^ LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIPORNIA 
 
 . SAN Diceo
 
 ILI 

 
 EDITED BY G. W. PROTHERO, LiTT.D. 
 
 HONORARY FELLOW OF KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, 
 AND PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 
 
 SPAIN: 
 
 ITS 
 
 GREATNESS AND DECAY 
 
 (1479— 1788)
 
 lonton: C. J. CLAY and SONS, 
 
 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, 
 
 AVE MARIA LANE. 
 
 263, ARGYLE STREET. 
 
 ILcipjifj: F. A. BROCKHAUS. 
 
 #.eb3 lovli: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Bombajj: E. SEYMOUR HALE.
 
 SPAIN 
 
 ITS 
 
 GREATNESS AND DECAY 
 
 {1479-1788) 
 
 BY 
 
 MARTIN A. S/HUME 
 
 EDITOR OF THE CALENDARS OF SPANISH STATE PAPERS, 
 AUTHOR OF "THE YEAR AFTER THE ARMADA," "PHILIP H," &C. 
 
 WITH 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD ARMSTRONG 
 
 ■ FELLOW OF queen's COLLEGE, OXFORD, 
 AUTHOR OF "ELIZABETH FARNESE," &C. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND CORRECTED. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 1899 
 
 \^AU Rights referred']
 
 GENERAL PREFACE. 
 
 The awi of this series is to sketch the history of Modern 
 Europe, with that of its chief colonies and conquests, from about 
 the end of the fifteenth century down to the present time. In one 
 or tivo cases the story will commence at an earlier date : in the 
 case of the colonies it will usually begin later. The histories 
 of the differ e7it countries will be described, as a general rule, 
 separately, for it is believed that, except in epochs like that of the 
 French Revolution and Napoleon I, the connection of events will 
 thus be better understood and the continuity of historical develop- 
 metit more clearly displayed. 
 
 The series is intended for the use of all persons anxious to 
 miderstatid the nature of existing political cotiditions. '■'■The roots 
 of the present lie deep in the past," and the real significance of 
 contemporary events caniiot be grasped unless the historical cajises 
 zvhich have led to them are knoivn. The plan adopted makes 
 it possible to treat the history of the last four centuries in 
 considerable detail, and to embody the most importa}it results of 
 modern research. It is hoped therefore that the series will 
 be useful not only to beginners but to students who have already 
 acquired some general knowledge of European History. For 
 those who wish to carry their studies further, the bibliography 
 appended to each volume will act as a guide to original sources 
 of itformatio7i and works more detailed and authoritative. 
 
 Considerable attention 7vill be paid to political geography, 
 and each volume will be furnished with such maps and plans 
 as may be requisite for the illustration of the text. 
 
 G. W. PROTHERO. 
 
 first Edition iSyS. Second Edition 1899.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE mere relation of the events of history adds but little 
 to the stock of useful knowledge, unless it enables us 
 to apply the experience of the past to the conduct of the 
 present, and so to avoid for our own time some of the errors 
 into which previous generations have fallen. This end can 
 best be attained by regarding history not as a disjointed 
 collection of facts, but as a harmonious concatenation of 
 causes and effects. In the case of most national histories 
 this is difficult, because the actions and the results which 
 follow them are usually distant in point of time, obscured 
 by side issues and complicated by intervening circumstances. 
 It is otherwise with the history of Spain. There the ordinary 
 observer may see the working of the process by which nations 
 are ruined. He who runs may read the lessons that un- 
 supported pride and unwarranted ambition are as disastrous 
 to nations as to men, that riches gained without labour pro- 
 duce no extended or lasting prosperity, that the true basis 
 of wealth is industrial production, that beneficent ends cannot 
 be attained by means which disregard human sufterings or 
 trample on human rights, and, above all, that the hereditary 
 transmission of unrestrained power from father to son is 
 certain to end in disaster, because sooner or later the power
 
 vi Preface. 
 
 must descend to an individual too weak or too vicious to 
 exercise it worthily. 
 
 The period dealt with in these pages covers ihe rise and 
 decadence of Spain and the commencement of a fallacious 
 resuscitation. The rise was unwarranted by the stage of 
 development which the nation had reached, and the ruin 
 was consequently complete. In the history of no other 
 European country is the whole cycle of national potency and 
 exhaustion presented in so small a space, or in so simple a 
 form. The tale is one of almost unexampled and unrelieved 
 misfortune, and yet each succeeding catastrophe, each re- 
 curring disgrace, each repeated sacrifice, can be traced almost 
 with certainty to the unwise act or short-sighted policy from 
 which it sprang. 
 
 To the modern student of political economy the financial 
 and administrative systems successively adopted by Spanish 
 ministers will appear grotesquely perverse and calculated to 
 destroy the sources of wealth. Statesmen will note that the 
 first and greatest disaster of Spain was the inheritance by her 
 King of extended territories in Central Europe, which made 
 her the great continental power with a prospect of universal 
 dominion; and that trade, in her case, did not "follow the 
 flag," notwithstanding the strenuous efforts to maintain a 
 monopoly, because the home manufactures were crushed 
 with intolerable burdens, while the workers were demoralised 
 by constant wars, and by the false belief that coin was wealth, 
 instead of a token of value. It will be observed that despotic 
 personal government, with its consequent suffering and dis- 
 aster, only became possible when the weakness of the people's 
 representatives allowed the national purse-strings to be wrested 
 from their grasp by force or bribery ; and that the oppression
 
 Preface. \'\\ 
 
 of the people and the sacrifice of their welfare followed as 
 a natural result from the emasculation of the national parlia- 
 ments. 
 
 These are a few of the lessons which may be learnt 
 from the history of Spain more easily than from that of any 
 other nation ; and for this reason, amongst others, it is to 
 be deplored that so little attention has hitherto been devoted 
 to its study by English readers. In order to render the 
 application the more direct, the history of Spain related in 
 the following pages has been separated, so far as appeared 
 possible, from the tangled skein of European foreign politics, 
 and the vicissitudes of the Spanish nation itself have been 
 traced with as much detail as the limited space permitted. 
 An attempt has been made to present the story with absolute 
 impartiality, and to render it a trustworthy and readable 
 relation of events. 
 
 MARTIN A, S. HUME. 
 London, September 1898. 
 
 EDITORIAL NOTE. 
 
 The result of the .Spanish-American conflict renders it necessary 
 to say that the Introduction, containing a reference (p. 5) to Cuba 
 and other islands as still forming part of the Spanish colonial 
 Empire, was printed off before the recent war broke out. 
 
 G. W. P.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 § I. The Rule of Ferdinand and Isabella ... i 
 § 11. Philip I and the Regency of Ferdinand, 1504^ 
 
 1516. Charles I (V), 1516—1529 .... 31 
 
 § III. Spain and Europe, 1529 — 1556 64 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Philip II, 1527— 1551 loi 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Philip II, 1551 — 1560 114 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Philip II, 1560— 1568 133 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Philip H, 1568 — 1581 152 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Philip II, 1580— 1598 171 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Philip III, 1598— 162 1 197
 
 X Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Philip IV, 162 1— 1640 224 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Philip IV, 1638— 1643 244 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Philip IV, 1643 — 1665 266 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Charles II, 1665— 1678 284 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Charles II, 1675 — 1700 295 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Philip V, 1700 — 1714 318 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Philip V, 1714— 1731 346 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Philip V — Ferdinand VF, 1732 — 1759 ..... 370 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Charles III, 1759— 1788 . 392 
 
 Bibliography of Spanish History, 1479 — 178S . . . 412 
 Index 423 
 
 Maps (at end), r. Spain, 1527 — 1788. 
 
 2. The European possessions of the Spanish 
 Monarchy.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 SECTION I. 
 
 THE RULE OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 
 
 The conquest of the weak and divided kingdom of Granada 
 was, perhaps, no heroic feat : but, none the less, it was a 
 momentous crisis in the history of Spain. Europe itself was 
 startled by it ; the loss of Constantinople seemed to find its 
 compensation in the fall of Granada; the left wing of Islam 
 had been beaten back upon its African reserves. For Spain 
 the consequences were far-reaching. The task of centuries was 
 complete ; she must now seek another. A people which for 
 generations had lived to fight, whose whole social and political 
 organisation had developed out of war, could not lie down to 
 sleep. The union of Castile and Aragon and the acquisition 
 of Granada formed a power of first-rate importance ; it was 
 certain to exercise its young strength in fresh expansion. 
 
 It is true that to modern notions the union of Castile and 
 Aragon was incomplete ; the marriage of their sovereigns was 
 their only tie. The two kingdoms stood back to back, with 
 different characters and different interests ; common service 
 against the Moors had not obliterated mutual dislike. Yet 
 the unity of the king and queen was so entire, and the 
 personality of each so strong, that for purposes of external 
 policy Castile and Aragon were already Si)ain. Portugal 
 
 JI. s. I
 
 2 Spain. 
 
 still preserved her independence, but it had for long seemed 
 likely that Castile would unite with Portugal rather than with 
 Aragon. 
 
 The little kingdom of Navarre also formed a breach in 
 Iberian unity. It lay like a pair of saddle-bags across the 
 western Pyrenees, tempting both France and Spain to bestride 
 the ridge. A French house was, indeed, already in the saddle. 
 Queen Blanche, Ferdinand's half-sister, had bequeathed Navarre 
 to her divorced husband Henry IV of Castile, but he failed to 
 hold it against her sister and successor Eleanor, who had 
 married into the house of Foix. Eleanor's heir again had 
 married Madeleine, sister of Louis XI, who acted as regent 
 successively for her two children, Francis Phebus and Catherine. 
 Isabella, with a view to the ultimate absorption of Navarre, had 
 schemed to marry each of these children into her own family, 
 but Madeleine had foiled her plans. At the date of the Con- 
 quest of Granada Navarre was ruled by Catherine and her 
 husband, Jean, of the French house of Albret. It seemed 
 unlikely, moreover, that the kingdom, differing in customs, 
 language and ethnology, should gravitate towards Spain. 
 
 On the eastern flank of the Pyrenees lay another saddle- 
 state. To the south was Catalonia, to the north its depen- 
 dent counties, Roussillon and Cerdagne. These latter in the 
 troubled times of John II had been mortgaged to Louis XI; 
 after much sharp dealing and hard fighting they had remained 
 to France. But as Spanish Navarre was Basque, so was 
 Roussillon Catalan, alien to France, full of Catalan if not of 
 Spanish feeling. It had revolted from Louis XI because he 
 had suppressed the inalienable right of private war. Roussillon 
 and Cerdagne, even after their final union to France under 
 Louis XIV, remained Catalan in customs until the days of 
 Arthur Young, who describes them as a Spanish country 
 tempered by the blessings of French administration. 
 
 Spain's difficulty has always been that she has so many 
 sides, so many possibilities, so many alternative policies.
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella. 3 
 
 There were causes enough in Navarre and Roussillon for 
 dispute with France. Yet the northern frontier may almost 
 be left out of consideration. At either end of the Pyrenees 
 the country is difficult, incapable in early days of supporting 
 considerable armies. The two nations might skirmish on this 
 side or on that, but they could not close, they could not strike 
 vital blows. If rivals they were to be, the fight must be fought 
 elsewhere. 
 
 There remained then three sides to Spain. The Portu- 
 guese discoveries pointed to the Atlantic. Where Lisbon led, 
 Cadiz and Seville, Ferrol and Corunna must some day follow. 
 The voyage of Columbus was so nearly coincident with the 
 conquest of Granada that they may be considered in connec- 
 tion. The discovery of America, even though its full bearings 
 were not realised, from the first struck the imagination, turning 
 men's minds westwards, tempting the pent-up energy of a 
 people, whose blood was boiling, to adventure rather than to 
 war, to the sea rather than to the land. Had Castile at this 
 time been united with Portugal instead of Aragon, the world's 
 history might or must have been very different. 
 
 There was yet another alternative. Long before the con- 
 quest of Granada Spanish and African adventurers had raided 
 each other's shores. Spain until the present century, has had 
 to feel only too acutely that she has a southern seaboard. 
 Her own Moors had not been exterminated; many had sought 
 shelter with their African brethren and so added to their 
 strength. Here chronic hostility was intensified by recurrent 
 outbursts of fanaticism. Was it not then the obvious policy of 
 Spain to follow up her conquest of Granada, to break the 
 forces of Islam which were forming anew upon the opposite 
 coast? With a huge Moorish population, imperfectly Chris- 
 tianised in the old kingdoms, and professedly Mussulman in 
 Granada, could Spain risk the chances of a reaction, and that 
 with the power of the Osmanli advancing by leaps and bounds 
 in the eastern Mediterranean? Nor was this all. Sicily is by
 
 4 Spain. 
 
 situation and tradition almost as much African as European. 
 Her southernmost shores He below the northernmost point of 
 Africa. Thrusting herself athwart the Mediterranean, she must 
 be either a basis of operations against the Turk and Moor, or 
 the objective of their common attacks. No power that holds 
 Sicily can afford to neglect Tunis. Further east again the 
 kings of Aragon had long-dormant claims on Athens, and even 
 on Salonica, claims that as a crusading power they might one 
 day make good against the Turkish conquerors of Greece, or 
 as a South Italian power against the commercial monopoly of 
 Venice. 
 
 If the glance of Castile wavered, that of Aragon looked 
 steadily eastward. The conquest of the Balearic isles had been 
 but a stepping-stone to Sardinia. Early in the 15th century 
 Alfonso had all but conquered Corsica, and had reduced 
 Genoa to the last extremities. Pressure on the north of Italy 
 had only been relieved by diversion to the south, where 
 the warlike king on a dubious title won and held the kingdom 
 of Naples. Although he left this to his bastard, and not to 
 his brother John II of Aragon, the legitimate heir, yet there 
 was now in southern Italy an Aragonese dynasty strengthened 
 by the importation of Aragonese nobles and ecclesiastics. 
 Moreover across the straits lay Sicily, Aragonese for more than 
 two centuries. If therefore Isabella allowed her husband to 
 direct her European policy it was certain that Spain would 
 exercise her united strength upon the neighbouring peninsula. 
 
 As if these problems were not enough, within a few years 
 of the conquest of Granada the Catholic kings must add 
 another. The marriages of two princesses to the heirs of 
 England and the Netherlands were destined to force Spain to 
 play the leading part in the religious conflict of the future; she 
 must pick up the glove as champion not only of Cross against 
 Crescent, but of the Faith against the heretic. 
 
 The history of Spain is therefore the tragic result of an 
 embarrassing wealth of alternative policies. It was impossible
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella. 5 
 
 that a country with no common feeling or constitutional unity 
 between its principal sections, containing an alien race funda- 
 mentally opposed in faith and customs, herself sparsely popu- 
 lated, her material resources undeveloped, should permanently 
 succeed in all the tasks imposed upon her by nature or ambi- 
 tion. That she sank after a century and a half of greatness 
 need excite no wonder. Marvellous rather was the tenacity 
 which held its grip so long. Into the i8th century Spain 
 retained her hold of a moiety of the Netherlands ; only lately 
 Spanish princes have lost the two Sicilies and Parma. Cuba 
 and the Philippines still represent her Colonial Empire in the 
 Western and Eastern Indies, while in the independent States 
 of Southern and Central America handfuls of Spaniards still 
 plunder at pleasure the masses of industrious emigrants from 
 other European states. In Africa the Spanish flag still flies in 
 somewhat fitful triumph over her first conquest, Melilla. 
 Christendom, all deductions made, has reason to be grateful to 
 the conquerors of Lepanto, to the missionaries of the Indies. 
 Catholicism must place to Alba's credit the long-untainted 
 orthodoxy of the Belgian provinces. It was not when Spain 
 was at her height, but when her decline was already obvious, 
 that a French writer in Richelieu's service stated that Spain 
 surpassed all nations in the art of government. If by this 
 phrase be meant, not the gift of administration, but the power 
 to rule, it may pass muster. 
 
 It is difficult to apportion between Ferdinand and Isabella 
 the glories of their reign. Spanish writers, being at once 
 courteous and Castilian, exalt their queen at the expense of 
 her Aragonese partner. Italian contemporaries speak only of 
 Ferdinand. This is natural, for European policy was his 
 especial field ; whatever troubles occurred at home upon 
 Isabella's death, his success abroad scarcely received a check. 
 As here the husband led the wife, so did the little kingdom of 
 Aragon lead the larger sister nation. From Ferdinand's reign 
 dates the long conflict between the French and Spanish
 
 6 Spain. 
 
 peoples. But this quarrel was not Castilian. The thoughts 
 of Castile had been turned south and west, to Granada and 
 Portugal; her relations with France had almost invariably been 
 friendly. But Aragon had been opposed to France in Rous- 
 sillon and in Navarre; it had contested with the French 
 crown the possession of Genoa, with the French house of 
 Anjou that of Sicily and Naples. 
 
 After the fall of Granada the Catholic kings were prepared 
 to devote themselves to internal organisation. Any superfluous 
 energy might well have been employed on African conquest oi 
 American discovery. At this moment their hands were forced 
 by the ambition of their more powerful neighbour. The 
 Granada of France was Brittany; the marriage of the young 
 duchess with Charles VIII was the equivalent of the "last 
 sigh" of the fallen Boabdil. Ferdinand had employed both 
 arms and diplomacy to preserve the independence of Brittany, 
 but in vain. The marriage took place in 149 1, and the French 
 king had thus a start of just a year. The long-deferred inter- 
 vention in Italy was now possible. Charles VIII would 
 enforce the claims, which the house of Anjou had bequeathed 
 to the Crown, against the Aragonese occupants of Naples. 
 Meanwhile Granada fell, and Charles realised that he must 
 buy the abstention of the legitimate hne of Aragon. By the 
 treaty of Barcelona, Roussillon and Cerdagne were ceded on 
 the Catholic kings' engagement that they would give no aid to 
 the enemies of France, saving the Pope, that they would suffer 
 no intermarriage with the houses of Hapsburg, England or 
 Naples. Thus Aragon recovered her lost provinces, and Spain 
 once more had a foothold on soil geographically French. 
 
 To Ferdinand, half a treaty, his own half, was always 
 better than the whole. Before Charles VIII left France, and 
 again when he marched out of Rome towards Naples, protests 
 were presented by Ferdinand's envoys. No sooner was Naples 
 taken than Ferdinand elaborated the league of Venice which 
 cost the French king his conquests. Coincident with this
 
 Ferdinaftd and Isabella. 7 
 
 was the double marriage of his children with the house of 
 Hapsburg, and the marriage of his sister to the restored 
 Aragonese king of Naples. Even before Charles VIII died, 
 Ferdinand opened negotiations for a partition of the Nea- 
 politan kingdom (1497). Early in the reign of Louis XII 
 this actually took effect (1500). The spoilers soon quarrelled, 
 for thieves are singularly sensitive as to their own proprietary 
 rights. Gonsalvo's military skill and Ferdinand's diplomatic 
 lack of scruple decided the contest in favour of Spain. Within 
 eleven years Spain had won Granada, Roussillon and Naples. 
 Upon Isabella's death Ferdinand's administration in Castile 
 was threatened by his son-in-law Philip, who was supported by 
 his father the Emperor Maximilian. For protection Ferdinand 
 turned to France ; he married Germaine de Foix, the French 
 king's niece ; upon the child, who was only born to die, were 
 settled the rights of the two crowns in Naples. This new 
 friendship led naturally to the partition treaty of Cambray. 
 In this Louis XII seemed to have the lion's share ; to his 
 Duchy of Milan were assigned the wealthy cities of Venetian 
 Lombardy from the Adda to the Mincio ; while to Ferdinand 
 fell only the towns on the Apulian coast which Venice held in 
 compensation of her expenses in the war of 1495 — 6. No 
 sooner had Ferdinand obtained the cession of these towns 
 than he formed a fresh combination against France. He won 
 to his side the very Pope, the prime mover of the League of 
 Cambray, and Venice the professed enemy. The result was 
 the expulsion of the French from Lombardy. Meanwhile 
 Ferdinand had utilised the difficulties of Louis XII to occupy 
 the Spanish territories of his ally the king of Navarre. Thus 
 he had closed the second gate through the Pyrenees. Navarre 
 retained its separate Cortes, its legal customs, its financial 
 independence. But, notwithstanding that its earlier relations 
 had been with Aragon, Ferdinand cleverly incorporated it 
 with the crown of Castile, thus pledging the more powerful 
 kingdom to the maintenance of his conquest.
 
 8 Spain. 
 
 In Italy it was already clear that the Spaniards would not 
 be content with Naples ; they soon felt their way up both 
 coasts of the peninsula. In 1505 Gonsalvo de Cordova 
 assumed the protectorate of Pisa during her revolt against 
 Florence; in 15 12 at Ravenna the Spaniards barred the 
 French advance southwards through Romagna. Two years later 
 a Spanish army fired on Venice from the shores of her lagoon, 
 and in retreating scattered the powerful Venetian forces near 
 Vicenza. If the Swiss had the main share in expeUing the 
 French from Lombardy, and if the new native Duke, Maxi- 
 milian Sforza, sat uneasily on Swiss pikes, yet a Spanish force 
 lurked round Verona. When Francis I at Marignano (15 15) 
 beat these selfsame Swiss, this Spanish corps was watching 
 the passage of the Po at Piacenza. The Swiss defeat was to 
 none more profitable than to their Spanish ally. Henceforth 
 Lombardy must be the battlefield between France and Spain. 
 
 Ferdinand relied less on arms than on diplomacy. Truly 
 marvellous was his power of combination. He had already 
 united Maximilian of Austria and Henry VII of England in 
 defence of Breton autonomy, enabling Henry to enter the 
 coalition by filching from France her traditional ally Scotland, 
 for the marriage of James IV and Margaret Tudor set England 
 temporarily free. Whenever the restless French king moved 
 he found himself checked by Ferdinand's combinations. After 
 the conquest of Naples Charles VIII was confronted by 
 Ferdinand, Maximilian, the Pope, Venice and Milan (1495). 
 The success of Louis XII in Venetian Lombardy was nullified 
 by the coalition of Spain, England, the Swiss, the Papacy and 
 Venice (1511). If France detached Venice from this Holy 
 League, Ferdinand drew over Maximilian to his side. Making 
 a peace with France in 15 13, he threw Henry VIII and 
 Maximilian against her at Guinegate, and hurled the Swiss 
 on Dijon. The last act of his life was a coalition which 
 should check Francis I in the full tide of victory after 
 Marignano (1515).
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella. 9 
 
 In these combinations marriage was naturally the chief 
 resource. The matches made by Ferdinand's children would 
 be alone sufficient to prove the prominence of Spain in 
 European poUtics. Great importance was, indeed, still given 
 to Pan-Iberian projects. The eldest Infanta, Isabella, was 
 married to John II of Portugal (1490), and on his death to 
 his brother Emanuel (1495). When the Spanish Infante, 
 Juan, died (1497) it seemed likely that Isabella's son, Miguel, 
 would unite the crowns of Spain and Portugal. But in these 
 Portuguese marriages passing-bells followed fast on wedding 
 peals. Miguel scarcely survived the birth which proved his 
 mother's death (1497), and for two more generations the union 
 with Portugal was deferred. 
 
 Other marriages were purely diplomatic ; they were in- 
 tended to consolidate the anti-French coalitions. Thus the 
 negotiations for the alliance of Prince Arthur and Catherine 
 date from the days when Spain and England had common 
 concern in the defence of Brittany (i486). Catherine was 
 sent to England when Louis XII had increased his power 
 by the occupation of Milan. Her marriage with her deceased 
 husband's brother is contemporaneous with the conflict of 
 France and Spain for Naples. So too the League of Venice 
 against France had caused the double marriage of Maximilian's 
 heir Philip with Ferdinand's second daughter, Juana, and of 
 the Infante Juan with Philip's sister, Margaret. In these 
 complicated matrimonial schemes Ferdinand overreached him- 
 self He was no Maximilian, he had no dreams of universal 
 dominion for his family, his range of vision was limited by the 
 practical and the possible. Yet the successive deaths of Juan, 
 Isabella and Miguel left Juana the heiress to the crowns of 
 Spain ; her child must inherit the possessions of Hapsburgs 
 and Burgundians, and a claim, already (luasi-hcrcditary, to the 
 Empire. 
 
 Ferdinand was not only the most successful statesman of 
 his age ; he may claim to be founder of a school. This school
 
 lo Spain. 
 
 is often regarded as Italian, but it is pre-eminently Spanish, 
 and more particularly Aragonese. If Machiavelli wishes for 
 a type of unscrupulous statesmanship he turns to Spain. His 
 hero is Caesar Borgia, a Valencian; his ideal of successful 
 villainy is Ferdinand of Aragon. " There is a certain prince 
 of the present time," he writes, "who never preaches aught 
 but peace and good faith, and yet of both he is the greatest 
 foe." Guicciardini again and again returns to the same theme, 
 " I am convinced that above all other men he is a master of 
 pretence." The tale is told of Ferdinand himself that when 
 Louis XII complained that he had twice been deceived, the 
 Aragonese exclaimed, "The drunkard ! he lies. I have cheated 
 him more than ten times." This precise quality Guicciardini 
 in his first embassy attributed to the whole Spanish nation, 
 "In profession and in externals they are most religious, but 
 not in practice ; they are men of infinite ceremonies, which 
 they perform with much reverence of manner, with great 
 humility of phrase, with honourable titles and kissings of 
 hand ; everyone is their lord ; they are at everyone's command j 
 but they are men to keep at arm's length, and to trust but 
 little." In Ferdinand's school were trained the least scrupulous 
 diplomatists of Charles' reign, such as Juan Manuel and Hugo 
 de Moncada; Ferdinand hated the former because he was too 
 like himself. Every student of the age of Philip II can lay 
 his hand upon the later exponents of the great master's 
 principles. The home of Machiavellism was not Italy but 
 Spain. 
 
 For Ferdinand Africa was but a "jumping off" spot for 
 Italy ; for his minister Jimenez it was the chief object of 
 external policy. At his own expense the Cardinal undertook 
 the conquest of North Africa. Under his auspices Algiers was 
 blockaded by the possession of Pehon ; Oran, Bugia, even 
 distant Tripoli, were won for Spain. Had he received his 
 master's hearty support he might have realised Isabella's 
 dream and conquered the great Moorish kingdom of Tlemcen.
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella. 1 1 
 
 The Spaniards miglit have gained a firm hold upon North 
 Africa before the Turks aj)peared in the Western Mediterranean, 
 As it was, Spanish garrisons, scantily suppHed with food and 
 even water from Spain or Sicily, clung desperately to their 
 ports and the few yards of territory beyond the walls. A force 
 is lost that always acts on the defensive. Not only Italy but 
 America was diverting the attention of Crown and people from 
 Africa. Before the death of Ferdinand permanent occupation 
 did not extend beyond the islands, but explorers had ranged 
 from Florida to the River Plate, and had claimed for Spain 
 the shores of the Pacific. Already the Cadres of religious and 
 governmental administration were established ; already the 
 Crown was in public interest infringing the charters of those 
 who had borne the brunt of discovery and conquest. 
 
 There is little doubt that the extension of the dominions of 
 the Crown under Ferdinand and Isabella added greatly to their 
 intrinsic power within their territories. It placed them on a 
 pedestal high above the strongest nobleman, or the wealthiest 
 ecclesiastic ; it gave distance and atmosphere to royalty. Yet 
 this very extension would have been impossible or dangerous 
 had not king and queen resolutely increased also the intension 
 of their power. On the accession of Isabella the fortunes of 
 the Castilian Crown were at their lowest. Royal revenues had 
 been almost completely alienated, royal justice was corrupted 
 or defied, there was no regular military force on which the 
 Crown could count. The Crown had lost its character and 
 prestige ; of the two classes on which it might naturally rely, 
 the clergy was secularised or demoralised, the towns divided 
 or wasted by the factions of the nobles. Isabella's very 
 succession was disputed by her niece, whose only disqualifica- 
 tion was the doubtful legitimacy of her birth. The lack of 
 proof gave a pretext to the rebellion of the nobles ; the 
 claimant was supported by the Crown of Portugal and favoured 
 by that of France. 
 
 Yet Isabella had some advantages. The alienations of
 
 12 Spain. 
 
 revenue had been in great part recent ', they were alike irre- 
 gular and unpopular. There was in Castile a very high theory 
 of royal justice; the power of the nobles in this respect was 
 rather of usurpation than of right. The nobles had used their 
 power for personal rather than for class interests ; they were 
 deeply divided; they did not constitute an oligarchy, but 
 perpetuated anarchy. Anarchy, like despotism, when it 
 becomes intolerable, produces its own cure. The Spaniards, 
 with all their moral lapses, had genuine religious instincts; 
 the purification of the Church would find public favour. The 
 towns, if once the Crown could touch them, were both rich 
 and militant. 
 
 Isabella and her husband grasped the situation. The 
 interest of the monarchy and of the towns was order. 
 Together by drastic measures they broke the power of the 
 nobles. Isabella herself stamped out, for the moment, private 
 war. She destroyed the unlicensed castles in Galicia, she 
 summarily stopped the noble feuds which had devastated 
 Andalusia. The organisation of the Hermandad acted in the 
 same direction. Originally this had been a private association 
 of towns, resembling the town leagues of Germany, and, like 
 these, caused by the weakness of the executive. It had been 
 directed against the brigands who infested the high-roads, 
 against the noble enemies of the towns, sometimes against the 
 Crown itself It was now organised as a governmental 
 institution. With great wisdom its popular and representative 
 character was preserved ; it had no connection with the 
 regular judicial system ; it was a measure of police, supple- 
 menting the criminal jurisdiction in country districts. The 
 Hermandad dealt exclusively with crimes of violence committed 
 in the country, or where the criminal took refuge in the 
 country. The Supreme Junta consisted of delegates from each 
 province. They, and not the Crown, appointed provincial 
 officials to try cases of first instance and to collect contribu- 
 tions. Each village had one or more elected magistrates; every
 
 Ferdmand and Isabella. 1 3 
 
 hundred hearths provided a horse archer. Thus the Crown 
 was brought into contact with every village in the country. 
 
 This system was marvellously efficient. A criminal was 
 hunted from parish to parish, fresh relays of archers taking up 
 the hue and cry. The police had the fullest rights of search ; 
 they could ransack suspected castles and force the gates of 
 towns. The criminal, once caught, was haled to the scene of 
 his crime, and within three days punished. Lesser offenders 
 escaped with mutilation, the greater were set against a wall or 
 tree and shot to death. As times mended the Hermandad was 
 found both oppressive and expensive. The Junta and superior 
 offices were abolished in 1498 ; it survived only as an efficient 
 police force, the members still electing the petty magistrates 
 and police sergeants. Its methods had been too severe to be 
 completely popular. There were petitions that the Hermandad 
 should adopt the merciful methods of the Inquisition, and 
 strangle its victims before it shot them. It is noticeable that 
 the Hermandad, as the Inquisition, was extended from Castile 
 to Aragon and there survived until the Cortes of 15 10. 
 
 Not content with breaking the power of the nobles in the 
 provinces the Crown diminished it in the Royal Council. The 
 legal element, always present, was increased. This class was 
 drawn from the lesser nobility and upper bourgeoisie. The 
 gentry, driven off the roads, took service with the Crown or 
 with the towns. This was the origin of Spanish bureaucracy, 
 which, ultimately oppressive and deadening, was at first bene- 
 ficial as encouraging a sense of order, and order was what Spain 
 chiefly needed. At this time also the great Crown offices, 
 monopolised by the nobility, lost much of their importance. 
 The Grand Chancellorship was attached to the See of Toledo, 
 the Grand Constable and Grand Admiral retained their dignity 
 at the expense of their importance. The provincial governor- 
 ships had often become hereditary, and this system, if unchecked, 
 would crystallise into a new feudal formation. The Crown 
 modified or abolished the system of heredity, or skilfully
 
 14 Spain. 
 
 instituted new officials, who, nominally collateral or inferior, 
 drew away the practical power from the titular magnates. 
 
 It was of consummate importance that the grandmaster- 
 ships of the three military orders, Santiago, Alcantara and 
 Calatrava, were, as they became vacant, conferred upon Fer- 
 dinand. The Crown revenues were thus very largely increased. 
 The kings in each order gained the command of a small 
 disciplined force, of a large number of vassals, of considerable 
 territory and numerous fortresses, especially on the Castilian- 
 Moorish frontier. The gentry were now attracted to Court 
 service by the commanderies, the pensions, the benefices, 
 the crosses of the Orders. The kings could reward their 
 supporters without trenching on their own revenues. Above 
 all the possession of the grandmasterships by the king 
 kept them from the hands of the great nobles, who could 
 easily make them dangerous. The king became the sole and 
 only leader of the old chivalry of Spain, as of its modern 
 military system'. 
 
 This centripetal process was aided by the Moorish wars. 
 The Crown gave employment to the nobles by enlisting 
 their interest in the conquest of Granada, and to a less 
 extent in that of Naples and Navarre. It was now the 
 military centre of the nobility. The influence of the early 
 Renaissance in Spain had similar effects. The Crown early 
 became the intellectual centre ; the new learning became a 
 fashion, bringing the nobility nearer to the Crown, and 
 adding lustre to the Court. Nobles flocked to the Universi- 
 ties, they even looked to University appointments as a 
 career instead of arms. 
 
 The elaborate ceremonial of the later Spanish Court is 
 ascribed to the Burgundian influence. But the tendency had 
 already begun under the Catholic kings. Isabella loved to 
 see herself surrounded by a numerous suite ; vvhile boasting 
 
 ^ The Grandmasterships were permanently annexed to the Crown by 
 Pope Hadrian VI.
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella. 15 
 
 of her simplicity, she was notorious for the magnificence of 
 her costumes. While the king increased in grandeur, the 
 nobles were forbidden their usurped privilege of using the 
 royal style, of quartering the royal arms; their long trains of 
 mules and horses were strictly limited. In some of the 
 above measures the nobles themselves voluntarily concurred ; 
 in the outburst of national enthusiasm they too were influenced 
 by public opinion, and realised the necessity of strengthening 
 the Crown. Thus, at the Cortes of Toledo in 1480, they 
 consented to the resumption of royal estates, and some of the 
 great nobles set the example in promoting the Hermandad. 
 
 The clergy in Spain were very influential and very rich, 
 always zealously extending their property and jurisdiction. 
 Ferdinand and Isabella did little to check the former, because 
 a large proportion of the wealth found its way to the royal 
 coffers. They strove, however, to control ecclesiastical juris- 
 diction, though not with complete success, and the struggle 
 between the royal officials and the clergy long outlived 
 them. 
 
 Peculiar privileges had from time to time been conferred by 
 the Papacy on the Crown in the nomination to bishoprics in 
 territories conquered from the Moors. These privileges 
 Ferdinand and Isabella revived and extended, insisting on 
 the sole right of nomination, protesting against the confer- 
 ring of sees on foreigners, and the consequent non-residence. 
 The conflict reached its climax under Sixtus IV in the case 
 of the bishoprics of Cordoba and Cuenca; it ended in the 
 victory of the Crown. This has often been called the Spanish 
 Concordat, but the Papacy did not so formally recognise defeat. 
 The Crown had already, by Papal aid, imposed financial 
 burdens on the clergy, such as the "royal thirds," or strictly 
 speaking two-ninths of the tithe, which became a permanent 
 source of revenue. Fourths or tenths were granted by the 
 Pope for special emergencies, and a large proportion of the 
 tithes of Granada was vested in the Crown. This was a
 
 1 6 Spain. 
 
 recognition of the crusading character of the Spanish kings, 
 a principle which was hereafter to receive unhmited extension. 
 
 Tlie rigorous reformation of the clergy was effected by 
 Ferdinand and Isabella in complete independence of the 
 Papacy, and at a time of great corruption in the Papal See. 
 The Crown posed as a religious power, as the head of the 
 Spanish Church, and this explains the attitude of Charles V 
 and Philip II to the Church and the Catholic revival. The 
 reform was not only one of discipline and morals, its object 
 was also to purify doctrine, to stimulate theological learning, 
 to produce a highly educated clergy, promoted not by birth but 
 merit. Indirectly this increased the royal authority. The 
 great sees were no longer the appanages of the magnates, 
 while the Crown had more control over prelates of lesser 
 social rank whose promotion depended upon itself. By its 
 reforms the government also placed a check on the independ- 
 ence of the Religious Orders ; on the other hand the Inquisition, 
 which was in the hands of the friars, lowered the authority of 
 the bishops ; the numerous attacks made by the Inquisition 
 upon bishops form one of its most pecuhar features. 
 
 The Spanish Inquisition was introduced to meet peculiar 
 circumstances not existing in other countries. It bears some 
 analogy to the Hermandad. As the latter was independent of 
 the normal system of justice, so the Inquisition lay outside the 
 regular ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The Hermandad crushed 
 the social anarchy in the country districts, which was due to 
 special and temporary causes. The Inquisition in the great 
 towns re-established doctrinal order which was threatened by 
 the mixed character of the population. There had hitherto 
 been no efficient Inquisition, and yet religion and nationality 
 were alike in peril. Purity of blood and doctrine was being 
 tainted, especially in the upper classes, by intermarriage with 
 Jews. The contagion was spreading throughout society; 
 Judaism was the peculiar heresy of Spain. To meet this 
 the Spanish Inquisition was established. Its powers centred
 
 Ferdmand and Isabella. ly 
 
 in the Dominican order, reinforced by a secular element 
 of lawyers. Its original victims were not Jews, but nominal 
 Christians falling from their faith. The institution must 
 needs be strong, because the Jews and Judaisers were power- 
 ful, monopolising the medical, banking and tax-farming 
 l)rofessions, and backed by a prosperous industrial population. 
 The Judaisers were numerous in the municipal bodies, and 
 were protected by nobles, many of whom were descended from 
 Jewesses. So also some of the upper clergy were of Jewish 
 descent, notably Talavera, Isabella's confessor and arch- 
 bishop of Granada. Seville was the centre of the heresy, 
 and here, therefore, was the original centre of the Inquisition. 
 
 Heresy, it was found, could not be checked as long as the 
 Jews themselves went scatheless, and the revival of old re- 
 strictive laws did little to diminish their influence. Hence in 
 1492 the sphere of the Inquisition was extended to Jews, 
 who were subjected to forced conversion or to exile. The 
 movement and its motives may be compared to the recent 
 measures of the Russian government, whose object also was to 
 purge not only orthodoxy but nationality of an alien element. 
 
 The conquest of Granada widely extended the functions of 
 the Inquisition. The Crown guaranteed religious liberty, and 
 at first propagandism was solely persuasive. This method was 
 too slow for Jime'nez, who by vexatious regulations drove the 
 people to revolt. The guarantees were then withdrawn, and 
 forced conversion applied (1500). The Crown had a direct 
 interest in its rapidity, for upon this depended the pecuniary 
 favours of the Pope. Thus for more than one reason it was a 
 joyful moment when Jime'nez declared that not an unconverted 
 Moor remained in the kingdom of Granada. 
 
 The Inquisition was not exclusively a royal constitution, 
 for the Pope confirmed the Inquisitor General whom the 
 Crown nominated, and claimed powers of regulation ; more 
 than once Popes interfered to mitigate the Inquisitor's severity. 
 Yet being a purely Spanish institution it was practically worked 
 H. s. ,
 
 1 8 Spain. 
 
 by the Crown. It gave the king a complete hold over Jews 
 and Moriscos, its financial profits were considerable, it was 
 held in terroreni over the nobles whose Christian blood was 
 seldom pure, it was always threatening to become a secular 
 source of monarchical oppression. 
 
 The popularity of the Inquisition was not universal. In 
 Cordoba there was open revolt headed by the chief nobleman 
 of the town, supported by the municipality. This was so far 
 successful that the Inquisitor General and his obnoxious agent 
 were removed. In Aragon, Valencia and Catalonia resistance 
 was more general. In Saragossa the Inquisitor was murdered 
 before the altar ; there was scarcely a noble house in Aragon 
 which was not concerned in the conspiracy. The nobles 
 dreaded the Inquisition, the Bishops and the lawyers were 
 jealous of it ; the lower classes usually applauded it, their 
 blood was purer, their fortunes not so tempting,, they regarded 
 it as a scourge wherewith to chastise the nobles. 
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella relied mainly for support upon the 
 Castilian towns. In their origin these towns had been military 
 colonies in the territories conquered from the Moors. From 
 the first the dominant element was the chivalry rather than the 
 bourgeoisie, and industry was rather agricultural than com- 
 mercial. The town and its lands were divided between the 
 Crown, the religious bodies and various classes of inhabitants, 
 but a large territory remained to the commune. This surplus 
 was far greater than need required, and this explains the 
 capacity of the towns to bear so long the burden of rising 
 taxation. The original charter, for or fuero, regulated the 
 relations of the commune to the Crown, and of the citizens to 
 each other. The towns had been completely self-governing, 
 having their own fortresses, electing their judges {alcaldes)^ 
 police and municipal councils {i-egidores, in some towns named 
 the Twenty-four). To the king belonged only certain royal 
 pleas, and cases of appeal. The Crown lawyers, however, 
 twisted the local for into conformity with an alleged royal
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella. 19 
 
 for which professed to have higher authority. Royal pleas and 
 cases of appeal, originally exceptional, became numerous. 
 
 In some towns the Crown appointed a corregidor, at first a 
 concurrent authority with the regidores, who gradually became 
 virtually the town governor. The disorders of the towns 
 ultimately gave the Crown the control of the municipal councils. 
 The office of regidor fell into the hands of the leading families, 
 and every election led to faction fights. The Crown interfered, 
 often substituting nomination for election, and making the 
 offices lifehold. Then it began to sell these offices, and by a 
 natural process they became practically, though not technically, 
 hereditary. The number of regidores was increased for reasons 
 purely pecuniary, and this laid an additional burden upon 
 town finances. The great aim of every ambitious burgher 
 was to gain a place in the governing bodies, which became 
 close and selfish oligarchies. The non-official classes still, 
 however, retained a voice, if not a vote, in the body termed 
 Jurats, who watched the proceedings of the Council in the 
 inhabitants' interest, raising protests against impopular 
 measures. 
 
 The growth of monarchical influence at the expense of 
 municipal independence was long previous to Ferdinand and 
 Isabella, but they completed and regularised the system, one 
 of their first measures being to place a corregidor in every 
 town where the office did not already exist. This act was 
 very unpopular, yet generally throughout Isabella's reign the 
 Crown and the towns were so fully in harmony that it is 
 difficult to determine their relative power. Notwithstanding 
 the control which the Crown had gained, it continued through- 
 out the 1 6th century to treat the towns with high consideration, 
 making known to them individually every important national 
 event, and receiving almost as foreign ambassadors the com- 
 missioners whom the towns sent to court. 
 
 Under Ferdinand and Isabella the prosperity of the towns 
 greatly increased, partly from the re-establishment of order.
 
 20 Spain. 
 
 partly from the fostering commercial policy which gave an 
 impetus to manufacture. But there were elements of discord, 
 firstly between the corregidor and the municipality 3 secondly 
 between the legal and commercial factors, the former having a 
 disproportionate preponderance ; thirdly between the knightly 
 and popular elements, the exempt and the tax-paying. In 
 some towns the gentry almost monopolised the government, in 
 others they were excluded from it. If there had been an 
 absolute line of birth it might have been better, but the 
 constant struggle to rise from one class to the other threw a 
 growing burden of taxation on those who remained poor. 
 Very dangerous was the influence of the great nobles in the 
 cities where they had their palaces. They either unduly 
 influenced the town government, or else provoked hostility, 
 especially if they added to wealth and family influence the 
 official position of corregidor. If there were two such families 
 as at Cadiz, Seville or Zamora, the city was rent by their 
 factions. 
 
 The Castilian towns were combined in the Cortes. There 
 was no regular summons to nobles and clergy, though these 
 two orders usually attended on great ceremonial occasions, for 
 instance, for the recognition of the heir to the throne. The 
 nobles also were summoned when financial sacrifices were 
 expected, as in 1480 and in 1538. But the Cortes were 
 essentially a taxing body, and while the nobles paid no direct 
 taxation, that of the clergy depended on the Pope. Thus the 
 Cortes were complete without either nobiUty or clergy, whose 
 presence gave no additional validity. 
 
 The represented towns had formerly been numerous, but in 
 Isabella's reign they were eighteen only, Granada being the 
 last addition. Each town sent two proctors, but the methods 
 of election varied. Sometimes members were drawn by lot 
 from among the town councillors, sometimes one was elected 
 from the regidores, the other from the jwats. Occasionally 
 certain noble families had the right of nomination. In some
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella. 21 
 
 towns the gentry {/u'dalgos), were elected by turn, in others by 
 the vote of the Council or the body of hidalgos. The majority 
 of the proctors were regidores^ that is, the Cortes consisted 
 mainly of members who had received their town offices from 
 government. Theoretically the members were not delegates 
 but representatives, having full power to act to the best of 
 their judgement. Practically, however, they were bound by 
 secret instructions and oaths. 
 
 The Cortes had an important voice in the succession to 
 the throne, which in doubtful cases they determined. They 
 received the oath from the new sovereign, they took the oath 
 to the heir, they confirmed a sovereign's testament, and assented 
 to a Council of Regency. Of more frequent importance were 
 their financial functions. They were summoned to vote a 
 subsidy or to negotiate for the commutation of the tax termed 
 Alcabala. The Crown could raise no new form of tax without 
 consent, and this was not always granted. But supply preceded 
 redress and was not conditional thereon. Thus the Cortes 
 had no legislative power proper. They regularly presented 
 a long list of petitions which the Crown either granted or 
 evaded. But the act of legislation was the king's and was by 
 no means confined to the embodiment of these petitions in a 
 statute. Nevertheless the Cortes were and remained a very 
 real check upon the Crown, for future supply did in some 
 measure depend on past redress, and the right of petition was 
 freely and boldly used. 
 
 The regularity of the summons of Cortes depended less on 
 the constitutional tendencies of a king than on his pecuniary 
 necessities. Thus under Charles V and Philip II, absolute as 
 they were, meetings were frequent. Ferdinand and Isabella 
 disliked parhamentary government, while Jimenez had a 
 horror of the Cortes ; if people were once allowed to talk, he 
 would say, they were certain to become unruly. Thus after 
 the kingdom was restored to order, by measures taken in the 
 Cortes of 1476 and 1480, there was, except perhaps in 1482,
 
 22 Spain. 
 
 no other session until 1498. That they then became frequent 
 (1499, 1501J 1502) was due partly to the expenses of a more 
 enterprising policy, partly to deaths in the royal family. 
 
 We already find under Ferdinand and Isabella the multipli- 
 cation of councils or departments which became the peculiarity 
 of Spanish administration. Quite early in the reign the func- 
 tions of the Royal Council were differentiated, although the 
 so-called Councils of State, of Castile, and of Finance might 
 still be regarded as merely sections. Originally the Royal 
 Council of Castile had consisted of great nobles and ecclesias- 
 tics. Then as the towns grew powerful their representatives 
 had been admitted, but these the Crown succeeded in ousting, 
 replacing them by lawyers. The nobles still retained a right 
 of session, with a deliberative but not a decisive voice. The 
 lawyers acting in royal interests drew to themselves all the 
 more important legal business of the country, to such an 
 extent, indeed, that judicial business monopolised the time of 
 the Council. They also set themselves to destroy one by one 
 such legislative prerogatives as the Cortes had once possessed. 
 
 From this Council we find, under Ferdinand and Isabella, 
 the Council of State or Secret Council definitely separated. 
 This was in fact a Privy Council depending on the king's 
 pleasure, changing its character with each successive monarch. 
 There was no fixed body of rules or procedure ; its members 
 had no fixed place on ceremonial occasions. The king was 
 its president, and apart from him it had no existence. Its 
 functions were consultative, relating especially to foreign 
 affairs, and to the interests of the several kingdoms held by 
 the two Crowns. It was easily converted into a Council of 
 War by the addition of the leading military authorities. 
 
 Very different was the Council of Castile or Royal Council. 
 This was and remained the most important institution in 
 Spain, having a fixed number of members, fixed rules of 
 procedure, fixed hours of meeting, and very definite functions. 
 The president, usually a learned ecclesiastic, was the first
 
 Ferdhiand and Isabella. 23 
 
 subject of the kingdom. This Council exercised control over 
 every department of internal life ; on the sovereign's death it 
 assumed the government. Appointed by the Crown it became 
 the chief engine of absolutism. It was strong with all the 
 strength of the Crown, but not strong as against the Crown ; it 
 rarely, if ever, thwarted the power of the Crown, as did occa- 
 sionally the Parliament of Paris, which in many respects it 
 resembled. 
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella increased the professional element 
 in the Council. It now consisted of nine lawyers, three nobles 
 and one bishop. The monarchy used it to lower the power 
 first of the nobles, and then of the Cortes. The Council had 
 not only judicial but legislative functions ; by a majority of 
 two-thirds it enacted or repealed a law, the result of the 
 deliberation being laid before the king for assent. By the 
 signature of the king, of the president and of four councillors 
 a petition of Cortes could be converted into a law. 
 
 In the king and the Council of Castile centred the judicial 
 system of the country ; the appointments made in the Council 
 brought the monarchy in touch with every corner of the land. 
 The king was practically, and not merely theoretically, the 
 fount of justice. Ferdinand and Isabella sat in judgement 
 every week, and this was regarded as part of the royal duty. 
 No pains were spared to make justice adequate and pure. 
 There were Chanceries or Audiences, that is, Courts of Appeal, 
 at Valladolid for the country north of the Tagus, and at 
 Granada for the south. Each of these had its civil and 
 criminal section. Another judicial body accompanied the 
 Court, while Seville and Galicia had their separate Audiences. 
 In each Court there were paid advocates for the poor ; exces- 
 sive appeals were prevented by a pecuniary limitation, and by 
 arrangements for fresh trial by an aftbrced bench in the local 
 courts. 
 
 Between the great Courts, the rising power of the town 
 corregidores, and the Hermandad, the provincial officers of
 
 24 Spain. 
 
 justice withered away, the king in important cases preferring 
 to send temporary commissions from the Court. A peculiar 
 feature were the \\\%'^qc\.qx's,, pesquisidores or veedores, who kept 
 touch between the Court and the local magistracy, making 
 rounds to enquire into abuses, to force the corregidores to do 
 their duty, to prevent the encroachments of the magnates on 
 the ecclesiastical courts, to inspect prisons, to examine the 
 condition of fortresses, roads and bridges, and the collection of 
 the taxes. The ideal of justice was in Castile extraordinarily 
 high; a glance at the petitions presented at any session of 
 Cortes will prove the importance attributed to it. Yet there 
 were chronic evils in corruption and undue influence, not 
 completely checked by the practice of annual appointment, 
 and by rigorous examination at the close of office. The 
 contrast between the ideal of honour and the practice of 
 pecuniary corruption has always been a peculiar feature of 
 Spain and her settlements. 
 
 If the Council of Finance was still closely connected with 
 that of Castile, the Council of Aragon was necessarily distinct. 
 As the king was usually absent from Aragon, which was only 
 personally united to Castile, he was advised by Aragonese 
 subjects, constantly in attendance on his person. This pre- 
 cedent probably decided the question whether, when adminis- 
 tration became more complex, the Council should be divided 
 into committees and so preserve its unity, or whether for each 
 distinct department a separate Council should be created. 
 Thus during the joint reign the Councils of the Inquisition, 
 of the Military Orders, and temporarily that of the Hermandad, 
 were created. These were followed under Ferdinand's regency 
 by that of the Bull of Cruzada, which administered the pro- 
 ceeds of the Sale of Indulgences. 
 
 Little need here be said of the institutions of Aragon, 
 because, interesting as they are, they affected but little the 
 general course of Spanish history. The kingdoms of Aragon 
 and Valencia and the principaHty of Catalonia were in extent
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella. 25 
 
 less than a quarter of the kingdom of Castile. The three 
 states themselves were only united by a personal tie ; each 
 had its separate Cortes, its distinct institutions. The power of 
 the Crown was small; to the days of the Bourbons Aragon 
 was described as a republic of which the king was only presi- 
 dent. The Cortes of Catalonia and of Valencia were of the 
 usual type, comprising the three estates. Those of Aragon, 
 however, possessed the peculiarity that the great nobles formed 
 a separate estate from the lesser gentry. These magnates 
 could attend by proxy and in their estate unanimity was 
 required. The powers of the Aragonese Cortes were very 
 wide. Redress preceded supply, and supply was granted with 
 extreme reluctance. Every law required the assent of each of 
 the four estates. A standing committee of the four estates 
 exercised considerable control over the executive, especially 
 in the department of taxation. 
 
 The judicial system also possessed a peculiar feature in the 
 office of the Justicia. His functions were to protect individual 
 liberty and the fueros of the kingdom against the encroach- 
 ments of the ordinary courts. By his firma he could protect 
 the person and property of any who complained that a fiiero 
 was being violated. By the right named vianifestacion he could 
 remove to his own prison any who appealed to him until the 
 case had been decided by the competent court. He thus 
 stood between the people and the ordinary tribunals, and more 
 particularly between the nobles and the Crown. This great 
 official was appointed by the Crown, but could only be re- 
 moved by the Cortes ; in the time of Ferdinand the office was 
 virtually hereditary in the house of Lanuza. There was a 
 growing tendency to check the power of the Justicia^ both on 
 the part of the Crown and of the Cortes. The Cortes 
 employed the agency of his two lieutenants, who were 
 annually drawn by lot, while a parliamentary committee was 
 each year appointed to receive complaints. Ferdinand, on 
 his side, from 1493 imposed upon \\\c Justicia a board of five
 
 26 Spain. 
 
 legal assessors, whereas of old he was at liberty to choose his 
 own. 
 
 The constitutional liberties of Aragon had their darker 
 side. Individual liberty was often a high-sounding term for 
 brigandage and vendetta. The nobles were all-powerful ; to 
 their wretched tenants were extended none of the guarantees 
 so liberally granted to other orders. Between nobles and 
 towns, between municipal governments and artisans, feeling ran 
 high and hot. The Crown resented the insolent independence 
 of its kingdom. "Aragon is not ours," Isabella would say, 
 "we ought to conquer it." 
 
 The royal revenues in Castile were derived in the first 
 place from its extensive domains, from mines and the mono- 
 poly of salt. There was, however, a prodigal habit of alienation. 
 Lands had been lavished to win support, to raise ready money, 
 to pamper favourites. An equally ruinous system was the 
 practice of mortgage or Juros, which was applied also to the 
 taxes. The Crown raised a loan, and assigned the product of 
 certain estates or taxes in payment of interest, often at the 
 rate of ten per cent. In spite of her large resumptions, Isabella 
 soon renewed this practice. The revenues of the grand- 
 masterships added largely, as has been seen, to the royal 
 revenue. The Indies also were a new source of wealth, but 
 until Charles' reign the returns were of uncertain amount and 
 probably not large. The royalty consisted of one- fifth of all 
 precious metals, while there was an export and an import duty 
 of one-eighth. 
 
 The most important of the taxes was the a/cabala, originally 
 an extraordinary tax, which later became part of the royal 
 revenue. This tax was a duty of one-tenth of the value of 
 everything sold, and it was usually farmed. Ferdinand and 
 Isabella often accepted a commutation, which the town raised 
 as it pleased and paid direct to the Crown : this proved a 
 great economy to both parties. The import and export duties 
 at the sea-ports amounted to one-eighth, and so also at the
 
 Ferdmand and Isabella. 27 
 
 'dry-ports' on the frontiers of Aragon and Portugal. Tolls 
 were levied on the sheep and cattle moving from their commune, 
 or from the winter pastures of Estremadura to the mountains. 
 Finally, the Servicio, the subsidy demanded at each session of 
 the Cortes, became more and more essential. 
 
 Ecclesiastical taxation formed an important element. The 
 two-ninths of the tithes had been permanently granted. The 
 Pope from time to time for special reasons conferred upon the 
 Crown the stissidio, a tenth of ecclesiastical revenue. The 
 Bull of Cruzada was a dispensation from the more extreme 
 forms of Lenten abstinence, and was practically forced upon 
 the people for a money payment. Originally granted for war 
 against the Moors, it became an almost regular item of royal 
 revenue. Under the head of ecclesiastical resources may also 
 be mentioned the confiscations inflicted by the Inquisition, of 
 which the Crown reaped the benefit. Revenue was almost 
 wholly derived from Castile. Aragon and its dependencies 
 contributed Httle. The Cortes were here so troublesome that 
 Ferdinand rarely summoned them. The domains of the three 
 kingdoms were deeply pledged, yet Catalonia was very prosper- 
 ous. Sicily, and afterwards Naples, were heavily taxed, but the 
 regular receipts and the subsidies granted by their Parliaments 
 did little more than meet the local expenses of administration 
 and defence. 
 
 Previous to the war of Granada the army had been purely 
 mediaeval, consisting of the military orders and their tenants, 
 the feudal levies, and the militia of the towns, each body 
 comprising cavalry and infantry. In this war the archers of 
 the Hermandad appeared as a regular force, and Ferdinand 
 kept increasing the gendarmerie, until the corps reached some 
 3000 men, of whom two-thirds were light horse. After the 
 Italian wars, the enrolment of Stradiots from Albania, and of 
 mounted harquebusiers, raised the cavalry to more than 4000 
 men. The light horse were admirable of their kind, but the 
 "heavies" were never equal to the French, and the best troopers
 
 28 spam. 
 
 in Spanish service were, perhaps, the Walloon or Italian auxili- 
 aries or mercenaries. 
 
 The feudal levies were, after the war of Granada, replaced 
 by a militia proper. One man in twelve was drawn ; the force 
 received pay and was regularly reviewed; it was liable to 
 service at home and abroad. This system, like that of the 
 French franc-archers, was cheap but inefficient, and owing to 
 the distant African and Italian wars it gave way to a regular 
 mercenary force of professional soldiers, who were, however, 
 disbanded at the close of war, and lived as best they could 
 until there was fresh employment. 
 
 Gonsalvo de Cordoba was unquestionably the creator of the 
 Spanish infantry in its more celebrated form. It was originally 
 armed with sword, shield and javelin, but in the Italian wars, 
 finding it unable to meet the Swiss in French service, he intro- 
 duced the pike and harquebus. Henceforth each of ten 
 companies contained 200 pikes, 200 swords and 100 harque- 
 buses, while two more were exclusively armed with pikes. As 
 was natural in mountain warfare, the unit was at first small, the 
 company of 500 men. After passing through an intermediate 
 stage, termed the coronelia, under Gonsalvo, it became in the 
 reign of Charles the far-famed tercio consisting of three coronelias 
 or twelve companies of 500. These legions of 6000 men were 
 named after their original headquarters, Naples, Sicily, Lom- 
 bardy, and Malaga. 
 
 The Moorish War had been mainly a war of sieges, and 
 had really been decided, as the Anglo-French War (14 15 — 53) 
 in its later stages, by artillery. What the two brothers Bureau 
 were to Charles VII, Francisco Ramirez was to the Spanish 
 Crown. Ferdinand devoted great attention to this arm, but 
 under himself and his successor the guns were chiefly made in 
 Germany, and Germans also were the more experienced 
 gunners. The ex-corsair Pedro Navarro, who originally learnt 
 his trade in Florentine service, revolutionised the art of en- 
 gineering, especially in the mining department. To him
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella. 29 
 
 Gonsalvo's success in South Italy was greatly due. After Pedro's 
 capture at Ravenna, Ferdinand had refused to ransom him, and 
 he passed into French service. Gonsalvo retired to his estates 
 in something like disgrace \ Antonio de Leyva was perhaps the 
 best Spanish general that Ferdinand bequeathed to Charles. 
 
 The Spaniards were admirable military material. Sober 
 and temperate, they were more easily provisioned than any 
 European troops except the Turks. This was of especial 
 consequence in the Neapolitan campaigns, where the French 
 always suffered from wastefulness and excess. In physique the 
 Spaniards were short but muscular and lissom. When the pike 
 was introduced, the Venetian Quirini feared that in this solid 
 formation they might lose the advantage of their activity. 
 Drawn from mountainous districts, at seasons very hot and 
 very cold, Spanish troops could stand climatic changes, and 
 have always been celebrated for marching powers. Peculiarly 
 uneducated, they had remarkable natural intelligence in soldiery, 
 and hence made excellent marksmen, learning easily the art of 
 cover and of reserving fire. Though the esprit de corps and 
 sense of military honour were higher than in any other nation, 
 yet the Spaniards had no false shame in declining action with 
 superior forces ; they seldom attacked except at an advantage. 
 They distinguished themselves especially in the attack and 
 defence of fortresses, and in retreats. Military discipline was 
 easily learnt, but, as Ferdinand confessed, Spanish troops 
 required a very strong hand. Serving as mercenaries they 
 were mutinous if unpaid, but even in mutiny they preserved 
 their military consistency under elected oflicers, and were 
 therefore the more dangerous. 
 
 No reign, perhaps, can compare in volume and variety with 
 that of the Catholic kings. From their untiring minister 
 Jime'nez to the ragged uplander who was shipped to Messina 
 with one of Gonsalvo's drafts, or to the long-shore boatman 
 who sailed with Columbus for Heaven knew where, every 
 Spaniard seemed infected with his rulers' energy. Within
 
 30 Spain. 
 
 these thirty years Spain laid her hand heavily on Italy 
 and America, lightly, perhaps too lightly, upon Africa. Yet 
 more marvellous than the energy was the discipline. A dis- 
 orderly nobility, a dissipated priesthood bowed to a yoke that 
 was at once political and spiritual. A standard of justice and 
 of religion was set up, which might never be attained, but 
 which for generations served as an ideal towards which national 
 aspirations strove. The result was the more remarkable in that 
 energy and discipline were the very qualities which seemed 
 incompatible with the indolence and pride which trained 
 Italian observers noted as the national characteristics. How 
 long would pride submit to discipline, and energy overmaster 
 indolence ? 
 
 At all events the aims were set for posterity and the 
 instruments lay ready to hand. With a disciplined infantry, 
 a guileful diplomacy, a purified Church, Spain was fully 
 equipped for the conquest of territory or the control of opinion. 
 Impoverishment and exhaustion might have been foreseen, but 
 it would have been difiicult to predict whether this new pushing 
 power had, in her army and her Inquisition, forged the tools 
 of reaction or of reform.
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 PHILIP I AND THE REGENCY OF FERDINAND, 
 1504 — 1 5 16. CHARLES I (V), 1 5 16 — 1529. 
 
 Isabella was well aware that the mental derangement of 
 her daughter Juana rendered her unfit to reign. She therefore 
 bequeathed to Ferdinand the regency of Castile, until her 
 grandson, Charles, born in 1500, should be of age; the Cortes 
 duly confirmed her will. The supremacy of the Crown had 
 seemed complete, yet Castilian character was not profoundly 
 altered. Strong abroad through his diplomacy, his alliances, 
 his army, Ferdinand was weak at home. Castile resented the 
 rule of an Aragonese. His second marriage was unpopular; 
 it was believed that, if he had issue, he would separate Aragon 
 from Castile, or subject Castile to a king with no Castilian 
 blood. Juana's husband, Philip, was intriguing with the 
 nobles ; even Gonsalvo de Cordoba was suspected of infidelity. 
 When Philip and Juana landed (1506), the magnates seized the 
 opportunity of recovering their power; one by one they fell 
 away from Ferdinand. The Aragonese king had not Isabella's 
 sympathy with the towns, he had looked askance at their 
 extensive privileges. Left defenceless he surrendered the 
 regency and sailed to secure Naples. 
 
 Philip kept Juana in close confinement and ruled alone. 
 Flemings or favourites filled every place of trust. Of the 
 nobles some grovelled before the throne, others were in 
 rebellion. In Andalusia the old faction fights blazed out
 
 ^2 Spam. 
 
 anew. Philip recklessly alienated the royal revenues and 
 shghted the Inquisition. His death (September, 1506) came 
 as a relief. Juana's condition was aggravated by her hysterical 
 grief, and Philip's party wished the Emperor Maximilian to 
 assume the regency for his grandson. Public opinion, however, 
 turned towards Ferdinand. The magnates who remained in 
 arms were easily reduced ; the military spirit was diverted 
 to Africa, Navarre or Italy ; Ferdinand working hand-in-hand 
 with Jimenez had little trouble for the remainder of his regency. 
 Ferdinand's intentions as to his succession have been 
 much debated. His favourite grandson was Charles' younger 
 brother, Ferdinand, who had been educated as a Spaniard. 
 Should this boy be king of Aragon ? Should a kingdom be 
 manufactured for him in Italy? Should he be, as regent, 
 virtual ruler of Spain, while Charles directly administered 
 the Netherland and German possessions of the Hapsburgs? 
 It has been thought that the French victory at Marignano 
 and the threatening attitude of the Castilian nobles induced 
 Ferdinand to abandon any thought of partition. But all this 
 is guesswork. On Ferdinand's death (1516) Charles succeeded, 
 in nominal conjunction with his mother, to Castile and Aragon. 
 Jime'nez was left as regent until Charles' arrival. Again the 
 nobles struggled for power, some by open revolt, others by 
 making the Council of State an instrument of oligarchy. Once 
 more Jimenez held them down. The story is told that they 
 demanded to see his authority: "There," he answered, *'is my 
 authority," as he pointed to the park of artillery beneath the 
 palace windows. Yet he failed to create an urban militia 
 which should overawe the magnates, and they successfully 
 intrigued against him at Charles' court. Jime'nez protested 
 against the growing foreign influence in Castile, against 
 the vi^ithdrawal of revenue to Flanders, which prevented 
 the due defence of land and sea ; he unceremoniously thrust 
 aside Adrian of Utrecht, Charles' tutor, who was sent as 
 coadjutor in the regency. But Jime'nez never sv/erved from
 
 The reign of Charles I ( V). 33 
 
 loyalty. In defiance of public opinion he proclaimed Charles 
 as king, and stifled the pretensions of young Ferdinand to an 
 independent authority. 
 
