Philip was, or in emulation of his father and of his great-grandmother Isabella desired to be, esteemed a patron of literature, and of learning in general: in token of which he sent his eldest son Don Carlos, his brother Don John, and his nephew, the prince of Parma, to be educated at the University of Alcalá; and during his reign flourished most of the great Spanish authors. But the privilege of proscribing whatever books they should judge dangerous to Catholicism, which he committed to the Inquisition, more than counterbalanced his patronising exertions.[n]
“When he succeeded to his father,” says Hume,[k] “Spain was already well-nigh ruined by the drain of the emperor’s wars, imposed upon him by the inheritance of Flanders and the empire. It would be unfair to blame the monarch for the folly of his financial measures, as the science of political economy was yet unknown; but their persistent perversity seems almost systematic. When no further supplies could be wrung from the cortes, funds were raised by the seizure of the money which came to merchants from the Indies in payment for goods, by forced loans from nobles, prelates, or wealthy burgesses, by the sale of seigniorial rights over villages and towns, and of the royal patrimony, by repudiating debts, reducing interest, and hampering commerce and industry.
“The maladministration arising from the evil system of pledging and farming future resources was never reformed, the squalid lavishness of the court expenditure was never reduced, a conciliatory policy in order to avoid the cost of war was never adopted: the only steps which appear to have occurred to the financial advisers of Philip were those which undermined public confidence and security, which blighted the national industries, and which killed future resources for the sake of present advantage. The continued aggregation of land in the hands of the church and tied up in perpetual entail, and the expulsion of the Moriscos from Andalusia had well-nigh ruined agriculture. To prevent whole provinces from starving in the finest grain country in the world, immense quantities of wheat had to be introduced from abroad, and the alcabala suspended on bread-stuffs imported into Seville. Constant wars and emigration, the association of the Moriscos with industry, and the immense number of church holidays, moreover, made the ordinary Spaniard contemptuous of work, and scanty in his aggregate production. And so the vicious circle went on, and the curse of far-reaching dominions in the possession of an imperfectly unified and organised country had in seventy years reduced Spain to the last depth of misery and penury. To some extent this may, of course, be attributed to Philip’s qualities and limitations; but it was mainly owing to a system and to circumstances which were originated before his birth and which neither his training nor his character enabled him to vary.”
DUNHAM’S ESTIMATE OF PHILIP II
His character must be sufficiently clear from his actions: that it was gloomy, stern, and cruel; that he allowed neither civil freedom, nor religious toleration, but was on all occasions the consistent enemy of both; that he was suspicious, dark, and vindictive, are truths too evident to be denied. On his return to Spain, immediately after his father’s resignation, a characteristic scene occurred in Valladolid, at an auto-da-fé, which he attended with much devotion. When the condemned arrived at the place where the fire and fagot awaited them, one of them, an officer of distinction, asked the king how he could have the heart to behold the exquisite torments of his people. “Were my own son,” replied the bigoted tyrant, “such a wretch as thou, he should suffer the same fate!”
And when the archbishop of Toledo, Don Bartolomeo de Carranza, was arrested on suspicion of heresy by the office blasphemously called holy, the king wrote to the inquisitors commanding them to show no respect for persons, however exalted, but to proceed even against his own son, should the latter ever dare to doubt the infallibility of the church. All this is bad enough; yet, by the French writers as well as by our own historians, he has been treated with injustice. His ambition was certainly subservient to his zeal for religion; his talents were considerable; for prudence he was almost unrivalled; his attention to public affairs and to the best interests of his country has been surpassed by few monarchs; his habits were regular, his temperance proverbial; his fortitude of mind, a virtue which he had often occasion to exercise, was admirable; and, in general, he was swayed by the strictest sense of justice. Even his religious bigotry, odious as it was, was founded on conscientious principles, and his arbitrary acts on high notions of the regal authority. By many of his subjects he was esteemed, by many feared, by some hated, by none loved.[i]
WATSON ON PHILIP’S IMPRUDENCES
Some historians have distinguished this prince by the title of Philip the Prudent, and have represented him as the wisest as well as the most religious prince that ever filled the Spanish throne. But it is questionable whether he be entitled to praise on account of his prudence, any more than on account of his religion. In the beginning of his reign he discovered great caution in his military enterprises; and, on some occasions, made even greater preparations than were necessary to insure success. But his ambition, his resentment, and his abhorrence of the Protestants were too violent to suffer him to act conformably to the dictates of sound policy and prudence.
He might have prevented the revolt of his Dutch and Flemish subjects if, after the reformation in the Netherlands was suppressed by the duchess of Parma, he had left the reins of government in the hands of that wise princess, and had not sent so odious a tyrant as the duke of Alva to enslave them. He might, after the defeat of the prince of Orange, have riveted the chains of slavery about their necks, and gradually accustomed them to the yoke, if, by engaging in too many expensive enterprises, he had not exhausted his exchequer, and made it in some measure necessary for Alva to impose the taxes of the tenth and twentieth pennies, for the maintenance of his troops. He might, through the great abilities of the duke of Parma, have again reduced the revolted provinces to obedience, if he had not conceived the wild ambition of subduing England and acquiring the sovereignty of France. His armies, in the latter part of his reign, were never sufficiently numerous to execute the various enterprises which he undertook; yet they were much more numerous than he was able to support. Few years passed in which they did not mutiny for want of pay. And Philip suffered greater prejudice from the disorders and devastation which his own troops committed, than he received from the arms of his enemies. Against his attempts on England and France, the wisest counsellors remonstrated in the strongest terms. And prudence certainly required that, previously to any attack upon the dominions of others, he should have secured possession of his own. Yet so great was his illusion that, rather than delay the execution of those schemes which his resentment and ambition had suggested, he chose to run the risk of losing the fruits of all the victories which the duke of Parma had obtained; and, having left defenceless the provinces which had submitted to his authority, he thereby afforded an opportunity to the revolted provinces of establishing their power on so firm a foundation that it could not be shaken by the whole strength of the Spanish monarchy exerted against it for more than fifty years.[h]