Chapter IX (1)

DEATH OF RICHELIEU AND OF THE CARDINAL INFANTE--PHILIP'S GOOD RESOLUTIONS--HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE NUN OF AGREDA--PHILIP WITH HIS ARMIES--DEATH OF QUEEN ISABEL OF BOURBON--THE WAR CONTINUES IN CATALONIA--DEATH OF BALTASAR CARLOS--PHILIP'S GRIEF--HE LOSES HEART--INFLUENCE OF THE NUN--HIS SECOND MARRIAGE WITH HIS NIECE MARIANA--HIS LIFE WITH HER--DON LUIS DE HARO--NEGOTIATIONS WITH ENGLAND--CROMWELL'S ENVOY, ANTHONY ASCHAM--HIS MURDER IN MADRID--FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN PHILIP AND THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH--CROMWELL SEIZES JAMAICA--WAR WITH ENGLAND

[Sidenote: Changed conditions]

The disappearance from the scene of Olivares seemed to the people of Madrid to change the national winter into summer. All the evils under which Spain had groaned so long would vanish, they thought, like snow before the sunshine; and once more Spain, powerful and rich, would dictate the law to Europe. Philip swore in solemn fashion to forsake dissipation and devote himself thenceforward to the welfare of his people. It was a golden dream whilst it lasted, and for a time it really did lift Spaniards into some semblance of the old-time faith and confidence. All the gang {377} of Guzmans were thrust into the background, and those who had stood aloof were now summoned to the Councils of the King. Quevedo came from his dungeon, cynically triumphant; the distribution of business amongst a multitude of unimportant juntas subservient to Olivares was abolished, and the great Councils again took executive and administrative charge of the affairs entrusted to them. The active and intelligent influence of the Queen was exerted everywhere; and new life was breathed for a time in the languishing body of the State.

There were also other great changes nearly coinciding with the fall of Olivares that increased the hopefulness of Spaniards for the future. Richelieu died some months before, and the personal rivalry between the two ministers, which had done so much to embitter the war, disappeared. Then, in May 1643, the King of France, Louis XIII., died, and Philip's sister, Anna of Austria, became Queen-regent of France for her five-year-old son, Louis XIV. Anna had always been a true daughter of Spain, and deplored the war between the land of her birth and that of her adoption; and it was hoped that she would find a means to end the differences. Another event had occurred at the end of 1641, which, whilst adding to Philip's gloom, made the continuance of the war in the Netherlands more hopeless than ever. The Cardinal Infante Fernando, his frail physique worn out by constant campaigning and enfeebled by fever, died at Brussels;[1] and Philip had no relative now to {378} stand for Spain in the ancient patrimony of Burgundy.

With all these changes in the space of two years, the spring of 1643 seemed to blossom with hopes of peace once more, humiliating as the terms might be. But again Spanish pride stood in the way, and after long discussion Philip's new councillors determined that honour demanded the expulsion of the French from Spanish soil before any negotiations for peace with them were undertaken. With infinite difficulty money and men were got together somehow[2] for Philip to take the field again in Aragon, where the French had arrived within a few miles of Saragossa. Before he could start on his way thither, there came from Flanders news of a crushing defeat sustained by General Melo, who had replaced the Cardinal Infante in the command. Melo at first had done well; for he was skilled and bold, and had more than held his own against the allies. But on the 18th May 1643 the terrible battle of Rocroy was fought, in which Melo himself was captured, Count de Fuentes was killed, and the Spanish army of 20,000 men, the tried veterans who were the last remnant of the once invincible _tercios_, whose fame was world-wide, were put to utter rout by the genius of the youthful Enghien (Prince of Condé). The Spanish infantry never regained the prestige they lost at Rocroy, which was to the army of Spain what the defeat of the Armada was to her {379} navy;[3] and with the knowledge that disaster was pursuing him on all sides, for the Portuguese were raiding far into Castile and the French were threatening the capital of Aragon, Philip left Madrid, his heart well-nigh breaking, early in June 1643.

[Sidenote: The nun of Agreda]

In the five months that had passed since he had dismissed Olivares the King had tried hard; but already his indolence was casting its paralysing blight over him; and most of the work of the Government was handed to Don Luis de Haro, the nephew of Olivares, who went with the King to Aragon. This time Philip was accompanied by a modest train, and by little of the ceremonial state that Olivares had deemed needful for his previous voyage. He travelled slowly, nevertheless, and on the 10th July, as he approached the Aragonese frontier city of Tarazona, he halted at the humble Convent of the Immaculate Conception at Agreda, which in the previous few years had been founded by a lady whose fame for sanctity and wisdom had already become wide, though she was but forty years of age yet. Maria Coronel had written several mystically religious books, and the convent under her rule was known for its rigidity in an age when most cloisters had grown lax. Philip probably visited the house and its abbess as a usual compliment and duty; but the visit, whatever its motive, set its mark upon him for the rest of his life.