 The reign of Charles opened under auspices of ill-omen. 
 He seemed intentionally to alienate affection. Above all 
 things Castilians craved for a resident king. Yet twenty 
 months expired before Charles landed, under stress of weather, 
 in the wilds of Asturias. For two months more he wandered 
 about by-roads, entering no important town. It was alleged 
 that he was reluctant to meet Jimenez; his heartless lettei 
 which ordered the Cardinal's retirement was coincident with 
 the old statesman's death. Then at lengi.h (November 15 17) 
 Charles entered Valladolid, but in all this interval he had not 
 learned Castilian. His minister Guillaume de Croy, lord of 
 Chievres, was practically absolute. He was believed already 
 to have sacrificed Spain to secure French friendship for the 
 Netherlands. Toledo, the primacy of Spain, was given to his 
 boy nephew. Another Fleming, Sauvage, was Chancellor. 
 Flemings monopolised all posts of profit, they swept Spain 
 bare of her currency, they studiously insulted the Castilian 
 nobles. Some exaggeration there may have been, but con- 
 temporary Italians confirm Spanish accounts of their vulgarity 
 and greed. Adrian of Utrecht, himself a Netherlander, 
 earnestly warned Charles against these abuses. The powerful 
 city of Toledo was exasperated by the nomination of a foreigner 
 to its see, and by the confiscation of the large fortune which 
 Jimenez had bequeathed to local charities. 
 
 When Charles summoned his first Cortes to Valladolid the 
 friction was unmistakeable. A deputy for Burgos, Dr Zumel, 
 lieaded an outspoken opposition. Charles was not recognised 
 as joint ruler with his mother until he had sworn to maintain 
 Castilian privileges and to exclude foreigners from office. 
 Then at length a subsidy was granted, but the towns reserved 
 the right of collection and would concede no otlier until the 
 expiry of the three annual instalments. 
 
 H. s. X
 
 34 Spain. 
 
 In Aragon opposition was yet more pronounced. Charles, 
 it was argued, could not summon the Cortes until he was 
 king, and king he could not be until he had taken the oath 
 before the standing Committee. The oath taken, the Cortes 
 raised the objection that they had already recognised Juana. 
 Disputes were perhaps purposely prolonged because the muni- 
 cipality of Saragossa reaped a rich harvest from its monopoly 
 of provisions, which ruined the Court and starved the poor. A 
 popular rising against the nobles and the burghers turned the 
 scales in Charles' favour. Yet the scanty subsidy, when granted, 
 by no means met the expenses of obtaining it. That an 
 epidemic carried off many of the foreigners was no great loss ; 
 the Chancellor Sauvage was succeeded by Gattinara, a clever 
 indefatigable Piedmontese, who knew Spain well. From May 
 15 18 to January 15 19 Charles was occupied in this wrangle. 
 For yet another year he was the sport of the mocking Cata- 
 lans in their Cortes of Barcelona. Here he received the 
 news of his election as Emperor in Maximilian's place. The 
 delays had made it impossible to receive the recognition of 
 Valencia. War with France was certain; to visit Valencia 
 was to risk the alliance of England and the fidelity of 
 Germany. 
 
 Meanwhile Castihan discontent had grown. Why, it was 
 asked, had the great kingdom yielded so readily, when the 
 pigmy states of Aragon and Catalonia held out so long? 
 Charles had broken all his promises ; he had sent Ferdinand 
 out of Spain ; he was rejecting a Portuguese for an English 
 marriage ; he was heaping offices upon Flemings ; he had 
 farmed the rising taxes to money-lenders; he was already 
 demanding a fresh subsidy for objects which Spain disliked: 
 instead of residing he was hurrying to England and Germany ; 
 he had summoned the Cortes to Santiago in Galicia beyond the 
 border of Castile, an unprecedented departure from custom 
 which entailed grave expenses on the towns. Discontent led 
 to the unconstitutional action of Toledo, which substituted
 
 The reign of C/iaj'les T ( V). 35 
 
 irregular deputies for the proctors duly drawn by lot ; to the 
 violent rising at Valladolid, which Charles escaped by minutes 
 only; and to the organised opposition of the Cortes at Santiago. 
 Charles, finding a subsidy refused, transferred the Cortes to 
 Corunna, and here by intimidation and corruption manu- 
 factured a majority. Indignation culminated when Adrian 
 was appointed regent; he had, indeed, protested that Castile 
 was for Castilians, but he was no Spaniard and no statesman. 
 
 It had seemed antecedently probable that civil conflict 
 in Spain would be between Crown and nobles. Events proved 
 the contrary. The humiliation of the grandees had increased 
 the pretensions of the towns. Hitherto the Third Estate had 
 been in harmony with the Crown, but when differences arose 
 the towns resolved to show that they had outgrown their 
 leading-strings. 
 
 Before Charles left Corunna the revolt broke out, spreading 
 speedily from Toledo to Segovia, Burgos and Zamora. It took 
 the form of attacks on deputies who had voted the subsidy, 
 on foreign merchants, and government officials. If the pro- 
 scribed individuals escaped, their furniture, their very cocks 
 and hens were thrown into a bonfire. The movement was 
 not always democratic. Among the leaders was Pedro de 
 Giron, an Andalusian magnate with a long record of faction 
 and rebellion. More characteristic were Juan de Padilla and 
 Pedro Laso, both noblemen actively engaged in the municipal 
 affairs of Toledo. It is noticeable that in their first manifesto 
 they denounced Charles' alleged breaches of noble privilege. 
 
 The greater nobles were generally neutral, though some- 
 times sympathising with the revolt ; Adrian even informed 
 Charles that the wires were pulled by the grandees. Leading 
 municipal families, noble, legal or commercial, were often 
 actively engaged. In the clothworking towns, however, the 
 artisans were soon found in the forefront. At Madrid, 
 Guadalajara and Siguenza the democracy overthrew the 
 existing government and excluded nobles from office; at
 
 36 Spain. 
 
 Segovia the gentry were from the first in danger. Most 
 radical of all the leaders was Antonio de Acuiia, Bishop of 
 Zamora, who enrolled the lower clergy and the friars. 
 
 The regent had few troops and no resources; his only 
 allies were officials of evil reputation, the lost souls of abso- 
 lutism. An attack upon Segovia united the moderates with 
 the mob. The royalists, in attempting to seize the artillery 
 parked at Medina del Campo, burnt the town. This was 
 the bapthne defeii of the revolution. Indignation spread revolt 
 throughout New and Old Castile and thence to Jaen and 
 Murcia. In Andalusia it was rather a recrudescence of local 
 feuds than organised resistance to the government. Of this 
 the real area lay between the Douro and the Tagus, the very 
 heart of Castile. There was at first no profession of fighting 
 against the Crown: the revolution was conducted in the names 
 of Juana and Charles. A few, indeed, wished to make Juana's 
 power actual, and Acuna vapoured of Italian republics and 
 their liberty. 
 
 How far could towns with different traditions and separated 
 by difficult country combine in revolution? The central 
 provisional government, the Santa Junta, was organised at 
 Avila (August 1520). This was the geographical centre of 
 disturbance, as being on the border line of Old and New 
 Castile. The regent and his Council were deposed; the 
 Junta declared the supreme royal authority. Padilla surprised 
 Tordesillas, where Juana lived, and broke up and imprisoned 
 the royal Council. The news flashed through Spain that 
 Juana was not mad and that she sympathised with the Junta. 
 Had she signed a document Charles was lost. But, excited as 
 she was at first, she soon relapsed into sullen neutrality ; the 
 entreaties and threats of the Junta could wring nothing 
 from her obstinate reserve. 
 
 The rebellion was spoiled by meeting with no resistance. 
 The Junta instead of destroying the few remnants of royal 
 government memorialised the absent Emperor. The eighty-
 
 TJie reign of Charles I ( V). 37 
 
 two clauses of the petition embody an epitome of past, present 
 and future discontents. The dislilce for foreigners was mani- 
 fested in the demand for their exclusion from magistracies and 
 benefices, from household or military service; in the protest 
 against letters of naturalisation. For native manufactures the 
 preemption of Spanish wool was claimed, and the extension to 
 foreign goods of the stringent supervision over home-made 
 cloth. The petitioners complained that Castile was ruined by 
 the withdrawal of the precious metals ; they denounced the 
 export of cattle, sheep and pigs as having trebled the price of 
 meat, candles and shoes ; fearing the diversion of the American 
 trade to Flanders, they would confine it to Castilians, and 
 retain Seville as the sole authorised port. In relation to the 
 Indies one unselfish touch is found ; public opinion had been 
 stirred by the preaching of Las Casas, and the Junta stigmatised 
 the leasing of gangs of natives for forced labour in the mines 
 as the virtual enslavement of a Christian people, for which the 
 increased output of gold and silver was no excuse. 
 
 Ecclesiastical and judicial abuses form the refrain of each 
 successive Cortes. The Junta too demanded that magistracies 
 should not be granted to the nobles' nominees nor to youngsters 
 fresh from the Universities : the courts should be periodically 
 inspected, the conduct of outgoing magistrates strictly scruti- 
 nised: all municipal offices must be annual and elective, no 
 corregidor should be appointed except on petition by a town. 
 The sale of offices and the promise of reversions was pro- 
 nounced a detestable system. Under equal condemnation 
 fell the arbitrary transference of cases from local to royal 
 courts, the payment of judges by fees and fines instead of 
 salary, the promise of confiscated property before sentence, 
 the plurality of offices. 
 
 The encroachments and expenses of the ecclesiastical 
 courts were the subject of fierce attack. For the Cortes was 
 claimed the decision whether the Bulls of Cruzada for the sale 
 of Indulgences should be published ; it was insisted that their
 
 38 Spain. 
 
 purchase must be purely voluntary, and not forced on the 
 people by itinerant friars who, to gain their small commission, 
 kept the congregation whole days in church, and refused 
 absolution to all who would not buy. Non-residence and its 
 attendant evils were ascribed to Roman influences, to the 
 practise of provisions, reservations and pensions on Spanish 
 sees ; the only remedy was compulsory residence and the non- 
 payment of the stipend during absence. The petition did not 
 spare the more direct abuses of Charles' government. The 
 king's table, it protested, cost tenfold that of his predecessors ; 
 the system of purveyance, grosser in Castile than in any other 
 Christian or pagan land, had spread from the royal suite to 
 judicial and financial officers, to police, to noblemen and 
 prelates. It was insisted that old arrears of the Alcahala 
 should be written off, that it should be collected by the towns 
 and commuted, in spite of the rise of prices, at the rate fixed 
 in Isabella's will. 
 
 So far the proposals were conservative in their general 
 drift, but this conservatism was but a stalking-horse for revolu- 
 tion. It was demanded that the constitution of the Cortes 
 should be radically changed ; that in each represented town 
 the clergy, the gentry and the commons should respectively 
 elect a proctor, who should be bound by pledges to vote ac- 
 cording to his constituency's will ; that these delegates should 
 debate in private, and that death should be the penalty for 
 receiving a gratuity from the Crown, direct or indirect : every 
 three years the Cortes should meet, with or without summons, 
 while the notaries who attended should be their officials and 
 not the king's. The sessions of Santiago and Corunna were 
 pronounced unconstitutional, the subsidy and gratuities voided. 
 
 Less academic was the Junta's attitude towards the nobles, 
 whom the petition debarred from office in the revenue or 
 domain or royal fortresses : their towns and villages, previously 
 exempted, must be assessed, and lands, rents and services 
 illegally appropriated restored witliin six months; the Crown
 
 The reign of Charles I ( V). 39 
 
 should redeem the older assignations upon revenue and resume 
 without compensation grants subsequent to 1504. The grant 
 of letters of nobility by the Crown was denounced as being 
 prejudicial to the remaining tax-payers. Charles himself was 
 ordered to return, reside and marry, to revoke immediately 
 Adrian's commission, to dismiss all officers who had offended 
 the communes, to deprive of office for ever the members 
 of the Councils of State and Castile. Henceforth during 
 the king's absence or minority the regent must be a native, 
 acceptable to the people, elected by Cortes and the Council of 
 Castile. 
 
 The drafting of Utopian programmes is not statesmanship. 
 The attitude of the Junta towards the nobles drove them for 
 refuge to the Crown. Charles corrected his great mistake as 
 the Communes committed theirs. He nominated as co-regents 
 with Adrian the Constable and Admiral, the chief titular 
 officials of Castile ; he threw himself upon the loyalty of the 
 nobles. Feigning a consciousness of strength he empowered 
 the regents to summon Cortes, but to abate not a jot of the 
 prerogative ; towns, which refused to attend, should for ever 
 forfeit their representation ; the Junta must be immediately 
 dissolved. 
 
 The fortunes of the Communes began to flag. Their 
 power was after all confined to the two Castiles, with outposts 
 in Galicia, Navarre and Murcia. Andalusia and Granada, as a 
 whole, were loyal. At Santiago and Corunna their deputies 
 had been outspoken, those of Cordoba had refused the subsidy. 
 But in the king's absence they would join no unlawful associa- 
 tion. Seville and Cordoba, realising that in noble factions lay 
 the germ of civil war, requested the magnates to withdraw 
 beyond their walls, and rigorously forbade any armed gather- 
 ings round the noble houses. At Cordoba a price was put on 
 the head of a friar and a shoemaker, the agents of revolt 
 among the masses. Finally at La Rambla these towns formed 
 a loyal union of Andalusia, which offered to the king 6odo
 
 40 Spain. 
 
 horse and 20000 foot if only he would return to Spain unac- 
 companied by foreign troops. 
 
 In the North the Communes suffered actual shrinkage. 
 Opinion was long divided in Burgos, which lay on the extreme 
 fringe of the area of rebellion, and was jealous of the influence 
 of Toledo. It now seceded and admitted the Constable ; 
 Dr Zumel, the first leader of the constitutional opposition, 
 became a loyalist. Hitherto there had been little fighting, 
 because the Communes had no enemy to fight. Now each 
 town was harassed by its traditional foe. Sometimes even 
 within a city civil war swept down the street and up the very 
 aisles of the Cathedral. Valladolid had become the insurgents' 
 military centre, but their mistake in not early seizing Simancas, 
 the only royalist town, with its strong castle on the Pisuerga, 
 made communications difiicult. The royalists although inferior 
 in wealth and numbers were allowed to surprise Tordesillas; 
 they thus recovered possession of the person of Juana and 
 imprisoned the members of the Junta who were with her. 
 
 Not only was there shrinkage at the circumference of revolt, 
 there was cleavage at its very centre. The first leader Padilla 
 had been superseded by the Andalusian noble Pedro de Giron : 
 the latter, when suspected of treason, sullenly withdrew to his 
 estates. Then followed the contest for command between 
 Padilla, the showy soldier, pushed into prominence by his 
 brilliant wife, and Laso, the capable politician. The mob beat 
 the moderates and elected Padilla ; Laso and the Junta began 
 to look towards compromise with the Crown. 
 
 Of all the rebel leaders the most radical, the most inflam- 
 matory was the Bishop of Zamora. Forming his lower clergy 
 and the friars into regiments, feeding the war with the plunder 
 of churches and monasteries, he had fiinned the passions of 
 the people by midnight services, by wild processions where the 
 torchlight fell upon a medley of crucifix and pike. He had 
 operated chiefly in tlie north-western districts, but hearing 
 that the Prior of San Juan was threatening Toledo he marched
 
 The reign of Cliarlcs / (V). 41 
 
 southwards to its relief. At this moment the news arrived of 
 the young Flemish archbishop's death. The mob hoisted the 
 Bishop upon their shoulders, and seated him on the primate's 
 throne. Even this "Second Luther," as he was termed at 
 Rome, could not accept election so uncanonical. He strove 
 to starve the chapter into electing him, but Castilian sobriety- 
 stood the canons in good stead. The Bishop's violence set all 
 moderate and religious men against him ; the clergy who had 
 once preached war now began to plead for peace. The Prior, 
 moreover, proved more competent in the field than did the 
 Bishop. 
 
 The conflict had now settled down into a social war. The 
 Communes had protested against the appropriation of royal 
 lands by nobles ; but they had themselves seized not only 
 lands, but mines and saltworks, the proceeds of the Alcabala^ 
 and of the Bulls of Cruzada. Not content with this, they 
 confiscated the possessions of the nobles in the towns, threat- 
 ened their rural estates, harried their sheep. The revolutionary 
 movement spread from the towns to the peasantry and seemed 
 likely to become a Jacquerie. The last act of the Communes 
 before the end was to enrol bands for the express purpose of 
 pillaging the nobles' houses. 
 
 Meanwhile the magnates were themselves divided. The 
 Constable insisted on rigorous repression, the Admiral on a 
 generous compromise. Left by Charles without resources, many 
 thought of making terms to save their lands and cattle. They 
 were so jealous, wrote Adrian, that any noble would gladly 
 lose an eye if it cost one to his rival. Yet they were more 
 patient than their enemies. While the Constable collected 
 troops, the Admiral detached the moderates ; the revolutionary 
 party had broken up 'before the final action of Villalar. 
 
 The popular hero Padilla showed little military competence. 
 He did, indeed, storm the strong position of Torrclobaton, but 
 he did not follow up this brilliant action. At length becoming 
 aware of his isolation, he moved westwards to effect a junction
 
 42 Spain. 
 
 with the forces of the western Communes. The nobles fol- 
 lowed with their cavalry and light guns. In pouring rain the 
 rebel foot pressed forward to gain the shelter of Villalar. The 
 loyal cavalry felt their yielding flanks, and threw in a few shots 
 from their guns. The heavier artillery of the Communes stuck 
 in the mud, and the gunners deserted. Then the loyalist horse 
 were on them ; there was a wild rout \ only five rebels really 
 fought, only one of their opponents fell (April 15 21). On the 
 next day Padilla and two other leaders were executed. In 
 the North there was no further resistance ; Toledo made a 
 gallant resistance under Padilla's widow, who stained her 
 heroism by treasonable intrigue with France. Acuna aided 
 her until he saw that the game was played out ; then he fled, 
 to be captured just as he reached the French frontier. The 
 widow, more fortunate, escaped with her family to Portugal. 
 
 The war of classes had gone against the masses. When all 
 was over Charles returned. He had scarcely raised a finger to 
 suppress revolt, he had not lent a ducat or a man to the 
 cause which was originally his. Perhaps he was not unwise ; 
 he had not been brought into direct conflict with his subjects ; 
 he had beaten one dangerous element by another. On his 
 first visit Charles had brought his Flemish courtiers, on his 
 second he was accompanied by some 4000 German foot, and a 
 train of German artillery. The nobles after their victory had 
 been scrupulously moderate ; Charles was not cruel, but he 
 was obstinate and knew no compassion. Scarcely 300 rebels 
 were excluded from the amnesty, and few of these sufi"ered in 
 person. But the penalties dragged on. The nobles in vain 
 implored their sovereign to forgive; even after the victory of 
 Pavia the friar Antonio de Guevara must needs plead for 
 pardon so long deferred. 
 
 A rising in Valencia preceded and outlasted that of the 
 Communes. With the latter it had no original connection, 
 it was rather social than constitutional, the result of long ill- 
 feeling between the gentry, who dominated the Cortes and
 
 The reign of Charles I { V). ■ 43 
 
 judicature, and the thriving middle and lower classes, espe- 
 cially in the capital. Early in 15 19 Moorish corsairs had 
 hovered off Valencia. Owing to the absence of the gentry 
 during the plague, defence had devolved on the artisans, who 
 thus gained a military organisation. This was followed by a 
 political organisation of their several trade-guilds in a league, 
 termed the Gcnnam'a. 
 
 The Crown meanwhile was at cross purposes with the 
 nobles and the Cortes, owing to Charles' refusal to visit 
 Valencia to receive and take the oath on his accession 
 (October, 15 19). When Adrian appeared in January 1520, 
 the Cortes absolutely declined to recognise a mere representa- 
 tive, and they were undoubtedly in the right. Even before 
 this the government had coquetted with the Germania ; it now 
 definitely recognised its organisation, and Adrian formally 
 reviewed the armed trades. From Corunna Charles ordered 
 that one-third of the municipal magistrates should be plebeians, 
 yet he left in Diego de Mendoza a viceroy acceptable to the 
 nobles. The Crown trifled with the situation ; wishing to em- 
 barrass the nobility it underrated the gravity of the movement. 
 
 The trades, half encouraged and half irritated, took the 
 law into their own hands. They formed of sailors, artisans 
 and peasants a Committee of Thirteen, which was interided to 
 be permanent ; it was agreed that at least one member should 
 always represent the peasantry, one the velvet and two the 
 woollen trade. An active propaganda throughout the kingdom 
 produced corresponding committees in other towns. The 
 lower classes, flying to arms, swept all before them, massacring 
 defenceless nobles with their wives and children. The gentry 
 concentrated for defence at Denia in the southernmost corner 
 of the kingdom, while Valencia, Jativa and Alcira were the 
 centres of revolution. 
 
 In this revolt the social line was absolutely distinct; no 
 noble fought for the Germania, every town but Morella sent a 
 contingent to the commons. The middle class early shrank back
 
 44 Spain. 
 
 from the conflict and finally joined the nobles. The Thirteen of 
 Valencia themselves were soon outpaced and lost control ; the 
 original leader died broken-hearted at the atrocities of the 
 extremists. The clergy were divided, some preaching against 
 excesses, others stimulating the infuriated mobs. The Moorish 
 peasants on the lords' estates rose in defence of their masters, 
 but were forced to baptism or exterminated by the commons. 
 Nor were these always alternatives — " Plenty of souls for 
 heaven and plenty of money for our pockets," was the cry, 
 when 600 Moorish peasants were first baptized and then hewn 
 to pieces. Revolution seemed likely to spread beyond Valencia; 
 it just crossed the southern border of Aragon, while in Majorca 
 the war of classes was internecine. 
 
 At length the nobles, reinforced from Murcia and Andalusia, 
 took Valencia. But the insurgent leader, Vicente Peris entered 
 by surprise, and a fierce street fight ensued. Five thousand 
 noble troops stormed the rebels' quarter house by house, under 
 a hail of tiles, crockery, furniture and boiling water. Peris was 
 dragged from his home and killed. Valencia itself was subdued, 
 but the revolution flickered up again in Jativa and Alcira under 
 a picturesque impostor, who professed to be a son of the 
 deceased Infante Juan, Charles was now in Spain and sent 
 aid to the nobles, who forced the two towns to capitulate 
 (September, 1525). Of the lower classes 14,000 were said to ' 
 have fallen, and their condition permanently deteriorated; the 
 noble victors were well-nigh ruined. The towns had capitulated 
 under promise of amnesty, but Charles would have none of 
 this. The punishment of individuals and corporations was 
 entrusted to the dowager-queen Germaine, and the frivolous 
 Frenchwoman used her authority with ferocity. 
 
 While Spaniards were flying at each other's throats their 
 ruler was guiding Spain towards the long national conflict, 
 which was only closed by the substitution of Bourbon for 
 Hapsburg. Ever since the election of Charles to the Empire, 
 war with his rival Francis I became a certainty. In such a
 
 The reigji of CJiarlcs I ( F). 45 
 
 war Spain had the most direct concern. If Charles held that 
 the duchy of Burgundy had been filched from his patrimony, 
 the Crown of Aragon had under false pretexts extorted the 
 cession of Roussillon, and had driven the French from Naples, 
 the Crown of Castile had robbed the French house of Albret of 
 its Spanish territories. Spanish and French troops had con- 
 tested the dominion of North Italy at Ravenna; Spaniards, 
 but for their general's caution, would have fought shoulder to 
 shoulder with Swiss against French on the field of Marignano. 
 
 From one grandfather, Maximilian, Charles had inherited 
 hostility to France intermittent and sentimental, but that of 
 the other, Ferdinand, had been practical and ceaseless. To 
 the ruler of the Netherlands peace with France was essential. 
 The government of Philip and that of Charles himself had 
 stood aside in the previous wars, and had even shown strong 
 French sympathies. The treaty of Noyon (15 16), which was 
 Charles' first act after his accession to the Spanish Crown, was 
 denounced in Spain as sacrificing her interests to the com- 
 merce of the Netherlands with France. Twice during the 
 later conflict between Charles and Francis, the Regent of the 
 Netherlands made a separate truce for her provinces, which 
 had no concern in the quarrel. 
 
 Personal rivalry was, perhaps, the immediate cause of war, 
 but there were national causes of more depth and i)ermanence. 
 It was unjust to urge that the European negotiations which 
 kept Charles from Spain were indifferent to her fortunes. 
 The wars to come were Franco-Spanisk wars for the dominion 
 of Italy ; they had been rendered inevitable by the Spanish 
 occupation of Naples and the French occupation of Milan. 
 Flemish gold and German blood were lavished to maintain for 
 Spain the frontier of the Pyrenees, to win for Spain the passes 
 of the Alps. 
 
 The combatants were not badly matched. To all appear- 
 ance the Emperor's resources were the greater. Substantial 
 aid from Germany was, however, discounted by the independ-
 
 46 Spain. 
 
 ence of the princes, and by troubles directly or indirectly 
 springing from the Lutheran movement. The Netherlands 
 had one enemy at their gate and another within their doors. 
 Robert de la Marck from his principality of Bouillon was a 
 constant menace to Luxemburg and Namur. The descendants 
 of Charles the Bold paid dearly for his confiscation of Guelders. 
 The dispossessed Duke not only found a welcome in his own 
 state, but terrorised the provinces lying round the Zuyder Zee. 
 He was, moreover, the French recruiting sergeant for German 
 lanzknechts, and Francis drew as largely from this mercenary 
 market as did Charles. The Swiss, the other great mercenary 
 nation, were divided in the first campaign, but thereafter, 
 according to custom, usually sold their aid to France. 
 
 In Italy the possession of Naples and Sicily balanced that 
 of Milan. The population of the duchy had within four years 
 learnt to hate the French and to long for the return of the titular 
 duke, Francesco Sforza. On the other hand Charles' reign 
 opened with actual revolt in Sicily, while his ambassador at 
 Rome described the administration of Naples as deplorable. 
 In Spain itself, after the suppression of the Germmiia, the 
 stubborn resistance of the Valencian Moors to conversion 
 employed a considerable royal force, while, of the two chronic 
 factions which divided Navarre, one necessarily looked toward 
 the house of Albret and found support in popular feeling. 
 
 A glance at the map would seem to show that Charles, 
 especially after the conquest of Milan and Genoa, held France 
 as between the extended finger and thumb, and could at will 
 increase the pressure on her eastern and southern provinces. 
 But the French king had the advantage of acting on interior 
 lines. This was not only militarily, but financially important. 
 The movement of the Imperial troops was ruinously expensive, 
 costing, as Charles complained, at least one-third more than 
 that of the French. Spain was protected by arid stretches of 
 mountains from invasion, but the French kings had long 
 assumed the right of passage through Savoyard territory, and
 
 The reign of Charles I ( F). 47 
 
 could therefore easily make elbow-room by pushing into 
 Lombardy. 
 
 The Spanish infantry had a magnificent reputation, but 
 after all it had been beaten at Ravenna. The lustre of 
 Marignano still shone on the French lances and field pieces ; 
 if the native infantry were decidedly inferior to that of Spain, 
 the Swiss and German mercenaries balanced the German and 
 Italian troops of Charles. The French generals, Francis I 
 himself, La Tre'mouille, La Palisse, the Duke of Albany and 
 Bayard would seem to outweigh the Spanish-Italian chiefs, 
 Prospero Colonna, the Marquis of Pescara, Antonio de Leyva. 
 It was no good sign that in Naples alone six generals contested 
 the command-in-chief. 
 
 Both monarchs were from the first in desperate financial 
 straits. Francis had been unable to utilize his victory of 
 Marignano because the roads in France had been eaten bare, 
 and the taxes for the ensuing year already spent. Charles had 
 to borrow from Henry VIII his passage money to Spain; his 
 ambassador at Rome, Juan Manuel, was crippled with debt 
 incurred on his master's behalf, and plaintively wished that he 
 had the wherewithal to buy his bread. Above all Charles 
 throughout his whole dominions was hampered by Parlia- 
 mentary control over subsidies, from which Francis I was free. 
 France, Louis XI had said, was a fair meadow whose owner 
 could mow it as often as he pleased. 
 
 With forces so equal much would depend upon alliances. 
 In later days Francis looked mainly to the Lutheran princes 
 and the Turk, but in the present French and Spanish diplo- 
 matists were courting the coyest of princes, the King of 
 England, and the Pope. The Tudor king, inferior to either 
 rival in military power, was sufiiciently strong to hold tlie 
 balance. He could ruin the trade of the Netherlands and 
 make communication with Spain impossible. On the other 
 hand the French coasts from Boulogne to Bayonne lay open 
 to his fleets, and his territorial claims in France might be
 
 48 Spain. 
 
 the pretext of war and the reward of victory. English 
 revenues were more flourishing than those of France and 
 Spain. No prince, it was said, was so rich in ready money 
 as Henry VIII ; he could finance Swiss or lanzknechts or 
 Italian condottieri. The princess Mary was but a babe, but 
 she was dandled before both courts, and was promised first 
 to the Dauphin and then to the Emperor. Charles, indeed, 
 was told by Cardinal Schomberg that Mary would never 
 marry either, and laughed heartily when it was explained 
 how in time of war the English used princesses as owls for 
 luring birds. 
 
 Leo X occupied in Italy the position which Henry VIII 
 held in Europe. The Spaniards in Naples and the French in 
 Milan being evenly balanced, Leo, who also controlled Florence, 
 could turn the scale. With Papal aid the Spaniards could 
 march through friendly territory to the Milanese frontier, or 
 the French to that of Naples. Leo X was better armed 
 and wealthier than any previous Pope, he could subsidise 
 the needy Emperor or the spendthrift King A Pope's price 
 was usually the interest of his family. If English princesses 
 were owls, the Papal nipoti were vultures gorged by the 
 battles of the nations. Yet Leo's chief aim was, perhaps, a 
 state sufficiently strong to awe either foreigner. 
 
 Charles had risked his hold on Spain for a personal 
 interview with Henry VIII. His English visit at least 
 secured friendly neutrality, and discounted the effects of the 
 coming meeting of Henry and Francis at the Field of the 
 Cloth of Gold. It really, moreover, decided the attitude of 
 the Pope, though he pretended to be hard to win. Leo X 
 already dreamed of the marriage of his baby grand-niece, 
 Catherine de' Medici to a French prince, with Naples under 
 his own administration as their appanage. More definite was 
 the demand for the absorption of Ferrara in the Papal 
 States, but the sacrifice of this faithful ally Francis I re- 
 fused. Charles was more generous ; he not only abandoned
 
 The reign of Charles I { V). 49 
 
 Ferrara, but would detach Parma and Piacenza from Milan. 
 Nor was this all — after his coronation at Aix Charles met 
 the Diet at Worms, where his personal influence determined 
 the condemnation of Luther (May, 1521). This spiritual 
 support of the Papacy decided the political alliance of the 
 Pope. 
 
 Hostilities had practically begun in March by attacks of 
 Robert de la Marck and the Duke of Guelders on the 
 Netherlands. Francis I, disavowing responsibility, retorted 
 that Charles had encouraged Milanese exiles, had neither paid 
 tribute for Naples, nor done homage for Flanders and Artois. 
 When in May French troops in D'Albret's name overran 
 Navarre, a declaration of war could not be postponed. The 
 French had blundered in delaying until the Comimineros had 
 been beaten. The attack on Navarre made Charles' cause 
 common to all Castile ; even Toledo sent her contingent to 
 fight the French. 
 
 The Pope, feeling that Charles was now committed, 
 declared his alliance. The German princes, resenting the 
 French king's insult to their elected Emperor, withdrew or 
 modified their opposition to his authority. Immediately before 
 war broke out De Chievres died. In Spanish history he has 
 left an evil name, but he was a good friend to his native 
 Netherlands, and, while abandoning no essential interest, he 
 had skilfully postponed war until Charles could fight at an 
 advantage. In after years Charles spoke of De Chievres with 
 high respect, but henceforth no minister was his master. Ce 
 bon enfant V Empercur, as Leo X called him, entered on his 
 first great war as an autocrat with a will and a policy of his 
 own. 
 
 It cost four campaigns to expel the French from Lombardy, 
 and to replace their partisans by the Imperialist faction at 
 Genoa. Striking events were few. At the battle of Bicocca 
 the Spaniards had their first marked success against the Swiss. 
 The mountaineers, clamouring for pay, battle, or dismissal, 
 H. s. A
 
 50 Spain. 
 
 blundered to their doom ; they were mown down by the 
 Spanish harquebusiers crouching in the cornfields before they 
 could push the pike home. Lautrec, the French general, was 
 no match for the cautious Italian veteran Prospero Colonna, 
 who may be said to have introduced the system of a war 
 of positions. Both Lautrec and his successor Bonnivet were 
 outgeneralled by the fiery Neapolitan nobleman Pescara, 
 adored by his soldiers, taking full advantage of the enter- 
 prise and intelligence of the Spanish foot. At the last 
 skirmish on the Sesia, Bayard received his fatal wound after 
 a quarter of a century of Italian fight. 
 
 Tlie Imperialists had been aided by Milanese hatred for 
 the French ; Italian friars had preached a crusade against the 
 oppressor. But the Emperor's hand was already heavy; he 
 used or abused alleged Imperial prerogatives, which passing 
 centuries had abandoned to the antiquary. His generals 
 enforced by military execution the requisitions assessed upon 
 the free states in proportion to their resources for the support 
 of the Spanish garrisons in Lombardy. Although Francesco 
 Sforza returned to Milan, his investiture with the Duchy was 
 delayed. 
 
 Venice had passed from the French to the Imperial 
 alliance, but Charles found difficulty in keeping the Papal 
 contingent with his colours. Leo X had just lived to see 
 Parma and Piacenza added to the Papal States. The Conclave 
 after his death was a national struggle between the French and 
 Spanish parties, which his cousin, the Cardinal Medici, decided 
 in Spain's favour. Unable as yet to secure his own promotion, 
 he won the tiara for Adrian of Utrecht (January, 1522). To 
 Charles it was a gain that the unpopular regent, the symbol of 
 Flemish domination, should be removed from Spain on so 
 flattering a pretext. But Adrian was not prepared to be the 
 Imperial tool. From the first he was at disaccord with Juan 
 Manuel ; he would take no share in the alliance against France. 
 Partly Adrian was offended by the arbitrary measures of
 
 The reigii of Char Us / {V). 51 
 
 Charles' officers in Lombardy, partly he had a heartfelt desire 
 for peace. Only the misconduct of his own Cardinals of the 
 French party drove him to the Emperor's side shortly before 
 his death (September, 1523). The election of the Cardinal 
 Medici as Clement VII in November seemed to make Charles' 
 position at Rome secure ; he had been the life and soul of the 
 Spanish party in Leo X's court. The Duke of Sessa, the new 
 ambassador, assured Charles that his power was now so great 
 that he might convert stones into obedient sons. But Charles 
 was, like others, destined to discover that his Popes were the 
 most deceptive and disappointing of mankind. 
 
 From 1521 to 1524 there had been desultory fighting on 
 the Flemish and Burgundian frontiers. Henry VIII, after half- 
 hearted efforts at mediation, openly joined the Emperor (1523). 
 English troops twice invaded Picardy, while English squadrons 
 hovered off the Norman and Breton coasts, yet the revival of 
 the old English-Spanish-Burgundian alliance was more inte- 
 resting than important. Within France herself Charles found 
 a strange ally in the greatest French nobleman, the Constable 
 Bourbon (1523). Machiavelli had said that France was only 
 vulnerable through her feudal nobles. Charles exaggerated the 
 importance of Bourbon's defection; he promised him the hand 
 of his sister Eleanor, the widowed Queen of Portugal, and gave 
 other pledges which hampered him hereafter. The French 
 crown had outgrown its great feudatories ; moreover a rebel 
 who runs away hurts no one but himself Bourbon's desertion 
 gave to Charles a brave trooper, a generous recruiter, an 
 importunate suitor, a general conceited above his competence. 
 
 Imperial success in Lombardy had been marred by a 
 mishap in Spain. The French, invading Navarre, turned 
 suddenly on Fuenterrabia, the key of Guipuscoa, and occupied 
 the strong position in force (September, 1521). Here there 
 was brisk fighting by land and sea, but the professional Spanish 
 soldier found service in the Pyrenees less profitable than in 
 Italy. The French retained their foothold on Spanish soil 
 
 4—2
 
 52 Spain. 
 
 until 1524. The force which ultimately expelled them was of 
 such poor quality that it had immediately afterwards to be 
 disbanded. A similar cause had made an invasion of Guyenne, 
 which Charles intended to lead in person, abortive and 
 ridiculous (1523). 
 
 The campaign of 1524 in Italy had been fought almost 
 literally to the last crown and the last loaf The Spanish 
 soldier had this advantage, that the loaf lasted him longer than 
 it did the French. The Constable Bourbon had pawned his 
 jewels, the Duke of Sessa his plate, to pay the troops. Charles 
 was so exhausted that he longed for peace, while Francis was 
 equally anxious for a truce. The failure of negotiations made 
 fighting brisker. The allies determined not only to invade but 
 to dismember France. Wolsey had but lately exclaimed that, 
 if peace was ever to exist, the French must be exterminated. 
 While the English were to attack Picardy and the Emperor 
 Languedoc, Bourbon and Pescara were ordered to invade 
 Provence and at all costs to take Marseilles. 
 
 The invasion of Provence alone really took effect. Had it 
 succeeded the consequences to Spain would have been momen- 
 tous. To Bourbon was promised a kingdom consisting of the 
 two old Imperial fiefs, Dauphine and Provence, and his own 
 possessions in the Bourbonnais. This was no mere war-dream. 
 Dauphine' had lost its independent existence little more than 
 half a century ; the incorporation of Provence with France 
 counted but thirty years, and Charles somewhat relied upon its 
 disaffection. An intermediate kingdom would have barred the 
 access of France to Italy. Marseilles was the port which 
 thwarted Spanish control of the western Mediterranean, 
 threatening at once Genoa and Barcelona. From Marseilles 
 had sailed the fleets which throughout the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries had contested Sicily and Naples with the 
 lords of Aragon. Deprived of Marseilles France would virtually 
 cease to be a Mediterranean power ; the gulf of Lyons would 
 become a Spanish-Italian lake. Bourbon, irreconcileable with
 
 The reign of Charles / (V). 53 
 
 the French Crown, wedded to the Emperor's sister, might in 
 name have been an English feudatory, but in fact must 
 have become the cHent of the Crown of Spain, until his 
 dynasty was old enough to hold the scales. This very 
 kingdom, with the substitution of Savoy for the Bourbonnais, 
 the gifted Charles Emmanuel within the century well-nigh 
 made a reality. 
 
 The bulk of Provence was easily occupied, but the invasion 
 met with no co-operation from Emperor or English. Charles' 
 insufficient forces broke against the walls of Marseilles, de- 
 fended by the hatred of its inhabitants for Aragon, and by the 
 skill of the Italian condottierc Renzo da Ceri. Bourbon and 
 Pescara disagreed. The latter complained that Bourbon was 
 always in a passion, as was also the English ambassador 
 who held the purse, — "the captains were between two 
 passions." There was no alternative but a terrible retreat. 
 " Lost an army, somewhere in the mountains of Genoa," was 
 the Roman witticism on the struggle of the Imperialists to 
 regain Lombardy. 
 
 Francis I, who had gathered a large force upon the Spanish 
 flank at Avignon, stormed over M. Genevre. The French 
 seemed irresistible ; plague and famine opened the gates of 
 Milan. The Imperialist generals skilfully confined defence to 
 two strategic points. The occupation of Pavia would check 
 an advance on Naples, while behind the Adda, guarded 
 by Lodi, reinforcements could be gathered from Tyrol. 
 Francis I must needs besiege one town or the other. He 
 despatched a seemingly sufficient force to hold the Imperialists 
 at Lodi, while in person he sat down before Pavia, which it 
 would have been madness to leave untaken. Francis, however, 
 made too sure of its capture, and weakened his forces by 
 detaching the Duke of All^aiiy to Naples and directing a 
 division against Genoa. 
 
 The capture of Pavia would have opened communications 
 with Rome and Florence, and the Medicean Pone, lord of
 
 54 Spain. 
 
 both, inveterate Imperialist as he was beUeved to be, was 
 changing sides. Clement VII made a secret treaty with 
 France ; he allowed the Duke of Albany to levy troops on 
 Papal territory ; he permitted or ordered his cousin Giovanni 
 de' Medici to join Francis with his Black Bands, the choicest 
 troops in Italy. 
 
 "I hear,"' wrote the Englishman Pace on October 29, 1524, 
 " Francis is about to attack Pavia ; if defeated his whole 
 military reputation is lost, if victorious his object is gained ; at 
 Pavia therefore he ought to be resisted to the uttermost." 
 Charles, as well as Francis, thought that French success was 
 certain, though he was resolved that it should not be final. 
 The campaign of the winter of 1524 — 5 is perhaps the greatest 
 triumph of Spanish arms, though not more than a third of the 
 Imperialist troops were Spaniards, and though a full meed of 
 praise is due to the Frenchman Bourbon and the Suabian 
 Frundsberg. Yet it was Leyva who kept his garrison of Pavia, 
 mainly German, true, and inspired the inhabitants with his own 
 devotion ; it was Pescara, Spaniard by origin and sympathy, 
 who brushed the French army of observation from the line 
 of the Adda, and marched his trained forces and the German 
 levies to the relief of Pavia. The troops were unpaid, un- 
 clothed, unfed ; when an appeal was made to the Spaniards 
 they abandoned their pay, and offered their cloaks, their very 
 shirts to satisfy the Germans. The French were beaten before 
 the great battle was fought. The Spaniards superior in 
 discipline and ingenuity harassed their quarters with camisades, 
 destroying the morale of all but their finest troops. Starvation 
 at length forced the Imperialists to risk their all against an 
 enemy superior in numbers and position. When they broke 
 into the park of Mirabello, the headquarters of the French 
 besieging force, the first triumphant rush of the French cavalry 
 withered away under the sustained fire of the Spanish harque- 
 busiers. At Ravenna the Spanish foot had proved their 
 superiority to French and German infantry, but had succumbed
 
 The reign of CJiarlcs I ( V). 55 
 
 to the highly-trained Frencli horse. Pa\ia marked their 
 triumph at once over Swiss pikes and French lances. Their 
 fire was mainly responsible for the immortal victory. 
 
 The older generation of French generals, trained in the 
 wars of three successive reigns, was annihilated at Pavia, and it 
 was long before France replaced it. The king was a prisoner, 
 but this in no way weakened the defensive capabilities of 
 France. We need not here retell the thrice-told tale of the 
 captivity of Francis I. Francis was forced to accept the treaty 
 of Madrid from want of courage to bear captivity. An un- 
 scrupulous character never lacks for consolation. Francis 
 flattered himself that he was no liar because he solemnly stated 
 before a notary that he was lying. Charles V was forced to 
 abate his more extreme pretensions by his absolute inability 
 to pay his victorious army, and by the uprising of Italian 
 sentiment against Spanish sway. England had proved herself an 
 ally at once exacting, ineffective and untrustworthy • it was now 
 certain that Wolsey was leading her into the enemies' camp. 
 
 Charles' Burgundian inheritance still probably held the 
 first place in his affections. In 1524 he had formulated six 
 alternative schemes for peace with France ; in all the central 
 idea was the interchange of the Duchies of Milan and Bur- 
 gundy. In the treaty of Madrid he abandoned his claim to 
 annex Languedoc to Aragon, but insisted on the cession of 
 Burgundy and of French suzerainty over Flanders, Artois and 
 Tournai. Spanish interests were not, indeed, neglected. 
 Francis was pledged to withdraw support not only from the 
 Duke of Guclders but from the house of Navarre. His 
 abandonment of all Italian claims seemed to secure the 
 supremacy of Spain in the peninsula. But Charles no longer 
 demanded Dauphine' and Provence as an appanage for the 
 Constable Bourbon, and his sister Eleanor was betrothed to 
 the French king instead of to the rebel duke. France thus 
 retained her point of contact with Italy. 
 
 Meanwhile the attitude of the Italian states had become
 
 56 Spain. 
 
 most threatening. Clement VII had been "as a dead man" 
 on heaving of Charles' victory. His friendship was of sufficient 
 importance to extort from the Emperor a favourable treaty, 
 but from the other side appeals were made to his Italian 
 patriotism, to his fears of a General Council, to his greed for 
 territorial gain. Other Italian princes were harassed by 
 contributions, their subjects ruined by the starving soldiery. 
 There was in Italy a passionate desire to rid herself of the 
 Spaniard, which would not now imply the reinstatement of the 
 French. The transference of Francis I from an Italian to a 
 Spanish prison caused an agony of alarm ; Charles, it was 
 believed, would make peace with Francis at the expense of 
 Italy, This was no idle fear. The Emperor professed, 
 indeed, to be 'a good Italian.' Flis Council was divided. 
 One party headed by Lannoy, Viceroy of Naples, urged that 
 peace with France was essential, and that Charles must find 
 his compensation in Italy. The Piedmontese Gattinara, 
 hitherto Charles' most influential adviser, pleaded loyally for 
 Italy : there could be no peace until Francis was humbled to 
 the dust : Burgundy would never be surrendered if Francis 
 were suffered to go free : to effect the Emperor's high aims 
 Italy should be made a partner and not a subject : above 
 all the investiture of Milan should be granted to Francesco 
 Sforza as a pledge of honourable intentions. 
 
 It became clear that Gattinara's influence was waning. 
 Milan, Venice, and the Papal Counsellors, while negotiating 
 for a European league formed a purely ItaHan alliance for 
 Italian liberty- — " Italia fara da se." The aim was to restore 
 the system of the five chief states, as it existed before the 
 disastrous cataclysm of 1494. A Sforza still ruled in Milan, a 
 Medici in Florence ; Venice and the Papacy seemed sub- 
 stantially unchanged. The military monarchy of Naples 
 should provide the soldier who was to rally round him the 
 manhood of Italy, the armed prince who should make 
 Machiavelli's dream a waking reality. The Italianised line of
 
 The reign of Charles T ( V). 57 
 
 Aragon was, indeed, no more. Could it not be replaced by 
 the one Neapolitan house which, as long as hope existed, had 
 loyally stood by its late mastejs ? D'Avalos, Marquis of Pescara, 
 was a Spaniard by origin, but his family had been naturalised 
 in Naples for nearly a century. If he were virtually Italian, 
 his wife, Vittoria Colonna, the most distinguished woman 
 of Italy, was a Roman of the Romans. Who was more fit 
 then than Pescara to avenge on Charles the treason of 
 Ferdinand to the unfortunate king Frederick? 
 
 Pescara more than any man had won Pavia for the 
 Emperor, yet he had been deceived and pushed aside by 
 Lannoy ; he had ruined himself to keep the Emperor's armies 
 in the field, and yet was denied the modest rewards that he 
 had claimed. Moreover, the clever Milanese secretary, 
 Pescara's intimate friend, thought that he might be 
 tempted by the Crown of Naples; he would bring to the 
 Italian league the military prestige which its generals lacked. 
 His troops were after all mercenaries ; Spaniards, Germans 
 and Itahans looked rather to the eloquent, liberal, courageous 
 soldier, than to the Flemish Emperor, whom none knew and 
 few respected. The great conflict, which might have been, 
 between Spain and Italy, was decided once for all within 
 Pescara's breast. Spanish traditions or military loyalty kept 
 him true to Spain. He betrayed Morone's confidences, he 
 decoyed the secretary himself, his troops simultaneously 
 occupied Sforza's chief fortresses. The ingenious fabric of 
 Italian liberty fell like a house of cards. Italy by herself, 
 leaderless and divided, was powerless before Spain ; she 
 was only dangerous because she could still lean upon French 
 lances and English money-bags. 
 
 This aid seemed to be forthcoming. The eternal treaty of 
 friendship between Charles and Francis was immediately fol- 
 lowed by the league of Cognac for the expulsion of Charles 
 from Italy. The Italian opposition to Spanish supremacy in 
 Italy was merged in a European opposition to the universal
 
 58 Spain. 
 
 dominion which Charles's enemies beUeved him to covet, and 
 to which his friends urged him to aspire. The ItaHan states, 
 Venice, Milan, the Papacy and Florence, were hounded on by 
 France to enter the lists against the Emperor. Henry VIII 
 was named Protector of the Holy League, but although his 
 diplomatic activity had been unceasing, he lent little or no 
 practical assistance. He made it, however, a sine qua no?i that 
 Milan should pass not to the French king, but to its native 
 Duke. Nevertheless Italy was fighting for France rather than 
 for herself. 
 
 The prospect before Charles in Italy was gloomy in spite 
 of the collapse of the national conspiracy. Papal and Venetian 
 troops Avere marching to the relief of the citadel of Milan, 
 where Francesco Sforza still held out. Pescara was dead, 
 Bourbon had not the same authority with the troops ; these 
 were scattered over Lombardy, alternately plundering and 
 starving. In Milan itself there was a rising of despaii 
 against the Spaniards ; in town and country assassination 
 was daily thinning their numbers. Had the French crossed 
 the Alps, or had the Italians possessed a resolute leader, 
 the doom of the Imperial army was sealed. But the Duke of 
 Urbino, who led the Venetian forces, was caution personified, 
 and no friend of Clement VII and the Medici, who had once 
 robbed him of his state. With their usual tenacity the Spaniards 
 clung to the siege of Milan citadel, and forced Sforza to 
 capitulate. The German condotiiere Frundsberg had led 
 his lanzknechts from Tyrol over Alpine tracks, hitherto un- 
 trodden by armed men. The Imperialists were now stronger 
 and better led than any army which could oppose them. The 
 Duke of Milan had already suffered for his desertion of the 
 Imperial cause; the hour of reckoning was approaching for the 
 Pope. 
 
 Charles had a long account to settle with Clement VII. It 
 was hard to forgive the Pope's desertion of his cause during 
 the critical months which preceded the battle of Pavia. Since
 
 The reign of Charles I ( V). 59 
 
 then Clement had wavered between reconciliation with the 
 Emperor and open alliance with France ; exorbitant demands 
 had alternated with time-serving humiliations. The "willing 
 and not willing " brought ruin upon Italy and himself. Lannoy 
 and the Duke of Sessa, now Spanish ambassador at Rome, 
 had striven their utmost for accord. Hugo de Moncada, an 
 envoy extraordinary, an old officer of Caesar Borgia, violent 
 and unscrupulous, employed more drastic measures. Finding 
 his terms rejected he utilised the disaffected house of Colonna 
 to surprise the Vatican ; Clement fleeing to the Castle of Sant' 
 Angelo had a foretaste of horrors to come (September, 1526). 
 Charles, indeed, on Moncada's own advice, disavowed the 
 outrage, and Clement took vengeance on his baronial enemies. 
 The storm was to break not from the South, but from the 
 North, not from Naples but from Milan. 
 
 In February 1527 Frundsberg's German levies, mainly 
 Lutherans, effected their junction with Bourbon's troops. 
 Mad with hunger and suffering, these 25,000 men staggered 
 through Italy towards Rome, dragging their generals with 
 them. Frundsberg was struck down by paralysis in attempt- 
 ing to quell a mutiny ; Bourbon won the affection, if not 
 the obedience of his men, by showing that he too was a 
 ruined soldier of fortune with the rest. Lannoy made a 
 convention with Clement for the payment of the troops, but 
 neither realised the full danger. They could not believe that 
 an unfed mob, wholly unprovided with artillery, would dare to 
 attack Rome, and, if they did, Renzo da Ceri, who had held 
 Marseilles against the Imperialists, could easily beat them 
 off; the army of the League had followed Bourbon's troops 
 through Italy; a single check must mean the invaders' annihi- 
 lation. This very certainty gave the Imperialists desperate 
 courage. Bourbon was shot as he scaled the walls, but after 
 an hour's fight Rome was at the mercy of the wild horde 
 (May 6, 1527). Clement barely escaped to Sant' Angelo; 
 in the space of three credos more he would have been
 
 6o Spain. 
 
 caught. Then followed the unutterable horrors of the sack 
 of Rome. A month more, and Sant' Angelo capitulated ; 
 the Pope was now the Emperor's prisoner. 
 
 It was Charles' fate that all his apparent triumphs turned 
 to gall and wormwood. He wrote to the Princes of Europe 
 expressing his sorrow at the terrible occurrence; he would 
 sooner, he said, be conquered than win such a victory. He 
 ordered his court into mourning, he summarily suspended 
 the rejoicings for the birth of his son Philip, he ordered the 
 clergy to offer prayers for the Pope's liberty. But he took 
 no step to effect this liberty, he resolved to derive full 
 diplomatic advantage from Clement's captivity. Nevertheless 
 his former difficulties were in no sense removed. Plunder 
 does not serve for pay; the only powerful Imperial army 
 was ruined by its excesses. Bourbon was dead and Lannoy 
 was dead. Dead also was the experienced envoy, the Duke 
 of Sessa. The Prince of Orange, the new general, could 
 scarcely rally his troops to fight, while Moncada, now Viceroy 
 of Naples, had none of the antecedents of a peacemaker, 
 France and England had entered into a definite treaty to 
 procure Clement's freedom. Henry VHI, wishing to divorce 
 Catherine, the Emperor's aunt, needed the Pope's favour ; this 
 seemed to promise that his intervention would be serious. 
 Lautrec's French troops poured into North Italy; Pavia and 
 Alessandria fell ; Andrea Doria recovered Genoa for the 
 French faction. 
 
 This French invasion of Italy was not Charles' only 
 difficulty. In Spain public feeling was outraged by the 
 Pope's ill-treatment. The Duke of Alba and the Archbishop 
 of Toledo had at once protested. It was on the remonstrance 
 of the Grandees that Charles had stopped the festivities of 
 the Court. Quinohes, General of the Franciscans, had told 
 the Emperor that he must release Clement if he did not wish 
 to be dubbed the Lutherans' Captain. All Spaniards rejoiced 
 at Bourbon's death. Spaniards in Italy, indeed, who knew the
 
 TJie reign of Charles / {V). 6i 
 
 Papacy at iirst-hand, regarded the sack of Rome as a divine 
 visitation, they only hoped that God would find its authors 
 worthy. Soria, envoy at Genoa, recommended the extinction 
 of the temporal power, the source of all European wars. Yrom 
 Rome Bartolommeo Gattinara wrote that some sort of Papal 
 government should exist, but entirely under Imperial control. 
 
 The small but influential party of intellect at Charles' 
 Court, which took Erasmus as its guide, had long written and 
 spoken against the Curia; the two brothers Alfonso and Juan 
 Valde's in the Chancellor's service had far outstripped theii 
 religious leader in the freedom of their opinions. They now 
 fought the Emperor's cause with pamphlet and despatch. But 
 this very fact gave their enemies a handle. Dominicans and 
 Franciscans had thundered against the Erasmian sect, had 
 refused to be silenced by Emperor, Inquisitor General or Pope. 
 They now drew public opinion over to their side. In the 
 Cortes of 1527 the nobles used their class privilege to refuse a 
 subsidy; the clergy declined on the express ground that the 
 war was against the Pope. 
 
 Under pressure such as this the Imperial agents abated 
 their pretensions. Clement surrendered the military keys of 
 the Papal States and guaranteed the payment of the soldiery. 
 Before the convention was executed he escaped to Orvieto, 
 where, though slieltered by the army of the League, he pro- 
 fessed neutrality. The French troops pushed on towards 
 Naples ; the handful of Imperial troops, evacuating Rome, 
 had only just time to garrison the Southern capital. Moncada 
 engaging the Genoese squadron in the bay was killed, and his 
 ships sunk or taken (April, 1528). A Venetian fleet mean- 
 while was capturing the Emperor's Apulian ports. Spanish 
 power was well-nigh swept from Italy. 
 
 For all this the Imperial troops clung desperately to their 
 defences. Neglected, unpaid and mutinous as they were, the 
 Spaniards, when it came to fighting, showed their quality. 
 They could be temperate and sober when occasion needed,
 
 62 Spain. 
 
 whereas the French could never resist the strong, rich Neapolitan 
 wines so fatal to the weak stomachs of their nation. Naples 
 was once more the grave of a French army which rotted in its 
 trenches. Francis I by insane illiberality alienated the real 
 ruler of Genoa, the naval condotiiere, Andrea Doria. His fleet 
 sailed for Naples, not now to attack but to relieve the Spaniards. 
 Lautrec's luckless career was ended by the plague. The remnants 
 of the French army making a forlorn retreat was forced by the 
 Prince of Orange to capitulate at Aversa (August, 1528). The 
 veteran refugee Pedro Navarro died a traitor's death in the 
 castle of Castelnuovo, which he had once won for Ferdinand. 
 
 One more battle and the war was really over. In Lombardy 
 the French sought to retrieve their Neapolitan disasters. But 
 at Landriano the gouty old general Leyva surprised the dashing 
 young Saint-Pol (April, 1529). Such was the exhaustion of 
 both combatants that this final decisive battle was fought 
 by 8,000 Spaniards against 12,000 French. 
 
 It was fortunate for Clement that he had so long wavered. 
 The timid neutrality of the Medici at last turned to his 
 advantage. An Anglo-French alliance might, indeed, have 
 avenged his wrongs, have rid him of the spectre of a General 
 Council, have given to the spiritual power its due independence 
 from the authority of Caesar. But Clement was first Medici 
 and then Pope ; even as Pope his temporal outweighed his 
 spiritual interests. On the fall of Rome Florence had expelled 
 the Medicean government. The Papal States were falling to 
 pieces. The Duke of Urbino w^as in possession of Perugia, 
 the Venetians, " stealing the cloaks of those that fought," had 
 slipped into Ravenna and Cervia, a Malatesta returned to 
 Rimini, the Duke of Ferrara held Modena and Reggio. All 
 these were the allies of France; from France therefore the Pope 
 could not expect restitution. This alone Charles, now virtually 
 master of Italy, could grant, and that the Pope had remained 
 neutral when French success seemed certain, made the Emperor 
 his debtor.
 
 The reign of Charles / (V). 63 
 
 Charles had little lust for world dominion ; he was content 
 with his success ; his finances did not guarantee further 
 triumphs ; in Germany the existence of the Empire and of 
 Catholicism was threatened alike by Turks and Lutherans; 
 Spain was clamouring for peace. Thus it was that in the 
 treaty of Barcelona Clement received generous terms : Charles 
 engaged to restore the integrity of the Pope's dominions, he 
 bound him to his interests by the marriage of his bastard 
 daughter Margaret to Alessandro de' Medici, who was to 
 become Duke of Florence (June, 1529). Henry VIII and 
 Francis I had vainly warned Clement against peace. But 
 Henry also found that war was ruining the Anglo-Flemish 
 trade, while Margaret, Regent of the Netherlands, could 
 extract no more subsidies. Thus a truce was made for 
 England and the Netherlands, a truce which in the clever hands 
 of Margaret and the Queen-mother, Louise of Savoy, expanded 
 into a general peace. In the treaty of Cambray, the Ladies' 
 Peace, the more humiliating concessions forced on Francis 
 at Madrid were waived. Charles consented to release the 
 French princes for a ransom, to leave his claim to 
 Burgundy to legal process. But the French king withdrew 
 his protection from Robert de la Marck and the Duke of 
 Guelders; from Italy he was absolutely excluded (August 15, 
 1529)-
 
 64 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 SPAIN AND EUROPE, 1 5 29 — 1 5 56. 
 
 Charles could at length leave Spain for Italy. He had 
 long craved to be in the forefront of events. His advent, 
 wrote Orange, would be worth 10,000 men. The Italians 
 regarded it with terror; when Charles set foot on shore at 
 Genoa they saw their country under the tyrant's heel. At 
 Bologna Charles received the iron crown of Lombardy, and 
 Clement placed on his head the Imperial coronet (February 
 1530). The Emperor's generosity was unexpected. The 
 Duke of Ferrara was pardoned for his recent change of sides. 
 Upon Francesco Sforza was conferred the Duchy which he had 
 forfeited. His health was already shattered, but the Emperor 
 gave to him his young niece Christine of Denmark ; there 
 could be faint hope that his line would be perpetuated. 
 Venice made her peace, restoring Ravenna and Cervia to the 
 Pope, and her recent Apulian conquests to the kingdom of 
 Naples. Florence alone held out : the republican party would 
 have no surrender to the Medici. Charles was pledged to his 
 ally ; in the battle of Gavignana, which decided the fate of the 
 RepubHc, the Spanish harquebusiers once more turned the 
 fortune of the day. For a second time the Medici returned to 
 Florence under Spanish escort (August, 1530). 
 
 To outward appearance Charles had restored Italy to her 
 previous condition before the battle of Marignano had wrested
 
 TJie reign of Charles I ( V). 65 
 
 LombarJy from a native prince. Yet all men felt that all was 
 altered. The Pope was little more than the Emperor's chap- 
 lain, with the Papal territories for his stipend. The Dukes of 
 Florence, Milan and Savoy, married to a daughter, a niece, a 
 sister-in-law of Charles, were lesser stars in the family constel- 
 lation ; the Dukes of Mantua, Ferrara and Urbino moved in 
 the Imperial orbit. Between Florentine and Papal territory a 
 Spanish garrison nominally protected the Sienese republic 
 against her exiles. Venice was intact and independent, but. 
 once the strongest of the Italian states, slie was relatively weak 
 against a King of Naples who was also King of Spain. 
 
 Charles gained by his very liberality. By giving the 
 County of Asti, the old possession of the house of Orleans, to 
 the Duke of Savoy he bribed the porter of the Alps to close 
 his gates against the French. Profitable above all was his 
 generosity to Genoa. The town recovered her liberty and her 
 territory; Doria was her truly national and patriotic Doge. 
 But for all this Genoa was for more than two centuries Spain's 
 water-gate to Italy. Through Genoa poured the Spanish levies 
 which were henceforth to hold Lombardy, which tramped 
 over Alpine passes to Franche Comte and the Netherlands, 
 or opened communications with the allied Hapsburgs in 
 Vorarlberg and Tyrol. Henceforth the Spanish Crown found 
 in the Dorias its admirals ; their squadron, the most sea- 
 worthy in Italian waters, was permanently hired to the Kings 
 of Spain. If Spanish supremacy at sea was threatened by 
 Turks and Barbaresques, it had at least established itself at 
 the expense of France. Barcelona and Genoa, Naples and 
 Palermo formed the quadrilateral of the Western Mediter- 
 ranean. Genoa, moreover, was tied to Spain by golden 
 chains ; her bankers fattened on the extravagance of the 
 Spanish Crown and people ; her merchants monopolised the 
 profitable trades in every port of Spain and Sicily. To the 
 ruling capitalist class revolt from Spain meant ruin. 
 
 From the summer of 1530 to the close of 1532 Charles 
 H. s. c
 
 ^ Spain. 
 
 was in Germany, vainly striving to check the rank growth of 
 heresy. That he was at length forced to make concessions to 
 the Lutheran princes in the compromise of Nuremberg was 
 mainly due to the advance of the Turk upon Vienna. Charles 
 put himself at the head of the Imperial army; but for the 
 Sultan's retreat the Spanish foot would have tested its worth 
 against the Janissaries in the Danube valley. 
 
 During these years important changes befell Charles's im- 
 mediate circle. On June 5, 1530, died Gattinara, who since 
 the death of Chievres had exercised an important though not 
 a controlling influence. This, however, had waned during 
 Francis I's imprisonment, and Gattinara had been for a 
 season almost in disgrace. Charles's chief ministers were 
 henceforth Granvelle and Cobos, the former undertaking 
 mainly the affairs of the Netherlands and Germany, the latter 
 those of Spain and Italy. In December Charles lost his aunt, 
 Margaret, Regent of the Netherlands, who had acted at once 
 as his mother, and as instructress in the art of policy. She 
 was replaced by his sister Mary, the widowed queen of 
 Hungary, who proved herself as capable, as devoted, and yet 
 more mascuhne. Charles's brother Ferdinand was in January 
 1 531 elected King of the Romans. Charles thus in the most 
 formal manner secured the succession for the collateral line ; 
 it was a definite proof that Spain had become the centre of his 
 own interests and hopes. A free hand was left to Ferdinand 
 and Mary in their respective spheres. The system may almost 
 be described as a family federation, and may be compared 
 with that of Napoleon in the height of his power. 
 
 In passing through Italy on his return to Spain Charles 
 formed a defensive league with the Italian states. Yet his 
 hold upon Italy was insecure. Clement was already veering 
 round towards France. In Charles's interest, indeed, he ex- 
 communicated Henry VIII, but he married his cousin, 
 Catherine de' Medici, to the French king's second son, 
 and held a suspicious interview with Francis at Marseilles
 
 The reign of Charles I ( V). 6y 
 
 (November 1533). Francis was intriguing both with Pope and 
 Protestants. At his instance Phihp of Hesse restored the 
 exiled Duke Ulrich to Wiirteniberg ; the rich principality was 
 lost to the Catholic Hapsburgs and won for their Lutheran 
 opponents (1534). Francis, confident in his new alliances, was 
 demanding Milan, Genoa and Asti, when Clement VII died 
 (September 1534). This was the Emperor's gain. The 
 shiftiness of the Medicean Pope had been so incurable, his 
 punishment so terrible, that the Papal-Imperial alliance could 
 never be secure. Clement could never have forgiven Charles, 
 and Charles could never have trusted Clement. The election 
 of Cardinal Farnese as Paul III was hailed as an Imperial 
 victory. Charles might hope for the security of the Spanish 
 possessions in Italy, for willing aid against heresy in Germany, 
 for zeal in the reform of the Catholic Church, for a generous 
 percentage on the revenues of the Spanish clergy. 
 
 The years from 1533 to 1541 form perhaps the most 
 essentially Spanish period of Charles's reign. In nothing was 
 he more in harmony with his Spanish subjects than in the 
 burning desire to check the advance of INIahommedan power 
 in the western Mediterranean. This was no mere Quixotism. 
 The very existence of Spain, Sicily and Naples seemed at 
 stake. The enemies were no longer the unwieldy Moorish 
 kingdoms, always liable to disruption from internal faction or 
 the attack of less civilised African fanatics. The foe was now 
 the pirate state of Algiers ruled by Barbarossa. This corsair 
 and his elder brother, natives of Lesbos, were pirates from 
 early youth. The elder brother, invited by the Arab ruler of 
 Algiers to expel the Spaniards from Penon, killed his host and 
 usurped his state. Wiser than the Spaniards he attempted to 
 create a territorial kingdom by the conquest of Tlemcen. He 
 was, however, beaten and killed by the Moors and the Spanish 
 garrison of Oran (15 18). 
 
