The measures by which Ferdinand and Isabella had broken the power of the aristocracy had been enforced with still greater rigour by Charles the Fifth, and were now carried out even more effectually by Philip the Second; for Philip had the advantage of being always in Spain, while Charles passed most of his time in other parts of his dominions. Thus ever present, Philip was as prompt to enforce the law against the highest noble as against the humblest of his subjects.
Men of rank commanded the armies abroad, and were sent as viceroys to Naples, Sicily, Milan, and the provinces of the New World. But at home they were rarely raised to civil or military office. They no longer formed a necessary part of the national legislature, and were seldom summoned to the meetings of the Cortes; for the Castilian noble claimed exemption from the public burdens, and it was rarely that the Cortes were assembled for any other purpose than to impose those burdens. Thus, without political power of any kind, they resided like so many private gentlemen on their estates in the country. Their princely style of living gave no umbrage to the king, who was rather pleased to see them dissipate their vast revenues in a way that was attended with no worse evil than that of driving the proprietors to exactions which made them odious to their vassals.[417] Such, we are assured by a Venetian envoy—who, with great powers of observation, was placed in the best situation for exerting them—was the policy of Philip. "Thus," he concludes, "did the king make himself feared by those who, if they had managed discreetly, might have made themselves feared by him."[418]
While the aristocracy was thus depressed, the strong arm of Charles the Fifth had stripped the Castilian commons of their most precious rights. Philip, happily for himself, was spared the odium of having reduced them to this abject condition. But he was as careful as his father could have been, that they should not rise from it. The legislative power of the commons—that most important of all their privileges—was nearly annihilated. The Castilian Cortes were, it is true, frequently convoked under Philip—more frequently, on the whole, than in any preceding reign; for in them still resided the power of voting supplies for the crown. To have summoned them so often, therefore, was rather a proof of the necessities of the government than of respect for the rights of the commons.
THE CORTES.
The Cortes, it is true, still enjoyed the privilege of laying their grievances before the king; but as they were compelled to vote the supplies before they presented their grievances, they had lost the only lever by which they could effectually operate on the royal will. Yet when we review their petitions, and see the care with which they watched over the interests of the nation, and the courage with which they maintained them, we cannot refuse our admiration. We must acknowledge that, under every circumstance of discouragement and oppression, the old Castilian spirit still lingered in the hearts of the people. In proof of this, it will not be amiss to cite a few of these petitions, which, whether successful or not, may serve at least to show the state of public opinion on the topics to which they relate.
One, of repeated recurrence, is a remonstrance to the king on the enormous expense of his household—"as great," say the Cortes, "as would be required for the conquest of a kingdom."[419] The Burgundian establishment, independently of its costliness, found little favour with the honest Castilian; and the Cortes prayed his majesty to abandon it, and to return to the more simple and natural usage of his ancestors. They represented "the pernicious effects which this manner of living necessarily had on the great nobles and others of his subjects, prone to follow the example of their master."[420] To one of these petitions Philip replied, that "he would cause the matter to be inquired into, and such measures to be taken as were most for his service." "No alteration took place during his reign; and the Burgundian establishment, which in 1562 involved an annual charge of a hundred and fifty-six millions of maravedis, was continued by his successor."[421]
Another remonstrance of constant recurrence—a proof of its inefficacy—was that against the alienation of the crown lands, and the sale of offices and the lesser titles of nobility. To this the king made answer in much the same equivocal language as before. Another petition besought him no longer to seek an increase of his revenue by imposing taxes without the sanction of the Cortes, required by the ancient law and usage of the realm. Philip's reply on this occasion was plain enough. It was, in truth, one worthy of an eastern despot. "The necessities," he said, "which have compelled me to resort to these measures, far from having ceased, have increased, and are still increasing, allowing me no alternative but to pursue the course I have adopted."[422] Philip's embarrassments were indeed great,—far beyond the reach of any financial skill of his ministers to remove. His various expedients for relieving himself from the burden which, as he truly said, was becoming heavier every day, form a curious chapter in the history of finance. But we have not yet reached the period at which they can be most effectively presented to the reader.
The commons strongly urged the king to complete the great work he had early undertaken, of embodying in one code the municipal law of Castile.[423] They gave careful attention to the administration of justice, showed their desire for the reform of various abuses, especially for quickening the despatch of business, proverbially slow in Spain, and, in short, for relieving suitors, as far as possible, from the manifold vexations to which they were daily exposed in the tribunals. With a wise liberality they recommended that, in order to secure the services of competent persons in judicial offices, their salaries—in many cases wholly inadequate—should be greatly increased.[424]
The Cortes watched with a truly parental care over the great interests of the state—its commerce, its husbandry, and its manufactures. They raised a loud, and as it would seem not an ineffectual, note of remonstrance against the tyrannical practice of the crown in seizing for its own use the bullion which, as elsewhere stated, had been imported from the New World on their own account by the merchants of Seville.
Some of the petitions of the Cortes show what would be thought at the present day a strange ignorance of the true principles of legislation in respect to commerce. Thus, regarding gold and silver, independently of their value as a medium of exchange, as constituting in a peculiar manner the wealth of a country, they considered that the true policy was to keep the precious metals at home, and prayed that their exportation might be forbidden. Yet this was a common error in the sixteenth century with other nations besides the Spaniards. It may seem singular, however, that the experience of three-fourths of a century had not satisfied the Castilian of the futility of such attempts to obstruct the natural current of commercial circulation.