highest import to the welfare of his great empire were allowed to drag on for months without decision.

The centralising system had now been established to his satisfaction, and from all four quarters of the earth viceroys, governors, ministers, and spies sent their contribution of papers to Madrid. Everything came under the eyes of the monarch, toiling early and late, even when his malady stretched him on a sick-bed. The council that surrounded him in his last years was composed of very different men from the Granvelles, the Albas, the Ruy Gomezes, or even the Perezes, who had served him in his prime. The principal secretary of state was Don Juan de Idiaquez, one of the indefatigable writers whom Philip loved. No detail was too small for Idiaquez. With his swift-current clerkly hand he wrote day and night, deciphering, drafting, annotating. Every day after the king’s frugal early dinner Idiaquez came with his bundle of papers, and was closeted with him until nightfall. The communications had been opened, considered, and reported upon by the council during the previous night, and the results were now submitted to Philip. The second secretary, Don Cristobal de Moura, had charge especially of Portuguese and Castilian affairs. He had to report his budget of council minutes whilst the king was dressing in the morning, and the Count de Chinchon had audience for the affairs of Italy, Aragon, and the south of Spain at, and after, the king’s dinner. Every draft despatch was read and noted by the king; Mateo Vasquez, the sly enemy who had hunted Perez, being always at his side to help him. Whilst the king of the greatest realm on earth, and four men with the minds of superior clerks, were thus immersed in endless papers, the social condition of Spain went from bad to worse. The efforts of Philip had been directed towards making his people as rigid as monks. Pragmatics had been showered upon Spain, prohibiting for the hundredth time luxury or splendour in dress, furniture, and appointments, restricting the use of carriages, abolishing courtesy titles. No person was allowed to be educated out of Spain, and all attempts at introducing science in any form were sternly suppressed by the Inquisition. The most slavish and extravagant conformity in religious observance was enforced, but the loosest and most licentious conversation was tolerated. The women of Spain had in previous times been modest, almost austere and oriental in their retirement. They now became perfectly scandalous in their freedom, and remained a bye-word for the rest of civilised Europe for a century afterwards. Camillo Borghese was sent by the pope to Madrid in 1593, and thus speaks of the state of affairs at that time: “The main street of Madrid ... is unutterably filthy, and almost impassable on foot. The better class of ladies are always in carriages or litters, whilst the humbler folk ride on donkey-back or pick their way through the mire. The ladies are naturally shameless, presumptuous, and abrupt, and even in the streets go up and address men unknown to them, looking upon it as a kind of heresy to be properly introduced. They admit all sorts of men to their conversation, and are not in the least scandalised at the most improper proposals being made to them.” Philip’s pragmatics were useless. Extravagance checked in one direction broke out in others, and in the midst of the most appalling poverty, luxury and waste ran riot. The immense loss of life in constant wars, and the vast emigration to America, had depopulated wide tracts of country, and the laws which favoured the aggregation of property in the hands of the Church had turned whole towns into ecclesiastical settlements. The friars had grown more insolent as their riches increased, and as the king’s slavishness to their cloth became more abject, and now during his last years their power was practically supreme in the king’s court.

Whilst Philip’s system had reduced his own country to this state, the ships of Drake, Ralegh, Hawkins, Cumberland, and the rest of them were harrying the Indies, the English were trading openly with Spanish settlements in spite of royal prohibition, and in the insensate thirst for gold, the Spanish colonists were wiping out whole nations of inoffensive Indians who were unable or unwilling to satisfy their greed. The missionary friars sometimes raised their voices against the wholesale murder of their possible converts, but they cried in vain, for Philip’s hide-bound system only referred the protests against the slaughter to the men who perpetrated it. Philip’s American possessions consequently were enriching his enemies rather than himself, and, as Ralegh said, were furnishing the means for them to carry on war against him. In the meanwhile his own coasts, both of Italy and Spain, were practically undefended. The loss of the Armada had been a blow both to his credit and to his naval power, from which he could never entirely recover, and neither men, money, nor ships could easily be obtained.

