The volume of discontent against the minister grew apace, and all Olivares could do was to keep Philip amused, whilst he isolated him more and more from those who could open his eyes to the true state of affairs. Several attempts had been made in the past years by rash individuals to open the King's eyes. Once a young courtier named Lujanes had thrown himself at the feet of Philip in the royal chapel, and had shouted to him to beware of Olivares, who was bent upon his ruin. He was hurried away, and the servile friends of the Count-Duke shrugged their shoulders and said the poor fellow was a lunatic; but the next day he died mysteriously in confinement, and the gossips made no hesitation in saying that he had been poisoned. Other cries to the same effect had from time to time greeted Philip in the streets and public diversions; but now they became more frequent and outspoken. As he was going on a wolf-hunt, cries arose: "Hunt the French, sire! They are our worst wolves." The disaster of a great part of the Buen Retiro being burnt down with its sumptuous contents, during a splendid carnival in February 1641, a few weeks only after the reception of the ill news from Barcelona and Lisbon, gave fresh cause for complaint against Olivares. Twice previously the King had been in danger there by the bursting of reservoirs, and now he ran a worse risk by the place catching fire.[[27]] The place was accursed, said the grumblers; and when the irreparable loss of precious works of art by the fire had to be made good by "voluntary" offerings of similar things from private collections, and 60,000 ducats for rebuilding were extorted from the deputies of the Cortes, with 20,000 from the municipality of Madrid, 30,000 from the Council of Castile, and 10,000 from the Council of War, whilst the soldiers in the field were unpaid and starving, all those who were not absolutely slaves to the Count-Duke openly cried shame.[[28]]
Another trouble occurred at this time which embittered Philip's heart and conscience for years to come; and this, again, whether true in all its particulars or not, was added to the heavy account that the people at large had against the Count-Duke. It will be recollected that a horrible scandal had taken place in the convent of San Placido in Madrid in 1632. The matter was hushed up and condoned in 1638, and the nuns went into residence again. Now, the patron of San Placido was the King's confidant, and Olivares' henchman, the protonotary Geronimo de Villanueva, whose mansion in the Calle de Madera adjoined the convent. Villanueva had always been one of the useful ministers of Philip's amours, and when his convent was rehabilitated in 1638 he brought stories of a very beautiful young nun that he had seen there. Philip and Olivares insisted upon seeing this paragon of loveliness, and Villanueva, exerting his authority as patron, obtained entrance into the locutory for the King in disguise; and for many nights in succession the interviews took place.
A convent scandal
The affair, though very carefully concealed, began to be whispered, before the King and his friends had penetrated beyond the grille which separated them from the beautiful nun; and though Philip's conscience after an offence was tender enough, it usually did not operate until after the offence was committed. So determined was he to approach more nearly to the object of his passion, that Olivares and Villanueva together managed by bribes and prayers to persuade the nun to consent to a violation of her vows, and to admit the King. A passage was made from Villanueva's house to the cellars of the convent to facilitate the entrance of the King; but before the secret work was finished, the nun, either conscience-stricken or afraid of consequences, told the abbess what was going on. The punishments meted out by the Inquisition a few years before had probably been enough for this good lady; for she besought Villanueva to desist from so terrible and dangerous a crime, But Villanueva, anxious to please the King, and being, like most of the courtiers of his generation, a religious cynic, turned a deaf ear to her entreaties. When later he led the enamoured King through the secret passage into the sacred cloister, and to the room where it was arranged that the meeting should take place, the pair were horrified to see that the abbess had laid out the nun upon a bier, her eyes closed, her hands crossed upon her breast clasping a crucifix, whilst tapers were burning at the head and foot of the bier. This was too much for Philip, and he fled; but subsequently affairs were arranged more comfortably, and the amours, we are assured, continued for some time.[[29]]
By and by the Inquisition heard something of what was going on from its spies. What could be done? The King was too high even for the Holy Office to touch; yet so awful a sacrilege as this could not be allowed to go on. The Inquisitor-General was Friar Archbishop Sotomayor, Philip's own confessor, a creature of Olivares, and a man of indifferent character; but even he took the King to task severely and repeatedly for his crime. Subsequently, when Philip probably was tired of the intrigue, he desisted, and then, after interminable secret inquiries by the Holy Office, it was decided that Villanueva was guilty of sacrilege of the worst description, and must be arrested. The King, remorseful or panic-stricken, was for letting the matter take its course; but Olivares, trembling now for himself (in 1642), went to the Inquisitor-General, Sotomayor, with two decrees signed by the King, one dismissing him and banishing him from Spain, the other giving him a pension of 12,000 ducats a year for life, on condition that he resigned the Inquisitor-Generalship and retired to Cordova. Sotomayor naturally accepted the latter alternative. At the same time strong measures were taken in Rome by Philip's agents to induce the Pope to demand the reference of the case to him. The Inquisition obeyed the Pope's command, and sent the whole of the papers in a casket to Rome by one of its own confidential officers. Olivares managed to delay his departure whilst one of the King's painters, perhaps Velazquez, made several sketches of the messenger's face, which sketches were sent off post haste to the King's officers in various parts of Italy, with orders to capture the original secretly wherever he appeared, and send him closely isolated to Naples, whilst his precious casket of papers was to be forwarded intact to Olivares.