The abbess, Sor Maria, as she was called, must have been a woman of worldly wisdom as deep as {380} was her piety. She must have impressed the King, moreover, powerfully as being absolutely disinterested and free from mundane temptation. He was, as we have seen, almost in despair at the magnitude of the tasks before him; the strong spirit upon which he had leant since he was a boy had passed out of his life, and he knew not whither to turn for unselfish counsel. Sor Maria, saintly, but keen, with her sad yet half humorous face, and her shrewd, kindly eyes, seemed to him a very rock of refuge, and in the long talk he had with her she spoke so wisely, yet so fearlessly, of the oppressive governance and ungodly methods of Olivares, she urged the King so powerfully to trust to God and himself alone, to work and pray and make his people cleanly, that he went forth from Agreda refreshed in faith and hope, leaving with Sor Maria his command that she was to write to him her private counsel when she listed, and to pray for him and his unceasingly with all her saintly soul.

Thenceforward until death snapped the spiritual link that joined them, the heart of Philip was bared in all its sorrow, its weakness, and its sin to Sor Maria alone. The haughty face with the pathetic eyes and great projecting jaw remained unmoved before the world, only the deepening furrows in it showing the storm that raged within. Men thought that he was callous and cold; for he suffered silently behind his mask. But Sor Maria knew, and none but she under heaven, the true secret of the King's gilded misery. His cry of agony, of remorse, of pity thenceforward came to the cloistered nun as a surer way to reach the throne of grace than to all the cardinals, confessors, {381} and bishops who waited upon his smile, and gently hinted disapproval of kingly vice.

At the end of July 1643, Philip entered his city of Saragossa, this time, to the delight of the jealous Aragonese, unattended by the crowd of dissolute nobles and courtiers who made love to their wives and threatened their political liberty.[4] No time was lost now in moving against the French, who were threatening the centre of Aragon, and the new commander, Felipe de Silva, whom Olivares' jealousy had consigned to a prison, showed great energy, and soon changed the appearance of affairs. It will be useful for our purpose to reproduce the principal paragraphs of Philip's first letter to the nun on the 4th October 1643, five weeks after his arrival at Saragossa, the precursor of so long and important a correspondence.[5]

[Sidenote: Philip and Sor Maria]

"SOR MARIA,--I write to you leaving a half margin, so that your reply may come on the same paper, and I enjoin and command you not to allow the contents of this to be communicated to anybody. Since the day that I was with you I have felt much encouraged by your promise to pray to God for me, and for success to my realm; for the earnest attachment towards my well being that I then recognised in you gave me great confidence and encouragement. As I told you, I left Madrid lacking all human resources, and trusting only to divine help, which is the sole way to obtain what {382} we desire. Our Lord has already begun to work in my favour, bringing in the silver fleet, and relieving Oran[6] when we least expected it; whereby I have been able, though with infinite trouble and tardiness for want of money, to dispose my forces here so that we shall, I hope, start work with them this week. Although I beseech God and His most holy Mother to succour and aid us, I trust very little in myself; for I have offended, and still offend very much, and I justly deserve the punishments and afflictions which I suffer. And so I appeal to you to fulfil your promise to me, to clamour to God to guide my actions and my arms, to the end that the quietude of these realms may be secured, and peace reign throughout Christendom. The Portuguese rebels still raid the frontiers of Portugal, acting against God and their natural sovereign. Affairs in Flanders are in great extremity, and there is risk of a rising unless God will intervene in my favour; and though affairs in Aragon have somewhat improved with my presence, I fear that unless we can gain some successes to encourage people here they are liable to lose heart and to take a course very injurious to the monarchy. The necessities, of course, are numerous {383} and great; but I must confess that it is not that which distresses me most, but the certain conviction that they all arise from my having offended our Lord. As He knows, I earnestly wish to please Him and to fulfil my duty in all things; and I desire that, if by any means you arrive at a knowledge of what it is His holy will that I should do to placate Him, write to me here, for I am very anxious to do right, and I do not know in what I err. Some religious people give me to understand that they have revelations; and that God commands that I should punish certain persons, and that I should dismiss others from my service. But you know full well that in this matter of revelations one must be very careful, and particularly when these religious persons speak against those who are not really bad, and against whom I have never discovered anything injurious to me; whilst others are approved whose proceedings are not usually thought well of. The general opinion about these persons is that they love turning things over, and that their truth cannot be depended upon. I do hope that you will keep your word to me, and will speak with all frankness as to a confessor, for we kings have much of the confessor in us. Do not let yourself be influenced by what the world says, for that is little to be depended upon, seeing the aims of those who move such discourse; but be guided solely by the inspiration of God, before whom I protest (and I have just partaken of Him, in the Sacrament) that I desire in all things, and for all things, to fulfil His sacred law and the obligation which He has laid upon me as a King. And I hope in His {384} mercy that He will take pity on our pains and help us out of those afflictions. The greatest favour that I can receive from His holy hands is that the punishment He lays upon these realms may be laid upon me; for it is I, and not they, who really deserve the punishment, for they have always been true and firm Catholics. I do hope you will console me with your reply, and that I may have in you a true intercessor with our Lord, that He may guide and enlighten me, and extricate me from the troubles in which I am now immersed.--I, THE KING. Saragossa, 4th October 1644."

