Mariana divided her confidence, between her confessor, a German Jesuit, and a gentleman of her household, Valenzuela by name. He was remarkably handsome; and the Queen Mother made a marriage between him, and one of her German ladies, which established him in her Palace, where he became her chief confidant, and was admitted to her apartments at all hours, his wife being generally present, to avoid scandal. Mariana’s faction was strongly opposed by Don John of Austria, the late King’s natural son, (by the beautiful actress, Maria Calderona.) He was handsome, intellectual, and accomplished, and in military genius alone, was he inferior to his namesake, the hero of Lepanto. His father loved him dearly, but the Queen had contrived to estrange them, some little time before Philip’s death. The ups and downs of the struggle between Don John, and Mariana were never ending: now her star appeared in the ascendant, then the evil repute of her confessor, his inefficiency in business, and the overbearing insolence of Valenzuela, brought down the influence of the Regent to a low ebb. Now at open variance with her husband’s son, now consenting with a bad grace to his participation in the Government, and then procuring for him an office at some distance from Madrid, so as to be rid of his immediate presence.
Don John ruled well, and held a little Court at Saragossa, but he and the Regent were always at variance, and so disgusted were the people with her government, and that of her favourites, that many clamoured for Don John, while some went so far as to say he was the rightful heir, and that Mariana’s and Maria Calderona’s infants, had been changed.
Whether from motives of patriotism or ambition, Don John worked steadily to undermine the Regent’s power, and the vanity and ostentation of Valenzuela contributed unconsciously to the same end. He was generally supposed to be a spy, and was called the Queen’s “Duendo.”[1] At tournaments he wore the Queen Mother’s colours of black and silver, with many ostentatious mottos, which seemed to insinuate the high favour, in which he stood with that Royal Lady. One day, when the Court were hunting near the Escurial, the King shot at a stag, and wounded Valenzuela in the thigh, whereat Queen Mariana shrieked, and fell senseless. On this “hint” many spake, especially Don John, and his party, who told the King plainly, that he and Spain were not only governed by the Regent, but by her paramour. The King went to Buen Retiro, and denied himself to his mother, who was desired to leave Madrid; Valenzuela was arrested, his wife and children shut up in a convent, and the “handsome, vain, well-dressed courtier, with his fine curling locks, who had considered many of the nobles of Spain beneath his notice,” was sent off to the Philippine Islands. Don John came into power, and Mariana had a small Court, which was little better than a prison, at Aranjuez, where Madame d’Aulnoy visited her. She was dressed in the manner of this portrait, served on the bended knee, and waited on by a hideous little dwarf, clothed in gold and silver brocade. Don John’s government was no sinecure; cabals were rife, and he died so suddenly that it was currently reported that he had been poisoned, at Mariana’s instigation. Be that as it may, no sooner was the death of Don John announced, than the King went off to his mother, in person, and insisted on her return to Madrid.
Charles II. had just married his second wife, an alliance which Mariana had supported from the beginning. But she did not long survive; shortly after the Peace of Ryswick, died Mariana of Austria, Queen Mother of Spain; her death was supposed to have been hastened by her reluctance to consult the physicians, although her health had been failing for some time past.
This interesting portrait, together with that of her son, King Charles II., was presented by the Queen Mother, then Regent, to Edward, first Earl of Sandwich, when Ambassador, to the Court of Madrid, in 1666.
[1] Wizard or Familiar.
Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland:
By SIR PETER LELY.
Full-length.