Chapter VIII (1)

FESTIVITIES IN MADRID--EXTRAVAGANCE AND PENURY--NEW WAYS OF RAISING MONEY--HOPTON AND WINDEBANK--BATTLE OF THE DOWNS--VIOLENCE IN THE STREETS OF MADRID--REVOLT OF PORTUGAL--FRENCH INVASION OF SPAIN--REVOLT OF CATALONIA--PHILIP'S AMOUR WITH THE NUN OF ST. PLACIDO--THE WANE OF OLIVARES--PHILIP'S VOYAGE TO ARAGON--INTRIGUES AGAINST OLIVARES--FALL OF OLIVARES

[Sidenote: Princess Carignano]

Nothing even in Spain could exceed the magnificence with which Philip greeted the Bourbon Princess of Carignano. She was really a person of little importance, but her significance in Spain for the moment was that she was a sister of the Count of Soissons, who in France was in arms against Richelieu; and a foe of the Cardinal was a friend of Spain. The proud dame was equal to the occasion, and, after endless discussions as to the exact behaviour of both at a proposed interview with the English ambassador, Sir Walter Aston decided that he could not, with due regard for his dignity, meet the Princess at all. The points of difference seem trivial enough: when Aston was to take off his hat, how many steps upon the dais the lady was to advance to meet him, and so on; but the Princess was indignant that the Englishman {317} should thus haggle over the courtesy due to her, and all Madrid took malicious part in the squabble.[1] The usual round of festivities for the Princess, with the addition of a great pig-sticking day with twenty wild boars at the Pardo, were followed in a fortnight by another series more sumptuous still, to celebrate, the election of Philip's brother-in-law to the kingship of the Romans and to the succession of the imperial throne. Many detailed accounts of these extraordinary feasts, the greatest ever given in the Buen Retiro, exist;[2] but so many similar celebrations have been described in this book from Spanish sources, that it will suffice in this case to quote only Sir Walter Aston's short description of what he saw. "On the 7th February 1637 the King came from the Pardo to the Buen Retiro, and he has been busy ever since arranging the festivities for the election of the King of the Romans. The feasts began on the 15th, the King being present. A large place had been specially cleared and levelled before the Buen Retiro, and built about with uniform scaffolds two storeys high, the posts and divisions {318} all beautified with paintings and gilding. The King and the Conde (Olivares) dressed themselves in the house of Carlo Strada, the _asentista_ (loan-monger), by whom they were richly presented, not only with jewels but with the whole furniture of the apartments,[3] which he had provided for each. [Sidenote: A sumptuous show] His house is in the Carrera de San Geronimo, where the King and Conde took horse, and, attended by 200 of the nobility and persons of quality, and two triumphal chariots drawn by 20 oxen apiece, entered the Plaza, where they performed a curious masquerade after their manner full of changes, the one half of the horsemen being led by the King and the other half by the Count-Duke; the King and Conde and all the rest being richly clad after the same kind. The Plaza was round about set full of torches in several heights, and postures which had so much delight and magnificence in the appearance, that those who have looked curiously into the entertainments of former times say that amongst the Romans they have not read of any greater ostentation.[4] The charge hath {319} certainly been very great, but hath cost the King nothing; for it hath long used this town to defray all extraordinaries either for his honour or his pleasure. Since then there has been a bull-feast and some fresh entertainment every day. On Sunday last there was a masked carnival fit for the Shrove-tide season; so full of variety of different figures, antique shapes, and several dances, that I have not seen in a ridiculous way any of more pleasure. Late advices have given them little contentment; but however their business may go abroad, they are resolved to make themselves merry at home."[5]

However "merry" the Court might be, the need for money was more pressing than ever. In the same letter that describes these entertainments, we are told that the Marquis of Castel Rodrigo had been sent to Seville to demand 800,000 ducats for present needs in Madrid. "Though he is to demand it as a denature, this King's requests are {320} understood to be commands, and admit of no reply.[6] The denature has already begun in this Court, and is to go through the whole kingdom, everybody being told by way of request what he has to pay." The Pope, too, who had been for months striving to bring about peace or a truce, was persuaded to consent that the Spanish clergy should be mulcted in 500,000 ducats; and when the Indies fleet arrived, Olivares ordered a similar amount of private treasure in it to be seized in exchange for assignments, which, says Aston, is commonly a very slow and lame payment. But the greatest novelty in the way to raise funds was invented at this juncture by a Jesuit priest in Madrid named Salazar, and was at once seized upon by Olivares to become until our own days a principal source of revenue in all civilised States; namely, the device of using government-stamped paper for all official and formal documents. This new impost was published in Madrid early in 1637, there being four denominations of stamped paper; respectively of 1, 2, 3, and 4 reals per sheet, to forge which was an offence punishable by death. The lawyers and people were up in arms against it, though financiers said it would bring in two million ducats a year, and the Nuncio and priests flatly refused to conform to {321} it for the ecclesiastical courts, etc., without the special order of the Pope.[7]

[Sidenote: Prices in Madrid]

The prices of commodities in Madrid had risen enormously in the previous few years, thanks to the tampering with the coinage and the oppressive operation of the alcabala tax on all sales; and the figures given by Hopton at the time to Coke are very significant of the increased cost of living. Aston, sore and humiliated at the final failure of the treaty, begged to be recalled; and Hopton, who had not long returned to England disappointed, and, as he said, shelved, was again nominated for the embassy at Madrid. But Coke informed him that his allowance for diet would be in future reduced from £6 to £4 per day, "as it was in the time of Queen Elizabeth." Sir Arthur Hopton (he had only just been knighted) wrote feelingly on this matter, pointing out how unjust the reduction was.