[Sidenote: Philip's inner self]

In addition to the invaluable and unquestionable glimpse which this letter affords of public affairs, it gives us the key, more entirely perhaps than any of the six hundred letters that followed it, to the real character of the King. He was weak; he confesses to have no confidence in himself, although in his heart of hearts he is striving to live well and do his duty. He is unable to struggle successfully against the worldly pleasures that have captured him, and which he pursues still, whilst hating himself for doing so. Conscience-haunted, he is the only sinner, and the terrible conviction forces itself upon him that his personal sins of omission and commission are to be visited in awful punishment upon whole nations of innocent people. His natural justice and his knowledge of men cause him to rebel against the suggestions that come to him, even under the cloak of religion, to punish those who in his eyes have done no ill; and behind the regal purple and the stately port of his great office we see the poor soul, so remorseful {385} in the knowledge of its sin and insignificance as to feel unworthy even to pray without a poor nun's intercession to the appalling deity he thinks he has incensed. And yet, with all this humility, how the true Spaniard peeps out in the conviction that God has His eyes specially on him; how God's designs for the universe revolve around his fortunes, his acts, and his transgressions. Only by the light of these self-revelatory letters can we see how penetrating was the genius of Velazquez. The tragic, haunted face of Philip, when age had palled his pleasures, only told its tale to the painter; and its pride, its weakness, its mercy and despair, an enigma until now, are explained to us when, after looking upon his portrait, we read the King's own words, meant for the eyes of the cloistered nun alone.

Whilst Philip was, for the first time for twenty years, manfully struggling against his indolence, and facing his enemies in Aragon, the Queen, as regent of Castile, was straining every nerve to provide money for the campaigns; and during the autumn (1643) an army of 16,000 men was mustered in the various provinces, and sent to the King. Queen Isabel too put her hand to the Augean stable of Madrid. Murders in the streets and armed affrays upon trifling pretexts were as numerous as ever, one Newsletter (25th August) enumerating four or five of such fatal scandals during the previous few days;[7] one of which--although that was in Valencia and is given as an instance--is curious: one Iñigo Velasco, an actor, we are told, having been beheaded "because, forgetting the humility of his calling, he courted ladies as impudently as any {386} gentleman could have done." But it was noticed in Madrid that the punishment now followed the crime more surely and more promptly:[8] that immorality was attacked more earnestly than before, and that the large public houses of ill-fame were being rapidly cleared out by the new President of the Council of Castile.

The financial officers and others were also having rather a ruthless time, for secret commissions descended upon them and their papers without notice one after the other, and scores of thousands of ducats of ill-gotten plunder had to be disgorged; whilst the friends of Olivares who had survived his fall, and kept their places, were gradually made to understand that things had altered for them.[9] The Countess of Olivares thus far had held firmly to her footing as Mistress of the Robes, notwithstanding the frowns of the Queen; but the Duchess of Mantua brought matters to a head with her. As the Countess aspired to sit upon a seat in the royal carriage instead of in the doorway, the Duchess rose and said that that was not her place, and she would leave the carriage. The Queen placated her, but a few days afterwards {387} the Queen's coach was surrounded in Madrid by a crowd that cried, "Long live the Queen, and down with the Duchess of Olivares"; and soon orders came from the King in Aragon that the lady was to follow her husband into retirement.

The legitimated son, too, Enrique Felipe de Guzman, who had kept close to the King as a gentleman-in-waiting, found that the atmosphere at Court, and especially amongst Aragonese, was antagonistic to him; and he also was dismissed to join his father.[10]

[Sidenote: Baltasar Carlos and Juan]

The only subject of difference between Philip and his wife now was the rivalry between his two sons. Young Baltasar Carlos had been granted a separate household, and was already assuming the state befitting the heir of Spain. Philip was devotedly attached to him, as was his mother; for, after allowing for all the adulation of courtiers, the Prince must have been a manly and gracious youth. But Don Juan was infinitely more handsome, and it was said of extraordinary talent, although it is fair to say that the actions of his later life hardly justified the fame of his youth. In any case, Philip was very proud of him, and now gave him a separate household, with many noble attendants and officers about him, and, as a separate residence, the suburban pleasure house called Zarzuela. Don Juan was to be called Serene Highness, and was to address gentlemen as _Vos_, You, as if he had been a royal Prince. To {388} add to his importance, he was now made Grand Master of St. John, and delighted the courtiers with his boyish assumption of sovereign dignity.[11] Isabel looked askance at all this, and Baltasar Carlos saw little of his half-brother; but Philip, having before him the example of his great-grandfather and the other Don Juan, evidently destined his left-handed son for great things. He had, moreover, no near male relatives now, and it is clear that there were ample opportunities for usefulness open to a semi-royal Prince in Philip's wide dominions.

[Sidenote: Philip's reformation]

Philip and his little army in Catalonia and Aragon did well. Monzon was captured by Silva from the French on the 3rd December, to the immense solace of the King, who had been beseeching the nun's prayers for the victory; and with the laurels still on him he returned in triumph to Madrid to pass the Christmas with his wife. The Queen had ordered dinner to be prepared for his reception at the Buen Retiro (14th December), and had gone to meet him at the Atocha, where the holy image had to be thanked for his safe return. But Philip was a changed man since the nun's weekly letters of exhortation and encouragement had reached him; and the palace of past frivolities was not in accordance with his mood. He would not even enter it, but went, gaily dressed, through the cheering crowds to the old palace, which if gloomy was yet kingly. Philip {389} went the next day to the Discalced Carmelites to pray; but the Queen did not accompany him, for the proud, exacting Savoy Princess, Duchess of Mantua, who lived in the convent, occupied the royal apartments, and all manner of questions of etiquette would have arisen if the Queen had gone with her husband.

