Philip III. loved lavishness, especially to dazzle the French at this juncture, and was easily persuaded by Lerma's false son to make the Count of Olivares a gentleman of the chamber to the Prince. At first young Philip disliked his masterful attendant, whose imperious manner and stern looks frightened the sensitive boy; but gradually, as the latter grew older and more curious, the address and cleverness of Olivares asserted their influence over the weaker spirit of the Prince. Olivares was supposed by Uceda to be acting entirely in his interest, and had persuaded the latter to give him complete control of the Prince's household, which he took care to pack with friends pledged to himself. When Lerma was finally dismissed with a cardinal's hat and all his riches, young Philip was anxious to know why so great a minister had been disgraced. Olivares was always ready to enlighten the lad, and would spend long periods chatting with him alone as the Prince lay in bed, or as he was riding. In answer to Philip's questions about Lerma, he impressed upon him the insolence of favourites generally, their noxious public influence, their evil effect upon monarchs, and much more to the same purport, pointed at Uceda the new minister quite as much as at his fallen father. The sufferings of the people were described vividly to the sympathising boy, who was told of the vast plunder held by Lerma and his family from the national resources, and the noble task awaiting a monarch who would govern his realm himself and redress the wrongs of his subjects. Young Philip's youthful ambition was aroused, and thenceforward he listened to his mentor eagerly; whilst he ostentatiously frowned in public upon the Duke of Uceda.[[32]]
Results of Lerma's rule
Spain, notwithstanding the change of favourites, went from bad to worse. The vast sums spent by the King upon the building of new convents and in sumptuous shows were still wrung from the humblest classes, who alone did any profitable work, and in vain was the sainted image of the Virgin of Atocha carried in regal state through the streets of the capital, in the hope of averting widespread famine. Lerma at least, in his long ministry, had managed to conceal from the indolent King the utter ruin that threatened; but the ineptitude of the new favourites made the misery patent even to him. The knowledge overwhelmed his feeble spirit, and his long spells of despair were but rarely relieved now by the frivolities that formerly delighted him. Ill and failing as he was, and his poor spirit broken, he prayed the Council of Castile to tell him the truth as to the condition of his people, and to suggest remedies for their ills. The report, which reached him in February 1619, finally opened his eyes, now that it was too late, to the appalling results of his rule; and, stricken with panic fear that he would be damned eternally for his life-long neglect of duty, the poor King broke down utterly. He knew that his strength was ebbing, and forgiveness for himself was his first thought, and then to pray that his son might do better than he had done.
To distract him, his favourites persuaded him to make a royal progress to Portugal, with all the old lavish splendour, to witness the taking of the oath by the Portuguese Cortes to young Philip as heir to the throne. For months the cities of Portugal were the scene of prodigal pomp and devotion, that once more drove out of the muddled brain of the King all thought of the misery he had left behind him in Castile; and as he sat, on the 14th July 1619, under his gold and silken canopy in his palace at Lisbon, dressed in white taffeta and gold, and surrounded by the nobles of Portugal and Spain, it seemed as if the lying fable that made him personally the master of boundless wealth must be true, and that his stark and ruined realm was overflowing with happy abundance.[[33]] By his side sat his hopeful son Philip, a tall slim lad of fourteen, wearing a white satin suit covered with gold and gems, and surmounted by a black velvet shoulder-cape a mass of bullion embroidery; and as the representatives of the Portuguese nation bent the knee and swore to accept him as King when his father should die, in exchange for his assurance that their ancient rights should be respected, little thought any of the glittering throng that the pale long-faced boy with the loose lower lip would, out of indolent amiability, cause rivers of blood to run between Portugal and Spain, and that all the oaths sworn that day on both sides would be broken. Little dreamed they, either, that the dark-visaged man with the big square head, who stood behind the Prince's chair, was to be the mover of this calamity, and of the final disruption of his young master's great inheritance. Olivares, secure in his hold now over the Prince, left Lisbon to go to the home of his house in Seville for a time, knowing well that the jarring rivals around the boy would soon make his return to Court the more welcome. The King was ill and like to die on his way back to Madrid,[[34]] and Olivares was near the Prince at the critical time, more influential than ever.
Death of Philip III.
