Philip was received by the authorities of the city with the honors due to his rank. He passed some days there receiving the respectful courtesies of the inhabitants, and, on his departure, rejoiced the hearts of the garrison by distributing among them a thousand crowns of gold. He resumed his journey, with his splendid train of Castilian and English nobles, among whom were the earls of Arundel, Pembroke, Huntington, and others of the highest station in the realm. On the road, he was met by a military escort sent by his father; and towards the latter part of September, 1555, Philip, with his gallant retinue, made his entry into the Flemish capital, where the emperor and his court were eagerly awaiting his arrival.[130][{59}]
EMPIRE OF PHILIP
CHAPTER V.
WAR WITH THE POPE.
Empire of Philip.—Paul the Fourth.—Court of France.—League against Spain.—The Duke of Alva.—Preparations for War.—Victorious Campaign.
1555, 1556.
Soon after Philip's arrival in Brussels took place that memorable scene of the abdication of Charles the Fifth, which occupies the introductory pages of our narrative. By this event, Philip saw himself master of the most widely extended and powerful monarchy in Europe. He was king of Spain, comprehending under that name Castile, Aragon, and Granada, which, after surviving as independent states for centuries, had been first brought under one sceptre in the reign of his father, Charles the Fifth. He was king of Naples and Sicily, and duke of Milan, which important possessions enabled him to control, to a great extent, the nicely balanced scales of Italian politics. He was lord of Franche Comté, and of the Low Countries, comprehending the most flourishing and populous provinces in Christendom, whose people had made the greatest progress in commerce, husbandry, and the various mechanic arts. As titular king of England, he eventually obtained an influence, which, as we shall see, enabled him to direct the counsels of that country to his own purposes. In Africa he possessed the Cape de Verd Islands and the Canaries, as well as Tunis, Oran, and some other important places on the Barbary coast. He owned the Philippines and the Spice Islands in Asia. In America, besides his possessions in the West Indies, he was master of the rich empires of Mexico and Peru, and claimed a right to a boundless extent of country, that offered an inexhaustible field to the cupidity and enterprise of the Spanish adventurer. Thus the dominions of Philip stretched over every quarter of the globe. The flag of Castile was seen in the remotest latitudes,—on the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the far-off Indian seas,—passing from port to port, and uniting by commercial intercourse the widely scattered members of her vast colonial empire.
The Spanish army consisted of the most formidable infantry in Europe; veterans who had been formed under the eye of Charles the Fifth and of his generals, who had fought on the fields of Pavia and of Muhlberg, or who, in the New World, had climbed the Andes with Almagro and Pizarro, and helped these bold chiefs to overthrow the dynasty of the Incas. The navy of Spain and Flanders combined far exceeded that of any other power in the number and size of its vessels; and if its supremacy might be contested by England on the "narrow seas," it rode the undisputed mistress of the ocean. To supply the means for maintaining this costly establishment, as well as the general machinery of government, Philip had at his command the treasures of the New World; and if the incessant enterprises of his father had drained the exchequer, it was soon replenished by the silver streams that flowed in from the inexhaustible mines of Zacatecas and Potosí.
All this vast empire, with its magnificent resources, was placed at the disposal of a single man. Philip ruled over it with an authority more absolute than that possessed by any European prince since the days of the Cæsars. The Netherlands, indeed, maintained a show of independence under the shadow of their ancient institutions. But they consented to supply the necessities of the crown by a tax larger than the revenues of America. Naples and Milan were ruled by Spanish viceroys. Viceroys, with delegated[{60}] powers scarcely less than those of their sovereign, presided over the American colonies, which received their laws from the parent country. In Spain itself, the authority of the nobles was gone. First assailed under Ferdinand and Isabella, it was completely broken down under Charles the Fifth. The liberties of the commons were crushed at the fatal battle of Villalar, in the beginning of that monarch's reign. Without nobles, without commons, the ancient cortes had faded into a mere legislative pageant, with hardly any other right than that of presenting petitions, and of occasionally raising an ineffectual note of remonstrance against abuses. It had lost the power to redress them. Thus all authority vested in the sovereign. His will was the law of the land. From his palace at Madrid he sent forth the edicts which became the law of Spain and of her remotest colonies. It may well be believed that foreign nations watched with interest the first movements of a prince who seemed to hold in his hands the destinies of Europe; and that they regarded with no little apprehension the growth of that colossal power which had already risen to a height that cast a shadow over every other monarchy.