During the few days of staid rejoicings for Christmas, for the splendid old entertainments were now discontinued,[12] the King wrote to Sor Maria to ask her to help with her prayers the expected arrival of the silver fleet from Mexico; and as a mixture of mystic devotion and worldly aims the King's letter is quaint.

"The promise you gave me when I was with you, that your prayers should not fail me, delighted me much, and I remind you of it in the greatest necessities. We are expecting hourly, by God's help, the arrival of the galleons, and you may imagine what depends upon it for us; and although I hope that, in His mercy, He will bring them safely, I want to urge you to help me by supplicating His Divine Majesty to do me this favour. It is true, I do not deserve it, but rather great punishment; but I have full confidence that He will not permit the total loss of this monarchy, and that He will continue the successes that He has begun to give us. I should very much like to succeed in carrying out the advice you give me in your letter of the 6th {390} instant.[13] I can assure you I will try to do so; and for my part, I will use every effort to comply with the will of God, both personally and in official matters. May He give me grace to do it. I cannot help telling you of the joy it gave me to come hither and see the Queen and my children, for my absence had seemed to me very long. They are, thank God, very well; and although I shall feel keenly leaving such company, I am preparing to return; for the welfare of my realms must be placed before all things, even before the pleasure of being with such treasures as these. God send me the time when I may enjoy them with more tranquillity."

The King's and the nun's prayers were satisfied. A few days after the letter was written, Madrid was rejoiced to know that the galleons had arrived safely, "which on this occasion were sorely needed; for the loans for the frontier fortresses, and for Italy and Flanders, were held back, and the lenders would not do business without this guarantee.... They bring five millions (of ducats) for the King, and almost as much for private owners, with much {391} indigo, etc.... It is believed that the King will not take any from private people or from the treasury pensions, so that we all breathe again."[14] In these somewhat alleviated circumstances, Philip, full of hope, started for Aragon on 6th February 1644, having signalised his short stay in Madrid by giving the gold key of chamberlain to Diego Velazquez, "who, they say, is at the present time the greatest painter in Spain. I understand there are to be no more honours given this Twelfth Day, as in other years."[15]

[Sidenote: Philip again in Aragon]

Philip, with a very small suite, hurried to Aragon; for already in his absence his officers were quarrelling amongst themselves about ridiculous questions of style and precedence, and on the very frontier a deputation of Aragonese notables met him to ask for the dismissal of his Commander-in-chief, Felipe Silva, the most successful General he had; and, although not immediately, Silva, disgusted by the jealousy that surrounded him--a Portuguese--ultimately went into retirement, to the lasting loss of Spanish arms. Whilst Philip was busy in Aragon ordering the coming campaign, the welcome news came to him in March 1644 of the pregnancy of his wife; but soon his joy was dashed with the intelligence of her miscarriage and illness. The gossips said that, attended only by the Marquis of Aytona, he rushed to Madrid secretly for a few days to see her; but whether the cloaked cavalier who came post from Saragossa was indeed the King is uncertain. In any case, Philip was with his army during the summer, gradually making way before the French, and {392} keeping up his resolution to live an exemplary life; although the nobles and others were beginning to grumble that Don Luis de Haro was almost as powerful a minister as his uncle Olivares had been.

Philip was still rejoicing over the capture of the important city of Lerida at the middle of August 1644, and the relief of Tarragona in September, when ill news came to him of his wife's health. She had, it seems, on the 28th September suffered some sort of choleraic attack with erysipelas. Messengers were sent to the King, whilst the doctors, as was their wont, bled the patient copiously until they had left her bloodless, though with symptoms which now would be recognised at once as those of diphtheria. Then, in their desperation, the dead body of St. Isidore the Husbandman and the sainted image of the Atocha were brought to the palace; though the dying woman protested that she was unworthy to have them brought to her bedside. But the inflammation of the throat increased, notwithstanding all the charms of the Church and the prayers of young Baltasar Carlos, who was devotedly attached to his mother. There was no church nor convent in Madrid that did not bring out in procession its crucifixes and most sacred images in Prayer for the Queen's restoration to health, and the fervent prayers of a whole people went up in rogation that her life might be spared.

