Chapter IV (1)

FOREIGN WAR RENDERED INEVITABLE BY OLIVARES' POLICY--ITS EFFECT IN SPAIN--CONDITION OF THE COURT--WASTE, IDLENESS, AND OSTENTATION OF ALL CLASSES--EXTRAVAGANCE IN DRESS--PHILIP'S EFFORTS TO REFORM MANNERS--RETRENCHMENT IN HIS HOUSEHOLD--THE SUMPTUARY ENACTMENTS--THE _GOLILLA_--THE INDUSTRY OF OLIVARES--HIS CHARACTER AND APPEARANCE--HIS MAIN OBJECT TO SECURE POLITICAL AND FISCAL UNITY IN SPAIN--THE DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF THIS--THE COMEDIES--THEATRES IN MADRID--PHILIP'S LOVE FOR THE STAGE--AN AUTO-DE-FE--LORD WIMBLEDON'S ATTACK ON CADIZ--RICHELIEU'S LEAGUE AGAINST SPAIN--SPANISH SUCCESSES--"PHILIP THE GREAT"--VISIT OF THE KING TO ARAGON AND CATALONIA IN 1626--DISCONTENT AND DISSENSION--PHILIP'S LIFE TRAGEDY

The policy of Olivares, which had estranged England and revived the haughty old claims of Spain to dictate to Europe, had already begun to produce widespread effects. France, no longer under the papal Italian rule of the Queen-mother, but in the firm hands of Richelieu, could not be expected to submit to such claims now; and during 1624 Europe once more divided itself into two camps, one to assert and the other to dispute the {128} supremacy of the house of Austria under the hegemony of Spain. Richelieu did not believe in beginning the game until he held all the cards in his hands, and delayed an open declaration of war until he could join with him in a league against Spain, the United Provinces, and Savoy, and had bought at least the neutrality if not the active aid of England.

[Sidenote: A corrupt capital]

In the meanwhile we will glance at the effects which had been produced in Spain, and particularly in the Court, by the joint action of the young King and his mentor, the Count-Duke. The ruin and disappearance of the greedy crew that had followed Lerma and his family, and the accession of a promising youth like Philip IV. to the throne, had filled the lieges with the belief that, as if by a fairy wand, all Spain's troubles would cease and national power and general prosperity would flood the long-suffering land with joy. The happy dream was of short duration, for the ills were too deep seated to be quickly cured, if even wise measures had been adopted. But the reforms of Olivares had been merely of a palliative character, leaving the system and incidence of taxation radically bad. Whilst rigid investigation of past peculations was effected, whilst the squandering of the royal resources in grants was limited, and economy severely enjoined in the expenditure of private citizens, the most lavish waste was perpetrated in other directions; and this, with the cost incurred by a forward foreign policy, had, in the three years that succeeded the accession of Philip, again brought affairs to a crisis, in which the national penury was the conspicuous fact.

{129}

As soon as the echoes had died away of the festivals that had been organised to dazzle the English Prince, the discontent of the people began to find voice amongst those whose mordant speech and fluent pen were so eager always to seize upon a pretext for the exercise of their powers. Quevedo, the greatest wit of his time, who had once more been recalled from the exile into which his biting satire so often cast him,[1] and was the idol both of the quidnuncs of Liars' Walk and of the dilettante nobles of the Court, launched his darts against the grumblers, and told Spaniards boldly that the continued misery was the fault of the degenerate race of his countrymen, "the well perfumed but ill conducted hosts" who impatiently resisted or evaded the decrees of those who endeavoured to mend matters.

The decrees, it is true, were from their intricacy and their thoroughness not easy to follow, for they sought to revolutionise the customs and ways of life rendered familiar by almost immemorial usage. The evils to be cured had been patent to all, but the remedies were too sudden and too drastic to be effectual. When Philip had first come to the throne, and the new broom was to be wielded, the reforming member of the Cortes, Lison y Biedma, had told the King[2]--

"Your subjects spend and waste great sums in the abuse of costly garb, with so many varieties of trimmings that the making costs more than the {130} stuff; and as soon as the clothes are made there is a change of fashion and the money has to be spent over again. When they marry the wealth they squander on dress alone ruins them, and they remain in debt for the rest of their lives; ... such is the excess that the wife of an artisan nowadays needs as much finery as a lady, even though she have to get money for it by dishonest means and to the offence of God.... As for collars and ruffs, the disorder in their use is very scandalous. A single ruff of linen with its making and ravelling will cost over 200 reals, and six reals every time it is dressed, which at the end of the year doubles its cost, and much money is thus wasted. Besides, many strong, able young men are employed in dressing and goffering these extravagant things, who might be better employed in work necessary for the commonwealth or in tilling the ground. The servants, too, have to be paid higher wages in consequence of the money they spend in wearing these collars, which indeed consumes most of what they earn; and a great quantity of wheat is wasted in starch which is sorely wanted for food. The fine linens to make these collars have, moreover, to be brought from abroad, and money has to be sent out of the country to pay for them. With respect to coaches, great evil is caused and offence given to God, seeing the disquiet they bring to women who own them; for they never stay at home, but leave their children and servants to run riot, with the evil example of the mistress being always gadding abroad. The art of horsemanship is dying out, and those who ought to be mounted crowd, six or eight of them together, {131} in a coach, talking to wenches rather than learning how to ride. Very different gentlemen, indeed, will they grow up who have all their youth been lolling about in coaches instead of riding."

