Читать книгу A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - John Lord - Страница 22

Spain cannot be said to have been a powerful state until the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella; when the crowns of Castile and Arragon were united, and when the discoveries of Columbus added a new world to their extensive territories. Nor, during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, was the power of the crown as absolute as during the sway of the Austrian princes. The nobles were animated by a bold and free spirit, and the clergy dared to resist the encroachments of royalty, and even the usurpations of Rome. Charles V. succeeded in suppressing the power of the nobles, and all insurrections of the people, and laid the foundation for the power of his gloomy son, Philip II. With Philip commenced the grandeur of the Spanish monarchy. By him, also, were sown the seeds of its subsequent decay. Under him, the inquisition was disgraced by ten thousand enormities, Holland was overrun by the Duke of Alva, and America conquered by Cortes and Pizarro. It was he who built the gorgeous palaces of Spain, and who, with his Invincible Armada, meditated the conquest of England. The wealth of the Indies flowed into the royal treasury, and also enriched all orders and classes. Silver and gold became as plenty at Madrid as in old times at Jerusalem under the reign of Solomon. But Philip was a different prince from Solomon. His talents and attainments were respectable, but he had a jealous and selfish disposition, and exerted all the energies of his mind, and all the resources of his kingdom, to crush the Bigotry of Philip II. Protestant religion and the liberties of Europe.

Among the first acts of his reign was the effort to extinguish Protestantism in the Netherlands, an assemblage of seigniories, under various titles, subject to his authority. The opinions of Luther and Calvin made great progress in this country, and Philip, in order to repress them, created new bishops, and established the Inquisition. The people protested, and these protests were considered as rebellious.

At the head of the nobility was William, the Prince of Orange, on whom Philip had conferred the government of Holland, Zealand, Friesland, and Utrecht, provinces of the Netherlands. He was a haughty but resolute and courageous character, and had adopted the opinions of Calvin, for which he lost the confidence of Philip. In the prospect of destruction, Revolt of the Netherlands. he embraced the resolution of delivering his country from the yoke of a merciless and bigoted master. Having reduced the most important garrisons of Holland and Zealand, he was proclaimed stadtholder, and openly threw off his allegiance to Spain. Hostilities, of course, commenced. Alva, the general of Philip, took the old city of Haerlem, and put fifteen hundred to the sword, among whom were all the magistrates, and all the Protestant clergy.

Don John, Archduke of Austria, and the brother of Philip, succeeded the Duke of Alva, during whose administration the seven United Provinces formed themselves into a confederation, and chose the Prince of Orange to be the general of their armies, admiral of their fleets, and chief magistrate, by the title of stadtholder. But William was soon after assassinated by a wretch who had been bribed by the exasperated Philip, and Maurice, his son, received his title, dignities, and power. His military talents, as the antagonist of the Duke of Parma, lieutenant to Philip, in the Netherlands, secured him a high place in the estimation of warriors. To protect this prince and the infant republic of Holland, Queen Elizabeth sent four thousand men under the Earl of Leicester, her favorite; and, with this assistance, the Hollanders maintained their ground against the most powerful monarch in Europe, as has been already mentioned in the chapter on Elizabeth.

After the loss of the Netherlands, the next great event of his reign was the acquisition of Portugal, to which he laid claim on the death of Don Henry, in 1581. There were several other claimants, but Philip, with an army of twenty thousand, was stronger than any of the others. He gained a decisive victory over Don Antonio, uncle to the last monarch, and was crowned at Lisbon without opposition.

The Revolt of the Moriscoes. revolt of the Moriscoes occupies a prominent place in the annals of this reign. They were Christianized Moors, but, at heart, Mohammedans. A decree had been published that their children should frequent the Christian church, that the Arabic should no longer be used in writing, that both men and women should wear the Spanish costume, that they no longer should receive Mohammedan names, or marry without permission. The Moriscoes contended that no particular dress involved religious opinions, that the women used the veil according to their notions of modesty, that the use of their own language was no sin, and that baths were used, not from religious motives, but for the sake of cleanliness. These expostulations were, however, without effect. Nothing could move the bigoted king. So revolt followed cruelty and oppression. Great excesses were committed by both parties, and most horrible barbarities were exhibited. The atrocious nature of civil war is ever the same, and presents nearly the same undeviating picture of misery and crime. But in this war there was something fiendish. A clergyman was roasted over a brazier, and the women, wearied with his protracted death, despatched him with their needles and knives. The rebels ridiculed the sacrifice of the mass by slaughtering a pig on the high altar of a church. These insults were retaliated with that cruelty which Spanish bigotry and malice know so well how to inflict. Thousands of defenceless women and children were murdered in violation of the most solemn treaties. The whole Moorish population was finally exterminated, and Granada, with its beautiful mountains and fertile valleys, was made a desert. No less than six hundred thousand were driven to Africa—an act of great impolicy, since the Moriscoes were the most ingenious and industrious part of the population; and their exile contributed to undermine that national prosperity in which, at that day, every Spaniard gloried. But destruction ever succeeds pride: infatuation and blindness are the attendants of despotism.