[Sidenote: Death of the Queen]

On the 5th October the Queen tried to make a new will, but she was too weak to sign it, and only left verbal testamentary instructions before witnesses for the King to be informed of her wishes. At noon that day she sent for a _fleur de lys_ which {393} formed one of the ornaments of the crown, and in which there was a fragment of the true Cross. This she worshipped fervently, and her two children, Baltasar Carlos and Maria Teresa, were brought to her; but she would not suffer them to approach her for fear of infection, though she blessed them fervently from a distance. "There are plenty of Queens for Spain," she sighed; "but Princes and Princesses are rare." The next day, at a quarter past four in the afternoon, stout-hearted loyal Isabel of Bourbon breathed her last, aged 41. Garbed as a Franciscan nun, the body of the Queen was borne to the Convent of Discalced Carmelites, where she had so often prayed and diverted herself;[16] and thence soon afterwards it was carried back again to the palace in grand coffins of lead and brocade, to lie in state with flaring torches and all the pomp and circumstances of royal mourning. "Isabels always bring happiness to Spain," shouted the crowd that adored her, after the fall of Olivares. She, poor soul, had brought happiness neither to Spain nor to France, though she did her best and was truly mourned. She had always been devoutly Catholic; and since the commencement of the war she had grown stronger in her devotion, and in her determination to reform the scandalous licence of the Court.[17] Frenchwoman though {394} she was, no breath of suspicion of her loyalty to her husband's people had ever been heard during all the years of war with her brother's realm.

[Sidenote: Philip's grief]

Philip hastened home as fast as relays of mules would carry him. At Maranchon, about fifty miles from Madrid, where the King had alighted to dine at a wretched _venta_, the courier bringing the news of the Queen's death met him. The ministers and courtiers around the King, knowing how he loved his wife, avoided telling him the evil tidings at first; for the anxiety and fatigue of the voyage had told upon him, "and he had only just dined." But a few miles farther on, at Almadrones, the news was broken to him in his carriage by the Marquis of Carpio and his son, the favourite Haro, and the bereaved King begged to be left alone with his grief. Turning aside from Madrid, now a city of mourning for him, Philip retired to the Pardo, where, with his son Baltasar--all that was left to him now, for Maria Teresa was but a child--for a few days he indulged his sorrow in private. Thence he went for the official mourning in the old apartment at San Geronimo; whilst, with the gloomy pomp traditional in Spain, the body of the Queen was carried at dead of night across {395} the bleak Castilian plain, with hundreds of monks and nobles following, to the gorgeous new jasper pantheon at the Escorial reserved for Kings and mothers of Kings, which, from very dread, Isabel had never dared to enter in her lifetime.[18]

Three days after the Queen died her wraith appeared, it is said, before the nun of Agreda, asking for the prayers of the godly to liberate her from purgatory for the vain splendour of her attire during her life.[19] Philip himself was overwhelmed at his loss, and the nun wrote to him exhortations to resignation and patience; but it was a month before he could gather sufficient courage to reply: his grief, as he says, and the many calls upon him having prevented him from doing it before. "I find myself in the most oppressed state of sorrow possible," he wrote, "for I have lost in one person everything that can be lost in this world; and if I did not know, according to the faith that I profess, that the Lord disposes for us what is best, I do not know what would become of me."

The following spring again saw Philip in the field in Aragon. Things were going badly with him now, and he was again losing heart. To the nun he wrote on the 25th March 1645--

"Your letter indeed arrived at a good time; for the cares that surround me had much afflicted me, and your words have encouraged me. I now trust that God in His mercy, looking to all Christendom, and to these realms, which are so pure in their {396} Catholic faith, will not allow us to be ruined utterly, but will shield and defend them, and grant us a good peace. Short are the human resources with which I have returned hither; and what appals me most is to see that my faults alone are sufficient to provoke the ire of our Lord, and to bring upon me greater punishments than before. But the greater the punishment, the greater will be my appeal to faith and hope, as you say; and I will continually supplicate our Lord to supply with His almighty hand what we need. I for my part will do all I can, trying not to displease Him, and to comply with the obligations He has placed upon me, even though in doing so I risk my own life. I have not hesitated to give up the comforts of my home, in order to attend personally to the defence of these realms: for, whilst I thus fulfil this duty, I trust our Lord will not fail me; but in any extremity I submit to His holy will. I have wished for the Prince to begin to learn what will fall upon him after my days are done; and so, though alone, I have brought him with me, and have confided his health to the hands of God, trusting in His mercy to guard him, and to guide all his actions to His greater service."[20]

The campaign brought reverse after reverse to Philip. Jealousy had lost him the services of Silva, his best General; and the new French Viceroy of Catalonia, Count de Harcourt, scattered the Spaniards at Balaguer, and all Catalonia and most of Aragon lay at his mercy, if he had been sure of the loyalty of the Catalans, who, truth {397} to say, were getting somewhat disappointed and tired of their French masters.

[Sidenote: War in Catalonia]

The Aragonese mostly remained faithful to Philip, but held firmly to their privileges; and when in the autumn of 1645 he summoned the Cortes of Saragossa and Valencia to swear allegiance to Baltasar Carlos, they drove a hard bargain, and Philip was forced to concede many legislative demands of the members, in return for sparing votes of supply. The tale he told to the Castilian Cortes summoned early in 1646 in Madrid was disconsolate in the extreme. All was spent: the wars still went on in Flanders, Germany, Italy, and Catalonia, as well as on the Portuguese frontier, and the regular revenue was utterly insufficient. The deputies were as much afflicted by the penury of their constituents as the King was by the emptiness of his treasury, but with many groans they voted an immediate grant of a million and a half of ducats in money, and in the following year an extension of the special war taxation upon food, and leave to sell pensions was granted.