 The younger brother Kheir-ed-Din, nicknamed Barbarossa, 
 reduced to the possession of Algiers, put himself under the
 
 68 Spain. 
 
 suzerainty of the Porte, and became the first of the Turkish 
 Beglierbegs of North Africa, carrying the Crescent to the 
 Straits. Janissaries were sent to his aid ; he could buy at 
 will the fighting population of Anatolia. Algiers became the 
 Alsatia for adventurers, refugees and renegades from the whole 
 of Southern Europe. Barbarossa's chief reliance was on a 
 corps of renegades, while he had a body-guard of Spaniards. 
 His troops were recruited also from the captives chained to 
 the galleys, many of whom abjured their faith to gain wealth 
 and freedom in the corsair's service. To these were added the 
 most adventurous of the Moors expelled or voluntarily 
 migrating from southern Spain, full of traditional hatred of the 
 Spaniards, and accustomed to their methods of warfare. Thus 
 the Spaniards had to fight, not with swarms of undisciplined 
 Moors, but with troops of as good material as their own, and 
 as highly trained. The corsair ships were in point of con- 
 struction the finest in Europe, and their captains among the 
 best seamen. Barbarossa also and several of his successors 
 became admirals of the Turkish fleet, which was thus added to 
 the squadrons of North Africa. 
 
 The government of Charles fully realised the danger of this 
 union of Barbarossa and the Turks. The African experiences 
 of the reign had not been fortunate. Hugo de Moncada's 
 attack on Algiers had ended in capitulation, massacre and 
 headlong flight (15 19). The capture of Rhodes by the Turks 
 in 1522 might seem, indeed, of not unmixed disadvantage to 
 Spain, for Charles had settled the expelled Hospitallers at 
 Tripoli and Malta, thus drawing a bolt between the western 
 and eastern Mediterranean. But the Algerian corsair was fully 
 a match for the Hospitallers and the Spaniards. He created 
 a territorial kingdom, taking Bona and Constantine, and then 
 annihilated the Spanish garrison at Penon (1529). In 1533 
 he utilised the distracted condition of Tunis to drive the feeble 
 king, Muley Hassan, from tlie throne, and spread his sway far 
 into the interior.
 
 The reign of Charles /{!/). 6g 
 
 The occupation of Tunis was a direct threat to Sicily and 
 Naples ; it was then the key of the western Mediterranean, 
 while it brought the ruler of Algiers into easy communication 
 with the Porte. Thousands of captives were yearly carried off 
 from Spain and Italy ; Morisco emigrants were conveyed by 
 Barbarossa from Granada and Valencia to settlements in North 
 Africa. The Spanish sea-board was becoming a wilderness, 
 while that of Africa was growing in wealth and population. 
 
 Charles's determination to take Tunis created wild excite- 
 ment. Nobles and artisans, friars and even women crowded 
 to Barcelona to join the fleet. It was a genuine crusade. 
 Doria sailed in with his Genoese galleys, Prince Louis of 
 Portugal brought round from Lisbon his ocean-going caravels. 
 From Genoa and Ostia, from Naples, Sicily and Southern 
 Spain, Italian levies, Spanish veterans and German mercenaries 
 converged upon the rendezvous at Cagliari. The galleys of the 
 Pope and of the Knights of Malta fitly took part in the re- 
 ligious war. Charles, hoisting the Crucifix at his masthead, 
 stood on his deck amid the nobility of the great crusading 
 nation ; the leader, he said, was Christ, and the Emperor His 
 Standard bearer. 
 
 Goletta, standing on the neck of land which flanks the 
 narrow channel to the lagoon of Tunis, barred the Emperor's pro- 
 gress. After a month's desperate siege Goletta fell (July 1535). 
 A week more and the troops half-dead, as Charles wrote, with 
 heat and thirst struggled through the sand to Tunis. The Moors 
 were beaten outside the walls, the 20,000 Christian captives 
 rose within the city and opened the gates to Charles. At 
 Goletta Barbarossa had lost 80 ships, here and at Tunis 
 hundreds of cannon fell into Spanish hands ; many, it was 
 noticed, were stamped with the fleur-de-lis. It was a really 
 great achievement. The campaign was fought in the full heat 
 of an African summer ; every barrel of biscuits, every butt 
 of water, must be brought by sea from Sicily ; there were no 
 draught animals, the soldiers dragged their guns by hand.
 
 70 Spain. 
 
 Even now it would be no light task to find six weeks' supply 
 for 30,000 men engaged with an African enemy equally well 
 provided with artillery and munitions. 
 
 Muley Hassan was restored to Tunis under Spanish 
 suzerainty, ceding to the Emperor Goletta, Bona and Biserta. 
 Charles wished at once to sail for Algiers, but his army had 
 suffered too severely. A little later he meditated a blow at 
 head-quarters ; he longed to head a Crusade, in concert with 
 Venice, against the Porte. This was prevented by the Sultan's 
 alliance with France, and by the inevitable outbreak of a 
 fresh war in Italy. Charles for the first time visited his South- 
 Italian Kingdoms. The pale-faced youth, who used to say 
 little and count for less, was now the hero and the saviour 
 of southern Europe. Francis I had taunted him as a stay-at- 
 home, but the six weeks of an African campaign had eclipsed 
 the two days' fight at Marignano. 
 
 In November 1535 died Francesco Sforza, and the duchy 
 of Milan reverted to the Emperor. Francis I, in spite of the 
 renunciation made at Madrid and Cambray, at once advanced 
 the claim of his second son, the Duke of Orleans. The 
 cession of Milan to a French prince, whose wife Catherine had 
 claims to the possessions of the Medici, was for Charles 
 impossible; yet refusal made war a certainty. The war, 
 however, did not nominally arise from the demand for Milan, 
 but from the French King's preposterous claims on Savoy. 
 Hitherto the Dukes, closely connected with the French 
 dynasty, had leaned towards France, whose troops had 
 marched at will through Savoyard territory. This privilege 
 was now refused, for Duke Charles III was under the influence 
 of his spirited wife, Beatrice of Portugal, the sister-in-law 
 and ardent admirer of the Emperor. In retaliation French 
 troops occupied Savoy almost without resistance (March 
 1536), and crossing the Alps took Turin and great part of 
 Piedmont. 
 
 Charles was still in Italy; it was impossible that he should
 
 TJie reign of Charles I ( V). y i 
 
 overlook this outrage. Instead of attacking the chain of 
 French posts in Piedmont he reverted to his old scheme 
 for the conquest of Provence. He led his army in person 
 across the Var. No French force of consequence met him in 
 the field, but the whole country was devastated by the French 
 King's orders, while the few towns still occupied were too 
 strongly held to make attack possible or prudent. In 
 November Charles was forced to a humiliating retreat ; his 
 army was ruined by disease ; Leyva, the best of his old 
 generals, had succumbed ; the Emperor's Tunisian laurels were 
 shrivelled by the chilling bise of Provence. 
 
 For two summers more the war dragged on in Piedmont 
 and the Netherlands. F'or the first time the French more 
 than held their own. The truce for the Netherlands which 
 internal discontent forced the Regent to conclude in 1537 
 made the Emperor's position in Milan the more critical, for 
 the whole French army could be thrown on Lombardy. The 
 Pope earnestly intervened in favour of a general peace. For 
 this Charles and Francis were too obstinate, but through 
 Papal mediation a ten years' truce was signed at Nice (June 
 1538). 
 
 By this truce the hold of Spain upon Italy was seriously 
 weakened. The Emperor, indeed, retained Milan, and his 
 troops garrisoned one-third of Piedmont. The attempt of 
 Filippo Strozzi and the Florentine exiles upon the newly 
 appointed Duke Cosimo had ended in discomfiture. But the 
 French now commanded the passes of the Alps and were 
 firmly settled on the upper Po. They held, moreover, the 
 protectorate of the little state of Mirandola, which became the 
 focus of intrigue against Spanish influence, the sanctuary for 
 exiles from Naples, Milan, Florence and Siena. 
 
 During the negotiations at Nice Emperor and King, 
 though staying within a league of each other, had refused 
 to meet. Immediately afterwards the world was astonished 
 by their enthusiastic interview at Aigues-Mortes. All old
 
 72 Spain. 
 
 grievances seemed to be forgotten. Definite shape was given 
 to a project, long in the air, for settling Milan upon a French 
 prince and a Hapsburg princess. Charles had previously 
 professed himself willing to grant the Duchy to the King's 
 third son, while refusing it to Henry of Orleans, the husband 
 of Catherine de' Medici. By his elder brother's death Henry 
 had become Dauphin, and negotiations were rendered easier ; 
 but this creation of a buffer Valois-Hapsburg state was not 
 destined to be reahsed. 
 
 During the fit of friendship with Francis Charles had 
 obtained leave to pass through France to punish his town 
 of Ghent, which for reasons professedly financial, but partly 
 religious, had rebelled against the Regent. After crushing 
 Ghent Charles changed his mind with regard to Milan. He 
 now proposed to marry his brother's daughter to the French 
 prince, and to create for them a kingdom of the Netherlands 
 and Franche Comte. In compensation Francis was required 
 to resign all Italian claims, and to evacuate Savoyard territory. 
 Nor was this all ; Charles would settle for ever the question of 
 Navarre by marrying the little heiress to his son Philip, while 
 the French King should purchase the possessions of the house 
 which lay northwards of the Pyrenees. 
 
 These were statesmanlike proposals, and, had they taken 
 effect, might have saved Spain immeasurable calamities. She 
 was strong enough to hold Italy, but not to hold both Italy and 
 the Netherlands, and to assume all liabilities of war along the 
 Franco-German frontier from Alps to Channel. But Francis 
 could never forget his dream of Lombardy, the scene of his 
 first great triumph and his subsequent disgrace. He taxed 
 Charles with perfidy, and the delicate thread of amity was 
 snapped. Francis ostentatiously married the heiress of Navarre 
 to the Duke of Cleves, who had occupied Guelders, although 
 this, under a convention with the deceased Duke, had reverted 
 to the Emperor. Charles replied by formally investing PhiUp 
 with Milan. Meanwhile, as in 1535, there was a lull before
 
 The reign of CJtarles I ( V). y^, 
 
 the storm ; this Charles employed in the attempt to break 
 Barbarossa's power in his own Algerian stronghold. 
 
 The capture of Tunis had ended in disappointment. 
 Barbarossa was so little humbled that three months later he 
 raided the Balearic Isles, and carried off the population of 
 Port Mahon, including 5000 of the captives released at Tunis. 
 Since then in French alliance he had scoured the coasts of 
 Naples. A joint Spanish-Venetian expedition to the Adriatic 
 foreshadowed the greater campaign of Lepanto. At Prevesa 
 Barbarossa might have been crushed by Doria but for the 
 time-dishonoured rivalry between " the two eyes of Italy," 
 Genoa and Venice. The only result was the annihilation 
 of the considerable Spanish garrison left in Castelnovo. 
 
 Time was ripe for a decisive blow against Barbarossa, 
 but it was also overripe. Against the advice of admirals and 
 generals Charles insisted on attacking Algiers late in the 
 autumn of 1541. Yet failure seemed impossible. Barbarossa 
 was absent ; Algiers was weakly held by some 800 Turks and 
 5000 half-trained Moors and renegades. Charles's regular 
 troops numbered at least 22,000 Spaniards, Germans and 
 Itahans. The fleet of 200 ships was commanded by Andrea 
 Doria. With Charles sailed all his most distinguished warriors, 
 Cortes, Alba, Santa Cruz, the younger Frundsberg, Ferrante 
 Gonzaga. No sooner had the troops landed than disaster 
 befell them. A phenomenal equinoctial gale blew down the 
 tents, destroyed stores and ammunition, and finally drove the 
 ships from their moorings to seek shelter to eastward. The 
 garrison of Algiers, ably led, had a light task in completing the 
 discomfiture of troops whose morale was already ruined. But 
 for Charles's imperturbable courage on the retreat to rejoin the 
 ships scarcely a man would have escaped. The very disaster 
 made his reputation as a cool, seasoned soldier; it gave him 
 probably his passion for fight. The great armada was yet 
 further shattered by a recrudescence of the storm. All hope 
 of success against the infidel was over for the reign of Charles.
 
 74 Spain. 
 
 Barbarossa died in 1546, but his son Hassan, the AnatoHan 
 Dragut, and the Jew Sinan successfully championed the 
 Crescent against the Cross. 
 
 The misfortunes of Christianity were the opportunity of 
 France. The murder of the French agents, Rincon and 
 Fregoso, who were passing through Lombardy to the Porte, 
 was attributed to the Marquis del Guasto, governor of Milan 
 (May 1 541). When six months later Charles's power seemed 
 shattered at Algiers this murder served as a useful pretext for 
 hostilities. War was declared in 1542. The French every- 
 where prepared to take the offensive. Yet in this last struggle 
 between the two rivals Charles once more asserted his 
 superiority. The Duke of Alba, inimitable in defensive war- 
 fare, drove the Valois from the walls of Perpignan. In June 
 1543 Charles left Spain for Italy, and journeying thence to 
 Speyer threw himself on the generosity or credulity of the 
 Diet. German aid enabled him to crush the Duke of Cleves 
 and to annex Guelders before Francis moved a man to save 
 his most valuable ally. 
 
 The Turkish fleet, after ravaging the Italian coasts, joined 
 the French admiral in an attack on Nice, the last refuge of 
 the luckless Duke of Savoy, and wintered in the friendly 
 French harbour of Toulon. Yet the combined fleets met with 
 no marked success, and the cry of Christendom rose loud 
 against the hideous coalition. In Italy alone the French arms 
 triumphed. At Cerisola, a Spanish general, Del Guasto, for 
 once lost his head ; the French lances under the Due d'Enghien 
 at length broke the Spanish foot. The exiles at Mirandola 
 prepared to stir the embers of discontent throughout all Italy. 
 But d'Enghien could not move from lack of funds ; the exiles 
 marching to his aid found Spanish garrisons always in their 
 front. Francis must for once neglect Italy for France, for 
 every man was needed for her defence. The King of England 
 and the Emperor were both upon her soil. 
 
 The hostility between Charles and Henry had long been a
 
 The reign of Charles 1 ( V). 75 
 
 diminishing quantity. The fall of Wolsey, of Anne Boleyn, of 
 Cromwell had satisfied any desire that Charles might have for 
 vengeance. Catherine's death relieved him from his chivalrous 
 obligations. Even before this he had urged his envoy to uphold 
 her cause with non-militant discretion ; he had been very cau- 
 tious in pressing the claims of Mary. The English ministers 
 he had long won; Henry's personal rancour had alone delayed 
 an understanding. The old reasons for the Anglo-Spanish-Bur- 
 gundian alliance still subsisted ; it was an added gain if Henry 
 could be withdrawn from a Franco-Lutheran combination. 
 
 Thus in 1543 an alliance actually came to pass, and in 
 1544 Henry VHI appeared before Boulogne, while Charles, 
 invading France in person, spread terror to the very walls of 
 Paris. Of a sudden peace was made at Crespy (Sept. 1544) 
 in the full flood of Charles's fortune. The fall of Boulogne 
 decided Francis, but the Emperor's motives are less certain. 
 He was doubtless already influenced by his desire to settle the 
 religious question in Germany. But his military position was 
 by no means strong. Time had been lost upon a paltry siege ; 
 Henry VHI preferred conquest to cooperation. Hitherto 
 Charles had relied upon composite armies; Spaniards and 
 Italians, he would say, were the arms and legs of a corps 
 d'arvice, and Germans the stomach. He had with him few 
 Spaniards or Italians ; his troops were mainly German, of bad 
 quality. Germans rarely fought without their pay, and Charles 
 had little pay to give. A week's haggling or a day's mutiny 
 might have placed him at his rival's mercy. 
 
 On the stage of Crespy the old play was once more acted 
 with trifling variations in the lines. Charles engaged to give 
 to the Dauphin's brother either his niece with the Netherlands 
 or Franche Comte, or his daughter with the Duchy of Milan ; 
 within four months he must make the choice. The death of 
 the French prince saved him from the wearisome alternative. 
 There is little evidence that Charles had hitherto determined 
 to incorporate Milan with the Spanish dominions ; henceforth
 
 y^ Spain. 
 
 he seemed resolved to concentrate every inch of territory in 
 the hands of PhiUp. 
 
 During the reign of Charles Spain spent most of her energy 
 abroad ; her domestic history is almost lost to view. In this, 
 indeed, the defeat of the Communes at Villalar was the last 
 striking event. The interest hereafter was mainly constitu- 
 tional and economic. The nobles by their victory had expected 
 to regain authority both with court and country. Before 
 Charles's return they had clamoured for the confiscation of tht 
 rebels' goods or for compensation from the Crown. Charles 
 was warned by his one noble co7ifidant, the Marquis of Denia, 
 to bring foreign troops. By so doing he secured his indepen- 
 dence. Moreover nobles and communes still sullenly watched 
 each other; in the defeated towns Charles might easily find 
 defence against oligarchical pretensions. The consideration of 
 the Crown, if not its popularity, was increased by the introduc- 
 tion of the more elaborate household, the more stilted 
 ceremonial of the Burgundian Court. The expenses of the 
 household, especially those of the table, were quadruple those 
 of the Catholic kings. 
 
 In this expenditure the Crown found its gain. Of the 
 eight Councillors of State only two were Spaniards, but the 
 presence of loo Spanish gentlemen at Court, each with his 
 attendant suite, implied the formation of a royal party. 
 Charles, after his return, frankly stated that Castile must be for 
 Castilians : he did not repeat his error in granting the greater 
 benefices to aliens. Yet he slowly learnt to be a Spaniard. 
 As late as 1525 we read of mutual dislike between King and 
 people. His manners were not young enough to make him 
 popular. He was reserved and grave, untiring in public 
 business, patient in listening, prudent in reply. His pleasures 
 were few, he hunted a little, but was not inclined to women 
 and other such frivolities. As compared with his predecessors 
 he was thought stingy ; extravagant as was his court, his
 
 The reign of Charles I ( F). T] 
 
 personal habits, apart from his abnormal appetite, were unduly 
 simple. Those who relied on the cast-ofif clothes of royalty 
 were often unfashionably shabby. Yet as a ruler he had two 
 virtues essentially Castilian; he had inherited his grandmother's 
 high standard of justice and her fervent piety. 
 
 In 1526 Charles at length yielded to his subjects' wishes; 
 he abandoned the idea of an English bride, and married his 
 Portuguese cousin, Isabella, whose dowry was as attractive as 
 her person. Marriages made for prudential reasons have a 
 high average of happiness, and that of Charles increased this 
 average. King and Queen were tenderly devoted to each 
 other, and the Iberian union increased his popularity. 
 Marriage, moreover, induced Charles to travel. As yet there 
 was no capital in Spain, though Valladolid was the more usual 
 residence of the Court. Castilians complained that Charles 
 had seen so little of his kingdom. Now, with his bride, he 
 made a progress through Andalusia and Granada. The old 
 Moorish capital appealed to the artistic side of his nature, and 
 here by the side of the Alhambra he began to build a re- 
 naissance palace, which still remains unfinished. The funds 
 were drawn from a peculiar source ; the Moors bought them- 
 selves free from the extreme rigours of the Inquisition. It was 
 very rarely that Charles sold his soul, though more than once 
 for diplomatic reasons he delayed or endangered its salvation. 
 
 In striking contrast to Charles's concession to the Moors of 
 Granada was his extreme and personal severity towards those 
 of Valencia. These latter had bravely defended their masters 
 in the hour of peril ; they had been forced to baptism by 
 revolutionists since conquered and proscribed. They naturally 
 reverted to their former faith and customs. The Inquisition 
 held that they were renegades, and Charles upheld the In- 
 quisition. All the experts, the Council of Aragon, the Cortes 
 of Valencia pleaded for leniency, and urged the difficulties of 
 compulsion. Charles replied that all great deeds were difficult. 
 Threats of enforced baptism and exile drove the more spirited
 
 78 Spain. 
 
 peasants into the Sierra. Hence they repeatedly drove back 
 the local and royal forces, and were only in 1526 beaten by 
 the German lanzknechts whom Charles had brought to Spain. 
 It is possible that the difficulties of this savage little war con- 
 tributed to the compromise with the Moriscos of Granada. 
 The decimation of the Valencian peasantry completed the 
 ruin of their landlords. The industrious East and South of 
 Spain have paid dearly for the extravagant orthodoxy of the 
 central provinces. 
 
 The decline of constitutional liberties in Castile is often 
 dated from the defeat of Villalar. It is forgotten that the 
 Catholic Kings had arbitrarily used or dispensed with their 
 Cortes, and that during its revolt the third estate was laying 
 claims to powers which it never had possessed. It is forgotten 
 also that under Charles the influence of Cortes was still real 
 and often freely exercised. The defeat of the Communes had 
 little obvious effect on the relations of Crown and Cortes. 
 Even in 1523 the deputies were peculiarly enterprising, insist- 
 ing four times upon redress before supply, resenting the 
 presence of the Chancellor at their debates, and the King's 
 prescription as to the form which the instructions from their 
 constituencies should take. Charles had a high sense of law 
 and precedent, he would suffer no prejudice to the prerogative 
 of the Crown. He therefore resisted the demand for the 
 priority of redress, while the deputies themselves admitted that 
 the limitation of their powers was by custom within his com- 
 petence. The presence of the Chancellor at the debates was 
 an innovation which was not repeated. 
 
 Charles showed respect for the traditional rights of the 
 Cortes. His necessities, moreover, forced him to summon 
 them with regularity ; they met on the average every three 
 years throughout the reign. However objectionable were his 
 methods of raising money he never levied fresh taxes without 
 consent. In one respect he conceded an innovation which 
 should have proved a valuable constitutional safeguard, for he
 
 TJie reign of Charles I ( V). 79 
 
 instituted, on petition, a standing committee drawn by lot 
 from the deputies and resembling that of Aragon (1525). The 
 function of this was to watch over the performance of promises 
 made during the session. On two memorable occasions 
 Charles submitted to a defeat. At the crisis of the war with 
 Clement VII (1527) he called upon nobles and clergy for a 
 patriotic grant. The nobles stood absolutely on their right of 
 exemption ; the clergy more delicately declined, and Charles 
 must needs dismiss the Commons without obtaining supply. 
 
 In 1528, it is true, the towns proved more liberal, and at 
 the Emperor's urgent demand they granted a subsidy for the 
 war witli France. Yet the memory of old parliamentary rights 
 was still fresh. The deputies clamoured aloud for reform, as 
 their predecessors had done on every occasion since the 
 accession of Charles. No less than one hundred and sixty-six 
 separate reforms were demanded. The old grievances of the 
 inordinate aggregation of land in the hands of the clergy, and 
 of its being tied up in perpetual settlement by the nobles, were 
 aired once more with the same want of success as previously ; 
 the reform of the administration was urged, as were measures 
 for increasing the trade with England and France, for avoiding 
 the unjust pressure of taxation upon industry, for improving 
 the food supply of the country, for the suppression of extrava- 
 gance in dress, and many others. But the most important 
 recommendation, as marking a change in public opinion since 
 the Cortes of Toledo in 1525, was that a general amnesty 
 should be granted to the Communeros. Perhaps the Cortes 
 saw already indications of the dry-rot which had entered into 
 the parliamentary institutions which it was their duty to 
 uphold. In any case this recommendation, like many others, 
 was politely shelved by the sovereign'. 
 
 Ten years passed and the Commons again proved restive. 
 The Cortes of 1538 are very memorable. At a moment of 
 great national danger nobles and clergy were once more sum- 
 
 1 For this paragiapli I am indebted to Major Martin Hume. — K. A.
 
 8o Spain. 
 
 moned. They were begged to assent to a sisa, an indirect tax 
 on meat, which would affect all classes and thus produce a 
 common interest between the three estates. Charles offered 
 in return to place much of the financial administration under 
 parliamentary control. The nobles desired a consultation with 
 the Commons, but this, as contrary to precedent, Charles 
 refused. They then again insisted on their privilege of exemp- 
 tion, and were angrily dismissed to their homes or to wherever 
 they might be pleased to go. Even the Commons stoutly resisted 
 the sisa, and only on the pledge that the subject should never 
 again be raised was the usual subsidy granted. Henceforth 
 the nobles were not summoned to the Cortes. The importance 
 of this has been much exaggerated. The presence of the 
 nobles had been exceptional, and had in no sense added to 
 the strength of the Commons. Had they, indeed, accepted 
 the liability for taxation the result might have been very 
 different, but refusal was a foregone conclusion. 
 
 Thus the Cortes had so far held their own. Nevertheless it 
 is true that in the reign of Charles their character began to 
 deteriorate, and this was undoubtedly due in part to the defeat 
 of the Communeros. It was not merely that possible progress 
 received a final check, for in national life there can be no 
 complete standstill. The fruits of Villalar were reaped neither 
 by the victorious nobles nor by the vanquished democracy, 
 but partly by the impassive Crown and partly by the lesser 
 gentry, whose action, as a class, had been ambiguous. The 
 latter seized the opportunity yet further to monopolise the 
 municipal offices, and therefore indirectly the representation in 
 the Cortes. The Moorish wars no longer gave employment, 
 and the gentry could not trade ; they therefore sought a liveli- 
 hood in town service. Curiously enough this representation 
 by official gentry prevailed at the moment when the towns 
 reached the fulness of their prosperity, when trade became the 
 chief interest and deserved the most ample representation 
 in the national Council. The Cortes of 1538 proved how
 
 TJie reign of Charles 1 ( V). 8 1 
 
 inadequate this was. The refusal of the sisa implied that extra- 
 ordinary taxation would continue to be direct, and would fall 
 exclusively on the non-noble classes, whereas the representa- 
 tives themselves were exempt from liability. 
 
 In this municipal change there were several stages. The 
 gentry first petitioned for admission to office in towns where 
 they were hitherto disqualified. They then claimed a fixed 
 proportion of offices, and finally demanded the exclusion of 
 plebeians. While the members did not adequately represent 
 their towns, the privileged towns less and less effectively 
 represented the country. Even in 1520 Galicia had com- 
 plained that the province had its mouthpiece in Zamora, a 
 town outside its borders. Any extension of representation was 
 opposed purely by the privileged towns. They resisted all 
 requests for the admission of fresh constituencies on the plea 
 of monopoly and privilege. Thus it is probable that the 
 Cortes had no firm hold upon public opinion. The govern- 
 ment, moreover, increased its influence over the towns through 
 the corregidores, who, in spite of frequent petitions, were now 
 appointed for all towns and for long terms. The pushing, 
 active classes, occupied in feverish, commercial progress, 
 seemed to ignore their political decadence. 
 
 It is difficult to resist the conclusion that the perpetual and 
 ineft'ectual repetition of the same demands in Cortes was a 
 mere sedative to popular discontent. They were seldom 
 seriously pressed : they became, as so much in Spain, meaning- 
 less but solemn forms. The deputies urged the grievances of 
 their constituents until their personal wants were satisfied. 
 Thus the system of gratifications, by no means introduced by 
 Charles, became under him or later an engine of corruption. 
 The right of rejecting petitions had long been exercised, but 
 Charles could venture to disdain the courteous formulas which 
 hitherto had decently veiled refusal. Castile had, as England 
 in the eighteenth century, outgrown her constitutional 
 machinery. 
 
 H. s. 6
 
 82 Spain. 
 
 Under Charles the system of administrative councils was 
 yet further developed. A more definite form was given to the 
 Council of State, which seemed likely to become the highest 
 consultative body, dealing with alliances, with peace and war, 
 with appointments to embassies, viceroyalties and commands- 
 in-chief. But there was still no fixed number and few official 
 members ; it consisted of men of experience from all the 
 Emperor's dominions, who had risen to the top in Church and 
 State. This Council was, perhaps, mainly of importance as 
 entailing the growth of the Secretariate, though under Charles 
 a single Secretary, Gonzalo Perez, performed all its functions. 
 The trade of the Indies was already entirely regulated by the 
 powerful Casa de Contratacion. But to Charles was due the 
 Council of the Indies, which embraced every department of 
 civil or ecclesiastical administration in the colonies (1524 and 
 1529). From the Council of Castile was detached a delegacy, 
 termed the Council of the Chamber, for the bestowal of royal 
 patronage. Finally in 1555 the Council of Italy was apparently 
 separated from that of Aragon, while the same year witnessed 
 the estabhshment of the Council of Flanders. 
 
 Charles had carefully watched the Castilian nobles; he gave 
 them little effective power, but high and profitable appointments 
 in his dominions; he treated them with honour and considera- 
 tion. This is characteristic of his policy ; he had early learnt 
 his lesson, and vvas resolved not to risk a conflict with any 
 section of his Castilian subjects. With Aragon he was somewhat 
 less scrupulous. Contemporaries state that he tried to extort 
 from the Cortes a surrender of national privileges, and that he 
 begged the Pope to release him from his oath to maintain 
 them. Once at least he committed a breach of the cherished 
 privilege of matiifestacmi by denying the right of a defendant 
 to place himself under the justiciars protection pending trial. 
 In Castile he had retained a tight hold upon his clergy, yet 
 after 1522 he kept it, with few exceptions, exclusively national. 
 In Aragon he conferred two important sees upon Italian
 
 The reign of Charles 1 ( F). 83 
 
 adherents. Yet even here, when pressed by the Cortes, he 
 drew back and respected national prejudice and interest. In 
 Spain Charles never pushed his absolutism to conclusions after 
 his first lesson, and this is no small credit in a character by 
 nature obstinate. 
 
 If constitutional independence dwindled, material pro- 
 sperity advanced throughout the reign of Charles. On his 
 accession the land was still mainly agricultural or rather 
 pastoral. Silk manufacture was active among the Moors of 
 the South, and there were cloth factories of repute in Central 
 Spain. But the lower classes generally still lived on the 
 produce of their homesteads, or on the wages of labour or 
 service ; the middle and upper classes on rents, salaries and the 
 interest of the state debt. The sudden demand from the 
 Indies changed all this. The settlers were not numerous, but 
 they made their money easily, and would not labour to supply 
 their needs. Whatever they wanted they must have, and at 
 whatever price. European produce was also foisted by the 
 colonial governments upon the natives, with or without their 
 will. To supply these needs Spain had the exclusive right. 
 Her agriculture and her manufacture must therefore alike be 
 modified to meet an entirely new demand. 
 
 Thus it fell about that Spain became for a short space -a 
 manufacturing country. The very district which had been the 
 scene of the rising of the Communes reached within a quarter 
 of a century after their defeat the zenith of its prosperity. 
 Medina del Campo, a phoenix from the flames, became the 
 mart of the woollen trade, its fairs were the centre of the 
 system of credit and exchange. Toledo, Segovia, Valladolid 
 became busy manufacturing towns. Spanish life was being 
 profoundly altered. There was a rush from the country to the 
 towns, where wages were rising by leaps and bounds. The 
 manufacturing hands in Toledo were quintupled between 1525 
 and 1550; in some towns beggars and vagabonds were forced 
 into the factories. The cloth trade spread southward to 
 
 6—2
 
 84 Spain. 
 
 Granada ; the silk manufacture spread northwards to Seville 
 and thence to Toledo. We find the young Mary, Queen of 
 Scots, receiving a gift of blue and red silk stockings from 
 Valencia, as being of the finest quality in the world. A sure 
 sign of the growth of manufacture was the differentiation of 
 function. The small master-clothworker gave place to the 
 capitalist manufacturer who employed some hundreds of hands, 
 while the middleman undertook the shipment and distribution. 
 Charles himself was deeply interested in the American trade: 
 he believed it capable of indefinite expansion. 
 
 The fluctuations in agriculture were little less than those in 
 trade. Hitherto tillage had been completely subordinate to 
 pasture, but for the rest of the century there was a struggle 
 between the two industries. The situation was the reverse of 
 that in England. There sheep-farming was the modern en- 
 croaching element, and English conservatism called upon the 
 legislature to check it. In Castile arable enclosures began to 
 spread at the expense of the great sheep-rearing corporation, 
 the mesta, and the more conservative bodies, the Cortes and 
 the Council of Castile, were disposed to regard this as a breach 
 of vested interests. The viesia hitherto had been all-powerful. 
 It was a vast union, with its representative administration, its 
 courts, its common chest. It forbade competition among its 
 brethren, and so beat down the rents of pasture; it boycotted 
 any landowner who dared to evict a member. Between the 
 winter pastures in the sunny plains of Estremadura and the 
 summer feeding grounds in the highlands of Castile lay a 
 broad waste track over which no plough could pass. The 
 Crown encouraged the mesta because its revenues depended on 
 the tolls; the people tolerated it because the rents, though 
 low, were certain and gave no trouble. And after all wool was 
 Spain's most profitable product. 
 
 The colonial trade introduced a rapid change. The 
 colonists cared only for gold ; they would not till the soil. 
 They drank largely, yet, except on the Pacific coast, they were
 
 The reign of Charles I ( V). 85 
 
 forbidden to plant vines. Hence Spain must supply her 
 colonies, and the area of wheat, vines and olives annually 
 increased. Charles encouraged this tendency; his Ebro canal 
 provided large stretches of Aragon with irrigation. A law was 
 even passed forbidding the conversion of arable land into 
 pasture. The Government raised the maxhmim price of grain ; 
 this encouraged the proprietors to sow and placed them in 
 direct opposition to the mesia. In the South the agricultural 
 interest split within itself, the growers of corn protesting 
 ngainst the extension of vineyards, which took bread from the 
 poor. Once more, however, national traditions got the upper 
 hand. The colonists had not acclimatised sheep, they re- 
 garded cotton clothing as degrading, and hence an increased 
 demand for woollens. The pendulum swung back, and not 
 only was fresh enclosure forbidden, but it was ordered that 
 broken pasture belonging to the Crown, the Church and cor- 
 porations must again revert to pasture (1552). Yet at the 
 close of the reign agriculture was generally thriving ; flax had 
 been introduced, and the import of linen forbidden, to en 
 courage the new industry. 
 
 Notwithstanding these roseate prospects the condition of 
 trade and agriculture was not quite wholesome. The Cortes 
 were in absolute ignorance of economic laws ; they regarded it 
 as the one function of government to protect the interest of 
 the consumer, especially of the upper middle class consumers, 
 who alone were represented in the Cortes. This was the mean- 
 ing of the severe restrictions placed on native cloths to ensure 
 quality and prevent fraud, of the governmental maximum fixed 
 on the chief necessaries of life, of the so-called monopolies 
 which, in order to eliminate the middleman, gave to individual 
 producers the sole right of selling. Municipal granaries stored 
 grain against bad seasons, and by their rights of preemption 
 and of fixing prices were formidable competitors to private 
 growers. The practical inconveniences arising from the want 
 of currency, of horses, mules, leather, olive oil, breadstuffs,
 
 86 Spain. 
 
 were met by frequent laws prohibiting export. Spain was 
 anything but a protective country, in spite of occasional pro- 
 tective regulations. In the interest of the consumer she 
 encouraged imports. Her chronic difficulty was that she 
 desired to buy without a corresponding willingness either to 
 sell or to pay. 
 
 Prices throughout Europe were rising rapidly, and in Spain 
 even faster than elsewhere. Foreigners attributed this to the 
 indolence of the Castilian workman, who measured his wage by 
 the disinclination with which he did his work. It was partly 
 no doubt due to the inpour of precious metals, although the 
 rise preceded any appreciable output from the Indies. In 
 contradiction to this rise of prices there was throughout Spain 
 generally an undoubted lack of currency. This was ascribed 
 to the greed of Charles's Flemish suite upon his first visit to 
 Spain. The superior purity of Spanish coinage undoubtedly 
 encouraged its surreptitious export, but the main cause of the 
 inconvenience was probably the backwardness of communica- 
 tions. Currency was badly distributed; it did not find its way 
 beyond the great commercial centres, and, as commerce was 
 much in the hands of foreigners, ultimately in spite of pro- 
 hibition oozed away from Spain. 
 
 This rise of prices accompanied by a lack of currency 
 horrified the Cortes, the official representatives of the con- 
 sumer. They were in entire ignorance of the causes, and 
 endeavoured to counteract the evil by a series of contradictory 
 experiments which hampered both commerce and agriculture, 
 and was ultimately destined to ruin both. At one moment 
 they would forbid the export of breadstufts, and force the price 
 of wheat to its former level, regardless of the doubled cost of 
 production. At another they strove to prohibit altogether the 
 export of cloth, silk, leather and iron to the Indies, in order to 
 compel the colonists to manufacture, and so, by stopping the 
 drain upon the home supply, lower its cost for the home con- 
 sumer. Yet again in the consumer's interest they opened the
 
 The reign of Cliarles /(F). 87 
 
 flood-gates to foreign imports manufactured at a far cheaper 
 price than the rate of wages and produce in Spain could allow. 
 
 There were of course real difficulties. Nations, as indi- 
 viduals, have their opportunities too early or too late. Spain 
 found her market before she was ready to supply it. Not only 
 was she embarrassed by the feverish activity of the colonial 
 trade, but her own gentry brought into contact with the wider 
 European world learnt higher standards of comfort and luxury, 
 and all other classes must imitate the gentry. Hence the 
 supply never caught up the demand in a country where origin- 
 ally there was little capital and no habits of industry, and 
 hence again the introduction of foreign capitalists who financed 
 Spain at a ruinous rate of interest, and the competition of 
 cheaper foreign goods. 
 
 A dislike for foreigners was common to all countries, but in 
 Spain it was carried farther than elsewhere. Yet Spain, if she 
 was to be equal to her new position, above all nations needed 
 foreign aid. The Spaniard could conquer and keep down a 
 huge subject population, but he had not the practical faculties 
 necessary for trade and financial administration. Lacking the 
 business talent himself he despised and hated it in others. 
 The restrictions on foreigners were due not to Crown but 
 to people. Ferdinand and Isabella had encouraged German, 
 French and Italian colonies in Spain, although the people 
 grumbled. When after Isabella's death the Cortes proposed to 
 exclude foreigners from dealing in the necessaries of life and 
 from municipal office, and to limit their residence to a year, 
 Ferdinand frankly asserted that Spain could not do without 
 them. Charles was for a time forced to yield to his subjects' 
 wishes, but before long all the taxes were in the hands of 
 Genoese, while the Augsburg house of Fugger farmed the 
 revenues of the military orders and the mines of Almaden and 
 Guadalcanal. The Cortes complained (1528) that the Genoese 
 bankers had the monopoly of capital, that the trade in wool, 
 silk, iron, steel, soap and all necessaries of life was in their
 
 88 Spain. 
 
 hands. For centuries the harvest in Spain was reaped by 
 Provencals and Auvergnats, who spent nothing and carried 
 their wages back to France. 
 
 The American trade was at first confined to CastiHans. 
 Ferdinand admitted Aragonese, and Charles would gladly have 
 opened it to all his subjects' ports. The German house of 
 Welser did indeed contract for the colonisation of Venezuela, 
 and the Fuggers for that of Chili and for the spice trade with 
 the Moluccas. But Charles was beaten ; the monopoly of 
 Spain and especially of Castile was too strong for him. When 
 he established the staple of the spice trade at Corunna the 
 Seville merchants angrily protested. In 1529 Charles sold the 
 doubtful Spanish claims to the Moluccas to his Portuguese 
 rivals, and henceforth Seville reigned supreme. Her monopoly 
 in early days was natural ; Cadiz had similarly been the sole 
 port for the Barbary trade. The seas swarmed with pirates, 
 and the American ships must needs sail in company; the 
 collection of duties was facilitated ; the character of ships and 
 crews and emigrants could be more closely watched. The 
 trade was highly organised by the Casa de Cotitraiacmi, a 
 Board of Trade with judicial powers, which regulated the 
 number of ships and the bulk and value of their freights, 
 received and distributed the precious metals and the merchan- 
 dise from the Indies. All lines of traffic within Spain con- 
 verged on Seville. Cadiz also throve because the bigger ships 
 must anchor in her harbour. Hence sailed the galleons with 
 their convoy for Porto Bello to supply Peru and Chili, and the 
 Jlota which made for San Domingo and Vera Cruz. On the 
 return journey the two squadrons joined company and arrived 
 together. The privileged position of Seville and Cadiz drew 
 all life from other Spanish ports ; the monopoly was to become 
 intolerable to Spain herself, to her colonies, to all Europe ; the 
 rigorous restrictions ultimately defeated their own object, and 
 the bonds were burst by the growing maritime powers with the 
 connivance of the colonists.
 
 The reign of Charles I ( V). 89 
 
 The Cortes, meanwhile, attributed the growing financial 
 difficulties to the increase of taxation. This was of course 
 mainly due to the recurring wars with France, but partly to 
 the increased charges caused by the rise in prices. Con- 
 temporaries noticed that Charles was ever at his wits' end for 
 money. Gold and silver began to flow in from the Indies, the 
 extraordinary subsidy became regular and normal, and yet the 
 deficiency grew apace. The dowry brought by the Portuguese 
 infanta, the ransom for the French King's sons, the sum paid 
 by Portugal for the monopoly of the Molucca trade, huge 
 advances from German and Genoese bankers, were all poured 
 into the bottomless vessel of a Danaid. Charles even resorted 
 to the extreme measure of seizing the whole of the gold and 
 silver brought by one of the American fleets, promising interest 
 to the rightful owners until repayment. Nothing served to fill 
 the void, and the King left behind him a huge debt of 
 20,000,000 ducats. 
 
 The economic errors of the Cortes and the fiscal oppression 
 of the Crown were thus already present in the reign of Charles, 
 and each succeeding reign exaggerated these evils. Had the 
 manufacturing industry been fostered a prosperous future 
 would have been in store for Spain, as her market was an 
 exclusive one. But through a series of centuries every 
 economic heresy, every wrong-headed experiment, every 
 foolish nostrum was allowed to work its worst upon the 
 national industries until they were ultimately strangled. The 
 problem which constantly faced the successive Cortes was still 
 the scarcity of currency accompanied by the continual rise of 
 the prices of commodities ; and tlie remedies, vainly repeated, 
 were usually the restriction of the export of the latter, together 
 with measures for the suppression of luxury in dress, princi- 
 pally against the use of bullion '. The constant drain of men 
 
 ^ A fult treatment of the subject of Spanish sumptuary laws will be 
 found in an Essay in Major Martin's Hume's volume, The Year after tlie 
 Armada. E. A.
 
 90 Spain. 
 
 for the wars and by emigration rendered skilled labour in- 
 creasingly dear, whilst the unwise fiscal arrangements which 
 threw the greater burden of taxation upon industry, and 
 hampered production by the arbitrary fixing of maximum 
 prices in the supposed interest of the consumer, rendered the 
 Spanish manufacturers of the more costly goods unable to 
 compete with the foreigner ; so that of the vast sums of money 
 that came yearly from the Indies a large portion never got 
 beyond Seville, where it was paid away to foreign merchants, 
 in exchange for goods, for export thence to the Indies. Thus 
 it came about that gradually the national industries were 
 crushed, whilst the country was drained of its resources '. 
 
 Spanish power had not been wholly occupied by attempts 
 at expansion to the East and South. In Continental America 
 the reign of Charles was the age of discovery, conquest, and 
 settlement. Cortes conquered Mexico, and Pizarro Peru. 
 Other leaders established themselves in Central America. 
 Soto led his ill-fated expedition to the Mississippi valley. The 
 contrast between the governmental settlements in Africa and 
 those of the adventurers in America is very striking. The 
 latter did not cling to isolated seaports which were held or lost 
 at huge expense. They secured enormous territories in spite 
 of resistance sometimes desperate and of civil war yet more 
 dangerous. Even the original conquest is less marvellous 
 than the imposition for all time of Spanish faults and 
 virtues, language and religion on vast masses of hostile popu- 
 lation. 
 
 In Charles's reign these conquests affected the mother- 
 country directly in two ways, by the drain of population and by 
 the inflow of precious metals. To the latter brief reference has 
 been made. The effect on population is very uncertain, for 
 evidence is conflicting. Some writers speak of severe restric- 
 tions placed on emigration, others ascribe the lack of recruits 
 in Spain to the exodus of every able-bodied man to America; 
 ' [ .am indebted for the last paragraph to Major Marthi Hume. E. A,
 
 The reign of CJiarles I ( V). 91 
 
 a Venetian envoy describes Seville as being depopulated by 
 emigration. Soto on his Mississippi expedition took 600 men 
 from Spain. Usually, however, the conquerors levied their 
 men in Cuba, but how far these were recent emigrants or older 
 settlers it is difficult to decide. 
 
 The control which the home government asserted over the 
 adventurers is very remarkable. Charles supported Cortes 
 against his calumniators and covered him with honours, but he 
 refused to combine the administrative with the military power, 
 and created a Viceroyalty for Mexico with its Aitdiencia on the 
 Spanish model. He was probably not sorry to see Cortes ruin 
 himself with abortive expeditions towards the North-West, and 
 allowed him to die in poverty. In Peru the danger was far 
 greater. The first attempt to establish home control ended 
 in total failure ; Peru was within an ace of becoming an 
 independent state, an example which the other colonies 
 would speedily have followed. But Charles persisted, and 
 Pizarro's house was crushed. The result of the reign was the 
 establishment of the military, religious and judicial machinery 
 which existed until the independence of the colonies, and 
 in some respects survived it. 
 
 The intermittent war between Charles and Francis had 
 closed with the peace of Crespy, and from this begins the last 
 stage of the Emperor's career. Henceforth his activity is 
 directed, to outward appearance, from the interests of Spain to 
 those of Germany. It was at last possible to deal vigorously 
 with religious revolt. The hands of Charles were freed by the 
 shattered health of Francis, and by the Sultan's truce with 
 Ferdinand. Pope and Emperor combined, not as of old for 
 territorial Italian purposes, but for the restoration of Germany 
 to the Church. The earnest of the league was the assembly 
 of the long-deferred Council at Trent (1545). In the follow- 
 ing year Charles took the field against the Protestant princes. 
 
 It was the Emperor's fortune to become the gaoler of each
 
 92 Spain. 
 
 of his chief enemies in turn. As he had captured the King of 
 France and the Pope, so now the victory of Miihlberg entailed 
 the imprisonment of his two inveterate foes, the Elector of 
 Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse. Paul III, indeed, 
 startled at his early successes, and alarmed at the activity 
 of the Council, had broken from him. Charles went his way 
 regardless. Germany lay still at his feet. By the Interim he 
 imposed upon the vanquished Protestants his own religious 
 system; he humbled the free Imperial towns by war contribu- 
 tions and the establishment of municipal oligarchies ; he 
 bowed the princes to the ground by threats of confiscation. 
 Charles was at length Emperor indeed, he was for a moment 
 at the summit of his power. 
 
 The captivity of Francis I had led to the League of Cognac ; 
 that of Clement VII to the League of Amiens. The captivity 
 of the Landgrave of Hesse was perhaps the most immediate 
 cause of the treaty of Maurice of Saxony with the new French 
 King. While Henry II seized the three Bishoprics, the 
 military keys of Lorraine, Maurice, aided by the ill-concealed 
 hostility of Catholic German princes and the indifference of 
 Ferdinand, drove Charles headlong from Innsbruck. Then 
 followed a momentary revival. Charles, once in the field, 
 shook off the valetudinarian languor which had given Maurice 
 his opportunity. Surrounded by Spanish and Italian veterans 
 under the command of Alba Charles recovered a hold upon 
 South Germany and laid siege to Metz. 
 
 As at Algiers, Charles paid dearly for his obstinacy in 
 neglecting the advice of scientific soldiers. As in Africa the 
 etiuinoctial gales, so in Lorraine the rains and snows of winter 
 proved his ruin. The siege of Metz was raised ; in the long 
 wrestle between the two great powers the last fall was in 
 France's favour ; Met \ for more than three centuries was lost 
 to Germany. The defeat by France, the armed and unarmed 
 protest of the German princes against his political and religious 
 system, convinced Charles that he had failed. He left to
 
 The reis;n of Charles I ( V). 93 
 
 P'erdinand the responsibility for the legal recognition of the 
 parity of the two religions. 
 
 In these chances and changes of fortune on German soil it 
 is easy to forget that Charles was King of Spain. Philip's 
 reign, indeed, within the Peninsula may be dated from the day 
 when the Emperor left his son as Regent. Yet Charles's 
 German triumphs and failures were vitally connected with his 
 Spanish power and policy. To the last moment he had 
 hesitated to abandon his hopes of religious reunion for 
 religious war ; his final determination was due to the pressure 
 of Pedro de Soto, his Spanish confessor. The Spanish people, 
 while complaining of their King's foreign interests, had long 
 reproached him with his tolerance of German heresy. By 
 Spain, and especially by the Spanish clergy, the sinews of war 
 were supplied. In 1545 the Pope granted to Charles half the 
 ecclesiastical revenues of Spain ; he permitted also a large sale 
 of Church lands. This principle, essentially Spanish, Charles 
 wished afterwards to extend to all his dominions. Under the 
 pretext of overthrowing heresy he would base his power on 
 ecclesiastical property ; he would make the Church throughout 
 his dominions as subservient to the Crown as it was in Spain. 
 This danger in no small degree contributed to the unfriendly 
 neutrality of the German ecclesiastical princes towards Charles, 
 when Maurice entered the lists against him in the name of 
 German liberties. 
 
 Charles's victory was in great measure won by Spanish 
 troops, led by Alba, the most characteristically Spanish of his 
 generals. After Miihlberg Germany was held down by Spanish 
 garrisons. Short, swarthy Spaniards, swaggering, superstitious 
 and licentious, lorded it in Saxony, in the Palatinate, in 
 Wiirtemberg. Philip of Hesse himself was never by night nor 
 day out of the sight of his Spanish guards. Upon Alba was to 
 be conferred the German principality of Neuburg. Hatred for 
 the Spanish troops alienated all Germany from the Spanish 
 King; here, as later in the Netherlands, this was the more
 
 94 Spain. 
 
 popular and general cause of the revolt. Above all the victory 
 of Mlihlberg was followed by the definite attempt to foist 
 Phihp upon the Empire. Charles forced Ferdinand and his 
 son Maximilian to consent that Philip should succeed the 
 former. Germany would have become an annex of Spain, 
 even as the Netherlands and Italy. Ferdinand was but little 
 younger than Charles, and Phihp long outlived Maximilian; 
 Germany would therefore have fallen under Spanish domina- 
 tion. The success of Maurice scarcely shook the Emperor's 
 resolve. But the resistance of the German princes, as mani- 
 fested in the League of Heidelberg (1553), or, as Charles 
 himself professed (Feb. 1554), the marriage of Philip with 
 Mary Tudor induced him to abandon his scheme. He frankly 
 surrendered all idea of uniting the Empire to the Spanish 
 Crown, and this restored outward harmony between the two 
 lines of Hapsburg. But the lukewarmness of Ferdinand and 
 the outspoken indignation of Maximilian had contributed to 
 Maurice's success. Germany could not tolerate a Spanish 
 Emperor, and least of all Philip, whom Germans on his recent 
 visit (1548) had learnt to know and hate. 
 
 Not only in Germany was Charles's later pohcy eminently 
 Spanish. While he fought the Protestants on the Danube and 
 the Elbe, his Spanish ambassadors and bishops fought the 
 Papacy at Trent. Their numerical inferiority was compensated 
 by their superior theological learning, their more genuine zeal 
 for reform, their consolidation as a strong national Church, 
 their subordination to the Emperor. The bishops were 
 admirably led by Diego de Mendoza, the ambassador, a 
 zealous churchman, but a diplomatist of high ability and wide 
 modern learning. Stormy meetings preceded the transference 
 of the Council to Bologna, which the Spaniards, remaining at 
 Trent, refused to recognise. The Italian prelates resented the 
 Emperor's pretensions, the Spaniards clung closely to their 
 Crown. A Conciliar schism seemed inevitable. 
 
 Charles' scheme of Church reform was equally opposed to
 
 The reign of Charles J (V). 95 
 
 Lutheran revolt and Papal conservatism. Once again his idea 
 was Spanish. It was a return to the attempts of Spanish 
 theologians, in the first days of the Reformation, to find 
 common ground with Luther, not in doctrine, but in reform 
 of disciplinary abuses. When Charles imposed the Interim 
 upon Germany the victory seemed won for Spanish methods 
 alike against German and Roman. Charles would be head of 
 the Church in Germany as absolutely as he was in Spain. 
 The settlement was peculiarly Spanish in being irrespective of 
 the Papal protest ; it was a revival of the ecclesiastical 
 independence of Ferdinand and Isabella, a foreshadowing 
 of that of Philip. 
 
 Not only on ecclesiastical questions were Pope and 
 Emperor opposed. The resistance of the Curia to Spanish 
 predominance in Italy was natural enough, but in restless 
 territorial greed the Farnesi surpassed the Medici. Paul Ill's 
 ambitions stimulated those of Charles's Italian governors ; 
 encroachment was forced upon them by the ever-present 
 danger of Papal- French alliance. The Pope must needs found 
 a state for his son and grandsons, be this Parma and Piacenza, 
 or Milan, or Siena. The French King was still tempted by the 
 old lure of Milan and Naples. To compass his desire he must 
 intrigue with sullen nobles and turbulent democracy at Naples, 
 galvanise Guelfic opposition in Lombardy, excite the exiles of 
 Genoa and Florence against Doria and Medici, or hurl 
 Turkish- African squadrons against the coasts of Sicily and 
 Naples. 
 
 At Naples Don Pedro de Toledo ruled with a tight rein 
 without provoking unnecessary scandal. At Milan the Marquis 
 del Guasto had been succeeded by Ferrante Gonzaga, the 
 personal enemy of the Farnesi (1546). The Pope had coveted 
 the office for his son Pier Luigi or his grandson Ottavio, who 
 had married Charles's bastard daughter, Gonzaga, although 
 an Italian, was an Imperialist of Imperialists ; while Charles 
 was stifling independence in Germany, this cadet of the
 
 96 Spain. 
 
 ruling house of Mantua outpaced him in Italy. Imperialist 
 plots were hatched in Venetian Lombardy ; a Spanish garrison 
 terrorised Siena ; Charles himself saved Genoa from Gonzaga, 
 who would have overthrown its constitution and bridled it 
 with a fortress. 
 
 Genoa, indeed, was the doubtful link in the Imperial chain. 
 The exile Fieschi, thanks to a slippery plank, was drowned at 
 the moment of seizing the city with French and Papal aid 
 (1547). Gonzaga parried the thrust by murdering Pier Luigi 
 and occupying his strong town of Piacenza. Paul III re- 
 taliated by affiancing his grandson Orazio to the Dauphin's 
 bastard. A French garrison at Parma faced the Spaniards 
 at Piacenza. Any power which held Parma and Piedmont 
 was believed to control North Italy; Charles could scarcely 
 have retained his hold but for the Pope's death and his 
 grandsons' quarrel. Bastard daughters were useful pawns ; 
 Ottavio's marriage, in spite of his desire for vengeance, forced 
 him back for a time to the ImperiaUst side. 
 
 Julius III, less noteworthy than any recent Pope, passed 
 fitfully for an Imperial partisan. A Spanish subject, the 
 NeapoUtan Carafifa, succeeded him (1555), but it was left 
 to Philip II to fight Charles's battles o'er again. The reign of 
 Charles in Italy ended in success. Siena had revolted against 
 its Spanish garrison (1552) and admitted a French force. 
 Hence the Florentine exile, Piero Strozzi, could threaten the 
 Imperialist Medici at Florence, and exercise pressure, not 
 unwelcome, upon Rome. Alessandro de' Medici had been 
 murdered by an equally disreputable cousin (1537): Charles 
 conferred the Duchy of Florence upon Cosimo, a member of the 
 younger line. The new Duke would gladly have succeeded also 
 to his predecessor's widow, the Emperor's bastard. In this he 
 was disappointed, but in return for a subsidy for the French 
 War (1543) Charles withdrew the Spanish garrisons which 
 temporarily held Plorence and Leghorn. His confidence met 
 with its reward. Cosimo's forces closed round the old rival.
 
 TJie reign of CJiarles I ( V). 97 
 
 Siena, and forced the French garrison to capitulate. Thus 
 a large state, wedged between the Florentine and Papal 
 frontiers, was annexed by the Spanish Crown. Early in Philip's 
 reign Siena was ceded to Florence, but as a Spanish fief, and 
 to Spain remained the Sienese seaboard, the so-called State of 
 the Presidi, an invaluable halfway house between Genoa and 
 Naples. 
 
 Nothing proves more conclusively the predominance of 
 Spanish interests in Charles' policy than his settlement of Italy. 
 The connection of Milan with the EnTpIre was no mere theory. 
 For M axinjilian and the German princes its recovery had ever 
 been tbe i:>anacea for Imperial bankruptcyr^The princes and 
 towns of Northern and Central Italy had been forced to 
 contribute to Charles' necessities on the ground of their relation 
 to the Empire. If in the Italian campaigns the Spanish troops 
 had proved themselves more efficient, the Germans had usually 
 outnumbered them ; the acquisition of Milan had cost more 
 German than Spanish blood. The Imperial vicariate in Italy 
 would naturally fall to the Hapsburg line which succeeded to 
 the Empire. Yet Charles tossed aside all German claims, 
 conferring upon Philip not only Milan and Siena, but the 
 Vicariate with all its vague but dangerous pretensions. This 
 was felt to imply the virtual incorporation of Italy with the 
 Spanish Crown. Charles, whom the Spaniards would gladly 
 have rejected, had learnt to see in Spain the centre of his 
 power. He had abandoned all idea of a buffer-state in 
 Northern Italy, and the old dream of a Burgundian kingdom. 
 The long arms of the Spanish Crown must stretch over Italy 
 and Flanders. Could they not also reach across the British 
 Channel? 
 
 The reverses of Charles in Germany were not without their 
 compensation. Far more important than the Empire to the 
 ruler of Spain and the Netherlands was the friendship of 
 England. It has been seen that in 1544 Henry VIII invaded 
 France in concert with the Emperor. Even with the Protestant 
 
 H. s. 7
 
 98 Spain. 
 
 government of Edward VI Charles had had no hostile relations. 
 When in 1553 Edward died and Charles' cousin Mary was on 
 the throne he determined with all his old fire and energy that 
 she should marry Philip. The Netherlands could then be 
 safely left to a son who was King of England. The old 
 alliance of Spain, Burgundy and England, seemed to be revived, 
 and set upon an infinitely firmer basis ; the new national 
 rivalry between Spain and France should be reinforced by the 
 old traditional hatred between France and England. 
 
 For this transition Charles' own retirement was to pave the 
 way. His health was now completely broken ; he longed only 
 for the rest to body and mind towards which in his laborious 
 life his eyes had often turned. Germany and Italy saw the 
 Emperor's face no more. The solemn transference of the 
 Empire to Ferdinand in March 1558 completed the cycle 
 of renunciations, but long ere this Charles had retired to 
 Yuste to dispel the gloom of recent years under the bright sky 
 of Estremadura. Out of all his wide dominions he found 
 himself at home in Spain. The Flemish alien had become 
 a Spaniard.
 
 SPAIN: 
 
 ITS GREATNESS AND DECAY. 
 
 BY 
 
 MARTIN A. S. HUME. 
 
 7—2
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 PHILIP II, 1527— I 55 I. 
 
 At four o'clock in the afternoon of the 21st May, 1527, 
 Philip of Austria first saw the Hght in Valladohd, the ancient 
 capital of New Castile. An overpowering sense of the great- 
 ness of his coming destiny pervaded the birth of the Emperor's 
 firstborn. His mother had ordered her face to be hidden from 
 the light that no involuntary sign of her pain should be visible 
 whilst the puny infant was being ushered into the world over 
 which it was hoped he would rule in time to come. 
 
 To the remonstrance of her Portuguese lady attendants who 
 urged her not to suppress the natural expression of her suffer- 
 ings the Empress replied, " No. Die I may : but wail I will 
 not." And not in the gloomy old palace alone was the import- 
 ance of the event impressed upon the minds of men. The 
 ruin which extended empire was to bring upon Spain had not 
 yet proceeded far enough to be recognised by the ordinary 
 citizen, and the pride of Spaniards was flattered by the idea 
 that their monarch wielded sway over the greater part of 
 Christendom, and indefinitely over heathendom beyond. So 
 when the longed-for news came that the heir of his greatness 
 had been born in the heart of Castile, and not in far-away 
 Flanders like his father, gravity and restraint were thrown to 
 the winds and the Spaniards went well-nigh crazy with joy. 
 Throughout Philip's life fate decreed that his brightest hopes 
 should always end in gloom and disappointment; and the
 
 I02 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 circumstances of his birth were no exception to the rule. 
 Suddenly the joy bells that greeted his advent were silenced by 
 the dread news that only a fortnight before (6 May, 1527) the 
 Emperor's troops had sacked Rome. In a moment the re- 
 joicings of Valladolid were turned to mourning. All that the 
 Emperor could do to demonstrate his grief at the event was 
 done ; but the citizens of his capital whispered in awestricken 
 tones to each other that this was a bad augury for the new- 
 born prince. 
 
 In March of the following year 1528 a special meeting of 
 the Cortes of Castile was summoned at Madrid to swear alle- 
 giance to the infant heir to the crown, and though this time they 
 granted the subsidy demanded of them (200 million maravedis 
 — £fi^il'^^) they did so with a bad grace, and clamoured aloud 
 for reform, as their predecessors had done on every oppor- 
 tunity since the accession of Charles ; but on this occasion, as 
 previously, their recommendations were politely shelved. 
 
 The education of Philip during the absence of the Emperor 
 from Spain, from August 1529 to May 1533, was confided to 
 the Empress, and to one of her Portuguese ladies, Leonor de 
 Mascarenhas. Even thus early, he was a preternaturally grave 
 and silent child, with a fair pink and white skin and silky 
 yellow hair. From his earliest moments of intelligence he 
 must have heard constantly around him prayers for the success 
 of his father against the wicked heretics. The gloomy etiquette 
 of the Castilian court, the atmosphere of grim devotion which 
 surrounded the Empress, and the ever-recurring suggestion that 
 his father was engaged in a great struggle on the side of the 
 Almighty against the powers of evil, must have struck deeply 
 into the nature of the infant. He was the descendant of a line 
 of religious mystics, some of whom had crossed the border line 
 of insanity, he sprang from the union of first cousins and the 
 curse of epilepsy was in his blood, so that it is not wonderful 
 that the effect of his ancestry and his surroundings were visible 
 in him from his earliest years. On the Emperor's return to
 
 I] Philip II, 1527 — 1551. 103 
 
 Spain he appointed as his son's tutor, on the recommendation 
 of the Empress, a priestly professor of Salamanca named Juan 
 Martinez Pedernales, or Siliceo. He was a man of small 
 knowledge or energy and let the prince go very much his own 
 way. But Philip was an apt pupil in studies that attracted 
 him. He never was a proficient linguist but could read and 
 write Latin well at a very early age, and understood French 
 and Italian ; whilst for mathematics he appears to have had 
 an extraordinary aptitude. 
 
 At the age of 12 he lost his mother (i May, 1539). She 
 had borne to the Emperor two other sons who died of epilepsy 
 in their infancy, and Philip remained the sole heir of his 
 father's greatness. Wars and the cares of a vast empire kept 
 Charles away from Spain, except for three short visits, until the 
 end of 1 541. Though still in the prime of life he was already 
 tired of the world, and the morbid mental lethargy which lie in- 
 herited from his mother was dominating the physical vigour of 
 the burly Hapsburgs. He was eager thus early to indoctrinate 
 his son with the system of government of which he was to 
 continue the traditions, and he was delighted to find the boy 
 studious, grave and silent beyond his tender years. During 
 the time the father and son were together the great statesman 
 devoted a portion of every day to initiate his successor in the 
 task before him, and he found Philip ready for the lesson. In 
 the autumn of 1542 the Dauphin with ^^\\ army of 40,000 men 
 overran Rousillon, which then belonged to the crown of Aragon, 
 and besieged Perpignan. The opportunity was considered a 
 favourable one for initiating the young prince in actual warfare, 
 and he accompanied the Duke of Alba to the relief of the 
 fortress ; but he saw no fighting, for at the news of the great 
 reinforcements from Italy and Castile being on their way, 
 Henry of Valois abandoned the siege. But Philip's, journey 
 was not fruitless. The Cortes of Aragon, Valencia and 
 Catalonia were in session at Monzon, and thither the prince 
 went to receive the oath of allegiance from them. Long ago
 
 I04 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Jaime el Conquistador (1216 — 1275) had crushed the feudal 
 power of the Aragonese nobles, and as usually happened in 
 similar cases, had been obliged to depend largely upon the 
 popular power in doing so. The Cortes of the Aragonese 
 dominions possessed therefore far greater power than the Cas- 
 tilian Cortes and held with rough tenacity to the privileges 
 they enjoyed. More than once Charles had met with resist- 
 ance from them; in 1536, for instance, they had absolutely 
 refused to raise taxes for the Emperor's need except in legally 
 constituted Cortes where grievances could be first formulated. 
 The Catalan deputies now took the oath to Philip as heir to 
 the crown, only on condition that it should not be considered 
 binding until it had been ratified in Barcelona. The oath of 
 allegiance taken by the Aragonese to their kings at best was 
 but a grudging one. "We recognise you as king," it ran, "so 
 long as you uphold our privileges : and if not, not." The whole 
 tendency of the policy of Charles and his successor was to 
 concentrate and unify the national power, and no opportunity 
 was missed of weakening, where possible, the autonomy of the 
 stubborn Aragonese. But, like the English commons, they 
 held the purse-strings and refused to vote supplies except on 
 their own terms. 
 
