Queens of old Spain

by Martin A. S. Hume

The brilliant hopes of peace and retrenchment which had greeted Philip’s accession had all been falsified. The Catholic union with France represented by the marriages of Philip with Isabel and of Louis XIII. with the Infanta Anna, had failed before the marriages themselves were complete; for the ambitious projects of Philip II. were again being revived by Olivares, who dreamed once more that Spain, cast down in the dust as she was, might yet hold the hegemony over the powers of Europe, and dictate to Christendom the articles of its faith. It was a vain, foolish, vision in the circumstances, for not of material strength alone had Spain been stripped, but of the real secret of its short predominance, the firm conviction of divine selection and of the invincibility of its sacred cause. The country was as politically heterogeneous as ever, whilst it had lost the homogeneity it had borrowed from religious exaltation; and yet, with its rival, France, growing daily in national solidarity and contributive capability under Richelieu, Spain was hurried by Olivares into a perfect fever for conquest, and to the arrogant reassertion of its old exploded claims.

The employment of Spanish troops to overrun the Palatinate and reduce Bohemia, and the recrudescence of the interminable war against the Dutch, had knit the two branches of the house of Austria closer together than ever, and strengthened the Emperor immensely. It was clear, that unless Richelieu struck promptly and boldly, France would once again, if Olivares had his way, be shut in by a circle of enemies. France and Savoy, alarmed at the revived pretensions of Spain, made common cause with the protestant powers, and soon all Europe was at war. Spain was ruined, but at least the court nobles and the church were rich, and the national pride was excited to the utmost. The war was primarily against France, but Isabel of Bourbon was as fiercely Spanish as if her father had not been Henry the Great, and she herself set the example of sacrifice. The jewels she loved so well were sold to provide men-at-arms; the ladies, who took their tone from the Queen, sent their valuables the same way; the nobles, aroused by appeals to their pride, contributed voluntarily a million ducats to the war fund; and the church opened its hoards to the extent of raising and maintaining twenty thousand troops. All French property in Spain was confiscated, and the war for a time was carried on with an energy that reminded men of the great times of the Emperor. At first the Spaniards and Austrians carried all before them. Tilly in Germany, Spinola in Flanders, and Fadrique de Toledo on the sea, revived the glory of the house of Austria; and Spanish pride rose once more to crazy arrogance. Philip the Great, the Planet King, were the titles already given to the idle young man, whom Olivares flattered and controlled. But when the first gust of enthusiasm was past, it was clear that Spain could not provide funds to carry on war by land and sea the world over; and peace was made with England; Savoy was won over, and thenceforward it was a duel to the death between the house of Austria and the house of France, between Olivares and Richelieu.

For years the struggle went on with varying military phases, but with the inevitable result of reducing poverty-stricken, idle Spain to absolute penury. Every device to raise more money was tried, and all in vain. Crushing taxes upon production, debasement of the coinage, confiscation, repudiation and robbery, were but weak resources to maintain a great foreign war by a bankrupt State; and unless Olivares confessed failure more money must be had. The Cortes of Castile was powerless to check the national waste, but the Cortes of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia, were still vigorous, and resisted all attempts to extort money except by their votes, grudgingly given only after much haggling. Olivares had understood as clearly as Ferdinand and Isabel had done, that for the King of Spain to be powerful enough to cope with France he must control the whole resources of Spain. The bond of religious exaltation had dissolved, and could not be restored; but the unification on political lines might be effected by weakening the separate autonomous institutions of the outlying States.

This was the plan of Olivares; doubtless a wise one if pursued patiently and cautiously in times of peace and in an era of interior reforms. But Olivares, like Ferdinand the Catholic before him, needed national unity in a hurry, in order to obtain resources to fight France, not for the purpose of making Spain a homogeneous peaceful nation,[^[225]] and his reckless attempts to obtain money for his war with France by over-riding the autonomous privileges of Catalonia and Portugal, and extorting taxation without parliamentary sanction, precipitated the ruin that had long threatened. In June 1640 Barcelona flamed out in revolt against Castile, and soon all Catalonia, and part of Aragon and Valencia, had repudiated the dominion of Philip, and had made common cause with France. Six months later, in December 1640, Portugal for similar reasons proclaimed the Duke of Braganza king, and cast off for ever the yoke of Spain.