Almost every week beseeching letters went from Philip to the nun, praying for her intercession with the Almighty to aid him in his troubles; and the replies of the good woman were always wise, as she inculcated hope and labour without remission. Sometimes Philip's faith weakened, and he almost despaired, for he was convinced that all the national trouble arose from his personal sins, and yet, as he says, he could not help sinning. In the meanwhile disasters fell upon his arms thick and fast, and the national distress became more intense. He could suffer his own troubles, {398} wrote Philip, for he knew that he had deserved them; "but to see the sufferings of so many poor innocent people in these wars and conflicts pierces me to the very heart, and if with my life's blood I could remedy it I would expend it most willingly."

When Philip returned to Madrid for the winter of 1645-46, Sor Maria's constant exhortations had prevailed upon him to make a determined attempt to cleanse Madrid of some of its blatant vice in order to win God's favour. She was particularly strong in her condemnation of the dress and demeanour of the women of the capital, and a severe pragmatic on the subject was issued: the playhouses, to the dismay of the comedy-loving people, were rigorously closed,[21] the press-gangs that scoured the country for recruits were enjoined to be merciful to the poor in their operations, and other measures urged by the nun became the law of the land, whilst the lethal crimes so common in Madrid were prosecuted now with merciless severity.

Leaving his capital at least outwardly more decent, Philip travelled north again in April 1646, accompanied by his promising young son, now approaching manhood; Pamplona, the capital of Navarre, being taken on the way, in order that the Navarrese Cortes might swear allegiance to the heir. No sooner had they entered Pamplona, late in April, than Baltasar Carlos fell seriously ill of tertian fevers; and the nun's prayers were frantically supplicated for the boy by his afflicted father, who would not leave his son's side, although the Aragonese were getting clamorous for his coming to {399} direct the campaign, which had already been opened by the enemy, who were actively besieging Lerida. After two months' delay, Philip at length entered Saragossa in June, when he received the news of the death of his sister, the Empress Maria, who had been betrothed to Charles, Prince of Wales. This, coming on the top of all his other troubles, almost broke the poor King down. "If I did not recognise that my troubles are sent by God, as warnings for me to prepare my own salvation, I could hardly tolerate them.... Help me, Sor Maria, to pray to Him; for my strength is small, and I fear my weakness."

[Sidenote: Baltasar Carlos dies]

A greater blow than all fell upon him soon afterwards. An insincere embassy had been sent to England some little while before, in order to frustrate the betrothal of Mary Stuart, daughter of Charles I., with the Prince of Orange; and the means employed had been the old suggestion of the marriage of an English Princess with Baltasar Carlos. It came to nothing, and, so far as the Spaniards were concerned, was a mere feint from the first, for the real wish of Philip's heart, as it had been that of his father, was still further to cement the two branches of the house of Austria, by marrying his heir to the Emperor's daughter. Imperial ambassadors were at Saragossa when Philip arrived, and the King wrote cheerfully to the nun soon after, saying that the marriage of Baltasar Carlos had now been settled, and that his niece Mariana of Austria was betrothed to his heir. "My son is very much pleased with his new state, and I am so too, to have chosen such a good daughter-in-law, as I hold this marriage {400} certain to produce very beneficial effects to the Catholic religion, which is my sole aspiration."[22]

Not many weeks afterwards, on the 7th October, the King in great trouble writes to the nun--

"I have received your letter, but I confess that I am not in a condition to reply to it, for our Lord has placed upon me a trial through which I can hardly live. Since yesterday my son is oppressed with very extreme fever. It began by severe pains in his body, which lasted all day; and now he is delirious, and we are in such fear that we hope it will turn to smallpox, ... of which the doctors say they see signs. I know, Sor Maria, that I deserve heavy punishments, and that all that may come to me in this life will be insufficient to repay my sins; but I do cry now to the divine mercy of our Lord, and the intercession of His holy Mother; and I beseech you to help with all your strength."

[Sidenote: Philip's despair]

Three days afterwards, the heart-broken father writes in dull despair that his son had died. "I have lost," he wrote, "my only son, and such a son, as you know he was." And for this pain the consolations of the good woman, though salutary, {401} were weak. Philip bowed his head, and to all outward seeming was resigned to his loss. He did not rail against the decrees of Providence that had left him alone in the world, but his resignation now was a fatalistic hopelessness; for this blow had finally convinced him that the Most High had doomed him to affliction, and his people to suffering untold, solely for his sins. There was no way out of it, even by prayer; and Philip for a time gave up trying to be good.

Don Luis de Haro already did most of the work of the State, and Philip grew still more idle after the death of his son, one of the results of his indolence being a weakening of the struggle he had fought for four years against the temptations of the flesh. Sor Maria from her convent took him to task somewhat seriously for his remissness, and for the first time Philip defended himself with some spirit[23] with regard to his dependence upon others. He was anxious to do right, he assured her; but his great predecessors and all other monarchs had been obliged to employ ministers, and he did not think he could be doing wrong in following their example. One man cannot, he says, look into the execution of all his commands, and must trust to others; "for it does not accord with the dignity of a monarch to go from one office to the other to see personally that his decrees are being properly {402} carried out." When he first came to the throne, he reminds the nun, he was only sixteen, and, quite naturally in his inexperience, depended upon a man of more knowledge than himself. Where he had erred was in keeping that minister supreme too long. Since he dismissed Olivares he had tried to avoid having a favourite; and the minister who people now say does everything was brought up with him as a boy, and has always been irreproachable; but even so, he (Philip) had always refused to give him the post of sole minister, and he only does what the King cannot do, namely, look after the raising of funds, and hear the opinions of people with whom the King cannot discourse. "I, Sor Maria," he wrote, "do not shirk any labour, for, as anyone can tell you, I am here seated in this chair continually with my papers before me and my pen in my hand, dealing with all the reports that are sent to me here, and with the despatches from abroad; resolving points in question immediately, and trying to adopt the most proper decision in each case."