And so on, almost every item of the daily life of Madrid is shown by the writers of the day to be vicious, wasteful, and corrupt. Idlers crowd in the monasteries, and hosts of other idlers, sham students, poetasters, bullies, and beggars, depend for their daily sustenance upon the garlic soup and crusts which are doled out at the gates from the superfluity of the friars; and servants, with or without wages, but living slothfully upon their patron's food in tawdry finery and squalid plenty, pester the noble houses from stable court to roof.[3] Philip and Olivares in the early days did not lack courage, and they came out with a decree so drastic to restrict the wearing of rich clothes, the abuse of ornament, and the possession of rich furniture, the use of trimmings, bullion, silks, velvets, embroideries, and fringes, and to limit the employment of silver and gold plate for household use,[4] as to be quite inoperative; besides which, almost as soon as the decree was promulgated the visit of Charles Stuart caused its suspension.

The number of servants to be kept was rigidly restricted, the use of coaches was only to be allowed to people of a certain rank, women were forbidden to drive up and down unattended by father or {132} husband, and, what caused more gibes than anything else, the houses of ill fame, of which, in the alleys leading out of the Calle Mayor, there was an enormous number, were ordered to be closed. Above all, the most severe orders were given against the wearing of ruffs and the using of starch for any purpose. Pillory, confiscation, and exile were to be the fate of any person who wore any pleated or goffered linen in any shape, and the broad, flat Walloon collar, which fell upon the shoulders, alone was to be allowed. Alguacils were provided with shears, and at a given signal raided the fashionable promenades, cutting the fine lace ruffs which the fops still insisted upon wearing, seizing and burning the stocks of them in the shops, lopping hat-brims to the requisite narrowness, confiscating jewels, and even snipping off the lovelocks before the ears which were the mark of the exquisite.

The ladies, too, were no better treated, and many a brazen-faced madam was hauled out of her trundling coach and put to shame, or had portions of her forbidden finery profaned by the coarse hands of catchpoles. The Calle Mayor and the Prado were up in arms at such sacrilege, and bewailed the time when, the stern pragmatics notwithstanding, each hidalgo and his dame who could get money or credit dressed as splendidly as they liked. The worst of it was, that except the time when all the Court was ablaze with the welcome to its English visitor, the King, for the first time, followed his own pragmatics. Philip, like his grandfather, disliked gorgeous attire for himself; though, when the dignity of his position demanded it, he could be refulgent. He was, moreover, {133} sincerely desirous of remedying the terrible penury that existed everywhere. He had been told by his advisers that one of the ways to do this was to limit personal expenditure, in order that there might be more money for the State to spend, and he endeavoured in his own person to set the example of economy.

[Sidenote: Philip's reforms]

Philip has left a document in his own hand,[5] setting forth the reforms he introduced in the service of his own palace (February 1624). It is addressed to the master of the household, the Duke of Infantado, and although far too long to reproduce entire here, some few passages of it may be quoted, as showing that, severe as the cutting down might be, the royal household was still much larger than would now be considered necessary for a monarch.[6] The distressed condition of the public revenues, says the King, the many calls upon it, the end of the truce with the Dutch, and Spain's many foes on sea and land, make it imperative to cut down every unnecessary expense. A beginning is to be made in the salary of the master of the household himself, all _future_ holders of the office to receive a million maravedis less salary (_i.e._ £330 less), but to retain all the perquisites of the office. Only the four senior stewards are in future to be paid, the rest to serve without payment, but to retain their rations, with some small reductions, namely, the dish of chicken custard or rice is to be suppressed, and the {134} allowance of twenty pounds of ice hitherto given to each steward daily to be stopped. The number of "gentlemen of the mouth" is in future to be restricted to fifty, the gentlemen of the chambers to forty, who are not to have more than two lacqueys each. The pages in future are to be only twenty-four. The numbers of officials of the bakery, fruitery, cellar, spicery, chandlery, and butchery are all reduced to what still seems an extravagant personnel according to modern ideas, and the old scandal of the enormous "rations" drawn (and in many cases sold) by all the palace officials is once more attacked. For instance, the perquisite of sixty wax torches taken by the chief gentlemen of the bed-chamber is abolished; and only eight sets of rations are to be served to the gentlemen of the bed-chamber, whilst the chief groom of the bed-chamber is in future to go without his fifty reals a month in lieu of salads, and his jam on fast days. The controller of the household will no longer be entitled to fresh meat, pastry, bacon, chicken custard, salad and jams, and will have to content himself in future whilst on a journey with two dishes of roast meat and one dish of boiled, and two dishes for supper,--"and he must not take anything out of the store."

[Sidenote: Philip's household economies]

Through every branch of the household this process of reduction was decreed by Philip, and even the pay of the guards was rigidly cut down. The members of the Spanish guard had recently had their pay doubled to 200 ducats a month, and now found themselves reduced to their former pay of 100. The King, by these reforms, decreed that a saving of 67,300 ducats a year was to {135} be effected. In another manuscript of the King's,[7] in which a year or two afterwards he recapitulates his personal efforts to remedy the evils of his country, he refers particularly to the sacrifices he made in his household for the commonweal at this time.