 Charles's treasury was chronically empty, for the drain upon 
 it was constant. He was now confronted with a fresh for- 
 midable coalition. On. the side of France against the Emperor 
 was the power of the Turk in the Mediterranean, the Pope 
 (Paul III), and the sympathy, at least, of the Lutheran princes 
 of Germany. On a former occasion when the Emperor was 
 in the midst of his great struggle with France he had re- 
 plenished his war chest with the rich dowry (900,000 crowns) 
 of his Portuguese wife, and he now sought to repeat the 
 operation by marrying his heir to his . cousin the Princess 
 Maria, daughter of John III of Portugal and of Charles' 
 sister Catharine. Some years before Charles had projected 
 the marriage of his son with young Jeanne d'Albret, titular
 
 i.J Philip II, 1 527 — 1551. 105 
 
 Queen of Navarre, whose ancestors' Spanish kingdom had 
 been usurped by Ferdinand the CathoHc ; but Francis I had 
 discovered and frustrated this dangerous intrigue, which would 
 have brought the Spanish monarch over the Pyrenees as 
 tributary sovereign of a large portion of southern France. 
 Before Philip was wedded to the Portuguese princess his 
 father was obliged to leave Spain for Germany, and encouraged 
 by the precocity in statesmanship displayed by the young 
 prince, he determined to leave in his hands the regency of 
 Spain during his absence. 
 
 This was one of the most important junctures of Philip's 
 life. He was barely sixteen years old and thus early was 
 entrusted with Charles' secret system of government, which 
 henceforward became his own and swayed most of the actions 
 of his life. The two letters written by the Emperor on his 
 departure, for his son's guidance, are of the utmost importance 
 in providing a key to Philip's subsequent political action. 
 Although the regent was entrusted with the ultimate decision 
 on all points, he was to be guided by the opinion of some of 
 Charles's wisest councillors, especially of Tavara, Archbishop of 
 Toledo and the Secretary of State Francisco de los Cobos. 
 Philip is privately informed that the reason they are appointed 
 is that they are respectively heads of factions, and each one 
 will prevent the regent from falling under the influence of the 
 other. For the benefit of a young lad of sixteen, the Emperor 
 mercilessly lays bare the faults and failings of the statesmen 
 wTio are to aid him in his government. He is warned not to 
 trust any of them separately. Their hypocrisy, their greed, 
 their frailties of character and conduct are all exposed, and the 
 prince is told that he must listen to them all, and then decide 
 for himself. Even the Duke of Alba, the most eminent of 
 Charles' Spanish subjects, is dissected for the benefit of the 
 neophyte. He is, says Charles, ambitious, sanctimonious, and 
 hypocritical ; and perhaps even may try to tempt you (Philip) 
 by means of women. But he is a grandee and must not be
 
 io6 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 allowed to have any share in the interior government of the 
 kingdom. " In foreign affairs and war make use of him and 
 respect him, as he is the best man we now have." Quite as 
 extraordinary are the more secret instructions given to Philip 
 with regard to his social conduct and his coming marital 
 relations, which are to be entirely ruled by his governor, Doii 
 Juan de Zuniga. The great lesson enforced throughout both 
 documents is self-suppression, patience, and, above all, dis- 
 trust ; the object being to play off one rival against another, 
 and so by making all other men puppets, to concentrate power 
 in the hands of the one man who held the wires. For the rest 
 of Philip's long life these were his guiding principles, strength- 
 ening their hold upon him as he grew in age and experience. 
 
 With a heavy heart, overburdened with care, the Emperor 
 left his son in the early spring of 1543. Before he set sail from 
 Palamos (6 May, 1543) he impressed upon the young regent 
 in a secret letter, meant for his eye alone, how utterly in- 
 sufficient were his resources to meet the expenditure which he 
 had undertaken, and urged him to provide money from Spain ; 
 "for if our subjects be not liberal with us I know not how we 
 shall fare." Cobos was a great finance minister and lost 
 no time in advising the regent to summon the Castilian Cortes 
 for the purpose of providing funds in the urgent danger of the 
 country : " the armies of the Turk and the King of France 
 being in winter quarters so near us." Philip married his 
 young Portuguese cousin in November 1543, and in January 
 1544 the Castilian Cortes assembled in Toledo. They were 
 at first in no very yielding mood. They had no instructions 
 from their constituents, they said, to go beyond the votes of 
 the previous Cortes, which had promised 300 million maravedis ' 
 spread over the years 1546, 1547 and 1548, with 150 millions 
 extra, payable during 1545. They had a large number of 
 grievances, moreover, to be remedied before they would grant 
 even this. First and most important they urged that peace 
 ' 3040 maravedis were equal to one pound sterling.
 
 1. 1 Philip II, 1527 — 1551. 107 
 
 should be made before the country was utterly ruined ; and 
 the reply to this was that notliing would please the Emperor 
 better if it were possible. It was in fact already corning home 
 to Spaniards that world-wide empire was an expensive luxury 
 which a naturally poor country could ill-afford. The whole of 
 the misfortunes of Spain sprang indeed from its apparent good 
 fortune. When the nation was united under one sovereign at 
 the end of the fifteenth century, it still consisted of many 
 separate races and distinct territories. The work of consoli- 
 dation and unification of its institutions, of the development of 
 its resources, and the civilization of its peoples, might well 
 have absorbed its energies for a century, especially if to this 
 task were added the colonisation and domination of the New 
 World. Eight centuries of struggle with the infidel had 
 stamped their mark deeply on the character of the people. 
 They were brave, hardy, and simple in their lives. Their 
 strong religious feeling, engendered by the fact that they had 
 long held the Christian outposts, would probably have saved 
 them from the religious wars which ravaged the rest of Europe; 
 the geographical position of the country rendered it un- 
 necessary for them to take part in the politics of Central 
 Europe; and probably if Spain had been occupied only in its 
 own problems it would have become the happiest and most 
 prosperous of countries. But as ruler of Holland and Flanders 
 it was of vital importance that the King of Spain should 
 always be friendly with England, as a counterbalance to 
 France, Spain had to find resources to pay for most of 
 the vast expenditure entailed by the foreign responsibilities of 
 its sovereign, and by the time that Philip assumed the regency 
 it was gradually being understood that the imperial connection, 
 which had seemed at first so splendid, was a curse instead of a 
 blessing. Charles himself, practically a foreigner, had always 
 been unpopular in Spain, and hardly a Cortes met during his 
 reign which did not clamour against the extravagance and 
 injustice of the foreign officers by whom he was surrounded.
 
 io8 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Thus it was that the CastiUan Cortes of 1544 showed but Httle 
 alacrity in voting fresh suppHes for a war in which it was felt 
 that the nation itself had but little concern. Their subsidy, 
 such as it was, was supplemented by the Portuguese dowry 
 and a loan from John III. 
 
 Philip as Regent of Spain was eminently successful. The 
 Emperor through all his troubles and constant ill-health kept 
 up a close correspondence with his son, who had answered his 
 fondest expectations. Philip's wife died after one year and 
 eight months of wedlock, leaving a sickly baby behind her, but 
 Philip only allowed his grief to detain him in seclusion from 
 his public duties for three weeks. He was already extremely 
 popular with the Spanish people. His gravity, his preference 
 for the Spanish tongue, and his reluctance to marry a French 
 princess, as well as his piety and moderation, had even now 
 gained him the affection of Spaniards, which for the rest of his 
 life he never lost. 
 
 But the promise of his son, and the defeat of his enemies, 
 once more aroused in the Emperor dreams of universal domi- 
 nation for the benefit of his descendants, if not for himself. 
 It had been the intention of Ferdinand the Catholic that his 
 elder grandson should succeed to his paternal dominions, the 
 Empire and Flanders, whilst Ferdinand, the younger, should 
 inherit Spain and Naples. Charles, however, had arranged 
 otherwise, and made his brother King of the Romans, with the 
 impHed succession to the Empire. But he was determined 
 that as little power and territory as possible should go with it, 
 and he now proceeded to carry into effect the plan referred to 
 (p. 97), of transferring to Philip the imperial vicariate in Italy, 
 as well as attaching Flanders and Holland to the Spanish 
 Crown; thus leaving the future Emperor in possession only of 
 his Austrian dominions. Ferdinand of course did not like the 
 arrangement, but was at last won over to it by the marriage of 
 his son Maximilian to the Emperor's daughter Maria, and the 
 Emperor's guarantee that on Ferdinand's death Maximilian
 
 1.] Philip II, 1527 — 155 I. 109 
 
 should succeed him as Emperor. As soon as this was agreed 
 to, the Emperor sent the Duke of Alba to Spain with a 
 statement of the case for Philip's information. The Emperor's 
 new policy was to result in untold trouble and suffering to 
 future generations. The lordships of Flanders and Holland 
 had not hitherto been regarded by Charles as necessarily 
 attached to the Spanish Crown. The cession of the Nether- 
 lands to a French prince was one of the alternative conditions 
 of the peace of Crespy ; and since that had fallen through, 
 Charles had discussed the advisability of handing over the 
 Low Countries to his daughter Maria on her marriage with 
 Maximilian. But the fatal step of making them the inalienable 
 possessions of the ruler of Spain burdened the latter country 
 with a new set of permanent interests, and rendered necessary 
 a change in its foreign policy. Flanders once attached in- 
 alienably to the Crown of Spain could never fall into the 
 hands of France; and the latter country would find itself 
 almost surrounded by Spanish territory. If, moreover, the 
 Spanish suzerainty over Italy were established French influence 
 in that country would be at an end, and the papal power 
 dwarfed. The whole balance of Europe would thus be 
 changed, and France and the Pope forced into a secular 
 struggle against Spain. The possessors of the Flemish sea- 
 board had for generations found it necessary to maintain a 
 close alliance with England, whose interests were equally 
 bound up in preventing France from occupying the coast 
 opposite its own eastern shores ; the principal outlet for its 
 commerce. But Charles' new policy transferred the vital need 
 for a permanent English alliance to Spain itself as possessor of 
 Flanders ; and that at a time when such an alliance was daily 
 becoming more difficult in consequence of Henry's attitude 
 towards the question of religious reform. Spain was thus drawn 
 permanently into the vortex of central European politics, to its 
 own ultimate ruin. 
 
 The Emperor's new plans were not entirely to Philip's taste.
 
 no Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Having regard to Alba's correspondence with Granvelle upon 
 the subject it is probable that the objection did not arise from 
 motives of prudence, but rather from the ambitious promptings 
 of Alba himself, who would point out to the young prince that 
 the new arrangement would permanently cut him off from the 
 succession to the imperial Crown. At his instance, therefore, 
 the question of the suzerainty over Italy was left open ; and 
 with it what was doubtless Alba's real objection — namely, the 
 ultimate succession of Maximilian to the Empire. 
 
 At the desire of the Emperor, Philip was to undertake a 
 state progress through northern Italy and the dominions of the 
 Empire to make the acquaintance of his future subjects, and 
 gain the popularity necessary for carrying through the new 
 plans. In pursuance of the policy of depriving the nobles of 
 power in the state, Charles ordered that his son's household 
 previous to his journey should be organised for the first time 
 according to the pompous etiquette of the house of Burgundy, 
 which has since been adopted in most courts. The proud 
 Spanish nobility thus became attached personally to the house- 
 hold of the prince, in nominally domestic capacities, as chamber- 
 lains, equerries, ushers and the like ; and the younger hidalgos 
 no longer lived and hunted on their feudal estates, but 
 surrounded the person of the monarch in silken and enervating 
 idleness. The change was certainly not in accordance with 
 Philip's personal character, for his tastes were simple, sober, 
 modest and industrious; but he was a slave to duty, and 
 thenceforward on state occasions moved in a constellation of 
 splendour. 
 
 On the 4th April, 1548, Philip met the Castilian Cortes ' at 
 Valladolid and informed them of his approaching voyage, his 
 
 ^ Anciently 48 cities and towns were summoned to send representatives 
 to the Castilian Cortes, but during the period under consideration the 
 following cities only were usually represented, Burgos, Leon, Granada, 
 Seville, Cordoba, Murcia, Jaen, Soria, Cuenca, Salamanca, Avila, Zamora, 
 Toro, Segovia, Guadalajara, Valladolid, Madrid and Toledo. At the first
 
 I.] Philip II, 1 5 27 — 1 5 5 I . Ill 
 
 sister Maria, and lier husband Maximilian, King of Bohemia, 
 being appointed regents during his absence from Spain. The 
 message was an unwelcome one for the Cortes. They at once 
 despatched a letter to the Emperor, begging him not to 
 summon Philip away from Spain. It was bad enough, they 
 said, that the Emperor himself should live out of his Spanish 
 dominions, but to deprive them of their prince as well was too 
 bad. It had now become clear to the Spaniards that the 
 dragging of them at the tail of the Empire was causing the ruin 
 of the country, and they desired nothing so much as that Spain 
 should be governed by a resident native prince, and should 
 confine herself to her own affairs. " From your Majesty's 
 absence," wrote the Cortes, "has resulted the poverty which 
 these kingdoms are suffering, in consequence of the great 
 sums of money which have been sent out. This has brouglit 
 about a total lack of gold and a great scarcity of silver, and we 
 are sure tliat if the absence of our princes continues, these 
 kingdoms will become much poorer and more ruined even 
 than they are." 
 
 Once more the Cortes formulated their list of grievances 
 and protested boldly against disregard of former representa- 
 tions. Again they demanded that the Church should hold no 
 more land; once more they urged the codification of the law, 
 the purification of the judicial bench, and proposed a great 
 numljer of domestic and administrative reforms, many of which 
 Philip ratified before he left. What however troubled the 
 Cortes most was the financial and industrial state of the 
 
 sitting of each Cortes a dispute for precedence always occurred between 
 Burgos and Toledo, usually ending in the victory of the former and a 
 protest by the latter. The members were paid by grants made by the 
 King, four millions of maravedis being included for the purpose in the 
 ordinaiy supply, but during the reigns of Philip II and Philip III con- 
 siderable special grants and concessions were made to the members — both 
 collectively and personally. In the latter reign a percentage on the supply 
 15 or 17 per cent, was sometimes given to them — a most vicious form of 
 remuneration.
 
 112 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 country. The economic heresies to which reference has been 
 made (pp. 85 — 90) had already produced their baleful influence, 
 and Spanish industry, heavily handicapped as it was, had to a 
 large extent been supplanted by that of foreigners, even in 
 Spanish markets. The remedy proposed by the Cortes was an 
 extraordinary one. It was thought that, if the fine and costly 
 textiles, mostly now the produce of foreign looms, were not 
 shipped from Seville to the Spanish possessions, the money 
 from America would remain in the Peninsula instead of being 
 paid away to foreigners. The Cortes of 1548 therefore de- 
 manded that the export of cloth and silks to the Indies should 
 be prohibited, but the petition was only partially granted. 
 
 On I St October, 1548, Philip left Valladolid on his long 
 voyage. By slow stages and followed by a great train of 
 courtiers he rode through Aragon and Catalonia. Andrea 
 Doria, with a splendid fleet of fifty-five galleys, met him in 
 the Bay of Rosas and saluted him almost as a demi-god. It 
 is no exaggeration to say that this intense and passionate 
 devotion to Philip reflected at this time the general feeling 
 in Spain, where he was regarded as the native born prince 
 who would free his people from the crushing burden of 
 the Empire. The qualities which made him popular in Spain 
 had a contrary eff'ect elsewhere. His reticence and gravity, 
 his unconcealed dislike to the rough and boisterous pleasures, 
 and the heavy eating and drinking, of the Germans and 
 Flemings drew upon him the hatred of his father's foreign 
 subjects. Through Genoa, Milan and Mantua, Tyrol, Germany 
 and Luxemburg, the Spanish prince slowly progressed to 
 meet his father in Brussels. Everywhere he was greeted by 
 festivals, banquets, and tourneys, to a greater extent, said 
 eye-witnesses, than ever had been seen before. He did his 
 best, but such frivolity was not to his taste, and his journey 
 certainly did not help forward the project of securing to him 
 the succession of the imperial Crown. On the ist April, 1549, 
 he made his state entry into Brussels. Chailes was still ailing.
 
 i.J Philip II, 1527—1551. 113 
 
 but gathered new life with the presence of his beloved heir; 
 and for the next two years nearly every day Philip learnt from 
 the great Emperor the profound lessons of government which 
 were to rule his policy during the rest of his life. One of the 
 subjects, upon which the Cortes of 1548 had pressed the 
 Emperor, was that Philip should marry again. He had now 
 been a widower for four years, and had contracted a mor- 
 ganatic connection with Dona Isabel de Osorio, by wliom 
 he had several children. His only legitimate child was the 
 lame epileptic Don Carlos, and during Philip's stay in Brussels 
 several matrimonial schemes were discussed between him and 
 the Emperor. Jeanne D'Albret was again suggested, but 
 Philip leant rather towards another Portuguese cousin, tlie 
 daughter of the old King Manoel and Charles's sister Leonora, 
 who after Manoel's death had married Francis I. But greater 
 affairs even than marriages were discussed at the same time — 
 nothing less, indeed, than the ultimate reversion of the imperial 
 Crown to Philip, and the exercise by him of the Emperor's 
 suzerainty over Italy even during his uncle Ferdinand's life. 
 When after infinite negotiation this had been agreed upon in 
 principle, Philip accompanied his father to the Diet of Augsburg, 
 and finally started in May 1551 on his voyage home to 
 Spain. 
 
 II. s.
 
 114 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 PHILIP II, 1 55 1 — 1560. 
 
 Philip arrived at Barcelona on the 13th July, 155 1, and at 
 once summoned the Castilian Cortes in Madrid to vote supplies. 
 As usual, the long list of petitions for reforms was presented 
 to the regent, and equally as usual, the consideration of the 
 grievances was postponed ; the Cortes being dismissed as soon 
 as they had voted the ordinary subsidy of 404 million marave- 
 dis spread over three years. The Aragonese Cortes of the 
 following year once more showed how much greater was their 
 parliamentary power than that of the Castilians, since they 
 insisted upon their grievances being considered before the 
 subsidies were voted. The result was that a great mass of 
 legislation of a popular character was passed, especially in 
 matters relating to the liberty of the subject, together with the 
 reform of judicial abuses, and a great sumptuary law prohibiting 
 extravagance in dress. 
 
 Philip continued the negotiations for marriage with his 
 Portuguese cousin, but he found John III less inclined to be 
 liberal in the matter of dowry for his half-sister than he had 
 been for his daughter, and the matter hung fire. Philip's 
 bosom friend and favourite, Ruy Gomez — a Portuguese by 
 birth — was sent in June 1553 to persuade the King of Portugal 
 to loosen his purse strings ; but during his absence from Spain 
 an event happened which entirely changed the Emperor's
 
 Chap. n. J Philip II, 1351 — 1560. 115 
 
 plans. It had been known for some time that Edward VI of 
 England was in failing health, but the extent of Northumber- 
 land's power and following was still uncertain ; and Charles' 
 principal desire with regard to England had hitherto been to 
 keep on friendly terms with it. But the evil effects of attach- 
 ing Flanders to the Crown of Spain were already working. 
 Without the strength of the Empire behind him, the possessor 
 of Flanders, with a covetous France on one side and Protes- 
 tant princes on the other, was in an untenable position unless 
 he could depend upon England's co-operation through thick 
 and thin. When the events following on the death of Edward 
 VI proved that English loyalty was stronger than its attach- 
 ment to the reformed religion, Charles suddenly seized the 
 opportunity presented. The hollow Crown of the Empire, 
 with its turbulent Protestant princes, might go. If England 
 could be joined in lasting union with Spain, then France 
 would be humbled and Spain supreme in Christendom. 
 
 Mary entered London on 3rd August, 1553, with the 
 imperial ambassador Renard by her side, and only four days 
 afterwards Philip's name was suggested to her as that of her 
 future husband. The English people themselves had fixed upon 
 young Edward Courtenay, and Mary was as yet uncertain how 
 far she dared thwart them. But she knew full well the French 
 plots to keep her out of her birthright, and longed for the 
 strong arms and subtle brains of her Spanish kinsmen to sup- 
 port her. She, too, was a grand-daughter of the ecstatic Isabel 
 the Catholic, a daughter of highly-strung Catherine of Aragon, 
 and a niece of Juana the Mad; and religious fervour aided 
 dynastic expediency in her choice of a spouse. Philip was a 
 dutiful son. He was 26 years of age, and his domestic arrange- 
 ments with Dona Isabel de Osorio were on an established foot- 
 ing. But he was a politician and a patriot before all things : 
 personal pleasure was never his aim in life, and at Charles' 
 bidding, in a true spirit of sacrifice, he consented to marry 
 Mary Tudor. London was in a panic at the news, and Mary's 
 
 8—2
 
 ii6 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 council made hard terms with the coming consort. They 
 had taken Renard's bribes willingly enough, but from stern 
 Gardiner downwards, they were determined that, come what 
 might, England should never be ruled from Spain. Renard 
 and his master subscribed to all the conditions, in the hope 
 that Philip's influence with the Queen after marriage would 
 enable him to have his way. What they failed to understand 
 was, that Mary herself was powerless against the will of her 
 Council, and against the English people, who dreaded and 
 hated the Spaniard. Philip was a gallant suitor to his elderly 
 bride, and more splendour was lavished over this marriage than 
 the world had ever seen. Charles was still at war with France, 
 and Philip brought with him from Corunna to Southampton, 
 where he landed (20 July, 1554), a fine fleet of a hundred sail 
 with 6000 soldiers to reinforce his father. He had been 
 warned to conciliate the English in all things, and he learnt 
 his lesson well. He conformed, as well as might be, to English 
 fashions and prejudice, offended his Spanish courtiers by 
 openly preferring English attendants, and prohibited the land- 
 ing in England of a single soldier from the fleet. 
 
 In England he became personally not unpopular, for he 
 was always on the side of moderation, and studiously abstained 
 from publicly interfering in the government. His object was 
 to win over England by persuasion to the Catholic Church, 
 which would have led to the political domination of Spain. 
 But he and his father were politicians first and religious 
 fanatics afterwards ; and on this occasion, as on many others, 
 the zeal of the Churchmen thwarted the Statesmen. Cardinal 
 Pole, the pope's legate, was stopped by the Emperor's influ- 
 ence on his way to England, until he had been persuaded not 
 to take any hasty steps in the matter of the restitution of 
 Church property confiscated during the previous reigns. Philip 
 and Renard prevailed upon him not to insist upon the return 
 of lands that had passed into private hands, and he was then 
 allowed to proceed to England. Mary's hope of progeny was
 
 II.] Philip II, \ SSI — 1 5 60. 117 
 
 again and again disappointed, and Philip stayed on in vain 
 expectation. The Emperor in the meanwhile was sinking into 
 torpor and despair, yearning hourly for the coming of his son, 
 who should take from his shoulders the burden they were no 
 longer capable of supporting. In vain Renard told him that 
 as soon as Philip left England the bigots in Mary's Council 
 would carry to its bitter end the persecution which King 
 Philip's influence alone had hitherto kept in check. But, at 
 last, Charles would v/ait no longer and peremptorily sum- 
 moned his son. By August 1555 the rogations to the Almighty 
 for the birth of an heir were discontinued, and the great plan 
 of the dynastic union of Spain and England was seen to be a 
 failure. An Anglo-Spanish power ruling England, Spain, 
 Holland and Flanders, supreme over most of Italy, and the 
 Mediterranean, with the riches of the Indies in its hands, 
 would have dominated the world. France, shut in on every 
 side by land and sea, could have progressed no more ; and 
 Spain would have become paramount more completely than if 
 the Emperor's first plan of universally extending the power of 
 the Roman-Austrian empire had been realised. But it was not 
 to be, and Philip made the best of it, with all courtesy and 
 gentleness to his disappointed wife, whom he left, sick at heart 
 and failing in body, on the 26th August, 1555. She watched 
 him from the window of her palace at Greenwich as his boat 
 dropped down the river to Gravesend, and thenceforward, 
 powerless alone to stay her bigoted councillors, was constrained 
 to consent to the lighting of the hellish fires of Smithficld, 
 which will for ever cast a baleful glow upon her wretched reign. 
 From Flanders Philip sought to restrain the persecution, 
 which was entirely against his political interests. What he 
 wanted was the aid of English ships and men against the 
 French. Here the English Councillors were not so ready, for 
 of all things they feared to be dragged into a war with France, 
 and such help as they gave was obtained by Philip on specious 
 pretexts, and granted with grudging unwillingness.
 
 Ii8 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 The Emperor was falling a prey to the last extreme of 
 senile mental and bodily depression when Philip arrived in 
 Flanders. " Fortune is a strumpet," he said after the disaster 
 of Metz, "and reserves her favours for the young" — and to 
 the shoulders of his son he determined to shift his burden. 
 He had already, on Philip's marriage in Winchester cathedral, 
 conferred upon him the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, and 
 had confirmed to him the duchy of Milan, the latter a fief 
 of the Empire. He now determined to hand over to him 
 the sovereignty of the Netherlands. The scene, one of the 
 most dramatic in history, took place in the great hall of the 
 palace of Brussels, on the 25th October, 1555. All that could 
 add impressiveness and solemnity to the ceremony was done 
 to mark the greatness of the occasion. The prematurely aged 
 Emperor leaning on the shoulder of the youthful William of 
 Orange, in a voice broken with tears took a last farewell of his 
 Flemish subjects whom he loved best. He was a Fleming at 
 heart, and the leavetaking was an affecting one on both sides. 
 The Emperor prayed his son to treat his new vassals well, but 
 the Flemings knew that their new Sovereign's heart was for 
 Spain alone, and that though Philip might be their ruler, he 
 could never be their father and friend as the Emperor had 
 been. For once Philip's own self-control gave way at the 
 affecting scene, and it was only after some delay that he could 
 summon sufficient composure to speak — and then alas! only to 
 say that he was unable to address his subjects in their own 
 tongue, and must depute the task to another, Antoine de 
 Perennot, the bishop of Arras (Cardinal de Granvelle). 
 
 On 1 6th January, 1556, the crowns of Spain were also 
 transferred to Philip, and Charles remained Emperor only in 
 name, until the German electors were prepared for his abdi- 
 cation in favour of his brother Ferdinand. Before he turned 
 his back upon the world for ever, and went to fret his life away 
 in the cloisters of Yuste, he arranged (February 1556) a truce 
 for five years with his old enemy the King of France, wlio
 
 II.] Philip Ily \i-)\ — 1560. 119 
 
 by the treaty of Vaucelles was thus for a time separated from 
 his ally the Pope. 
 
 Philip now stands on the stage alone, the most powerful 
 monarch in the world. He had from his very childhood 
 adopted the statecraft of his greater father, and held by it 
 slavishly for the rest of his life. By nature reticent and dis- 
 trustful, slow and secretive, his qualities had been accentuated 
 by the schooling of his mentors. His inherited religious ex- 
 altation, and belief in his divine inspiration, made his methods 
 rigid and unadaptable. He was pitted against opponents 
 whose opportunism and elastic consciences gave them an 
 enormous advantage over him, and the task which he inherited 
 could hardly have had a more unfortunate champion than the 
 monarch who led it to defeat. His sense of duty was over- 
 whelmingly great. He was modest, laborious and conscien- 
 tious, almost to a fault; a good husband and father; and he 
 strenuously did his best through life, according to his limited 
 lights. He accepted his great inheritance as a sacred trust, 
 but his qualities were not equal to his task, and he was a 
 splendid failure. It cannot be too often repeated that, although 
 he was personally pious, his aims were in the main political 
 rather than religious. The irony of events decreed that the very 
 first task to which he set his hand should be to fight the Holy 
 See. The policy of his father had wrested from one pontiff 
 after another their rights over the Spanish clergy, until at last 
 the vast revenues of the Church were used mainly as an instru- 
 ment of governmental policy ; and the priests were made to 
 understand that they depended for promotion, not upon the 
 Pope, but upon their sovereign. The royal council claimed 
 the right of supervising the ecclesiastical courts, and of with- 
 holding the circulation of the papal bulls in Spain. The 
 Inquisition itself was quite as much a political as a religious 
 institution, and was jealously regarded by Philip as being 
 under his immediate control when it suited him. 
 
 Philip's anomalous position in Italy rendered still more
 
 120 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 difficult his relations with the Italian popes, whom he never 
 regarded otherwise than as tools to be used for the furtherance 
 of his political objects, notwithstanding all the exaggerated 
 lip-deference with which he treated them. The Spanish en- 
 croachments in Italy, and the claims of the Spanish monarchs 
 to exclusive control over the temporalities of the Church in 
 Sicily and Naples, which had been suffered with a bad grace 
 by previous pontiffs, aroused the Neapolitan Paul IV (Caraffa) 
 to fury. He launched the most violent invectives against the 
 Emperor and Philip. The Spaniards, he said, were the vile 
 and abject spawn of Jews, the dregs of the world, and must be 
 expelled, neck and crop, from Italy. The aid of the Sultan 
 Solyman was invoked by the Christian pontiff, while Henry II 
 was inflamed by exhortation and reproach beyond measure, and 
 was at last induced to break the truce of Vaucelles in June 
 1556, only four months after it had been signed. Then the 
 Pope broke through all bounds of decency and decorum, for 
 he thought he had Philip at his mercy. A violent bull of 
 excommunication was issued against the Emperor and his son. 
 The latter is addressed as "the son of iniquity, Philip of 
 Austria, offspring of the so-called Emperor Charles, who passes 
 himself off as King of Spain; following in the footsteps of his 
 father and rivalling him in iniquity." 
 
 The position was a difficult one for Philip. He could not 
 afford to degrade the papacy, upon which he looked as one of 
 his principal levers, and yet he must fight the Pope, or lose his 
 Italian states. He was Duke of Milan, a fief of the Empire, 
 his troops had occupied the principalities of Parma and 
 Piacenza, whilst he was independent sovereign of Sicily and 
 Naples. The French still occupied Piedmont, and during the 
 first campaign before Philip's accession had ousted the im- 
 perialists from Siena. The imperial troops in Milan had been 
 hitherto a coercive power over the other imperial fiefs, but 
 under Philip they could no longer be so regarded, as they were 
 the forces of a Spanish prince, who himself was in Milan a
 
 ii-l Philip II, 1 55 1 — 1560. 121 
 
 tributary of the Emperor. On his accession Philip had sent 
 Alba from England with very full powers to exercise all his 
 sovereignties in Italy, an appointment not to the taste of the 
 Emperor, but probably prompted by a desire on the part of 
 Ruy Gomez, who was the leader of the party of peace and 
 diplomacy in Philip's councils, to remove the warlike old 
 noble from his master's side. On the second coalition against 
 Spain after the rupture of the truce of Vaucelles, Alba invaded 
 the papal states, and nearly captured Rome itself, but he was 
 well matched by Guise, who commanded the Franco-papal 
 forces. Suddenly Henry II found a powerful army from 
 Flanders marching upon Paris, and Guise had to be recalled 
 to France. By the aid of the Doge of Venice a peace was 
 patched up between the Pope and Philip, and Alba sulkily 
 entered Rome, not as a conqueror but as a pretended penitent. 
 Paul IV was conciliated with futile concessions, and Philip was 
 left face to face with France. 
 
 It was vital for him that he should obtain English aid — the 
 last and only benefit he was ever likely to get now from his 
 marriage with Mary, who was sorrowfully wearing herself into 
 her grave. The English Council were determined not to serve 
 purely Spanish aims, or to allow themselves to be diverted 
 from extirpating heresy ; so the King, sorely against his will, 
 had again to go to England, and exert his personal influence. 
 He arrived on 20th March, 1557, and found his wife ready 
 enough to be avenged upon Henry and his ambassador de 
 Noailles, for their intrigues against her. But the English Coun- 
 cil stood in the way. They had always dreaded this result 
 of a Spanish match, and had no special quarrel with France. 
 The French King however sought to counteract Pliilip's influ- 
 ence in England, by aiding the discontent of the English 
 Protestant refugees in France, and promoting Stafford's foolish 
 attempt on Scarborough. This act of hostility gave Mary an 
 opportunity of persuading her Council, and war between Eng- 
 land and France was declared on the 7th July, 1557. On the
 
 122 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 3rd of the following month Philip bade a last farewell to his 
 wife, and returned to Brussels, well contented with his success. 
 8000 English troops were got ready and sent to join Philip's 
 force of 50,000 men in Flanders, under his gallant young 
 cousin Emmanuel PhiHbert, Duke of Savoy. By a series of 
 rapid and masterly movements Savoy managed to outwit 
 Coligny and Montmorenci, who commanded the French 
 forces, and won the great battle of St Quentin on the loth 
 August. 6000 of the French troops were killed, as many 
 more captured, with all the artillery, and Montmorenci him- 
 self taken prisoner; Coligny held out inside the town of St 
 Quentin until 27th August, when the place was taken by 
 assault, amidst scenes of heartless carnage and horror, mainly 
 the work of German mercenaries, which will for ever remain 
 one of the most dreadful episodes of modern warfare. After 
 the destruction of Montmorenci's force nothing stood between 
 Philip's victorious army and Paris. This was his great chance; 
 and he missed it. Overcaution was almost a mania with him, 
 and he refused Savoy's request to be allowed to march on the 
 French capital. When the Emperor heard in his cloistered 
 seclusion the news of the great battle, his first question was 
 whether his son had arrived in Paris. The Spaniards com- 
 plained that the English had behaved badly at St Quentin ; 
 the English were sulky and discontented ; and soon the same 
 spirit was seen in the rest of the force, consisting, as it did, 
 of many jarring nationalities distributed idly amongst the 
 French captured towns. Wages were in arrear, the German 
 mercenaries quarrelled and deserted, the English clamoured to 
 be sent home, and Philip dreading unpopularity in England let 
 them go. Thus his force dwindled, and in a few weeks the 
 fine French army under Guise marched back from Italy. The 
 English fortress of Calais was known to be neglected. Sud- 
 denly Guise appeared before it, stormed the crumbling under- 
 manned outworks (2nd and 3rd January, 1558) and finally 
 captured the citadel on the 8th of the month. Lord Went-
 
 11. j Philip II, 155 1 — 1560. 123 
 
 worth was in command, but the forces at his disposal were 
 utterly inadequate to defend the place. As a natural result of 
 the fall of Calais the other English fortress of Guisnes was 
 captured from Lord Grey a few days afterwards, and the last 
 foothold of the English in France was gone. In England 
 counsels were distracted, the war was unpopular, and men 
 were thinking rather of what was to come when the Queen 
 died, than of passing events. When Feria, Philip's friend and 
 ambassador, saw the Council in Pole's chamber (28th January, 
 1558) to beg for further English aid, they were tearful, apolo- 
 getic, but despairing, and begged for mercenary Germans to be 
 sent to England, instead of sending Englishmen away. Philip 
 assented, and the money was drawn from England to pay for 
 the German levies; but they were eventually utilised by Philip, 
 as no doubt was intended from the first. The English Council, 
 too, were deluded into the belief that an attempt was to be 
 made to recover Calais, and fitted out a fleet; but this also was 
 made use of in the Spanish interests, and at a critical moment 
 (13 July, 1558) turned the tide of victory against the French at 
 Gravelines, preventing an intended march upon Brussels, and 
 compelling Guise to stand on the defensive. 
 
 Philip's treasury was empty; he was deeply in debt, his 
 troops mutinous, and he hated war. Henry II was in similar 
 straits, and was already looking with dread upon the growth of 
 the party of religious reform in France. Both parties were tired 
 of the struggle, and peace negotiations were opened, Granvelle, 
 Alba, and Orange, representing Philip, Cardinal Lorraine, Mont- 
 morenci and St Andre, the French King; English interests 
 being safeguarded by the Earl of Arundel, Dr Thirlby bishop 
 of Ely, and Dr Wotton. Soon after the negotiations com- 
 menced Mary Tudor died (17th November, 1558). Feria had 
 hurried over to England, but the Queen was almost uncon- 
 scious when lie arrived, and he at once set about propiliating 
 Elizabeth at Hatfield. England had slipped through Philip's 
 hands, but it was vital to his power that it should remain
 
 1 24 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 friendly to him. If Elizabeth could be married to his nominee 
 all might still be well : but the new Queen showed Feria in her 
 first interview with him that she declined to be patronised. 
 Savoy, who had always been the Spanish candidate for her 
 hand, was again suggested but dropped, for the English 
 dreaded that he might drag them into war to recover his terri- 
 tory from the French. Then Philip himself was tentatively 
 brought forward by Feria, but Elizabeth was coyly irresponsive, 
 and proved herself fully a match for the diplomatists who 
 sought to pledge her to a marriage that should bind her to 
 Spain. Such a marriage, indeed, could only have been possible 
 on conditions that would have vitiated her own claim to the 
 throne. So long as there seemed to be any prospect of his 
 being allowed to influence English policy, Phihp stood by the 
 side of the English envoys in demanding the restitution of 
 Calais as a condition of peace, but when Elizabeth's attitude 
 was defined he gave her clearly to understand that, if peace 
 could only be made with the loss of Calais, then Calais must 
 go. Elizabeth was not in a position to go to war with France 
 alone, for her own position was uncertain, and her treasury 
 empty ; so at last the bitter pill had to be swallowed, and the 
 peace of Cateau Cambresis was signed (2 April, 1559), Calais 
 remaining in the hands of the French. 
 
 This was an important juncture, upon which the future of 
 Spain was mainly to depend. The keystone of Philip's policy 
 was a close and constant alliance with England : a policy 
 imposed upon him by his inheritance of the Netherlands, but 
 which the circumstances of Elizabeth's birth and her personal 
 character made well-nigh impossible, whilst she remained 
 Queen of England. There were even thus early two well- 
 defined parties in Philip's Councils, for this was part of his 
 cautious method of having every question debated from both 
 points of view. The nobles and soldiers of the Alba school 
 ceaselessly urged upon him that he must overturn Elizabeth, 
 by force of arms if necessary, before she had time to con-
 
 II. J Philip II, \.^^\ — 1560. 125 
 
 solidate her position ; above all things, they said, no lime 
 must be lost. The people of England were mainly Catholic at 
 heart, many of the principal nobles and councillors were in the 
 pay of Spain, and Philip must strike with promptitude and 
 boldness. But Philip was timid and slow. Ruy Gomez and 
 the bishop of Arras (de Granvelle) were by his side to advise 
 moderation and diplomacy, and though Feria might sneer, the 
 King would not be hurried into violent action. As usual, he 
 pondered until it was too late, and the opportunity had slipped 
 away, to the dismay of those who had always held as an article 
 of political faith that the possessor of the Netherlands must 
 live in close amity with England. Philip's own alternative com- 
 bination was characteristic of his peaceful methods. One of 
 the principal reasons why Henry II was anxious for peace in 
 1558 was, as we have seen, his dread of the growing power of 
 the religious reformers in France. Philip at the time was not 
 actively responsive on the point, as the religious agitation in 
 the Netherlands had not become acute, and the position of 
 England was undefined. But now Elizabeth's firm attitude 
 had changed the problem. By the draft treaty of Gateau 
 Cambresis Henry's eldest daughter was betrothed to Philip's 
 only son Carlos, who was now fourteen, the bride being three 
 months younger. Philip decided to marry the young princess 
 himself, and so to unite France and Spain in close bonds, to the 
 confusion of Elizabeth and the Protestants throughout Europe. 
 His policy towards England was not aggressive : he only 
 sought to render her innocuous. The next heir after Elizabeth 
 was Mary Stuart, the dauphiness of France, and practically a 
 Frenchwoman. Better a thousand times for him that the 
 heretic Elizabeth should remain Queen than that France, 
 Scotland and England, should be ruled by the same hand. 
 Then indeed would the Netherlands be in jeopardy ; and 
 Philip doubtless thought that it would be easier to prevent 
 such a consummation from the inside, than from the outside. 
 So Alba with a splendid train entered Paris late in June 1559
 
 1 26 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 to marry by proxy the beautiful little princess (Elizabeth of the 
 Peace as the Spaniards called her) for his master King Philip. 
 The union began unhappily, for Henry II was accidentally 
 killed by a thrust in the eye, by the lance of Montgomerie the 
 captain of the Scots Guard ; but the beautiful French princess 
 became one of the most beloved of Spanish Queens, and her 
 sweetness, wisdom and goodness completely won Philip's heart. 
 The King was yearning for his darling Spain. It had not 
 taken long for his policy of personal concentration of govern- 
 ment to bring the storm clouds over his Netherlands. The 
 Emperor, a Fleming himself, might do much and be forgiven 
 by the sturdy burghers, but Philip was Spanish, and unsympa- 
 thetic to the core, and a measure which would have been 
 popular from a native sovereign was from him the reverse. 
 His proposal to reconstitute the Flemish hierarchy, and create 
 fourteen new bishoprics and three archbishoprics, was looked 
 upon by the Netherlanders with sulky disapproval, and the 
 presence of 4000 Spanish troops in the country aroused the 
 fear that Spanish views both of government and religion were 
 to be forced upon the autonomous States at the point of the 
 pike. Philip had to listen to some bold talk at the farewell 
 meeting of the States, and a petition was presented to him 
 begging that the Spanish troops might be withdrawn, signed by 
 the principal nobles of the Nethei lands. Orange and Egmont 
 amongst them. As was his wont, however, he dissembled, 
 though he must already have decided in his stealthy way, that 
 this manifestation must be crushed ruthlessly, if these stubborn 
 States were to be ruled according to his centralising notions 
 from Spain. He left the difficult task of governing the country 
 to the Duchess of Parma, a daughter of the Emperor by a 
 Flemish lady, and now married to Ottavio Farnese, whose 
 principalities had been taken, and subsequently restored to 
 him, by the imperial troops. The choice of a Regent was not 
 an unpopular one, but all the hatred and resistance of the 
 Flemings fell upon the man whom Philip designated as
 
 II.] Philip II, 1551 — 1560. 127 
 
 his sister's prime adviser, Antoine de Perennot, Cardinal de 
 Granvelle, a Franche-Comtois and a foreigner, whose very 
 appointment was regarded by the Flemings as a violation of 
 their rights of self-government. When, therefore, Philip sailed 
 for Spain (August 1559) he left behind him an atmosphere 
 charged with trouble, which very soon was to develop into 
 deadly strife. 
 
 In his absence Spain had been governed by his widowed 
 sister Juana, whose ycung husband, Don Joao of Portugal, had 
 died just before her appointment, leaving her with an infant 
 who afterwards became the unfortunate King Don Sebastian. 
 In May 1555, less than a year after Philip's departure on 
 his matrimonial errand to England, it became necessary to 
 summon the Cortes of Castile to vote supplies. Their parlia- 
 mentary powers were in process of extinction, but they made 
 some show of asserting them. When they conveyed to the 
 regent the intelligence that they had voted 404 million marave- 
 dis for three years' supply, they presented 133 petitions for 
 reform and remonstrated mildly against the disregard of similar 
 presentments from previous Cortes. Once again they begged 
 for a codification of the law, clamoured against the encroach- 
 ments of the clergy, against luxury in coaches and dress, against 
 the unjust incidence of taxation, the abuses of criminal pro- 
 cedure: in fact, they brought out all the old grievances, as 
 fruitlessly as heretofore, — for they had voted the money first. 
 Amongst other subsidiary petitions they begged that bull-fights 
 should be abolished and that the household of the Prince Don 
 Carlos should be arranged on the old Spanish lines, and not in 
 the pompous new-fangled way of the house of Burgundy. But 
 whilst they were clutching at these shadows, the very substance 
 of their parliamentary rights was being haughtily taken from 
 them. It had been a rule of the old Cortes that laws made by 
 them could only be repealed by a vote of Cortes. In pursu- 
 ance of the centralising system introduced by Charles, decrees 
 had been issued by him abrogating parliamentary statutes, and
 
 128 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 the Cortes of 1555 begged that in future the old legal course 
 should be followed. No answer at all was vouchsafed for three 
 years, and then Philip gave one which fittingly foreshadowed 
 the spirit in which he meant to govern. "If I please," he 
 replied, " I shall annul without the Cortes the laws made in 
 Cortes. I shall legislate by pragmatic, and I shall repeal by 
 pragmatic." A meek protest was also raised, both in the 
 Cortes and by the persons interested, against the arbitrary 
 seizing for national purposes of the money coming to Seville 
 from the Indies, on account of private merchants; but the 
 leaders of the protest had been loaded with irons and cast into 
 prison, and henceforward the trading and industrial classes 
 bore the vast burden of national expenditure, with hardly any 
 audible murmur. 
 
 In matters of religion, however, the position even in Spain 
 was not so tranquil. The steady policy of Charles and Philip 
 was to bring the Spanish Church under subjection to the 
 monarch. The rich ecclesiastical preferments were now all in 
 the King's hand, and the clergy mainly subservient. During 
 Philip's absence and his struggle with the Pope, the Spanish 
 council had forcibly excluded the papal bulls from Spain, and 
 the regent had imprisoned the messengers who bore them. It 
 was seen that, however ceremoniously Philip might treat the 
 papacy when it suited his political objects, he looked upon it, 
 hke all else, as a tool for his semi-divine mission ; and that the 
 holy Church was to be no exception to his determination that 
 all power, temporal and spiritual, in his dominions, should be 
 centred in himself. The Inquisition, especially, had been 
 guarded against any effective interference from Rome, and had 
 already begun to assume its character as a great political agency 
 in the hands of the monarch, working behind an ecclesi- 
 astical mask. So far as Philip's personal experience extended, 
 all resistance to authority arose from religious divergence, and 
 with his views as to the identity of his interests with those of 
 the Almighty, it was obviously his duty to crush ruthlessly all
 
 II.] Philip II, 1 55 I — 1560. 129 
 
 manifestations of a spirit of religious independence that might 
 lead to rebellion against his authority. The Inquisition was a 
 convenient means for this purpose, and it became necessary 
 for him to strengthen its authority by supporting it through 
 thick and thin. Whilst Philip was in Brussels, he had ap- 
 pointed to the archbishopric of Toledo, the richest see in the 
 world, his confessor Bartolom^ de Carranza, who had made 
 himself conspicuous by his eloquent attempts whilst in England 
 to refute the views of the reformers. The archbishop arrived 
 in Spain in time to stand at the deathbed of the Emperor at 
 Yuste, and in August, 1559, was suddenly summoned from 
 Alcala by the regent. He knew that the spies of the Inqui- 
 sition had been following him from his first landing in Spain, 
 and fearing the meaning of the summons, tried diplomatically 
 to delay his journey until the expected arrival of the King. 
 He was however suddenly dragged from his bed, and carried 
 off to the prisons of the Inquisition at Valladolid. His arrest 
 caused the greatest consternation and indignation throughout 
 Spain. He was accused of heretical writing in a certain com- 
 mentary of his on the Catechism, which writing was unani- 
 mously approved by the Pope and the Congregation of the 
 Index in Rome. Public opinion in Spain made no secret 
 of its belief that he was a victim to the jealousy of Valdes, 
 Archbishop of Seville, Inquisitor-General, who resented his 
 elevation to the primacy. If Philip had arrived in time to pre- 
 vent his arrest he would no doubt have escaped, but matters 
 assumed another appearance when the Archbishop was in the 
 hands of the Inquisition. Philip was friendly with Carranza, 
 and had no reason for tlesiring his ruin ; but the Inquisition 
 must be supported at all risks ; and so for many years it be- 
 came a pitched battle between the King and the Inquisition 
 on the one hand, and the whole Catholic Church on the other. 
 The Pope Pius V in 1566 sought to exert his influence, and 
 threatened to excommunicate Philip unless Carranza were sent 
 to Rome ; but the great struggle ended at last, practically in 
 
 H. s. Q
 
 130 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 the victory of the Inquisition, for although Gregory XIII con- 
 demned Carranza to only a slight penance, he died an exile 
 from his diocese and from Spain, in May 1576. 
 
 Philip arrived in Spain on the 8th September, 1559, and 
 almost his first act was to mark his personal participation in 
 the effort of the Inquisition to extirpate heresy in Spain. 
 Before his arrival the regent Juana and his son Don Carlos 
 had sat in the great square of Valladolid (21st May, 1559) 
 whilst three Spanish priests and others convicted for heresy 
 were burnt at the stake. The Cortes of Castile were sitting in 
 Valladolid at the time, and a great multitude came from far 
 and near to see the grand sight, the first auto da fe' that had 
 ever been witnessed in state by a prince of the house of Spain. 
 But this show was surpassed when on October i8th Philip 
 himself sat in his splendidly decked balcony opposite the 
 Church of St Martin at Valladolid, surrounded by a great 
 multitude, frantic with joy to see their beloved prince again, 
 and to enjoy a brilliant holiday and obtain the forty days' in- 
 dulgence with which the Church rewarded them for their 
 attendance. In their presence Philip swore solemnly to main- 
 tain the purity of the faith, and to support the Holy Office, and 
 as the condemned wretches passed his balcony on their way 
 to death, one noble, Don Carlos de Sessa, crippled in all his 
 limbs by the tortures he had undergone, demanded of Philip, 
 "as from one gentleman to another," why he had submitted 
 him to such indignity as this. Philip answered him in the 
 ominous words, " If my son were as perverse as you, I myself 
 would carry the fuel to born him." 
 
 It is probable that Philip's object in thus celebrating his 
 return home, was to strengthen the prestige of the tribunal 
 which henceforward was to be used as a main instrument for 
 keeping his country from the civil and religious dissensions, 
 which he saw spreading over the rest of the world. In any 
 case, the attitude he adopted, and even the Inquisition itself, 
 were not unpopular with Spaniards. It must not be forgotten
 
 II.] Philip II, 155 1 — 1560. 131 
 
 that the country had been fighting for many centuries with the 
 enemies of the Christian faith, and that the great majority of 
 Spaniards exulted in the idea that their nation, and especially 
 their monarch, had been selected to make, as they and he 
 thought, common cause with the Almighty for the extirpation 
 of His enemies. 
 
 In the meanwhile Philip's plans for the isolation of 
 England, by the close union of Spain and France, were pro- 
 gressing amidst many difficulties. The two countries had 
 been enemies and rivals for many years, and the deepest 
 distrust still existed between them. The lovely young 
 princess, whom Alba had wedded as the King's proxy, slowly 
 travelled through France, amidst the lamentations and pity of 
 her brother's subjects. Both they and she knew that she was 
 to be handed over as a mere chattel to the Spanish King 
 whom they feared and hated. At the frontier endless ques- 
 tions of etiquette and mutual jealousies had to be settled 
 before she was allowed to cross the Pyrenees, and it was not 
 until the 30th January, 1560, that Philip met his child- wife at 
 Guadalajara. Their first interview was not propitious. Philip 
 was 33, and looked older, with his grave face ; the Queen was 
 only 14 ; and as she gazed in nervous silence at her new 
 husband he asked her roughly whether she was looking for his 
 grey hairs. But they were, withal, well matched, and in a 
 domestic sense the next few years were the happiest in 
 PhiHp's life ; though in his home circle, and with his servants, 
 he was always just, considerate, and beloved. The new 
 Queen fell ill of smallpox immediately after the marriage at 
 Toledo, and regardless of the remonstrances of those who 
 feared for his own health, her husband hardly left her during 
 her long illness and convalescence. Much depended upon 
 her life apparently, especially for her mother. Catharine de 
 Medici, after years of neglect, found herself by the death of 
 her husband practically arbitress of France, and henceforward 
 she meant, if she could, to keep the balance of power in her
 
 132 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 11. 
 
 own hands. For the moment the Guises were paramount, for 
 the Queen-Consort was their niece Mary Stuart, but the 
 Vendomes, the Montmorencys, and the Protestants, were ever 
 on the watch, and if Catharine, through her daughter, could 
 secure a hold upon Philip, she might be mistress of France, 
 whatever faction was uppermost. 
 
 The young Queen was therefore well schooled in her lesson 
 by her clever mother. Her task was to win the cold heart of 
 her husband, at any cost or sacrifice, and to draw the dynasties 
 of Prance and Spain closer together. The Queen played her 
 part with infinite tact and prudence. Almost daily letters from 
 her mother kept her from the natural mistakes of her youth ; 
 and in the inevitable bickerings between the French and 
 Spanish courtiers who surrounded her she so bore herself as to 
 increase her popularity with both parties. Her personal charm 
 compelled the love of all who approached her and she did her 
 best. But circumstances are stronger than individuals and she 
 was sacrificed in vain.
 
 ^35 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PHILIP II, 1560— 1568. 
 
 With the return of Philip to Spain in 1559 may be said to 
 commence the long period of his personal government, which 
 left indelible traces on the history of his country. We have 
 already glanced at his personal limitations, and the exterior 
 problems which he inherited; we will now consider the in- 
 terior condition of Spain itself, in order that we may be able 
 at a later stage to understand the effect of the policy which he 
 inaugurated. The representative institutions of Castile had 
 been undermined by Charles, during whose reign the nobles 
 and clergy were excluded from the Cortes. Under Charles 
 and Phihp the municipal life of the country, which had been 
 so vigorous, was completely destroyed, the corregidores of 
 the towns becoming simply magistrates appointed by the royal 
 authority and subservient to the Council of Castile. The 
 town councils had in former times been the basis of parlia- 
 mentary representation, and with their degradation, and the 
 subsequent corruption introduced, the Cortes became merely 
 an institution for legalising the exactions demanded by the 
 sovereign of the people. The administration of the country 
 was nominally confided to eleven councils, the principal of 
 which were the Council of Slate, the Council of Castile, the 
 Council of Finance, and the Council of War. The first of 
 these had in the earlier reigns practically assumed nearly all 
 the executive power, but under Philip and his father it became
 
 1 34 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 a consultative body of favourites appointed by the King, 
 every subject touching the international relations of the country 
 being submitted to it for infinite discussion and report to 
 the King by the Secretary of State. The Council of Castile 
 was concerned in the administration of justice and the interior 
 government, whilst the functions of the Councils of War and 
 Finance are indicated by their names. Practically, however, 
 every matter was now brought under the consideration of 
 Philip himself. Early and late he toiled at his desk, copiously 
 annotating the reports of the councils brought to him by 
 his secretaries, reading letters and drafting rephes. Matters 
 of the gravest moment were delayed, almost indefinitely, 
 whilst the councils were discussing and rediscussing every 
 aspect of them, and reporting, again and again, to the King. 
 Ambassadors and Viceroys were frequently driven to despair 
 whilst their important letters were left unanswered month after 
 month. Concentrated personal government, which had been 
 the ideal of the Emperor, became a reality under the reign of 
 his son. Men of initiative and power were not sought, or re- 
 quired : the ideal minister was a diligent clerk, and it was part 
 of the system that none but men whom the sovereign had 
 raised from the mire, and who could be cast down again by 
 him should have real power in the central government. The 
 nobles, divested of legislative power, had been encouraged in 
 lavish expenditure about the court. Idleness had sapped their 
 vigour as a class, and during the reign of Phihp their vast 
 entailed estates were heavily overburdened with debt. In 
 pursuance of his invariable system he did his best to promote 
 jealousy and division amongst them; and although the number 
 of small nobles holding seignorial rights over towns was largely 
 increased by the purchase of seignories from Charles and 
 Philip, the Crown lost no opportunity of curtailing their 
 privileges and favouring their vassals in all appeals against 
 them. Only in foreign wars, viceroyalties and diplomacy, did 
 Philip consider it safe to employ great nobles.
 
 III.] Philip II, 1560 — I56<S. 135 
 
 The material condition of the country was positively dis- 
 astrous. The constant demands made by Charles and Philip 
 for vast sums to carry on the foreign wars entailed by the 
 fatal inheritance of the house of Burgundy fell mainly upon 
 commerce and industry. By far the greater part of the land was 
 tied up in possession of the clergy and great nobles, and almost 
 escaped taxation. The clergy, indeed, were exempt from the 
 payment of the dues which fell upon the rest of their country- 
 men, and only intermittently were attempts made, with very 
 limited success, to make them bear any share at all in the 
 national burdens. The nobles were fleeced by forced loans or 
 the imposition of costly missions, but the main revenue of the 
 country was drawn from the alcabalas, a tax of 10 per cent, 
 on the sale value of everything which changed hands by pur- 
 chase. The utter unwisdom of such a tax is obvious, and 
 was luridly exemplified when Alba tried to impose it upon 
 the Netherlands. Attempts were made to counteract its dis- 
 astrous effects in Spain, by eliminating the middleman, by the 
 placing of restrictions of all sorts upon the resale of goods, 
 especially provisions (an innkeeper, for instance, not being 
 allowed to sell the food he cooked for his customers), by the 
 arbitrary limitation of prices by decree, by the establishment 
 of municipal pre-emption, and the like. In addition to this 
 suicidal source of revenue (the alcabalas), there were the King's 
 share or royalty of the silver and gold remittances from the 
 Indies, import and export duties upon goods, varying wth 
 the commercial theory of the moment, the sisas, a tax upon 
 certain articles of food (which afterwards developed into the 
 detested excise called the " millions "), the sale of titles and 
 oftices, the revenue from the sale of indulgences granted by 
 the Pope and known by the name of the cruzada, the State 
 monopoly of salt, etc. and the revenues from the royal 
 patrimony. To add to the oppressive nature of the taxation 
 it was usually farmed out for years ahead, in return for loans 
 at ruinous rates from Genoese, German or Flemish bankers.
 
 136 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 In these circumstances the chronic scarcity of currency is 
 not to be wondered at. The temporary flash of prosperity in 
 the cloth and silk weaving industries, which the sudden demand 
 from the colonies had caused, was already on the wane when 
 Philip came back to Spain. The a/cabalas, added to the heavy 
 municipal tolls, had so hampered the interior traffic, and 
 conjointly with other causes had so greatly raised the price of 
 textiles, that it was found impossible to compete with foreign 
 cloth. It had been sought in 1 549 to prevent the further rise 
 in prices by prohibiting the weaving of finer cloths, so as to 
 turn all hands to the textures required by the common people. 
 It happened that the finer qualities were the only kinds in 
 which the Spaniard could still hold his own for the foreign 
 market, and the export trade that remained was ruined. This 
 was seen in the following years, and the prohibition was with- 
 drawn. At one time an attempt was made to cheapen prices by 
 allowing the free introduction of textiles from abroad, whilst 
 native goods were handicapped with all sorts of restrictions. 
 At another time export was encouraged; but the measure came 
 too late, and by the time of Philip's return nearly all the finer 
 and more costly goods used in Spain and the Indies were of 
 foreign make. Every nostrum was adopted to reduce the cost 
 of production and to promote manufacture, except the obvious 
 one of relieving industry from the crushing burden of unpro- 
 ductive taxation, and from the trammels which impeded the 
 circulation of food and manufactured goods. The constant 
 drain upon the population through foreign wars and emigration 
 to the Indies, the enormous number of ecclesiastics, and the 
 discouragement of industrial pursuits, which, moreover, came 
 to be looked upon, in Castile at least, as undignified, naturally 
 produced a consideral^le diminution in the number of valid 
 citizens, both in town and country, for agriculture was as 
 much hampered by the alcabalas as any other industry; and 
 the whole population of Spain at the beginning of Philip's 
 reign certainly did not exceed eight million souls, although in
 
 III.] Philip I J, 1560 — 1568. 137 
 
 ancient times the number of its inhabitants must have been 
 much greater. PhiHp's only remedy for the crushing dis- 
 tress of his people was to make of himself a benevolent but 
 purblind providence. His one idea of government consisted 
 in the abject subservience of all men to him, whilst he laboured 
 like a very slave, settling, down to the smallest detail, everything 
 which he thought would be for the benefit of his people. The 
 nation gave him credit for all his laborious good intentions in 
 its behalf, and loved him accordingly; but it credited him 
 with a wisdom which he did not possess. No country in the 
 world has ever been so completely ruined as Spain was by the 
 avoidable faults and follies of its governors. 
 
 When Philip met the Cortes at Toledo in 1560, one of the 
 subjects upon which they pressed him most was the desolation 
 and ignominy suffered all along his coasts by the insolent 
 incursions of Moorish pirates. He could only answer that 
 he was doing his best. The position of Spain — even of 
 Christianity — in the Mediterranean was, in fact, hanging in 
 the balance. When in 1558 Paul IV and the King of France 
 had invoked the aid of the Turk, a hundred galleys from 
 Constantinople under Piali Pasha, with the famous Barbary 
 pirate Dragut Reis, had scourged the coasts of Sicily and 
 Naples, overrun Minorca, attacked Nice, and captured Tripoli, 
 which belonged to the Knights of St John of Malta. After 
 Philip had made peace, the Grand-Master begged him for 
 help to recover the fortress. Philip was told that the enter- 
 prise would be easy, and he consented. Medina Celi, his 
 Viceroy of Sicily, was to command the Spanish force, and 
 Doria the galleys. Delay after delay was experienced in organ- 
 ising the force. Philip's system of doing everything himself 
 was already paralysing his administration ; but at last, in 
 November 1559, a force of 12,000 men was assembled at 
 Messina. The Grand-Master had originally made promptitude 
 a condition of success, but six months had passed, and whilst 
 Philip was tardily sending cautious dispatches to his officers,
 
 138 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 the Turk was crowding the Mediterranean with great galleys, 
 and Dragut Reis was on the alert. Before the Spanish fleet 
 sailed, 3000 of the men in it had died or deserted, the food 
 was rotten, the water scarce, and the crews mutinied as soon as 
 they left port. The fleet reached Malta on the loth January, 
 1560, and shipped fresh men and provisions, sailing thence, 
 100 sail, a month afterwards. They captured the small island 
 of Los Gelves in the Gulf of Khabes, but the day afterwards 
 a fleet of 74 Turkish galleys full of janizaries, with 12 others 
 under Dragut, from Tripoli, appeared. Medina Celi and 
 young John Andrea Doria lost their heads. A hideous panic 
 ensued in the Spanish fleet. The commanders fled shame- 
 fully, and 65 vessels and 5000 men fell into the hands of the 
 infidel. The Spaniards entrenched on the island of Gelves, 
 8000 brave fellows, almost without provisions, stood out 
 against terrible odds for six weeks, under Alvaro de Sande, 
 and then all that were left of them, about 1000, stood starved 
 and naked in the breach, to be slaughtered by the victors or 
 carried to Constantinople to a less worthy fate. 
 
 The blow was a terrible one for the Spanish power. The 
 only considerable Christian force in the Mediterranean had dis- 
 appeared, and the victorious Moslem was practically supreme. 
 By a great effort, and on borrowed money, Philip managed in 
 the following year, 1561, to send out a fresh fleet of 70 hired 
 galleys to face the Turk, and restrain his incursions ; but the 
 whole force was scattered, and mostly lost, before it left the 
 Spanish coast, and the complete domination of the Mediter- 
 ranean by the Turk appeared inevitable. 
 
 For the next three years the struggle dragged on. The 
 coasts of Spain and Italy were ravaged almost with impunity, 
 the Spanish fortresses on the north coast of Africa especially 
 being the object of attack. At Mers-el-Kebir in the spring of 
 1563 the little Spanish garrison of 200 held out for months 
 against a Turkish force of 20,000, and although they were 
 almost within sight of the Spanish coast, so cumbrous was
 
 m.J Philip II, 1560 — 1568. 139 
 
 Philip's administration that it took over two months before 
 any relief could reach them. In the autumn of 1564 Don 
 Garcia de Toledo managed to capture Penon de los Velez, 
 one of the principal nests of pirates in the kingdom of Fez. 
 But withal the Constantinople Turk was untouched, and it 
 was known that he was fitting out a great expedition which 
 was to capture Malta, and finally crush Christian predominance 
 in the Mediterranean. The Grand Master of St John, a 
 Frenchman named Parisot de la Valette, appealed to Philip 
 to save Christendom from the calamity which threatened it. 
 There was no one else to whom he could appeal. France 
 was powerless in the face of its religious dissensions, besides 
 which it had always been the friend of the Turk against Spain : 
 the Emperor had neither money nor galleys, and the Pope, 
 Pius IV, could do but little and was on bad terms with Philip. 
 The occasion was pressing, but no hurry could be expected 
 from Philip. His treasury as usual was empty, his own 
 kingdom of Naples was almost in open revolt against the 
 dreaded Inquisition ; and clamour as Parisot might, aid from 
 Spain would come, it seemed, too late, if it came at all. 
 Before the end of his reign Philip's system had paralysed all 
 his subordinates, but at this time (1565) it had not yet entirely 
 crushed them. Don Garcia de Toledo, the Viceroy of Sicily, 
 was nearer to the danger than his master was, and soundly, 
 almost rudely, rated the slow methods of the King in so great 
 a crisis. The Turks, he knew, would not wait whilst Philip 
 was pondering, and he took the matter in his own hands so 
 far as he was able. Sicily and Corsica were scoured for men 
 to replace the Spanish troops to be sent to Malta; the coasts 
 of his Viceroyalty and of Naples were prepared for defence ; 
 reinforcements were sent to the Grand-Master, and by the 
 time that Piali Pasha and Dragut Reis appeared before Malta 
 with 100,000 men (19th May, 1565) there were 10,000 
 Christian soldiers on the island. The brunt of the Turkish 
 attack fell upon the isolated fort of St Elmo, with a garrison
 
 140 Spain: its greatness and dcxay. [Chap. 
 
 of 600 men. As the defenders fell, their places were filled 
 up with the best troops from the main island. After a month 
 of ceaseless battery the Turks stormed the fort, and found only 
 nine of the Christian defenders left alive. 
 
 The island, closely beleaguered, short-handed, and stricken 
 with famine, still held out gallantly. Fresh prayers went forth 
 from the Grand-Master to distant Philip, and to determined 
 Toledo. Strong swimmers bore beyond the Turkish galleys 
 beseeching letters, saying that for twenty days more at most the 
 garrison could hold out, and after that the infidel must rule the 
 Mediterranean. Sixteen thousand cannon-shots had been fired 
 at the Christian forts in one month, and the end was now in 
 view. All Christendom looked on aghast whilst Philip was 
 spending his time in processions, fasts, and rogations, for the 
 delivery of Malta. Don Garcia' s activity to some extent made 
 up for his master's tardiness, and, mainly owing to his continued 
 help, Malta was still able to hold out month after month. A 
 relief squadron of 28 galleys and 10,000 men was finally col- 
 lected in Sicily. Tempest scattered it again and again, and it 
 was September 1565 before it approached Malta. The defenders 
 of the island had reached their last hope, but the appearance 
 of the relief gave them new life. Don Garcia himself came 
 with a second reinforcement of men and stores, and the Turks 
 began to lose heart. A last attempt was made to storm the 
 stronghold and failed ; then they abandoned the siege, one 
 of the most terrible in history, and the Christian power in the 
 Mediterranean was saved ; thanks mainly to the heroism of 
 the Knights and the Grand-Master Parisot de la Valette. 
 
