His education had been but meagre. In an age when most kings and noblemen possessed many languages, he spoke not a word of any tongue but Spanish, although he had a slender knowledge of French and Italian, which he afterwards learned to read with comparative facility. He had studied a little history and geography, and he had a taste for sculpture, painting, and architecture. Certainly if he had not possessed a feeling for art, he would have been a monster. To have been born in the earlier part of the sixteenth century, to have been a king, to have had Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands as a birthright, and not to have been inspired with a spark of that fire which glowed so intensely in those favoured lands and in that golden age, had indeed been difficult.
The king’s personal habits were regular. He was most strict in religious observances, as regular at mass, sermons, and vespers as a monk; much more it was thought by many good Catholics, than was becoming to his rank and age. Besides several friars who preached regularly for his instruction, he had daily discussions with others on abstruse theological points. He consulted his confessor most minutely as to all the actions of life, inquiring anxiously whether this proceeding or that were likely to burden his conscience. He was grossly licentious. It was his chief amusement to issue forth at night disguised, that he might indulge himself in the common haunts of vice. This was his solace at Brussels in the midst of the gravest affairs of state.[83] He was not illiberal; but, on the contrary, it was thought that he would have been even generous had he not been straitened for money at the outset of his career. During a cold winter, he distributed alms to the poor of Brussels with an open hand. He was fond of jests in private, and would laugh immoderately, when with a few intimate associates, at buffooneries which he checked in public by the icy gravity of his deportment.
The court was organised during his residence at Brussels on the Burgundian, not the Spanish model, but of the 150 persons who composed it, nine-tenths of the whole were Spaniards; the other fifteen or sixteen being of various nations, Flemings, Burgundians, Italians, English, and Germans. Thus it is obvious how soon he disregarded his father’s precept and practice in this respect, and began to lay the foundation of that renewed hatred to Spaniards which was soon to become so intense, exuberant, and fatal throughout every class of Netherlanders. He esteemed no nation but the Spanish; with Spaniards he consorted, with Spaniards he counselled, through Spaniards he governed.
His council consisted of five or six Spanish grandees, the famous Ruy Gomez, then count of Melito, afterwards prince of Eboli; the duke of Alva, the count de Feria, the duke of Franca Villa, Don Antonio Toledo, and Don Juan Manrique de Lara. The “two columns,” said Suriano,[b] “which sustain this great machine are Ruy Gomez and Alva, and from their councils depends the government of half the world.” The two were ever bitterly opposed to each other. Alva represented the war party, Ruy Gomez the pacific policy more congenial to the heart of Philip. The bishop of Arras, who in the opinion of the envoys was worth them all for his capacity and his experience, was then entirely in the background, rarely entering the council except when summoned to give advice in affairs of extraordinary delicacy or gravity. He was, however, to reappear most signally in course of the events already preparing. The duke of Alva, also to play so tremendous a part in the yet unborn history of the Netherlands, was not beloved by Philip. He was eclipsed at this period by the superior influence of the favourite, and his sword, moreover, became necessary in the Italian campaign which was impending. It is remarkable that it was a common opinion even at that day that the duke was naturally hesitating and timid. One would have thought that his previous victories might have earned for him the reputation for courage and skill which he most unquestionably deserved. The future was to develop those other characteristics which were to make his name the terror and wonder of the world.[f]
A Spanish Penitent of the Sixteenth Century
[1555-1557 A.D.]
To acquire a clear understanding of the interminable and complex events of this remarkable reign, it will be necessary to class them under general heads, without much regard to the chronological order. Unlike the reign of the preceding monarch, some brief space must be devoted to foreign transactions; but such only will be noticed as have an inseparable connection with Spain, and are absolutely necessary to explain its condition.
Immediately after the resignation by the emperor of Naples and Sicily in favour of Philip, the duke of Alva was sent to protect that kingdom and the honour of Spain, against the secret enmity of the pope and the open hostility of the French. Paul IV, who was bound with the tiara in 1555, was as favourable to France as he was hostile to her rival. The papal displeasure was signalised by the arrest of the Spanish ambassador, and by the citation of Philip, whom, as king of Naples, Rome considered as its vassal.
[1557-1574 A.D.]