Philip, plunged in his pleasures, as we have seen, was kept in the dark. The Catalan insurgents were for him merely a band of rioters, as Olivares assured him, who would soon be suppressed; and when Portugal proclaimed its freedom the minister had the effrontery to rush into Philip’s chamber with an appearance of joy, and congratulated him upon gaining a new dukedom and a vast estate. ‘How?’ asked the King. ‘Sire,’ replied Olivares, ‘the Duke of Braganza has gone mad and revolted against your Majesty. All his belongings are now forfeit and are yours.’ But Philip knew better, and for once lost his marble serenity. Blow after blow fell upon him. Starving subjects, a crippled trade, an empty treasury, and his richest realms in revolt: these were the results of his twenty years rule, and all he had to show was the hollow glory of battles gained far away in quarrels not his own.

He was good-hearted and really loved his subjects, but he had never learnt to rule, for he had never ruled his own passions or curbed his inclinations; and he was in despair when the truth came to him, bit by bit. Frantic prayers; tears and vows of amendment were his way of dealing with all the blows of fortune: but there were others at his side who were more practical and determined than he. For years the yoke of Olivares and his wife had galled the neck of Isabel. Fond of pleasure as she was, she had a statesman’s mind, and her love for her promising son Baltasar, now aged thirteen, and the pride of his parents’ heart, had sharpened her wits as she saw his great inheritance slipping away from him under the rule of a minister whom she personally disliked for his rudeness even to her.[^[226]] Again and again she had urged Philip to play the man and head his own armies in the field. Philip was willing, even eager, to do so; but Olivares would not hear of it, and the breach widened between the Queen and the minister. Olivares was detested by most of the principal nobles and churchmen. His policy of war could only be paid for out of the plunder derived from them, since all other classes were reduced to poverty, and the elements of discontent gradually grouped around Isabel.

At last Isabel’s prayers, for once, overrode Olivares’ counsel, and Philip stood firm in his determination to lead his own armies to rescue Catalonia from the French. Olivares left no stone unturned to defeat the Queen. Obedient physicians certified that the voyage would injure the King’s health, submissive Councils voted against the risk of the sovereign’s life in war, and constitutional lawyers laid down that it was not proper for the King to go. Philip, tired out at last, snatched a report of the Council from the hands of the Protonotary who was about to present it, and, tearing it into pieces, cried, ‘Bring me no more reports about my going to Catalonia, but prepare for the journey, for go I will.’ The royal confessor—of course a creature of Olivares—added his remonstrance against the King’s journey, but was at once stopped by Philip, and was told that if Olivares did not want to go he could stay away; and if he was not at Aranjuez when the King passed through he would not wait for him.

It was a victory for Isabel that presaged the great minister’s fall; for Olivares dared not leave his master’s side, and the Queen remained in the capital as Regent. Every device was adopted to delay the King’s progress. Money was wanted, and when that had been extorted, in many cases by imprisonment,[^[227]] the lavish and pompous preparations for the journey were endless. Nine state coaches and six litters, a hundred and three saddle horses, with crowds of courtiers, were considered necessary for a campaign; and every grandee and titled nobleman in Spain was warned that he must join the royal train. When, at last, after visits to numberless altars, Philip took leave of his wife at Vacia Madrid in April 1642, it was only to be delayed on the way for many weeks in ostentatious feasts, hunting parties and frivolities, before he at length arrived at Saragossa. By that time Aragon itself was half overrun by the French, and Philip, fully awake now to the terrible condition of affairs, grew ever more gloomy with his minister, who even now found means to keep the King isolated at Saragossa, miles away from the hostilities, in discounted inaction.

In the meanwhile Isabel in Madrid, free from the terrifying presence of the favourite, organised the party of his opponents. She had always been a favourite with the crowd for her popular manners, but now she won their hearts completely; for they knew she was against the man upon whose back they laid all their woes. She visited the guards and barracks, mustered the regiments in the capital and addressed to them harangues, exciting their loyalty to the King and Spain. Once more she sacrificed her ornaments, devoted herself to the comfort of the soldiers, raised a new regiment at her own expense in her son’s name, presided over the Councils, and infused more activity and enthusiasm in the administration than had been seen for years.

Isabel of Bourbon had seized her opportunity. Up to that time she had been simply an appanage of the splendours of the idle King; now, with the power of a Regent and the favour of the people, she became the strongest personality in Spain. Her letters to the King were vigorous and brave; and he thenceforward treated her with greater consideration, as if up to that time he had never realised that his wife was a woman of talent and spirit. Philip was kept idle at Saragossa, away from his army and his nobles for months. Once he acted on his own initiative and appointed a new commander-in-chief, the Marquis of Leganés, a kinsman of Olivares; but the appointment was unfortunate. At the first engagement afterwards Philip’s army was utterly routed before Lerida; and as winter approached, with a badly fed, unpaid dwindling force, quarrelling generals, and his best provinces held by France, Philip returned to Madrid with an aching heart at the end of the year 1642.