 In the meanwhile Philip was, by every means in his power, 
 strengthening his favourite tribunal, the Inquisition. His 
 attempt to introduce it in the Spanish form in Naples nearly 
 lost him the realm, and even in Spain some opposition was 
 manifested. In his address to the Castilian Cortes in February 
 1563, he rejoiced that owing to the aid and favour he had 
 shown to the Holy Oftice, "not only had the evil (i.e. heresy)
 
 in.] Philip II, 1560 — 1568. 141 
 
 which had shown itself in the realm been extirpated, but such 
 precautions had been taken, that it was hoped, by God's help, 
 it would remain in future in true and pure obedience to the 
 Catholic faith and the Roman Church." In the reply of the 
 Cortes complaints were made of the abuses of the ecclesiastical 
 judges, to the detriment of the ordinary judicial procedure, 
 and the utilisation as evidence of the private reports of friars. 
 The King's retort to this was, simply, that no change was 
 desirable. 
 
 As usual, however, the Aragonese Cortes in the following 
 year was much more outspoken. The members were fractious 
 about the interference of the Castilians in their affairs. But, 
 as Philip had told the Castilian Cortes, "the ordinary revenues 
 were nearly all sold and pawned, the past and present 
 supplies voted by the Cortes all spent, and every possible 
 source of revenue consumed and anticipated, so that tiie 
 King had nothing whatever with which to meet the ordinary 
 expenditure for guarding the frontiers, the maintenance of the 
 royal establishment, and the payment of necessary salaries." 
 He therefore had to put up with some bold speaking from 
 the Aragonese, who understood "grievance first." But when 
 they roundly attacked the Inquisition an explosion nearly 
 resulted. The ministers of the Holy Office, they said, 
 committed all sorts of abuses and injustice, interfered in 
 matters not relating to the faith, secured immunity for 
 misdeeds, by appointing crowds of nominal familiars, who 
 were absolved from civil jurisdiction ; and much else of 
 the same sort. Philip endeavoured to shelve the question as 
 usual ; but the Aragonese would have no evasion. Philip fell 
 ill with rage, but in the end promised that an official enquiry 
 should be instituted by Aragonese officers : and the effect was 
 that, after long negociations, an Act was agreed to in 1568, 
 which, so far as Aragon was concerned, remedied some of the 
 encroachments of the ecclesiastical tribunal in civil causes. 
 But it went sorely against Philip's grain, and the French
 
 142 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 ambassador wrote at the time to Catharine de Medici, that he 
 meant on the first opportunity "to cut their claws, and Umit 
 the privileges which made them so insolent, and almost free." 
 
 That Philip's plans in strengthening the Inquisition were 
 understood, is clear from the remark in another letter from 
 the same ambassador. "The King intends," he wrote, 
 " principally to establish obedience to him by means of the 
 Inquisition ; " and soon the Church itself took fright at the 
 power of the Holy Office. The Council of Trent, after many 
 years' suspension, had met again in 1562. The French and 
 German bishops endeavoured to unite Christendom by pro- 
 posing radical reforms in the Church. They proposed that 
 priests should be allowed to marry, and that the sacrament 
 might be administered in two kinds. Perhaps this encouraged 
 the Spanish bishops, or the persecution of the primate Cai ranza 
 may have shown them that there was no safety even for pre- 
 lates. They had been willing to aid the sovereign to strengthen 
 his power over the Church, but when it meant placing their own 
 lives at the mercy of an institution working for civil ends, it was 
 another matter, and they sought in the Council of Trent to 
 extend the papal control over the Inquisition. Philip haughtily 
 forbade the subject to be mentioned in the Council, and his 
 ambassador Vargas asked the Pope, Pius IV (Medici), to 
 prevent the Council of Trent from interfering in any way. 
 There were limits even to the patience of Pius IV, and he 
 remonstrated with Philip for his meddling, whereupon the 
 pontiff was arrogantly scolded by Vargas. Matters became 
 more and more embittered. "Never was a Pope so ill treated 
 before, as he had been by the King of Spain and his min- 
 isters," said Pius. " In Spain you all want to be Popes, and 
 to bring the King into everything. The King may be King of 
 Spain, but whilst I Uve I will be Pope." Philip threatened to 
 withdraw Vargas, and the Pope retorted that he would cancel 
 the right of selling the crusade bulls, from which Philip drew a 
 considerable revenue. The religious settlement in France
 
 iir.] Philip II, 1560 — 1568. 143 
 
 however caused many of the French bishops to return home, 
 and by bribes and threats Philip once more got the upper 
 hand in the Council of Trent. But withal, a decision was 
 arrived at which seemed distantly to infringe upon his omni- 
 potence over the Spanish Church. It gave the right to 
 provincial synods, and (as a last resource) to the Pope, to 
 enquire into the moral character of the recipients of benefices 
 in Spain. Philip's ambassador called such resolutions "works 
 of the devil;" and for over a year the decisions of the 
 Council of Trent were not allowed to be promulgated in Spain. 
 When they were finally published it was with the saving clause 
 that nothing in them should infringe upon the King's rights 
 over the clergy, the benefices, or the tithes. 
 
 The position in the Netherlands grew more and more 
 threatening as time went on. The want of sympathy between 
 the sovereign and the people had begun the breach ; and 
 Philip took no trouble to mend it. He was rigid and un- 
 adaptable, as beseemed a man who thought he was the chosen 
 instrument of the Almighty for promoting His cause. He had 
 probably no desire to offend the Flemings at first, but for him 
 there was only one possible way to govern, and if the Flemings 
 were blind enough to dislike it, that was their misfortune. 
 That he or his system could be wrong was of course out 
 of the question. The presence of the Spanish troops in 
 Flanders galled the Flemings, and the rough demand of the 
 States that they should be withdrawn hardened Philip's heart; 
 besides he had no money to pay them, and without their 
 wages they would not budge. It was only by using the first 
 half of his French wife's dowry of 400,000 ducats that the 
 troops were sent away partially satisfied early in 1561. But by 
 this time the evil seed was sown, and Philip was reminded in 
 every letter from Flanders of the rights which he had sworn to 
 uphold in the several States. Most of the unpopularity fell 
 upon de Granvelle, a foreigner, who returned the dislike of the 
 Flemings with interest, and in pursuance of Philip's system
 
 144 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 only consulted the Flemish Council when it pleased him. 
 Orange, Egmont and other nobles, resented this, and wrote 
 remonstrating with Philip, who returned a temporising answer 
 only after long delay, when matters had gone too far for 
 conciliatory words alone and the hate towards de Granvelle 
 had become deep and general. The Regent Margaret to 
 some extent sympathised with her countrymen, and had no 
 desire to share in de Granvelle's unpopularity. When, conse- 
 quently, Orange begged her to summon the States General, 
 which she could not do against de Granvelle's advice, she 
 consented to call together the Knights of the Golden Fleece, 
 or, in effect, the higher nobility of Flanders. The pretext of 
 the assembly was a demand on the part of Philip that troops 
 should be raised to aid the Catholic party then in arms in 
 France. It was soon evident that the nobles would not trust 
 de Granvelle with troops, and the Regent hurriedly dismissed 
 the assembly. 
 
 Soon the religious element began to ferment. Prosperous, 
 industrious Hainault had largely imbibed Calvinism from its 
 French neighbours. This, said Philip, must be put down 
 sternly. But the Flemish ministers refused to carry out 
 Margaret's orders and torture their fellow-countrymen, in 
 defiance of their provincial rights. Margaret threatened and 
 imprisoned the magistrates ; the people of Valenciennes took 
 the matter into their own hands, broke open the prisons, and 
 set the accused free. Philip and Margaret were indignant, 
 but the Marquis of Berghes, the Governor of Hainault, was a 
 great Flemish noble, and refused to allow any infringement 
 of the rights of the people. Upon him de Granvelle cast 
 the responsibility, whilst Egmont, Orange and Horn ceaselessly 
 blamed the unpopular Cardinal, and urged the King to dismiss 
 him. Philip was cool and temporising, as was his wont, but 
 Alba stormed at the insolence of the Flemish nobles. " Every 
 time I read their letters," he told the King, " I fall into such a 
 rage that if I did not make a great effort to control myself
 
 III.] Philip 11, 1560 — 156S. 145 
 
 your Majesty would think me frantic " ; and de Granvelle 
 fanned the flame by assuring the King that " they wanted to 
 reduce the country to a sort of republic, in which the King can 
 do no more than they like." The Regent herself told her 
 brother that if de Granvelle were maintained against the will of 
 nobles and people a revolution would result. Philip stood out 
 for a time, but at last, with an elaborate pretence of reluctance, 
 he • hinted to Granvelle that a short temporary absence on 
 pretext of family affairs would be advisable. De Granvelle 
 left Flanders in the spring of 1564, to the open joy of all classes, 
 from the Regent downwards, and, though he did not suspect it 
 at the time, he was allowed to return to Flanders no more. 
 He had, however, only been a scapegoat, and Philip's policy 
 was not varied a hairbreadth in consequence of his departure. 
 
 The King was full of kind words and soft assurances to 
 Egmont, who went to see him in Madrid, but he had even now 
 made up his mind to break the spirit of the stubborn Flemings, 
 and stamp out once for all the talk about the rights and 
 privileges which he had sworn to respect. " For the interests of 
 God and his Majesty," — now the invariable formula, — Flanders 
 must be governed like Spain, and that was enough. Thousands 
 of industrious citizens were flocking across to England, taking 
 their looms with them, and English Protestants looked more 
 bitterly than ever upon Philip and all his works. Holland 
 and Zeeland were full of Lutherans, who were determined to 
 stand to their faith ; and Margaret told her brother plainly 
 that she was powerless to coerce them, for, she said, " the 
 governors of the provinces will not allow me to cast 60,000 or 
 70,000 people into the flames." Hitherto the resistance had 
 come mainly from the great nobles. Catholics to a man, who 
 had merely asserted the time-honoured constitution of the 
 States. But now Protestants like St Aldegonde and others 
 swore to resist the proceedings of the Inquisition, and to stand 
 up against " the gang of strangers " ; and then the little 
 gentlemen and burghers under Brederode threw down the 
 H. s. 10
 
 146 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 gauntlet, and the " beggars " were born at that sottish ban- 
 quet at the house of Culemburg (April, 1566), to be quelled no 
 more till the country which their own fathers had rescued 
 from the sea was free from the Spaniard for evermore. 
 
 The great nobles hung back now — all but Orange, who 
 bode his time in spite of Philip's blandishments — but Protestant 
 fervour and national patriotism blazed out irresistibly. The 
 Regent was powerless ; she could not punish all Flanders, and 
 she ceaselessly urged gentler methods upon her brother. His 
 action at this juncture was characteristic of him. He authorised 
 Margaret to suppress the Inquisition and pardon the con- 
 federates ; and with soft words tried to win Orange to his side. 
 And then a week later he suddenly threw off the mask; signed 
 a solemn declaration that he was not bound by his promise, 
 and swore that he would rather lose his dominions and a 
 hundred lives, if he had them, than allow any backsliding in 
 religion ; " for I will never be a ruler of heretics." Then began 
 the tumults, the wrecking of Catholic churches, the desecration 
 of shrines, the mob violence which dismayed the Regent. 
 The Catholic nobles did their best to stem the tide of disorder, 
 the Regent made such concessions as she dared ; but Alba in 
 Madrid was fuming with rage at Philip's slowness in crushing 
 such insolence under the iron heel. At length Orange reverted 
 to the Protestant faith of his fathers, openly sided with the 
 revolted Flemings, and promised to lead the cause of reform 
 when the time came. The tumults ceased as if by magic. 
 Orange had gone to Germany to raise his forces, and the cry 
 went out that he had abandoned the cause. The Protestants 
 lost heart. Thousands of them fled to England, many sub- 
 mitted, and many others suffered martyrdom. Margaret 
 entered Antwerp in state, and all rejoiced but those who were 
 led to the stake for the sake of " God and his Majesty." But 
 the calm did not deceive Philip. He knew that Orange was in 
 earnest, and that to make Flanders a province of Spain he 
 must utterly crush the national feeling and the nobles who led
 
 III.] Philip II, 1560 — 1568. 147 
 
 it. So he determined to go himself, with Alba by his side, to 
 conduct the operation. At least he announced his intention 
 of doing so, and fitted out a great fleet for the purpose. All 
 was quiet now, said Margaret, and no more punishment was 
 needed. In that case, replied Philip, he would come person- 
 ally to thank those who had brought about so happy a change. 
 When all was ready, and the force collected, no longer an 
 escort, but an avenging army, it was decided that Alba should 
 go alone. In vain Margaret protested. The Duke, she said, 
 was so detested that his mere coming would make all Spaniards 
 hated. She threatened to retire if Alba came, and she was 
 allowed to do so, with every sign of disgrace. Europe under- 
 stood now what was to be expected, and Protestants of all 
 nationalities closed their ranks, in face of what was seen to 
 portend a systematic attempt to crush religious freedom 
 throughout Christendom. Alba left Spain in April 1567, to 
 march through Italy on his fell errand to the Netherlands. 
 Alba and the fanatic churchmen had for once overborne in 
 Philip's councils the peace party of Ruy Gomez and the mild 
 remonstrances of the Marquis of Berghes and Florence de 
 Montmorenci, lord of Montigny, two Flemish nobles who had 
 been sent to Madrid on behalf of their countrymen, and who 
 were on various pretexts detained there. But the determina- 
 tion adopted by Philip was not carried out without considerable 
 friction amongst his councillors; and the departure of Alba 
 gave rise to an incident which culminated in the greatest 
 domestic sorrow of the King's life. His only son Don Carlos 
 (born 8th July, 1545) had always been stunted and malformed 
 in figure, imperfect in speech, and vacant in mind, but his 
 prospects made him the greatest match in Europe. Catharine 
 de Medici had secretly instructed her daughter Elizabeth, 
 when she had gone to marry Philip in 1560, to endeavour to 
 bring about a marriage between Carlos and Elizabeth's sister 
 Margaret, who was afterwards the famous wife of Henry of 
 Navarre. 'Phis was in order to prevent the Emperor Maximilian
 
 148 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 from getting the heir of Spain for his daughter, which would 
 have been distinctly against French interests. Every Cortes 
 for years past had urged that Carlos should be married, and 
 the succession assured ; and French and Austrian intrigue was 
 busy, but to all approaches Philip replied with bland evasion. 
 
 The best match for his policy would unquestionably have 
 been that with the widowed Mary Stuart, for by this means 
 Scotland and England, too, might have fallen again under 
 Spanish influence. But tempting even as this was, when pro- 
 posed on Mary's behalf, L-efore she drifted into marriage with 
 Darnley, Philip neglected to seize it. Rumours began to run 
 that Carlos was neither physically nor mentally in a condition 
 for marriage. He had been brought up by his aunt, the widow 
 Dona Juana, to whom he was extravagantly attached ; and 
 when Elizabeth of Valois found she could not get him for 
 her sister, she endeavoured to bring about his marriage with 
 his aunt, and the Cortes of 1563 addressed the King in favour 
 of the match. Exactly a year before (April 1562) Carlos had 
 accidentally fallen down a flight of stone steps at Alcala and 
 had suff"ered a concussion of the brain. He was unskilfully 
 treated by the doctors, ghastly superstitions were resorted to 
 instead of proper surgical treatment, and he lay unconscious, 
 blind and partially paralysed, until an Italian surgeon trepanned 
 him, and he then apparently recovered. He was a congenital 
 epileptic before : he now became at intervals a lunatic. His 
 hatred of his father was intense, whilst his attachment to his 
 aunt and his stepmother was an infatuation. He was a prey to 
 constant fever and agues. As he grew up his mad humours 
 became more unrestrained and unconcealable, until his violent 
 and disgraceful behaviour, even in the street, provoked public 
 scandal. He respected neither age nor rank, and attempted to 
 murder his Governor Don Garcia de Toledo, Cardinal Espinosa, 
 the Inquisitor-General, and many other persons of high degree. 
 At last Ruy Gomez, Philip's dearest friend, was appointed his 
 Governor. It is quite probable that he may have instilled into
 
 III.] Philip II, 1560 — 1568. 149 
 
 the Prince his views as to the advisabiUty of a conciliatory 
 policy with the Flemings, and it is certain that some sort 
 of communication was addressed to him by the Flemish nobles 
 then in the Spanish Court, though the often made assertion 
 that he embraced the Protestant views appears to rest on no 
 solid foundation. In any case he was violently bent upon 
 accompanying his father to Flanders, and when he found that 
 Alba was to go alone his fury passed all bounds, and he 
 attempted to stab the Duke when he went to bid him farewell, 
 and shrieked that he, and not the Duke, must go to Flanders. 
 From that time his father was estranged from him, and his 
 conduct grew worse and worse. At Christmas 1567, he spoke 
 wildly to his young half-uncle, Don Juan of Austria, about 
 escaping from Spain and killing a man with whom he had 
 ({uarrelled, and in the confessional the Prior of the Atocha 
 drew from him the avowal that the man was his father. Word 
 was sent to Philip at the Escorial, and the Prince was closely 
 watched. In the middle of January 1568 he made arrange- 
 ments for flight. Suspecting that Don Juan had betrayed him, 
 he tried to kill him, and on the same night (18 January) 
 Philip himself, dressed in armour, entered his son's room with 
 his guards and arrested his son. Through all the bitter trial 
 Philip had never lost his marble serenity, but his pride and 
 domestic affection, for he was a fond and loving father, must 
 have been pierced to the heart. He made the mistake of 
 trying to hide the real cause of the arrest by vague generalities, 
 but the case was too important to be glozed over, and gossip 
 soon became rife throughout Europe. Henceforward Carlos 
 was kept in close confinement. Neither his aunt nor his 
 stepmother was allowed to see him. Some sort of trial or 
 examination of him dragged on for months, and Philip's many 
 enemies were busy with rumours that the Inquisition were to 
 sacrifice him for heresy. There is however no evidence that 
 this was the case ; and certainly those best likely to know 
 do not suggest it. Positive it is that the Prince's madness
 
 150 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 grew. He often refused food for days together or swallowed 
 inedible substances. On 21st July, 1568, the French Ambas- 
 sador wrote that he was dying of weakness. " The King," 
 he says, " is much grieved because if he die the world will 
 talk." 
 
 The next day the Prince died. Philip's bitter foes — and 
 particularly the traitor Antonio Perez — positively stated that 
 Carlos was murdered by the King's orders. The whole balance 
 of evidence, however, goes to show that he died of his own 
 maniacal aberrations. On the 3rd October in the same year 
 Philip's third wife, Elizabeth of Valois, died in childbed, 
 through the unskilfulness of the Spanish physicians, leaving 
 Philip with two children, both girls, to whom he was devotedly 
 attached, as he had been to their mother. Henceforward till 
 the hour of his death the elder of these two children, Isabel 
 Clara Eugenia, was his chosen companion and solace through 
 all his trouble — and he had a greater share than falls to the 
 lot of most men — borne with the dignified patience that was to 
 be expected from one who sincerely believed that the Almighty 
 was working through him for His own inscrutable ends. 
 Once only during her married life was the object for which 
 Elizabeth of Valo was sent to Spam within reach of ac- 
 complishment. When the English Queen and the Huguenots 
 began to draw closer and aid the Protestant Flemings, Philip 
 arranged an interview between his wife and her mother (1565) 
 in order to bind Catharine hard and fast to the Catholic cause. 
 Elizabeth of England at once met this by close professions of 
 friendship to France, and opened negotiations for her marriage 
 with Charles IX. When Alba made it clear to Catharine at 
 Bayonne that she would have to pledge herself to exterminate 
 Protestantism root and branch in France, she saw that the 
 terms would not suit her ; and though she affected to consent, 
 she brought forward new conditions which made the arrange- 
 ment impossible, and it fell to the ground. By the time that 
 his third wife died, therefore, Philip recognised that he would
 
 III.] Philip II, 1560— 1568. 151 
 
 have to face and destroy religious reform alone, throughout the 
 world, or be himself destroyed. Even now, a policy of tolera- 
 tion and the abandonment of his fetish of centralisation of 
 power would have enabled him to become friendly with 
 England ; and he and his country might have been saved from 
 ruin. But his slow mind was incapable of initiating policies. 
 He had inherited his system, as he had inherited the difficulties 
 which his system could not conquer ; and all he could do was 
 to plod on laboriously, a slave to duty, in the besotted certainty 
 that he could not fail in the long run, because, forsooth, his 
 cause and that of the Almighty were indissolubly linked to- 
 gether.
 
 152 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PHILIP II, 1568 — I 581. 
 
 Though Philip might boast that the Inquisition had abso- 
 lutely cleared Spain of the virus of Protestantism, he had 
 religious questions of another sort to deal with in his own 
 country. On the capture of Granada full religious toleration 
 had been promised to the Moors, but the bigoted zeal of the 
 churchmen had subsequently prevailed, and uniformity of faith 
 and customs had gradually been forced upon the Spanish citi- 
 zens of Moorish descent. Nearly all the south of Spain was 
 inhabited by peoples of pure or mixed Moorish blood; 
 industrious, thrifty, and peaceable, outwardly conforming 
 to the Christian faith, garb and manners, but to a great 
 extent secretly following in the footsteps of their forefathers. 
 They were in gradual process of amalgamation, and if they had 
 been left alone they would in time have been merged in the 
 rest of the population. Their thrift and industry, however, 
 were a source of jealousy to the Christians, who constantly 
 accused them of sympathising with the Turk in the Mediter- 
 ranean, which they probably did. Some of the Emperor's 
 edicts against them had been allowed to fall into abeyance 
 during his long absence, but as soon as Philip returned to 
 Spain the Cortes began to clamour for fresh restrictions on 
 the Moriscos. First, in 1560, the importation of slaves from 
 Africa was forbidden. In 1563 the Moriscos were prohibited 
 from possessing arms, an enactment which caused much 
 discontent. When Cardinal Espinosa became a power at 
 court, and was made Inquisitor-General, the systematic
 
 Chap. I v.] Philip 11, 1 5 68 — 1581 153 
 
 oppression of the poor people was commenced. In 1567 ihey 
 were forbidden to wear any distinctive garb, and the women 
 were to appear with their faces uncovered. They were not 
 allowed to have locks to their doors, their warm baths were 
 made illegal ; and above all, they might use no other language 
 but Castilian, and acknowledge no other faith but the 
 Christian. 
 
 All this was to be enforced with brutal penalties, thanks 
 to the efforts of Espinosa in Madrid, and Deza — afterwards 
 Cardinal — in Granada. In vain the Ruy Gomez party pro- 
 tested and expostulated ; in vain the Marquis of Mondejar, 
 the governor of Granada, pointed out the impossibility of 
 carrying out such decrees suddenly ; the churchmen would 
 have no half-measures, and at length (Christmas, 1568) the 
 inevitable storm burst. Up in the savage Alpujarras the 
 revolt against the edict was first organised. A youth named 
 Aben Humeya, said to have been a descendant of the prophet, 
 was proclaimed King of Granada, and appeals for aid were 
 sent to Barbary and Constantinople. On the night of 26th 
 December, 1568, the mountain Moors suddenly pounced upon 
 sleeping Granada, and called upon the men of their race to 
 strike against the tyrant. Sacking, plundering and desecrating 
 the Christian shrines, the mountaineers swept through the 
 city; but the large Morisco population, cowed by terror, made 
 no move. Through the fertile plain of Granada the revolu- 
 tionaries passed without resistance, carrying torture and murder 
 with them. Blazing villages and murdered country folk — 
 three thousand of them on the Vega of Granada alone — rapine 
 and ruin over all the smiling land, told once more of the 
 irresistible blood-lust of the slave rising against his oppressor. 
 Through all Andalucia the fever for freedom spread, and 
 centuries of hale were concentrated in a week of slaughter. 
 The governor of Granada (Mondejar) raised what force he 
 could, and defeated the revolutionists in the pass of Alfajarali ; 
 and then the massacre began on the other side. The Marquis
 
 1 54 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 de los Velez with another hastily mustered force set out in the 
 early spring of 1569 on a mission of massacre. Slaughter 
 without pity or distinction of age or sex was the order of the 
 day, until slaughter itself palled. On one occasion Velez's 
 soldiers killed 6000 women and children in the course of a few 
 hours, and kept 4000 more as slaves. Soon the Spanish force 
 became demoralised and began to melt away, breaking up 
 into separate bands devoted to private plunder. 
 
 Deza in the meanwhile sent constant complaints to Madrid 
 of the moderation of the governor (Mondejar) and it was 
 decided to send thither the brilliant young natural son of 
 Charles V, Don Juan of Austria. He had been brought up in 
 the tenets of Ruy Gomez and Secretary Antonio Perez, and it 
 was no doubt hoped that he would smooth matters over. He 
 was however dashing, ambitious, and romantic; and diplomacy 
 was not his strong point. He was sent to Granada in 1569 
 with strict orders to take no personal part in the mountain 
 warfare, but to report diligently to Philip the real position of 
 affairs. He began to chafe at his mission as soon as it began 
 and begged for more active work, only to be told that he 
 must obey orders. The remedy of the bigoted churchmen was 
 to expel every person of Moorish blood from Granada, and 
 the distasteful task fell to Don Juan. Thirteen thousand of 
 them, mostly quite innocent of participation in the risings, were 
 sent to labour in the galleys or the mines, or more mercifully 
 hanged, whilst the women and children were sent to slavery 
 in frowning Castile. Beautiful Granada was ruined, and 
 Mondejar's heart well-nigh broken ; but Deza, Espinosa and 
 the other churchmen had no pity. In the meanwhile the 
 revolutionists in the mountains were weakened by dissensions ; 
 Aben Humeya was murdered, and a stout blow struck now 
 would have ended the revolt. But los Velez's force had be- 
 come simply a mob of marauders, unpaid and mutinous, and 
 no service could be expected from them. At last Philip Hstened 
 to the prayers of his brother, and gave him a free hand.
 
 IV.] Philip II, 1568— 1 58 1. 155 
 
 Round the one regiment of veterans he grouped a fresh force, 
 his energy and popularity more than supplying his want of 
 experience. AVith 13,000 men he besieged Galera and took 
 it by assault on the i6th February, 1570. Once more massacre 
 and pillage demoralised the Spanish force, and only a few days 
 later the victors were routed by an absurdly inferior force 
 of Moors at Seron and became once more an uncontrollable 
 rabble. But the rising now was practically at an end, and the 
 Moors sued for terms. Don Juan himself advocated an agree- 
 ment, and begged for clemency for the vanquished. But the 
 fanatics would not hear of it, and to Don Juan's indignation he 
 was ordered to expel from Andalucia — the smiling land which 
 their forefathers' labour for centuries past had turned into a 
 garden — every soul who bore the taint of Moorish blood. To 
 slavery or death, without truce or mercy, the poor creatures 
 were driven forth. " It is," wrote Don Juan to Ruy Gomez, 
 " the saddest sight imaginable to see the depopulation of a 
 whole kingdom," but notwithstanding his protests, by the end 
 of 1570 the patient, thrifty, industrious Morisco citizens of 
 Andalucia had left their native land, and with them had gone 
 for many a long year its productiveness and prosperity. 
 
 Calamity crowded on Spain from every side, and each 
 Cortes in succession pressed upon the King the utterly ex- 
 hausted condition of the country. Alba's policy of blood and 
 fire in Flanders drained Spain both of men and money. 
 Privateers, or pirates who claimed to be such, English, 
 Huguenot, and Flemish, crowded tlie seas, and almost annihi- 
 lated Spanish shipping. The Turk was busy in the Mediter- 
 ranean, and Philip was at his wits' end for money. The 
 Cortes of Castile in 1566 plucked up courage to protest 
 against the imposition of fresh burdens without parliamentary 
 authority, and the King apologetically explained that, the 
 treasury being absolutely exhausted, he had been forced to 
 raise money as he could. The soft answer, however, did not 
 satisfy the members, and for a time a dead-lock occurred, the
 
 1 56 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Cortes refusing to vote fresh supplies unless a pledge were 
 given that no similar illegal taxes should be imposed in future ; 
 a pledge which ultimately had to be given by the King, after 
 the ordinary supply of 304 millions of maravedis in three 
 years had been voted, but before the extraordinary vote of 
 150 miUions was passed. At the end of 1569 Philip's 
 difficulties were still further increased by the seizure by 
 Elizabeth of ;^3 1,000 in money which was being sent to 
 Flanders, the ships conveying it being forced into English 
 ports to escape privateers. The amount had been borrowed 
 on onerous terms from Genoese bankers to pay Alba's troops, 
 and its loss led to further humiliation for Phihp. His ambas- 
 sador, De Spes, was expelled from England with even more 
 indignity than Philip had used in the expulsion of Dr Man, the 
 English ambassador, from Spain in 1568; and the seizure of 
 English shipping and property in Spain and Flanders led to 
 reprisals in England by which the commerce of Spain suffered 
 more severely still, for the wines and oils and other products 
 of Andalucia rotted in the stores for want of ships in which to 
 export them. 
 
 Thus, when Philip met his Cortes in 1570, both he and 
 his subjects were in greater straits than ever. In the King's 
 opening address he said that, "The royal treasury was quite 
 exhausted, all the patrimony drained and consumed, the 
 royal revenues spent, sold, pawned, and transferred, and his 
 Majesty absolutely unable to meet even the ordinary ex- 
 penditure for the maintenance of his royal state — much less 
 the important extraordinary calls upon him. Although his 
 Majesty, with his invariable desire to relieve these kingdoms, 
 has endeavoured to resort to other means of raising money, he 
 has been unable to get the great sums he needs, and all he 
 has obtained has already been spent." He concluded by 
 saying that unless his people were liberal, both religion and 
 the state would be in danger. But withal the vote was no larger 
 than usual, and the members for ruined Granada protested
 
 IV.] Philip U, 1568 — 1581. 157 
 
 that their constituency could pay nothing at all. This did not 
 satisfy the King, who urged them to consider what new taxes 
 were possible. They reported in March 157 1 that the con- 
 dition of the country was so disastrous that the Cortes dared 
 not burden it further, and in this they stood firm until they 
 were dismissed. But before they separated they adopted 
 another spirited remonstrance against the illegal raising of 
 taxes by the King without the authority of the Cortes. A 
 similar course was followed by the Cortes of 1573, where 
 again, the ordinary vote of 304 millions of maravedis {i.e. 
 300 millions for the King and 4 millions for the members of 
 the Cortes), with the usual 150 millions extra, were all that 
 Philip could obtain. The provinces of Granada, Murcia, 
 Jaen, and Granada again protested that they were utterly 
 unable to pay anything at all. The parliamentary rights of 
 the Castilians however went no further than protests now, and 
 they received an additional blow in this Cortes of 1573. The 
 sturdy Aragonese took care, on each occasion that they voted 
 supplies, to state distinctly that they did it of their own free 
 will, and that their vote must not be taken as a precedent. 
 The Castilian Cortes had continued to vote their 300 million 
 maravedis each three years, without taking this precaution ; 
 when therefore on this occasion they began discussing the vote, 
 they were told on behalf of the King that the 300 millions were 
 a tribute that they were obliged to pay to the King, the voting 
 being a mere matter of form ; and henceforward it apparently 
 became so. Money however had to be obtained somehow in 
 larger quantities, and without parliamentary sanction the King 
 again raised the taxation upon salt — which had Ijecn created 
 a royal monopoly — wool, and various other merchandise. 
 Against this the Cortes of 1576 once more protested, and also 
 against the continued alienation of the seignories of the Crown 
 over towns and villages ; but in both cases fruitlessly, for the 
 King, in effect, replied that necessity overrode the law. 
 
 In these circumstances it may well be believed that the
 
 158 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Catholic party in England could obtain but little effective help 
 from Philip in the interests of the imprisoned Mary Stuart. 
 Vague approval, conditional promises, small sums of money, 
 were doled out in aid of Ridolfi's plot, of Norfolk's treason, of 
 the rising of the Northern lords: but Philip was far too hardly 
 pressed to come to open war with England, and fiery Alba 
 himself frankly told him as much in February 1569. Philip's 
 timidity and slowness had brought him to this pass in fifteen 
 years of rule. He and his people were bankrupt, his shipping 
 nearly swept from the sea, his treasure taken, and his rebel 
 subjects upheld against him by the English Queen ; and yet 
 he was unable even to retaliate, except by the subornation of 
 secret murder. To prevent the utter ruin of the Andalucian 
 producers and shippers Philip was forced to connive at the 
 violation of his own edicts forbidding trade with England, while 
 proud Alba was brought to his knees in 1573 and opened 
 again the markets of Flanders to English cloth. For Flanders 
 by this time was far on the road to utter exhaustion under 
 Alba's rule of blood, and the old Duke himself was heartsick 
 and weary of a task, in which he could not help seeing that he 
 had failed. 
 
 There is no doubt that when he went to Flanders in 
 1567 it was for the set purpose of stamping out the Flemish 
 national feeling, striking first at the nobles who led it. 
 Montigny and Berghes were in Spain and Philip looked after 
 them, but Orange, Egmont and Horn, were to be disposed of 
 as soon as Alba arrived. The two latter fell into the trap, 
 and were captured after the grim dinner-party in Brussels 
 (9 September, 1567), whilst Orange's caution alone saved him 
 from a similar fate. The persecution was at first not a religious 
 one, for the nobles were Catholics, and the monks were the 
 first to fly on Alba's advent, followed by the rich burgesses, 
 also Catholics almost to a man. They fled because Alba's 
 troops respected Catholics no more than Protestants, and were 
 quartered on all citizens alike. There was in Flanders itself
 
 IV.] PJdlip II, 1568— 1 58 1. 159 
 
 no resistance on religious lines at first. " The citizens flocked 
 to church," said Alba himself, " like Spaniards in jubilee time." 
 But when the people began to hurry away in shoals to 
 England, Alba brought down his hand and began by hanging 
 500 citizens who were suspected of an intention to run away. 
 On the flight of Orange's mercenary Germans at Heiliger Lee, 
 and the collapse of the revolt for a time, Alba's deliberate holo- 
 caust of innocent citizens all over Flanders was intended to 
 strike terror to such an extent that Flemish patriotism sliould 
 never again raise its head. It was successful for a time, 
 and on the ist July, 1570, Alba could announce his amnesty 
 of forgiveness for all faithful Flemish subjects of the King. 
 
 It was not religion, it was not even patriotism, which 
 finally aroused the Flemings to fury and made them join 
 hands with the Protestant Zeelanders. It was the "eternal 
 lack of pence " which afflicted Philip's treasury. The alcabala 
 of 10 per cent, on every sale and purchase was suffered in 
 Spain because its effects were not understood, but in com- 
 mercial and industrial Flanders, where economical questions 
 had been studied for centuries, its impossibiUty was seen at 
 once. The "tenth penny" did what patriotism and religion 
 themselves could not do: it welded all Netherlanders of the 
 trading and industrial classes into one. The first result was 
 the bankruptcy, real or pretended, of the Flemish bankers, 
 upon whom Philip largely depended for loans. Philip's 
 council remonstrated with Alba. Bishops, councillors, con- 
 fessors, Flemings and Spaniards too, protested against the 
 tax; Philip himself was more than doubtful. "Everybody turns 
 against me," wrote the Duke, and he was right in this. But he 
 stuck to his guns. He was face to face with a stubborn people, 
 fighting not alone for autonomy now, not alone for religion. 
 They were fighting for their money bags — for their industrial 
 existence — and they fought sturdily. For a time the spirit of 
 the southern Flemings was utterly cowed by fierce brutality, 
 almost unexampled in civilized history; the French Huguenot
 
 i6o Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 sympathisers were massacred without mercy ; and throughout 
 Flanders submission the most abject was the only alternative 
 to slaughter. But what cowed Walloons and Brabanters only 
 made stubborn Dutchmen the more stubborn, and Holland 
 and Zeeland still stood firm. By 1573 Philip himself was tired 
 of Alba's fruitless cruelty, against which all Christendom was 
 crying. Cardinal Espinosa had died of sheer fright when the 
 usually impassive King roughly told him that he lied as to 
 the effect of Alba's proceedings (September 1572). The Ruy 
 Gomez party was now paramount, and plausible Antonio 
 Perez, Alba's deadly enemy, was always at the King's ear. 
 
 Philip was hot a cruel man by nature, though no considera- 
 tion of human suffering was allowed for a moment to influence 
 his policy. In his view success in the object justified carnage, 
 but unsuccessful or wanton carnage was distasteful to him. 
 So the old Duke, whose hard heart was nearly broken by his 
 failure, was recalled, and a new era of moderation and concilia- 
 tion commenced under Don Luis de Requesens y Ziihiga 
 (September 1573). He had to struggle against the hatred 
 aroused by Alba's cruelty, but withal he was not unsuccessful 
 in calming the Catholic south. But the Hollanders held their 
 own, and Requesens died before his work of pacification was 
 done (March 1576). Like all Philip's officers he had prayed 
 constantly for money — and prayed in vain, for, as we have 
 seen, Spain was well-nigh squeezed dry. The troops in 
 Flanders were unpaid, a murderous, mutinous rabble, and the 
 King was given clearly to understand by his friends in 
 Flanders that, unless these ruffians were withdrawn, Catholic 
 Brabant, Hainault and Artois, would follow Protestant Zee- 
 land, and slip from his grasp. His position was such that it 
 was absolutely impossible for him to carry on war any longer, 
 and he bent to the inevitable. The decision to pacify the 
 Netherlands, at almost any cost, also relieved him of another 
 difficulty which had caused him endless anxiety and worry. 
 
 When the Turks had abandoned the siege of Malta they
 
 IV.] Philip II, 1568 — 1581. 161 
 
 did so with their great naval power still intact, and this the 
 new Sultan Selim determined to turn against the Venetians, the 
 great trading power in the Levant. The interests of Philip 
 and the Venetians had usually been divergent, and when the 
 republic found that its island of Cyprus was being attacked 
 (1569) and that the Cypriotes were welcoming the infidel, the 
 seigniory first appealed to the Pope for help. Pius V 
 promptly summoned Philip to join in crippling his old enemy 
 the Turk. The proposal reached him when he had just 
 succeeded in crushing his own Moriscos, and when Alba's 
 short and fallacious calm had been attained in Flanders. 
 Young Don Juan was by Philip's side, fresh from victories over 
 the Moriscos and aflame to cope once more with the infidel. 
 His persuasions, backed by those of the Nuncio, prevailed ; 
 and after three days of prayer for guidance at the shrine of St 
 Fernando in Seville the King decided to put away his un- 
 friendliness to the merchant republic and join it in beating 
 the infidel. This was in the spring of 1570, but before the 
 Spanish and Papal galleys could be ready Nicosia had fallen, 
 and the Venetians were negotiating with the Turk for a 
 separate peace. This was a danger which had to be avoided : 
 the Venetians must be brought back to the league, which was 
 intended to be a permanent one to break the power of the 
 Turk in the Mediterranean. Philip lost no opportunity of 
 advancing his own political interests, and the alliance was 
 made a pretext for extorting from Pius V a promise to abstain 
 from interfering again with the Inquisition in Spain — as he had 
 made some slight attempt to do recently at the request of the 
 Catalan Cortes : he also renewed the King's right of selling 
 the " Crusade " bulls in Spain. 
 
 It was therefore late in the summer of 15 71, before the great 
 combined fleet of 208 galleys, 6 galleasses and 50 small boats, 
 with 29,000 men at arms, and 50,000 sailors and rowers, col- 
 lected at Messina, under the supreme command of Don Juan. 
 The Turks had captured Cyprus, and were ravaging the coasts 
 
 H. .<?. II
 
 1 62 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 of the Adriatic. Christian fervour had been worked up to a 
 point of frenzy. The Pope had sent the sacred banner to Don 
 Juan, and prayers were offered throughout Cathohc Christendom 
 for the new Crusade. The handsome and splendid young prince 
 was a hero of romance in the eyes of men and women aUke. 
 It was the age of chivalry, be it remembered, when Amadis de 
 Gaul, and the adventures of Arthur and his knights, formed a 
 main part of the literary life of the people; and Don Juan was 
 hailed as the Christian champion who was to raise for ever the 
 Cross over the Crescent. Every free man on the fleet, high 
 and low, was inflamed with religious fervour : prayers, fastings 
 and penitence took the place of soldiers' oaths and sailors' 
 roystering; and when at dawn on Sunday, the 7 th October, 
 Don Juan sighted the Turkish fleet in the bay of Lepanto, 
 every man knelt before the crucifix, and was absolved by the 
 monks who crowded the ships. Through his fleet Don Juan 
 was rowed in his pinnace, crying exhortations to his men, 
 "The hour of vengeance has come. Christ is your leader. 
 This is the battle of the Cross!" With such a feeling as this 
 the Christians were irresistible. Doria and other experienced 
 commanders were for avoiding an engagement, but Don Juan 
 could not be held back. The Turkish fleet was swept from 
 the seas and the naval power of the Sultans broken for ever. 
 
 Much of the credit for the victory must be given to the 
 cool old hero Santa Cruz for his support at a critical moment, 
 but brilliant young Don Juan, with his handsome face and his 
 dress of white velvet and gold, was made the idol of victory, and 
 all Christendom rang with adulation of him. Prudence and 
 restraint were forgotten. Don Juan was to conquer anew the 
 empire of Constantine and become the ruler of the Christian 
 orient ; and with the encouragement of Rome the prince kept 
 his fleet together, praying Philip constantly for money to carry 
 out his vast projects. But, as we have seen, Philip had no 
 money to send, and dared not allow himself to be dragged 
 into fresh schemes for the benefit of his base-born brother.
 
 IV.] Philip II, 1568— 1 581. 163 
 
 Nevertheless, in October 1573 Don Juan sailed and caiJtured 
 Tunis, which he hoped to make the nucleus of a Christian 
 empire of North Africa. Philip and the peace party of Ruy 
 Gomez and Perez began to see now that Don Juan was a 
 dangerous person, and orders were sent to him to dismantle 
 Tunis. These orders he disobeyed, and Philip cut off supplies. 
 De Granvelle, too, who was now viceroy of Naples, adopted a 
 similar attitude, and for want of support Tunis and La Goletta 
 were recovered by the Turk within a year, 8000 Spaniards 
 being slaughtered. Don Juan was clamorous and indignant, 
 and was rapidly getting out of hand. His projects of empire 
 were unappeased, and he was claiming the full privileges of 
 a prince of the blood. Philip was always distrustful and 
 suspicious, but he was averse to violent measures, and on the 
 advice of his principal secretary Antonio Perez (Ruy Gomez 
 being recently dead) sent one of his own secretaries named 
 Escobedo, a member of the peace party, to be a mentor to 
 Don Juan, and, if possible, to bring him do\vn from the 
 clouds. But Don Juan's enthusiasm was contagious, and 
 soon Escobedo surpassed his new master in highflown schemes 
 for Don Juan's future aggrandisement. 
 
 It was at this juncture that Requesens died in the Nether- 
 lands (March 1576), and Don Juan was ordered to proceed 
 thither to pacify the country, on any terms consistent with 
 Philip's sovereignty, and the maintenance of Catholicism. 
 The Spanish troops were to be withdrawn, and the Flemings 
 conciliated, come what might. This seemed to be an ex- 
 cellent pretext for getting Don Juan away from the dangerous 
 neighbourhood of the Mediterranean. But Philip and Perez 
 had reckoned without Don Juan. He and Escobedo were full 
 of another plan now. With the Spanish troops to be with- 
 drawn from Flanders, Don Juan was suddenly to swoop down 
 on the English coast, and with the aid of the Catholic party 
 there, Hberate and marry the captive Mary Stuart, and rule 
 over a Catholic Great Britain. The new Pope, Gregory XHT,
 
 164 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 had urged the idea upon Philip, but the latter could not allow 
 his policy to be dictated by others. None knew his difificulties 
 so well as he himself; and he had plans of his own, to be 
 mentioned presently, to which this new project would have 
 been fatal. So Don Juan was ordered to proceed directly 
 from Italy to Flanders on his distasteful errand of conciliation, 
 without a day's delay. Again he disobeyed orders, and 
 suddenly appeared in Madrid, with Escobedo, to press his 
 own views. Philip kept his temper, calmly evaded his 
 brother's claims, and sent him to Flanders as soon as possible. 
 But Philip's only idea of government was that all men should 
 obey him absolutely ; and henceforward he knew that his 
 brother was not to be trusted. The prince had now quite 
 broken with the peace party, of which Perez was the leader 
 since Ruy Gomez's death, and it was policy for Perez to 
 undermine the influence of one who would be so powerful a 
 political rival to him. He had learnt that, notwithstanding the 
 King's orders, Don Juan still cherished the scheme of invading 
 England from Flanders, and both the prince and Escobedo 
 kept up a close confidential correspondence with him. All 
 they wrote was shown to the King, and his distrust still further 
 aroused. Hasty and disparaging expressions of Don Juan 
 were twisted to a treasonable meaning, until Perez had the 
 satisfaction of seeing that the flighty romantic young prince was 
 hopelessly ruined in the estimation of his brother the King. 
 
 Don Juan's disobedience and delay had ruined his mis- 
 sion. Before he could arrive in Flanders the "Spanish 
 fury" had fallen upon Antwerp (4 November, 1576). The 
 unpaid mutinous Spanish soldiery had killed 6000 unarmed 
 citizens, had burnt and plundered 12,000,000 ducats'-worth 
 of property, and Netherlanders of all creeds were united to 
 withstand their unbridled rapine. Even those who through 
 all had stood faithful to Spain, joined the cause of order now. 
 The De Croys, Champigny, De Granvelle's brother, and the 
 like, were at one with Orange ; and Don Juan when he
 
 IV.] Philip II, 1568—1581. 165 
 
 reached Luxemburg, was told that he could only be received 
 on certain terms, to be dictated to him by the States. Above 
 all, the brutal Spanish soldiers must be withdrawn at once, and 
 by land. He was in despair. Again and again he begged that 
 Philip would intrust the task of submission to other hands than 
 his — a woman would do it better, he said. Wild and foolish 
 threats of suicide, and other desperate courses still further 
 steeled his brother's heart against him, and the breach between 
 them became wider. The troops would not move without 
 their pay, and Philip sent no money ; he had, indeed, none to 
 send, nor, as Escobedo rudely told him, was his credit good 
 enough to borrow on, for in 1575 he had simply repudiated 
 the debts he owed abroad. But by the spring of 1577 Don 
 Juan, through Escobedo, had borrowed on his own credit of 
 the merchants enough to induce the troops to march, and 
 thereupon made his "joyous entry" into Brussels — joyous for 
 all but him, for disappointment and disgust were raging in his 
 heart, and he loathed the Flemings who welcomed him. He 
 had threatened for months to return to Spain in defiance of 
 orders, but in the summer of 1577 he sent Escobedo instead, 
 to press his schemes and make arrangement for payment of 
 the loans he had raised. 
 
 Shortly after Escobedo's arrival in Spain, where he and 
 his mission were unwelcome, Philip secretly ordered Perez 
 to have him killed — the accepted idea then being that as the 
 King was the fountain of all law, he could order a private 
 execution without judicial process. Soon afterwards news 
 came that Don Juan liad broken with the States and thrown 
 himself into Namur, and that a fresh war was in progress, in 
 which, for the first time, Orange and the Catholic Flemings 
 were making common cause. The blow was a bitter one for 
 Philip, and he let his turbulent brother rage his heart out 
 almost unsupported. Philip's nephew, Alexander Farnese, was 
 sent with an army to conquer the States and afterwards to 
 conciliate the Catholics. He and Don Juan together gained
 
 1 66 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 the battle of Gemblours (31st January, 1578), but Don Juan's 
 spirit was broken. His faithful Escobedo was found stabbed 
 to death in the streets of Madrid (31st March, 1578). He 
 knew that he would never be allowed to rule in Flanders, or 
 elsewhere, that Philip would not have him in Spain, that he 
 was distrusted, hated, and ruined. His vague ambitions gone, 
 without the keen wit enough to free himself from the toils that 
 artful Perez had wound about him, he died brokenhearted, 
 on the ist October, 1578, of malignant fever. His death 
 relieved Philip from an intolerable position, and the military 
 skill and diplomacy of Alexander Farnese gradually introduced 
 division again between the Protestant Hollanders and the 
 Catholic Flemings. 
 
 Meanwhile all Philip's indirect attempts to bring trouble 
 ui)on Elizabeth, and to prevent her from supporting the 
 Netherlanders in their struggle, had failed ignominiously. She 
 was well served with spies, his cumbrous and tardy action was 
 always anticipated. He was not ready yet for open war with 
 England, for Catharine de Medici still held the balance in 
 France, and was looking covetously at Flanders as a future 
 dominion for her youngest son Alen^on. The opportunity of 
 an open struggle with England would certainly have been taken 
 by Catharine still further to hamper him ; but it was vital for 
 him, if possible, to keep both EHzabeth and Catharine busy 
 without open warfare with them, whilst he carried out a plan 
 which he fondly hoped would render him powerful enough to 
 withstand them. He patronised and mainly defrayed the cost 
 of an invasion of Ireland under the Pope's banner, by expe- 
 ditious sailing from a Spanish port in aid of the Desmond 
 rebellion 1579 and 1580; but the whole force, 800 men, was 
 massacred at Smerwick (November 1580), and he dared not 
 attempt to avenge them by an open declaration of war. His 
 method of rendering Catharine innocuous to him was similar. 
 He drew closer to the Guises, and promised them support 
 against the Huguenots, who, under Elizabeth's patronage, were
 
 IV.] Philip II, 1568—1581. 167 
 
 promoting Alen^on's scheme for obtaining the sovereignty of 
 the Netherlands. 
 
 Philip's object was a far reaching one. His young nephew 
 Sebastian, King of Portugal, as fervent and romantic as Don 
 Juan, had fallen in the battle of Alcazar, in his hairbrained 
 crusade against the Moors (7th August, 1579); and his suc- 
 cessor on the throne was the aged childless Cardinal Henry. 
 He was only a stop-gap, and as soon as he succeeded Philip 
 began to intrigue for the Portuguese Crown. With the fine 
 harbour of Lisbon, the great Portuguese commerce, and the 
 wealth of the East as well as the West, he could work well, 
 he thought, upon his enemies. The claimants to the Crown 
 were many. Philip was the son of King Manoel's eldest 
 daughter Isabel, the Duke of Savoy was a son of a younger 
 daughter Beatrix, the Duchess of Braganza was a daughter 
 of Manoel's son Duarte, and Alexander Farnese had married 
 her younger sister. The popular claimant was the Prior of 
 Crato, a doubtfully legitimate son of Luis, a younger son of 
 Manoel. Foreigners were supposed to be ineligible for the 
 Crown, but Philip contended that a Spaniard could not be 
 considered a foreigner in Portugal. The Portuguese, however, 
 hated the Castilians, and notwithstanding PhiHp's bribes and 
 intrigues, the first movement of the Portuguese people was to 
 proclaim Antonio King on the death of the Cardinal. The 
 council of regency, however, had been gained to the side of 
 Philip; and with the knowledge of this he determined to 
 take Portugal by force of arms if needful. Alba had been 
 disgraced long ago by the machinations of Perez on an utterly 
 inadequate pretext, and old De Granvelle had been kept away 
 from the government of Spain, but Perez, for reasons presently 
 to be explained, was already a waning force, and in any case 
 his glib tongue and ready pen were not the desiderata in the 
 present juncture. So the old soldier Alba was summoned from 
 his retreat to lead Philip's army to the conquest of Portugal, 
 and the old statesman De Granvelle was recalled to govern
 
 1 68 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Spain whilst his master took possession of this new king- 
 dom. 
 
 Alba's task was comparatively easy. There was no re- 
 ligious question to make men obstinate, the Portuguese nobles 
 had all been bought, or forced into exile; the people were 
 poor and cowardly, without leaders or resources ; and Alba 
 rode roughshod over them, with but small resistance. King 
 Antonio was beaten at Alcantara and Viana and fled ; after 
 eight months' wanderings he escaped to France, and thence 
 to England; whilst Philip travelled by slow stages with all 
 his court from Madrid to Lisbon. With him went his fourth 
 wife Anne, daughter of his sister Maria and of the Emperor 
 Maximilian, whom he had married in 1570. By her he had 
 had several children, three of whom he had left in Madrid with 
 his two elder daughters. At Badajoz in the Autumn of 1580 
 he fell ill of what we now call influenza, and was like to die. 
 His wife, devotedly attached to him, as all his wives had been, 
 prayed that her Hfe might be taken instead of his. Her prayer 
 was answered, and she died (25 October, 1580). In deepening 
 gloom he moved on, and on the ist April, 158 1 he received 
 the oath of allegiance from the Portuguese Cortes at Thomar. 
 Soon afterwards two out of the three children by his fourth 
 wife followed their mother to the grave, leaving only one son, 
 PhiHp, an infant, to inherit the wide dominions of Spain and 
 the Indies. 
 
 Philip II was a man of devoted domestic affections, loving 
 and beloved in his home circle, and the misfortunes during 
 his absence in Portugal left indelible traces upon him. His 
 yellow hair, hardly grizzled before, turned white, and for the 
 rest of his life he dressed in deep mourning, shrinking more 
 than ever from the public gaze, his only distraction from his 
 endless round of drudgery and rigid devotion being the build- 
 ing of his vast granite monastery-palace of St Lorenzo of the 
 Escorial in fulfilment of a vow made at the time of the battle 
 of St Quentin, where a church dedicated to St Laurence had
 
 IV.] Philip II, 1568— 1 58 1. 169 
 
 been destroyed. Philip's system of administration had now 
 been crystallised into a habit. His eye for microscopic detail 
 kept him at work early and late over his papers, nothing, 
 however small, being omitted from his purview. Everything 
 was done by correspondence, even with his own secretaries. 
 Every letter, however insignificant, had to be ciphered and 
 deciphered, considered by the Council of State, and a report 
 and recommendation thereon in writing presented to the King 
 by one of the Secretaries of State. Upon this recommenda- 
 tion the King scrawled his orders; or more frequently made 
 suggestions for future consideration and report by the Council 
 of State, or by the special council to which the matter referred 
 to appertained. Every reply before it was sent had to be 
 submitted in draft to the King, who often at great length 
 criticised words ; or again sent the matter back for considera- 
 tion — and so on almost infinitely. In these circumstances it 
 may be well understood that all independent judgment and 
 initiative on the part of executive ofhcers became impossible. 
 No one dared to act on his own responsibility ; the King was 
 never in a hurry, and the wheels of the public service were 
 clogged hopelessly. In vain each successive Cortes presented 
 scores of pressing petitions for reform of civil, financial or 
 judicial administration. Year after year the old abuses con- 
 tinued, for the King was for ever immersed in small detail ; 
 and questions of broad principle were obliged to wait. De 
 Granvelle complained and remonstrated, but to no purpose, 
 for Philip was now too old to change. Around him hence- 
 forward were no great statesmen, but men with the minds of 
 superior clerks, Juan de Idiaquez, Cristobal de Mora, and 
 Mateo Vasquez; who with the Count de Chinchon, formed 
 the famous " Council of night," which after De Granvelle's 
 death (1586) was Philip's principal advisatory board. 
 
 In the meanwhile the absence of the King from the 
 social life of his capital was producing its natural result. 
 His court had always been dominated by gloomy devotion,
 
 I/O spam: its greatness and decay, [Chap. iv. 
 
 and in his later years became like a monastery. But the 
 morals and manners of his people went from bad to worse. 
 The most abject sanctimoniousness went hand in hand with 
 horrible licentiousness, the immorality of the clergy being a 
 crying scandal. Whilst the public treasury was, as we have 
 seen, chronically empty, scandalous corruption was at work, by 
 which the public officers and contractors became immensely 
 wealthy. The Spanish ladies, even, who had in former reigns 
 been models of piety and modesty, became for the first time 
 notoriously loose and immodest in their behaviour, and their 
 shamelessness became a by-word and a wonder to foreigners 
 for the next sixty years. The most appalling poverty of the 
 common people, sunk now into idleness, went side by side 
 with a lavishness in dress on the part of the higher classes 
 which formed a stock complaint of the Cortes for many years, 
 and which repeated pragmatic edicts were quite powerless to 
 check, notwithstanding the severity of the penalties for infrac- 
 tion. Philip toiled for ever at his papers, assailed already with 
 the gout which ultimately killed him. But whilst he was 
 cavilling with Idiaquez about an insignificant word in an 
 unimportant letter, or wrangling with the Pope as to whether 
 Spanish bishops should be called simply "lordship" or "ilus- 
 trisima," Drake was harrying the Spanish colonies in the west, 
 and the privateers, which had well-nigh destroyed Spanish 
 shipping, regularly intercepted the silver fleet every year off 
 the Azores. Holland and Zeeland had slipped from Philip's 
 grasp for ever ; England and France insulted and injured him 
 with impunity ; and his own beloved Spain, whose honour and 
 prosperity were the object of his ceaseless toil, was rapidly 
 bleeding to death, with ruined industries, and commerce, a 
 dwindling population and an empty treasury. To this pass 
 had personal centralisation reduced Spain under sixty years' 
 rule of the house of Austria.
 
 171 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PHILIP II, 1580 — 1598. 
 
 Philip returned to his capital in 1583 an old and broken 
 man. Trouble overwhelmed him on every side. During his 
 absence, death had removed his wife and two children, and a 
 French prince (AlenQon), with the countenance of Elizabeth, 
 and the tacit consent of the King of France, had been crowned 
 sovereign of the Flemish patrimonial domains of the house of 
 Burgundy, with the Protestant Orange at his side (February 
 1582). Naples was in chronic revolt against the intolerable 
 oppression and extortion of its Spanish masters. Not only 
 was a sum of 2-|- million ducats sent to Spain every year as 
 tribute, but nearly the whole country had been sold to feudal 
 nobles — princes and dukes literally by the hundred — who 
 squeezed the wretched people dry, only to be themselves 
 drained in their turn almost to the last ducat. Nobles and 
 people were therefore at one against the foreigner, and were 
 only kept in check at vast cost, and by mere terrorism. Portu- 
 gal was conquered, but riddled with disaffection, and though 
 Santa Cruz had beaten, off the Azores, the French fleet under 
 Strozzi (July 1582) in the service of Don Antonio, the whole 
 of the islands outside the forts of St Michael's and Terceira 
 still stood faithful to their native King against the Castilian. 
 
 Above all, Philip's lifelong struggle with the papacy 
 for supremacy over the Church in Spain had reached an 
 acute stage which, as he himself wrote to de Granvelle, was
 
 172 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 exhausting even his boundless patience. The encroachments 
 which had been made upon the papal control over ecclesi- 
 astical jurisdiction in Spain had, generally speaking, had the 
 sympathy of the Spanish clergy, especially of the order whose 
 interests at the moment were not immediately touched. The 
 bishops, as we have seen, in the Council of Trent, endeavoured 
 to promote an appeal to the Pope in cases where the In- 
 quisition had to deal with a prelate, but both they and the 
 Council of Trent were willing enough to confirm the King's 
 claim that the bishops should have control over the cathedral 
 chapters, which had become notoriously corrupt. This claim 
 the chapters and the popes had always strongly opposed. 
 But even more bitterly had they resisted the right of Philip to 
 have a lay representative of his own present at the meetings of 
 all provincial synods. Against the resolutions of the pro- 
 vincial synod of Toledo so constituted (1581) the chapters of 
 the province protested to Gregory XIII ; and a conflict began 
 which continued for years, the Pope using all the weapons in 
 his armoury, but finally without result, as Philip had on his 
 side his own bishops, and most of the beneficed clergy outside 
 of the chapters. The struggle was precipitated by the Nuncio 
 (Taverna, bishop of Lodi) who had been sent {1581) by 
 Gregory with the stated purpose of resisting royal encroach- 
 ments on the rights of the clergy. An opportunity was not 
 long in presenting itself. Philip, who was in Portugal, had 
 recently ordered the bishop of Calahorra to pay a visit of 
 inspection to his chapter. The Nuncio at the instance of the 
 chapter forbade him to do so, and the bishop appealed to the 
 Council of State. Granvelle was at the head of affairs in 
 Madrid, and acted firmly, and an order of Council was sent to 
 the Corregidor of Logrono to seize and sequestrate the property 
 of those who had opposed the bishop's authority. The Nuncio 
 thereupon insolently caused to be fixed upon the doors of the 
 Cathedrals of Calahorra and Logrono three great placards, one 
 excommunicating the Corregidor of Logrono and his officers,
 
 v.] Philip II, 1580— 1598. 173 
 
 the second dismissing the bishop of Calahona and confiscating 
 his revenues, and the third containing the famous bull " in 
 ccBna Domini" the promulgation of which in Spain had been 
 expressly prohibited by Philip. The King kept his temper, 
 and instructed Granvelle to conciliate matters if possible, but 
 the Nuncio stood firm. Immediately on Philip's return to 
 Madrid, he therefore had to take the extreme step of expelling 
 the Nuncio, who was as deaf to the King, as he had been to 
 De Granvelle. This vigorous step brought the Pope to his 
 senses, and Philip had his way; but the latter was full of 
 bitterness, that the Pope and Cardinals, most of whom he had 
 bribed and favoured, should tend rather to favour the shifty 
 half Huguenot King of France Henry HI than him whose life 
 was spent in struggling for the Catholic cause. But the keen 
 churchmen saw what, perhaps even Philip himself hardly 
 realised, that his championship of Catholicism was only a 
 means to an end, and that his main object was the political 
 supremacy of Spain and his dynasty. 
 
 In addition to these various sources of trouble, Philip was 
 gradually evolving from his slow mind a great plan, which at 
 one stroke, should avenge him upon his foes and redress all 
 the misfortunes which his mistaken policy had brought upon 
 him. Catharine de Medici's hostility towards him, with regard 
 to the Netherlands and Portugal, had been answered by a 
 closer understanding between him and her enemies the Guises. 
 The aid sent by Elizabeth of England to his rebel subjects had 
 been similarly met by the promotion of revolt in Ireland, but 
 he had always dreaded an open war in which England and 
 France might join against him. Although he had on several 
 occasions listened with sympathy to appeals made to him on 
 behalf of Mary Stuart by the English and Scotch Catholics, he 
 had two reasons for not proceeding to extremes towards Eliza- 
 beth. First he distrusted Frenchmen, and had no wish to place 
 Mary on the English throne, under the tutelage of her French 
 kinsmen the Guises; and next he feared that if he attacked
 
 174 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Elizabeth Catharine might, by one of her sudden movements, 
 temporarily patch up the differences between the Huguenots 
 and the Cathohcs in France, and unite the country against 
 him. 
 
 Suddenly an event happened which banished both fears. 
 The Guises began to see in the condition of France a better 
 chance of satisfying their ambition than by attempting to inter- 
 fere in England. Guise was popular, especially in Paris; the 
 Catholics in the country were numerically in a majority; 
 Catharine, the balancing power, was old and failing; by the 
 aid of Spain the Duke of Guise might become king of all, or 
 part, of France. 
 
 In 1580, accordingly, Mary Stuart sent a message to Philip 
 saying that with the advice of Guise she had decided in future 
 to throw herself, her son and her country, entirely into the 
 hands of Spain, while at the same time Guise took measures 
 to let Philip know that he, too, would in future he his humble 
 servant. This made all the difference. If Guise and Mary 
 were Spanish in all things, Philip had nothing to fear by the 
 substitution of Mary for Elizabeth in England, nor could 
 Catharine unite France against him, whilst Guise and the 
 French Catholics were in his pay. Seminary priests flocked 
 over to Scotland and England, an active propaganda was 
 commenced, and Lennox in Scotland was drawn into a con- 
 spiracy for an invasion of England simultaneously from Scot- 
 land and France, with Spanish and Guisan forces. Whilst 
 Philip was in Portugal the plan was matured, but before he 
 returned to Spain it had fallen through, thanks to Lennox's 
 incompetence, and the political ineptitude of the Jesuits who 
 were interested, and whose prime object, naturally, was rather 
 the advancement of their religion than of the political interests 
 of Spain. Guise, too, had shown himself to be a bad con- 
 spirator, whose lesson of complete submission had not yet 
 been learnt to Philip's satisfaction. So the matter was allowed 
 to rest for a time, whilst Guise was gradually pushed into the
 
 v.] Philip II, 1580— 1598. 175 
 
 background, and warned, not without some resistance on his 
 part, that in future his attention must be confined to France. 
 The Raid of Ruthven, the flight of Lennox, and the subjection 
 of James VI to the Scottish Protestant party, convinced Phihp 
 that with such a successor as James to follow his mother, no 
 permanent benefit would accrue to Spain or Catholicism by 
 placing Mary Stuart on the English throne. Another element 
 also came into play. Dr Allen, Father Parsons, Sir Francis 
 Englefield, the Duchess of Feria (Jane Dormer) and the other 
 English Catholics in Spanish interests were strongly averse to 
 the establishment of a Scottish King in England, and cease- 
 lessly urged upon Philip that his own claim to succeed Mary 
 Stuart — as descendant from John of Gaunt, both on his father's 
 and his mother's side — was a good one if James became 
 ineligible in consequence of heresy. He was assured again 
 and again, that English Catholics would a thousand times 
 rather welcome a Spanish ruler than allow a Frenchified Scot 
 to reign over them. It was not difficult to persuade Philip 
 that this was the case, and here the interests of Guise, the 
 Scots, and the Vatican, became divergent from those of Spain. 
 Guise endeavoured to force Philip's hand more than once by 
 proposing vague plans for the invasion of England from 
 France, under his leadership, and prompted James to pretend 
 a desire to become a Catholic. The Scottish Catholic party 
 and the French and Scottish cardinals and priests in Rome 
 also made strenuous efforts to bring about an apparent con- 
 version of James ; but Philip's clever diplomacy in Paris and 
 in Rome, and heavy bribes on all sides, always counteracted 
 the idea, and discouraged the attempts of Guise and the 
 churchmen to stand in the way of Spanish aims. 
 