The unfortunate messenger, Paredes, landed at Genoa, where he was at once kidnapped and spirited off to the strong castle of Ovo at Naples, fated to be kept in close confinement for the rest of his life, fifteen years. The casket was conveyed with great secrecy to Olivares, who, with the King, reduced it and its unread contents to ashes in Philip's private room. The new Inquisitor-General was a Benedictine friar in the confidence of Queen Isabel, one Diego de Arce; and as no news came from Rome of the case, letters were written by him and the Council of the Inquisition to the Pope. The latter, primed by Philip's ambassador, still kept silence; and as the minutes of the trial of course could not be found, and the wretched messenger had apparently vanished from the face of the earth, there were no proofs forthcoming against Villanueva, who remained under interdiction and in partial seclusion.
This, however, could not continue for ever; and when, in 1644, Olivares had disappeared from the scene, and nothing more was to be feared from him, Villanueva was formally arrested by the Inquisition, and carried off to Toledo, where he was taken before the judges in penitenciæ; and, without any particulars being recited, was admonished that he had sinned enormously by sacrilege and irreligion, whereby he had incurred the heaviest penalties; but that the Holy Office in its clemency would absolve him, only imposing upon him the obligation of fasting on Fridays for the rest of his life, of never entering a convent again, or speaking to a nun, and of giving 2000 ducats for charity to the Prior of the Atocha. The King then restored Villanueva to his post, and imposed perpetual silence with regard to the case against him.[[30]] What penalty Philip himself paid for his terrible offence is not known; though it is said that the clock of the convent, which played the dirge for the dead each hour, and which existed well within the memory of the present writer, and perhaps exists still, was one of the King's peace offerings to the outraged cloister.
Don Juan legitimated
The clouds gathered ever blacker over Olivares. The demands he was forced to make now for resources to face the French in Catalonia, and to present some show of attempting the recovery of Portugal, drove the Castilian nobles and people of means into almost open revolt. The copper currency was again tampered with, being reduced to one-sixth of its previous value;[[31]] and large demands were assessed in silver upon persons who were assumed to be able to pay. In Madrid alone on this occasion, 150 people were sent to the dungeons for their inability or unwillingness to pay all that was asked of them. In addition to the public causes for the hatred of the people against the minister, there were also personal reasons of rapidly increasing strength for his unpopularity with his own class. His arrogance had always offended the nobles of high lineage, and he now added to it, as if in mere wantonness, an offence for which even his own kin never forgave him. His only daughter had died soon after her early marriage; and whatever may have been Olivares' faults, he was an extremely fond father. He had, as he grew older, practically adopted his nephew Don Luis de Haro, son of the Marquis del Carpio, as his heir; but suddenly there appeared at Court a young man of twenty-eight, up to that time known by another name, and passing as the son of a small government official in Madrid. The name now given to this person was Enrique Felipe de Guzman, and Olivares brought him to the palace and to the King's apartments, introducing him as his son. The young man was a person of no breeding or attraction, and his mode of life was far from exemplary, but Olivares appears to have been perfectly infatuated with him. Following his own bent, the son had married a lady of good house in Seville; but Olivares had higher views for him, and, by dint of great and costly efforts, caused the marriage to be declared invalid. No people in the world were more tenacious of purity of blood than the Spanish nobility, whose open immorality of life, indeed, added to their strictness with regard to their legitimate succession; and, much as Olivares favoured his new son, and lavishly as, at his instance, Philip endowed him with rank, resources, and offices, it was difficult to get him acknowledged as an equal by the proud Guzmans, and much less by the nobles, who were already bitterly opposed to the minister. But Olivares was powerful and determined. At his instance, the handsome, gallant young son of the King, and of the actress the Calderona, who was now twelve years old, was brought to Madrid, and by decree was given the same semi-royal honours as had been bestowed on the other Don Juan of Austria, the son of the great Emperor. Queen Isabel had but two living children, young Baltasar Carlos, the heir, and a younger girl, Maria Teresa. Baltasar Carlos, who was the same age as his half-brother, was a promising, sturdy little Prince, immensely popular with the people of Madrid as he pranced about on his pony, or raised in his name fresh regiments for the war. But naturally the Queen his mother was jealous that another son of the King, even better looking than Baltasar Carlos, should be brought into such close competition with her own legitimate offspring.[[32]]