"I have twice reformed my household," he says, "and although my servants may be more numerous than before, I have had no other money to pay them with than honours, and they have received no pecuniary pay. As for my personal expenses, the moderation of my dress and my rare feasts prove how modest it is, and I spend no money voluntarily on myself, for I try to give my vassals an example to avoid vain ostentation. So I have reconciled myself to ask for nothing for my own person, but only the indispensable funds for the defence of my realm and the Catholic faith. I want no more, not a maravedi, from my vassals, and I charge you (the Council of Castile) on your conscience to let me know if anything is being spent beyond this."

Philip spoke truly and from his heart when he expressed his desire to avoid as much as possible the oppression of his subjects, but the science of political economy had not yet been born, and neither he nor his advisers could see that a system of taxation that largely consisted of a crushing fine upon every sale of commodities and food stopped production and trade, and tapped the stream of revenue before it had time to fructify the land. The money from the Indies, or what was left of it after the peculations of officers, all {136} drifted abroad immediately, mostly before landing, to pay for the loans raised on usurious interest, and in return for the articles of extravagance and luxury which were forbidden to be made in Spain, or of which the vicious taxation had killed the production. And so Philip, with the best of intentions, still, be it remembered, a mere boy of nineteen, was enclosed in the vicious circle which the impossible policy of saddling Spain with the defence and assertion of the Catholic faith throughout the world had imposed upon his doomed house.

He might, and did, as I have just shown, do his best to economise for the supposed benefit of his people; but it was his people themselves who needed reforming. Whilst they complained that matters got no better, they shouted as loudly as ever that Spain must teach heretics their error at the point of the pike, and they themselves resisted and evaded by every means in their power the sumptuary and other measures intended for the general relief. That these sumptuary measures were to a great extent absurd, and the methods of enforcing them undignified and often ridiculous, is, of course, clear to us now; but the resistance to them was not founded on that ground, but because they went against the prevailing sentiment of the people, at least the people of the capital. The general pretentiousness, idleness, and love of luxury unearned by labour were, indeed, symptomatic of the natural decadence of society, produced by the unfounded inflation and unreal exaltation of the nation for the greater part of a century previously. The decay had gone too far now for any but a great governing genius to remedy it; {137} and Philip, though good hearted, well meaning, and not without ability, certainly was not that. The poison had to work itself out of the national system by slow and painful process, until the patient, exhausted but sound, could build up its strength again. Philip, throughout his life a brilliant idler with good heart and a tender conscience, was condemned to witness the progress of the disease without being able to understand or remedy it; and to watch at the same time with failing heart the parallel decline and threatened extinction of his own historic house.

Whilst the male, and especially the female, swaggerers of the Calle Mayor gave grudging and evasive obedience to the royal pragmatics against extravagance in most respects, there was one enactment of Philip's which, though at first resisted more sulkily than any of them, gave rise at length to a new fashion, which was seized upon by the whole of Spain with avidity, and became for the rest of the century--seventy-five years--the most entirely characteristic article of Spanish male dress. The ruffs under Philip III. had become enormous, and the costly lace edging and elaborate devices for keeping the frills stiff had made them, perhaps, the most extravagant articles of dress ever generally and diurnally worn in any country. Many attempts had been made to suppress them before Philip and Olivares tried their hands, but all had failed. The alternative collar decreed by Philip's pragmatics was either a plain linen band or the flat Walloon collar falling on the shoulders. The former of these was rejected utterly by people who aspired to be well dressed, as being mean {138} and lacking in distinction after the spreading splendour of the "lettuce frill" ruff. The Walloon collar, unstarched, soon got wrinkled, creased, and soiled; and moreover, it had become to a great extent identified with the "heretic" Hollanders and unpopular Flemings, so that Madrid never looked upon it with favour, though the King wore it after his first pragmatic. The problem was to find a new collar which should be dignified and stiff without the forbidden starch, "or other alchemy," as the pragmatics said; should present the light contrast becoming to swarthy faces, without employing the fine foreign lawn and lace which the royal decree made illegal, and should render unnecessary the puritanical wrinkled Walloon.

[Sidenote: The _golilla_]

An ingenious tailor in the Calle Mayor, early in 1623, submitted to the King and to his brother Carlos a new device, consisting of a high spreading collar of cardboard, covered with white or grey silk on its inner surface, and on the outside with dark cloth to match the doublet. By means of heated iron rollers and shellac the cardboard shape was permanently moulded into a graceful curve which bent outwards at the height of the chin, presenting in juxtaposition with the face the surface of light coloured silk.[8] Philip was pleased with the novelty, which was distinctly more "dressy" than the Walloon, and had none of the objections of the ruff, and ordered some to be made for his brother Carlos and himself. The tailor, in {139} high glee, went home to his shop to make them. But, alas! the pragmatics had forbidden "any sort of alchemy" to make collars stiff, and, moreover, the Inquisition was soon told by its spies that some secret incantations, needing the use of mysterious smoking pots and heated machines turned by handles, were being performed by the tailor in the Calle Mayor.