The nun even took upon herself, as the winter wore on, to tell the King that it was high time to arrange the new campaign, and follow up the brilliant defence of Lerida which had ended in the defeat of the French under Condé himself. The Aragonese thought so too, for the troops there refused to move for a time unless Philip would come to Saragossa, as in previous years, to direct the campaign personally.

[Sidenote: Philip betrothed again]

The nun could hardly speak very clearly in reprehension of the King's moral backsliding, although her hints even in this respect are pretty {403} broad. But his confessor and the other friars around him did not hesitate to do so; and people other than friars were saying that with no heir to the crown the King must marry again. So long as Baltasar Carlos lived, Philip had gently put aside these suggestions by saying that his hopes were centred in his son; but when after his heir's death his excesses in the intervals of his poignant contrition shocked the devotees of his Court, and they added their censure to the pressure of the laymen for another Queen-Consort, Philip consented, though without enthusiasm, to marry again. He was only forty-two, but anxiety and dissipation had aged him, and he was approaching the years when most of his ancestors had developed the peculiar strain of mystic devotion that borders upon madness, but his people clamoured for a male heir, for the Infanta Maria Teresa was only eight, and Don Juan of Austria, popular as he was, was impossible as King. In the letter which Philip wrote to the nun, on the 9th January 1647, he says: "I have received a letter from the Emperor condoling with me for the loss of my son, and at the same time offering my niece to be my wife. As this agrees with my own feelings, I think I may decide to accept this marriage, which is doubtless the most fitting one for me; so I hope that our Lord will help this with His powerful hand, so that the business may tend to His service, and to that of my own country"; and a few weeks afterwards he conveyed to her the intelligence that the match has been arranged.

Mariana was as yet a child, and the daughter of Philip's sister Maria. That such a companion {404} can have been really congenial to him it is difficult to believe, but his subjects needed an heir. The unhappy tradition that imposed upon Spain the belief in its duty to dictate orthodoxy to the world was not yet dead, and the solidarity of the house of Austria was a first condition for its success. Spain had already paid dearly for such Austrian help as she had obtained, and the price now given for the further union was a high one indeed; for by this dire incestuous union of Philip and his niece the consummation of his country's ruin and the extinction of his dynasty was wrought. What for the time being was worst of all was, that the support of Austria in the wars that were finally to exhaust Spain was withdrawn even before the marriage took place.

[Sidenote: The treaty of Münster]

For three years the representatives of the Powers of Europe, invited by the Emperor, had been laboriously discussing terms for a general pacification at Osnabrück and Münster. Philip wrote to the nun that the French demands were so insolent that it was clear that they did not want peace;[24] but the Hollanders were more inclined to an accommodation, for they had grown suspicious of the ultimate designs of Mazarin. After interminable intrigues and self-seeking, however, an arrangement was arrived at which practically ended the Thirty Years War; and Spain, beaten to her knees, still burdened with war in Catalonia, on the Portuguese border, and in Flanders, with her kingdom of Naples in full revolt, was obliged to accept, at last, what the world had seen to be inevitable for many {405} years past, the recognition of Protestant Holland as an independent Power. For nearly a hundred years the war with her Protestant former dependency had dragged Spain down, and made her an easy prey to the French, and at last from the sheer impotence of Spain to struggle longer the Treaty of Münster (October 1648) was signed by her, which made Holland free and gave Alsace to France. The central European Powers were satisfied, the religious compromise was ratified, there was nothing more for the Emperor to fight for, and he retired from the war with France, leaving Philip to fight her enemy alone. The long dream of Spain's supremacy over an orthodox Catholic Europe was indeed dissipated at last; she had now to fight for the integrity of her own soil and her continued existence as a great nation, and in this hard strait the empire deserted her.

All through the year 1647, Philip remained in Madrid, whilst the wars in Flanders and Catalonia, as well as on the Portuguese frontier, dragged on with various fortunes, but on the whole not disastrously for Spain. The great revolt of Massaniello in Naples for a time threatened Philip with the loss of the kingdom; when the happy thought came to him of sending his brilliant young son, Don Juan, thither as his Commander-in-chief. He arrived at a time when Guise, the French pretender to the Neapolitan crown, had disgusted the fickle populace which had formerly acclaimed him, and by a fortunate _coup de main_ Don Juan recaptured the city for his father in February 1648, to the joy of most of the inhabitants, who were tired of the anarchy which had lasted for a year. The exploit {406} raised the popularity of the young Prince almost as high as that of his famous namesake after Lepanto, and the rejoicings in Madrid to celebrate the victory made the capital for a time seem its old self again.