"All the diet of table and stables is three times as dear as in Sir Charles Cornwallis's time, when the £2 a day was first added. A loaf of bread {322} was then worth 12 maravedis, and is now worth 34.[8] An azumbre[9] of wine was then worth 12 maravedis, and now sells for 30; a pound of mutton, which was then worth 17 maravedis, is now worth 40; a fanega[10] of barley then cost 6 reals,[11] and 16 now. I myself have paid as much as 26. If this new rule be enforced, the English ambassador cannot maintain his position, for some of the small Italian ambassadors have as much as £6."

But Hopton need not have exerted himself to obtain the full pay; for before he could make ready to return to his post a change came over the scene. Aston had long been puzzled as to what was being arranged in London. Rumours had reached him that some agreement was on foot between England and France, but Hopton from London had emphatically assured him, on the 23rd May 1637, that nothing of the sort was intended. By the next courier Aston received an enigmatical letter written by Charles's own hand, which only made the mystery deeper, and drew from the ambassador an impatient exclamation that he could not give any useful warning to the English merchants on such a riddle as that. Why was he not told, he asked, if war was really intended, and he then could make some use of his knowledge. The King's letter is a characteristic one, and as it has not to my knowledge ever been printed, I give it in full.

{323}

"Watt. The darkeness of ther inventions could not suffer my resolutions to be cleare: so that it was impossible to send you a right light to walke by. What that is (though uncertaine yet) Secretary Windebanke will send you worde. They may be assured of my friendship, but then ther actions not their words must doe it. So referring you to my Secretaries despatch, I rest your friend Charles R. Theobalds, the 15th June 1637."[12]

[Sidenote: English neutrality]

Aston had not to wait many days for partial enlightenment. Hopton wrote reminding him of Olivares's dictum that there was no gratitude amongst princes; but said the Count-Duke might have been more grateful on this occasion with advantage to himself. Now it was too late; for a great change had been effected in English policy, and a treaty had been arranged with France. A few days later, Windebank wrote a long official despatch, setting forth all the causes for complaint against the house of Austria, and announcing an alliance with Louis XIII.[13] But still Aston did not know whether {324} it meant war with Spain, or simply a neutrality with benevolent tendency towards the French and Dutch. He learnt before long that all that Richelieu had needed was to divert Charles from an agreement with Spain, for the Stuart ship was already steering straight for the breakers, and thenceforward no active attack from England had to be feared by either of the parties to the great struggle on the Continent.

Relations between England and Spain almost came to open hostility when, in October 1639, the powerful fleet of seventy vessels which Philip had by a supreme effort fitted out was almost destroyed by the Dutch in the Downs, and in English waters, where they had taken refuge from Tromp's pursuing fleet. When the Spanish agent in England sought from Charles the protection due to a belligerent in neutral waters, the King at once attempted to bargain for conditions about the Palatinate. But Tromp was in no mood for scrupulousness, and, taking the matter in his own hands, whilst Charles was huckstering, boldly attacked and routed the Spaniards as they lay on the coast of Kent. Olivares was furious, and demanded redress from the King of England, who, he said, had aided the Dutch in their attack. Admiral Pennington, to keep up appearances, was imprisoned for not defending the neutrality of English waters; but that was all. The Battle of the Downs was a deathblow to Spain's spirited attempt under Olivares to become again a great naval power, and the loss of prestige and material then suffered was never fully recovered.

By the neutrality of England settled in 1637, {325} and the cessation of the war in the Valtelline and in Italy, the area of the duel to the death between France and Spain, between Richelieu and Olivares, was gradually narrowing; but this concentration of the struggle brought nearer the danger to Spanish territory itself. Great as had been the pressure brought to bear upon all classes to obtain funds for the war, the threat of invasion made the cry for money more peremptory than ever. Not only every noble, but now every knight of an order, was summoned to provide a horse and arms for himself and servant, and to hold himself in readiness to join a company; and coach and cart horses were seized for government use everywhere.[14] A new "donativo" was decreed for Madrid, and rich men were unmercifully drained.[15] Even the beggars who lived in squalid plenty were passed in review, in order to find how many impostors there were who in purse or person could serve the King. It was found by this inquiry that of 3300 people who lived by public mendicancy in the capital, only 1300 were really poor and deserving.[16] On the other hand, as we have seen, at this very time, with the danger hourly growing, ostentatious expenditure on pleasure exhausted in a day sums large enough, in relation to the national revenue, to have provided to a great extent for the more pressing needs.