This was suspicious, and smelt of the Evil One; and soon the poor tailor and his uncanny instruments were haled before the dread tribunal on suspicion of witchcraft and sorcery. It could not make much of the tools, but as, in any case, the collars were lined with silk, and that was against the pragmatic, the poor tailor's stock and instruments were ordered to be publicly burnt before his door. The tailor, in trouble, went to Olivares, who was furious at the King's collars being burnt, and he and the Duke of Infantado sent for the president of the Inquisition Council, and rated him soundly. The president declared that he knew not that the strange things were for his Majesty; but pointed out how dangerously new they were in shape, how mysteriously stiffened, and how they sinned against the pragmatic. But he was soon silenced by the Count-Duke, who told him they were the best and most economical neck-gear ever invented, as they needed no washing or starching, and would last for a year without further expense. Philip[9] and Carlos, with many of the courtiers, wore the new _Golilla_ for the first time during the visit of {140} the Prince of Wales, and the fashion caught the popular taste. Thenceforward all Spain, Spanish Italy, and South America wore golillas, the curve, size, and shape changing somewhat as other fashions changed, but the principle remained the same, until Spain was born again and a French King banned the golilla as barbarous, and imposed upon his new subjects the falling lace cravat and jabot of the eighteenth century.

Though the satirists and poetasters might gibe anonymously at the small remedial effect that followed the well-meant measures of the King and his "bogey," as they called Olivares, and might whisper spitefully, as they did, that the latter purposely kept Philip absorbed in frivolous pursuits, the better to be able to rule unchecked himself, the favourite went on his way sternly and forcefully, pushing aside roughly those who stood in nis path, and behaving none too generously to those who aided him. He gave up none of the duties of personal attendance upon the King, although now the whole of the details of every department of State passed through his hands. The jealous courtiers, whose perquisites he had curtailed, sneered beneath their breath at him for coming into the King's room hung all round with packets of paper, with similar packets stuck in sheafs under the band of his hat, and bulging from his pockets, the very way, they said, to disgust with affairs a youth already disinclined for business and constitutionally idle.

[Sidenote: The policy of Olivares]

It is quite evident, however, that someone had to do the business of the State; and the numerous and very able State papers and memoranda of {141} advice from Olivares to Philip, still in existence,[10] show that every subject of importance was exhaustively explained to the King, naturally from Olivares' point of view, and that, if Philip left the executive power in the hands of the minister, it was not because he was kept in ignorance of the issues involved. Even thus early the main tendency of Olivares' policy was avowed to the King, a policy which was in its essence wise and statesmanlike, but impossible of expeditious consummation. The difficulty which faced Olivares had faced Ferdinand and Isabel and all subsequent Spanish sovereigns, namely, the want of political unity of the country. The "Catholic Kings" had attained a factitious homogeneity by promoting a common spiritual pride, which had given to Spain the temporary force, already well-nigh dead when Olivares took the reins. How could Spain face half Europe in arms, and force orthodoxy on unwilling princes and populations with the resources of ruined Castile alone? Aragonese and Catalans were rich, but held their purse-strings tight. Portugal, with its fine harbours and its rich Oriental trade, held stiffly to the constitution, to respect which Spanish kings had solemnly sworn, and not a ducat of taxes could be imposed upon it by the King of Spain without Portuguese consent, or for other than Portuguese purposes.

[Sidenote: Olivares advocates unification]

The expiry of the truce with the Hollanders, and the evident approach of war after the departure of Charles Stuart from Spain, made necessary the {142} raising of large funds somehow. It has been shown how terribly exhausted the national resources of the Castilian realms were; and the poverty of the country had wrung a cry from the Cortes of Castile, which met late in 1623 to vote new supplies for three years. They could not vote, nor could Castile pay, more than the usual amount, which for the needs of a new war, in addition to the resumed struggle with Holland, was quite insufficient. It would be necessary, therefore, for Philip soon to go and face the independent Parliaments of Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia; and, whilst renewing and taking the usual oaths, beg for generosity from his eastern subjects. There is extant a paper,[11] bearing date of 1625, in which Olivares unfolds to Philip his ideas of the relations that ought to exist between the various dominions of which Spain consisted: the object in view, as he says, being to arrange that "in case any of the States was at war, the rest should be obliged to come to its aid and defence." He cites many examples, ancient and modern, of the need for national unity in the matter of finance and reciprocal obligation, and points out for the benefit of the outer realms of Spain that they can only expect to form a great Power by making such sacrifices for their King as other subjects are obliged to make. His idea, evidently, was to use the obligation of mutual defence as the first step to a complete political fusion of the crowns, and he tried to gild the pill by saying that each of the outer realms may now be considered feudatories of Castile, whereas if they were all united {143} each would be the head. There was, and is, no sentiment or tradition so strong in these regions, especially in Catalonia, as that of political independence of Castile, and any such argument as that of Olivares was bound to meet with stout resistance if he attempted to enforce it. The very rumour was sufficient, and even before the journey of Philip to the eastern realms was begun, in January 1626, ominous murmurs came that Castile might fight her own battles. The crowns of Aragon would provide money and men to defend themselves, and pay their stipulated tribute to their King on the ancient conditions; but that if an attempt was made to coerce any further payment trouble would ensue. How this threat was carried out to the bitter end the later pages of this book will tell; but before we accompany Philip and his mentor on their first regal visit to the stubborn realms of the east, the further progress of events in the capital must be told.

