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Death of Philip III.

Philip was precocious, and Olivares encouraged his precocity. By his influence it was decided that the married life of the fifteen and a half year old Prince and his pretty French bride should commence in November 1620, at the suburban palace of the Pardo; and thenceforward, whilst the poor King, in alternate fits of agonised remorse and hysterical hope, clung to his mouldering relics of dead saints for comfort, and to the frocks of his attendant friars for reassurance against the wrath of the Most High, his son Philip was yearning impatiently for the coming of the time when he might as King carry into effect the lessons his mentor Olivares had whispered to him; banish the whole brood of Sandoval y Rojas, and revive, as by magic, the potency of his country and the happiness of his people.

Through the month of March 1621, King Philip III. lay dying in his palace at Madrid, overlooking the bare Castilian plain.[35] He was not much over forty years of age, but though his malady was slight his vitality had fled, and all desire to prolong his disillusioned life. His remorse and horror of heaven's vengeance were terrible to behold, though during all his reign his habits had been those of a frivolous friar rather than of a bad man, which he certainly was not.[36] On the 30th March young Philip took a last farewell of his father. "I have sent for you," said the King, "that you may see how it all ends"; and he gave the weeping lad similar advice to that given by his own greater father, Philip II., to him on his deathbed, counsel to be treated in a similar way. He was to marry his sister Maria to the German Emperor, and to set his face sternly against all temptations to make a less Catholic alliance for her; for James of England had been striving hard, seconded by Gondomar, to win her for Charles, Prince of Wales, and to secure the Palatinate of the Rhine for his son-in-law Frederick. The dying Philip urged his son to strive for the happiness of his people, cherish his sisters and brothers, to avoid new counsellors, and to stand steadfast to the faith of Spain; but when the young Prince left the room Uceda and his crew knew that it was to go straight and take counsel of Olivares and his supporters for making a clean sweep of all those who had not bent the knee to the cadet of the house of Guzman, the dark man with the bent shoulders, the big square head, flashing fierce black eyes, and brusque imperious manner, who was already assuming the airs of a master.

For many months the palace had been a swarming hive of intriguers, where hate, jealousy, and uncharitableness reigned supreme; but one by one the friends of the Sandovals had been pushed into the background, and no one but Olivares and his creatures were now allowed to approach the lad who was soon to be King of Spain. It was clear to Uceda that he was not strong enough to resist the coming storm alone; perhaps the father he had ousted, the Cardinal Duke of Lerma, who had acted on the death of Philip II. as Olivares was acting now, might with his experience and prestige yet win the day. The dying King had already raised the exile of all the other courtiers who had been banished from Court; though on their return they had been excluded by Olivares from access to the Prince; and now, in the last days of the King's life, Uceda obtained from him a decree recalling the Duke of Lerma.

Like a thunderbolt the news fell in the camp of the Guzmans. Olivares summoned his kin, headed by the wisest of them, old Baltasar de Zuñiga. From this meeting Olivares went to the Prince and told him that as his father was dying it was necessary to look ahead and take measures for securing prompt obedience when the crucial moment came. Young Philip acquiesced, for he was as wax in the hands of his imperious mentor; and Olivares, thus reinforced, proceeded to the King's apartments, where by cajolery and threats he obtained from the two great nobles on duty, the aged Duke of Infantado and the Marquis of Malpica, not only a knowledge of the provisions of the King's will, but also a promise that prompt information of everything that passed in the death chamber should be sent direct to the Prince's adviser. The Cardinal Duke was hurrying across Castile towards Madrid, full of hope for a revival of his greatness; for young Philip, whom he had dandled as a babe, always liked him, and had wept for his "Gossip," as he called him, when he had been banished from Court. If once the Duke reached Madrid, Guzman was in danger, and no time was to be lost. So the Prince, at the bidding of Olivares, took the bold and dangerous course of assuming sovereign power to countermand his father's orders whilst yet the King lived.

Young Philip was alone in the dusk of the evening in his panelled chamber in the old palace of Madrid, when the president of the Council of Castile, the highest functionary in Spain and Archbishop of Burgos, stood bowing before him in obedience to his call. The Prince, who lounged against a carved oak sideboard, was dressed in black, and his long sallow face had assumed the haughty immobility that for the rest of his life was his official mask of majesty. "I have sent for you, he mumbled to the Archbishop in slow, measured tones, to direct you to despatch a member of the Council to forbid the Duke of Lerma from entering Castile, and to command him to return immediately to Valladolid to await my orders."[37] The Archbishop knelt and promised obedience, though he knew, we are told, that if the King recovered he would have to suffer for his weak compliance with an illegal command.[38]