Perez lived caressed and flattered in Essex House, and knew all that passed in Spain. Everything which his wickedness and malice could devise to injure his enemy he urged with ceaseless pertinacity. He persuaded the queen that her physician, the Jew Dr. Lopez, had plotted with Philip to murder her. There was just enough foundation to give a plausible appearance to the assertion, and Lopez was executed (June 7, 1594). That he was ready to undertake such commissions is doubtless true, but evidence is now forthcoming which tends to show that in this case Perez lied, and that Lopez was innocent.[4]

The accusation, however, was believed by Elizabeth and her ministers, and when Perez proposed to his ambitious patron Essex a plan for revenging his mistress he was eager to listen. But there was another reason as well. The English Catholic refugees were still intriguing, and urging Philip to take action to secure the crown of England for the Infanta on Elizabeth’s death, whilst the Scots Catholics were endeavouring to gain it for James, under their auspices if possible. Now that a direct invasion of England by Philip was acknowledged to be impossible, it was constantly pressed upon him by the English exiles that he might disturb and paralyse Elizabeth by sending armed support to the Irish Catholics. The complete collapse of the Desmond rebellion in Munster, and the slaughter of the papal Spanish contingent (1580) had made Philip cautious; so when Irish priests and emissaries came to him from Tyrone and O’Donnell, he had been, as usual, vaguely sympathetic, and took means to discover the real strength behind them before he pledged himself. Spanish officers were sent to spy out the land and report upon the capabilities of Tyrone. The latter was still keeping up an appearance of great loyalty to the English, but his correspondence with Philip was well known in London, as well as the hopes and promises sent from Spain to the Irish Catholics. It would be a great stroke if the fleet, which spies stated was fitting out for Ireland, could be destroyed. As a matter of fact, Philip was so poor that he could do but little to help Tyrone; and for years afterwards the agonised appeals of the Irish Catholics were only answered by fair words and tardy, inadequate, and ineffectual assistance. But for the moment Elizabeth was led to believe that a powerful invasion of Ireland was imminent.

When it came to finding the money and incurring the responsibility of a direct invasion of Spain, however, the queen more than once drew back, and it required all hot-headed Essex’s personal influence to bring her to the point. At last when the commission was granted, the precedent of the ill-fated Portuguese expedition of 1589 was followed. The first object was, as then, stated to be the destruction of the King of Spain’s fleet, and, secondly, the attack upon the homeward-bound Indian flotilla. Only as a doubtful resource was a rich town to be attacked. As in 1589, the command was to be divided—on this occasion between Lord-Admiral Howard and Essex, with Ralegh as lieutenant. It was difficult to get men to serve. “As fast as we press men on one day,” writes Ralegh, “they run away the next.”

The fleets left Plymouth on June 3, 1596. They were divided into four English squadrons of nearly equal strength, the aggregate consisting of 17 queen’s ships, 76 freighted ships, and some small craft, while the Dutch squadron had 24 sail. The crews in all amounted to 16,000 men.

It was known that in Cadiz was concentrated the greater part of what was left of Philip’s naval strength, and the city was the richest in Spain. Ranged underneath the walls were 8 war galleys, and 17 galleons and frigates were in the harbour, whilst 40 great ships were loading for Mexico and elsewhere.

On June 20 (O.S.) the fleets appeared before Cadiz, and, thanks to Ralegh’s intervention, a combined attack was first made upon the shipping. Essex cast his plumed hat into the sea in his exultation when he heard the news. At dawn next morning Ralegh led the van in the War-sprite. The city was taken by surprise and was panic-stricken, but the Spanish ships in harbour had assumed some attitude of defence. The effect of Philip’s system had been, as we have seen, to paralyse initiative in his officers, and when there was no time to communicate with him they were lost. After a few shots had been fired, Sotomayor, the admiral, withdrew the ships he could save to the end of the bay at Puerto Real, out of reach of the English guns. At night, before the decisive attack, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the craven of the Armada, but still Philip’s high admiral, arrived. As usual, he could only look on helplessly, whilst the English squadrons sailed into the harbour, sank two great galleons, then landed the soldiers, stormed the old crumbling walls and seized the city, almost without resistance. The terror inspired now by the English at sea perfectly dominated the Spaniards. The fortress of Cadiz was ruinous, the guns were old and dirty, ammunition was short, and after two days of starvation the defenders made terms of surrender. Every ship in harbour was burnt or sunk, either by the English or the Spaniards themselves, and the terrified sailors had been drowned by hundreds, out of sheer fright at the “devilish folk.” There were 5000 Spanish women who had taken refuge in the fortress. They were allowed to leave without the slightest molestation, and the English commanders even provided boats to convey the nuns and sick from the hospitals to a place of safety. Then for fifteen days the city was submitted to a systematic pillage. Nothing was left, and the richest city in Spain was reduced to a smoking wreck.