Philip's routine of life had already become fixed, and for many years to come changed but little. Olivares, as before, was always the first to enter his room in the morning, and assisted him to rise, afterwards reciting to him the business of the day, to which, except in the short but frequent fits of penitence and remorse that throughout his life plagued him, it is to be feared the King paid but little attention. He rose early, and ate and drank very soberly, dining at about eleven in the morning after an early cup of chocolate, and performing his religious duties. Like all his house, he was a devoted lover of the chase, and the large preserves in the neighbourhood of all his palaces provided {144} him with ample sport; besides which, as will be described in a later chapter, he enjoyed frequent wild boar drives, in which his fine horsemanship was displayed with advantage. His dress was usually a close-fitting doublet of brown duffel with trunks to match, or on occasions of greater ceremony black silk or velvet with the thin chain and tiny badge of the Golden Fleece at the neck, but no other ornament. The golilla was almost invariably worn, his doublet being, for outdoor wear, surmounted by a serviceable long shoulder cape of similar dark colour. The galligaskins were full, and tied at the knee with ribbons, and confined at the waist by a leather belt, square-toed shoes with buckles, and stockings of lighter colour than the galligaskins, but not usually pure white, completed the leg coverings, except for hunting wear, when gaiters or boots to the knee were used. A broad-trimmed felt hat with a band, and sometimes a side feather, was his head-dress; and in the spring or autumn, when the cloak would have been too heavy, his outdoor garment over the close-fitting doublet was a _ropilla_ or outer jacket with false sleeves cut open and hanging from the shoulder.

[Sidenote: Diversions of the court]

Both Philip and his wife Isabel[12] were indefatigable in their pursuit of pleasure, in which their tastes agreed. The two main amusements were the theatre and the devotional celebrations in churches and monasteries; and the immense number of these in Madrid and the principal cities provided an endless choice of such festivities. The splendour and glitter which the sumptuary {145} decrees prohibited so sternly in secular life ran riot in the temples, and a generation forbidden to be extravagant in their own persons flocked to the garish festivities of the Church to find the sensuous enjoyment which the mere sight of richness gave them. No opportunity, indeed, was lost of getting up a religious show. Philip's second child[13] was born in November 1623,--the condition of the Queen at the time of Charles Stuart's departure having been the reason why Philip did not accompany his guest farther on his road to the coast. The infant Princess, Margarita Maria, only lived a month; but the ceremonial to celebrate her baptism reads like the relation of a fairy-tale.[14]

In July of the next year, 1624, a splendid {146} opportunity for devotional display was provided by the action of a madman. The most crowded church in Madrid was that of the Augustinian Monastery of St. Philip, at the entrance to the Calle Mayor, upon whose steps and raised sidewalk the idlers and gossips of the Court met to whisper scandal and bandy satiric verse. Every morning from matins until the angelus bell tolled the hour of noon, when the soup and bread at the gates were doled to hungry authors, stranded poets, and idlers out of luck, Liars' Walk was full. But rarely had such a sensation of horror pervaded it as on the day just mentioned, when the congregation rushed in panic from the church, with cries of horror that a heretic had knelt before the high altar and had deliberately insulted the Holy Mystery there displayed.[15] Horror upon horrors! and in the Court of the Catholic King! For eight days the King and Queen, with all their Court in the deepest mourning, peregrinated the capital, visiting shrines and making propitiatory offerings. Every church in Madrid was draped in black, and processions, rogations, and public flagellations of devotees went on ceaselessly for a week, during the whole of which time "no stage plays were allowed, and public women were forbidden {147} to ply their trade." In the corridors of the palace itself separate altars were raised for every royal personage, and all the jewels that the crown of Spain could provide were piled upon them to appease the outraged divinity.

[Sidenote: The Theatres of Madrid]

The deprivation, even for a week, of the pleasures of the theatre must have been to the citizens of the Court a greater penance for the offence of the madman than any other; for Spain had literally gone crazy for the stage, and Philip and his wife led or followed the fashion eagerly. Actors, or histrions, as they were called, were popular heroes, and upon the Liars' Walk they swaggered and exchanged quips with the fecund poets who supplied them with lines of facile verse by the fathom.[16] There walked Quevedo, with his great tortoiseshell goggles and his sober black garb; there, observed of all observers, was the "phoenix of wits," the great Lope; there, Moreto and Calderon; and there also the rival comedians of the two theatres, the Corral de la Pacheca and the Teatro de la Cruz, twisted moustachios of defiance at one another, and talked of the King's compliments at their last appearance in the palace.

The two theatres of the capital consisted of large courtyards enclosed by houses, which were usually held by the owners of the theatres.[17] A raised stage at the farther end, with tiled eaves {148} and a curtain, was faced by a number of benches protected from sun and rain by an awning. In these seats men alone were allowed to sit, whilst in the open uncovered space behind them other men, who had paid a smaller sum, witnessed the show standing. On the left hand on the ground level was a sort of enclosed gallery called the _cazuela_, the stew-pan, where the women were accommodated; and, as upon the English stage at the time, some of the more privileged of the gallants were allowed to be seated on stools upon the stage itself. In the closely grated windows of the houses surrounding the courtyard the aristocracy saw the play and the audience without being seen; and as these windows corresponded with rooms (_aposentos_) in different houses with separate entrances, but yet in most cases of easy access to the stage, infinite opportunities for intrigue were provided. So scandalous did this state of affairs become at a somewhat later period, that murderous affrays even between the highest nobles of Spain on the subject of the actresses were of frequent occurrence.[18] Philip, by the Court etiquette, was not supposed to go to public theatres, and had {149} a regular stage erected in the Alcazar and other palaces, where comedies were performed twice a week; but, in fact, he was a constant visitor to both the public theatres, going, of course, incognito, and often masked, as was the fashion of the time. There he would sit in one of the private rooms, unseen behind a heavily grated window, but vigilant for any new beauty who appeared on the stage or in the cazuela.[19]

