The Court of Philip IV.: Spain in Decadence

by Martin A. S. Hume

This was the background: a vast conspiracy of make-shift and of make-believe, before which the Court of Philip IV. alternately prayed and postured unconvinced. An utterly decadent society, of which each individual was striving to get as much as possible out of life without giving anything in return; a society which combined besotted superstition and abject servility to priests and ritual with appalling impiety, a society that lived from day to day for such pleasures as it could grasp, knowing that all was crumbling to dissolution beneath its feet, that squandered and lavished money, mostly ill-gotten, in empty splendour, whilst the whole nation beyond the mud walls of the "Court" was sunk in carking penury. And amidst the festivities and stage plays, the poetical recitals, the battues that stood for sport, and the autos-de-fe that stood for holiness, "Philip the Great" moved like a demigod, knowing in his heart of hearts that all was hollow—his wealth a lie, his dignity a mask, and he himself but a poor sinning trifler whose coward conscience denied him even pleasure in his sin.

Philip's love for ostentation had full opportunity for its exercise in October 1629, when, six months after the birth of his son by the Calderona, an heir was born to the Spanish crowns. The month had begun with splendour, for on the 3rd October the Prince of Guastalla had entered the capital as the envoy of the Emperor to marry by proxy the Infanta Maria for the King of Hungary, heir to the imperial crown. The whole of the grandees of Spain had gone out to receive him, and his train of thirty-six pages and lackeys in liveries of black velvet and gold, and his thirty-six baggage horses with crimson and gold horse-cloths, the Spanish nobles being so numerous and smart, as Soto says, that "Madrid looked like another Indies for richness." Before the splendours of Guastalla's welcome had become dim, the prince of so many prayers was born, and Madrid settled down to another orgy of festivities. The magnificence of the baptism in the Church of St. John near the palace need not be detailed in full; suffice it to say that a temporary staircase and gallery splendidly adorned with tapestries descended from the great balcony over the palace portico to the church. Down this corridor, in a sedan chair of silver and crystal, preceded by heralds and followed by crowds of nobles, the child was carried very slowly to its baptism on the lap of the Countess of Olivares. On the left hand of the chair marched Olivares himself, strangely dressed, as was remarked at the time, in a long robe of cloth of silver with sleeves reaching to the ground, his breast crossed by a crimson baldric—some ceremonial dress, it was thought, of the house of Austria. Then came the new Queen of Hungary, her nephew's godmother, and the rest of the high personages, to attend the ceremony. It was against the etiquette for the King to be there, but he was too proud and happy to forego the pleasure of seeing the show secretly, which he did from a closely curtained pew reached from the adjoining house. The Countess of Olivares, as supreme in the palace as her husband was in the Government, held the child at the font, seated upon "a chair of rock crystal, the most costly piece of furniture ever seen in Europe," whilst cardinals and bishops did their best to make Prince Baltasar Carlos of Austria a member of the Christian Church. As soon as the Queen was able to appear, which was on her birthday, she was feted in her turn as she had never been feted before. Masked equestrian contests, torchlight parades, bull-fights, and balls succeeded each other day after day, and in all of them the King and his brother, Don Carlos, made a gallant appearance.[[29]]

Philip's field sports

The fact that both Philip and Olivares were accomplished horsemen made equestrian pastimes and field sports specially fashionable in this the best period of Philip's reign. At least two realistic representations exist of hunting battues in which Philip was seen to great advantage, reproducing from the brush of the great painter the exact aspect of such diversions. That in the Ashburton Collection portrays one of the deer hunts in the leafy glades of Aranjuez, Philip's spring palace on the Tagus, twenty-eight miles from Madrid. In the wooded park the afternoon sun glints through the dark verdured trees against the cloudless sky, and upon a wide stretch of sward a great white canvas enclosure is erected. Into its gradually narrowing limits the frightened deer are being driven by beaters, and at the narrow end of the funnel, the only outlet from the enclosure, the "hunters" are stationed on prancing steeds. Over the narrowest part of the funnel neck a leafy bridge or balcony is built, decked with crimson hangings and furnished with soft cushions, upon which the Queen and her ladies sit, dressed in brilliant colours. Just beneath them, on horseback, are the King, his brother Carlos, and the inevitable Olivares; and as the terrified deer rush past them underneath the ladies' bower, the cavaliers, with big sharp hunting-knives, slash at them, killing some, laming others, and leaving those they miss to the mercies of the hounds that await them beyond. The ground beneath is drenched with blood, but the ladies smile approvingly upon the butchery. The exercise demanded a firm seat in the saddle, and great agility and dexterity in the management of the horse, and it was universally admitted that no one in Spain shone so brilliantly at these battues as Philip himself,[[30]] though Olivares, courtier like, was only just inferior to him.

The other picture by Velazquez, which is in the National Gallery in London, presents a sport somewhat less repugnant to English eyes. The scene in this case is the hunting seat of the Pardo, a few miles out of Madrid, and the King, within the canvas walls of the vast enclosure, is, from the saddle of his caracoling steed, which he sits like a centaur, thrusting his forked javelin into the flank of the boar as it rushes past, Olivares being close by, whilst other mounted courtiers in different parts of the enclosure are participating in the sport. Inside the enclosure there are stationed some of the heavy leather-curtained coaches then in use, filled with ladies. The mules in every case have been unharnessed and put out of the way of a charge from an infuriated boar; but as the boars were agile when aroused, and had been known to leap into the carriages themselves, the ladies inside are armed with dainty little javelins to repel any such attempt; not very easy to happen, one would imagine, as the heavy leather aprons or screens that cover the footplate and serve as doors are closed.

To look upon these pictures is to view the very life of Philip's Court; the posturing gentlemen outside the enclosure, the prancing gentlemen inside. Beyond agile showy horsemanship and well-trained steeds, nothing was called for on the part of those who joined in the sport. There was no danger, and little exertion needed from the "hunters," for the quarry was all driven into the enclosure, and could not get away. One sees that ostentation and "show-off" are the main attraction and object of the sport; and in the sports, as in the pleasures and devotions, the same inevitable note is struck: that of selfish epicureanism that seeks to enjoy sensuously without risk or labour. Each poor mortal is marked out in his own esteem as the central point of a brilliant show, and gorges the best of life's banquet to the end, careless of who pays the scot.

[[1]] British Museum, Egerton MSS 2081, p. 261. Some of the papers in question were also published many years ago by Valladares in the Semanario Erudito.

[[2]] Fernando was as yet only a deacon, not a full priest, and the King when this was written had only one child, an epileptic girl infant, who died soon afterwards.

[[3]] i.e. the great minister of Isabel and Ferdinand.

[[4]] This was the worst possible advice, and its ultimate adoption consummated the ruin of Spain. Philip II. had left the sovereignty of Flanders to his daughter the Infanta Isabel and her husband the Archduke Albert, in the hope that they might remain Catholic and friendly, but separate thenceforward from the Spanish crown. The Infanta had no children, and when she died the resumption by Spain of the sovereignty of Flanders, on the advice of Olivares, was disastrous. Fernando, in effect, became Governor of Flanders for his brother a few years afterwards on the death of the Infanta, and turned out a Prince of great promise, and a military commander of real distinction, but he died young, and of course unmarried, in Flanders, after years of ceaseless war.