There was little to fear in the world now, however, from Philip III., who in the intervals of his bodily anguish was occupied solely in his panic-stricken intercessions for pardon. His room was encumbered with ghastly remains of saintly humanity, and the sacred offices succeeded each other day and night: but around the bed worldly ambitions were raging bitterly. In the morning of the 30th March a consultation of physicians pronounced the end to be near; and the Duke of Uceda, as principal minister and first chamberlain, announced his intention of conveying the news to the Prince. Then the Duke of Infantado, secure in the favour of Olivares, to whom only two days before he had betrayed the secrets of the death chamber, broke out tempestuously: "No, indeed; that is my place, for the Prince has specially ordered me to go." Uceda knew his day was past, and meekly bent his head: and thus, in the midst of greedy bickering, his nerveless hand grasping to the last the rough crucifix that had comforted the glazing eyes of his grandfather the Emperor, and his father Philip II., the third Philip passed the dread divide, revered and beloved by the people whom his ineptitude had ruined, because he had still upheld throughout Europe the claim of his house to impose Christian orthodoxy upon the world, and had purged the sacred soil of Spain of the taint of Moorish blood, to his country's permanent undoing.

Olivares had played his cards cleverly. For weeks he had feigned a desire to seek retirement in his home at Andalusia, knowing well that young Philip, in the welter of difficulties and intrigues that surrounded him, looked to him alone for guidance; and the adviser had only to hint at a wish to retire for the Prince to assent to whatever he demanded. As the King lay dying Uceda had met Olivares in the corridor. "How goes it," he asked, "in the Prince's chamber?" "All is mine," replied the Count. "All!" exclaimed the Duke of Uceda ruefully; "Yes, without exception," retorted Olivares; "for his Highness overrates me in all things but my goodwill."[39] Before many hours had passed Uceda and his kin knew to their cost that Olivares had not boasted in vain. All was indeed his, and the strong hand fell ruthlessly upon those who had ruled and plundered Spain since the greatest of the Philips had passed his heavy crown to his weak son twenty-two years before.

[1] See a curious contemporary, unpublished, account by Don Geronimo Gascon de Torquemada. Add. MSS. 10,236 British Museum. He says that the Town Council scattered 12,000 silver reals in the plaza on Saturday, 9th April, and that 30,000 wax candles, with as many sheets of white paper to wrap round them for torches, were distributed to the poor; the whole population of the city at the time being between 50,000 and 60,000.

[2] Narrative of Matias de Novoa, Documentos Ineditos, vol. lx.

[3] The vehement protest of Ribera is reproduced in extenso in Gil Gonzalez Davila's Vida y Hechos de Phelipe III. Original MS. in possession of the author. Also published, Madrid, 1771. Ribera it was who principally promoted the expulsion of the Moriscos a few years later.

[4] Gongora's sonnet, for instance, which is thus Englished by Churton—

"Our Queen had borne a Prince. When all were gay,

A Lutheran envoy came across the main.

With some six hundred followers in his train—

All knaves of Luther's brood. His proud array

Cost us, in one fair fortnight and a day,

A million ducats of the gold of Spain,

In jewels, feasting crowds, and pageant play.

But then he brought us, for our greater gain,

The peace King James on Calvin's Bible swore.

Well! we baptized our Prince; Heaven bless the child!

But why make Luther rich, and leave Spain poor?

What witch our dancing courtiers' wits beguiled?—

Cervantes, write these doings: they surpass

Your grave Don Quixote, Sancho and his ass."

See also Cervantes' ballad of the Churching of Queen Margaret, in his Exemplary Novel of The Little Gipsy, written, however, some years after the event.

[5] Don Juan Fernandez de Velasco, hereditary Great Constable of Castile, Duke of Frias, who in the previous year, 1604, had gone to England to conclude with James I. the Treaty of Peace.

[6] So at least say the eye-witnesses; though it can hardly have been a more violent downpour than that which overtook the present writer on the same spot, and at a similar date, in a recent year, when, with hardly five minutes' notice, the road was converted into a rushing torrent several inches deep, though previously no rain had fallen for months.

[7] Cabrera (Documentos Ineditos) says that care was taken that no sacred pictures were placed in the rooms, for fear of offence, though they were hung with fine tapestries. Three new beds, he says, were bought for Howard and his sons, etc. As an instance of the great care taken on both sides to avoid offence, Davila mentions that Howard, having learnt that two of his gentlemen had brought English Bibles with them, insisted upon their being returned to the ship; and Gascon de Torquemada asserts that the Englishmen were forbidden to dispute with Spaniards, right or wrong, on pain of death.

