The Court of Philip IV.: Spain in Decadence

by Martin A. S. Hume

The decrees, it is true, were from their intricacy and their thoroughness not easy to follow, for they sought to revolutionise the customs and ways of life rendered familiar by almost immemorial usage. The evils to be cured had been patent to all, but the remedies were too sudden and too drastic to be effectual. When Philip had first come to the throne, and the new broom was to be wielded, the reforming member of the Cortes, Lison y Biedma, had told the King[[2]]—

"Your subjects spend and waste great sums in the abuse of costly garb, with so many varieties of trimmings that the making costs more than the stuff; and as soon as the clothes are made there is a change of fashion and the money has to be spent over again. When they marry the wealth they squander on dress alone ruins them, and they remain in debt for the rest of their lives; ... such is the excess that the wife of an artisan nowadays needs as much finery as a lady, even though she have to get money for it by dishonest means and to the offence of God.... As for collars and ruffs, the disorder in their use is very scandalous. A single ruff of linen with its making and ravelling will cost over 200 reals, and six reals every time it is dressed, which at the end of the year doubles its cost, and much money is thus wasted. Besides, many strong, able young men are employed in dressing and goffering these extravagant things, who might be better employed in work necessary for the commonwealth or in tilling the ground. The servants, too, have to be paid higher wages in consequence of the money they spend in wearing these collars, which indeed consumes most of what they earn; and a great quantity of wheat is wasted in starch which is sorely wanted for food. The fine linens to make these collars have, moreover, to be brought from abroad, and money has to be sent out of the country to pay for them. With respect to coaches, great evil is caused and offence given to God, seeing the disquiet they bring to women who own them; for they never stay at home, but leave their children and servants to run riot, with the evil example of the mistress being always gadding abroad. The art of horsemanship is dying out, and those who ought to be mounted crowd, six or eight of them together, in a coach, talking to wenches rather than learning how to ride. Very different gentlemen, indeed, will they grow up who have all their youth been lolling about in coaches instead of riding."

And so on, almost every item of the daily life of Madrid is shown by the writers of the day to be vicious, wasteful, and corrupt. Idlers crowd in the monasteries, and hosts of other idlers, sham students, poetasters, bullies, and beggars, depend for their daily sustenance upon the garlic soup and crusts which are doled out at the gates from the superfluity of the friars; and servants, with or without wages, but living slothfully upon their patron's food in tawdry finery and squalid plenty, pester the noble houses from stable court to roof.[[3]] Philip and Olivares in the early days did not lack courage, and they came out with a decree so drastic to restrict the wearing of rich clothes, the abuse of ornament, and the possession of rich furniture, the use of trimmings, bullion, silks, velvets, embroideries, and fringes, and to limit the employment of silver and gold plate for household use,[[4]] as to be quite inoperative; besides which, almost as soon as the decree was promulgated the visit of Charles Stuart caused its suspension.

The number of servants to be kept was rigidly restricted, the use of coaches was only to be allowed to people of a certain rank, women were forbidden to drive up and down unattended by father or husband, and, what caused more gibes than anything else, the houses of ill fame, of which, in the alleys leading out of the Calle Mayor, there was an enormous number, were ordered to be closed. Above all, the most severe orders were given against the wearing of ruffs and the using of starch for any purpose. Pillory, confiscation, and exile were to be the fate of any person who wore any pleated or goffered linen in any shape, and the broad, flat Walloon collar, which fell upon the shoulders, alone was to be allowed. Alguacils were provided with shears, and at a given signal raided the fashionable promenades, cutting the fine lace ruffs which the fops still insisted upon wearing, seizing and burning the stocks of them in the shops, lopping hat-brims to the requisite narrowness, confiscating jewels, and even snipping off the lovelocks before the ears which were the mark of the exquisite.

The ladies, too, were no better treated, and many a brazen-faced madam was hauled out of her trundling coach and put to shame, or had portions of her forbidden finery profaned by the coarse hands of catchpoles. The Calle Mayor and the Prado were up in arms at such sacrilege, and bewailed the time when, the stern pragmatics notwithstanding, each hidalgo and his dame who could get money or credit dressed as splendidly as they liked. The worst of it was, that except the time when all the Court was ablaze with the welcome to its English visitor, the King, for the first time, followed his own pragmatics. Philip, like his grandfather, disliked gorgeous attire for himself; though, when the dignity of his position demanded it, he could be refulgent. He was, moreover, sincerely desirous of remedying the terrible penury that existed everywhere. He had been told by his advisers that one of the ways to do this was to limit personal expenditure, in order that there might be more money for the State to spend, and he endeavoured in his own person to set the example of economy.

Philip's reforms

Philip has left a document in his own hand,[[5]] setting forth the reforms he introduced in the service of his own palace (February 1624). It is addressed to the master of the household, the Duke of Infantado, and although far too long to reproduce entire here, some few passages of it may be quoted, as showing that, severe as the cutting down might be, the royal household was still much larger than would now be considered necessary for a monarch.[[6]] The distressed condition of the public revenues, says the King, the many calls upon it, the end of the truce with the Dutch, and Spain's many foes on sea and land, make it imperative to cut down every unnecessary expense. A beginning is to be made in the salary of the master of the household himself, all future holders of the office to receive a million maravedis less salary (i.e. £330 less), but to retain all the perquisites of the office. Only the four senior stewards are in future to be paid, the rest to serve without payment, but to retain their rations, with some small reductions, namely, the dish of chicken custard or rice is to be suppressed, and the allowance of twenty pounds of ice hitherto given to each steward daily to be stopped. The number of "gentlemen of the mouth" is in future to be restricted to fifty, the gentlemen of the chambers to forty, who are not to have more than two lacqueys each. The pages in future are to be only twenty-four. The numbers of officials of the bakery, fruitery, cellar, spicery, chandlery, and butchery are all reduced to what still seems an extravagant personnel according to modern ideas, and the old scandal of the enormous "rations" drawn (and in many cases sold) by all the palace officials is once more attacked. For instance, the perquisite of sixty wax torches taken by the chief gentlemen of the bed-chamber is abolished; and only eight sets of rations are to be served to the gentlemen of the bed-chamber, whilst the chief groom of the bed-chamber is in future to go without his fifty reals a month in lieu of salads, and his jam on fast days. The controller of the household will no longer be entitled to fresh meat, pastry, bacon, chicken custard, salad and jams, and will have to content himself in future whilst on a journey with two dishes of roast meat and one dish of boiled, and two dishes for supper,—"and he must not take anything out of the store."

Philip's household economies

Through every branch of the household this process of reduction was decreed by Philip, and even the pay of the guards was rigidly cut down. The members of the Spanish guard had recently had their pay doubled to 200 ducats a month, and now found themselves reduced to their former pay of 100. The King, by these reforms, decreed that a saving of 67,300 ducats a year was to be effected. In another manuscript of the King's,[[7]] in which a year or two afterwards he recapitulates his personal efforts to remedy the evils of his country, he refers particularly to the sacrifices he made in his household for the commonweal at this time.

"I have twice reformed my household," he says, "and although my servants may be more numerous than before, I have had no other money to pay them with than honours, and they have received no pecuniary pay. As for my personal expenses, the moderation of my dress and my rare feasts prove how modest it is, and I spend no money voluntarily on myself, for I try to give my vassals an example to avoid vain ostentation. So I have reconciled myself to ask for nothing for my own person, but only the indispensable funds for the defence of my realm and the Catholic faith. I want no more, not a maravedi, from my vassals, and I charge you (the Council of Castile) on your conscience to let me know if anything is being spent beyond this."