The two theatres of the capital consisted of large courtyards enclosed by houses, which were usually held by the owners of the theatres.[[17]] A raised stage at the farther end, with tiled eaves and a curtain, was faced by a number of benches protected from sun and rain by an awning. In these seats men alone were allowed to sit, whilst in the open uncovered space behind them other men, who had paid a smaller sum, witnessed the show standing. On the left hand on the ground level was a sort of enclosed gallery called the cazuela, the stew-pan, where the women were accommodated; and, as upon the English stage at the time, some of the more privileged of the gallants were allowed to be seated on stools upon the stage itself. In the closely grated windows of the houses surrounding the courtyard the aristocracy saw the play and the audience without being seen; and as these windows corresponded with rooms (aposentos) in different houses with separate entrances, but yet in most cases of easy access to the stage, infinite opportunities for intrigue were provided. So scandalous did this state of affairs become at a somewhat later period, that murderous affrays even between the highest nobles of Spain on the subject of the actresses were of frequent occurrence.[[18]] Philip, by the Court etiquette, was not supposed to go to public theatres, and had a regular stage erected in the Alcazar and other palaces, where comedies were performed twice a week; but, in fact, he was a constant visitor to both the public theatres, going, of course, incognito, and often masked, as was the fashion of the time. There he would sit in one of the private rooms, unseen behind a heavily grated window, but vigilant for any new beauty who appeared on the stage or in the cazuela.[[19]]
Sometimes, too, the Queen would go with similar precautions, and it is to be feared, from the stories of eye-witnesses, that her tastes were, at all events in these joyful early years of her life, not too refined. Not only was she an ardent lover of the bull-fight, but she would in the palace or public theatres countenance amusements which would now be considered coarse. Quarrels and fights between country wenches would be incited for her to witness unsuspected; nocturnal tumults would be provoked for her amusement in the gardens of Aranjuez or other palaces; and it is related that, when she was in one of the grated aposentos of a public theatre, snakes or noxious reptiles would be secretly let loose upon the floor or in the cazuela, to the confusion and alarm of the spectators, whilst the gay red-cheeked young Queen would almost laugh herself into fits to see the stampede.
An auto-de-fé
Nor were bull-fights, comedies, equestrian shows and church spectacles the only amusements of a Court which actually lived for idle pleasures. There was another in which poignancy of excitement and devotion of the peculiar Spanish sort were equally blended; and, though not so frequent as the other diversions, was still more popular. These were the autos-de-fe. Heretics of the Protestant kind there were now practically none to burn; but sorcery, impiety, and above all Judaism, or the suspicion of it, provided enough victims to furnish forth an occasional public holiday. The description of one such ceremonial at this period will suffice.[[20]] It was not long after the mad French pedlar had outraged the religious proprieties in the Church of St. Philip, when the branch of the Inquisition at Madrid received advice from one of its ubiquitous familiars that certain persons, believed to be of Jewish origin, were in the habit of meeting at the house of a certain Licentiate in the Calle de las Infantas, where, amongst other impious rites, they flogged and maltreated a wooden crucifix. Before many hours had passed, the whole of the accused and their friends were in the dungeons of the Inquisition; and, as a warning to other backsliders, it was determined to hold a solemn public ceremonial judgment of the offenders in the Plaza Mayor of Madrid on Sunday, 4th July 1624.
The municipality provided the stands and decorations of the great square, with a splendidly adorned balcony for the King and Queen, six other balconies being reserved for the ladies in attendance, with nine balconies for gentlemen of the palace party; a vast concourse of citizens filling the public space, and the hundreds of balconies looking down upon the square. An immense staging was erected facing the royal balcony, upon which, in their state robes, were to be seated the Town Council of Madrid, the Inquisition of Toledo, the Supreme Tribunal, all the Royal Councils and other official bodies. The ceremonies began on the evening before the great day. At five o'clock on Saturday afternoon, a solemn procession left the Convent of Doña Maria de Aragon,[[21]] near the palace, carrying the gigantic green cross which upon these occasions held the place of honour. The standard was borne by the first official noble in the land, the Constable of Castile, whilst the Admiral of Castile carried the tassels of the sacred banner. Then, amidst a crowd of priests with flaring waxen tapers, came the white cross in the hands of the representative of Toledo, followed by the green cross itself, in the hands of the prior of St. Thomas. Torch-bearers and faggot-bearers came after, many scores of them, and the procession closed by long lines of friars bearing tapers from every monastery in Madrid.