The destruction of the Spanish Armada, and the losses which the Spaniards suffered from Sir Francis Drake and Admiral Hawkins, have already been mentioned. But the pride of Philip was mortified, rather than that his power was diminished. His ambition received a check, and he found it impossible to conquer England. His finances, too, became deranged; still he remained the absolute master of the richest kingdom in the world.

The Causes of Decline of the Spanish Monarchy. decline of the Spanish monarchy dates from his death which took place in his magnificent palace of the Escurial, in 1598. Under his son Philip III., decline became very marked, and future ruin could be predicted.

The principal cause of the decline of prosperity was the great increase of the clergy, and the extent of their wealth. In the Spanish dominions, which included Spain, Naples, Milan, Parma, Sicily, Sardinia, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the Indies, there were fifty-four archbishops, six hundred and eighty-four bishops, seven thousand hospitals, one hundred thousand abbeys and nunneries, six hundred thousand monks, and three hundred and ten thousand secular priests—a priest to every ten families. Almost every village had a monastery. The diocese of Seville had fourteen thousand priests, nearly the present number of all the clergy of the establishment in England. The cathedral of Seville gave support and occupation to one hundred priests.

And this numerous clergy usurped the power and dignities of the state. They also encouraged that frightful inquisition, the very name of which conjures up the most horrid images of death and torture. This institution, committed to the care of Dominican monks, was instituted to put down heresy; that is, every thing in poetry, philosophy, or religion, which was distasteful to the despots of the human mind. The inquisitors had power to apprehend people even suspected of heresy, and, on the testimony of two witnesses, could condemn them to torture, imprisonment, and death. Resistance was vain; complaint was ruin. Arrests took place suddenly and secretly. Nor had the prisoner a knowledge of his accusers, or of the crimes of which he was accused. The most delicate maidens, as well as men of hoary hairs and known integrity, were subjected to every outrage that human nature could bear, or satanic ingenuity inflict. Should the jailer take compassion, and bestow a few crumbs of bread or drops of water, he would be punished as the greatest of traitors. Even nobles were not exempted from the supervision of this court, which was established in every village and town in Portugal and Spain, and which, in the single city of Toledo, condemned, in one year, seventeen thousand people. This institution was tolerated by the king, since he knew very well that there ever exists an intimate union between absolutism in religion and absolutism in government.

Besides the spiritual despotism which the clergy of Spain exercised over a deluded people, but a people naturally of fine elements of character, The Increase of Gold and Silver. the sudden increase of gold and silver led to luxury, idleness, and degeneracy. Money being abundant, in consequence of the gold and silver mines of America, the people neglected the cultivation of those things which money could procure. Then followed a great rise in the prices of all kinds of provision and clothing. Houses, lands, and manufactures also soon rose in value. Hence money was delusive, since, with ten times the increase of specie, there was a corresponding decrease in those necessaries of life which gold and silver would purchase. Silver and gold are only the medium of trade, not the basis of wealth. The real prosperity of a country depends upon the amount of productive industry. If diamonds were as numerous as crystals, they would be worth no more than crystals. The sudden influx of the precious metals into Spain doubtless gave a temporary wealth to the kingdom; but when habits of industry were lost, and the culture of the soil was neglected, the gold and silver of the Spaniards were exchanged for the productive industry of other nations. The Dutch and the English, whose manufactures and commerce were in a healthy state, became enriched at their expense. With the loss of substantial wealth, that is, industry and economy, the Spaniards lost elevation of sentiment, became cold and proud, followed frivolous pleasures and amusements, and acquired habits which were ruinous. Plays, pantomimes, and bull-fights now amused the lazy and pleasure-seeking nation, while the profligacy of the court had no parallel in Europe, with the exception of that of France. The country became exhausted by war. The finances were deranged, and province after province rebelled. Every where were military reverses, and a decrease of population. Taxes, in the mean while, increased, and a burdened people lamented in vain their misfortune and decline. Decline of the Spanish Monarchy. The reign of Philip IV. was the most disastrous in the annals of the country. The Catalan insurrection, the loss of Jamaica, the Low Countries, and Portugal, were the results of his misrule and imbecility. So rapidly did Spain degenerate, that, upon the close of the Austrian dynasty, with all the natural advantages of the country, the best harbors and sea-coast in Europe, the richest soil, and the finest climate, and with the possession of the Indies also, the people were the poorest, the most ignorant, and the most helpless in Europe. The death of Charles II., a miserable, afflicted, superstitious, priest-ridden monarch, left Spain without a king, and the vacant throne became the prize of any monarch in Europe who could raise and send across the Pyrenees the largest army. It fell into the power of Louis XIV., and the Bourbon princes have ever since in vain attempted the restoration of the broken monarchy to its former glory. But, alas, Spain has, since the spoliation of the Mexicans and Peruvians, only a melancholy history—a history of crime, bigotry, anarchy, and poverty. The Spaniards committed awful crimes in their lust for gold and silver. "They had their request," but God, in his retributive justice, "sent leanness into their souls."

For the history of Spain during the Austrian princes, see a history in Lardner's Encyclopedia; Watson's Life of Philip II.; James's Foreign Statesmen; Schiller's Revolt of the Netherlands; Russell's Modern Europe; Prescott's Conquest of Mexico and Peru.(Back to Contents)