 The plan of the English Catholics in Philip's counsels was 
 for Philip to invade England itself, either from Flanders or 
 Spain ; whilst the Scottish party were desirous of the invasion 
 being attempted over the Scotch border, the port of Leith and 
 others being offered by them to Philip as places of landing for
 
 lyG Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 ihe Spanish force. Their offer was not rejected. Encouraging 
 messages and promises of money were sent from Spain, and 
 from Farnese in Flanders, to Huntly, Morton (Maxwell) and 
 Claud Hamilton, but PhiHp's plans had now, after thirty years 
 of hesitancy, taken definite shape, and he had no intention of 
 serving as a cat's-paw for so shifty a creature as young James 
 Stuart. The intention, therefore, was to use the Scottish 
 Catholics merely as a diversion, whilst England was invaded 
 direct from Spain. The project had been urged upon Philip 
 ever since the accession of Elizabeth. At first it might have 
 been easy, but he had tried by diplomacy and patience — 
 and sometimes by suborning assassination — to bring about 
 again the close alliance with England which was vital to him. 
 With any other sovereign perhaps than Elizabeth he might 
 have succeeded ; but her circumstances, as well as her cha- 
 racter, were peculiar, and she could not acknowledge the papal 
 supremacy — without which her alliance would have been use- 
 less to Philip — except on conditions which would have ille- 
 gitimised her birth and vitiated her claim to the Crown. 
 Immediately after his second victory over Don Antonio's 
 French fleet off Terceira, Santa Cruz wrote to Philip (9 August, 
 1583) begging his permission to make a sudden descent upon 
 England. But Philip was not ready yet. If the thing were to 
 be done it must be done once for all, and eft'ectually. Re- 
 ligious disturbance must be raised in France to prevent the 
 Huguenots from aiding Elizabeth, or Guise trom interfering in 
 favour of his kinsman the King of Scots. The Pope must be 
 conciliated and, above all, a vast sum of money raised. This, 
 as usual, was Philip's greatest stumbling-block. Each Cortes 
 that had been held had re-echoed the utter exhaustion of the 
 country, and had persistently prayed that the incidence of 
 taxation might be reformed, and that no fresh burdens should 
 be imposed ; but little attention was paid to their prayers. 
 On the contrary, the selling of the royal patrimony, the pawn- 
 ing of the public revenues at ruinous rates, the raising of
 
 v.] Philip II, 1580— 1598. 177 
 
 forced loans, and the imposition of illegal taxes, increased 
 rather than diminished. 
 
 The amount needed for the invasion was a vast one. 
 Santa Cruz's original estimate made in the spring of 1586 was 
 3,800,000 ducats '. He proposed that the whole force should 
 be raised in Spain itself. There were to be 150 great ships, 
 320 smaller craft, from 50 to 80 tons each, 40 galleys, and 
 6 galleasses — besides 240 punts and pinnaces. The number 
 of seamen was to be 30,000, and of soldiers 63,890, with 
 1600 horses. Philip saw that, in any case, this would be 
 beyond his means; and the raising of such a force in Spain 
 would be impossible under some years, during which time all 
 Europe would be on the alert. After 30 years' delay he was 
 now in a feverish hurry, and adopted the unfortunate resolution 
 of ordering Farnese to collect 30,000 soldiers in Flanders. 
 This divided the forces and was a main cause of the subse- 
 quent disaster. 
 
 All round the coasts of Spain, Portugal and Naples 
 shipwrights, armourers and victuallers, were hard at work. 
 Diplomatists, spies and agents, were plotting and planning in 
 every part of Europe ; but the threads that moved them all 
 were held by the austere, reticent, old man, toiling night and day 
 over his endless papers in the heart of arid Spain. Nothing 
 was to be forgotten, nothing overlooked. The cumbrous 
 machine was to work with the crushing irresistible force of a 
 glacier, and the impious enemies of Philip annihilated by God's 
 thunderbolts cast by the hands of His chosen instrument. 
 Pope Si.xtus V had no desire to serve purely Spanish ends, 
 and when he had been appealed to by Guise and James Stuart 
 to subsidise a Catholic Scottish attempt on England, he con- 
 sented to do so to a moderate extent. But the Spanish 
 ambassador, Olivares, warned him, in Philip's name, that if 
 England were to be brought back to the Church it could only 
 
 ^ These were the so-called copper ducats worth about 2j. 5^;/. each. 
 H. S. 12
 
 lyS Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 be done with Philip's overvvhehning force, and that the Pope 
 must find not a small subsidy, such as Guise demanded, but a 
 great sum of ready money. Sixtus V (Peretti) was prudent 
 and frugal, and had no love for Spain or haughty Olivares. But 
 many of the cardinals were in Philip's pay, and Sixtus was 
 ultimately cajoled into promising to subscribe a million gold 
 crowns ' to the enterprise. But he always distrusted Philip, 
 and no pressure could prevail upon him to pay a single crown 
 until a Spanish force was actually landed in England ; and 
 with this Philip had to be content ; although Olivares obtained 
 a half promise of another million by way of loan on certain 
 conditions. The matter of the investiture of the English 
 Crown was even more difficult of arrangement. As long as 
 possible Sixtus was kept in the dark as to Philip's own claims. 
 Only cautious hints were dropped by Allen as to the English 
 dislike to Scots, and the descent of Philip from Edward III ; 
 whilst Olivares told Sixtus that it was absurd to suppose that 
 Philip would go to so vast an expense for the sake of putting 
 a heretic on the throne. At last, after infinite haggling, the 
 Pope was induced to promise the investiture of England to the 
 person to be subsequently indicated by Philip, Although the 
 Pope did not know it at the time, the person whom Philip 
 intended to nominate was his beloved elder daughter Isabel ; 
 the younger, Catharine, having been married in 1585 to the 
 turbulent young Duke of Savoy, Carlo Emmanuele, whereby 
 he was gained to the Spanish interest for a time. 
 
 But side by side with the plot in Rome, another intrigue 
 was being conducted from Paris, by Philip's astute ambassador 
 Mendoza. He was deep in the confidence of Mary Stuart, 
 and all of her agents and advisers were in his pay. Every 
 argument was used to inflame her religious zeal, and to induce 
 her to disinherit her son for heresy. She was a prisoner, and 
 her only hope of reigning was through Spanish help. At last 
 
 * The Roman gold crown of the period was worth 6s. 8d.
 
 v.] Philip J I, 1580 — 1598. 179 
 
 she was convinced, and in June 1586 she wrote to Mendoza 
 saying that she had by her will made the King of Spain her 
 heir. Shortly afterwards she fell into the trap of tlie Babington 
 plot and her doom was sealed. 
 
 When the Cortes of Castile met in the autumn of 1586, 
 once more the dismal story was told of the distress and penury 
 of the country, but the usual 450 millions of maravedis in 
 three years, 1585 — 7, were voted readily enough, for nearly 
 every member presented a petilion for some personal favour to 
 himself, and every one was granted. But this vote was a 
 mere drop in the ocean of the demands to be met. Every 
 device was adopted. The clergy and nobles were bled freely ; 
 forced loans from merchants in Spain, and loans from foreigners 
 at heavy interest were resorted to ; the Italian princes were 
 put under contribution, and the coast towns of Spain and 
 Naples made to supply ships and provisions free. But, withal, 
 when the Cortes met in Madrid in April 1588, the Armada 
 being almost ready to sail from Lisbon, Philip, in spite of the 
 misery of the country, demanded an extraordinary vote of 
 8 millions of ducats. The members were aghast. Such a 
 sum had never before been heard of, and protests were boldly 
 made by the members. But Philip had learnt now how to 
 overcome their scruples. Secret orders were sent to every 
 prelate in the country to use the influence of the confessional, 
 the pulpit, and the Church, to persuade the constituent town 
 councillors and others in favour of the vote, whilst the 
 members of Cortes themselves were bribed again almost to a 
 man. The great sum of course was granted, and in 1590 the 
 excise on certain articles of food was accordingly increased 
 and developed into the hateful tax called the " millions," which 
 for over 200 years weighed on wine, vinegar, meat, and oil, the 
 principal food of the people. Santa Cruz died in February 
 1588 broken-hearted at the failure he foresaw as a consequence 
 of the King's impatient indifference to his experienced advice 
 with regard to the great expedition to England. He saw the
 
 i8o Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 paralysis that had resulted from Philip's methods. When 
 Drake had suddenly appeared before Cadiz (29 April (N.S.) 
 1587) and burnt all the shipping and naval stores, not a man 
 had initiative enough to attempt resistance; and Santa Cruz 
 himself had sadly to confess that, if Drake had entered the 
 Tagus, he might have destroyed the whole Armada, as there 
 were no men or guns on the ships to resist him, although the 
 expedition was expected to have sailed that summer. Philip 
 was far away and inaccessible, a mere abstraction to most 
 of his officers. Responsibility was hard to fix and easily 
 shifted, and peculation, laxity and corruption, were universal. 
 
 To succeed Santa Cruz the most unfit man in Spain was 
 chosen — a great noble, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, with all 
 the coast of Andalucia under his rule, but timid, weak, utterly 
 inexperienced, and, above all, incompetent. He protested in 
 vain his own insufficiency. Philip insisted, and he reluctantly, 
 and under protest, accepted the command of the Armada. 
 The reason of his appointment was probably that Philip 
 thought that his rank would ensure obedience to him, whilst 
 his character would prevent him from thinking or acting for 
 himself. The King doubtless hoped to command the Armada 
 from his cell at the Escorial. The danger always was the 
 division of the command. Farnese was to be supreme on 
 land, and Medina Sidonia at sea. The fleet was to protect 
 Farnese's passage across, and reinforce him with 6000 veteran 
 Spanish infantry. But the two commanders were at issue 
 from the first. Farnese was desperately short of money, and 
 twice over he had mustered his men at great cost only to 
 be disappointed at the non-arrival of the fleet. His men 
 deserted and fell sick. He himself was doubtful of success 
 from the beginning, but when he found his army reduced from 
 30,000 men to 17,000, he wrote to Philip earnestly advising 
 him to allow him to make peace in reality with Elizabeth's 
 commissioners at Ostend, whom he was beguiling with feigned 
 negotiations (March 1588). Medina, on the other hand,
 
 v.] Philip 11, 1580—1598. 181 
 
 began, as soon as he sailed, to cavil about letting Farnese have 
 the 6,000 men, and to Farnese's great indignation talked about 
 the latter coming out and meeting the x\rmada. In answer to 
 all this, Farnese continued to insist upon the exact carrying out 
 of the promises given to him. He must have the 6,000 men, 
 and the Armada must clear the Channel of enemies, before 
 one of his flat-bottomed boats could come out of Dunkirk. 
 
 The Armada sailed from Lisbon (30 May, 1588) with its 
 failure assured, except under an exceptional combination of 
 favourable circumstances. For nearly three weeks it beat 
 and drifted about the coast, and was on the 19th June 
 scattered by a storm, 40 ships following the Duke into 
 Corunna and the rest seeking shelter elsewhere. They had 
 already discovered that the victuals were mostly rotten, the 
 water foul and short, the morale of the men bad, the officers 
 ignorant and lax, and the ships cumbrous, unhandy and slow. 
 On the 24th June the Duke wrote to the King telling him all 
 this, and advising him to abandon the expedition. The King 
 scorned the advice, and the great fleet left Corunna on Friday 
 22nd July (N.S.) 1588. The total force consisted of 131 vessels, 
 carrying 24,000 effective men — 7,000 sailors and 17,000 soldiers. 
 There was a somewhat larger proportion of great ships in the 
 Spanish fleet than in the English, but the superiority was more 
 apparent than real. The great height of the castles of the 
 Spanish ships caused them to look more imposing, but made 
 them slow and crank. Their lines, moreover, were very 
 clumsy, and the best of them could only work to windward 
 with difficulty. Before the Armada reached the Channel all 
 the four galleys, and several other vessels, had fallen off, and 
 the full strength that sighted the Lizard on Saturday, 30th 
 July, could not have exceeded 122 vessels, of an aggregate 
 tonnage of 56,000 tons, and armed with 2,400 cannon. About 
 70 of these were victuallers, unfit for fighting, but carrying a 
 number of soldiers for defence. The English fleet under 
 Howard consisted in all of about 100 sail, whilst Lord Henry
 
 1 82 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Seymour was watching Dunkirk with nearly 40 ships, and 
 Justin of Nassau, with the Holland fleet, was lying off the 
 mouth of the Scheldt, ready to help if needed. The English 
 ships were more heavily armed with guns than the Spanish, 
 and of course less cumbered with foot-soldiers. Despite of all 
 experience and warning, the Spaniards had continued in the 
 old-fashioned tactics of grappling and boarding the enemy, 
 looking upon artillery as an undignified arm, and depending 
 mainly upon small-arms and infantry. 
 
 Medina Sidonia was outmanoeuvred from the first. He 
 sighted the enemy on Sunday morning (July 31), abreast 
 of Plymouth, and to his dismay found that the English ships 
 could sail round him as they pleased ; their finer lines and 
 smarter working enabling them to haul much closer to the 
 wind than the towering round-bowed galleons. Howard and 
 Drake attacked with artillery, keeping out of small-arm range. 
 In vain the Spaniards tried to close, and yelled that the 
 EngUsh were afraid, but as they realised their powerlessness 
 their spirits fell, and the little-hearted Duke grew ever more 
 despondent; for the EngUsh gained the wind and kept it. 
 To add to their confusion, on Sunday evening, one of the 
 finest of the Spanish ships under Don Pedro de Valdes, with 
 a great treasure on board, fouled another vessel, and became 
 crippled. The weather was heavy, the night coming on, and 
 the English hanging on their flanks. A half-hearted attempt 
 was made to take Valdes' ship in tow, and failed : and then 
 Medina Sidonia shamefully abandoned her to her fate, and 
 she was captured by the English. The same evening 
 Oquendo's vice-flagship blew up, and was also abandoned, 
 with hundreds of maimed and scorched wretches on board. 
 And so for a week the Armada sailed or drifted up the 
 Channel a helpless target to the enemy, who kept the wind 
 and would not close. Medina Sidonia could only write, as he 
 did daily, agonising appeals to Farnese to come out and help 
 him. Farnese was furious. The wind was blowing dead into
 
 v.] PJiilip II, 1580— 1598. 183 
 
 the poor little harbour of Dunkirk ; his boats were mostly 
 canal punts ; and he stood firmly to his conditions. He must 
 have 6,000 Spanish infantry from the Armada, and the 
 Channel must be cleared of foes before he would move. 
 
 The Flanders coast is shoally and dangerous for big ships : 
 the currents are strong, and the wind was blowing up-Channel. 
 If the Armada sailed past Dunkirk it was clear it could not get 
 back again. So the Duke decided to anchor ofif Calais till he 
 could obtain word of Farnese. On Sunday night, 7th August, 
 he heard to his despair that the Flanders force was all unready ; 
 a fact which Farnese subsequently denied. At midnight seven 
 or eight English fireships came flaring down the wind straight 
 on to the Armada. Panic, utter and uncontrollable, seized the 
 Spaniards. Cables and anchors were slipped to the bottom of 
 the sea, and the greatest fleet that ever sailed became a 
 hustling mob of ships trying to get away. A great galleass ran 
 ashore in the confusion, and was lost, the rest sailing with the 
 wind towards the fatal sandbanks, with the English fleet always 
 to windward. Medina Sidonia with 40 of his best ships 
 anchored off Gravelines, and at early dawn was attacked by 
 the united English fleet. All day long the battle raged. The 
 Spaniards fought desperately, but hopelessly, for they were 
 fighting a lost battle and they knew it. They were now out- 
 numbered, their men starved and sick, their ammunition short, 
 and their leader an incapable poltroon. When the English 
 drew off at night, the Spanish ships that had been in action 
 were simply riddled, blood-drenched wrecks; a heavy wind was 
 blowing dead in-shore, the sandbanks were to leeward, and it 
 looked as if nothing but a miracle could save the whole fleet 
 from destruction. Two great galleons drifted ashore and were 
 lost, but a providential shift of wind enabled the rest to weather 
 the shoals, and stagger up the North Sea. Some of the sailors 
 were for turning and fighting again, but Medina Sidonia and 
 the soldiers had had enough ; and with curses on their lips, 
 and rage in their hearts, they determined to lun up to the
 
 1 84 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 latitude of the Orkneys, make a long westerly tack far into the 
 Atlantic and thence set a course for Spain. Only 65 battered 
 wrecks ever reached home. Beset with famine, drought and 
 pestilence, pursued by appalling weather, the rest went down 
 unnoted in the wild Atlantic, or were dashed to pieces on the 
 coasts of Ulster and Connaught, where thousands of poor 
 starved shipwrecked creatures were slaughtered by the English 
 garrisons and the wild Irish peasantry. The blow to the 
 power of Spain was never recovered ; but Philip was patient 
 and resigned through it all. He and his country were utterly 
 beggared, and his enemies victorious all along the line, but he 
 never lost heart or faith. He was, he thought, only the 
 instrument for fighting God's battles ; and in the long run 
 victory surely must crown such a cause as his. 
 
 Don Antonio had continued to be a thorn in the side 
 of Philip. Alternately Elizabeth and Catharine de Medici had 
 cherished and abandoned him as it suited them. On several 
 occasions unsuccessful attempts had been made to assassinate 
 him by men in Philip's interest. The Portuguese populace 
 and clergy were almost unanimously in his favour; but the 
 nobles had all been bought or deported, with the exception of 
 a few at Antonio's side in England. The idea of avenging the 
 Armada-attack, dispossessing Philip of Portugal, and making the 
 country practically a tributary state to Elizabeth, whilst render- 
 ing impossible any attempt on the part of Spain to renew the 
 invasion of England, was too tempting a one to be missed. 
 Thanks to Don Antonio's sanguine importunities, and the 
 eagerness of Drake to " singe the King of Spain's beard " once 
 more, the Queen consented to an expedition being despatched 
 from Plymouth to Lisbon in the interests of the Portuguese 
 pretender. She contributed herself ;^2o,odo, and seven ships 
 of her navy; but most of the cost was defrayed by a joint 
 stock undertaking, in which the shareholders hoped to be 
 recouped by the plunder, and Don Antonio's gratitude. The 
 expedition was disastrous from the first. Delay and mis-
 
 v.] Philip II, 1580— 1598. 185 
 
 management of all sorts accompanied it. The men on the 
 expedition were mostly idle, unruly and undisciplined, and the 
 ten days well-nigh wasted at Corunna, against the Queen's 
 positive orders, in attacking and pillaging the town, and 
 burning a few ship-loads of stores, enabled the Archduke 
 Albert, Philip's nephew and Viceroy, to organise the defence of 
 Lisbon, and to terrorise the Portuguese. Norris, in command 
 of 11,000 soldiers, marched overland from Peniche, against 
 Drake's advice, without siege artillery or baggage train. He 
 found the native inhabitants utterly cowed, and none but a few 
 monks and peasants rallied to Don Antonio. After a few 
 days of inglorious fighting he retired and joined Drake's fleet 
 at Cascaes. Of the 18,000 men who sailed from Plymouth 
 (23rd April 1589, N.S.) less than 12,000 returned. The attempt 
 was acknowledged to have been a failure, demonstrating that 
 the superiority of the English was in their ships and seamen, 
 rather than in land fighting ; which was natural in the case of 
 a country in which more or less overt piracy had been the 
 principal seafaring industry for more than twenty years. 
 
 An adverse fate appeared to beset Philip's cause. We 
 have seen how the possession of Flanders made it necessary 
 for him to keep friendly to England, whilst Elizabeth's position 
 made such a friendship impossible ; we have seen how he was 
 forced to intervene in French politics and subsidise the Guises, 
 in order to promote division, and to prevent the country from 
 becoming officially Huguenot and making common cause with 
 Elizabeth and his rebel Hollanders. Such a result would have 
 isolated and ruined him; and yet from the mere force of 
 circumstances this result seemed inevitable. The Duke of 
 Anjou, the last of the French King's brothers, died in June 
 1584. Henry HI himself was childless, and the next heir was 
 Huguenot Henry of Navarre, son of that Jeanne d'Albret, to 
 whom, in his early youth, Philip himself was to have been 
 married. Insidious attempts were made to conciliate Henry 
 of Navarre himself, but he, like Elizabeth, was determined to
 
 1 86 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 be a national sovereign, depending upon the French people, 
 and not upon the King of Spain. And yet, at all costs, 
 Philip must prevent France from being ruled by a Huguenot. 
 The popular idol Guise, head of the Catholics, was already in 
 Philip's pay; but he became henceforth a much more im- 
 portant personage for Spanish ends. The bases of the Holy 
 League were settled early in 1585, ostensibly with a purely 
 religious object, but PhiHp's ends were, as usual, political. 
 The dismemberment of France would have been a master 
 stroke. If Navarre could be forced or cajoled into being 
 content with Beam and the south-west. Guise might have the 
 centre and east; Provence could be occupied by Philip's son- 
 in-law Savoy; Philip's eldest daughter Isabel would inherit, in 
 right of her mother, Brittany, where the Salic law was in- 
 operative; and Philip himself could add Picardy and French 
 Flanders to his own dominions. But Navarre would have all 
 France or fight for it. An attempt to ruin him in the eyes 
 of the French people was made at Philip's instance, by the 
 famous bill of excommunication (September 1585). But the 
 Bearnais gave Sixtus V a good answer. " The man who calls 
 himself Pope Sixtus is himself a liar and a heretic " : and 
 henceforward it was war to the knife between them. 
 
 Henry III had been already coerced by the league into 
 signing the treaty of Nemours, withdrawing religious toleration 
 from the Huguenots, but he bitterly hated Guise, his hard 
 taskmaster. He fled from his capital, and anarchy and war 
 thenceforward ruled throughout France ; whilst Philip looked 
 on, satisfied with the success of his schemes, which made the 
 unity of France appear impossible. The wretched Henry III, 
 contemned by all parties, a mere cipher, had Guise and his 
 brother murdered in his own palace at Blois (23 December, 
 1588); and then for a short time it seemed as if Philip's plans 
 in France were to be as unsuccessful as his attacks on England. 
 But Henry's exultation was short-lived. " At last I am King 
 of France," he said to his mother. "You have cut out the
 
 v.] Philip IT, 1580— 1598. 187 
 
 garment," she replied, " but you have not wit enough to sew it 
 together." And she was right. Denunciations of the royal 
 murderer rang through France. The doctors of the Sorbonne 
 declared the crown forfeit and the subjects relieved of their 
 allegiance to Henry of Valois. A council of government was 
 erected in Paris, with Guise's brother Mayenne at its head, and 
 soon the League was the only organised governing power in 
 France. But Mayenne was weak and vaguely ambitious. He 
 had no one to turn to but Philip, and he cast the predominant 
 Cathohc party in France at the feet of the King of Spain. 
 Henry HI with the aid of Navarre was ably to rally to his side 
 the Huguenot and moderate party, and those Frenchmen whose 
 patriotism was stronger than their religious bias, and with 
 40,000 men he besieged Paris, now in the hands of Mayenne 
 and the League. 
 
 In August 1589 the wretched Henry HI fell under the 
 dagger of Jacques Clement, the fanatic monk. Philip's friends 
 acclaimed the murder as an act of divine vengeance, but 
 to the King of Spain himself the event was an untoward one. 
 The rightful heir Henry of Navarre proclaimed himself King, 
 and it was evident now that if the League were to succeed it 
 could only be by reconquering the country with the national 
 forces of Spain. The first suggestion of the council in Paris 
 was to proclaim Philip King of France, but Mayenne had 
 succeeded to his brother Guise's pretensions, and caused the 
 adoption of the aged Cardinal de Bourbon, Navarre's uncle, 
 as King to serve as a stopgap. The so-called Charles X was 
 in the hands of his nephew and was a mere figure-head, as 
 Henry of Portugal had been. If Spain was not to be utterly 
 ruined France must be prevented from becoming ofticially a 
 Protestant country, and Philip was again driven into the 
 position he had been forced to adopt in the case of England. 
 He must conquer the country himself in order to keep it 
 Catholic: and again he thought, that if Spanish doubloons and 
 men-at-arms won the prize the King of Spain must keep it.
 
 1 88 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 So he dropped for a time the policy of dismemberment, and 
 adopted that of conquest. This gave to Henry IV the in- 
 estimable advantage of championing the national cause against 
 the foreigner, and rendered even Mayenne sulky and half- 
 hearted in a struggle which could only make a Spaniard King 
 of France, and leave the Guise ambition still unsatisfied. 
 With the aid of subsidies from Elizabeth, Henry's dash, energy 
 and military skill swept through northern France from Nor- 
 mandy to Paris, beating Mayenne's armies again and again and 
 beleaguering the capital. A Spanish force was holding Paris 
 for the League, and another Spanish army from Flanders under 
 Egmont was advancing to take the Bearnais in the rear. 
 They were met by Henry at Ivry on 14 March, 1590. They 
 were mostly Walloons and mercenary Germans, utterly unable 
 to withstand the splendid rush of the 2000 horsemen, the 
 chivalry of France, which followed the white plume of gallant 
 Navarre. The Leaguers fled in hopeless disorder, and Paris 
 again was closely surrounded by the national forces. 
 
 The Spaniards were soon convinced that Mayenne was not 
 to be trusted, and that if France was to be won it must be by 
 sheer fighting, Spaniards against Frenchmen. Philip was old, 
 ill and weary, overwhelmed as usual with financial and other 
 troubles, but he was forced to struggle whilst he lived against 
 France becoming a Protestant power; and Farnese was ordered 
 to take the field against Henry of Navarre, with the avowed 
 object of placing the Infanta Isabel on the throne, as the elder 
 daughter of Elizabeth of Valois — for Philip made as light of 
 the Salic law in France as he had of the rights of the house 
 of York in England. Farnese refused to undertake the 
 command unless with a force which he considered sufficient; 
 and with infinite difficulty Philip provided him with resources 
 to raise 13,000 men, with whom he joined Mayenne at Meaux 
 on the 23 August, 1590, and marched to relieve Paris. He 
 succeeded in partially raising the siege, and entered Paris in 
 September. Almost immediately Mayenne began to show his
 
 v.] Philip II, 1580 — 1598. 189 
 
 'teeth. Dissensions arose between the Spanish and French 
 leaguers. Farnese was not conciliatory, and to prove that 
 Mayenne was powerless alone, simply marched away and left 
 Paris to its fate. The Catholic zealots in Spain once more 
 began to whisper in Philip's ear that Farnese was disloyal and 
 unorthodox, as they had done at the time of the Armada. 
 Philip's plans again underwent a change. It was clear that he 
 could not coerce the French nation into acknowledging him or 
 his daughter as its sovereign, but Navarre might be driven into 
 accepting terms which should render him powerless for harm. 
 Spanish troops were accordingly sent under Don Juan del 
 Aguila to aid the Duke de Mercoeur in Brittany, where they 
 seized and held Blavet on the coast in spite even of the 
 Leaguers. Savoy entered Marseilles with a strong force, and 
 4000 Spaniards garrisoned Toulouse. Elizabeth retorted by 
 sending 3000 Englishmen under Essex to the north of France, 
 and so the struggle became general all over the country. 
 Farnese himself was ordered to make a last great effort, and 
 re-entered France. He raised the siege of Rouen in April 
 1592 ;.but Mayenne and the French Leaguers now hated and 
 distrusted the Spaniards almost as much as the Huguenots and 
 gave but little help. Farnese soon found himself hemmed in 
 by Henry's forces at Rouen. Ill and wounded, resentful of 
 Mayenne's jealousy, he escaped with difficulty, and returned 
 to Flanders, with the loss of half his force, only to die there 
 broken-hearted in December of the same year, 1592. He was 
 the last of Philip's great officers ; and, like the rest of them, 
 had been sacrificed to the blighting system which had sought 
 to reduce him — a man of the highest gifts — to the position of a 
 mere machine ; to whom cold half-confidence and semi-veiled 
 distrust were given in grudging return for slavish obedience 
 to the orders of an anchorite a thousand miles away. 
 
 The selfish objects of the Spanish King were evident now, 
 even to the Leaguers, and it was seen by all that his cause 
 was desperate. A promising proposal had been made to marry
 
 190 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 the Infanta to the young Duke of Guise and make the latter 
 King, but Mayenne had selfishly stood in the way ; when, how- 
 ever, the Estates met at the Louvre in January, the solution 
 was once more brought forward by the Duke of Feria, Philip's 
 representative. But it was brought forward too late, for 
 during the weeks Feria lost in presenting and pressing the 
 Infanta's impossible claim, the clever Be'arnais outside the 
 walls was winning the Estates, posing as the patriotic French- 
 man, and allowing himself to be persuaded to take his final 
 step of policy and to become a Catholic. Paris, lie said, 
 was worth a mass ; and to mass he went in St Denis on the 
 23 July) i593j entering Paris as King in March 1594. The 
 Spanish troops marched out next day, and Philip's hope of 
 dominating France was gone for ever. But he had so far 
 succeeded that France was not a Huguenot power. The war 
 flickered on languidly in Picardy until 1598; only pride on the 
 part of Philip, and the conditions of Henry's alliance with the 
 Enghsh and Dutch, preventing peace being made before. But 
 at last Henry left his allies in the lurch and made peace with 
 Spain alone. He earned the opprobrium of the EngUsh Queen 
 and his own extreme Huguenots, but he made France once 
 more a united nation, and thus ended a fratricidal strife of 
 nearly forty years. 
 
 It has already been related that Escobedo, the secretary of 
 Don Juan of Austria, had been assassinated by men in Antonio 
 Perez's pay at the end of March 1578. The King had 
 authorised his assassination six months before, but when the 
 deed was done the reasons for it had disappeared, for all hope 
 of conciliating Flanders had then vanished, and Philip was 
 pledged to another war. It had always been Philip's policy to 
 maintain jealousy between his secretaries; and Secretary Mateo 
 Vasquez lost no time in telling him that the gossip of the 
 capital connected with the murder the names of Antonio Perez 
 and Ruy Gomez's widow, the Princess of Eboli. It was in- 
 convenient, for Philip had no wish for a scandal; particularly
 
 V.J Philip IF, 1580 — 1598. 191 
 
 as the murder when it was done was no longer necessary, and 
 probably surprised him. But the princess was a quarrelsome 
 virago, and Perez a spoilt favourite, and when they learnt that 
 Mateo Vasquez had been talking about them, they continued 
 to clamour to the King for his punishment. Philip did his 
 best to calm them for a time, but at last lost patience, and had 
 Perez and the princess both arrested in July 1579. The 
 princess never regained her liberty, but Perez was only 
 nominally confined, received repeated reassuring messages from 
 the King, and was soon after restored to office. But when 
 Portugal had to be conquered, and the Alba party became 
 paramount, Perez's doom was sealed. Gradually Philip's eyes 
 were opened to the fact that, for his political ends, Perez had 
 deceived him and poisoned his mind against Don Juan, and 
 that the King's order for Escobedo's murder had been executed, 
 when no longer needed, simply to satisfy the vengeance of the 
 princess, with whom Escobedo, an old adherent of her husband, 
 had remonstrated for her indecorous relations with Perez. 
 
 In 1584 Perez's papers were seized, and he was sentenced 
 to two years' imprisonment, ten years' deprivation, and a fine 
 of 30,000 ducats, for tampering with state papers. He escaped 
 to sanctuary, and was recaptured. In 1588 he was put on his 
 trial for murder, and tortured to make him confess why the 
 murder was committed when it was. Fearing a trap he refused, 
 until the rack tore a promise from him that he would tell the 
 reason for Escobedo's assassination. At that day no one could 
 understand Philip's action in persisting thus in the persecution 
 of Perez for the commission of a crime, for which, it was 
 acknowledged, he had the King's warrant. Philip gave his 
 confidence slowly, but he was implacable when he was tricked 
 and deceived, and Philip now knew that he had been made to 
 distrust and betray his ov/n brother by Perez's lies, and that 
 his secret orders had been divulged to an infamous woman, 
 who had used them to wreak her private revenge. Philip 
 dared not explain this at the time, and some of the highest
 
 192 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 people in Spain thought that Perez was being badly used. 
 With their aid he escaped to Aragon, and appealed for 
 protection of the Aragonese courts, in which torture was not 
 allowed, and over which the King had no control; for the 
 chief-justiciary was irremovable. But Perez had possession 
 of all Philip's secrets, and orders were sent to capture him and 
 send him to Castile, in spite of Aragonese liberties. The 
 people rose in revolt and rescued Perez, who was lodged in 
 the Aragonese prison, where he was safe from summary process. 
 When Philip found that he could only appear in court as an 
 ordinary prosecutor, and would have to divulge the whole story, 
 he abandoned the prosecution. In prison, vain and boasting 
 Perez had threatened Philip that he would bring Henry of 
 Navarre into Aragon, that he would make it a republic, and 
 much else ; but above all, he had ventured to sneer at Philip's 
 religion. The spies of the Inquisition heard him, and the 
 Holy Office took him from the Aragonese prison to its own 
 dungeons. The consequence was a formidable popular rising. 
 The Inquisition was threatened, its dungeons opened, its 
 prisoners released, the King's representative nearly murdered, 
 and all authority defied. At length at the end of 1591, after 
 much violence and disorder, Perez escaped to France and 
 England, to be caressed by Henry of Navarre and Elizabeth, 
 to live in luxury in Essex House, to sell his country to its 
 enemies for the rest of his worthless life ; and at last to die 
 (161 1) scorned and forgotten in abject misery in Paris. 
 
 Philip had always hated the sturdy liberties of the Aragonese. 
 His army under Alonso de Vargas had now (1591) a pretext 
 for severity, and made the most of it. Whilst the pikemen 
 cowed the towns, the Inquisition spread its net far and wide. 
 Swift and exemplary vengeance fell upon the heads of the 
 revolt. Philip had sworn to respect the constitution, and he 
 could not openly break his oath. No change but an extension 
 of the royal power in criminal cases was made by the Cortes 
 of Tarazona (1593), but with the iron heel of Castile upon
 
 v.] Philip II, 1580— 1598. 193 
 
 their necks, the Aragonese were made clearly to understand 
 that in future their autonomy must not be exercised against 
 the sovereign's will — at least during Philip's life. 
 
 In the meanwhile the intrigues had continued between the 
 Enghsh Catholics who wanted the Infanta for Queen on Eliza- 
 beth's death, and the Scots Catholics who hoped to gain the 
 Crown for James ; but with an exhausted treasury and depleted 
 forces Philip could do no more now than hamper Elizabeth by 
 encouraging rebellion in Ireland. Tyrone and O'Donnell had 
 sought his aid some time before they made an attempt to rise, 
 and he had sent more than one little mission to report upon 
 their position. He could not do much for them, and his aid 
 was always scanty, tardy, and ineffective. But Perez was busy 
 in England, and magnified it as much as possible. Essex was 
 ambitious and warlike, as usual, and between them they made 
 the Queen believe that a really dangerous expedition was fitting 
 out in Spanish ports. The result was the raising of the fleet 
 under Essex, which, after much misgiving on the part of the 
 Queen, sailed from Plymouth on the 3rd June 1596. It con- 
 sisted of 17 royal ships, 76 freighted ships, and a Dutch 
 squadron of 24 sail. What was left of Philip's strength was 
 concentrated in Cadiz, and before that port Essex's fleet sud- 
 denly appeared on the 20th June. The city was panic-stricken. 
 No strength or resource was to be expected from Philip's officers, 
 and the war-ships were withdrawn after the loss of two of them 
 to the end of the bay (Puerto Real), where there were 40 rich 
 galleons loading for the Indies. The city was taken almost 
 without resistance. For 15 days the richest port in Spain was 
 subjected to a systematic sack, and was left a heap of smoking 
 ruin. The whole of the fleet and the 40 galleons were burnt by 
 the Spaniards, with 11,000,000 ducats' worth of merchandise, 
 and Essex sailed out again practically unmolested. This was 
 the last blow to the naval supremacy of Spain, and showed 
 to the whole world that, under Philip's system, his country 
 had become effete. He himself was sinking to the grave, 
 
 H. S. 13
 
 194 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 condemned to agonised helplessness by the gout. At the end 
 of June 1598 he was carried in a litter to the Escorial, the 
 great granite palace on which he had squandered the vast sums 
 wrung from his miserable people. Repulsive sores covered 
 him. His pain was so intense that his wounds could not be 
 washed or tended. Antiseptic science was undreamed of, and 
 the King for fifty-three dreadful days lay slowly rotting to 
 death, under circumstances of appalling horror too hideous for 
 relation. But through it all he never lost his supreme faith 
 and resignation. Fervent, almost frantic, appeals to God for 
 forgiveness were for ever on his lips, and in the grim forbidding 
 cell in which he died the intercessions of the Church went 
 ceaselessly on night and day. In his last interview with his 
 only son Philip, he enjoined him to be pious, just, and merciful 
 to his subjects, and bade him see how the monarchies of the 
 world ended. To his beloved daughter, Isabel, he left the 
 sovereignty of the Netherlands, in union with her cousin the 
 Cardinal Archduke Albert, whom she was to marry ; and then 
 he bade farewell to mundane affairs and prayed until he died 
 (13 September, 1598). He was born to a hopeless task. His 
 only chance of success under the circumstances was to adopt an 
 easy opportunism, such as that by which his rivals beat him. 
 He had to cope with Elizabeth, Catharine de Medici, Orange 
 and Henry of Navarre, whose religious convictions sat lightly 
 upon them, whilst he was burdened with an hereditary system 
 of government and conduct, from which he had not sufficient 
 quickness of wit to free himself, and he was borne down with 
 the greatness of a task, for which his qualities and training 
 rendered him unfit. 
 
 When he succeeded to his father Spain was already well- 
 nigh ruined by the drain of the Emperor's wars, imposed upon 
 him by the inheritance of Flanders and the Empire. It would 
 be unfair to blame the monarch for the folly of his financial 
 measures, as the science of political economy was yet unknown; 
 but their persistent perversity seems almost systematic. When
 
 v.] Philip II, 1580 — 1598. 195 
 
 no further supplies could be wrung from the Cortes, funds 
 were raised by the seizure of the money which came to 
 merchants from the Indies in payment for goods, by forced 
 loans from nobles, prelates or wealthy burgesses, by the sale of 
 seignorial rights over villages and towns, and of the royal 
 patrimony, by repudiating debts, reducing interest, and ham- 
 pering commerce and industry. 
 
 The maladministration arising from the evil system of 
 pledging and farming future resources was never reformed, the 
 squalid lavishness of the Court expenditure was never reduced, 
 a conciliatory policy in order to avoid the cost of war was 
 never adopted : the only steps which appear to have occurred 
 to the financial advisers of Philip were those which under- 
 mined public confidence and security, which blighted the 
 national industries and which killed future resources for the 
 sake of present advantage. The sumptuary laws to reduce the 
 expenditure of the lieges and the method of reducing prices by 
 prohibiting the export of Spanish goods strangled the industries 
 by which many taxpayers lived ; the ineffectual attempt to 
 prevent the export of bullion hampered the introduction of 
 foreign goods through the custom houses and encouraged 
 contraband, besides raising the cost of labour in Spain by the 
 depreciation of metal. Concurrently with these disastrous 
 measures, other operations no less destructive were at work 
 The continued aggregation of land in the hands of the Church, 
 and tied up in perpetual entail, and the expulsion of the 
 Moriscos from Andalucia, had well-nigh ruined agriculture. 
 To prevent whole provinces from starving in the finest grain 
 country in the world immense quantities of wheat had to be 
 introduced from abroad, and the alcabala suspended on bread- 
 stuffs imported into Seville. Constant wars and emigration, 
 the association of the Moriscos with industry, and the immense 
 number of Church holidays, moreover, made the ordinary 
 Spaniard contemptuous of work, and scanty in his aggregate 
 production. And so tlie vicious circle went on, and the curse 
 
 13—3
 
 196 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. v. 
 
 of far-reaching dominions in the possession of an imperfectly 
 unified and organised country had in seventy years reduced 
 Spain to the last depth of misery and penury. To some 
 extent this may, of course, be attributed to Philip's qualities 
 and limitations ; but it was mainly owing to a system, and to 
 circumstances, which were originated before his birth, and 
 which neither his training nor his character enabled him to 
 vary.
 
 197 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PHILIP III, 1598 — 1621. 
 
 Philip II had nearly ruined Spain, but his dream of 
 centralisation of authority and uniformity of faith had been 
 realised; and Philip III succeeded to the throne a purely 
 Spanish monarch of a united Spanish nation, to a great extent 
 unhampered by the traditions of the imperial connection. 
 The possession of Flanders, the origin of much of Spain's 
 misfortune, passed to the Infanta Isabel and her husband, to 
 revert to the Crown of Spain in case of their having no issue ; 
 but even thus lightened, the burden was a heavy one. Philip 
 was in his twenty-first year when his father died, and already 
 the astute old King had seen that he would be but a degene- 
 rate successor, Philip II had laboriously endeavoured to 
 instil into his son those profound maxims of state which he 
 himself had so early learnt of the Emperor. But there was no 
 application or industry to be got from young Philip. Well- 
 meaning, amiable and weak, not a fool, but idle and careless, 
 he was destined to be the mere tool of favourites all his life. 
 Against this his father had always stood, and just before his 
 death he sighed out to his faithful de Mora, "Ah Don Cris- 
 tobal, I fear they will rule him ! " Concentration of all power 
 in the person of the monarch had been PhiUp's aim, but the 
 possibility of the transfer of the power entire to an interested 
 favourite was the weak, point of the system, and it must have 
 added to the bitterness of Philip's last moments to foresee this
 
 198 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 result of a lifetime of plotting and planning. The Secretary of 
 State, Don Cristobal de Mora, immediately after Philip II's 
 death carried to the new King a number of documents for 
 consideration and despatch. With a sign of the hand the 
 King told the old minister to place them on a sideboard, 
 where the Marquis of Denia (Don Francisco de Sandoval y 
 Rojas, afterwards Duke of Lerma) would attend to them. 
 This was the first act of Philip III as King, and it was pro- 
 phetic of his reign. To Lerma was handed almost every royal 
 prerogative. The old ministers and officers of Philip II were 
 unceremoniously removed, to be replaced by friends and 
 hangers-on of Lerma, and thenceforward for twenty years the 
 favourite was, in all but name. King of Spain. 
 
 Before Philip II died he had arranged the marriage of his 
 son with Margaret of Austria (daughter of the Archduke Charles, 
 the aforetime persistent suitor of Elizabeth of England), and of 
 his daughter Isabel with the Archduke Albert. Margaret and 
 Albert came together through Italy, with all the pomp of their 
 imperial house ; and the two marriages were celebrated by proxy 
 in Ferrara by the Pope on the 13th November, 1598. Philip was 
 to meet his bride in Valencia, but before he could start from 
 his capital with fitting magnificence money had to be obtained. 
 During the reign of his predecessor the power of the Cortes 
 had been almost entirely sapped. The constituents were 
 tampered with, the members bribed, and latterly Philip II had 
 postponed indefinitely the consideration of the presentments, 
 keeping the same parliament in existence for many years. 
 When Philip II died the Cortes of 1593 was still undissolved. 
 He had asked them for 500,000,000 maravedis; but corrupt 
 as they were, they replied that it was useless to vote it, for the 
 people could not pay it. No blood could be got from a 
 drained body, they said : " No one has either money or credit, 
 and the country is utterly ruined. Any money that is made is 
 hidden away, and the owner lives poorly upon it, until it is 
 gone, ...Commerce is killed by the alcabala. Where 30,000
 
 VI.] Philip III, 1598—1621. 199 
 
 arrobas of wool were manufactured there are not now 6,000, 
 and in the principal cities most of the houses are closed and 
 deserted." But the confessional, the pulpit, official and court 
 pressure, were once more brought into play ; and the 500 
 millions were voted. By the time Philip died, however, all that 
 could be collected of it had been spent, and the finances were 
 more embarrassed than ever. Philip III called a new Cortes 
 together on the death of his father, and begged for a new vote 
 of 18 miUion ducats in six years (;!^2, 200,000). He had not, 
 he told them, funds, resources, or property of any sort to meet 
 his daily expenditure. With many groans the Cortes voted 
 provisionally the sum demanded, pending an appeal to their 
 constituents. Instead of adopting some measures of economy, 
 reducing the enormous expense of the palace, or dismissing 
 some of the army of idlers, Philip and Lerma launched into a 
 perfect frenzy of extravagant splendour. The progress through 
 the ruined country to Valencia, to meet the new Queen and 
 the Archduke, surpassed in magnificence the greatest displays 
 of the Emperor. The obedient Cortes had also voted an 
 extraordinary supply of 150 million maravedis for the King, 
 and a similar sum for the Queen's " pattens," or pinmoney ; 
 and Lerma himself spent 300,000 ducats on the festivities. 
 
 From Valencia after the marriage Philip and his bride went 
 to Aragon, where he gained for ever the love of the Aragonese 
 by granting full amnesty to all the surviving offenders in the 
 late troubles. Money and caresses were showered upon him 
 and his wife \ but when the Aragonese asked for the aboHtion 
 of the Inquisition, Philip had to say that he would consider the 
 matter later. By the time Philip had returned to Madrid he 
 had by the advice of Lerma given away more knighthoods 
 than his father had done in ten years. Grandeeships and 
 titles were showered right and left, to fill Lerma's coffers and 
 to conciliate partisans ; whilst upon the favourite himself and 
 his family offices and honours were lavished to his heart's 
 content. The craze for waste and prodigality in the Court
 
 200 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 was now beyond all precedent. Philip II had lived like a 
 hermit, and for years had dressed in mourning, but with the 
 coming of a new young King and Queen an era of shameful 
 extravagance in dress and living began. Pragmatics of the 
 most severe character were published against luxury in 1600, 
 but the example of insolent splendour was set by the Court, 
 and could not be put down. The common people were 
 starving, the looms were idle, the fields untilled : nearly all the 
 finery came from abroad : the prices of commodities continued 
 to rise; and Old Castile, especially, was rapidly becoming a 
 wilderness. The Cortes attributed the general ruin mainly to 
 over-taxation, and proposed measures of economy. This how- 
 ever did not suit Lerma. His remedy was to transfer the 
 capital from Madrid to Valladolid, which was done early in 
 1 60 1, with disastrous results. Madrid was ruined, whilst 
 Valladolid and Old Castile did not benefit. The price of 
 necessaries was higher than ever, and widespread misery 
 resulted. The continued rise in prices was accompanied 
 again by a scarcity of currency, notwithstanding that vast sums 
 of bullion came every year from the Indies. Davila says that 
 in the year 1595, 35 million ducats in gold and silver came to 
 Seville, and an ordinary amount in gold alone was 12 millions: 
 but much never got beyond Seville, where foreign merchants 
 received it in exchange for goods, and the rest was mostly 
 hoarded, or conveyed to places of safety, where the rapacity of 
 the tax farmer could not reach it. It was not so much scarcity 
 of currency, as the obstacles to its circulation which caused the 
 trouble. Lerma himself, by a stroke of genius, conceived 
 another theory. It was, he said, the waste of silver in making 
 Church and household plate which caused coin to be so scarce. 
 So in April 1601 sudden orders were sent throughout Spain, 
 for official inventories to be made of every piece of silver plate 
 in private houses and churches, and all this was to be kept 
 intact until orders were received for its utilisation. This was 
 too much. Bishops and clergy thundered from the altars and
 
 VI.] Philip III, 1598 — 1 62 1. 201 
 
 pulpits against such sacrilege, and in August a humble apology 
 was given and the order cancelled. But something had to be 
 done. The Cortes now might vote what they liked, but the 
 ruined people could not pay it ; and the next device was an 
 appeal ad misericordiam to bishops, nobles, officials, and 
 others, to give what money and plate they chose. The 
 Archbishop of Seville contributed his plate and 30,000 ducats 
 in money, and others gave in proportion. But there was a 
 lower depth still. Officers were appointed to go from door to 
 door accompanied by the priest of each parish, to beg for alms 
 for the King, the smallest sum received being fifty reals. To 
 this had Spain fallen. The master of the New World with its 
 countless treasures had not money to pay for his household 
 servants, or to set forth the meals for his own table. More 
 disastrous still was the measure adopted of doubling the face 
 value of the copper coinage. This was mostly used by poor 
 people, and the measure of course, at once, more than doubled 
 the prices of articles of prime necessity, besides which immense 
 quantities of copper counterfeit coins were introduced from 
 abroad, and rapidly exchanged for silver. The natural result 
 was the disappearance of silver from circulation, and another 
 blow was dealt to the national welfare. 
 
 Amidst all this disorder the pompous pretence that Spain 
 was the most powerful nation on earth was still kept up, and 
 for many years to come was to some extent accepted by 
 foreigners as the fact\ As a result of this tradition it was still 
 looked upon as being incumbent on Philip, pauper though 
 he was, to interfere in the affairs of England, which under 
 Elizabeth had grown to be immensely more prosperous and 
 powerful than Spain in reality. When Philip II died, ominous 
 news was already rife of another intended English descent upon 
 
 ^ In one of his moments of debasement with Gondomar (161 7) 
 James I said, " Of course I know that, so far as greatness is concerned, 
 the King of Spain is greater than all the rest of us Christian Kings put 
 together."
 
 202 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Portugal, and fleets were being prepared to withstand them in 
 Seville, Lisbon and Corunna. The English Catholic refugees 
 in Spain and Flanders had continued to urge that England 
 should be dealt with direct, whilst the Scots still advocated 
 the invasion through Scotland, and agents from Tyrone were 
 unceasing in their prayers for the help of Spain to the Irish 
 cause. The first course appeared most flattering to Spanish 
 pride and interests \ and with great effort the fleets were con- 
 centrated in Lisbon in the summer of 1599, with the object of 
 invading England under the Adelantado of Castile, Don Martin 
 de Padilla. His own account of his object, quoted by Davila, 
 shows the change of feeling which the fate of the Armada had 
 brought about. He was inflamed, he said, purely by religious 
 zeal, and neither he nor his force would take the value of a 
 penny from England. To punish Jezebel and bring England 
 to the Church was all he sought, and he would do it if 
 possible, by mildness, persuasion, and presents. He was a 
 romantic and quixotic bigot, and the corruption, penury, and 
 delay, more than once made him despair of ever being able to 
 sail at all. When at last he did so it was only to have his 
 fifty ships scattered by a storm, and beaten back into Spanish 
 ports. 
 
 At the same time a supreme eff"ort was made with the 
 galleys from Naples, Genoa, and Cataluna, to free the coasts 
 of Spain from Moorish pirates. Great levies of soldiers were 
 ordered to be made in Spain, Portugal and Italy ; for notwith- 
 standing that the Low Countries had been handed to the 
 Archduke, his resources were utterly inadequate to maintain 
 the 70,000 men required for the war. The Duchy of Milan 
 too was unquiet, and the turbulent Duke of Savoy was dis- 
 contented at being made to serve purely Spanish interests. 
 Troops were first hurried off to Italy, and then a supreme 
 eff'ort was made to send a force to the Archduke. Isabel and 
 her husband had arrived in their new sovereignty in Septem- 
 ber, to find that in their absence the Archduke Andrew and
 
 VI.] Philip HI, 1598— 1 62 1. 203 
 
 Juan de Mendoza (Marquis de Guadalete) had occupied the 
 neutral territories of Cleves and Westphalia, and that now the 
 Protestant princes had made common cause with Maurice of 
 Nassau and his Dutchmen. The Spanish and Walloon troops, 
 as usual unpaid, mutinied, and the Archduke as a last resource 
 opened negotiations with Nassau and the Queen of England. 
 When the plenipotentiaries met at Boulogne it was soon evident 
 that the claims of the Spaniards were still inflated and absurd ; 
 and the conference broke up (May 1600). Maurice of Nassau 
 was no sluggard, and without delay marched into Flanders and 
 besieged Nieuport. Isabel did her best, rallying her mutinous 
 rabble of an army at Bruges, and sent them under her husband 
 to meet Maurice. The Archduke was as brave as befitted a 
 prince of his house, but was utterly out-generalled and routed, 
 and the only armed force upon which his sovereignty rested 
 disappeared. But Nieuport still held out ; and Maurice, who 
 was more concerned for the moment in holding Holland than 
 in conquering Flanders, returned home, and thence went to 
 Cleves to regain the places held by the Spaniards (July 1601). 
 If the hold of Spain over Flanders was to be maintained now 
 was the time for a supreme effort, and it was made. Troops 
 and war material were crowded into all the ships which could 
 be seized at Lisbon and along the coast. But before the force 
 was ready Savoy and the Italians were sufficiently conciliated 
 for troops to be sent to the Archduke from Italy. 
 
 For several years past close communication had existed 
 between Tyrone and Spain. Tyrone's "ambassador," Hugh 
 Boy, and the Irish friars at Madrid had never ceased to beg 
 for help. Money, arms, and experienced officers had often 
 been sent to Ireland, but what was wanted now was a large 
 force. Just as the great preparations in Lisbon for the Arch- 
 duke were found to be unnecessary (summer of 1601), there 
 arrived in Spain the Spanish archbishop of Dublin (Mateo de 
 Oviedo) and Don Martin de la Cerda, who had been sent from 
 Spain to report. If, they said, a good force were sent now,
 
 204 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 the English would be driven out of Ireland, and Spain might 
 be supreme. Tyrone and O'Donnell were losing heart. This 
 was their last prayer, and if it were not granted they would 
 abandon the struggle and accept the fair terms offered by 
 the English. Lerma listened and consented. The Cortes 
 voted an extraordinary tax of 24,000,000 of ducats spread 
 over six years — which became permanent — to be raised by 
 increasing the " millions " on articles of food ; and the fleet 
 sailed from Lisbon for Ireland early in September 1601. 
 Diego Brochero was the admiral, with 33 ships — thirteen of 
 them seized from private owners. A force of 4500 men at 
 arms under Don Juan del Aguila was carried, and a large 
 quantity of war material. Nine vessels with 650 soldiers on 
 board were driven back to Spain by a storm, but the rest of 
 the soldiers under del Aguila landed in Kinsale. His men 
 were now but few — for already sickness had further reduced 
 their number ; and he begged Tyrone to come south and join 
 him, whilst to Spain he sent for more men and food. But the 
 reinforcements arrived too late (11 December, 1601), when 
 Mount] oy the Viceroy had beleaguered Kinsale, and the Irish 
 under Tyrone were scattered like chaff before the wind, the 
 200 Spaniards sent from the relieving force to help them being 
 killed, except those who took refuge in Baltimore. 
 
 Del Aguila's position was now hopeless. No help could 
 be expected from Tyrone or the Irish; and to conquer the 
 country alone was an impossible task for Spain, though the 
 Irishmen in Spain unweariedly tried to persuade Lerma other- 
 wise. The reinforcements sent to del Aguila in December 
 found him surrounded, and were landed (650 men) at Castle- 
 haven, Baltimore and Dunboy, where they were joined by the 
 remnants of O'Donnell's men, O'Donnell himself escaping 
 to Spain in the ships which had brought the reinforcement. 
 Early in 1602 del Aguila made terms with Mountjoy and 
 sailed away to Spain, leaving to the mercy of the English the 
 territories of Dunboy (O'Sullivan Beare), Castlehaven and
 
 VI.] Philip III, 1598— 1 62 1. 205 
 
 Baltimore (O'DriscoUs). O'Donnell died in Spain shortly 
 afterwards in despair, the O'Sullivans became great Spanish 
 nobles, and of the O'DriscoUs some remained in Spain praying 
 still for aid and some subsequently returned home. But 
 the English in Madrid, who had always frowned on the Irish 
 aid, were still urging the King and Lerma to take measures, 
 at least to ensure the succession of the Infanta after the 
 Queen's death. Father Creswell in Madrid, and Father Parsons 
 in Rome, were unwearied in their persistence; whilst the 
 Earl of Bothwell (Francis Stuart) and Colonel Semple were 
 as energetic in pressing the Scottish view. But the Archduke 
 and his wife were cold. They were straining every nerve in 
 the memorable siege of Ostend ; they were never likely to have 
 children, and had no desire to enter into the hopeless task of 
 conquering England. At length, in March 1603, Philip and 
 his Council agreed that Spanish arms and money should be at 
 the service of any English candidate for the Crown whom the 
 English Catholics should choose for Elizabeth's successor. 
 There was still some bombastic talk about holding the Isle of 
 Wight as a return, but the decision practically meant that Spain, 
 after fifty years of failure, abandoned her attempt to coerce 
 England. The person to be selected by the English Catholic 
 and anti-Scottish party was Arabella Stuart, and if Philip's 
 decision had been taken a year earlier, she might have become 
 Queen of England. But Elizabeth died (24 March, 1603) 
 before any preparations could be made in Spain. Robert 
 Cecil had made all arrangements for James' succession, and 
 the last chance of making England Catholic in the interests of 
 Spain had fled for ever. 
 
 It has already been pointed out that much of Elizabeth's 
 animosity against Spain was personal. James I had no such 
 feeling. He was base and truckling by nature, ready to accept 
 Spaniards at their own valuation; he hated piracy and had 
 no special cause of quarrel with Spain. When, therefore, 
 the Count de Villamediana (Don Juan dc Tassis) came to
 
 2o6 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 congratulate him upon his accession, he expressed a desire for 
 peace. There was no difficulty about the terms, and in 1604 
 the Constable of Castile (Velasco) with a splendid train of nobles 
 received in London James's oath that he would " not succour 
 the Hollanders or allow English ships to trade in the Indies." 
 With this the situation of the Netherlands changed. The 
 heroic defence of Ostend had dragged on since 1601, with the 
 aid of gallant Vere inside, and of Elizabeth and Henry IV 
 outside. Life and treasure incalculable were poured out upon 
 the sands by Spain and the Archduke. The brave brothers 
 Spinola, by land and sea, exerted their skill and energy in 
 vain. Ostend still stood firm, impregnable behind its sand- 
 dunes. On the other hand Maurice of Nassau captured the 
 Sluys after an obstinate siege (August 1604). But James 
 Stuart's friendship with Spain changed everything. The de- 
 fenders of Ostend, 4000 men, came to terms with Spinola and 
 marched out with the honours of war to the neighbouring 
 fortress of the Sluys; and the "Archdukes" entered the ruined 
 town, hardly purchased by a siege of three years and a loss of 
 40,000 men. 
 
 The Marquis of Spinola, who had reduced Ostend, now 
 hurried to Spain for reinforcements of men and money. With 
 his ships free from the depredations of the English Philip was 
 somewhat better off now, and Spinola returned to Flanders 
 loaded with honours, and with promise of a strong force of 
 Spaniards, Italians, and mercenary Germans. The promised 
 Spanish contingent was captured at sea by the Dutch, but 
 with his Italians and Germans Spinola pushed the campaign 
 across the Rhine to Maestricht, whence he threatened Friesland 
 (autumn 1605). Again funds ran short, and again Spinola 
 hurried to Spain. He found the resources at a low ebb. The 
 silver fleet had not yet arrived, and there was no money in the 
 treasury. The merchants of Cadiz were appealed to, but on 
 the King's credit they would advance nothing. He had already 
 paid to Genoese bankers 30 per cent, for an advance in the
 
 VI.] Philip III, 1598 — 1 62 1. 207 
 
 previous year : and upon Spinola's own security some money 
 was now raised. But both sides were tired of the fruitless 
 struggle. Through 1606 the fighting went on around Rhine- 
 berg with great gallantry on both sides ; but Spinola could get 
 no adequate funds to carry on the war, and negotiations were 
 opened for a truce. A suspension of hostilities of eight months 
 was agreed upon from May 1607, in which, for the first time, 
 the "Archdukes" and Spain declared that they made no claim 
 to the control of the United Provinces. 
 
 But in the meanwhile another blow was dealt to Spain. 
 Before the truce was ratified the Spanish fleet was well-nigh 
 destroyed by the Dutch off Gibraltar, and the Dutch fleet 
 then proceeded to the Azores to intercept the silver fleet. 
 To fight Spain with her own money had always been a 
 favourite device, and Maurice was loath to give it up : the 
 demand that the truce should be effective both on sea and 
 land was therefore for a time stubbornly resisted by the Dutch. 
 When this was settled it was found that Philip's ratification 
 was signed in the old haughty form "I the King" — which the 
 Dutchmen would not allow, for said they, Philip is no King of 
 ours. Maurice and the Zeelanders were for recommencing 
 the war. Almost every power in Europe intervened in the 
 interests of peace, but Spanish pride was tenacious, and there 
 was nothing submissive about the attitude of the Hollanders. 
 Nothing short of a recognition of their absolute independence 
 would satisfy them, and this Philip and the Archduke were 
 willing to give if they would renounce their claim to trade freely 
 in the Indies. This they would not do, and the negotiations 
 first at the Hague and afterwards at Antwerp came to a 
 deadlock. France and England proposed a long truce on the 
 Dutch terms, but both Philip and Maurice objected to this. 
 Diplomacy was at last successful. The "Archdukes" were 
 sincerely anxious for peace, and their confessor was sent to 
 Spain to satisfy the King's scruples of conscience. Maurice 
 was won over by the length of the truce, and finally, at a great
 
 2o8 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 meeting of the States General at Bergen op-Zoom (April 1609) 
 the momentous truce of 12 years was signed, giving to the 
 United Provinces the independence for which they had fought 
 so sturdily since Brederode had toasted the " Beggars " at 
 Brussels forty-three years before. 
 
 The conclusion of peace with England, France and Holland, 
 and the efforts made to restrain Moorish piracy, unquestionably 
 benefited Spanish commerce, and improved the general con- 
 dition of the country. But unfortunately the corruption and 
 lavishness introduced by Lerma caused the national resources 
 to be as narrow as ever. The King himself spent nearly the 
 whole of his time in amusements and devotion. His religion 
 had now become an abject superstition, and this and his love 
 of idle pleasure made him the tool of Lerma, who himself 
 conciliated the Church by enormous benefactions and rich 
 religious foundations. Pensions, grants, and monopohes were 
 showered by the favourite on the nobles and courtiers whom 
 he wished to attract. Contarini, the Venetian ambassador 
 (1605), says that the King was master of the world because he 
 had so much to give away, and could buy all men. There 
 were 46 Captain Generalships, over 20 Viceroyalties, 500 
 Knight Commanderships, some worth 20,000 ducats a year 
 each, and other offices in proportion. Most of them were un- 
 blushingly sold by Lerma and his underlings, and there was 
 undisguised peculation in almost every branch of the adminis- 
 tration. The Duchy of Milan, for instance, instead of remitting 
 revenue to Spain, now produced 200,000 ducats a year less 
 than its cost, and the kingdom of Naples had a deficit of 
 double that amount. The nominal revenues were enormous, 
 much greater than those of any other civilised country, the 
 people were crushed beneath the weight of taxation largely 
 drawn from industry, commerce and food, and yet such were 
 the lavishness and corruption, that in 1605 every source of 
 revenue had been pledged for years in advance at ruinous 
 interest, and, as we have seen, the King had to beg from door
 
 VI.] Philip 111, 1598 — 1621. 209 
 
 to door for his daily food. The clergy of Castile were supposed 
 to support fifty galleys on the Mediterranean coast, but in fact 
 there were only eight ; and they were badly found. Naples 
 paid for thirty galleys, but only sixteen existed, Sicily paid for 
 twenty, but there were only ten ; and so on through every 
 branch of the administration'. 
 
 Madrid had bitterly resented the removal of the Court to 
 Valladolid (1601) and had murmured openly against the sub- 
 jection of the King to Lerma and his satellites. Secretary 
 Franquesa and Don Rodrigo Calderon, but what grumbling 
 and remonstrance failed to effect was attained by bribery. 
 Early in 1606 the town authorities offered that if the court was 
 restored to Madrid, the capital would give to the King 250,000 
 ducats in ten years, with the sixth part of all house rents during 
 the same period. To the favourite Lerma they offered a fine 
 palace worth 100,000 ducats, and to his son the Duke of Cea, 
 and others of his house, palaces rent-free. Franquesa too was 
 openly bribed with a thousand ducats in money ; and by these 
 means Madrid again became the capital of Spain. By this 
 time the Cortes of Castile had lost their importance. Their 
 petitions and remonstrances were left unnoticed for many 
 years, and were mostly refused at the end of the period of 
 delay, for the Cortes had now relaxed hold on the purse-strings 
 and "grievances first " had been forgotten. Nevertheless it was 
 found that the 3,000,000 ducats which were now demanded 
 
 1 These particulars are taken from the report sent by the Venetian 
 ambassador Contarini to the Seigniory in 1605. In the same report he 
 gives particulars of the total nominal revenue of the King of Spain at 
 the time, which he estimates at 23,859,787 ducats (i.e. "copper" ducats 
 of 375 maravedis = 2s. sJ^. ). The amounts however are evidently much 
 exaggerated, as an average of 3 million ducats is stated to be received 
 from the Indies, and over 3 million from Naples, neither of which agrees 
 with statements from other contemporaries : and indeed Contarini admits 
 that everything is pledged, and that the boasts of Spain's strength is 
 unfounded, the country being exhausted. The King, he says, could not 
 raise over 20,000 or 30,000 men in Spain. 
 
 H. S. 14
 
 2IO Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 annually from Castile could not be raised by the ordinary 
 modes of taxation. Fresh duties were placed upon meat etc. 
 (1603), but by 1607 it had become evident that the people 
 could not pay the amount, and for several years thereafter the 
 ordinary tribute to the King was reduced to 2,000,000 ducats 
 per annum, and even the clergy had to pay their share by 
 special permission of the Pope. But in exchange an extra 
 I per cent, was imposed on all sales, to pay 12,000,000 ducats 
 which the King owed to the bankers. 
 