Sometimes, too, the Queen would go with similar precautions, and it is to be feared, from the stories of eye-witnesses, that her tastes were, at all events in these joyful early years of her life, not too refined. Not only was she an ardent lover of the bull-fight, but she would in the palace or public theatres countenance amusements which would now be considered coarse. Quarrels and fights between country wenches would be incited for her to witness unsuspected; nocturnal tumults would be provoked for her amusement in the gardens of Aranjuez or other palaces; and it is related that, when she was in one of the grated _aposentos_ of a public theatre, snakes or noxious reptiles would be secretly let loose upon the floor or in the _cazuela_, to the confusion and alarm of the spectators, whilst the gay red-cheeked young {150} Queen would almost laugh herself into fits to see the stampede.

[Sidenote: An _auto-de-fé_]

Nor were bull-fights, comedies, equestrian shows and church spectacles the only amusements of a Court which actually lived for idle pleasures. There was another in which poignancy of excitement and devotion of the peculiar Spanish sort were equally blended; and, though not so frequent as the other diversions, was still more popular. These were the _autos-de-fe_. Heretics of the Protestant kind there were now practically none to burn; but sorcery, impiety, and above all Judaism, or the suspicion of it, provided enough victims to furnish forth an occasional public holiday. The description of one such ceremonial at this period will suffice.[20] It was not long after the mad French pedlar had outraged the religious proprieties in the Church of St. Philip, when the branch of the Inquisition at Madrid received advice from one of its ubiquitous familiars that certain persons, believed to be of Jewish origin, were in the habit of meeting at the house of a certain Licentiate in the Calle de las Infantas, where, amongst other impious rites, they flogged and maltreated a wooden crucifix. Before many hours had passed, the whole of the accused and their friends were in the dungeons of the Inquisition; and, as a warning to other backsliders, it was determined to hold a solemn public ceremonial judgment of the offenders in the Plaza Mayor of Madrid on Sunday, 4th July 1624.

The municipality provided the stands and {151} decorations of the great square, with a splendidly adorned balcony for the King and Queen, six other balconies being reserved for the ladies in attendance, with nine balconies for gentlemen of the palace party; a vast concourse of citizens filling the public space, and the hundreds of balconies looking down upon the square. An immense staging was erected facing the royal balcony, upon which, in their state robes, were to be seated the Town Council of Madrid, the Inquisition of Toledo, the Supreme Tribunal, all the Royal Councils and other official bodies. The ceremonies began on the evening before the great day. At five o'clock on Saturday afternoon, a solemn procession left the Convent of Doña Maria de Aragon,[21] near the palace, carrying the gigantic green cross which upon these occasions held the place of honour. The standard was borne by the first official noble in the land, the Constable of Castile, whilst the Admiral of Castile carried the tassels of the sacred banner. Then, amidst a crowd of priests with flaring waxen tapers, came the white cross in the hands of the representative of Toledo, followed by the green cross itself, in the hands of the prior of St. Thomas. Torch-bearers and faggot-bearers came after, many scores of them, and the procession closed by long lines of friars bearing tapers from every monastery in Madrid.

At seven o'clock the next morning the King and Queen left the palace in their coach, followed by the whole Court; and when the royal party had seated themselves in their gay bedizened balconies, the long procession of the Inquisition, {152} with swaying censers, flaming tapers, and propitiatory dirges, wound into the plaza under the archway from the Calle Mayor. First came the alguaciles of the municipality and the town officials, then the alguaciles of the Court and the officers of the Royal Council; seventy hooded familiars of the dread tribunal with their big crosses upon their sombre garb, followed with the crowd of consultants, notaries, and prosecutors of the Holy Office. After them walked the municipality of Madrid, then the Chief Constable of the Inquisition alone, followed by the fiscal of the Inquisition of Toledo bearing the banner of the Holy Office, whose tassels were held by fiscals of Castile. The Inquisition of Toledo came next, and then the Supreme Council of the Inquisition itself, the last and most important member being Cardinal Zapata, the Inquisitor-General.

When all had taken their places, the Cardinal, as usual, ascended to the royal balcony and administered to the King the oath to keep inviolate the purity of the Church at any cost, an oath afterwards repeated by the members of the tribunal itself and the Councils. Upon a lower staging before the official platform were grouped the forty wretched creatures in their flaming tabards of shame, whose offence this pompous show was to punish. An interminable sermon was preached by the King's confessor, Sotomayor, exhorting the accused to repent and the faithful to increased zeal in the extermination of the enemies of the holy faith; and then the dread sentences were read out by the relator. Seven of the accused were condemned to be burned alive that night {153} outside the gate of the city, and four more were to be executed in effigy, whilst their bodies rotted for life in the secret dungeons of the Holy Office; the rest being sent back to their prison, probably never again to see the light of day, and to suffer unrecorded tortures until death should release them. The house where the offence was said to have been committed was doomed to be swept utterly from the face of the earth, and a church and monastery dedicated to Christ crucified erected in its place.[22] By the time the condemned were led away it was three o'clock in the afternoon; and whilst the wretched prisoners in their _sambenitos_, amidst the curses and insults of the crowd, went to their doom, the smart company of courtiers, together with King Philip and his wife, returned to their respective homes and their much-needed repast, doubtless in an exceedingly self-approving and pharisaical mood.[23]