At seven o'clock the next morning the King and Queen left the palace in their coach, followed by the whole Court; and when the royal party had seated themselves in their gay bedizened balconies, the long procession of the Inquisition, with swaying censers, flaming tapers, and propitiatory dirges, wound into the plaza under the archway from the Calle Mayor. First came the alguaciles of the municipality and the town officials, then the alguaciles of the Court and the officers of the Royal Council; seventy hooded familiars of the dread tribunal with their big crosses upon their sombre garb, followed with the crowd of consultants, notaries, and prosecutors of the Holy Office. After them walked the municipality of Madrid, then the Chief Constable of the Inquisition alone, followed by the fiscal of the Inquisition of Toledo bearing the banner of the Holy Office, whose tassels were held by fiscals of Castile. The Inquisition of Toledo came next, and then the Supreme Council of the Inquisition itself, the last and most important member being Cardinal Zapata, the Inquisitor-General.
When all had taken their places, the Cardinal, as usual, ascended to the royal balcony and administered to the King the oath to keep inviolate the purity of the Church at any cost, an oath afterwards repeated by the members of the tribunal itself and the Councils. Upon a lower staging before the official platform were grouped the forty wretched creatures in their flaming tabards of shame, whose offence this pompous show was to punish. An interminable sermon was preached by the King's confessor, Sotomayor, exhorting the accused to repent and the faithful to increased zeal in the extermination of the enemies of the holy faith; and then the dread sentences were read out by the relator. Seven of the accused were condemned to be burned alive that night outside the gate of the city, and four more were to be executed in effigy, whilst their bodies rotted for life in the secret dungeons of the Holy Office; the rest being sent back to their prison, probably never again to see the light of day, and to suffer unrecorded tortures until death should release them. The house where the offence was said to have been committed was doomed to be swept utterly from the face of the earth, and a church and monastery dedicated to Christ crucified erected in its place.[[22]] By the time the condemned were led away it was three o'clock in the afternoon; and whilst the wretched prisoners in their sambenitos, amidst the curses and insults of the crowd, went to their doom, the smart company of courtiers, together with King Philip and his wife, returned to their respective homes and their much-needed repast, doubtless in an exceedingly self-approving and pharisaical mood.[[23]]
Whilst the King and his people were thus absorbed in the pursuit of demoralising pleasures, and loudly proclaiming to Europe that Spain had abandoned none of its past pretensions, the European league against her had been fully organised. It had been clear to Richelieu from the beginning of Philip's reign, that unless France struck boldly and promptly she would be in danger of finding herself once more shut in by the House of Austria, more solid than ever now that Olivares was determined to aid the Emperor to keep the Palatinate, and the blood and treasure of Castile were again to be squandered in fighting heresy abroad. Spinola, victorious in Germany with Spanish troops, was seriously threatening the United Provinces, and Spain, in defiance of treaties, still held by force the Valtelline, which connected Lombardy with Tyrol. The Duke of Savoy, ambitious and discontented with his Spanish kinsman, tired of the rôle of catspaw to which he was condemned, and greedy to seize Lombardy and Genoa, readily listened to Richelieu's approaches; and England, still smarting under the humiliation she had suffered from Olivares, did the same, whilst the United Provinces, already at war with Spain, willingly joined the enemies of her enemy. Europe found itself for a short time again thus divided in its old way: France, Savoy, and the Protestant Powers being on one side; whilst the House of Austria in Germany and Spain, with the Italian principalities, were on the other. The first object of Richelieu was to break the territorial circle by ousting the Spaniards from the Valtelline, which he invaded with French and Swiss troops in 1625. Then followed the ignominious attack upon Cadiz by the English fleet under Sir Edward Cecil (Lord Wimbledon) in October of the same year,[[24]] and Spain thus found herself at war with half Europe.
War with France
Poor and exhausted as we have seen that the country was, the labours of Olivares had not been quite without result, and with great effort funds were raised to present a front to the enemies of the faith worthy of Spanish traditions. The Queen offered her personal jewels to fight her own countrymen, the French; the nobles contributed a million ducats in cash from their ill-gotten hoards; the pulpits and altars of Spain and the Indies rang with priestly exhortations to sacrifice for the faith; and the clergy itself undertook to maintain twenty thousand troops during the war. The property of all French subjects in Spain was confiscated, and for once the energy of Olivares was felt in all branches of the Spanish service. It was as if the old times of Philip II. had returned. Feria and Spinola, the one on land, the other at sea, forced the French to abandon their conquests in the Valtelline and Genoa. Spain, in a fever of pride and jubilation, hailed the young King, who personally had done nothing and had never left Madrid, as "Philip the Great," and Olivares caused the title to be officially accorded to his young master. But after a time the diplomacy of the Spanish Queen of France and Olivares did more to end the war than the skill of the generals. Richelieu was a cardinal of the Church, and could not entirely ignore the remonstrances of the Pope, prompted by Olivares, against his making common cause with heretics to fight the orthodox Catholic Power; and a treaty between France and Spain was patched up in January 1626 with regard to the Valtelline, where the Catholics were to enjoy full liberty of conscience on payment of a tribute to the Protestant Grisons.