But though the lieges might still enjoy their brilliant shows as of yore, Philip himself had become introspective and gloomy; and he attended the bull-fights and parades with sad, weary face. He wrote weekly to the nun deploring his frailty, and beseeching her intercession; but it is clear that he had thrown over most of his good resolutions, for Don Luis de Haro was as necessary to him as Olivares had been; and the fragile beauties of the capital found in him again as ardent an admirer as ever.[25] The departure of the bride who was to rescue him from his evil life was long delayed for want of money, both on the part of her father the Emperor, and of Philip;[26] and, notwithstanding the King's saintly contrition after his faults, the talk of his loose and idle life began to make him personally unpopular with many, who thought that his place was with his army in Catalonia rather than in the Retiro sunk in slothful pleasures.[27]

{407}

[Sidenote: An execution]

In September, a great Aragonese noble of turbulent antecedents, the Duke of Hijar, with three other nobles of rank, were suddenly seized and committed to prison in Madrid. The accusation against them was that they had plotted against the crown: some said in favour of the King of Portugal, others in favour of France; but the King specially assured the nun that there had not been discovered any design against his life. The Duke, as soon as he was arrested, endeavoured to implicate Sor Maria in the plot, and produced a letter from her to him. In a note in her own hand on the King's account written to her of the execution of the prisoners in December, she explains the matter. Hijar, it appears, had written to her hinting at some plan against the Government being in contemplation, and asking her advice. She had replied deploring such wickedness, and had referred him to the King. The nun says that many had been the attempts to bring her into trouble about it; but that in all his letters to her referring {408} to the plot the King had never even mentioned her connection with the matter, which showed that he, at least, did not believe that she was culpably concerned. The King, indeed, in his letters rather makes light of the affair, as being "the most foolish conspiracy ever conceived," and he evidently did not think that the Duke of Hijar was the prime mover in the affair; as repeated torture having failed to wring any incriminatory admissions from the Duke, the judges sentenced him to perpetual imprisonment only, though we are told that the torture had made him a cripple for life, both hand and foot. One of the other conspirators died of a fit in the prison soon after the death sentence was passed, his fate, as Philip wrote to the nun, being worst of all, since he had died unabsolved.

[Sidenote: The "Hijar conspirators"]

The public execution in the Plaza Mayor of the two principal conspirators, both nobles, Don Pedro de Silva, Marquis de la Vega de Sagra, and Don Carlos de Padilla, moved excitement-loving Madrid profoundly, and several eye-witnesses of the scene have left their impressions of it. From one unpublished account in the British Museum[28] the following description is condensed as an example of a Spanish execution, of the first importance at the time.

Shortly before noon, on Saturday, the 5th December 1648, the massive doors of the Carcel de la Corte, opposite the Plaza de Santa Cruz, near the Atocha entrance of the Plaza Mayor,[29] opened for {409} a sombre procession to issue therefrom. First came seventy alguacils of the Court; then followed, amidst tapers and swinging censers, two famous figures of Christ from the parish church of Santa Cruz opposite, with the attendant clergy. Then came a saddle mule covered to the ground with housings of black baize, and led by an executioner. Upon the mule sat Don Carlos de Padilla, who only on the previous day had been divested of his honourable habit of a Knight of Santiago. Now, as he rode disconsolate, a crucifix in his hand and closely surrounded by many Jesuit fathers, he wore a long gown of black baize, with a cap of the same, and a steel chain dangled from his right foot. It was noticed, too, that instead of the almost universal golilla he wore a white starched Walloon collar unblued.

After him came on another draped mule the Marquis, Don Pedro, similarly garbed; but, instead of the collar, wearing the tippet of a Fellow of the College, of Cuenca at Salamanca. Following the condemned men came crowds of alguacils, notaries, and officers of justice; and as the procession swept along dismally, heralded by tolling bells and the dreary call of the criers for the people to pray for the souls of the departing, vast crowds stood at every coign of vantage, and were held back at the end of each side street by guards and alguacils. The procession did not enter the Plaza by the nearest gate, that of the Atocha, but debouched into the {410} Calle Mayor, in order to enter the Plaza by a principal, Guadalajara, portal. It was noticed that as Don Carlos Padilla reached the entrance by the Guadalajara gate his face lit up radiantly, and the word passed along the awestruck crowd that a heavenly vision had brought comfort to him, now that all earthly comfort had fled.

The Plaza Mayor itself had been cleared of all its fruit stalls, as if for a bull-fight; and in the centre (where now stands the statue of Philip III.) was erected a scaffold, upon which were two uncovered chairs side by side. Don Carlos de Padilla ascended first the fatal stair, and, taking his seat upon the left-hand chair with much serenity, slowly arranged his long gown decorously, whilst the swarm of priests and friars around him continued their sacred ministrations. The doomed noble's hands and feet were firmly bound to the chair, and a strip of black baize blinded his eyes. Then the executioner, stepping forward, with a large butcher's knife slashed the throat across again and again. It was remarked that Don Carlos, being a robust man, shed an immense quantity of blood. Then going behind him, the executioner with several heavy blows on the nape of the neck severed the head entirely, and the deed was finished.