Whilst the King and his people were thus absorbed in the pursuit of demoralising pleasures, and loudly proclaiming to Europe that Spain had abandoned none of its past pretensions, the European league against her had been fully organised. It had been clear to Richelieu from the beginning of Philip's reign, that unless France struck boldly and promptly she would be in danger of finding herself once more shut in by the House of Austria, more solid than ever now that Olivares was determined to aid the Emperor to keep the {154} Palatinate, and the blood and treasure of Castile were again to be squandered in fighting heresy abroad. Spinola, victorious in Germany with Spanish troops, was seriously threatening the United Provinces, and Spain, in defiance of treaties, still held by force the Valtelline, which connected Lombardy with Tyrol. The Duke of Savoy, ambitious and discontented with his Spanish kinsman, tired of the rôle of catspaw to which he was condemned, and greedy to seize Lombardy and Genoa, readily listened to Richelieu's approaches; and England, still smarting under the humiliation she had suffered from Olivares, did the same, whilst the United Provinces, already at war with Spain, willingly joined the enemies of her enemy. Europe found itself for a short time again thus divided in its old way: France, Savoy, and the Protestant Powers being on one side; whilst the House of Austria in Germany and Spain, with the Italian principalities, were on the other. The first object of Richelieu was to break the territorial circle by ousting the Spaniards from the Valtelline, which he invaded with French and Swiss troops in 1625. Then followed the ignominious attack upon Cadiz by the English fleet under Sir Edward Cecil (Lord Wimbledon) in October of the same year,[24] and Spain thus found herself at war with half Europe.

[Sidenote: War with France]

Poor and exhausted as we have seen that the country was, the labours of Olivares had not been quite without result, and with great effort funds were raised to present a front to the enemies of {155} the faith worthy of Spanish traditions. The Queen offered her personal jewels to fight her own countrymen, the French; the nobles contributed a million ducats in cash from their ill-gotten hoards; the pulpits and altars of Spain and the Indies rang with priestly exhortations to sacrifice for the faith; and the clergy itself undertook to maintain twenty thousand troops during the war. The property of all French subjects in Spain was confiscated, and for once the energy of Olivares was felt in all branches of the Spanish service. It was as if the old times of Philip II. had returned. Feria and Spinola, the one on land, the other at sea, forced the French to abandon their conquests in the Valtelline and Genoa. Spain, in a fever of pride and jubilation, hailed the young King, who personally had done nothing and had never left Madrid, as "Philip the Great," and Olivares caused the title to be officially accorded to his young master. But after a time the diplomacy of the Spanish Queen of France and Olivares did more to end the war than the skill of the generals. Richelieu was a cardinal of the Church, and could not entirely ignore the remonstrances of the Pope, prompted by Olivares, against his making common cause with heretics to fight the orthodox Catholic Power; and a treaty between France and Spain was patched up in January 1626 with regard to the Valtelline, where the Catholics were to enjoy full liberty of conscience on payment of a tribute to the Protestant Grisons.

But in Germany the war, now mainly a religious one, went on, the arms of the Emperor being to a great extent successful, thanks to {156} the genius of Tilly and the ample aid in men and money poured into mid-Europe by Spain. Spanish resources, too, were plentifully sent to the Infanta Archduchess to carry on the eternal war with the Dutch, who were, as of yore, upheld by their brother Protestants in England and France. Once more the Dutch privateers harried Spanish commerce, and again all traffic between Holland and Spain was prohibited, to Spain's detriment. But the new-born spurt of energy favoured Spanish arms even here; for Don Fadrique de Toledo destroyed the Dutch fleet off Gibraltar, and Spinola at last, after a siege of ten months, captured Breda. To complete the picture of Spain's unwonted success, the Dutch were expelled from Guayaquil in South America and from Puerto Rico in the West Indies, and the Moorish pirates who had harried the Mediterranean, and even the Spanish coasts, for years, were crushed by Philip's galleys.

[Sidenote: "Philip the Great"]

The pride and jubilation in Spain passed all bounds, and Philip himself, in a recapitulation of the situation made to the Council of Castile,[25] sets forth in words of proud satisfaction the rise in the national prestige that had followed his accession. It is significant, however, that the occasion that gave rise to this document, congratulatory and exculpatory at the same time, was the absolute destitution of the country as a consequence of the expense caused by the renewal of the war of which they were all so proud.