[8] "Todos tienen lindos trajes y altos cuerpos; y en habiendo entrado en conversacion con nosotros se apartan luego, y hacen cabriolas, cantando entre dientes: y aunque entre ellos usan esto no lo usava el Almirante." Gascon de Torquemada's MS B.M., Add. MSS. 10,236. Cabrera de Cordova (Relacion de las Cosas Sucedidas desde 1599 hasta 1614) also mentions the "cabriolas" or skipping of the English gentlemen in the grand ball given in their honour on the 16th June by the King. The passion for dancing "high and disposedly" was at the time considered peculiarly English, and Englishmen are frequently referred to in Spanish letters of the time as being naturally volatile and mercurial, in marked contrast with their latter-day descendants.

[9] See Geronimo Gascon de Torquemada's MS. B.M., Add. MSS. 10,936.

[10] Full accounts of Howard's reception may be found in Torquemada's MS. already quoted, in Novoa's relation (Documentos Ineditos, 60 and 61), in Cabrera de Cordova, in Davila already quoted, and in Yepes' Felipe III. Madrid, 1723.

[11] Cervantes thus writes on the subject—

"This pearl that Thou to us hast given,

Star of Austria's diadem:

What crafty plans, what high designs,

Are shattered by this peerless gem.

What hopes within our breasts are raised,

What soaring schemes have come to nought,

What fears are by his birth aroused.

What havoc with ambition wrought!"

MacColl's translation of "The Exemplary Novels."

[12] With him, we are told, walked the Princes of Savoy and all the grandees and prelates present in Valladolid, the household of each parsonage being dressed in new liveries for the occasion, those of the royal servants being white and crimson trimmed with gold. The English ambassador Howard witnessed the procession, as he did later in the day that of the baptism, from a corner balcony in Count Rivadavia's house, his garments glittering with diamonds, and the collar of the Garter on his shoulder. It was noticed that when the King passed beneath the Englishman doffed his bonnet and made a deep reverence. Porreño, Vida y Hechos de Phelipe III.

[13] Cabrera, Relacion de las Cosas Sucedidas desde 1599 hasta 1614. In addition to the authorities already quoted, there is a curious account of the celebrations referred to, sometimes attributed to Cervantes, called Relacion de lo Subcedido en la Ciudad da Valladolid, etc. Published at Valladolid in 1605.

[14] A detailed account of these attempts will be found in Treason and Plot, by the present writer, and in the fourth volume of his Calendars of Spanish State Papers of the Reign of Elizabeth.

[15] When the capital of Spain was again transferred to Madrid in 1606, Queen Margarita was much opposed to and distressed at the change. Porreño relates that she went to take leave of her favourite nuns at Valladolid with tears in her eyes, and when asked by the nuns why she did not persuade the King to remain at Valladolid, which agreed so well with his wife and children, she replied that "nothing on earth could move the King now, as the removal of the capital to Madrid had now been presented to him as a case of conscience." "Thus," says Porreño, in admiration, "he was ready to sacrifice the welfare of his wife and children, and all earthly considerations, for his conscience' sake!" Spaniards of the period thought that no higher praise than this could be given to any man.

[16] For instance, Charles' unblushing manipulation of the Council of Trent in 1545–46, the juggle with Paul III. about the Italian principalities, and the clever hoodwinking of Sixtus V. as to the real objects of the Armada of 1588.

[17] It must be borne in mind that the Cortes of Castile (which comprised Castile, Leon, Andalucia, etc., and consisted of thirty-six deputies for eighteen cities) had, after the abortive rising of the Comuneros early in the reign of Charles V., in a great measure allowed the control of supply to slip from its hands, and was rapidly becoming effete; all the members being bribed and influenced by grants and favours of the Court. The three Cortes of the Crown of Aragon, however, still held their own purse-strings, and always made supply a matter of bargain. For this reason practically the whole of the growing national burden rested upon wretched Castile.

[18] Danvila y Collado, El Poder Civil en España, vol. 6. In this petition the Cortes told the King that, whereas it had cost twelve years previously 60 ducats to maintain a student and his servant at Salamanca for a year, it now cost 120. Wages had risen for a bricklayer from 4 reals to 8, and for a labourer from 2 reals to 4; a trimmed felt hat which had previously cost 12 reals now cost 24. Segovia cloth, of which the price was formerly 3 ducats a piece, now fetched nearly double. The ducats quoted are the so-called copper ducat of 2s. 5–⅓d., the real being the silver real worth about 6d.

[19] The quantity of copper coin in circulation increased in five or six years from 6 millions of ducats' worth to 28 millions.

[20] Contarini to the Doge and Senate of Venice (Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneziani).

[21] Navarrete says, speaking of the luxury of the Court at this period—and we shall see that it was exceeded later—"The smallest hidalgo insisted upon his wife only going out in a carriage, and that her equipage should be as showy as that of the greatest gentleman at Court. Not even a carpenter or a saddler, or any other artizan, was seen but he must be dressed in velvet or satin like a nobleman. He must needs wear his sword and his dagger, and have a guitar hanging on the wall of his shop." When it is remembered that the production and distribution in Spain itself of the precious stuffs mentioned were hampered at every point, it will be understood how great and constant the drain of wealth was from a country which now exported little but the products of its soil.