[Sidenote: Poverty and extravagance]

Peculation and personal lavishness were as remarkable as the public waste. A Portuguese Count of Linhares, who was Philip's Admiral of the Galleys of Sicily, arrived in Madrid in February {326} 1637, and in his first audience he gave to the King a string of diamonds, which was said to be the handsomest ever seen in Europe, its value being estimated at considerably over 60,000 ducats. The Count then went to salute the Queen, to whom he offered a casket with a pair of marvellous earrings. The Queen, we are told, fell in love with them at once, and without waiting for ladies or tire-women, snatched her own ornaments from her ears and put in the new pair. Whilst she was admiring the effect of them in a mirror the King came in, delighted, to show her his string of diamonds, which he wore in his hat; and they exchanged many jokes at each other's vanity. What the Count-Duke received as his present from Linhares is not stated; but that he was so pleased with Linhares' generosity that he said, "This is the sort of ministers and viceroys for his Majesty"; and he thereupon appointed Linhares, much to the latter's chagrin, Viceroy of Brazil, which post he would only accept on all manner of new and favourable conditions.[17]

{327}

[Sidenote: Noble criminals]

It was in all respects high time that the noble courtiers who surrounded Philip should be made to occupy themselves in real warfare against the enemy of their country, for their quarrels and turbulence had already reached a point that made them a public reproach. It had been for more than a century a fixed policy of Spanish kings to keep the territorial nobles as much as possible excluded from executive activity in the Peninsula, and to attach them to the personal service of the monarch at Court. The peerage had been enormously increased under Philip III. and IV., and the numerous class of newly enriched and ennobled courtiers and officers that thronged Philip's Court, utterly idle and corrupt as they were, with no great feudal or military traditions, had become insolent and pretentious beyond measure.

The broils of the nobles during the month of festivities in the early part of 1637 were so scandalous, that it was seriously considered by Philip and Olivares how they could punish the highly placed law-breakers, and positively forbid duels altogether. First, the quidnuncs on Liars' Walk were regaled at the end of January by the sight of four gentlemen of birth being led past the Calle Mayor to be hanged instead of beheaded. These criminals had plied their impudent trade of cloak-snatchers in every street in Madrid, and had, amongst many other outrages, killed a priest who had objected to part with his raiment. The Duke of Hijar, a great friend of Olivares and a notable boaster, had been relieved not only of his cape, but of his sword and buckler as well; and a considerable band of these ruffians, led by a {328} young noble of nineteen, one of those hanged, had so terrorised the streets of the capital as to make them unsafe in broad daylight. The next day, ten men and women, mostly people of good position, were whipped through the Calle Mayor as thieves and receivers; and some highly born gentlemen were condemned to death as housebreakers. "This place," wrote an eye-witness, "simply swarms with folks of this sort, and the efforts of the ministers of justice are powerless to stop them."[18]

One morning soon afterwards, Madrid woke up to find the walls placarded with a public challenge from Don Juan de Herrera to the Marquis del Aguila to meet him and fight to the death in Switzerland. These were the two nobles who had fought in the presence of the King (page 300), and had fled from justice to foreign parts; and the subject of discussion amongst the idlers and satirists in Madrid was whether or not the Marquis was bound to accept the challenge. But in three days this subject had to give way to another excitement. Don Juan Pacheco, eldest son of the Marquis of Cerralbo, had asked the manager of one of the theatrical companies of the capital, Tomas Fernandez, to represent a new comedy, in honour of the recovery of his sweetheart, the daughter of the Marquis of Cadreita, from fever. Fernandez had made other arrangements for his company and declined to do so; and Pacheco at once hired a bravo to stab the comedian as he was walking and chatting with other actors in the open space near the Church of St Sebastian, called the "Liars' Walk of the Comedians." When the {329} assassin delivered the blow, this noble employer who was standing close by, shouted: "That is the way to serve varlets."

Hardly had the exclamations on this event ceased, than another affray between gentlemen in broad daylight interested the gossipers. On the 10th February there was dress rehearsal of the mounted masquerade in the new arena at the Buen Retiro, which has been described on page 318. The populace broke into the ring, and the royal guard had much trouble to clear the space for the riders. During the process of clearing, young Spinola, indignant that he, a Genoese noble, should be hustled, called out offensively to Don Francisco Zapata, the lieutenant (whom we have seen in trouble before): "Hi, Don Francisco! don't you know who I am?" to which Zapata replied: "I don't care who you are"; and in spite of his threats of vengeance Spinola was "moved on." As Zapata left the gates of the palace afterwards, he met Spinola waiting for him in the Prado. "I have a word to say to you," cried the Genoese. "I have no sword," replied Zapata. "Then I will wait whilst you go and fetch one," said Spinola; and with that Zapata leapt in a rage from his mule, and, snatching a sword from a bystander, he fell upon his opponent, though the pair were separated before blood was shed.

Another foolish fray over punctilious trifles took place on the following day between the Count of Salazar and one of the gentlemen in attendance on the Princess of Carignano, a Milanese Spanish subject who bore an Italian title of Count de Pozo. The Spanish nobles always sneered at Italian titles; {330} and Salazar shied at calling Pozo "Lordship." The latter had retaliated by calling Salazar himself "Worship" instead of "Lordship," and when he met him in the Calle Mayor had neglected to bow to him. Worse still, when they met again in the passage of the Buen Retiro palace leading to the Count-Duke's apartment, Salazar doffed his hat, and Pozo neglected to return the salute. In a moment Salazar turned back, and, snatching off Pozo's wide-brimmed felt hat, gave the owner a tremendous buffet on the face with it. In a moment swords flew from scabbards, and the two angry nobles grappled; but they, too, were separated, Salazar taking refuge in the German embassy, whilst Pozo fled into hiding. The "discourses" in this case decided that Salazar was in the wrong; but he had many friends, and held a perfect levee in the German embassy, closely isolated from suspicious visitors, to prevent a hostile message reaching him that would need his going out to fight. But by a trick one of the pages of the Princess of Carignano obtained admission, and handed him a challenge from Pozo. When the antagonists met next morning at the place appointed, on the outskirts of the town, they were both arrested; and even then the two alcaldes who arrested them had a violent quarrel as to which of them should take Salazar.