"Our prestige," says the King, "has been {157} immensely improved. We have had all Europe against us, but we have not been defeated, nor have our allies lost, whilst our enemies (_i.e._ the French) have sued me for peace. Last year, 1625, we had nearly 300,000 infantry and cavalry in our pay, and over 500,000 men of the militia under arms, whilst the fortresses of Spain are being put into a thorough state of defence. The fleet, which consisted of only seven vessels on my accession, rose at one time in 1625 to 108 ships of war at sea, without counting the vessels at Flanders, and the crews are the most skilful mariners this realm ever possessed. Thank God, our enemies have never captured one of my ships, except a solitary hulk. So it may truly be said that we have recovered our prestige at sea; and fortunately so, for, lacking our sea power, we should lose not only all the realms we possess, but religion even in Madrid itself would be ruined, and this is the principal point to be considered. This very year of 1626 we have had two royal armies in Flanders and one in the Palatinate, and yet all the power of France, England, Sweden, Venice, Savoy, Denmark, Holland, Brandenberg, Saxony, and Weimer could not save Breda from our victorious arms."

In a similar gratulatory spirit the young King reviews the wars in which Spain has held her own in the Grisons, Venetian territory, France, and Genoa.

"We have," he continues, "held our own against England, both with regard to the marriage and at Cadiz; and yet, with all this universal conspiracy against us, I have not depleted my {158} patrimony by 50,000 ducats. It would be impossible to believe this if I did not see it with my own eyes, and that my own realms are all quiet and religious. I have written this paper to you to show you (_i.e._ the Council of Castile, the supreme administrative, judicial, and financial authority in Spain) that I have done my part, and have put my own shoulder to the wheel without sparing sacrifice. I have spent nothing unnecessary upon myself, and I have made Spain and myself respected by my enemies."

The political blindness that afflicted Philip in common with other Spaniards of the day, is strikingly exhibited in this paper. The liberty or supremacy of the Valtelline Catholics mattered not one jot to Spain. The religious fate of Bohemia and the Palatinate was equally foreign to purely Spanish interests, whilst it must have been patent to all the world that a recognition of the inevitable independence of Protestant Holland, which it was clear now Spain could never prevent, would have resulted in a perfectly honourable peace in that direction, and would have freed Spain from the drain which was exhausting her. And yet there is in the document just quoted, and in scores of others of the period emanating from Philip or his ministers, not one word to indicate any idea that it was unwise or unstatesmanlike to lead suffering Spain to utter ruin for the sake of championing the Catholic faith, and all the causes masquerading under its name, in any part of Europe.

[Sidenote: Philip's appeal to Aragon]

But though Philip and his Castilian subjects were blinded to political expediency by what they {159} proudly considered their religious privilege and duty, the subjects of his eastern realms, hardheaded men of other racial origins and political traditions, had no notion of allowing themselves to be ruined for a sentimental idea, however grandiose. When the King had asked the Aragonese Cortes for the usual grant in 1624, he was told that he must first present himself before the Aragonese Parliaments (Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia) to take the usual oath to respect their constitutions, before they could make a grant; and as they stiffly held to the principle, which the Castilian Parliament had lost, of "redress before supply," they could vote nothing until their legislative demands were satisfied. The anger of Olivares at such a reply may be guessed by the tenour of the document of his quoted on page 142, but there was no help for it, and Philip with as good a grace as he might promised to visit his eastern subjects, perfectly well aware that his progress was not likely to be a mere voyage of pleasure, as his trip to Andalucia had been a year previously.

The disappointed courtier Novoa[26] gives an amusing account of the meeting of the Council of State which decided upon the King's voyage. He says that Olivares, "careful as usual of the unessential point and careless of what was most important," was determined to show off his oratory, and begged the King and his brothers to sit behind the grating in the council chamber, where unseen {160} they could watch the proceedings, in order to hear his speech. The wisest and oldest councillors in their speeches dwelt upon the gravity of the situation, and expressed hope that the alliance of their enemies would soon fall to pieces, and Lord Wimbledon's fleet be wrecked on its way home.

[Sidenote: The policy of Olivares]

"Then came the Count's turn to speak. Settling himself firmly on his legs, and thrusting his crutch stick between his bald patch and his false hair, he made a longer pause than the occasion demanded, and said that there was no reason for alarm, nor to make so much of the power of many other potentates, for his Majesty was greater than all of them put together. Even if France, England, Venice, Holland, Savoy, Piedmont, Sweden and Denmark were to join together, none of them, and hardly the whole of them united, were so great as the realms under the dominion of King Philip. The realm of Castile, they all knew the greatness of, and so they did of Portugal, Aragon, Valencia, Catalonia, Sicily, Navarre, Naples, Milan, Flanders, the East Indies and the West and other islands, and great territories elsewhere. Well, then! if his Majesty alone had in various parts of the world greater possessions than many of the others together, why should we be so frightened of the power of many united?[27] Let his Majesty leave Castile, and as {161} Portugal is only one realm, Naples and Sicily, so far away and across the sea, let him go to Aragon, Valencia, and Catalonia. Let him call their Cortes together, and ask them for supplies. Let him show them how many years Castile has borne the burden alone, and demand that these three realms shall do their part in providing men and money for his Majesty; and those who cannot go to the war themselves, let them provide capable and experienced men to replace them. By this means we shall be able to outweigh with our own forces the powers against us, without having to go and beg for help from foreign princes. Who doubts, he continued, that by this means we shall raise great armies and fleets to defend the country. We can then easily send the aid necessary to Italy, Flanders, and elsewhere, and to our own coasts, so that our enemies will all be in fear of us, and perhaps will desist from their evil intentions. This is what appears to me, in the present case, as being necessary to carry out the plans I have formed, which I cannot explain at this juncture, but by which I hope to render signal service to his Majesty."