The Court of Philip IV.: Spain in Decadence

by Martin A. S. Hume

The first Cortes of the third Philip's reign (1598), when Lerma demanded the previously unheard-of vote of eighteen million ducats, spread over six years, to be raised by a tax on wine, oil, meat, etc., earnestly prayed the King to attend to their long-neglected petitions for a readjustment of expenditure and taxation. When the sum was voted, the King's promise of reform was, as usual, broken, and the Cortes then told the King that his country was already ruined and could pay no more. "Castile is depopulated, as you may see; the people in the villages being now insufficient for the urgently necessary agricultural work: and an infinite number of places formerly possessing a hundred households are now reduced to ten, and many to none at all."[[18]] The common people were starving: the formerly prosperous cloth-weaving industry was rapidly being strangled by the terrible "alcabala" tax, imposed upon all commodities every time they changed hands by sale. The price of necessary articles was enormously and constantly rising, owing to the tampering of Lerma with the currency, the dwarfing of industry by the alcabala, town tolls, local octrois, and the greatly increasing demand for commodities by America. Whilst the sternest decrees were issued in rapid succession against luxury in dress and living, the advent of Lerma and the host of greedy aristocrats to power had caused a perfect frenzy for magnificence in attire; and the vast amounts of money spent in costly stuffs and precious embroideries, etc., were almost entirely sent abroad, inasmuch as the Spanish manufacturers and dealers in such wares were not only impeded in the production and distribution of them by the economical causes mentioned, but were practically the only classes punished for infraction of the sumptuary decrees. Thus the great sums that arrived in Seville every year from the Indies to a large extent never penetrated Spain at all, but were transhipped at once to other countries, either in exchange for foreign commodities which unwise sumptuary decrees and faulty finance prevented from being produced in Spain, or else to pay the Genoese and German loan-mongers,—asentistas, as they were called,—who on usurious terms were always ready to provide money against future revenue for the wasteful shows by means of which the idea of Spain's abounding wealth and power was kept up. What portion of the American gold and silver did reach the Spanish people themselves was mostly hoarded or buried to keep it from the grasp of tax-farmers, thieves, and extortioners of all sorts, to whom a man of known wealth was simply looked upon as fair prey. The copper money, genuine and forged, with which the country was flooded[[19]] was the only sort commonly current, and this had been by decree (1603) raised to double its face value, again increasing the price of articles of prime necessity to the poorer purchaser; whilst the nobles and other wealthier people who possessed hoarded silver and gold lived comparatively cheaply.

Spain at Philip's birth

In the very year 1605, when, as we have seen, money was squandered in Valladolid without limit, every source of national revenue had been pledged for years in advance; and a year or two previously the King's officers had been forced to beg from door to door for so-called voluntary contributions of not less than fifty reals, for the daily expenses of the royal household. The revenue in this year was stated to be nominally 23,859,787 copper ducats of the value of 2s. 5-1/3d. each,—more than enough, if it had been received, to meet every necessary expenditure; but peculation and corruption were so universal, contraband and evasion so general, that according to the Venetian ambassador, every branch of the administration was starved, the national defences in a deplorable condition, and the King unable to raise an army of more than 20,000 or 30,000 men in Spain.[[20]] In the meanwhile Lerma and his family and friends and their respective adherents were piling up possessions and riches beyond computation. The first act of Philip III. on his accession had been to give to his favourite the right to receive what presents were offered to him, and Lerma had exercised the privilege to the full. What the chief minister did the subordinates imitated. Rodrigo Calderon, the favourite of the favourite, and Franquesa, the clerk of the council of finance, were found in their subsequent disgrace to have hoarded immense quantities of gold and silver; and every one of the twenty Viceroys, forty-six Governor-Generals, and their infinite underlings, robbed as much money as he could grasp, the sooner to come and swagger in the Court amidst a squalid, starving population, of which every man was striving within his limits to imitate his betters, and to share in the easily won riches of official corruption.[[21]] The one prosperous trade was the service of the King or the service of his servants; and thus, whilst the sovereign himself was blind and deaf to all but his innocent frivolities, and the superstitious awe that constituted his religion, Spain grew yearly poorer and more miserable as a nation, and the favoured classes, the nobles and the clergy, practically exempt from taxation, waxed ever fatter, more insolent, and more lavish.

Spain's responsibilities

The policy and aims of Philip II. had kept his realms at war for a generation. The fatal possession of the Flemish and Dutch territories of the House of Burgundy and the traditions of Catholic unity had cursed poor Castile with a European policy, and had driven Spain into constant war with Protestant England, her natural ally; but Philip II. on his deathbed had done his best to lighten his son's burden. Flanders was left to his dear daughter Isabel, and her destined husband, the Cardinal-Archduke Albert, with reversion, unfortunately, to Spain, in the probable case of failure of issue from the Infanta. To this extent Spain was relieved. There was no longer any material need for her to spend her blood and money in fighting the Protestants, either for the Emperor or for the new Archduchess of Flanders; who herself, and especially her husband, were content to let the Protestant Dutch go their own way, whilst she enjoyed in peace her inherited Catholic Belgic sovereignty. The exhaustion of Spain and his own avarice had tended to make Lerma pacific; and, as we have seen, peace was arranged both with France and England: it must be confessed, on extremely favourable terms for Spain, as early in the reign of Philip III. as was practicable. The war with the Dutch in support of the Infanta still dragged on; for the Spaniards would bate not a jot of their pride, and Maurice of Nassau and his Hollanders were in no submissive mood after holding their own for forty years. The Infanta and her husband ardently longed for peace, and were ready to acknowledge the independence of Holland; but Philip III. was full of scruples of conscience as to the morality of formally ceding territory to Protestants, even when he could not hold it himself, and it was 1609 before the punctilious haggling ended, and the famous truce of twelve years was signed, practically giving the stout Dutchmen the independence for which they had fought so well.