These, and several other scandals of the sort, all happened within the space of a fortnight; and it is little wonder that the Royal Council, at the instance of Olivares, discussed the matter and reported to the King that something must be done. The step decided upon was very Spanish. All the {331} old fire-eaters and officers of experience were fighting under the Cardinal Infante in Flanders, and to them the whole subject was referred for consideration and report; "after which a very strict pragmatic will be drawn up and published forbidding duels under heavy penalties, and even making them cases for the Inquisition, or at least that the principals and their descendants should be degraded. Either of these two courses would touch Spaniards deeply." Needless to say that, long before the report from Flanders came to Madrid, if it ever came, these good resolves were forgotten, and the affrays of noble ruffians disgraced Madrid uninterruptedly as before.

[Sidenote: Nearing the crisis]

Philip and his minister, indeed, had plenty of other things of greater moment to occupy them than this. From the first we have seen that Olivares recognised the absolute need for fiscal unity and equality of sacrifice from all Spain if the old dream of supremacy was to be enforced and France humiliated. Portugal, Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, naturally jealous of ancient rights which each successive ruler had sworn to respect, were determined to resist any attack by the favourite upon their autonomy. I have on many occasions pointed out that the main explanation of the past, and problem of the future, of Spanish history is the intensely local and regional character of the patriotism of the people. In our times the rapid means of intercommunication between the parts, and the existence of a unified administrative system for two centuries, have in some directions rendered this feeling less conspicuous than it was; though in others, and particularly in Catalonia and the {332} Basque Provinces, it is still strong and clamant. But in the time of Olivares the sentiment was absolutely unimpaired. Philip II., even after the rising against him in Aragon, had done little really to injure the ancient _fueros_, whilst in Portugal he had gone to the very extreme of prudence in recognising the separate national rights of his new subjects. Any attack, or even threat, therefore, on the part of a new and much hated minister like Olivares upon this, the strongest racial and traditional sentiment of the most active and enterprising communities in the Peninsula, was certain to lead to conflict.

The need for money, nevertheless, was pressing, and however statesmanlike the aim of the minister may have been if its execution had been gentle and cautious extending over many years, it became the height of rashness when forced to an immediate issue. Olivares was very far from being foolish or naturally rash, and when his policy was first explained to Philip, soon after his accession, he did not disguise that his object was difficult to attain, and must be a work of time.[19] But when once he had embraced the policy which forced upon Spain {333} costly wars abroad, defeat and ruin for himself was the only alternative to the dangerous plan of making the autonomous realms pay their share of the cost of wars undertaken by the King, and of the rampant waste amongst the decadent crowd in Madrid that had already bled Castile to exhaustion.

[Sidenote: Portuguese autonomy]

For some years the Portuguese had been justly irritated by the giving to Spaniards of administrative offices in Portugal, and by the contemptuous way in which Olivares habitually received representations or remonstrances as to the injuries suffered by Portuguese subjects in consequence of the union with Castile. The principal instruments of the Count-Duke in his attempts to rule Portugal on Castilian lines were two creatures of his--Miguel Vasconcellos and Diego Suarez, both Portuguese of obscure origin, who had practically superseded the Duchess of Mantua, Philip's nominal figurehead, who was personally not unpopular. In 1637, at an attempt to impose a tax on all property in Portugal for Spanish purposes, risings took place in the Algarves and Evora, and protests loud and deep came from other Portuguese cities. Madrid at once announced that the King himself would go with a large force and conquer his realm of Portugal; but though this was untrue, the Duke of Medina Sidonia marched into the Algarves with a Spanish force, whilst another threatened the north of Portugal, and the Portuguese, unready as yet for the conflict, were cowed by the threat. But the injury rankled deeply, and when, in the following year 1638, Olivares summoned to Madrid the Portuguese archbishops, seven nobles and three {334} Jesuit priests, to discuss the closer unity of the two countries--an assembly which coincided with the imposition of a new illegal tax upon the Portuguese as a punishment for the risings--Portuguese nobles and people alike knew that unless they were to be enslaved by Castile they must needs fight for their national existence.

Thenceforward the great conspiracy that was to bring independence to Portugal never ceased until victory crowned the attempt. The Duke of Braganza, the Portuguese pretender with the best right to the throne, was prodigiously rich and over cautious, but his virile Spanish Guzman wife was eager and ambitious; whilst her wealthy brother, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, head of the Guzmans, silently helped forward the scheme which would make his sister a Queen, and afford him, the most powerful vassal of the Castilian crown, a precedent for the creation of an independent principality for himself in Andalucia, free from the weak and corrupt bureaucracy led by his cousin Olivares in Madrid.