Philip was precocious, and Olivares encouraged his precocity. By his influence it was decided that the married life of the fifteen and a half year old Prince and his pretty French bride should commence in November 1620, at the suburban palace of the Pardo; and thenceforward, whilst the poor King, in alternate fits of agonised remorse and hysterical hope, clung to his mouldering relics of dead saints for comfort, and to the frocks of his attendant friars for reassurance against the wrath of the Most High, his son Philip was yearning impatiently for the coming of the time when he might as King carry into effect the lessons his mentor Olivares had whispered to him; banish the whole brood of Sandoval y Rojas, and revive, as by magic, the potency of his country and the happiness of his people.
Through the month of March 1621, King Philip III. lay dying in his palace at Madrid, overlooking the bare Castilian plain.[[35]] He was not much over forty years of age, but though his malady was slight his vitality had fled, and all desire to prolong his disillusioned life. His remorse and horror of heaven's vengeance were terrible to behold, though during all his reign his habits had been those of a frivolous friar rather than of a bad man, which he certainly was not.[[36]] On the 30th March young Philip took a last farewell of his father. "I have sent for you," said the King, "that you may see how it all ends"; and he gave the weeping lad similar advice to that given by his own greater father, Philip II., to him on his deathbed, counsel to be treated in a similar way. He was to marry his sister Maria to the German Emperor, and to set his face sternly against all temptations to make a less Catholic alliance for her; for James of England had been striving hard, seconded by Gondomar, to win her for Charles, Prince of Wales, and to secure the Palatinate of the Rhine for his son-in-law Frederick. The dying Philip urged his son to strive for the happiness of his people, cherish his sisters and brothers, to avoid new counsellors, and to stand steadfast to the faith of Spain; but when the young Prince left the room Uceda and his crew knew that it was to go straight and take counsel of Olivares and his supporters for making a clean sweep of all those who had not bent the knee to the cadet of the house of Guzman, the dark man with the bent shoulders, the big square head, flashing fierce black eyes, and brusque imperious manner, who was already assuming the airs of a master.
For many months the palace had been a swarming hive of intriguers, where hate, jealousy, and uncharitableness reigned supreme; but one by one the friends of the Sandovals had been pushed into the background, and no one but Olivares and his creatures were now allowed to approach the lad who was soon to be King of Spain. It was clear to Uceda that he was not strong enough to resist the coming storm alone; perhaps the father he had ousted, the Cardinal Duke of Lerma, who had acted on the death of Philip II. as Olivares was acting now, might with his experience and prestige yet win the day. The dying King had already raised the exile of all the other courtiers who had been banished from Court; though on their return they had been excluded by Olivares from access to the Prince; and now, in the last days of the King's life, Uceda obtained from him a decree recalling the Duke of Lerma.
Like a thunderbolt the news fell in the camp of the Guzmans. Olivares summoned his kin, headed by the wisest of them, old Baltasar de Zuñiga. From this meeting Olivares went to the Prince and told him that as his father was dying it was necessary to look ahead and take measures for securing prompt obedience when the crucial moment came. Young Philip acquiesced, for he was as wax in the hands of his imperious mentor; and Olivares, thus reinforced, proceeded to the King's apartments, where by cajolery and threats he obtained from the two great nobles on duty, the aged Duke of Infantado and the Marquis of Malpica, not only a knowledge of the provisions of the King's will, but also a promise that prompt information of everything that passed in the death chamber should be sent direct to the Prince's adviser. The Cardinal Duke was hurrying across Castile towards Madrid, full of hope for a revival of his greatness; for young Philip, whom he had dandled as a babe, always liked him, and had wept for his "Gossip," as he called him, when he had been banished from Court. If once the Duke reached Madrid, Guzman was in danger, and no time was to be lost. So the Prince, at the bidding of Olivares, took the bold and dangerous course of assuming sovereign power to countermand his father's orders whilst yet the King lived.
Young Philip was alone in the dusk of the evening in his panelled chamber in the old palace of Madrid, when the president of the Council of Castile, the highest functionary in Spain and Archbishop of Burgos, stood bowing before him in obedience to his call. The Prince, who lounged against a carved oak sideboard, was dressed in black, and his long sallow face had assumed the haughty immobility that for the rest of his life was his official mask of majesty. "I have sent for you, he mumbled to the Archbishop in slow, measured tones, to direct you to despatch a member of the Council to forbid the Duke of Lerma from entering Castile, and to command him to return immediately to Valladolid to await my orders."[[37]] The Archbishop knelt and promised obedience, though he knew, we are told, that if the King recovered he would have to suffer for his weak compliance with an illegal command.[[38]]