A more frequent practice with Philip was one that better suited his hesitating nature and habit of procrastination. He replied in ambiguous terms, that "he would take the matter into consideration," or "that he would lay it before his council, and take such measures as would be best for his service." Thus the Cortes adjourned in ignorance of the fate of their petitions. Even when he announced his assent, as it was left to him to prescribe the terms of the law, it might be more or less conformable to those of the petition. The Cortes having been dismissed, there was no redress to be obtained if the law did not express their views, nor could any remonstrance be presented by that body until their next session, usually three years later. The practice established by Charles the Fifth, of postponing the presenting of petitions till the supplies had been voted, and the immediate adjournment of the legislature afterwards, secured an absolute authority to the princes of the house of Austria, that made a fearful change in the ancient constitution of Castile.
Yet the meetings of the Cortes, shorn as that body was of its ancient privileges, were not without important benefits to the nation. None could be better acquainted than the deputies with the actual wants and wishes of their constituents. It was a manifest advantage for the king to receive this information. It enabled him to take the course best suited to the interests of the people, to which he would naturally be inclined when he did not regard them as conflicting with his own. Even when he did, the strenuous support of their own views by the commons might compel him to modify his measures. However absolute the monarch, he would naturally shrink from pursuing a policy so odious to the people that, if persevered in, it might convert remonstrance into downright resistance.
The freedom of discussion among the deputies is attested by the independent tone with which in their petitions they denounce the manifold abuses in the state. It is honourable to Philip, that he should not have attempted to stifle this freedom of debate; though perhaps this may be more correctly referred to his policy, which made him willing to leave this safety-valve open for the passions of the people. He may have been content to flatter them with the image of power, conscious that he alone retained the substance of it. However this may have been, the good effect of the exercise of these rights, imperfect as they were, by the third estate, must be highly estimated. The fact of being called together to consult on public affairs gave the people a consideration in their own eyes which raised them far above the abject condition of the subjects of an Eastern despotism. It cherished in them that love of independence which was their birthright, inherited from their ancestors, and thus maintained in their bosoms those lofty sentiments which were the characteristics of the humbler classes of the Spaniards beyond those of any other nation in Christendom.
One feature was wanting to complete the picture of absolute monarchy. This was a standing army,—a thing hitherto unknown in Spain. There was, indeed, an immense force kept on foot in the time of Charles the Fifth, and many of the troops were Spaniards. But they were stationed abroad, and were intended solely for foreign enterprises. It is to Philip's time that we are to refer the first germs of a permanent military establishment, designed to maintain order and obedience at home.
The levies raised for this purpose amounted to twenty companies of men-at-arms, which, with the complement of four or five followers to each lance, made a force of some strength. It was further swelled by five thousand ginetes, or light cavalry.[436] These corps were a heavy charge on the crown. They were called "the Guards of Castile." The men-at-arms, in particular, were an object of great care, and were under admirable discipline. Even Philip, who had little relish for military affairs, was in the habit of occasionally reviewing them in person. In addition to these troops there was a body of thirty thousand militia, whom the king could call into the field when necessary. A corps of some sixteen hundred horsemen patrolled the southern coast of Andalusia, to guard the country from invasion by the African Moslems; and garrisons established in fortresses along the frontiers of Spain, both, north and south, completed a permanent force for the defence of the kingdom against domestic insurrection, as well as foreign invasion.
CHAPTER II.
DOMESTIC AFFAIRS OF SPAIN.
The Clergy—Their Subordination to the Crown—The Escorial—Queen Anne.
A review of the polity of Castile would be incomplete without a notice of the ecclesiastical order, which may well be supposed to have stood pre-eminent in such a country, and under such a monarch as Philip the Second. Indeed, not only did that prince present himself before the world as the great champion of the Faith, but he seemed ever solicitous in private life to display his zeal for religion and its ministers. Many anecdotes are told of him in connection with this. On one occasion, seeing a young girl going within the railing of the altar, he rebuked her, saying, "Where the priest enters is no place either for me or you."[437] A cavalier who had given a blow to a canon of Toledo he sentenced to death.[438]
Under his protection and princely patronage, the Church reached its most palmy state. Colleges and convents—in short, religious institutions of every kind—were scattered broadcast over the land. The good fathers loved pleasant and picturesque sites for their dwellings; and the traveller, as he journeyed through the country, was surprised by the number of stately edifices which crowned the hill-tops, or rested on their slopes, surrounded by territories that spread out for many a league over meadows and cultivated fields and pasture-land.
The secular clergy, at least the higher dignitaries, were so well endowed as sometimes to eclipse the grandees in the pomp of their establishments. In the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, the archbishop of Toledo held jurisdiction over fifteen principal towns and a great number of villages. His income amounted to full eighty thousand ducats a year.[439] In Philip's time the income of the archbishop of Seville amounted to the same sum, while that of the see of Toledo had risen to two hundred thousand ducats, nearly twice as much as that of the richest grandee in the kingdom.[440] In power and opulence, the primate of Spain ranked next in Christendom to the pope.