In the meanwhile the war with France had taken a new aspect. The much vaunted Spanish invasion of France through Bayonne under the Duke of Nocera had turned out a ridiculous fiasco, and it was soon evident that Richelieu meant to make an effort to revenge the attempt by an invasion of Spain, as well as to retrieve the reverses he had sustained elsewhere in the previous year. Anna of Austria, the Queen Mother of France, did her best privately to persuade her brother and Olivares to terms of peace acceptable to her son; and she sent to Madrid for the purpose, in the summer of 1637, {335} a Minorite friar, who had many interviews with Olivares on the subject. But the war had now entered into a phase which involved the personal rivalry of two all-powerful statesmen, as well as the prestige of two great nations, so that it had to be fought to a finish. The blinded courtiers in Madrid, moreover, openly scoffed at the idea of making peace with France until Spain had asserted its incontestable superiority;[20] and all that the Minorite friar took back with him to France was the little finger of Saint Isidore the Husbandman, the patron of Madrid, which was secretly cut from the body of the saint in his church in the Calle de Toledo at midnight, to be sent as a venerated relic to Philip's sister Anna in Paris.[21]

[Sidenote: Spain invaded]

In the summer of 1638, Richelieu was ready to strike his blow on Spanish soil. Crossing the river Bidasoa at St. Jean de Luz, a French army rapidly captured Irun and the fine harbour of Pasages, and laid siege to Fuenterrabia both by sea and by land. The Prince of Condé (Henri de Bourbon) and the Duke de la Valette were in command on land, and the Bishop of Bordeaux at sea. An attempt was made by the French to storm the hill upon which the fortress stands, but the Admiral of Castile and the Marquis of los Velez, with 6000 men from Navarre and Guipuzcoa, eager to fight for their own provinces, came opportunely upon the scene. A dashing charge threw panic into the French camp, and the besiegers fled headlong to their boats. Spaniards were always ready enough to fight when well led, and they were fighting for their own {336} provincial frontiers; and though La Valette was accused by Richelieu of treachery, and condemned to death in his absence in England, whither he had fled to join Marie de Medici, his men on this occasion were fairly beaten by Spanish soldiers, who were irresistible when they were defending their own provinces.

[Sidenote: The French repelled]

The same thing was seen in Catalonia in the following spring, where, counting upon the notorious disaffection of the Catalans with Olivares' policy, Condé in the spring of 1639 invaded Roussillon, which then belonged to Catalonia, and captured Salcés. Peremptory demands for help came to Madrid, but Olivares was in no hurry to help the Catalans, and preferred that their own impotence to defend their country without the aid of Castile should be first demonstrated. The provincial authorities were stout and determined, and rapidly raised an army of 10,000 men. But the Catalans had no leader yet worthy of the name; and, though they fought bravely, they fought for a time in vain. They were badly and timidly led; and 8000 of them died of the plague before Salcés, in which fortress the French were shut up. Condé, late in the autumn, came back from Provence with a new French army of 20,000 foot and 4000 horse to reinforce the French; and though the case seemed hopeless, the Catalans, ever a dour race, determined to stand and fight them. Full of confidence, the French army stormed the trenches of the besieging Catalans on the 1st November. But the ditches and moats were swollen by autumn rains, and regiment after regiment rushed to the attack, only to be repelled with terrible loss by the {337} stout Catalans, behind their earthworks and gabions. Discouragement at last seized the French, and they fled, leaving the Catalans masters of the field, and Salcés unrelieved. The fortress surrendered to famine at the beginning of the year 1640, and the second attempt of Richelieu to invade Spain failed. Nor were the attempts upon the Catalan coasts by the French fleet under the Bishop of Bordeaux more successful; for, after some depredations and the temporary occupation of Spanish ports, the French fleet was scattered by a storm and returned disabled to France. Once more it was proved that Spaniards were indomitable when they were fighting for a deep-seated sentiment. The deepest of all was local loyalty. Whilst the sentiment of religious selection had been dominant it had given Spaniards a strength not their own; but that burning faith was ashes now,[22] and the only thing worth fighting for, beyond the inborn love of contest, was the independence of the province that gave them birth, and for this, rather than for a Spain that for most of them was but a geographical expression, Spaniards were still ready to sacrifice their lives without stint.

It was a wretched story that King Philip had to tell the Cortes of Castile that were assembled in {338} Madrid in the summer of 1638. His treasury, he said, was more empty than ever; "for he had been obliged by his duty to oppose all the heretics in Europe in defence of the Catholic religion, as well as the enemies of his house in Italy, Germany, Flanders, and Brazil, and a greater war was now on his hands than had afflicted Spain since the time of Charles V. And although peace had been discussed through various channels, as yet unsuccessfully, the surest way to attain tranquillity was to arm more powerfully than ever, and strike their enemies with dismay." Seventy two millions and a half of ducats had been raised by loans at 8 per cent. interest, and spent in the previous six years on war, in addition to two millions and a quarter for the army in Spain itself. This was an expenditure unheard of previously in Spain, and it meant that a sum greater than ever was demanded now of Castile in the form of an enormous addition to the food excise, and an increase of the alcabala. The country was depopulated and starving, said the deputies;[23] but withal the duty of his Majesty as a Christian prince was clear, and, no matter at what sacrifice, the means for fighting the battle of the Church and Spain must be found by his faithful vassals.