[22] For details of the expulsion see, inter alia, Fray Jaime Bleda's Cronica de los Moros de España (Valencia, 1618); The Moriscos of Spain, by C. H. Lea (London, 1901); Memorable Expulsion, etc., by Guadalajara (Pamplona, 1614); and Porreño's Felipe III.

[23] The wise minister of Philip II., Idiaquez, in 1595 almost alone saw the economical evil of the expulsion. In an important letter to a colleague (MS. Loyola No. 1., 31, Royal Academy of History, Madrid) he rebuked the general idea that Spain would be richer for the expulsion of the Moriscos, and pointed out that they almost alone were creating national wealth by their industry, frugality, and skill in agriculture. "But all this," he says, "is of no consideration in exchange for putting away from our throat the knife which threatens it so long as these people remain amongst us in their present condition and we in ours."

[24] The ancient church in the Prado where this ceremony always took place, and where the young King of Spain and his English bride were married recently.

[25] "His Majesty wore a white doublet and trunks with a grey satin cloak, all embroidered with bugles and gold spangles and lined with ermine. White shoes and a black velvet cap with strings of pearls and diamonds and a plume of white feathers sprinkled with magnificent diamonds; a sword beautifully chased and an embroidered belt; a ruff with crimson silk ribs and the grand collar of the Golden Fleece." See a curious contemporary MS. account of the ceremony. British Museum MSS., Egerton, 367.

[26] The Prince was nevertheless so frightened that the silken bands necessary in the ceremony meant an intention to bleed him, and he cried so much in consequence, that he had to be led to a little chair at his mother's knee before he could be pacified; and there his sister, the Infanta Ana, weighed down by her stiff gorgeousness, knelt and did homage, to be followed by the cardinal, the nobles, and the Cortes. Ibid.

[27] Gil Gonzalez de Avila, in his MS. Historia de Phelipe III., gives many admiring instances of the King's mystic communications with the heavenly powers, and of his attacks of religious panic. (Original MS. in my possession.)

[28] Cabrera de Cordova, Cosas Sucedidas a la Corte, etc., desde 1599 á 1614.

[29] A full account of the crazy magnificence on the occasion will be found in Documenios Ineditos, lxi.

[30] An unpublished account of the progress by an eye-witness is in Add. MSS. 102,36, British Museum. See also Queens of Old Spain, by Martin Hume, and Documenios Ineditos, lxi.

[31] Malvezzi, Historia de Felipe III., Yañez.

[32] Matias de Novoa, Felipe III. Doctimentos Ineditos, lxi. This writer was a chamberlain of Philip IV. and an agent of Olivares; but receiving from the latter no reward, he wrote a series of bitter attacks upon him.

[33] The King's and the Prince's splendid dresses and adornments on this occasion are described fully by Porreño in Dichos y Hechos de Don Felipe III.

[34] His recovery from this grave illness after the doctors had given up hope was ascribed to the miraculous effect produced by the dead body of the newly beatified Saint Isidore of Madrid, which was brought to his bedside at Covarrubias. The King kissed and embraced the corpse, and improved from that hour.

[35] The ridiculous story, related by entirely untrustworthy French travellers, of the cause of Philip's fatal illness being the Court etiquette, which forbade any attendant but a high noble who happened to be absent to remove a brazier from too close proximity to the King, may be dismissed as a fable. Anything which exaggerated the strangeness, the romance, and the inflation of Spanish manners found ready belief in seventeenth-century France, and has done so ever since. The absurd ideas relative to Spain even at the present time are mainly due to this insistence on the part of French writers in seeing everything Spanish through the coloured medium of the romantic school. Madame D'Aulnoy's overdone "local colour" and evidently invented stories are largely responsible for this, aided by Bassompiere Saint Simon, Mme. Villars, and the later romantic school of French novelists.

[36] Terrible accounts of Philip's awful deathbed are given by Gil Gonzales de Avila, his chronicler and friend, in his Historia de Felipe III., original MS. in my possession, in Yañez's additions to Malvezzi, and in Novoa, Documentos Ineditos, lxi.; all contemporaries.

[37] Novoa, Documentos Ineditos, lxi.

[38] Novoa says that when the Archbishop signed the order he broke into tears and cast away the pen he had used.

[39] Fragmentos Historicos de la Vida de D. Caspar de Guzman, etc. Unpublished contemporary MS. biography of Olivares in my possession; the work of his partisan Vera y Figueroa, Count de la Roca.