The great source of all this wealth of the ecclesiastical order in Castile, as in most other countries, was the benefactions and bequests of the pious—of those, more especially, whose piety had been deferred till the close of life, when, anxious to make amends for past delinquencies, they bestowed the more freely that it was at the expense of their heirs. As what was thus bequeathed was locked up by entail, the constantly accumulating property of the Church had amounted, in Philip's time, if we may take the assertion of the Cortes, to more than one-half of the landed property in the kingdom.[441] Thus the burden of providing for the expenses of the state fell with increased heaviness on the commons. Alienations in mortmain formed the subject of one of their earliest remonstrances after Philip's accession, but without effect; and though the same petition was urged in very plain language at almost every succeeding session, the king still answered that it was not expedient to make any change in the existing laws. Besides his goodwill to the ecclesiastical order, Philip was occupied with the costly construction of the Escorial; and he had probably no mind to see the streams of public bounty, which had hitherto flowed so freely into the reservoirs of the Church, thus suddenly obstructed, when they were so much needed for his own infant institution.
THE CLERGY.
While Philip was thus willing to exalt the religious order, already far too powerful, he was careful that it should never gain such a height as would enable it to overtop the royal authority. Both in the Church and in the council—for they were freely introduced into the councils—theologians were ever found the most devoted servants of the crown. Indeed, it was on the crown that they were obliged to rest all their hopes of preferment.
Philip perfectly understood that the control of the clergy must be lodged with that power which had the right of nomination to benefices. The Roman see, in its usual spirit of encroachment, had long claimed the exercise of this right in Castile, as it had done in other European states. The great battle with the Church was fought in the time of Isabella the Catholic. Fortunately the sceptre was held by a sovereign whose loyalty to the Faith was beyond suspicion. From this hard struggle she came off victorious; and the government of Castile henceforth retained possession of the important prerogative of appointing to vacant benefices.
Philip, with all his deference to Rome, was not a man to relinquish any of the prerogatives of the crown. A difficulty arose under Pius the Fifth, who contended that he still had the right, possessed by former popes, of nominating to ecclesiastical offices in Milan, Naples, and Sicily, the Italian possessions held by Spain. He complained bitterly of the conduct of the councils in those states, which refused to allow the publication of his bulls without the royal exequatur. Philip, in mild terms, expressed his desire to maintain the most amicable relations with the see of Rome, provided he was not required to compromise the interests of his crown. At the same time he intimated his surprise that his holiness should take exceptions at his exercise of the rights of his predecessors, to many of whom the Church was indebted for the most signal services. The pope was well aware of the importance of maintaining a good understanding with so devoted a son of the Church; and Philip was allowed to remain henceforth in undisturbed possession of this inestimable prerogative.[442]
The powers thus vested in the king he exercised with great discretion. With his usual facilities for information he made himself acquainted with the characters of the clergy in the different parts of his dominions. He was so accurate in his knowledge, that he was frequently able to detect an error or omission in the information he received. To one who had been giving him an account of a certain ecclesiastic, he remarked—"You have told me nothing of his amours." Thus perfectly apprised of the characters of the candidates, he was prepared, whenever a vacancy occurred, to fill the place with a suitable incumbent.[443]
It was his habit, before preferring an individual to a high office, to have proof of his powers by trying them first in some subordinate station. In his selection he laid much stress on rank, for the influence it carried with it. Yet frequently, when well satisfied of the merits of the parties, he promoted those whose humble condition had made them little prepared for such, an elevation.[444] There was no more effectual way to secure his favour than to show a steady resistance to the usurpations of Rome. It was owing, in part at least, to the refusal of Quiroga, the bishop of Cuença, to publish a papal bull without the royal assent, that he was raised to the highest dignity in the kingdom, as archbishop of Toledo. Philip chose to have a suitable acknowledgment from the person on whom he conferred a favour; and once, when an ecclesiastic, whom he had made a bishop, went to take possession of his see without first expressing his gratitude, the king sent for him back, to remind him of his duty.[445] Such an acknowledgment was in the nature of a homage rendered to his master on his preferment.
Thus gratitude for the past and hopes for the future were the strong ties which bound every prelate to his sovereign. In a difference with the Roman see, the Castilian churchman was sure to be found on the side of the sovereign, rather than, on that of the pontiff. In his own troubles, in like manner, it was to the king, and not to the pope, that he was to turn for relief. The king, on the other hand, when pressed by those embarrassments with which he was too often surrounded, looked for aid to the clergy, who for the most part rendered it cheerfully and in liberal measure. Nowhere were the clergy so heavily burdened as in Spain.[446] It was computed that at least one-third of their revenues was given to the king. Thus completely were the different orders, both spiritual and temporal, throughout the monarchy, under the control of the sovereign.
A few pages back, while touching on alienations in mortmain, I had occasion to allude to the Escorial, that "eighth wonder of the world," as it is proudly styled by the Spaniards. There can be no place more proper to give an account of this extraordinary edifice, than the part of the narrative in which I have been desirous to throw as much light as possible on the character and occupations of Philip. The Escorial engrossed the leisure of more than thirty years of his life; it reflects in a peculiar manner his tastes, and the austere character of his mind; and whatever criticism may be passed on it as a work of art, it cannot be denied that, if every other vestige of his reign were to be swept away, that wonderful structure would of itself suffice to show the grandeur of his plans and the extent of his resources.
The common tradition that Philip built the Escorial in pursuance of a vow which he made at the time of the great battle of St. Quentin, the 10th of August, 1557, has been rejected by modern critics, on the ground that contemporary writers, and amongst them the historians of the convent, make no mention of the fact. But a recently-discovered document leaves little doubt that such a vow was actually made.[447] However this may have been, it is certain that the king designed to commemorate the event by this structure, as is intimated by its dedication to St. Lawrence, the martyr on whose day the victory was gained. The name given to the place was El Sitio de San Lorenzo el Real. But the monastery was better known from the hamlet near which it stood,—El Escurial, or El Escorial,—which latter soon became the orthography generally adopted by the Castilians.[448]