And so, through 1638 and 1639, as has already been told, the war went on, not on the whole unfavourably for Spanish arms, for the French invasion, at least, was repelled; but more disastrously than ever, for the overtaxed and ruined people upon whom the crushing burden lay of providing {339} funds. Talk of peace went on in Madrid all the while. A secret agent of Richelieu named Pujol was in close though cautious negotiation with Olivares for three years, both ministers professing ardent desires for an agreement. But it was clear that neither was disposed to give way an inch in his claims, and again and again the Spanish agents declared that on no account would they recognise the Dutch otherwise than as recalcitrant rebels against their King. In the circumstances, therefore, peace was impossible; for Holland had not held her own for seventy years to bow the head now, and in the summer of 1640 the internal storm which had long been gathering burst upon Spain, not, we may be sure, to Richelieu's surprise, and all hope for peace fled.

[Sidenote: Rebellion in Spain]

The fatal burden of Philip's inherited task, and the traditions imposed at his baptism, had led him to embark in impossible wars for an idea; the need for money to support a policy of Quixotic adventure had drained Castile; and the unhappy insistence of Olivares in exacting from the autonomous realms a similar sacrifice, had at last sapped their loyalty to the sacred personality of the sovereign. Philip, in the prime of his manhood, after nineteen years of rule, found himself face to face with rebellion of his own people, as well as with a great war abroad; whilst the centre of his realm, whither all wealth flowed and whence all power emanated, was sunk in pagan epicureanism, pride, pretence, and sloth.

In earlier chapters we have seen that on both the occasions that Philip had personally attended the Cortes of the eastern realms, he, and especially {340} Olivares, had quarrelled bitterly with the deputies, and had returned to Madrid in anger, leaving a rankling discontent behind. Olivares since then had lost no opportunity of dealing hardly with Catalans particularly,--their causes in Madrid being treated with ostentatious neglect, and their interests passed over, in order, as Olivares said, to teach them the lesson of obedience; whilst the Catalans, whose qualities certainly do not include submissiveness, repaid this treatment by passively resisting the orders that came to them from the Court. When Roussillon was invaded by the French in the autumn of 1639, Olivares had been slow to send succour from Castile. As we have seen, the drain for the foreign war was tremendous, and both money and men were scarce, even if Olivares had desired to send prompt aid. But such was not the case; and the main efforts by which the French were expelled and Salcés captured were those of the Catalans themselves. The Viceroy was Queralt, Marquis of Santa Coloma, who, although a Catalan, was devoted heart and soul to Olivares, and had been chosen as a more pliant instrument for the minister than his dignified predecessor, the Duke of Cardona.

To Santa Coloma, whilst the Catalans were straining every nerve to defend their principality from the French, Olivares and the King continued to send messages calculated to arouse the deepest resentment of the people.

"Do not," wrote Olivares, "suffer a single man who can work to absent himself from the field, nor a woman who can bear on her back food or forage.... {341} If the enterprise can be effected without violating the privileges of the province, well and good, but if in order to respect these the service of the King is retarded by one single hour, he who dares to uphold them at such a cost will be an enemy to God, his King, his race, and his country.... Make the Catalans understand that the general welfare of the people and of the troops must be preferred to all rights and privileges.... You must take great care that the troops are well lodged and have good beds; and if there are none to be had, you must not hesitate to take them from the highest people in the province; for it is better that they should lie on the ground than that the troops should suffer."

[Sidenote: Revolt in Catalonia]

The reinforcements from Castile and elsewhere that eventually reached Catalonia under Spinola, Marquis of Balbeses, arrived after most of the fighting was over, and the French had retired; but orders were given that these troops should remain quartered in the province. This was a violation of one of the most cherished rights of the Catalans; and Spinola made matters worse by his marked insolence to people of the country, and his public instructions that in every case the troops lodged in a place were to be stronger than the inhabitants, so that they should always be the masters. Protests and indignant remonstrances met with the same contemptuous treatment from Olivares, Santa Coloma, and Spinola; and as the months wore on the mood of the Catalans became ever more dangerous. It was announced in the spring of 1640 that the King would go and hold {342} a Cortes in Barcelona; but to hold Cortes, it was remarked that he did not need the strong armed force he summoned to attend him. The knights of the orders were again placed under contribution, and protested in vain that it was an abuse to press them thus for subordinate military service; the grandees of Castile were each commanded to provide and pay for four months 100 soldiers each; and this, on the top of other swollen demands, aroused higher than ever their hatred of Olivares. The Duke of Arcos said that he had already paid 900,000 ducats; the Dukes of Priego and Bejar, 800,000 each, and others in like proportion, and that they were at the end of their resources.[24] The Portuguese nobles saw in the summons only a pretext for withdrawing them from their own country, and many went into hiding to avoid compliance with it, whilst others with feigned acquiescence procrastinated until they could safely throw aside the mask.

Whilst Philip was still trifling in Madrid with the usual merrymakings at the Retiro to celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi in June 1640, there came flying news from Barcelona that the threatened tempest had burst. The Catalans, driven to desperation by the exactions and insolence of the polyglot rabble of troops quartered upon them, had risen and massacred every Castilian soldier and officer they could hound down. Santa Coloma himself in flight had sunk by the wayside, and had been hacked to death by his maddened countrymen; and from Barcelona through all Catalonia the fiery cross had been borne with cries, it is true, {343} of "Long Live the King"; but still louder shouts of "Vengeance," "Liberty," and "Down with the Government." In a vain attempt to stem the flood the old Duke of Cardona was reappointed Viceroy; and, after his death shortly afterwards, was succeeded by the aged Archbishop of Barcelona. But it was too late, and anarchy soon ruled unchecked. Cardinal Borja, himself a Valencian and an active minister of Philip's thenceforward, openly declared in the Royal Council at Madrid that "the revolt could only be drowned in rivers of blood."

