The Court of Philip IV.: Spain in Decadence

by Martin A. S. Hume

The following lively description of one of the theatres in the reign of Philip IV. will give an idea of the scene they presented on a holiday.[[23]]

You must dine hurriedly at noon, and not stay long at table if you are going in the afternoon and wish to find a seat. The first thing you do when you arrive at the door of the theatre is to try to get in without paying. Many work and as few pay as possible. That is the actor's first misfortune. It would not be so bad for twenty people to get in for four farthings, if many more did not try to imitate them. As it is, if one person gets in without payment others expect to do the same. Everybody wishes to enjoy the privilege of free admission, in order that people may see that they are worthy of it. For this reason they strive so hard to enjoy it that it gives rise to endless disputes and altercations; with all the more reason that by these means they usually succeed in their aim. When once a person gets entrance without payment he adopts it as a general rule, and never wants to pay. A fine way this to remunerate those who merit some return for their work in trying to amuse them. And perhaps you will think that he who pays not is more easy to please. On the contrary, when the actor is not properly dressed, those who have not paid insult and hiss him most. At last our man gets into the theatre, and asks those who are seated on the benches to make room for him.[[24]] They tell him that there is no seat for him, but that perhaps one of those who have paid for a seat will not come, so he had better wait until the guitar players appear and he may then occupy the vacant seat. This being agreed upon, our friend goes to the dressing-room to amuse himself in the meanwhile. There he finds the actresses taking off their usual clothes and assuming those necessary for their characters; they being sometimes as naked as if they were going to bed. He stops and stares before one of them, who, having come through the streets on foot, is changing her boots by the aid of her servant. This cannot be done without some sacrifice of decorum, and the poor actress is much put out, but she dares not protest, because, as her main object is to gain applause, she is afraid of offending. A hiss, however unjustified, discredits an actor, because people in general incline more to the censure of others than to their own judgment. The actress consequently does not suspend the changing of her boots, and suffers the importunity of the visitor patiently. In the meanwhile the blockhead never takes his eyes off her.

"After that he looks from the stage to see what is happening with the doubtful seat he covets. It is still vacant, and in the hope that the legitimate owner of it will not come he runs to occupy it. The moment he does so the owner appears and defends his claim. The other does the same, and both grow heated and come to blows. The last comer, as he has come to the theatre for amusement, and finding no amusement in shouting and fighting, thinks it better to stand for three hours than to continue clawing, and retires from the fray, another seat being provided for him by those who have intervened and pacified the dispute. When this hurly-burly has ended, our intruder settles down quietly and casts an eye upon the cazuela,[[25]] and passes in review the women who fill it. He takes a sudden fancy to one of them, and begins to manifest his feelings by making signs to her. But, my good friend! you have surely gone to the theatre to see the play, not the cazuela.

"It is four o'clock in the afternoon by this time, and the performance has not begun yet. Our friend, looking vaguely about him, first on one side and then on another, suddenly feels that someone is pulling at his cloak. He turns his head and sees an orange-seller, who, bending towards him between the two spectators behind, whispers in his ear that the lady who is tapping her knee with her fan has watched with sincere pleasure the spirit he showed in the quarrel about the seat, and that it would be a gracious thing if he bought her a dozen oranges in recognition of her sympathy. Our friend scans the cazuela again, and sees that the lady in question is the one that caught his fancy before; so he pays for the oranges, and tells the orangeman to let the lady know that he will willingly pay for anything else she would like. When the orangeman disappears with this message, our friend thinks of nothing else than how he shall approach the lady when they leave the theatre, cursing the comedy in the meanwhile, which appears to him interminable, such is his impatience. He signifies his disapproval aloud, and groans without cause, exciting the musqueteers[[26]] below to imitate him and to break forth in offensive cries. This is not only rude and uncultivated, but monstrously ungrateful, for, of all men, actors are those who strive hardest to gain applause. What a bad time they pass, and how laborious whilst they rehearse a piece. And when the first representation comes, any of them would give a year's wage to be applauded for his part. What anxiety assails them, what inexpressible yearning they feel on the stage to please the public. When they have to cast themselves down from some precipice, they throw themselves off the painted canvas rock with desperation; when they have to represent a dying man and to writhe in agony, how they soil their clothes, which have often cost much money, and tear their hands with the nails and splinters of the boards!"