 Although Spanish commerce was now safe from the English, 
 French, and Dutch privateers, the Moors in the Mediterranean 
 still terrorised and preyed upon the Spanish coasts. An attempt 
 made by John Andrea Doria to punish them and capture Algiers 
 had failed in 1601. In 1602 Spain, in union with Persia, declared 
 war against the Sultan of Turkey, and the Neapolitan galleys 
 under Santa Cruz attacked and plundered Crete and other 
 Turkish islands in 1603. Thenceforward for years hostilities 
 continued intermittently in the Mediterranean, and on the north 
 coast of Africa, with but little effect in restraining the boldness 
 of the Turks and Moors, who raided the Spanish coasts and 
 attacked Spanish vessels, almost with impunity. Notwithstand- 
 ing the expulsion of the Moriscos from Andalucia by Philip II, 
 there was still a large population of Moorish descent in the 
 kingdom of Valencia — as indeed there is to-day, in spite of 
 centuries of attempts to eliminate them. Accusations, true or 
 false, were constantly brought against the Valencian Moriscos 
 of aiding and conniving at the descents of the Barbary Moors on 
 the Spanish coasts. Lerma was a Valencian of pure Christian 
 descent, who like the rest of his class, hated the Moriscos bit- 
 terly ; and as Valencian Viceroy he had been especially severe 
 upon them. Generally speaking they were — as the Andalucian 
 Moriscos had been — industrious, thrifty, and thriving. They 
 had made of the " huerta " of Valencia one of the most smiling 
 spots in the world, and the silk fabrics they produced in the 
 city vied with the finest products of the East. Their Christian
 
 VI.] Philip HI, 1598 — 1 62 1. 211 
 
 neighbours had always looked upon them with jealousy and 
 hatred \ and repeatedly represented to the Kings that they 
 were occupying space and eating food which should belong to 
 Spaniards of pure descent. Bigot though he was, Philip II 
 was too wise to drive them out entirely, so long as they were 
 professed Christians and paid his taxes to the full. But Lerma 
 brought with him all the Christian Valencian's prejudices. He 
 was quite lacking in political skill or foresight, and listened 
 only to his own provincial intolerance, and the advice of 
 fanatical churchmen, like the famous Ribera, Archbishop of 
 Valencia, who in 1600 and 1604 violently urged the King to 
 expel all the vile breed of Mahomet from his dominions. 
 
 When the peace had been sworn with England (1604), 
 James I sent to Philip some letters he had found amongst 
 Queen Elizabeth's papers, showing that the Valencian Moriscos 
 had been carrying on a correspondence with her and the Swiss 
 Protestants, with the object of planning a rising in Spain against 
 Philip. This discovery caused renewed persecution against 
 the Moriscos, which hardened their hearts against the fanatical 
 preaching of Ribera. Again, and again, the Archbishop urged 
 their expulsion — since they could not all be killed. They were, 
 he said, only pretended Christians, they were the "Sponge of 
 Spanish wealth," since notwithstanding the sterile land upon 
 which they worked, and the heavy burden of taxation they 
 specially bore, they were always well off, whilst Christians were 
 starving. Their industry and frugality were in fact the great 
 reproach against them. Their numbers, moreover, were in- 
 creasing rapidly, for they married early, and were not diminished 
 by entering monasteries, or by wars and emigration. There 
 were in Valencia 19,000 Morisco families in 1573, and 28,000 
 in 1599. When it came to expelling the whole of them, how- 
 ever, most of the nobles and landowners protested vigorously 
 
 ^ See Cervantes ("Coloquio de los Perros") for a strong expression 
 of this. 
 
 14 — 2
 
 212 Spain: its greatness and decay, [Chap. 
 
 against depriving them of such good tenants, and some of the 
 prelates, even, had their doubts, and appealed to the Pope to 
 temper the zeal of the Archbishop. The Pontiff ordered a com- 
 mission to sit in Valencia — a fact which of itself is significant 
 of the changed relations between the Spanish Church and 
 Rome since the time of Philip II. The commission consisted 
 of the Archbishop and the Bishops of his diocese, to whom 
 were added by Philip four lay officials, an inquisitor, and nine 
 priests. The board ostensibly sat to devise means for a real 
 conversion of the Moriscos, but the latter were sulky and sus- 
 picious. Communications took place between them and their 
 fellows in Aragon. Lerma took fright at their attitude, and in 
 the summer of 1609 persuaded Philip that the only way to 
 obtain peace and unity in his country was to expel all those of 
 known Moorish blood from the kingdom of Valencia. Secret 
 though the preparations were, they soon became known, and 
 fruitless appeals both from the Moriscos, and those who made 
 a profit on them, came in plenty to Lerma. 
 
 At length on the 22nd September, 1609, the Marquis of 
 Caracena, the Viceroy, issued the terrible edict of expulsion. 
 With the exception of six of the " oldest and most Christian " 
 Moriscos in each village of a hundred souls, who were to 
 remain and teach their successors their modes of cultiva- 
 tion, every man and woman of them were to be shipped 
 within three days for Barbary on pain of death, carrying with 
 them only such portable property as they themselves could 
 bear. Galleys from all parts of the Mediterranean had been 
 brought to the ports, and into them the poor people were 
 driven. Very many were plundered and murdered on their 
 way to the ports, or on board the ships which they themselves 
 freighted. The greed of the Christians knew no limit. Soon 
 it was whispered that the Moriscos were selling some of their 
 property, in order to carry away money. This was at once pro- 
 hibited and the poor plundered people were sent away penniless. 
 During the winter some resistance took place in the mountains,
 
 VI.] Philip III, 1598 — 1 62 1. 213 
 
 and atrocities as terrible as those of the Morisco war of 
 Granada were perpetrated, but by March 16 10, the kingdom of 
 Valencia was declared free of its best and most useful citizens. 
 During the six months over 150,000 Moriscos were hounded 
 out of the land which for centuries their forefathers had 
 possessed. This great crime, and greater blunder, was seen 
 even by contemporaries to be a catastrophe for Spain, but its 
 effects were more disastrous and far-reaching even than anyone 
 imagined at the time. During the winter of 1609-10 similar 
 expulsions were effected of the Moriscos of Aragon, Murcia, 
 Andalucia and Catalonia ; but worst of all was the expulsion of 
 those of Castile, La Mancha, and Estremadura, where they had 
 become so akin to the "old Christians" as to be hardly dis- 
 tinguishable from them. Various estimates were made at the 
 time of the total number of Moriscos expelled from Spain, 
 varying from 300,000 to a million. The most probable number 
 is perhaps that given by Father Bleda, in his Defensio fidei, of 
 500,000, but to this must be added vast numbers who fled 
 before the publication of the edict, and those who were 
 sacrificed by the Inquisition, or were murdered. With the ex- 
 pelled Moriscos went most of their arts and industries; and Spain 
 has never recovered the blow to her prosperity dealt by the 
 showy, empty-headed Lerma, the idle, narrow-minded King, 
 and the fanatical bigot Ribera. The only pohtical excuse 
 for the measure was the supposed plots between the Moriscos 
 and the national enemy, but it is evident now that the com- 
 munications, such as they were, had their origin in the ceaseless 
 persecution to which the Moriscos were exposed from the 
 Church and the Inquisition. All they desired was to be 
 allowed to live and labour in quiet, and when this was foolishly 
 denied them through a long scries of years, unrest and dis- 
 content were the natural results. 
 
 The neglect and abandonment of public business by 
 Philip III continued to be scandalous. Jousts, cane-tourneys, 
 religious processions, and bull-fights took up the whole of
 
 214 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 the monarch's attention. Neither he nor Lerma could be 
 approached on business without incredible difficulty and 
 delay. In the meanwhile the accumulation of wealth by the 
 favourite's family went on, and the expenditure on the royal 
 household continued to increase, notwithstanding the con- 
 stant prayers of the Cortes that a limit should be put upon 
 the scandalous waste. Philip II had spent upon his household 
 400,000 ducats a year, whilst the cost of his son's establishment 
 was 1,300,000 ducats. All this naturally caused murmurs in 
 the capital. The fashion set by Lerma of grabbing the public 
 money with both hands had spread down to the humblest 
 servants of the State, and all citizens outside the pale of office 
 found themselves simply the prey of the public servants. 
 Although the expression of public opinion was difficult and 
 dangerous, yet Spain possessed at the time some of the 
 brightest literary geniuses of any age, and their mordant jibes 
 and satires upon the favourite and his imitators passed swiftly 
 from mouth to mouth on Liars' Parade (the arcade of the Church 
 of St Philip el Real in the Calle Mayor) or, in the form of 
 pasquins, mysteriously appeared in the public places of the 
 capital. Lerma began to take alarm as the attacks increased 
 in number and bitterness, notwithstanding the severity of his 
 espionage; and he was forced to throw over some of the 
 plundering crew as a sacrifice to public discontent. Amongst 
 others was apprehended one of the councillors of finance, 
 Alonso Ramirez del Prado, in whose house was found property 
 worth 8oo,coo ducats ; besides which he possessed nearly 
 600,000 ducats worth of house property. But the unpopular 
 Pedro Franquesa, Secretary and Councillor of Finance, was 
 found to have appropriated a still greater plunder. He was 
 seized whilst seated at Lerma's side at a tourney and carried 
 to a fortress. His house was found to be literally crammed 
 with riches, the mere removal of which to the palace occupied 
 all the King's fourgons for three days. In the monastery of 
 the Merced, also, he had hidden vast sums; and a string of
 
 VI.] Philip III, 1598 — 1621. 215 
 
 mules bearing 300,000 ducats in money, sent on the road to 
 Valencia by his wife for safety, were stopped and captured. It 
 was asserted at the time that he had defrauded the King of a 
 million of ducats in the arrangement of a loan from the 
 Portuguese Jews, and that the citizens of Madrid had given 
 him, not 1000 ducats only, to influence the transfer of the Court 
 thither, but 100,000 ducats. The sentence pronounced upon 
 him (December 1609) was a fine or restitution of 1,406,000 
 ducats, the loss of all titles and offices, and perpetual im- 
 prisonment. There was however no abatement in the splendour 
 of Lerma or his favourite Calderon, although ostentatious 
 attempts were made, by the issue of severe sumptuary edicts, 
 to restrain extravagance in others. 
 
 Whilst Spanish resources were being thus pilfered and 
 squandered, Henry IV in France, with the aid of Sully, had 
 consolidated the French nation and reorganised its finances, 
 and he was but little disposed to brook the inflated claims of 
 superiority, and right of interference, still advanced by Spain. 
 The nation was seen to be decadent, but its pride remained a 
 danger to Europe. The Spanish territories in Italy, especially 
 Milan, were disgusted with the misgovernment and malversation 
 which afflicted them. The ambitious Duke of Savoy, who had 
 fought on the side of Spain, was bitterly resentful at the way in 
 which he had been treated when peace was made with France. 
 It is true that the subsequent peace of Lyons had given him 
 Saluzzo, but he had lost some of his finest provinces, and the 
 Spaniards had not raised a finger to help him. He dreamed of 
 a new alliance which should free him from both France and 
 Spain, based on a confederacy of the Italian States, England, 
 and the Swiss; but Henry IV had a greater plan in view, 
 which should, once for all, humble the house of Austria. 
 France, the Italian States, England, and the Piotestant princes, 
 were all drawn into the league. The French party in England, 
 led by Winwood, was still strong. Charles Emmanuel of Savoy 
 had his eyes on Lombardy, Milan, and Genoa, and was at last
 
 2i6 spam: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 persuaded to join. When all was ready for Lesdiguieres to 
 cross with Henry's army into Italy and attack Lombardy, the 
 great Bearnais was struck down by the dagger of Ravaillac 
 (15 May, 1 610), and the whole position was changed in favour 
 of Spain. 
 
 The only effect produced by the great anti-Spanish league 
 was to prevent the Emperor Rudolph from making good his 
 claim to the Duchy of Cleves. The Regent of France, Marie 
 di Medici, with her Italian and papal traditions, at once broke 
 with the Huguenot connections of her husband. Wise Sully 
 was dismissed for Concini, and Inigo de Cardenas, the Spanish 
 ambassador, became the right hand of the French Queen- 
 Regent, whose adhesion to Spanish interests once more gave 
 some reality to the arrogant claims of Philip to universal superi- 
 ority. Margaret of Austria, the Queen Consort of Spain, died 
 in 161 1, leaving amongst other children an Infanta Ana, her 
 eldest born, and Philip, Prince of Asturias, heir to the 
 crown (born April 1605). Even before the death of Henry IV 
 Marie de Medici had advocated a marriage between the Dauphin 
 (Louis XIII) and the Infanta; and after her accession to the 
 regency a double match was easily arranged; Louis XIII 
 being betrothed to the Infanta Ana, and Philip, prince of 
 Asturias, to Elizabeth of Bourbon, the daughter of Henry IV. 
 The treaty was signed with extravagant rejoicings and 
 splendour, simultaneously in Paris and Madrid (20 August, 
 161 2), the Duke of Mayenne, and Ruy Gomez's son, the Duke 
 of Pastrana, being respectively the proxies of the sovereigns. 
 The King of Spain was to give a dowry of 500,000 gold 
 crowns, and an adequate yearly allowance to his daughter, 
 but the important clause in the case of both brides was that in 
 which they absolutely renounced, for themselves and their 
 descendants, all claim to succeed to the crowns of their 
 respective countries. The Infanta was to have been delivered 
 to the French on attaining the age of 12 years (16 13) but she 
 was a backv/ard child, and notwithstanding the reclamations of
 
 VI.] Philip III, 1598 — 1 62 1. 217 
 
 the French government, it was October 1615 before the 
 marriage was celebrated by proxy in Burgos, the wedding of 
 the prince of Asturias and his French bride being performed 
 at the same time. The two brides were then exchanged 
 (9 November) on the frontier, the banks of the little river 
 Bidasoa, with a lavish magnificence which had never been 
 equalled, even there, where so many international ceremonies 
 had been enacted. 
 
 Thus Spain and France for a short period were once 
 more moved by the same impulse ; and Charles Emmanuel 
 of Savoy could hardly have chosen a worse time for pushing 
 his ambitious views. He suddenly seized Mantua and Mon- 
 ferrat, the duke of which had died recently (16 13), and 
 announced himself the enemy of Spain, and the liberator of 
 Italy. He tore off his Chain of the Golden Fleece and in- 
 sultingly cast it at the feet of the Spanish ambassador who had 
 gone to concihate him, and invaded Lombardy, wasting the 
 country as he went. The reply of Spain was characteristic. 
 By an edict Savoy was declared forfeited and attached to the 
 duchy of Milan. Charles Emmanuel with 17,000 men was 
 beaten by the Viceroy of Milan, the Marquis of Hinojosa, with 
 30,000. The Duke however took refuge in Asti, where he was 
 clever enough to avail himself of the mediation of Venice and 
 England to make favourable terms with Hinojosa. The latter 
 was at once withdrawn, and the treaty repudiated in Spain. 
 Don Pedro de Toledo was sent in his stead and again defeated 
 Savoy ; but old Lesdiguieres, whose position, almost inde- 
 pendent in Dauphine, enabled him to indulge his anti-Spanish 
 leanings in spite of Marie de Medici, renounced the bribes 
 of the Catholic party in France and Spain, and went to the 
 assistance of Savoy. Thenceforward for nearly two years the 
 war desolated Piedmont and Savoy, till in 161 7 a peace was 
 made (at Pavia) in which the conquests on both sides were 
 surrendered. 
 
 But the peace satisfied neither party. The Italians were
 
 2i8 Spain: its greatness mid decay. [Chap. 
 
 restive at the domination of their country by a power so effete 
 as Spain. The Venetian republic, the old-time rival of Spain 
 in the Mediterranean, sided with Italian discontent and Savoy's 
 ambition. The Madrid government was now so weak and 
 confused that the Spanish Viceroys in Italy were to a large 
 extent able to adopt their personal policy. The warlike Duke 
 of Osuna, Viceroy of Naples, attacked and vanquished the 
 Venetian fleet at Gravosa; and in union with the Viceroy 
 of Milan (Toledo) repudiated the peace of Pavia, and turned 
 the whole of the Spanish force in Italy against the republic. 
 They were well seconded by the Spanish ambassador in Venice 
 (Alfonso de la Cueva, Marquis of Bedmar) ; and the Council of 
 Ten accused them of a treacherous design of destroying the 
 city, and especially Osuna of an intention of proclaiming 
 himself King of Naples. The proofs of these accusations are 
 not forthcoming, and although much superstructure has been 
 raised upon them, they cannot be accepted without grave doubt. 
 In any case the turbulent Osuna was suddenly recalled (1620), 
 to the unconcealed joy of all Neapolitans, and most Italians, 
 Spain indeed was anxious to be free from wars in Italy, 
 where she had nothing to gain. She was face to face with a 
 larger struggle in which the re-establishment of Catholic pre- 
 dominance in Europe was involved. The Thirty Years' War 
 had already commenced, and the Protestants of Bohemia had 
 conferred upon the Elector Palatine one of the crowns belong- 
 ing to the house of Austria. The Emperor Ferdinand II was 
 overpowered, and appealed to Philip, his kinsman, for aid 
 (1620). Spain no longer had any interest but a sentimental 
 one in the Empire. Happy circumstances had freed her from 
 the burden that had caused her ruin, and with good govern- 
 ment she might now have become prosperous and happy. Yet 
 with incredible folly, bankrupt as she was, she consented to 
 re-enter the vortex of central European politics, and fight for 
 the Empire and for its CathoUcism. An army of 8000 men was 
 sent from Flanders to join the Emperor in Bohemia, whilst
 
 VI.] Philip III, 1598 — 1 62 1. 219 
 
 Spinola with 30,000 troops crossed the Rhine and invaded the 
 Palatinate. Protestant Germany flew to arms again, as it had 
 done against the great Emperor Charles. The sanguinary 
 battle of Prague (November 1620) completely ruined the cause 
 of Protestant Bohemia, thanks mainly to the money and men 
 contributed to the Emperor's cause by Spain. The sacrifices 
 uselessly made by the latter country, in a matter with which 
 she had no direct concern, were however only now beginning, 
 and for years to come imposed disastrous burdens upon the 
 misgoverned people. 
 
 Successive Cortes weakly protested in vain against the 
 penury and misery caused by over-taxation. The people 
 themselves, comparing their own unhappy state with the inso- 
 lent greed of the public officers, the injustice of the system of 
 taxation, and above all the corruption with which the quotas to 
 be paid by each town or district were fixed, had looked upon 
 the punishment of Franquesa and others as only an instal- 
 ment of justice and reparation. The unprecedented avarice of 
 Lerma marked him as the man finally to be dragged from his 
 eminence, notwithstanding his ingratiating manners, the affec- 
 tion of the King and his liberal benefactions ; but he was too 
 high and far away to attack directly. He had to be approached 
 by sap and parallel. What Lerma was to the King, Rodrigo 
 Calderon, Marquis of Siete Iglesias, was to Lerma. An up- 
 start of no rank, he had become more insolent, if not more 
 splendid, than the favourite himself, and against him first 
 was public fury unchained. The friars who surrounded the 
 King were jealous at the unchecked predominance of laymen, 
 and began to whisper remonstrance in the monarch's ear. 
 The Queen, who during all her married life had urged the 
 King to act for himself, and had only been kept quiet by lavish 
 gifts from Lerma, seconded the prayer of the friars, and 
 suddenly Calderon was dismissed, just before Margaret's 
 death (161 1). Whispers were rife that his agents had 
 hastened her death, but she died in childbed from unskilful
 
 220 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 attention, so that the accusation is probably untrue. The 
 churchmen and nuns were ceaseless in their attacks upon 
 Calderon ; and especially Aliaga, the King's confessor — a 
 former creature of Lerma, — who cautiously began to under- 
 mine even the influence of the favourite himself, evidently 
 now on the decline, though he was more splendid than ever, 
 in favour of the Duke of Uceda, Lerma's own son, who 
 joined in the cabal against his father. But a more able and 
 ambitious man than either was enlisted against the favourite ; 
 a young gentleman in waiting, not a grandee, but a noble 
 of Castile, Gaspar de Guzman, Count de Olivares. Lerma 
 soon discovered the plot, and endeavoured to counteract it 
 by placing near the King his son-in-law, the Count de Lemos, 
 upon whom he could rely. But Uceda and the friars soon 
 drove him away, and thenceforth Lerma was openly insulted 
 and flouted by his son even in the King's presence. The 
 falling favourite adopted a curious device. He sought and 
 obtained a Cardinal's hat, and renounced his lay dignities, but 
 to no purpose, for he was soon driven from Court by Uceda's 
 cabal (October 1618); and with him fell all those who had 
 not joined the new party. Calderon met with a harder fate — - 
 imprisonment for many years and confiscation of his every 
 ducat first, and then torture, and a long trial for abuses in his 
 office, for witchcraft, for murder, and a host of other charges. 
 He was finally condemned to death upon the scaffold for one 
 only of the many accusations brought against him; namely the 
 assassination of an obscure man named Juara years before. 
 Whilst he was waiting for his sentence to be carried out or 
 commuted, of which latter event he had great hopes, the bells 
 outside his prison tolled for the death of the sovereign (21 
 March, 162 1). "The King is dead," he exclaimed; "and I am 
 dead too." He knew full well now that Uceda himself would 
 be as powerless as his disgraced father, and that a favourite, 
 stronger and more haughty than either, would make a clean 
 sweep of the whole family of Sandoval and all its associates.
 
 VI,] Philip III, 1598 — 1621. 221 
 
 During the latter years of the reign the state of the country 
 had gone from bad to worse. Even the Cortes of Castile to 
 some extent succeeded in reasserting control over the ex- 
 penditure of the money they voted, in order to prevent its con- 
 tinued waste. The growth of luxury had crowded the larger 
 towns, where most of the nobles lived, and the total population 
 of the country now probably reached 9,000,000, but the 
 agricultural population was fearfully diminished. Davila says 
 that in 1600 there were in the province of Salamanca 8345 
 agriculturists with 11 745 yokes of oxen, whereas in 16 19 
 there were only 4135 workers on the land, with 4822 yokes of 
 oxen. On the other hand there were no less than 32,000 
 Dominican and Franciscan monks in Spain, and in the two 
 dioceses of Calahorra and Pamplona alone there were 24,000 
 priests. When in 16 18 the financial abuses had aroused general 
 attention, the King ordered the Council of Castile to enquire 
 into and report frankly upon the causes of the distress, and to 
 propose remedies. They went about their work thoroughly, 
 and without hesitation pointed out the real reasons for Spain's 
 poverty. Their report was worthy of more attention than it 
 received. First, they reported, the taxes were insupportable. 
 " The depopulation and lack of people," they said, "are greater 
 than ever before have been seen or heard of... and the realm 
 is being totally ruined and exhausted. The cause of this is 
 the heavy burdens which weigh upon your vassals, and drive 
 them abroad to escape starvation." They recommend that, at 
 any cost, the taxes should be reduced and the abuses in their 
 collection remedied. Secondly, they blamed the lavishness 
 with which the King had granted pensions and concessions, 
 and recommended that they should be withdrawn and abolished. 
 Thirdly, they urged the King to send the nobles and ecclesiastics 
 to live on their lands, instead of idling about the towns; by 
 which means the crowds of importunate suitors in the cities 
 would be brought back to useful work, and agriculture would 
 revive. Fourthly, they were bold enough to tell the King that
 
 222 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 the scandalous extravagance of dress and living must be 
 reduced ; but that for this purpose edicts and pragmatics were 
 useless. He must set the example himself, and first cut down 
 his own expenses. Fifthly, they advocated the abolition of all 
 trammels and obstacles to the sale and circulation of agricultural 
 produce; and the limitation of the religious orders, and of 
 the number of priests, friars, and nuns. 
 
 No notice was taken of these wise recommendations. The 
 King soon afterwards started on his pompous voyage to Portu- 
 gal, still showering pensions and grants on the favourite's 
 favourites, and on his return he was too busy with the palace 
 intrigues about him, and the war in Germany, to think of the 
 woes of his wretched people. In February 1621 he fell ill of 
 fever, and felt that the hand of death was upon him. All that 
 his Church could do to save his life was done. The Virgin 
 of Atocha was brought out from her church, the body of St 
 Isidore carried to the King's bedside, and all the realm was 
 prostrated in prayer for the monarch, who, idle and pleasure- 
 loving though he was, enjoyed, personally, the love of his 
 subjects. Like that of his father, his death-bed was one of 
 rigid devotion, regret for lost opportunities, and faith in divine 
 forgiveness. That he saw now how disastrous his government 
 had been is certain. During his last hours he referred to it 
 more than once. "A fine account we shall give to God of our 
 government," he said on one occasion : and on another, " O ! 
 if Heaven would please to prolong my life, how different should 
 my conduct be ! " Too late, too late, like most of his house. 
 On the 31st March, 162 1, he breathed his last, grasping firmly 
 in his hand the coarse crucifix which had been held in the 
 dying grip, and had lain upon the dead breasts of his father 
 and grandfather. In the twenty-three years of his reign he 
 had missed the splendid opportunity of resuscitating Spain. 
 The burden which had weighed down his predecessors was 
 raised from his shoulders. He had no world-wide ambitions 
 to which he needed to sacrifice his country. What was wanted
 
 VI.] Philip ill^ 1598 — 1 62 1. 223 
 
 was honest administration, patience, economy, industry and 
 restraint ; and all might have been well. These were the very 
 qualities which Philip III lacked. Inoffensive, devout and 
 well-meaning, his indolence, extravagance and carelessness 
 handed over his suffering country to incompetent favourites 
 who well-nigh bled it to death.
 
 224 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PHILIP IV, 162 1 — 1640. 
 
 Amongst the many anxieties which had surrounded the 
 remorseful death-bed of PhiHp III was the tormenting thought 
 that his destined successor had already started on the down- 
 ward path of idleness and self-indulgence that had led to 
 liis own wasted record. When the Prince's household had 
 been formed on his betrothal Lerma had incautiously appointed 
 to an office therein Gaspar de Guzman, son of that overbearing 
 Count de Olivares who, as ambassador in Rome at the time of 
 the Armada, had pushed the interests of Spain so insolently. 
 Lerma and his son Uceda had soon seen their mistake, and 
 had tried to persuade Guzman (who had succeeded to his 
 father's title) to accept the embassy in Rome. He had, how- 
 ever, wider views for himself, and declined it unless he was 
 allowed to keep his appointment in the palace as well. Thence- 
 forward he was known to be working for the succession to 
 the favouriteship, and all the Lerma interest was against him. 
 Several unsuccessful attempts were made to assassinate him, 
 and the young prince as a boy was taught to dislike him. His 
 claim to the grandeeship in right of his wife (a Zuniga) was 
 unsuccessful, and spies were set about him to counteract any 
 attempt he might make to gain influence over the young 
 prince. Keen, artful, watchful, he worked and waited. Over 
 a boy of eleven or twelve he could gain no control : but when 
 young Philip reached sixteen, and was already married and
 
 Chap, vii.] Philip IV, 1621 — 1640. 225 
 
 associated with his father in state affairs, then came Olivares' 
 opportunity. He gained influence over the lad by ministering 
 to his pleasures and passions, and before the King died the 
 nocturnal excursions of the young heir and his favourite were 
 causing scandal. 
 
 Whilst Philip III was on his death-bed Olivares obtained 
 from the prince an order forbidding Lerma to come to Court as 
 he intended to do ; and as soon as the breath was out of the 
 King's body false Uceda and the whole of the Sandoval party 
 were sent about their business, Uceda himself being arrested, 
 and dying in prison (1624). The greatest Spaniard of them 
 all, Pedro Tellez de Giron, Duke of Osuna, fell first. He had 
 been that strong, ambitions Viceroy of Sicily and Naples who 
 had carried things with so high a hand, conquering Turks and 
 Moors at sea, and the Venetians in Italy. He was imprisoned 
 almost immediately after Philip Ill's death, and he too ultimately 
 died in prison. Before many months had passed Rodrigo 
 Calderon, Marquis de Siete Iglesias, showy and brilliant as ever, 
 popular and beloved in his misfortune as he had been hated in 
 prosperity, lost his head on the Plaza Mayor of Madrid. Bjind » 
 to the miserable e x ample of his father, yo ung Philip threw him - 
 selfjntQ_theJiands of Olivares as completely as his father had ' 
 done^ with Lerm a. There is in the British Museum (Egerton 
 MSS. 329) a letter from the Archbishop of Granada (Alvanel, 
 the King's former tutor) to Olivares, written soon after the 
 accession, remonstrating with him for taking the boy-King out 
 in the streets at night. The example, he says, of the King and 
 his minister scouring the streets at undue hours in search of 
 adventure is a bad one, and people already are talking of it. ' 
 The reply of haughty Olivares is clear enough. He tells the 
 prelate, in effect, that he is an impertinent meddler, and that 
 if he does not mind his own business worse will befall him. 
 If this was the treatment extended to an archbishop, it may 
 well be imagined what sort of reception the remonstrance of 
 loss important personages would meet with. Nothing stood in 
 
 H. S. 15
 
 226 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 the way of Olivares. Not only was the desired right to cover 
 his head as a grandee given him, but a dukedom (of San 
 Lucar) as well, and almost j g many offic es as had been taken 
 by greedy Lerma . Then Spain started on a fresh era of 
 favouritism and lavishness, amidst public rejoicing and san- 
 guine hopes. 
 
 The condition of the country was truly deplorable j and 
 the fact could not be concealed by Court splendours or 
 a change of favourites. The Cortes of Castile were called 
 together a few months after the death of Philip III (162 1), 
 and good fortune has preserved for us the discourses and 
 proposals made in it, and to the King, by the representative 
 for Granada (Don Mateo Lison y Biedma), whose book was 
 privately printed shortly afterwards (1624)). The picture pre- 
 sented is a really terrible one ; and although some of the 
 remedies proposed seem shortsighted and inadequate enough 
 to us, yet they show that the wiser heads clearly understood 
 the direction in which improvement might be expected. 
 First the enormous number of public servants should be re- 
 duced, and the administration simplified. Titular honours 
 should be given instead of pensions, pluralities abolished, 
 churchmen compelled to bear their full share of the cost of 
 armaments, and economy in the public service rigidly enforced. 
 Again the desolate condition of the provinces is deplored. 
 "The people are now turned adrift wandering on the roads, 
 living on herbs and roots, or else travelling to countries and 
 provinces," where they have not to pay the hateful food tax 
 of the "millions," and the blighting alcabala, and so those that 
 remain have to pay the more. Send the prelates, nobles and 
 landowners back to their estates, prays Don Mateo, aTid, above 
 all, fix a composition or quota of alcabala for every town and 
 district. The places where no quota had been appointed are 
 impossible to live in, as the tax farmers or officers exact from 
 the inhabitants daily returns of all transactions. The least 
 mistake or infraction causes a lawsuit, where the costs are
 
 VII.] Philip IV, 1621 — 1640. 227 
 
 crushing and ruinous, and the poor people are sold up without 
 mercy and driven to starvation on the most trifling pretext. 
 Give all places quotas, begs the representative of Granada, 
 bring the people back to their villages by granting them 
 privileges for a time, until they can get the land into cultivation 
 again. The most crying grievance seems to have been the 
 costly and oppressive way in which the taxes were collected, 
 the expenses of collection frequently far exceeding the amount 
 received, especially where the taxes or monopolies were 
 farmed. Every separate monopoly, such as playing-cards, 
 quicksilver, pepper, corrosive-sublimate, and a host of others, 
 had its own courts, judges, officers and procedure, so that the 
 farmers of monopolies and taxes were practically judges and 
 plaintiffs as well, and the poor people stood no chance. If 
 they were unable to pay ever so small an amount and were 
 sued for it they knew it meant ruin to them, and in most cases 
 they simply abandoned all their property in despair and be- 
 came vagrants. 
 
 The new ministers made some attempts to grapple with 
 the evils, but their efforts were mainly directed towards the 
 prevention of peculation by high officers, who were now 
 compelled to make a precise disclosure of all their property 
 before and after entering office. Some reduction also was made 
 in the number of useless paid officials, while stricter pragmatics 
 than ever were issued against extravagance in dress and living, 
 horses, coaches, lacqueys and the like, the King himself 
 setting an example by reducing the absurd expenditure on 
 the royal establishment. These reforms were doubtless well 
 meant — for it must have been obvious to Olivarcs that things 
 could not continue as they were — but, as will now be readily 
 understood, they did not touch the root of the evil, which was 
 a system of taxation that hampered industry and traffic to the 
 extent of killing them, and raised the cost of production to a 
 point which rendered Spanish competition with foreign goods 
 out of the question, except at first hand in the place of origin. 
 
 15—2
 
 228 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 The moment Spanish produce or goods had to pass from hand 
 to hand, or from one place to another, alcabalas, tolls, inland 
 custom-houses, octrois etc. made them impossible. The con- 
 stant attempts of the government to limit the prices at which 
 they might be sold, in the supposed interest of the consumer, 
 further handicapped the producer, and made it not worth his 
 while to produce them at all, excepting in a small way for 
 immediate home consumption. Olivares' new measures at 
 first inspired hopes that something would be done really to 
 ameliorate the condition of the country ; but the hope faded 
 almost as soon as it was born. When the Cortes of 1623 had 
 voted the usual subsidies, which had now become a tribute, 
 Olivares astounded them with the demand for 70,000,000 ducats 
 to be spread over a number of years, for the purpose of freeing 
 the royal patrimony from debt. Such a sum in one vote had 
 never been dreamt of in Spain before, and the representatives 
 asserted that it would be impossible to raise it. They had 
 moreover no authority from their constituents to vote such 
 a supply. The opposition came mainly from the cities of 
 Andalucia ; and Olivares took the King on a splendid progress 
 thither, in order to influence the town councils personally. 
 By bribery and persuasion Seville was at first induced to con- 
 sent, but when it was seen that every other city held out 
 Seville itself found pretexts to withdraw its acquiescence, and 
 the project had to be abandoned. But Philip was at war 
 with the Hollanders again now, for the truce of 12 years 
 had expired (162 1); the war in Germany continued to make 
 demands upon him ; the Moors still harried his territories and 
 commerce in the Mediterranean, and money had to be found 
 somehow. The way adopted, as usual, was to increase again 
 the vicious taxation that was killing the productive power of 
 the country. 
 
 The pro-Spanish policy suddenly favoured by Marie de 
 Medici on the death of Henry IV had naturally aroused con- 
 siderable misgiving in England, as well as in France itself. In
 
 vn.] Philip IV, 162 1 — 1640. 229 
 
 the Court of James I there were two distinct parties, each of 
 which sought to solve the difficulty in its own way. Winwood, 
 Edmunds, Carew, and the Elizabethan Protestants were in 
 favour of attracting France back to the alliance which had 
 existed in the time of Henry IV; whilst those of Catholic 
 leanings, Buckingham, the Scots courtiers, and, above all, the 
 weak King, were for currying favour with Spain. Diego 
 Sarmiento de Acuna, Count de Gondomar, the Spanish am- 
 bassador, had taken the measure of James Stuart, and by 
 working on his vanity and timidity had entirely dominated 
 him. When the overthrow of Marie de Medici, the murder of 
 Concini (161 7), and the renewed disputes between Spain and 
 France about the Grisons and the Valtellina had caused bitter- 
 ness between the two countries, it seemed a master-stroke to 
 the King of England to join liis country in close union with 
 Spain. He was ready to grovel and abase himself to the 
 utmost, if only he could marry his heir Charles to the Infanta 
 Maria. With this end he sacrificed Raleigh at the bidding of 
 Gondomar, and with this end he was ready to acknowledge the 
 most arrogant claims of the Spanish King. But when the 
 husband of his daughter Elizabeth, the titular King of Bohemia, 
 was cast out of his new capital and of his old piincipality 
 mainly by Spanish arms, James, who thought he was a divinely 
 gifted diplomatist, was more anxious than ever to make terms 
 with a nation which at the same time could restore his son-in- 
 law to his kingdom, and provide his own heir with a wife 
 whose connection would in future allow Great Biitain to dis- 
 regard so unstable a power as France still was. 
 
 Cottington and Digby, as well as less official English 
 envoys, had been fooled to the top of their bent by Lerma. 
 Vague hopes, flattering attentions and half promises, kept 
 England in a yielding mood, and prevented a nearer approach 
 to France. Digby (Earl of Bristol) continued after Philip 
 Ill's death the endless advance-and-rdire policy, in order to 
 pledge the Spaniards to something definite. But at last even
 
 230 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 James lost patience. He wrote to Bristol that, notwithstanding 
 all the fine Spanish promises to intercede with the Emperor, 
 " the only fruits England had received were dishonour and 
 scorn." " Whilst we are treating, the town and castle of 
 Heidelburg have been taken by force, our garrison put to the 
 sword, Mannheim besieged, and all the hostility used that is 
 within the power of the enemy." Bristol then is instructed to 
 demand an immediate cessation of arms in the Palatinate, and 
 the restoration of Heidelburg etc.; or else that the Spanish 
 forces shall join the English, "for the recovery of our children's 
 honour and patrimony"; or, at least that the English troops 
 should be allowed free passage through Flanders to restore the 
 Palatine. This letter was sent to Spain by Endymion Porter, 
 who was half a Spaniard and had been a page of Olivares. 
 Whilst Bristol was following the wearisome Spanish diplomatic 
 road, Porter saw Olivares (November 1622) and bluntly asked 
 him point-blank to allow a Spanish army to support Vere in the 
 Palatinate, as a condition of the proposed marriage. Olivares 
 haughtily told him he did not understand what he was talking 
 about. "As for this marriage I know not what it means." The 
 next day, however, he smoothed matters over with Bristol, and 
 the long-drawn negotiations still dragged on. There was pro- 
 bably never any intention on the part of Spain to make them 
 real — for Philip HI on his death-bed had solemnly enjoined 
 his son to make the Infanta an Empress — but if England could 
 be cajoled into a Catholic course, toleration established, and 
 perhaps even Charles converted, it would all make for Spain 
 and alienate England from the dominant party of reform in 
 France. But such slow methods did not commend themselves 
 to Buckingham, who had long ago been bought by Gondomar 
 and hoped to benefit greatly by the match. To the King's 
 despair, he and the young Prince suddenly started on their 
 foolish trip to Madrid, accompanied only by Cottington and 
 Porter, hoping to carry the position by storm. They suddenly 
 appeared disguised on the night of March 7, 1622, at Bristol's
 
 VII.] Philip IV, 162 1 — 1640. 231 
 
 house in the then new street of Alcald, and thenceforward 
 secrecy was out of the question. 
 
 OHvares and PhiUp made the best of a bad business. 
 Economy was thrown to the winds. Pragmatics forbidding 
 extravagance were all suspended, and whilst the Prince stayed 
 in Madrid a perfect tempest of prodigality reigned. The streets 
 were new paved, the houses new painted, nobles summoned 
 from all Spain to make a show, banquets, tourneys, processions, 
 bull-fights and balls, succeeded each other with haste that left 
 no interval for serious negotiation. But with all the splendour 
 the Englishmen were frozen with the glacial etiquette of the 
 Spanish Court. The Infanta herself was unapproachable : she 
 had no wish for the match, and was probably quite aware that 
 the whole affair was sham. Buckingham shocked the Spanish 
 Court with his easy famiUarity, and soon came to loggerheads 
 with Olivares, who looked upon his offhandedness as highly 
 indecorous. Presents of fabulous value were lavished on both 
 sides, professions of eternal love and amity were liberally 
 exchanged by Philip and Charles ] but the latter could not 
 afford to appear openly Catholic, and Olivares made it plain 
 that all the concession was to be on one side, and all the 
 advantage on the other. A conditional treaty of matrimony 
 and alliance was signed and sworn to by the King of Spain and 
 Charles, and the most elaborate pretence was made on both 
 sides to cover appearances, but when the Prince took his 
 pompous farewell of Philip (12 September, 1623) it was evident 
 to most people that England had been outwitted, and that 
 cunning James Stuart had allowed his country to be placed in 
 an inferior position, and had been cheated out of the price 
 for doing so. 
 
 The bad faith on both sides which had rendered abortive 
 no less than three treaties between France and Spain for 
 the restoration by the latter power of the Valtellina to the 
 Orisons, had in the meanwhile further embittered the relations 
 between Philip and his brother-in-law Louis XIII. Richelieu
 
 232 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 did not believe in playing unless he had all the cards in 
 his hand, and delayed an open declaration of war until he had 
 joined to him the United Provinces, and the Duke of Savoy, 
 always greedy to seize Lombardy and Genoa. It was time 
 indeed for Richelieu to act. Once more the ambitious projects 
 of Philip II were being revived by Olivares. The Emperor 
 was daily growing more powerful. Bohemia had been sup- 
 pressed, the Spaniards under Spinola had reduced the Lower 
 Palatinate, and were now threatening the United Provinces. 
 England for the time was befooled with the hopes of the 
 Spanish match, and would not, as in old times, help to 
 ■withstand Spanish aggression. Unless France struck boldly 
 and strongly she was once more in danger of finding 
 herself shut in by the house of Austria. Spain still held in 
 defiance of France the Valtellina, which connected Lombardy 
 with Tyrol. This was Richelieu's first objective. With French 
 and Swiss troops he invaded the valley, and soon after- 
 wards attracted England to his side by negotiations for the 
 marriage of Charles with Henrietta Maria, Buckingham now 
 being violently against Spain. But again England was out- 
 witted, for after extorting many promises of toleration for 
 English Catholics, Richelieu avoided complying with England's 
 main object, namely the recovery of the Palatinate, and drew 
 her into open and unfortunate hostility to Spain with Lord 
 Wimbledon's ignominious naval attack upon Cadiz (October 
 1625). 
 
 The fever of glory and conquest had seized Spain. The 
 union of France and Savoy with the Protestant powers and 
 England once again divided Europe in the old way. The 
 principalities of Italy, Parma, Modena, and Tuscany, and the 
 republics of Genoa and Lucca, joined the Spaniards; the 
 nobles of Spain contributed a million ducats. Poor and 
 exhausted as the country was, prodigious efforts were made, the 
 Queen and Princesses oftering their jewels, and even the clergy 
 promising to maintain a force of 20,000 troops. The property
 
 VII.] Philip IV, 1621 — 1640. 233 
 
 of all French subjects in Spain was confiscated (April 1625), 
 and the war was carried on with immense energy. The French 
 and Savoyards at first overran Montferrat, the Valtellina and 
 the territory of Genoa ; but Feria on land and Spinola at sea 
 soon forced them to give up their conquests. But Richelieu 
 was a Cardinal of the Church, and could not go too far in 
 a war on the side of Protestants. Soon the remonstrances of 
 the Pope and the Catholic party in France led to a treaty 
 (January 1626) which gave liberty to the Catholics of Val- 
 tellina, on payment of a tribute to the Orisons. But in 
 Germany the war continued, favourable to the Emperor, 
 thanks to the military genius of Tilly and the material 
 assistance of Spain. Spanish men and money in plenty had to 
 be sent to the Archduke, still fighting with the sturdy Dutch- 
 men, who were again upheld as of old by Protestant aid 
 from England and France. Once more the privateers of 
 the republic harried Spanish commerce on every sea, as before 
 the twelve years' truce, and once more all commerce was 
 prohibited between the United Provinces and the Spanish 
 dominions. Energy and boldness here again favoured Spanish 
 arms. Don Farique de Toledo destroyed the Dutch fleet off 
 Gibraltar ; and, more important still, Spinola, after a siege of 
 ten months, captured Breda. Tlie Dutch were conquered in 
 South America and expelled from Guayaquil and Puerto Rico ; 
 and at the same time the Moorish pirates were almost swept 
 from the Mediterranean. 
 
 , These great victories once more raised Spanish pride to its 
 highest pitch, and ' Philip the Great ' was already the title 
 given to the youthful monarch in whose name they were 
 effected. But there was another side to the medal. We have 
 seen the utter state of exhaustion in which the country was. 
 The wars, however gratifying to national pride, had to be paid 
 for in national blood and money ; and although the Cortes of 
 Castile was now effete, and only ventured on fruitless re- 
 monstrance, the more independent parliaments of the other
 
 234 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 provinces made their voices heard with greater efifect. The 
 three Cortes of Aragon, Catakiha, and Valencia, were convened 
 for January 1626 ; and the King promised to be present 
 at each and take the oath as sovereign to respect their rights. 
 The Valencians, however, resented the summoning of their 
 Cortes at Monzon, a place outside of the kingdom of Valencia, 
 and were ready to take offence before the meeting. Philip 
 was popular with the Aragonese, but on this occasion he had 
 considerable difficulty even with them ; when, however, the 
 King asked the Valencians at Monzon to give him 2,000 paid 
 troops to be used as he pleased, as well as a money vote, they 
 refused. It would, they said, be the same as the conscription 
 in Castile, and that v/as against their liberties. The expulsion 
 of Moriscos, too, had ruined the kingdom, particularly the 
 landowners, and they could make no more sacrifices. OHvares 
 alternately threatened and bribed, and the King himself tried 
 persuasion. At last he formally told the Cortes that they must 
 vote the supplies without further ado. But the noble or 
 military members still held out — the Cortes of Valencia con- 
 sisted of three orders. Military or nobles. Ecclesiastical, and 
 popular — though the King and Olivares threatened and stormed. 
 At last he called them traitors, and gave them one day to do as 
 he bade them. It was necessary that the vote should be 
 unanimous, and under this pressure all the members gave way 
 but one — Don Francisco Millan. When, however, a hint 
 was given that the garotte would be the reward for his 
 obstinacy he too acquiesced in the vote. But even then the 
 difficulties were not at an end. The nobles cavilled about the 
 amount of their quota, and only after much deliberation it was 
 settled that the vote of money should be reduced to i, 080,000 
 livres in 15 years, half the sum paid by Aragon, and should be 
 paid, not in coin, but in kind. The King was forced to accept, 
 but still the Cortes were discontented and would not formally 
 ratify the vote. At length the King sent to say that he gave 
 them but one half-hour by the watch to vote tlie supply, as he
 
 VH.J Philip IV, 1621 — 1640. 235 
 
 was leaving at once. Such a violent course threw the Cortes 
 into consternation. All that night they sat in deUberation, and at 
 six in the morning the King sent to say that he had determined 
 to abolish their privilege of " fiemine discrepante," or unanimity. 
 The angry and indignant Cortes could not believe their ears, 
 and at first protested. But the boldness of Olivares cowed 
 them, and their opposition collapsed. Then came the complete 
 triumph of the King. He ordered them under pain of treason 
 to vote at once and unconditionally all he asked for originally, 
 and then to go about their business. This they did meekly, and 
 the independence of the Cortes of Valencia was thenceforward 
 almost as effete as that of Castile. The King then met the 
 Catalonian Cortes at Lerida, where he sought to dazzle them 
 with feasts and splendour. The rough Catalans however were 
 even more fractious than the Aragonese and Valencians, and 
 insisted upon repayment of their former loans to the King 
 before they voted a ducat. Again fair words and bribes were 
 powerless to move them, and they were equally unyielding to 
 threats. Three days were given to them to decide, but still 
 they held out. Olivares, fearing mischief, suddenly and without 
 notice carried the King and Court away to Castile. In vain 
 the Catalans then voted all that was asked of them to bring the 
 Sovereign back. The only answer they got was a threat of 
 vengeance for their undutifulness ; and the seed was sown of a 
 trouble which embittered most of the rest of Philip's life. As 
 if to counteract to some extent the discontent of the Catalans 
 and Valencians, Pliilip from Madrid voluntarily reduced the 
 contingent voted by the Aragonese (July 1626) to 2,300 men 
 instead of 2,,ZZ?>- 
 
 Christian of Denmark had been crushed by Tilly, Mansfield 
 had been defeated by the Imperial troops under Wallenstein, 
 and France was now (1627) at war with England about the 
 unfulfilled conditions of Henrietta Maria's marriage contract. 
 An English fleet was before Rochelle, cooperating with the 
 Huguenots. Richelieu's energy was equal to the occasion, and
 
 236 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 his and Marshal Schomberg's presence before Rochelle 
 paralysed the Huguenots, and relieved the besieged forts on 
 Oleron and Rhe. Buckingham and his fleet had to return to 
 England (October 1627) disgraced and defeated, with the loss 
 of two-thirds of the force. Richelieu was then able to turn his 
 arms against the Spaniards, who had once more deserted him 
 and had assumed an aggressive attitude on the eternal question 
 of the Duchy ofJVlant.ua, which by the death of the Duke had 
 again become vacant and was claimed by the son of the Duke 
 de Nevers and by the Prince of Guastalla. Olivares thought 
 in any case to retain for Spain the strong place of Casale in 
 Montferrat, which he had ordered the Spanish Governor of 
 Milan to seize. The Duke of Savoy also coveted this place, 
 and joined the Spaniards this time, in hope of a share in 
 the spoils. Together they overran Mantua and Montferrat; 
 but when Richelieu was free (late in 1628) from the terrible 
 siege of Rochelle he sent his victorious army to meet the 
 invaders. 
 
 Olivares, finding himself thus pledged to a national war 
 with France, recalled Spinola from Flanders to meet the enemy 
 in Italy. He had already made advances to England. In the 
 spring of 1628 he sent an Irish Dominican friar to England 
 to make unofficial overtures to Charles I for peace. The one 
 idea of the English King was to restore his brother-in-law to the 
 Palatinate, and he gladly accepted the overtures of Olivares. 
 Endymion Porter was again sent to Spain by way of Genoa to 
 settle the treaty ; and in the meanwhile hasty Buckingham, 
 determined to be avenged for his defeat by the French in the 
 previous year at Oleron, raised his fleet in Portsmouth to 
 relieve Rochelle. He was assassinated by Felton (23 August, 
 1628) and the relieving fleet was commanded by the Earl 
 of Lindsay. It arrived too late. The heroic Rochelle was in 
 the firm grip of Richelieu and fell (October 1628). In due 
 time the peace between Spain and England was arranged 
 (January 1629), and was ratified by Rubens as special envoy
 
 VII.] Philip IV, 1 62 1 — 1640. 237 
 
 to England in 1630. Thenceforward during the reign of 
 Charles I England counted for little in continental politics. 
 The Palatine Frederick died in 1632, and the main object of 
 Charles's foreign policy — a policy futilely pursued for the next 
 ten years — was the restoration of his nephew Charles Louis 
 to the dominions of his forefathers. 
 
 The ancient rivals, France and Spain, were thus face to 
 face in Northern Italy. The ground was cleared by a settle- 
 ment of the differences between France and England — which 
 was easy now that Buckingham was dead — and the signing of a 
 treaty between France, the Pope, Venice, and the Duke of 
 Mantua (Nevers) to defend the territory of the latter against 
 the Spaniards. Richelieu was victorious nearly everywhere 
 over the Spaniards, Germans and Savoyards. Soon Savoy was 
 in the hands of the French, and after the battle of Javennes, 
 in which Montmorenci and La Force routed his son, the 
 unquiet Carlo Emanuele died broken-hearted (July 1630). 
 
 The war continued with varying fortunes. The imperialists 
 captured Mantua, but plague decimated their armies. Slaughter 
 and desolation were wearing out all the combatants. Spinola 
 died of grief in front of Casale (September 1630) on learning 
 of the defeat of his son Philip. His successor Santa Cruz 
 lacked the experience necessary for land warfare, and was 
 surprised and overpowered, apparently at the hour when his 
 victory was assured. The treaty which followed (October 
 1630), to the indignation of the Spaniards, gave to the French 
 nominee the duchies in dispute, subject to the suzerainty of 
 the Emperor. The French retained the fortress of Pignerol, 
 and the Spaniards received nothing for their heavy sacrifice of 
 men and money. 
 
 But the treaty of Casale brought no real peace between 
 France and Spain. The house of Austria must be crushed if 
 Richelieu were to succeed in raising France to the first rank 
 amongst the nations ; while Olivares, unfortunately for Spain, 
 could not shake off the imperial traditions which had been the
 
 238 Spain: its greattiess mid decay. [Chap. 
 
 ruin of his country and still supported the emperor. On his 
 side Richelieu had the great Gustavus Adolphus and the 
 Protestants. The Spanish infantry fought, as usual, with 
 desperate bravery, but for a time the Swede carried all before 
 him ; for the German imperial troops were many of them 
 Protestant or indifferent, and their hearts were not in their 
 work. The best of the Emperor's generals, Tilly, was killed at 
 Ingolstadt (1632), and all through that terrible winter the 
 Spaniards and men of the south died in multitudes of hardship, 
 wounds, and pestilence. Wallenstein, who succeeded Tilly, 
 was beaten in the hard-fought battle of Liitzen, in which 
 Gustavus Adolphus was killed. Twelve thousand imperialists 
 fell in this one fight, and the victorious Swedes, but without 
 their royal leader, captured Leipzig. Jealous Ferdinand II, 
 fearing Wallenstein's popularity and ambition, caused him to be 
 murdered (1634); but the new general (the King of Hungary, 
 the Emperor's heir) was hopeless of being able to overcome 
 the Swedes without more effective aid from Spain. The old 
 Infanta Isabel, sovereign of Flanders, had died childless (1633), 
 and her dominion had unfortunately once more fallen to the 
 King of Spain. The Cardinal Infante Ferdinand had been 
 sent by Philip IV, his brother, as governor, and to him whilst 
 on his way the Emperor appealed for help. The Infante was 
 able, popular and ambitious, and with an army of 18,000 
 Spaniards marched to the aid of his cousin and brother-in-law. 
 He arrived before Nordlingen at the hour when the imperialists 
 had summoned it to surrender, and a relieving force of Swedes 
 was approaching. The battle that ensued, which lasted for 
 two days, was one of the most terrible of the Thirty Years' 
 War. The imperialists had on their side not only the Infante, 
 but the Dukes of Bavaria and Lorraine ; and the Swedes and 
 Protestants were outnumbered. The latter were completely 
 routed, leaving 8000 dead on the field and 4000 prisoners in 
 the hands of the enemy. 
 
 The blow to the projects of Richelieu was a heavy one.
 
 VII.] Philip IV, 1621 — 1640. 239 
 
 He met it by subsidising and encouraging tlie Hollanders to 
 continue the war with Spain, in order that the Infante might 
 be forced to confine himself to his dominion. Not content 
 with this, he again openly declared war against Spain, as well 
 as against the Emperor. The French under Chatillon and De 
 Brdze met the Infante's troops commanded by Prince Thomas 
 of Savoy at Avenne (May 1635) and completely routed the 
 Spaniards : then, joining the Prince of Orange, they fell upon 
 Tirlemont. But the Infante was stout-hearted, the Spanish 
 infantry was the best in the world, and the tide soon turned. 
 With varying fortunes the war dragged on in Flanders, Ger- 
 many, and northern Italy. In the spring of 1636 Richelieu 
 decided to make a supreme effort to attack the Spaniards and 
 imperialists at the same time in Germany, Alsace, Franche- 
 Comte', the Milanese and the isles of Lerin, which had been 
 captured by Spain. It was a duel to the death now, in which 
 one of the nations must be humbled. Heavy as were the 
 burdens imposed both upon France and Spain, Richelieu and 
 Olivares respectively contrived, somehow, to raise the necessary 
 resources. Private property in Spain was seized without hesi- 
 tation, the taxes on food were increased, a rebate was taken on 
 all assignments on public revenues, the Church was squeezed to 
 the utmost, the revenues of Toledo appropriated, and salaries 
 and pensions left unpaid. In France almost every man was 
 forced to take arms, and coach-horses were embargoed for 
 cavalry. For a time the Spanish forces on the Oise threatened 
 Paris itself, until the advance of the Prince of Orange with 
 30,000 men in their rear caused them to retire with the ejccep- 
 tion of a small garrison left in Corbie (autumn 1636). This 
 was promptly surrounded and besieged by 40,000 Frenchmen, 
 till it marched out with all the honours of war, a heroic handful 
 against an army. But in a war of material resources Spain was 
 bound to be beaten. With a system of taxation like hers, and 
 with a public administration so corrupt, she could no more 
 cope permanently witli France than Olivares could stand against
 
 240 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Richelieu. The blighting system of centralisation introduced 
 by Philip II discouraged the making of great captains; and 
 although there was talent in plenty, and bravery to spare, she 
 had largely to depend upon foreigners like Spinola and Thomas 
 of Savoy to take supreme command of her armies. The 
 young Infante Ferdinand found himself therefore at a critical 
 period (1636), after the death of the Marquis of Aytona, short 
 of resources and without a single Spanish adviser of standing. 
 So great too was the penury in Spain, that Philip wrote to his 
 brother begging him to compel his own household to dress in 
 plain cloth and live frugally on beef and mutton, "with an 
 occasional fowl or partridge." 
 
 The dominion of Spain over Flanders was again trembling 
 in the balance. In the last days of the Infanta it had nearly 
 been lost by the treason of Count de Bergues (1632): Holland 
 was at the apogee of its prosperity, victorious at sea over 
 Spanish ships wherever she could find them; and now that 
 Nassau had the declared support of France, and Spain was 
 pledged to war in several parts of Europe at once, only 
 supreme good fortune could preserve to Philip the unhappy 
 Flemish inheritance of his Burgundian forefathers. Some 
 attempt was made by the Pope to bring about a peaceful 
 settlement, but Spain refused to allow the attendance at the 
 conference of the representatives of Holland and the Protes- 
 tants of Germany, and no results were attained, although 
 Richelieu at this time was desirous of peace. Early in 1637 
 the war, so far as it regarded northern Italy, was to a great 
 extent limited by an arrangement between the Grisons, Parma 
 and Spain ; and this allowed Richelieu to concentrate his 
 forces at other points. Count de Harcourt with a fleet of 
 40 sail and 20 galleys promptly expelled the Spaniards from 
 the islands of St Marguerite and St Honore, whilst Cardinal de 
 La Valette reduced Landrecy (July 1637) and La Chapelle ; 
 and Orange, who was besieging Breda, was reinforced by an 
 army of Frenchmen. Marshal Chatillon, also, with another
 
 VII.] PJiilip IV, 1 62 1 — 1640. 241 
 
 French force, carried all before him in Luxembourg, as did 
 the Duke of Longueville in the Franche-Comte, and the Duke 
 of Weimar in Alsace. In the south of France, Avhich the 
 Spaniards had invaded, they were more unfortunate still. Their 
 army of 13,000 men under the Duke of Carmonawas practically 
 destroyed, and all their baggage taken. 
 
 The next year, 1638, the tables were to a slight extent 
 turned, and the Spaniards regained some of their lost ground, 
 the siege of St Omer being abandoned with great loss by 
 Chatillon, and the Marquis of Leganes gaining several victories 
 in Lombardy ; in one of which (Bremo, July 1638) Marshal de 
 Crequi fell on the French side and all Lombardy was cleared 
 of French. Whilst the armies of Spain were thus dispersed 
 in all parts of Europe, and the Infante with the utmost diffi- 
 culty was holding Flanders, Richelieu sought to deliver a 
 master-stroke by invading with a powerful force the territory 
 of Spain itself. Crossing the Bidasoa from St Jean de Luz 
 the French rapidly captured Irun, and the beautiful harbour 
 of Pasages, and laid siege to Fuenterrabia both by sea and by 
 land (July 1638). 
 
 Conde and the Duke de La Valette (6pernon's eldest son) 
 were in command on land, and the Bishop of Bordeaux at sea. 
 An attempt was made to storm the fortress ; but a dashing 
 charge of 6000 Spaniards of the relief force under the Admiral 
 of Castile carried panic into the French camp, and the besiegers 
 fled headlong to the boats (September 1638), La Valette 
 flying to England to escape from Richelieu's accusation of 
 treason. Through the next year, 1639, the various campaigns 
 dragged on with but small permanent result on either side, 
 though the French generally maintained their advantage, except 
 in Italy, where the Marquis of Leganes and Thomas of Savoy 
 almost completely subjugated Piedmont and Savoy — now 
 governed by the widowed duchess, sister of the French King, 
 who had scornfully refused the Spanish off"er of peace. In the 
 spring of 1639 the French under Cond^ again invaded Spain ; 
 H. s. 16
 
 242 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 this time by Roussillon — which was then a Spanish possession 
 attached to Cataluha. The Spaniards fled before them into 
 Perpignan. There was, as we have seen, no love lost between 
 Olivares and the Catalans ; and the latter were left to defend 
 their own principality. This they did worthily. An army of 
 10,000 men was rapidly improvised; but there was no leader 
 worthy of the name, and they fought for a time in vain. Badly 
 led, kept inactive when they were burning to advance, dis- 
 couragement seized them. 8000 of them died of the plague 
 before Salces, but when Conde' returned from Narbonne with a 
 fresh French army which he had gathered, of 20,000 foot and 
 4000 horse, the rest of the Spaniards plucked up spirit and re- 
 solved to stay and fight him where they lay. Full of confidence 
 the French stormed the Spanish trenches (i November, 1639). 
 Regiment after regiment rushed to the charge only to fall 
 dead or dying in the overswollen ditches. Panic at last seized 
 them, and they fled, leaving the Catalans masters of the field, 
 and the fortress of Salce's fell by famine on the 6th January, 
 1640; the attempt of Richelieu to invade Spain thus faiHng 
 for a second time. Nor did the maritime attacks on the 
 Spanish coast by the Bishop of Bordeaux produce much more 
 effect, for after some depredations and temporary occupations 
 of Spanish ports, his fleet was scattered by a storm and he 
 returned disabled to France. On the other hand a powerful 
 Spanish fleet of 70 ships and 10,000 men was almost destroyed 
 by the Dutch (21 October, 1639). Four-fifths of the Spaniards 
 were lost, and only seven of their ships escaped into Dunkirk. 
 The Spaniards had taken refuge in the Downs, to escape from 
 Tromp ; and simultaneously the Spanish agents and the Dutch 
 addressed Charles I on the subject. He pointed out to the 
 former that they could not remain in EngHsh waters for ever; 
 and began to bargain as to what Spain would do for the 
 Palatine if shelter were aff'orded to her fleet. But before an 
 arrangement could be made Tromp took the matter into his 
 own hands and boldly attacked the Spaniards whilst their ships
 
 VII.] Philip IV, 1 62 1 — 1640. 243 
 
 lay on the Kentish coast. The Spaniards asserted that the 
 EngUsh themselves lent him what help they could; and Admiral 
 Pennington was imprisoned for not protecting them. This 
 blow ended prematurely Spain's renewed attempt to become a 
 great naval power. Every nerve had been strained by Olivares 
 to strengthen the Spanish navy, and not without success. The 
 loss now sustained was never completely recovered, and Spain's 
 hold upon the sceptre of the sea was loosened for ever. 
 
 16 — 2
 
 244 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PHILIP IV, 1638 — 1643. 
 
 Whilst the national resources were being wasted abroad 
 the trade and industry of Spain were languishing. The coasts 
 of Brazil and the commerce of iTielVest were a prey to the 
 depredations of the Hollanders. The silver fleet was regularly 
 intercepted off the Azores, and generally some of its rich cargo 
 went to defray the cost of war against its legitimate owners. 
 Edicts had been pubhshed in Spain (1628 and 1630) pro- 
 hibiting, under pain of forfeiture, all commerce whatever with 
 the enemies of the country ; and no manufactured goods of 
 any description were permitted to be imported directly or 
 indirectly from the principal manufacturing countries of Europe. 
 This measure entailed a costly and harassing system of exami- 
 nation, which for a time paralysed commerce altogether. As 
 we have seen, the unwise system of taxation in Spain had 
 driven vast tracts of land out of cultivation ; and, together 
 with the expulsion of the Moriscos, sumptuary pragmatics, and 
 other causes, had already almost destroyed manufactures. 
 These new obstacles to trade had the natural result of im- 
 mensely increasing the cost of living, and still further handi- 
 capping Spanish production. Already most of the needs of 
 the country were supplied from abroad. By the middle of the 
 17th century no less than seventeen formerly prosperous 
 industries had been driven out of Spain, especially those 
 connected with metal working, cordage, and ship-building, 
 whilst the national industries of weaving silks, fine fabrics,
 
 Chap, viii.] PJiilip IV, 1638 — 1643. 245 
 
 and linens, and the manufacture of gloves, in which Spain 
 had ahvays been pre-eminent, were now merely a shadow of 
 what they had been in the time of the Emperor and in the 
 earlier years of Philip II. 
 
 To combat the natural rise of prices resulting from the 
 hampering of traffic, Olivares, perhaps with the best of inten- 
 tions, again began at the wrong end. The value of copper 
 money was once more reduced to the half of its present 
 nominal value — -which, as it only reversed the former short- 
 sighted edict, was perhaps a move in the right direction — but 
 persistent, as usual, in regarding the interest of the consumer, 
 and disregarding that of the producer, Olivares caused an edict 
 to be issued again fixing the prices at which all food stuffs 
 had to be sold. 
 
 When Philip met the Castilian Cortes in 1638 he had but 
 a sorry story to tell, notwithstanding the bravery with which 
 his troops had fought in all parts of Europe. He had, he told 
 them, borrowed since the Cortes of 1632 the sum of 72,650,000 
 ducats at eight per cent, interest, secured on the various 
 national revenues ; this sum had been spent entirely on the 
 military and naval operations outside the realms of Castile 
 and Aragon, the armed forces at home and the cost of civil 
 government having been defrayed from current revenue. Up 
 to this time all attempts to increase the alcahala had been 
 resisted. The "millions" tax on stated articles of food had 
 been augmented, and imposed on fresh articles frequently, but 
 the 10 per cent, on all sales had remained nominally un- 
 changed ; although in most cases the system of fixed quotas 
 for towns and districts, and the pledging of the quotas to 
 contractors for advances, had in effect caused the demand for 
 the full tax to be unnecessary, as well as impossible of recovery. 
 In the Cortes of 1639 an additional i per cent, on the 
 alcabala was voted ; but when it was found that the sum pro- 
 duced by the increase was smaller than had been estimated, 
 and a further increase was demanded, the Cortes flatly refused.
 
 246 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 They had (they said) voted 9,000,000 silver ducats payable over 
 three years, and they declined to alter the taxation until the 
 three years had expired, although they did vote an increase of 
 the tax upon wine to help the " millions." 
 