Again the screw had to be turned, and Olivares was almost in despair. But he worked like a giant, cajoling and humouring Braganza and the Portuguese nobles into what he hoped was a better frame of mind, whilst he depleted the Portuguese frontier of the forces with which he had up to that time terrorised the sister kingdom. The details of the Secession War in Catalonia cannot be told here.[25] Suffice to say that again Philip, supported by the enemies of Olivares, clamoured to be allowed to lead his troops against the rebel subjects; but it suited the minister to keep him amused with poetical academies, comedies, amours, and devotions, rather than to bring him in touch with realities, and enable him to learn the whole of the dire truth.

The Marquis of los Velez was sent to Catalonia with such an army as could be got together, and in the summer he swept through the province, almost without resistance, until he came to Tarragona and Barcelona, which places had been occupied, by the invitation of the Catalans, by {344} French troops. Epernon, who commanded them, again showed the white feather, and retired; but the stout Catalans, though deserted by their allies, formally renouncing the rule of the King of Castile and acknowledging Louis XIII. as their prince, manfully stood behind their trenches to defend the capital. The attempt to storm the outworks was made on the 26th January 1641, the Earl of Tyrone leading the Irish regiment, and falling dead at the first onset. The battle was a desperate and sanguinary one, but just as victory seemed assured for the Castilians, a panic seized them; a Catalan attack in their rear completed the demoralisation, and Barcelona, untaken and victorious, proclaimed itself a French city, whilst the routed Spanish army retreated to Tarragona, a mere rabble. Thenceforward French government troops poured into the principality; and Philip, amidst his alternate wanton pleasures and agonised remorse in Madrid, realised that the realms of his fathers were crumbling apart, and that the King of France ruled with the consent of Spaniards over some of the richest provinces of Spain. The knowledge struck like death to the heart of Philip, for up to that hour, kept in the dark by Olivares, he had never understood the tenacity of the autonomous States, or the danger of tampering with a deeply rooted national tradition.

[Sidenote: Secession of Portugal]

But the news of the secession of Catalonia, terrible as it was, came only a few weeks after another blow which had affected Philip even more. The King, in the earlier days of December 1640, was presiding over one of the ostentatious bullfights that he loved, given in honour of the Danish {345} ambassador, when a courier from the Portuguese frontier galloped post haste to the quarters of Olivares in the palace. Soon Liars' Walk and Calle Mayor were full of grave faces and important whispers that dreadful news had come from the sister kingdom. In the palace, even in the Plaza where the bullfight was being held, everybody knew or guessed the story that had come; yet none dared whisper a hint to the King, for the sallow, frowning face of the Count-Duke was rigid, and until he spoke the word none might break the silence. Hours passed; the bull-fight came to its usual end, and, on returning to the palace, the King sat at play with his friends. To him entered the Count-Duke, gay and smiling. "I bring great news for your Majesty," he said. "What is it?" asked the King, with little concern. "In one moment, Sire, you have won a great dukedom and vast wealth," replied the minister. "How so, Conde?" inquired Philip. "Sire, the Duke of Braganza has gone mad, and has proclaimed himself King of Portugal; so it will be necessary for you to confiscate all his possessions." The King's long face fell longer still, and his brow clouded, for all his minister's jauntiness. He was no fool, and he knew this was tidings of evil moment. "Let a remedy be found for it," was all he said, turning anew to his game; and the Count-Duke, as he left the room, looked sad, as if he saw the beginning of his own eclipse.

In three hours the long prepared conspiracy had come to a head. Braganza himself had done little, though he had artfully kept himself out of the trap which Olivares had cleverly baited for him.

On the 1st December 1640 the cry had rung {346} through Lisbon, "Long live King John IV." The hated Vasconcellos had been murdered first, literally torn to pieces by the crowd; the Duchess of Mantua, Philip's Vice-Reine, had been respectfully conducted to safety in a convent, and the Castilians in the city had been interned in the fortress. Resistance there was none, and no adequate Spanish force to make any; and although for the rest of Philip's sad life the pretence was kept up of treating the Portuguese as rebels, and intermittently war was pushed on the frontier to regain Castilian hold over the country, the separation was permanent, and Portugal never lost her independence again.[26]

[Sidenote: Fresh troubles]