Spain was then at peace for the first time within most men's memory; and, with prudence, economy, and good government, might yet have repaired the disasters that had befallen her. The promotion of production, the rehabilitation of labour, a return to the frugal, honest life which prevailed before the nation was led to its splendid hysteria by the imperial connection, would have enabled the great revenues from the Indies to be kept in Spain, whose shipping was now for a time free from the depredations of privateers. But we have seen how demoralised the whole people had grown. Long wars in foreign lands, usually against Protestants or infidels, the craze for discovery and profitable adventure in the Indies, and the dwarfing of industry, except for the very poor, humble, plodding folk, had made the vast majority of Spaniards scornful of labour; and in any case it would have been hard to set men to work again. The attempt even was never seriously made. Peace for Philip III. and his people did not mean an opportunity for setting their house in order and reorganising the nation, because they did not even yet fully recognise the hopelessness of the national dream of domination through the unity of Christendom on Spanish Catholic lines.

The Moriscos

For the realisation of this dream absolute unity of faith in Spain itself was the first necessary condition. The country was peopled by several unamalgamated racial and political elements, and had been artificially unified by the religious exaltation resulting from the conquest of Granada and the fierce doctrinal pride fostered by the Inquisition, artfully utilised for political ends by Ferdinand the Catholic and his successors. The weak point of the sacred bond that held Spaniards together was the large hard-working Moorish population scattered over the Peninsula, and especially numerous in the south-west. In spite of pledges and promises of toleration, Christian baptism had been forced upon these people. Taxes and disabilities of all sorts had been piled upon them, insulting and oppressive rules had been made to their detriment, alternate cruelty and persuasion had been resorted to in vain: the Moriscos at heart remained true to their own faith, however humbly they conformed to the Christian rites imposed upon them. They were still the most thrifty toilers; the carrying trade of the Peninsula was almost entirely in their hands, and their means of inter-communication were thus better than those enjoyed even by Christian Spaniards. How to deal with this alien element so as to eliminate the danger that existed from their presence in a Christian state, the realisation of whose great ambition depended upon unbroken religious unification, had puzzled the minds of Spanish statesmen for years. It had been practically decided at one time (1581) by Philip II. to take the whole Morisco population out to sea and sink the ships that carried them; Gomez Davila of Toledo urged Philip III. in 1598 to massacre the whole of them, whilst others more humane advocated the forcible abduction of all the children, the sterilisation of the males, and other heroic measures. For a time also the milder spirits, such as Father Las Casas, prayed that gentler methods might be tried; but the attitude of the Moriscos themselves and the bigotry of the churchmen soon silenced the voice of mercy.

For years the Moriscos had been plotting with Spain's enemies; with Henry IV. of France, with Elizabeth of England, with the Duke of Savoy, with the Sultan, with the King of Fez, or whoever else would promise them aid to break up the Spanish monarchy; and the very day that the Prince Philip Dominic was born (8th April 1605) was fixed for the great Moslem rising at Valencia which should deliver Eastern Spain to the French King. The plot was discovered in time, and this frustrated treason had added to the religious fervour of the baptism, which has been described at the beginning of this chapter. Thenceforward the black cloud that loomed over the folk of Moorish blood grew ever darker. Not the religious bigots alone, but statesmen too, intent only on the immediate problem before them, urged that if unity of Christendom was the necessary condition of Spain's greatness, then the faith within her own realms must be made pure and solid beyond all question or doubt, let the sacrifice be what it might.[[22]] Racial jealousy, economical rivalry, and envy of the superior financial position of the frugal Moriscos over that of their Christian neighbours, aided the forces of religious bigotry and political expediency: and, just as the baptism of Prince Philip had coincided in point of time with the discovery of the Moorish treason, so did the next ceremony of his infant life coincide with the fatal decision to exterminate root and branch from Spain all those in whose veins was known to flow the blood of the Moslem races. For the attainment of the views of both statesmen and churchmen of the day, purblind as they were to the larger issues, the resolution to expel the Moriscos was necessary, but, as will be seen later, it was disastrous industrially and economically.

In accordance with the condition of political science of the time, the results of the measure were indeed neither considered nor understood in the latter aspects.[[23]] It was discussed in the King's Council, first as a point of conscience, and secondly as a political necessity, and the breathing time given to Spain by the peace with the Protestants after forty years of strife, instead of being employed in the repair and recuperation of national forces, was seized upon by those who yet pursued the chimera of domination by religious unification, to deplete still further the already exhausted country by the expulsion of the principal productive element of its population, amidst the fervent applause of the idle and thriftless majority.