The rest of the chapter is more concerned with the evils of the actor's life than with the audience, which is the point most interesting to us; but it is clear from what has been quoted that the comedies, witty and facile as they were, nevertheless did not form the only attraction that drew crowds daily to the theatres of the Court. In the first place, they were a pretext for the prevailing idleness, and the sure sign of decadence which manifests itself in the inactive many gazing upon and criticising the hired exertions of the active few. But the "corrales" of Madrid are also shown in the above extract, and in hundreds of allusions in the comedies themselves, to have been places of assignation and incentives to promiscuous gallantry.[[27]] The King himself, behind the impenetrable window grating of a first-floor private room (aposento) first saw many of his mistresses, they were not mistresses in the sense that prevailed at the Court of the French Bourbon kings. None of them ever aspired to, or attained, political or social power, for the distance between the sacrosanct sovereign and common humanity was too great for that to be possible in Castile. They were just the creatures Of Philip's caprice, and the momentary playthings of his passions, none of them retaining hold upon him but for a very short time.

"The Calderona"

Of his thirty and more illegitimate children, of whom eight were recognised, the only one that was given princely rank was that Don Juan of Austria who was beloved by his father above all others of his offspring. From the theatre, at the period which we are now writing, Don Juan of Austria sprang. It was at the Corral de la Cruz in 1627 that Philip first set eyes upon the girl whom one of Olivares' agents had sent from the country to act upon the Madrid stage. Her name was Maria Calderon, and at the time she appeared in the capital she was not more than sixteen years of age. She was no great beauty, but her grace and fascination were supreme, and her voice was so sweet and her speech so captivating that Madrid fell in love with her at once.[[28]] The King from his aposento was enamoured of her the first time he saw her, and for him to desire was to enjoy. She was immediately summoned to the private apartment, that the King might listen more closely to her lovely voice, and when he heard it the King's love grew fiercer still. From the corral to the palace was but a step when Philip willed it, and thenceforward the Calderona became the King's best beloved mistress. She still acted upon the stage, though gifts and tokens of affection were piled upon her by the love-lorn King. She, proud of the ineffable honour vouchsafed to her, became rigidity itself in her virtue, and turned a hard face to all other lovers.

Birth of Baltasar Carlos

The tradition in Spain made the position of King's mistress not by any means one to be coveted by most women, since it was understood that when the liaison ended the lady must immure herself in a convent for the rest of her life, to prevent such a sacrilege as for the King to have a successor in any woman's regards. It is told of one young lady of the Court to whom Philip was making unmistakable advances, that she shut herself behind a locked door when she knew the amorous King was seeking her, and cried out to him from the inside: "No, no, sire; I don't want to be a nun!" The Calderona had no such scruples, either from natural devotion or because she really felt the honour of the King's love to be overwhelming. Her son by the King was born on the 17th April 1629, and as soon as the Calderona could leave her room she sought the King, and, throwing herself at his feet in tears, prayed for his permission for the mother of his son to sin no more. For it was enough, she said, to have borne a child to the greatest monarch on earth, and nothing more was left for her but to devote the rest of her life to cloistered sanctity. Philip was deeply in love with her still; all his children by the Queen, none of whom had been sons, had expired at, or soon after, their births, and this boy by the Calderona was held to be the most beautiful and perfect child ever seen. Philip tried hard to alter the resolve of his mistress, but she absolutely refused to cohabit with him again; and at last, but with sorrow, he gave way, and the actress Maria Calderon became the abbess of a remote convent, whilst her child was sent with semi-royal surroundings to be educated with exquisite care at Ocaña, with a view to his future greatness.