The volume of discontent against the minister grew apace, and all Olivares could do was to keep Philip amused, whilst he isolated him more and more from those who could open his eyes to the true state of affairs. Several attempts had been made in the past years by rash individuals to open the King's eyes. Once a young courtier named Lujanes had thrown himself at the feet of Philip in the royal chapel, and had shouted to him to beware of Olivares, who was bent upon his ruin. He was hurried away, and the servile friends of the Count-Duke shrugged their shoulders and said the poor fellow was a lunatic; but the next day he died mysteriously in confinement, and the gossips made no hesitation in saying that he had been poisoned. Other cries to the same effect had from time to time greeted Philip in the streets and public diversions; but now they became more frequent and {347} outspoken. As he was going on a wolf-hunt, cries arose: "Hunt the French, sire! They are our worst wolves." The disaster of a great part of the Buen Retiro being burnt down with its sumptuous contents, during a splendid carnival in February 1641, a few weeks only after the reception of the ill news from Barcelona and Lisbon, gave fresh cause for complaint against Olivares. Twice previously the King had been in danger there by the bursting of reservoirs, and now he ran a worse risk by the place catching fire.[27] The place was accursed, said the grumblers; and when the irreparable loss of precious works of art by the fire had to be made good by "voluntary" offerings of similar things from private collections, and 60,000 ducats for rebuilding were extorted from the deputies of the Cortes, with 20,000 from the municipality of Madrid, 30,000 from the Council of Castile, and 10,000 from the Council of War, whilst the soldiers in the field were unpaid and starving, all those who were not absolutely slaves to the Count-Duke openly cried shame.[28]

Another trouble occurred at this time which embittered Philip's heart and conscience for years to come; and this, again, whether true in all its particulars or not, was added to the heavy account that the people at large had against the Count-Duke. It will be recollected that a horrible scandal had taken place in the convent of San Placido in Madrid in 1632. The matter was hushed up and condoned in 1638, and the nuns went into residence {348} again. Now, the patron of San Placido was the King's confidant, and Olivares' henchman, the protonotary Geronimo de Villanueva, whose mansion in the Calle de Madera adjoined the convent. Villanueva had always been one of the useful ministers of Philip's amours, and when his convent was rehabilitated in 1638 he brought stories of a very beautiful young nun that he had seen there. Philip and Olivares insisted upon seeing this paragon of loveliness, and Villanueva, exerting his authority as patron, obtained entrance into the locutory for the King in disguise; and for many nights in succession the interviews took place.

[Sidenote: A convent scandal]

The affair, though very carefully concealed, began to be whispered, before the King and his friends had penetrated beyond the grille which separated them from the beautiful nun; and though Philip's conscience after an offence was tender enough, it usually did not operate until after the offence was committed. So determined was he to approach more nearly to the object of his passion, that Olivares and Villanueva together managed by bribes and prayers to persuade the nun to consent to a violation of her vows, and to admit the King. A passage was made from Villanueva's house to the cellars of the convent to facilitate the entrance of the King; but before the secret work was finished, the nun, either conscience-stricken or afraid of consequences, told the abbess what was going on. The punishments meted out by the Inquisition a few years before had probably been enough for this good lady; for she besought Villanueva to desist from so terrible and dangerous a crime, But Villanueva, anxious to please the King, {349} and being, like most of the courtiers of his generation, a religious cynic, turned a deaf ear to her entreaties. When later he led the enamoured King through the secret passage into the sacred cloister, and to the room where it was arranged that the meeting should take place, the pair were horrified to see that the abbess had laid out the nun upon a bier, her eyes closed, her hands crossed upon her breast clasping a crucifix, whilst tapers were burning at the head and foot of the bier. This was too much for Philip, and he fled; but subsequently affairs were arranged more comfortably, and the amours, we are assured, continued for some time.[29]

By and by the Inquisition heard something of what was going on from its spies. What could be done? The King was too high even for the Holy Office to touch; yet so awful a sacrilege as this could not be allowed to go on. The Inquisitor-General was Friar Archbishop Sotomayor, Philip's own confessor, a creature of Olivares, and a man of indifferent character; but even he took the King to task severely and repeatedly for his crime. Subsequently, when Philip probably was tired of the intrigue, he desisted, and then, after interminable secret inquiries by the Holy Office, it was decided that Villanueva was guilty of sacrilege of the worst description, and must be arrested. The King, remorseful or panic-stricken, was for letting the matter take its course; but Olivares, trembling now for himself (in 1642), went to the {350} Inquisitor-General, Sotomayor, with two decrees signed by the King, one dismissing him and banishing him from Spain, the other giving him a pension of 12,000 ducats a year for life, on condition that he resigned the Inquisitor-Generalship and retired to Cordova. Sotomayor naturally accepted the latter alternative. At the same time strong measures were taken in Rome by Philip's agents to induce the Pope to demand the reference of the case to him. The Inquisition obeyed the Pope's command, and sent the whole of the papers in a casket to Rome by one of its own confidential officers. Olivares managed to delay his departure whilst one of the King's painters, perhaps Velazquez, made several sketches of the messenger's face, which sketches were sent off post haste to the King's officers in various parts of Italy, with orders to capture the original secretly wherever he appeared, and send him closely isolated to Naples, whilst his precious casket of papers was to be forwarded intact to Olivares.

The unfortunate messenger, Paredes, landed at Genoa, where he was at once kidnapped and spirited off to the strong castle of Ovo at Naples, fated to be kept in close confinement for the rest of his life, fifteen years. The casket was conveyed with great secrecy to Olivares, who, with the King, reduced it and its unread contents to ashes in Philip's private room. The new Inquisitor-General was a Benedictine friar in the confidence of Queen Isabel, one Diego de Arce; and as no news came from Rome of the case, letters were written by him and the Council of the Inquisition to the Pope. The latter, primed by Philip's ambassador, still {351} kept silence; and as the minutes of the trial of course could not be found, and the wretched messenger had apparently vanished from the face of the earth, there were no proofs forthcoming against Villanueva, who remained under interdiction and in partial seclusion.