 It will be well understood that this oppressive taxation, 
 weighing especially on food and industry, was rapidly reducing 
 the provinces to a condition of desolation. Madrid however 
 continued to grow in dirty splendour and squalid luxury. The 
 roadways of the capital were ancle deep in filth or dust, accord- 
 ing to the time of year ; decent people, especially ladies, were 
 compelled to go in litters or carriages, until it became a perfect 
 craze to promenade in coaches up and down the Calle Mayor. 
 Severe pragmatics were issued against this excessive use of 
 coaches, especially by men, but luxury was never permanently 
 restrained by pragmatics, and there were always loopholes and 
 exceptions by which the edicts might be evaded. The Spanish 
 theatre, which set the fasliion and fixed a standard for all the 
 rest of Europe, was now in its prime, and provided intellectual 
 pleasure for the citizens of which they never tired. The two 
 theatres in the capital were always thronged — poor as the 
 people were — the seats costing in all 15 sous each; of which 
 \\ went to the players, 2 to the town council, i^ to the 
 hospital, and the rest to ihe dramatist, the impresario and the 
 government. Neither the severe edicts of Philip II against 
 the education of Spanish youth abroad, and against the intro- 
 duction of foreign science, nor the rigid control of the In- 
 quisition over literature in the three reigns, had dwarfed 
 the intellectual growth, which even on such uncongenial soil 
 flourished spontaneously and luxuriantly, in obedience to the 
 impulse which in various manifestations was making itself felt 
 throughout the civilized world. Physical science was discour- 
 aged, but the southern imagination — the eastern romanticism 
 joined to Celtic keenness of thought and eloquence of word — 
 produced in Spain generations of novelists and dramatists such 
 as the world has rarely seen in any country. The Inquisition
 
 VIII.] Philip IV, 1638 — 1643. 247 
 
 was not anxious to suppress works of pure imagination, and 
 most of the successful writers of the literary golden age of 
 Spain were either servants of the Holy Office or ecclesiastics ; 
 Lope de Vega, Moreto, Montalvan, Tirso de Molina, Cal- 
 deron, and many others, amongst them, and even the greatest 
 of them all, " the maimed one of Lepanto," the great Cer- 
 vantes, died a Franciscan monk. Historical writing, as distinct 
 from chronicling, reached an elegance and vigour in the reigns 
 of the three consecutive Philips of which many examples 
 are still admired. Sandoval, the historian of Charles V, Diego 
 Hurtado de Mendoza, the authority on the Moorish wars of 
 Philip II, Bernardino de Mendoza, the soldier-ambassador, 
 who told so well the story of the wars in Flanders, Perez 
 de Hita who described the civil wars of Granada, Cabrera 
 de Cordoba the historian of Philip II, Floiian de Ocampo, 
 Zurita, Mariana, and a host of others, are read by scholars 
 of to day with as much zest as they were in their own times ; 
 the poets Fernando de Herrera, Ercilla, Barahona de Soto, 
 and Balbuena, produced odes and lyrics full of vigour and 
 inspiration. But the special directions taken by Spanish intel- 
 lectual progress in the time of the three Philips were the 
 novel of adventure and the episodical drama. Don Quixote, 
 Lazarillo de Tormes, Guzman de Alfarache, El Gran Tacano, 
 El Diablo Cojuelo, and even Gil Bias de Santillana, almost 
 certainly a Spanish work, are the direct ancestors of the 
 modern novel. It is easy to trace the descent of the Spanish 
 picaresque romancers through Tom Jones, Roderick Random 
 and Pickwick to our own day ; as it is to follow the influence 
 of the famous Philippian playwrights. Lope de Vega, Lope de 
 Rueda and Calderon, upon Beaumont and Fletcher, Dryden, 
 Congreve, Shadwell, and Wycherley; and so through the 
 Georgian dramatic writers to the comedy of imbroglio which 
 still delights English playgoers. 
 
 By the time of Philip IV, if Spanish commerce was almost 
 at its last gasp, Spanish agriculture crushed, and the Spanish
 
 248 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 proletariat mainly kept alive by doles, Spanish wit had become 
 a dominant fashion \ and the ragged poet, novelist, or play- 
 wright, real or pretended, became one of the most characteristic 
 and conspicuous objects of the capital — then by far the most 
 idle and dissolute in Europe ; a byeword for vice and filth 
 with the rest of civilization. Philip IV, himself a poet of some 
 pretensions, and the providence of the literary men who 
 crowded his court, found unfailing relief from his other plea- 
 sures in the "Academies," or "floral games," which were 
 constantly being organised in the gloomy old Alcazar of 
 Madrid, or in his own favourite new palace of the Buen Retiro 
 in the suburbs. The bitter satires of Quevedo and his imitators 
 delighted no one more than the stony, reserved man with his 
 dull, bagging eyes, his great mumbling underhung mouth, and 
 his lank yellow hair ; whose heart was so human and whose 
 passions so strong, though the traditions of his house bade 
 him show to his subjects only the corpse-like mask which will 
 exist for ever by the genius of Velasquez. 
 
 The Inquisition was almost as busy as ever, although there 
 was little Lutheran heresy in Spain left. But the Jews, who 
 had been so numerous in Portugal, were finding their way 
 throughout Spain, and autos-de-fe for their benefit were fre- 
 quently considered necessary. There was however a vile sect, 
 which his enemies said had been invented by Olivares, to drag 
 the King into deeper licentiousness. They were called "Alum- 
 brados," or enlightened ones, and their teaching was that 
 sacrilegious amours of the most blasphemous description 
 might be indulged in without sin, even in the sacred pre- 
 cincts of the convent and the church. With this sect the 
 Inquisition had more than one struggle. Tluis, with dissipa- 
 tion, spectacles, and pleasures, the King and his people were 
 kept amused by the all-powerful favourite, who, working upon 
 the monarch's indolence, undertook practically the whole work 
 of the state. The system so laboriously planted by Philip II 
 concentrated the power in the monarch, with the Councils,
 
 VIII.] Philip IV, 1638 — 1643. 249 
 
 which have already been described as consultative and executive 
 bodies. But it was found in practice that when the monarch 
 transferred his power to a favourite, the Councils were apt to 
 press their own opinions in opposition to his. This did not 
 suit Olivares, and he destroyed the efficacy of the Councils by 
 causing each member to hand his opinion and arguments in a 
 sealed paper to the King, instead of publicly discussing and 
 voting in the Council chamber as before. As the papers were 
 handed to Olivares, generally unread, he could, and did, take 
 the course he pleased on each question. Many subjects, 
 moreover, were not referred to the Councils at all, but were 
 submitted to special boards nominated and convoked by 
 Olivares ad hoc. There were no less than thirteen of these 
 boards, in addition to the Councils ; the result being that the 
 cost of administration was greatly increased, and the executive 
 power centred almost unchecked in the hands of the Count- 
 Duke. 
 
 Whilst Philip's first wife (Elizabeth of France) lived, she 
 did her best to arouse her husband to a sense of his duty and 
 his position, but the licentiousness of his life continued, and 
 their relations were embittered by mutual jealousy. The 
 atmosphere of the court and capital was, indeed, so vicious 
 that the young Queen herself did not escape scandal. At the 
 first bull-fight in the Plaza Mayor after Philip's accession 
 (1621) the splendid young Count de Villa Mediana (Tassis) 
 had the audacity to appear with a device of silver reals on his 
 breast, with the words over them ^^ Son mis amoresJ' This 
 might possibly have been explained as meaning that he loved 
 money, but he had already been foolish enough to cast admir- 
 ing eyes on the Queen, and the multitude at once interpreted 
 the device as " My loves are royal." Matters were made 
 worse by a remark of the Queen to her husband referring to 
 the spectacle, that "Villa Mediana aimed well." "Ah!" 
 gloomily replied the King, "but he aims too high." A few 
 months afterwards (August 1622) the Count was shot dead,
 
 250 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 at the door of his own house (now called the Onate palace in 
 the Calle Mayor), by one of the royal guards ; and in hushed 
 whispers all Madrid asserted that the hand that shot the bolt 
 received its impetus from the King. 
 
 In 1639 the war had been carried by the Marquis of 
 Leganes from Lombardy into Savoy. The widowed Duchess, 
 a French princess, being deaf to Olivares' approaches, an 
 intrigue had been raised to oust her from the regency in favour 
 of Cardinal Maurice and Prince Tiiomas, the uncles of the 
 child-duke and both adherents of Spain. The people them- 
 selves sided with the native princes, and the French were beaten 
 everywhere ; the duchess was deposed and the city of Turin 
 occupied by the Spaniards. Dissensions however occurred 
 between the Marquis of Leganes and Prince Thomas, and 
 a truce was signed with the French leaving the army of the 
 latter still afoot and the citadel of Turin in their hands. Early 
 in 1640, Cardinal La Valette having died, the new French 
 commander Harcourt reversed the position, re-established the 
 duchess, occupied the principal fortresses and towns and 
 relieved Casale. Thenceforward for a time the war in Savoy 
 flickered on intermittently without interest or permanent effect, 
 the duchess and the French remaining paramount. The long- 
 continued wars with France had so far produced no adequate 
 or decisive results on either side ; but under the \yise admini- 
 stration of Richelieu his country could far better afford the drain 
 of men and money than could Spain; and the heavy sacrifices 
 demanded of the latter country had aroused deep resentment, 
 especially in the two divisions where the racial and historical 
 circumstances of the people were most distinct from those 
 of Castile — namely Cataluha in the north-east, and Portugal in 
 the west. 
 
 There had always existed considerable dislike and jealousy 
 between the Portuguese and Spaniards. On the conquest of 
 the country in 1580 Philip II had earnestly done his best 
 to conciliate his new subjects. He had sworn to preserve all
 
 VIII.] Philip IV, 1638 — 1643. 251 
 
 their national privileges, to respect their autonomy, and not to 
 burden them with Castilian taxation ; and he kept his word in 
 the letter, even if to some extent he disregarded it in the 
 spirit. The governmental posts were filled entirely by Portu- 
 guese who were known to be faithful to him, and Portuguese 
 nobles were welcomed and honoured at the Court of Castile. 
 But with the growth of favouritism, especially under Olivares, 
 all these wise attempts at conciliation were abandoned. Greedy 
 hangers-on had to be provided for. The viceroyalties, the 
 governorships, the bishoprics, the secretaryships and the hke, 
 in Spain, Italy, and the Indies, were not enough to go round 
 the greedy crew; and Portugal had to be tapped. In a material 
 sense, already, the Portuguese had suffered much from their 
 change of masters. Their possessions in Brazil, Africa and the 
 East, had been raided and devastated for years by the enemies 
 of Spain, with whom Portugal had no quarrel ; Cadiz had taken 
 away from Lisbon much of its commerce, and Portuguese 
 shipping, formerly safe from molestation, was now at the scant 
 mercy of the Dutch privateers. But Olivares, with characteristic 
 disregard of everything but the needs of the moment, imposed 
 upon them in 1636 the Castilian tax of 5 per cent, on 
 all property, moveable and immoveable, and this, together 
 with the insolence of his principal instrument Vasconcellos, 
 had caused a rising. This was suppressed, mainly by the 
 prudence of the regent Margaret, the widowed Duchess of 
 Mantua, a daughter of Catharine, Duchess of Savoy, the 
 younger daughter of Philip II, and consequently first cousin of 
 Phihp IV. Olivares, with incredible folly, chose this period 
 to fix a fresh special tax on the Portuguese as a punishment, 
 and, above all, announced a plan for abolishing the Portuguese 
 Cortes, and bringing the representatives of the country to sit 
 in the parliament of Castile, of which in future it would only 
 be a province. 
 
 The various branches of the royal house which had a 
 claim to the Portuguese throne have been mentioned in a
 
 252 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 former chapter. Don Antonio's sons had sunk into obscurity, 
 the Duke of Parma had as much as he could do to hold his 
 own States ; Catharine de Medici with her shadowy claim was 
 dead, but the greatest noble in Portugal, the Duke of Braganza, 
 whose grandmother had unquestionably been the true heiress, 
 was wealthy, genial, and popular, and — crowning virtue of 
 all — Portuguese. He had married a Spanish lady of great 
 vigour and abihty, a grand-daughter of the Duke of Medina 
 Sidonia — the Armada duke to whose house Olivares belonged — 
 and a great-grand-daughter of the Princess of Eboli. Her 
 strength and ambition stiffened the duke's gentler character, 
 and Olivares began to look upon the pair with suspicion. He 
 tried hard to lure them from their estates at Villa Vigosa, but 
 they were wary. First the Viceroyalty of Milan was offered to 
 the duke ; then a flattering invitation was sent to him to come 
 to Madrid, but Braganza, surrounded by his vassals, knew he 
 was safe at home, and decided to stay there. Finding he 
 would not come willingly, Olivares formed a plan to kidnap 
 him on board a Spanish fleet whilst he was inspecting some 
 harbour defences ; and this also was frustrated. 
 
 The project of Olivares to assimilate Portugal with Spain, 
 although ill-timed, was not unpatriotic or unwise. France had 
 'become unified and strong ; and Olivares to oppose it had a 
 bundle of more or less disunited realms and dominions, with 
 divergent constitutions and systems of taxation, springing, in 
 at least three cases, from separate races, and held together but 
 lightly by Philip's crown. If Spain had been freed from the 
 unfortunate complications which the imperial and Burgundian 
 connection had brouglit upon her, and had bent the whole of 
 her powers to the unification of her own institutions and 
 territories, there is a probability that the plan of Olivares 
 might have in the end been successful, at least so far as 
 regarded Portugal. But Philip H had from the first declined 
 to treat the country as a conquest, and instead of banishing 
 the Braganzas, as prudence might have dictated, loaded them
 
 VIII.] Philip IV, 1638 — 1643. 253 
 
 with fresh benefits ; until, at the time of the separation, the 
 duke owned a third of Portugal, and in personal resources was 
 far more powerful than any royal personage in the Peninsula. 
 When, therefore, discontent at the sacrifices demanded of 
 them had aroused even the servile Portuguese populace to a 
 condition of revolt, it was natural that they should turn their 
 eyes to the Duke of Braganza, whom they had always con- 
 sidered their rightful native sovereign. The Archbishop of 
 Lisbon, Antonio de Almeida, and a few other Portuguese 
 nobles, without difficulty persuaded a large number of their 
 friends to form a society pledged to secure the separation 
 of their country from Spain, and to place the crown on the 
 head of the Duke of Braganza. 
 
 Olivares was certainly informed by Vasconcellos, the 
 secretary of the regent, that evil was brewing : but either 
 to lull Braganza's suspicions, or in the hope of gaining him, he 
 wrote kindly to him, gave him authority over the whole of the 
 ports of the country, and sent him 40,000 ducats to raise 
 troops for national defence. The money was used in paying 
 men pledged to the revolt, and the fortresses were packed with 
 soldiers in Braganza's interest, for nearly all the Spanish troops 
 had been withdrawn for the wars. The duke himself remained 
 at Villa Vigosa timid and irresolute until all was ready, his 
 steward Pinto Ribeiro being the head of the conspiracy in 
 Lisbon. Once the duke visited the regent in the capital with 
 a train of unusual number and magnificence. Crowds greeted 
 him in the streets, for revolution was in the air, and the 
 regent sounded a warning note to Olivares. A peremptory 
 summons was sent to Braganza to come to Madrid to inform 
 the King of the defensive state of the country. Feigned 
 acquiescence, pretended illness, and questions of etiquette 
 were resorted to by Braganza to delay his departure. A second 
 urgent command was sent to him with 10,000 ducats to pay 
 for his immediate journey. He sent his household in advance 
 and pretended to start himself Mendoza, the agent of the
 
 254 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 conspirators, sought him at his castle of Tapada, and urged 
 him to throw aside his timidity and accept the leadership of 
 the revolt. The duchess added her influence and the duke 
 consented. The chief conspirators were comparatively few — 
 150 gentlemen and 200 citizens — but the people outside were 
 famine-stricken and discontented, ready to join if the leaders 
 were bold. On the ist December, 1640, the conspirators in four 
 divisions approached the palace, on what is now the Praga do 
 Commercio, from different quarters, in carriages. The Spanish 
 and German guards were easily overpowered. The hated 
 Vasconcellos, already dumb with terror, was stabbed to death ; 
 the regent made but a verbal resistance, but when she talked 
 of rebellion — though she said she was glad Vasconcellos was 
 killed — she was told that King John IV was now the sovereign 
 of Portugal. The populace frantic with joy acclaimed their 
 native monarch, who was still timidly lurking at Villa Vigosa, 
 and the Archbishop of Lisbon assumed supreme power 
 pending his arrival. The regent and all her officers were 
 placed under arrest, and she was coerced into signing an 
 order for the surrender of the citadel to the new government. 
 The command was obeyed with alacrity, and the Spanish rule 
 of Portugal was a thing of the past. Every town in the realm 
 followed the example of the capital. The hated Spaniards 
 were expelled or fled, fortresses fell without a blow, and the 
 only resistance was in the castle of San Gian (Julian) at the 
 mouth of the Tagus. This was soon reduced, and John IV 
 became unquestioned King of Portugal in a three hours' revolt, 
 in which he himself had done nothing. The cause was won, 
 not by Portuguese vigour but by Spanish exhaustion. The 
 news arrived at Madrid at a time of feasting and entertain- 
 ments for the reception of a Danish ambassador, and cast 
 Olivares into the lowest depth of despondency. All Madrid 
 heard the tidings but the King, and him~01ivares knew not 
 how to tell, certain that the monarch, like his people, would 
 naturally place upon the favourite's shoulders the blame of the
 
 viii.J Philip IV, 1638—1643. 255 
 
 disgraceful loss. At length it could be hidden no longer, and 
 the Count-Duke entered the King's room with a smiling 
 countenance, whilst the monarch was at play. " Good news ! 
 Good news ! your Majesty. You have gained a fresh duchy 
 and great estates," he cried. "How so?" asked Philip. "The 
 Duke of Braganza, Sir, has lost his reason and has proclaimed 
 himself King of Portugal, so that your Majesty may possess 
 the 12 million ducats' worth of property he owns." The King 
 was careless and idle, but he was no fool, and he saw how 
 serious the blow was. His rigid face was darkened, as he said, 
 "Well, a remedy must be found." 
 
 An attempt at a counter-plot to kill the new King and fire 
 the city was made by the Archbishop of Braga and some 
 Spanish sympathisers, with the connivance of Olivares, but it 
 was discovered by the Queen of Portugal's relative the 
 Marquis of Ayamonte, and four Portuguese nobles of high 
 rank lost their heads, whilst others of humbler station were 
 hanged, drawn and quartered. 
 
 A more dangerous conspiracy than this for Philip IV arose 
 out of the separation of Portugal. The brother of the Queen 
 of Portugal, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, was the greatest 
 noble in Spain, nearly all Andalucia acknowledging him as its 
 chief, including the rich city of Cadiz. The success of his 
 brother-in-law, and the persuasions of the new queen, and of 
 his kinsman Ayamonte, induced him to consent to a plot for 
 proclaiming himself independent sovereign of Andalucia, with 
 the aid of the King of Portugal. He was head of Olivares' 
 family (the Guzmans), and when the favourite learnt from his 
 spies of the treason intended, he shielded the duke as much as 
 he might. The duke was summoned in a friendly way to 
 Madrid, whilst an army of 5,000 royal troops was thrown into 
 Cadiz. The duke — a poor creature like his ancestor of the 
 Armada — came and made a clean breast of it, throwing him- 
 self with tears and self-reproaches at the King's feet. He was 
 pardoned, for the King was gentle and clement, and Olivares
 
 256 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 stood by him, but he was never allowed to go to Andalucia 
 again, or to come near the court, and much of his vast wealth 
 was confiscated. Ayamonte was not so fortunate. He con- 
 fessed that he was the moving spirit in the plot, and lost his 
 life upon the scaffold, Guzman though he was. 
 
 To complete the story of treachery arising out of the revolt 
 (Jf Portugal, Lucena, the enlightened secretary of John IV, was 
 convicted of treason and beheaded, on the strength of a 
 forged correspondence concocted by Olivares, his master 
 discovering too late that he had sacrificed an innocent man. 
 More shameful still was the kidnapping and selling to Spain 
 of Prince Edward, brother of the new King. The prince 
 was serving in the imperial army, and was seized with the 
 consent of the Emperor, who kept him a prisoner at Gratz 
 until an offer of 40,000 ducats from Spain induced him to 
 surrender him. He was carried to the fortress of Milan, where 
 in close confinement, treated as a criminal, he expiated by his 
 death the offence of being a Braganza. 
 
 But a much greater trouble than the loss of Portugal befell 
 Philip at the same time. Of all the peninsular peoples the 
 Catalans were— and are — most_ unlike the Castilians. A 
 population of almost pure Romance origin, sharing with their 
 neighbours in the south of France the language, traditions, 
 and literature of their race— a series of accidents rather than 
 obvious fate had brought them under the rule of a Castilian 
 King, instead of their forming the nucleus of the great 
 Romance empire projected by James the Conqueror their 
 sovereign in the thirteenth century. Their character is rough 
 and independent ; they are tenacious, industrious, and thrifty, 
 without any of the Portuguese peasant's servility or the Cas- 
 tilian's haughty contempt of manual labour; fully conscious 
 of their superiority over their neighbours in many respects, 
 they repay their disdain with disdain still deeper. It was not 
 to be expected that such a people as this would willingly 
 forget the conduct of the King and Olivares towards them and
 
 VIII.] PJiilip IV, 1638 — 1643. 257 
 
 their institutions in the Cortes of 1626, related above (pp. 230 
 — 232), or the similar treatment to which they were subjected 
 by Olivares when he accompanied the King to the Cortes of 
 Barcelona in 1632, on the occasion of the installation of the 
 Cardinal Infante Fernando as Viceroy. Nor was the Count- 
 Duke a man likely to dissemble his dishke to a people who so 
 roughly withstood his probably well-meant attempts to unify 
 and assimilate the institutions of the monarchy. 
 
 We have seen how, mainly by Catalan energy, the French 
 invasion had been driven from Roussillon and Salces been 
 recaptured. The Catalans were ready to make sacrifices 
 willingly, but Santa Coloma, the Viceroy, in his letters to 
 Olivares chose this very opportunity of advising a policy of 
 harsh severity towards them. " Do not allow a single man in 
 the province capable of work to absent himself from the field, 
 and no woman capable of carrying a bundle of fodder on her 
 back.... This is no time to beseech, but to command. The 
 Catalans are naturally fickle — sometimes they will and at 
 others will not. Make them understand that the welfare of the 
 people and the army must go before all their laws and 
 privileges... .Seize all their beds, even from the highest people 
 in the province, if necessary, and let them sleep on the ground 
 rather than the soldiers shall be badly lodged.... If pioneers be 
 wanted and the peasants refuse to go to work, force them ; even, 
 if it be necessary, carry them bound. Do not spare force, no 
 matter how they cry out against you. I will bear all the 
 blame." With this feeling, both in the Viceroy and Olivares, 
 it is not surprising that, when the troops returned from the vic- 
 torious campaign in Roussillon, the province was in a state of 
 sullen revolt. Against the laws of the principality the contingent 
 of Castilian troops under the Marquis of Balbeses (the son of 
 the great Spinola) were lodged in the province, instead of 
 being sent back to Castile. They were, as usual, unpaid, and 
 according to their custom in other countries— Flanders and 
 Italy for instance — they plundered and insulted right and left. 
 
 H. S. 17
 
 258 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Instead of bending their heads to the yoke the Catalans 
 retaliated without hesitation. The result of the disturbances 
 was an order from the King, violating the privileges of the 
 principality, that each village in Cataluna should support 
 a certain number of soldiers. The Catalans remonstrated in 
 vain, Santa Coloma, though a Catalan himself, passed from 
 severity to severity. Fighting in the streets of Barcelona 
 became frequent and Olivares urged still further rigour. The 
 pulpits resounded with denunciations of the cruelty and 
 oppression of the soldiery, particularly of the famous " Naples " 
 regiment. " Either," wrote Santa Coloma, " reheve the pro- 
 vince from the burden, or send me an army strong enough 
 to put down disorder by force." But Olivares did neither. 
 1 he Viceroy tried to terrorise the people by imprisoning the 
 most influential men, lay and clerical, and at last the revolu- 
 tion flamed out. 
 
 On the 7th June, 1640, when the city was full of the 
 harvesters who come down from the mountains when their 
 work is done, a cry of " Vengeance ! Liberty ! Down with 
 Philip's bad government! Long live the King!" was raised. 
 Like an irresistible avalanche the revolt swept all before it. 
 Every soldier of Castile who could be caught, even in 
 sanctuary, was murdered. In vain Santa Coloma, an old, 
 unwieldy man, sought safety in flight. With fear and grief he 
 fell by the way-side, and was cut to pieces by the infuriated 
 peasants. The flame spread from the county of Barcelona all 
 over the principality of Cataluna. Philip and Olivares had 
 their hands full when the news reached them. At first they 
 attempted to tranquillise the people by the appointment of a 
 popular Viceroy, the Duke of Cardona, but they would not 
 give way on the main point of quartering Castilian troops in 
 the principality and disapproved of the punishment of some 
 soldiers by Cardona, who soon after died. They then tried 
 the aged bishop of Barcelona as Viceroy, but under his 
 nerveless sway the province was soon entirely a prey to
 
 VIII.] Philip IV, 1638 — 1643. 259 
 
 anarchy. Severity was then inevitable if Cataluna were to 
 remain attached to Castile. " The revolt," said Cardinal de 
 Borgia in the council at Madrid, "can only be drowned in 
 rivers of blood." Olivares went about the work thoroughly. 
 Every soldier that could be raised in the rest of Spain and 
 Portugal was called to the standard, and the Marquis de los 
 Velez was appointed to the command. The plan was to 
 attack Cataluna through Aragon, Zaragoza being the point 
 d'appui, where a large reserve was to be kept to hold in terror 
 the Aragonese ; for if they joined the Catalans, as was feared, 
 then indeed would Spain be dismembered. The Spanish 
 commander in Perpignan (Garay) was ordered to attack the 
 Catalans on that side. He urged that the forces should form 
 a junction first and enter the province together, but was over- 
 ruled. In September 1640 Garay attempted to punish a 
 Catalan village whose inhabitants were negotiating with the 
 French. The peasants were entirely successful, and twice were 
 the Spanish troops and Garay routed. In the meanwhile 
 Barcelona was busy arming, drilling and fortifying, but the 
 great army gathering in Aragon, and the talk of vengeance 
 from Olivares, convinced the Catalans that alone they could 
 ill withstand the national forces. They accordingly sent one 
 of their chiefs, Francisco Vilaplana, to Richelieu at Amiens, 
 to beg for French aid. With some delay and a decent appear- 
 ance of reluctance, a promise was made of 6,000 foot and 
 2,000 horse, to be paid by Cataluna. But in the meanwhile 
 los Velez with his army of revenge advanced upon the Ebro, 
 which he crossed at Tortosa (October 1640). The Catalans 
 by this time were discouraged, for no French aid had come. 
 los Velez came promising peace and order, and swore as 
 viceroy, that the privileges of Cataluna should be respected. 
 Town after town submitted, or was taken with but slight resist- 
 ance, and the march of los Velez almost to the walls of Tarra- 
 gona was a triumphal progress ; even the supposed impregnable 
 fortresses of Coll and Hospitalet fell almost without a blow. 
 
 1 7 — 2
 
 26o Spain : its greatness atid decay. [Chap. 
 
 But the Barcelonese had induced the French General 
 d'Epernon in the meantime with three regiments to cross the 
 frontier and occupy Tarragona, in order to stay the advance of 
 the royal army. In the village of Cambrils near Tarragona 
 the Catalans made a sturdy stand, and after their capitulation 
 — it was said by mistake, — 700 of them were slain by the 
 soldiery ; the chief authorities of the place were hanged by los 
 Velez without trial. It was another matter when Tarragona 
 was reached. Here the French force were strongly placed : 
 los Velez was hampered by contrary orders from Madrid, his 
 artillery had not come up, his stores were short, the galleys 
 had not arrived, and the Aragonese in his army were deserting. 
 The Catalan chiefs, San Pol and Capons, with their troops, 
 had crossed into Aragon, and were devastating the country. 
 Los Velez, at first, was in despair, but he had to deal with an 
 opponent even weaker than himself. d'Epernon came to 
 terms without difficulty, agreeing to return to France, and 
 to persuade the Barcelonese to abandon their resistance 
 (23 December, 1640). 
 
 This betrayal only aroused still further the rage of Bar- 
 celona, and its brave regiment of volunteers of Santa Eulalia 
 under Rosell ; and when los Velez arrived he found the 
 capital prepared for him. Before the attack was delivered 
 the inhabitants formally cast otf their allegiance to Spain, and 
 declared Louis XIII Count of Barcelona, surrendering the 
 strong castle of Monjuich to a French officer, M. d'Aubigny, 
 who with 300 French veterans was in the city. On the 
 26th January, 1641, an attempt was made to storm the out- 
 works by simultaneous attacks at various points. At the first 
 attack the Earl of Tyrone (John O'Neil), leading the Irish 
 regiment, was killed. The Catalans and their few French 
 auxiliaries fought like heroes. The Spanish infantry also 
 fought well, and the Duke of San Jorge (C. M. Carraciolo) 
 with his heavy cuirassiers was always in the hottest of the 
 struggle till he fell dead from his horse. The fort of Mont-
 
 VIII.] Philip !V, 1638 — 1643. 261 
 
 juich, on its eminence, was closely attacked by the Spaniards 
 under the Marquis of Torrecusa (C. Carraciolo), a Neapolitan, 
 and already the stormers were crying victory under the very 
 walls, when a sudden panic seized them. They had forgotten 
 their scaling-ladders, and whilst they were fighting, the barefooted 
 Catalan sailors from the beach below had swarmed up and 
 taken them in the rear. In the sauve qui peut which followed 
 the Castilians were killed like sheep, and down the rocky sides 
 of Montjuich ran rivulets of blood. Torrecusa temporarily lost 
 his reason with rage and shame, and Barcelona with its citizen 
 volunteers held its own against all the military power of Spain. 
 Los Velez retired defeated to Tarragona ; and soon all 
 Cataluiia was aflame again. The French King had accepted 
 the sovereignty, and French troops were pouring into his new 
 principality under the Count de la Motte ; whilst the warlike 
 Archbishop of Bordeaux with his fleet was on the coast. Los 
 Velez had been succeeded in the command by Fadrique 
 Colonna, Prince of Butera, in Naples, who in April found 
 himself shut up with his army of 14,000 men in Tarragona, 
 surrounded by land and sea by the French and Catalans. 
 Olivares tried to relieve him by sea, with a fleet under the 
 Marquis of Leganes, but the Archbishop of Bordeaux burnt 
 the ships, and the beleaguered force was reduced to greater 
 misery than ever. With a supreme effort Olivares collected 
 every ship he could seize carrying the Spanish flag, to break 
 through the blockade and release the army ; and in this he 
 succeeded in August 1641, the Archbishop of Bordeaux 
 retiring before the largely superior Spanish fleet. The re- 
 sources of Catalufia now began to run short. Richelieu insisted 
 upon the Frenchmen being properly paid, and the costs of the 
 war being borne by the province. Louis XIII was personally 
 appealed to by the Catalans. The principal leader of the 
 revolution, Tamarit, carried to him the conditions under which 
 the Catalans accepted his sovereignty, and begged him in 
 person to visit them. The conditions were accepted but
 
 262 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Louis was busy in the Netherlands, and deputed his Viceroy 
 Marshal de Brezd to take the oath of conformity in Barcelona. 
 The French relieving army under de Breze met with a check 
 from the Spanish garrison of Perpignan under Mortara, aided 
 by a small force of sailors landed at Rosas by the gallant 
 Torrecusa, now again in the field (December 1641), and 
 Perpignan still continued in Spanish hands. By the spring of 
 1642 the Spanish forces had been somewhat reorganised. 
 Colonna was dead, and the Marquis of Hinojosa commanded 
 in Tarragona, whilst two independent bodies under the two 
 sons of the former viceroy, the Duke of Cardona, were sent, 
 one to reinforce Tarragona, and the other to operate in 
 Roussillon. Olivares insisted on the latter, consisting of 6000 
 foot and 2500 horse, going by land, instead of by sea, from 
 Valencia. As a result the whole force was surprised and cap- 
 tured by De la Motte (April 1642). 
 
 French armies were crowding now into Roussillon and 
 Cataluna. Schomberg, Meilleraie and De la Motte, with 
 Richelieu behind them, were more than a match for the 
 distracted and inept Spanish commanders, backed only by 
 Olivares and the indolent Philip. Madrid was panic-stricken. 
 Overburdened already, the people could find now neither 
 money nor men to cope with the French upon Spanish soil. 
 Perpignan fell after a desperate resistance, and the province 
 of Roussillon became French for evermore (September 1642). 
 Only one thing more could be done, and that was for the King 
 of Spain himself to conduct the campaign, and arouse the lost 
 loyalty of his people. Olivares had always opposed this; but 
 at last he was overborne. Louis XIII had been personally 
 present at Perpignan, and it was decided that his brother-in-law 
 should take the field on his own side. Philip had from the first 
 been eager to go, and Olivares in vain talked of the danger he 
 would run. Olivares insisted : the King for the first time in 
 his life stood firm. Olivares demurred about the cost of the 
 journey, but at last gave way and with an ill grace ac-
 
 viii.J Philip IV, v6i^ — 1643. 263 
 
 companied his master on his journey to Aragon. Every 
 device was adopted by him to delay the King's progress. By 
 the time they arrived at Zaragoza, Aragon itself was half over- 
 run by the French, the ancient capital Monzon was in their 
 hands and Phihp saw with his own eyes how low his monarchy 
 had fallen. Failing other means, Olivares conspired with 
 Cinq Mars to overthrow the government of Louis. This was 
 discovered and still further embittered relations. The com- 
 plete loss of Roussillon, the ruin and misery around him, the | 
 complaints of his people, at last opened Philip's eyes. He was j 
 moody with Olivares, who felt his position slipping from him, 
 and begged leave to retire. The Queen — a sister of Louis 
 XIII — ceaselessly urged his disgrace, and the King was gradu- 
 ally alienated from him. Without consulting him the King 
 appointed Leganes, also a Guzman, to the chief command of 
 all that was left of the army. He was defeated by De la 
 Motte before Lerida ; his army melted away, unfed and unpaid 
 as it was, with the generals all quarrelling amongst themselves; 
 and it seemed as if the last hope of Philip was gone, for heart- 
 broken he turned his back on Aragon, and returned to Madrid 
 the end of 1642, almost simultaneously with the death of 
 Richelieu. 
 
 With Portugal and Roussillon lost, Cataluna occupied by 
 the French, Italy in open revolt, and disaster on all sides, 
 the easy-going King could not help turning to those who 
 for years past had warned him of the rule of his favourite. 
 They spoke more loudly now. The Queen's tears and en- 
 treaties added force to the mordant satires of the pamphleteers, 
 and at last Olivares fell. The King went out hunting and left 
 a note for him (17 January, 1643) teUing him politely — almost 
 kindly — that he might go. The fallen favourite in vain tried to 
 justify his rule. There was no hope for him now, and though 
 the King was still considerate and polite, Olivares swayed 
 his sovereign no more. Once, indeed, it seemed as if he would 
 be sacrificed to his enemies. The King wrote, " In short,
 
 264 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Count, I must reign, and my son must be crowned in Aragon. 
 This will not be easy unless I deliver your head to my sub- 
 jects, who demand it with one voice." This letter sent the 
 Count-Duke mad, and he died in July 1645. 
 
 The unmeasured blame usually lavished upon Olivares 
 appears hardly just notwithstanding the disastrous results of 
 his rule. He was a far abler man than Lerma, but entirely 
 wanting in the suavity which made the latter popular amongst 
 the nobles. Philip, who indolently handed his kingship and 
 responsibilities to another, escapes with but light censure, 
 whilst Olivares is condemned for not succeeding under cir- 
 cumstances which made success almost impossible. Spaniards 
 of all ranks were still puffed up with the vain tradition that 
 their country dictated laws to the world, and that their 
 monarch far surpassed any other in wealth and magnificence. 
 Any minister who had dared to tell them that this was not 
 the fact and that the only salvation of the country was for 
 it to attend entirely to its own affairs, to avoid all vain in- 
 terference in other countries, to acknowledge its secondary 
 rank, from which the Emperor had only temporarily raised 
 it, and for its citizens once more to take to hard manual 
 labour — any such truth-telling minister as this could not have 
 retained power for a week, and Olivares, like others before 
 and after him, was obliged to swim with the tide. It was 
 evident that Castile, effete as its parliaments had become, 
 was not capable of bearing all the expense of an adven- 
 turous foreign poHcy; and it was necessary that the other 
 members of the monarchy should bear their share of the ex- 
 pense, as they had their share of the glory. They appealed, 
 as we have seen, to their privileges, and the only possible 
 policy for Olivares was that of the unification of institutions, 
 ■ by fair means or by foul. Local feeling was too strong for 
 him in some cases, and he failed; but the policy itself, how- 
 ever ill-timed, was not in itself unwise, for the lack of unity 
 between the provinces of Spain has produced a plentiful crop
 
 VIII.] Philip IV, 1638 — 1643. 265 
 
 of troubles lasting to the present day. In short, Spanish pride 
 wanted the glory of empire without paying for it. Olivares 
 was no wiser than his contemporaries in economic science, 
 and could only raise money by hampering industry which pro- 
 vided money. As the State took all the resources, the aim of 
 every citizen was to prey upon the State in some form or 
 another. The result was the fatal bureaucracy which still 
 ruins Spain. It is lamentable and pathetic enough, but it is 
 unjust to saddle the blame upon Olivares, who found the 
 system already at work, and whose great sin was that he tried 
 to insist upon all Spaniards making equal sacrifices to pay for 
 the barren pride which all Spaniards shared.
 
 266 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PHILIP IV, 1643 — 1665. 
 
 Although Philip had announced when OHvares fell that in 
 future he would be his own minister, he was too indolent to 
 persevere in such an arrangement, and soon appointed to 
 succeed the fallen favourite Don Luis de Haro, the nephew 
 and former rival of Olivares. He was a dull, slow, amiable 
 and fairly honest man, already extremely rich, and not un- 
 popular. The unofficial boards established by Olivares were 
 abolished, and the Councils again obtained their influence, 
 the King frequently listening to their deliberations unseen 
 behind jalousies : official reports being presented to him by 
 the secretaries every Friday. In a very short time, however, 
 the sovereign's indolence led to the whole of the affairs being 
 dispatched by Haro, as they had been by his uncle. The death 
 of Richelieu, shortly afterwards followed by that of Louis XHI 
 (May 1643), somewhat changed the relations between France 
 and Spain. The new regent, Anne of Austria, was the sister 
 of Philip IV, her son Louis XIV being only five years of 
 age. France was distracted and divided, but generally desired 
 peace. Spanish pride once more stopped the way, and the 
 fatal resolution was taken of attacking France on her eastern 
 frontier before accepting negotiations. The Infante Don 
 Fernando had done well in the Netherlands, and had more 
 than held his own whilst the wars in Cataluha and the revolt 
 of Portugal had been going on. But unfortunately the young 
 prince had died in Brussels (November 1641) and he was
 
 Chap. ix.J Philip IV, 1643—1665. 267 
 
 replaced by Don Francisco de Mello, a Portuguese noble 
 faithful to Spain. He also had been successful in capturing 
 Lens, and inflicting a crushing defeat upon the French under 
 Harcourt and Grammont at Honnecourt (1642), for which he 
 had been rewarded by the grandeeship and the title of 
 Marquis of Torrelaguna. 
 
 Mello's army consisted of over 20,000 men, 18,000 of 
 them being the veteran Spanish infantry, which was acknow- 
 ledged to be without rival in the world. A French army 
 somewhat inferior in strength had been organised to threaten 
 the Flemish frontier. It was commanded by the great 
 Conde (Duke of Enghien), then a youth of twenty-one, with 
 Marshal L'Hopital as his mentor. Mello after a feint on 
 Picardy suddenly entered Champagne through the Ardennes, 
 and besieged the frontier place of Rocroy. Conde at once 
 marched to the relief of the place, and against L'Hopital's 
 advice, determined to give battle to the Spaniards. Mello, 
 full of confidence in his veteran troops, had left the defiles 
 and approaches behind him almost unguarded. On the 
 approach of the French (18 May, 1643) he posted most of 
 his cavalry in front of the city whilst the enemy drew up as if 
 to attack it. Some slight skirmishing took place during the 
 night, and if Mello had delivered a general attack at this time 
 in all probability the French would have been beaten. But the 
 Spanish general was anxiously awaiting the arrival of Baron de 
 Beck, with some German auxiliaries, and the night was passed 
 by both armies face to face without decisive aggression on 
 either side. At dawn it was seen that the French force which 
 had threatened the cavalry before the city gate had been 
 withdrawn, and Mello sent to recall his horsemen. This was 
 seen by the French and without loss of a moment Conde 
 ordered the attack before the Spanish force was united or 
 Beck could arrive. The lines extended to about half a league 
 in length, and the French advanced simultaneously their left 
 and right wings, the centre remaining in reserve. Conde had
 
 268 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 arranged his fighting lines somewhat unusually, alternating 
 squadrons of cavalry with companies of infantry, his horse 
 thus being flanked by musketeers. The French left wing 
 under L'Hopital was twice repulsed by the Spaniards com- 
 manded by Mello personally; on the second occasion the 
 Spanish cavalry from before the town came up, and spread 
 complete confusion amongst the enemy, L'Hopital himself 
 being wounded. The French right was led by Cond^ in 
 person. Charging with an impetuosity which nothing could 
 withstand he routed the Spanish cavalry under the Duke of 
 Alburquerque, and then promptly rallying his left wing he threw 
 himself upon the victorious Spanish right. Over and over 
 again the main body of veteran Spanish infantry in the centre 
 repulsed his men. With varying fortune the fight continued 
 for six hours ; but at last panic seized those that were left of 
 the Spaniards, and they were utterly routed. Mello was 
 captured but escaped. Count de Fuentes was killed on the 
 field ; the Spaniards lost 7,000 killed and wounded and 5,000 
 prisoners, with all baggage, artillery, stores, and standards. 
 Beck with his Germans came up at the moment of defeat, and 
 the auxiliaries shared in the sauve qui pent. The battle of 
 Rocroy dealt a deathblow to the prestige of the Spanish 
 infantry, which they never recovered. It was to the Spanish 
 army what the defeat of the Armada was to its navy. In 
 neither case did the disaster arise from want of personal 
 bravery on the part of the men, but from their opponents 
 adopting new methods and tactics, which the Spanish com- 
 manders had not skill or adaptability enough to counteract. 
 Conde lost no time in entering Hainault, and pushed his 
 scouts almost as far as Brussels ; then suddenly turning he 
 reduced Thionville (22 August, 1643), and infused utter dis- 
 may in the Spanish governors of Flanders, who still however 
 with some success made efforts to withstand the French in 
 Alsace by sending an important reinforcement to the imperial- 
 ists and thus enabling them to win the battle of Tuttlinghen.
 
 IX.] PJiilip IV, 1643 — 1665. 269 
 
 Philip, the while, was with his little army in Aragoii, for 
 once in his life acting with energy. He recaptured Monzon, 
 and then the Spanish forces under Felipe de Silva routed the 
 French before Lerida, and in the presence of the King Lerida 
 itself shortly afterwards surrendered. The Cortes (June 1643) 
 had voted a supply of 24 millions of ducats in six years from 
 the following year 1644; the silver fleet fortunately arrived 
 rich and intact, and the money was taken as a forced loan. 
 Naples, Sardinia and Spain itself made great efforts to send 
 men, full of enthusiasm now that the King himself was at the 
 head of his army, and with a strong force Philip began to win 
 back some of his principality of Cataluna. In October 1644 
 he was recalled to Madrid by the death of his Queen, who left 
 him with only two children, the Infante Don Baltasar Carlos, 
 who died two years afterwards aged seventeen, and who is so 
 well known by the pictures of Velasquez, and Maria Theresa, 
 afterwards wife of Louis XIV. 
 
 The campaign of the following year under the King was 
 less successful. Discouragement again seized him, and at a 
 congress called by the Pope (Urban VIII) he offered the 
 Catalans a truce for thirty years, which the French refused, 
 except under impossible conditions, and so the exhausting war 
 dragged on. The death of his only son Baltasar in October 
 1646, so soon following that of his wife, threw Philip into his 
 old dissolute habits, to escape from the religious melancholy 
 which seized upon him as it had done at a similar age upon 
 his ancestors for tliree generations. In 1647 '^e appointed 
 his natural son Don Juan Jose' of Austria to be the General-in- 
 chief of the fleet and armies. Don Juan, whom his father 
 had already recognised, was the son of a famous actress in 
 Madrid — Maria Calderon, usually known by the name of the 
 Calderona. He was very brilliant and able. His education 
 had been carefully conducted, his ambition was boundless, 
 and his handsome face and popular manners made him the 
 idol of his father's subjects. Thenceforward until he died
 
 270 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 the second Don Juan of Austria was a powerful factor in 
 Spanish politics. 
 
 In the meanwhile the King was without a male heir. So 
 long as Baltasar had lived he resisted all suggestions of 
 another legitimate marriage. But when his son died, and 
 his excesses shocked the churchmen and nuns around him, 
 he gave way to their persuasions and married his niece 
 Mariana of Austria. She was a bright-faced young girl with 
 all the Austrian characteristics strongly developed. At first 
 the gloomy etiquette with which she was surrounded shocked 
 and overcame her : she was told that it was unbecoming to 
 laugh, however funny the buffoons might be, that a Queen of 
 Spain must be considered to have no legs, since it was not 
 dignified for her to walk, and so forth ; but her youth and 
 vitality conquered the depression, and after her stately recep- 
 tion in Madrid (1648) she also became popular with the 
 people, and was a rival of Don Juan for their favour. 
 
 The war dragged on for years both on the Portuguese 
 frontier and in Cataluiia, where Lerida and Tarragona were 
 stubbornly held by the Spaniards, in spite of Conde' and the 
 French, and the struggle in Flanders against the Dutch and 
 French continued without intermission, generally to the dis- 
 advantage of the Spaniards. In 1646, Cassel, Mardyck, Link, 
 Bourbourg, Armentieres, and other places fell into the hands 
 of the enemy, and Charles of Lorraine with the Spanish troops 
 suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the French under 
 the Duke of Orleans at Courtrai. In 1647 the Archduke 
 Leopold of Austria was appointed governor of Flanders, and 
 the imperial troops were again sent to bolster up the Spanish 
 domination. Some success attended the Archduke at first, 
 but at length he was utterly defeated by Conde before Lens, 
 after having apparently won the victory. This disaster was 
 a crowning one ; and it was evident now to the meanest 
 understanding that Spain must have peace, for she could fight 
 effectively no more.
 
 IX.] Philip IV, 1643—1665. 271 
 
 As we have seen, it had become an old truism to say that 
 the country was exhausted. The working and middle classes 
 had become so long before. Corruption was more rampant 
 than ever: the King told the Cortes (1654) that out of 
 10,000,000 ducats of the revenue of Castile which he possessed 
 on paper, he could not collect more than 3,000,000, while the 
 revenues of Aragon and Navarre did not reach 2,000,000. 
 The nobles, great and small, were ruined, for the third part 
 of their revenues had to be paid direct to the State : the 
 frequent seizure of the money on the silver fleet belonging to 
 Spaniards had caused the remittances of bullion now to be 
 mostly the property of foreigners, and the silver did not get 
 beyond Seville. The Spanish merchants, thus handicapped, 
 had lost courage. Their ships were a prey to the Dutch, and 
 in a great measure their commerce had been destroyed, almost 
 as thoroughly as industry, trade and agriculture. The raw 
 material, wool particularly, which was still raised, mostly went 
 abroad, to be bought back again as cloth, and paid for in 
 Indian silver. The oppressive forms of taxation, especially the 
 "millions," which now amounted to one-eighth of the value 
 of meat, oil, wine etc., made smuggling universal and led to its 
 being openly connived at by the excise officers. Every device 
 appears to have been adopted for raising money in ways which 
 would ruin industry. The first-floor of every new house was 
 supposed to be at the disposal of the King, and had to be 
 redeemed by a money payment reprcFcnting its value. This 
 had the effect of checking building, and caused one storey 
 houses to be generally constructed. There was, indeed, hardly 
 an interest or an industry in the country that had not been 
 crushed, except bureaucracy and the Church. Commerce was 
 prohibited with most of the countries of Europe, even with 
 Portugal (1644), with the consequence that the people had to 
 be mainly supplied by contraband goods, which paid the 
 Government nothing. The crushing alcabala before Philip's 
 death had been permanently increased to 14 per cent, on the
 
 2/2 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 value of all sales, and even the church vessels of silver and 
 gold were ordered to be utilised for the public needs, greatly 
 to the scandal of the faithful, but with hardly any benefit to 
 the treasury. Headed by the Queen (Elizabeth of Bourbon) 
 noble ladies had given up their personal jewelry to be coined. 
 Titles of nobiUty were openly sold, the value of the national 
 coinage was tampered with, to the complete confusion and 
 despair of the trading classes ; and yet, withal, the people were 
 literally dying of starvation, the soldiers in Flanders, Cataluha, 
 and on the Portuguese frontier were unpaid, and still fighting 
 famished and in rags, whilst the King and Court continued in 
 a blaze of splendour, enjoying their tourneys, their bull-fights, 
 and their " Academies," as if their wealth were unbounded. 
 
 Philip's troubles seemed to be endless. Whilst his armies 
 were struggling for Cataluna and Portugal, the Kingdom 
 of Naples, long simmering, at last broke into open revolt. 
 The constitution of Naples rendered it illegal for any fresh 
 taxes to be imposed without the prior consent of the Pope, 
 but the vast sums needed by the Philips for the wars had 
 caused constant violations of this condition. Harassed by 
 the Turks and Moors on their coasts, by the rapacity of the 
 Spanish ofiicers sent to govern them — most of whom had 
 bought their ofiices, — ruined by the illegal drain of men and 
 money from their country, to fight for interests in which they 
 had not the remotest concern, the Neapolitans had made more 
 than one attempt to expel the Spaniards, usually, as we have 
 seen in a former chapter, with the connivance of the French 
 and the Holy See. With the appointment of the Duke of Arcos 
 (1646) to the viceroyalty matters entered an acute stage. The 
 French made a descent upon the island of Elba, whence they 
 fitted out squadrons to attack the Neapolitan ports. The 
 country had already been denuded of men to send to Flanders 
 and elsewhere, and Arcos applied to the city of Naples for a 
 forced loan of a million ducats, in order to raise a new force 
 to recapture the French position in Elba. The only thing
 
 IX. ] Philip IV, 1643— 1665. 273 
 
 remaining to be taxed was fruit, the principal food of the poor, 
 and the new loan was raised by an impost upon that. By the 
 spring of 1647 the people were starving, but clamour as they 
 might they could get nothing but false promises of redress 
 from Arcos. Similar oppression was being exercised by the 
 Marquis of los Velez, viceroy of Sicily, and the people of 
 Palermo broke into revolt and compelled los Velez to abolish 
 the obnoxious tax. 
 
 Thus encouraged, the Neapolitans also rose. It was 
 purely a plebeian revolt : the feudal nobility of Naples had 
 with the full connivance of the Spaniards oppressed their 
 vassals to an extent unknown elsewhere since the dark ages, 
 and the people were at length driven by sheer misery and 
 despair to rebel against the cruel tyranny they suffered. They 
 chose for their leader the fisherman of Amalfi, Masaniello, 
 a young man of 24, who had suffered, like his fellows, at the 
 hands of the Spaniards. The flame burst forth on the 7th 
 July, 1647, and the populace in ever-increasing numbers 
 swept from the Market-place, burning the stands of the excise- 
 men, until they came to the Palace, into which they swarmed 
 and invaded the study of the Viceroy. Arcos lost all courage. 
 With trembling lips and pallid face he promised the rioters 
 all they asked, and then tried to escape. He was stopped, and 
 was forced, but without insult, to remain in Naples. He then 
 took refuge in the monastery of San Francesco, and thence 
 fled to the fortress of Castelnuovo. The mob were now the 
 masters. Prisons were opened, armouries emptied, the tax 
 collectors' houses burnt, and some specially obnoxious officers 
 beheaded ; but generally speaking the mob of 120,000 men at 
 first were moderate. They discountenanced robbery, and pro- 
 fessed personal loyalty to the King. Arcos surrendered every- 
 thing they demanded, including the abolition of all taxes 
 imposed since the time of Charles V, and went to the length 
 of publicly embracing Masaniello. Soon the lawlessness of 
 the people, restrained before, broke loose. Pillage, arson and 
 
 H. s. 18
 
 274 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 rapine stalked through the city unchecked. 'Kill ! Kill !' was 
 the only cry, and the lust of slaughter sated itself. The humble 
 Masaniello lost his good sense. Aping the great gentleman, 
 dressed in silver and gold, he insulted the people whose 
 leader he had been. He was surprised and murdered, some 
 said by men in the pay of Arcos, and then the next day, after 
 dragging his body with insults through the streets, the populace 
 worshipped it as that of a saint. 
 
 Thenceforward anarchy and murder were supreme in 
 Naples. At one time the Prince of Massa headed the revolt, 
 but he was soon sacrificed by the mob he was supposed 
 to lead, and his place was occupied by various men of low 
 rank. Suddenly a powerful auxiliary of the revolution ap- 
 peared in Naples. The Duke of Guise was descended in 
 the female line from Rene of Anjou, and claimed the Crown of 
 Naples. The populace received this prince of romance, who 
 mysteriously dropped as if from the clouds, with unbounded 
 enthusiasm, and proclaimed Naples a republic like the United 
 Provinces, in which Guise was to occupy a similar place to 
 that enjoyed by the Prince of Orange. When a great French 
 fleet under the Duke of Richelieu appeared in the bay soon 
 afterwards it looked as if Spanish domination in Naples was 
 at last at an end. But Mazarin had no wish to aggrandise the 
 house of Lorraine, and the fleet by his orders sailed away 
 again without effectively helping the French pretender, after a 
 brush with the Spanish fleet hastily gathered under Don Juan 
 (October 1647). Arcos was deposed, and Don Juan, co- 
 operating with the Neapolitan nobles and the Spanish garrisons, 
 began to make head against the revolt. By clever diplomacy, 
 as much as by force of arms, he spread disaffection and dis- 
 couragement amongst the Neapolitans. Guise had become 
 unpopular. By a feint, he and 5,000 of his best men were 
 drawn away to Posilippo, and during his absence Don Juan 
 and the new viceroy Onate captured the city by a coup-de-main. 
 The fickle populace threw down their arms, and cried " Long
 
 IX.] Philip IV, 1643 — 1665. 275 
 
 live the King of Spain!" (February 1648), and thus Naples 
 was preserved to the Spanish dominion. 
 
 Spain was not the only country for which peace was a 
 necessity. The Thirty Years' War had exhausted all Europe, 
 and since 1644 negotiations for a general settlement had been 
 slowly progressing at Osnabriick and Mijnster, amidst much 
 bad faith and sharp practice on all sides. At length (October 
 1648) the famous treaty of Miinster was concluded, which 
 settled the religious question in Germany, gave Alsace to 
 France, and Pomerania to Sweden, and, above all, secured 
 the recognition of the independence of the United Provinces 
 by Spain, after a struggle of eighty years, and opened to the 
 Dutch the ports of the Indies — east and west. The arrange- 
 ment between Holland and Spain was a blow to Mazarin, for 
 it stifled the French hope of grasping Flanders, but it proved 
 to the world that Spanish pride was at last resigned to the 
 inevitable, and that its humiliation was complete. 
 
 The peace of Miinster had drawn the Emperor away from 
 the side of Spain, which had sacrificed so much for him, and 
 Philip and France now remained face to face to fight out their 
 quarrel alone. Attempts were made early in 1649 to open 
 peace negotiations, but the Spanish claim that the French 
 should surrender all their conquests was scouted as ridiculous. 
 Mazarin was in the midst of his struggle with the Parliament 
 of Paris. As a foreigner he was extremely unpopular, and 
 persistent attempts were made by the Spaniards to promote 
 the cabal against him. The civil war of the Fronde was 
 preparing, and Mazarin was unable to carry on the campaign 
 in Flanders with the same vigour as before. The Spaniards 
 were therefore successful in recovering some of the places 
 which had been taken from them, and more important still, 
 were joined temporarily by Marshal Turenne and other French 
 malcontents against their own countrymen, Charles Duke of 
 Lorraine joining now one side and now another, to be finally 
 arrested by the Spaniards and confined in Toledo (1564) until 
 
 18—2
 
 2/6 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 the peace of the Pyrenees {1659). The Spaniards had done 
 their best to inflame Mazarin's enemies against him, and at 
 various times had been joined by the "Princes" of the Fronde; 
 but at length a more important recruit than all came to their 
 aid. The Prince of Conde, the victor of Rocroy, who had 
 recently resigned his French Viceroyalty of Cataluna, crossed 
 the Flemish frontier with a considerable army, and was 
 appointed by Philip commander of the Spanish forces in 
 Flanders. At the same time a Spanish fleet was sent to 
 Bordeaux to aid the Fronde there, but Santa Cruz who 
 conmianded it was tardy, the ships were badly found, the 
 men unpaid. They returned to San Sebastian without doing 
 anything (1654) and Bordeaux submitted to Mazarin. A 
 traveller of the time tells a story illustrating the waste and 
 corruption in naval matters, as in all else in Spain : " On tlie 
 beach at San Sebastian I saw a great ship building, but no 
 progress has been made in it for a long time. More millions 
 have been spent on it than would build a dozen such; but 
 only those who have had the spending of it have derived any 
 benefit from the expenditure." 
 
 By the aid of the great Conde the Spaniards for a time 
 prospered in Flanders. Rocroy was recaptured, Gravelines 
 and Dunkirk surrendered, and all looked bright, until jealousy 
 broke out between the French and Spanish allied commanders. 
 Turenne had turned his coat again, and in 1655 before Arras 
 scattered the forces under Conde and the Archduke. Quesnay, 
 Landrecy, Chatelet and San Guillain all fell into Turenne's 
 hands; and the Archduke, disgusted with his equivocal 
 position and the instability of his French auxiliaries, resigned 
 the viceroyalty. Don Juan of Austria was sent from Cata- 
 luna to succeed him (1656). He signalised his arrival by 
 defeating, in union with Conde', Turenne's army which was 
 besieging Valenciennes, 30,000 strong (16 July, 1656). The 
 French lost 7000 killed and wounded, Marshal la Ferte amongst 
 them, and 4000 prisoners; but their moral loss was greater
 
 IX.] Philip IV, 1643 — 1655. 277 
 
 still. Before the winter closed in, Mazarin, beset on all sides, 
 made another attempt to come to terms with Spain. Many 
 approaches had been made on either side since 1649, niostly 
 with the intervention of the Pope, but the territorial pretensions 
 of both parties had rendered them all fruitless. Matters had, 
 however, now somewhat changed, and circumstances had 
 occurred which rendered both countries more amenable to 
 reason. On the fall of Charles I Philip had somewhat osten- 
 tatiously demonstrated his sympathy with the English Common- 
 wealth. His ambassador in England, Don Alonso de Cardenas, 
 had entered into friendly relations with Cromwell, and it was 
 no doubt considered that Spain would be more likely to gain 
 his sympathy than the country of Henrietta Maria. But 
 Cromwell was too clever for Cardenas. When the latter pressed 
 for information as to the destination of the fleet being dispatched 
 to America, he got but a vague assurance that it was not 
 intended to attack Spanish interests, whilst care was taken to 
 spread the idea in Spain that the intention was to oust the 
 French from New France. Suddenly Blake, who had been in 
 the Mediterranean for months, sailed to meet and capture 
 some of the Spanish homeward-bound silver fleet; and Penn 
 and Venables with a strong force of English ships sailed to 
 attack Mexico, Santo Domingo and Jamaica. From the first 
 two places they were diverted, but tlie third they captured 
 (May 1655), and Jamaica has remained an English possession 
 ever since. 
 
 The news fell upon Philip's government like a thunderbolt. 
 Panic reigned amongst the merchants in Seville and Cadiz; 
 swift cruisers were sent scouring the Atlantic to warn the 
 silver fleet, and ruined, bankrupt Spain felt that she had 
 another enemy to meet. When Cardenas had made proposals 
 for an alliance with Cromwell, the latter had demanded the 
 right for the English to trade with the West Indies, the 
 limitation of the power of the Inquisition, the establishment 
 of equal duties in Spain upon English and Spanish goods, and
 
 278 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 permission for English merchants to buy wool in Spain. The 
 two first demands were scornfully rejected by Spain. Then 
 followed the capture of Jamaica, and Cromwell subsequently 
 signed a treaty of alliance with France (November 1655). 
 This was the combination that frightened Philip into a yielding 
 mood when Lionne was sent to Madrid as French envoy in 
 the summer of 1656. There was an infinite number of knotty 
 points to settle. Territory on both sides was in the possession 
 of the opponents, the position of the Prince of Conde', of the 
 Duke of Lorraine, had to be regulated, the Inindred and one 
 points of etiquette and procedure agreed upon, the proposed 
 marriage between the young King Louis XIV and the King of 
 Spain's daughter Maria Theresa negotiated ; and for two years 
 the discussion of the preliminaries continued. In the mean- 
 while the war was being prosecuted vigorously in Flanders on 
 both sides, 6000 English troops cooperating with the French 
 royal army under Turenne, whilst the Prince of Conde and his 
 troops were still on the side of the Spaniards under Don Juan. 
 Montmedy surrendered to the French in August 1657 ; 
 Bourbourg, St Venant and Mardyck, followed its fate during 
 the autumn. In the spring of 1658 Dunkirk was blockaded by 
 an English fleet, and besieged on the land side by Turenne, 
 the young King himself being present ; the Spanish army of 
 15,000 men, under Don Juan and Conde, with the Duke of 
 York (James II), whom Philip had appointed to the nominal 
 post of Admiral of the fleet, being about two miles in the rear 
 of the French. The Spaniards were outflanked at low tide 
 and taken in the rear on the Dunes by the French, whilst 
 the English attacked them in front. Panic overtook them 
 and a shameful flight ensued, in which the Spaniards left 3000 
 dead on the field, and Dunkirk capitulated nine days after- 
 wards (23 June, 1658). Link, Berghes, Dixmunde, Furnds, 
 Oudenarde and Gravelines afterwards fell into the hands of 
 the English and of the French royalists. Don Juan was re- 
 called to take command in the war which still lingered on the
 
 IX.] Philip IV, 1643 — 1655. 279 
 
 Portuguese frontier ; and the Archduke Sigismund came from 
 Germany with 12,000 Germans to replace him and to make a 
 supreme effort to hold Flanders. The effort had not to be 
 made, for first a suspension of hostilities, and afterwards the 
 famous Treaty of the Pyrenees, was signed (autumn 1659), 
 which put an end to the bitter struggle that had completed the 
 exhaustion of Spain. 
 
 The war in Cataluna had never ceased ; but the Catalans 
 by this time were heartily tired of their French masters, whose 
 conduct towards them, as compared with that of the Spanish 
 Government, was as that of King Stork to King Log. Mortara, 
 the Spanish commander, who was a man of energy and 
 lesource, lost no opportunity. He captured Tortosa (November 
 1650), and then besieged Barcelona, whilst Don Juan blockaded 
 the front by sea. After fifteen months of siege, and incredible 
 suffering from famine, the place capitulated (October 1652) 
 and a general amnesty was granted. The war, so far as the 
 Catalans were concerned, was then practically at an end ; but 
 it was important for the French to retain Roussillon and to 
 keep the Spaniards busy, and they captured Figueras and 
 besieged Gerona, which, with the most heroic bravery, held 
 out for seventy days, until relieved by Don Juan. Thence- 
 forward the French made no great attempt to dominate Cata- 
 luna, and Mortara gradually gained the upper hand. The 
 Spanish attempt also to regain Portugal had continued uninter- 
 ruptedly, but with little result. Engagements on the frontier 
 were frequent; plots for the murder or deposition of one or 
 other of the sovereigns were more than once attempted. 
 John IV of Portugal died at the end of 1656; and under his 
 son Alfonso VI, a boy of thirteen, the energetic Spanish 
 Queen of Portugal carried on the war with greater vigour. 
 One frontier place after another fell to the Portuguese, until, 
 in June 1658, the news came to Madrid that the Queen of 
 Portugal had beleaguered the Spanish city Badajoz. Grief, 
 rage, and shame resounded throughout the capital that the
 
 28o Spain: its gr'eatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 despised rebel Portuguese had brought proud Spain to this. 
 A hasty force of 8000 Spaniards were with difficulty collected, 
 and under Luis de Haro himself started for the frontier ; but 
 before he arrived the Portuguese had recrossed the border. 
 Haro followed them and met with a crushing reverse near 
 Elvas (14 January, 1658), the King's favourite flying like a 
 coward from the field. Thenceforward all hope of regaining 
 Portugal by force of arms must have vanished, although the 
 pompous boasting and the oblivion to plain facts continued 
 in Madrid. 
 
 On the little Island of Pheasants in the delta of the 
 Bidasoa the difficult articles of the Treaty of the Pyrenees 
 were laboriously discussed (August to November 1659). Many 
 times it seemed as if agreement was not possible, but at last all 
 was arranged. Louis XIV was to marry Maria Theresa, her 
 renunciation of the Spanish succession being conditional upon 
 the payment to her of a dowry of 500,000 crowns by Spain. 
 The pregnant results of this article are still an active force in 
 European poHtics. Conde was replaced in the governorship 
 of Burgundy; Spain surrendered Roussillon to France, and also 
 all Artois, except St Omer and Aire. Gravelines, Bourbourg, 
 St Venant, the Sluys, Landrecy, Quesnoy, Thionville, Mont- 
 medy, Damvilliers, Ivry, Marienburg, Philippeville, Rocroy, 
 Chatelet and Limchamp, remained in the hands of the 
 French; whilst the English kept Dunkirk. The fortresses in 
 Burgundy were returned to Spain, with Oudenarde and Dix- 
 munde in Flanders ; and Catahma again became Spanish. 
 Both Charles II of England and the King of Portugal were 
 excluded from participation in the treaty. The Spanish Court 
 tried to make the best of this hard bargain, and Haro was 
 made Prince of the Peace ; but it was a bitter blow, and once 
 more proclaimed to the world the decadence of Spain — the 
 result, as we have seen, of the fatal inheritance of the house of 
 Burgundy, of the personal concentration of power by Philip II, 
 and the indolent ineptitude of his two successors. In April
 
 IX.] Philip IV, 1643 — 1655. 281 
 
 1660 Philip IV accompanied his daughter to the frontier for 
 her marriage with Louis XIV. Once more all the splendour 
 and pomp that the world could provide was lavished on both 
 sides, and the fateful marriage took place in May 1660. 
 
 Relieved now of the foreign wars that had borne him down, 
 Philip seriously set about reconquering Portugal. Early in 
 
 1 66 1 two Spanish armies entered Portugal, one of 20,000 
 troops under Don Juan, which crossed the frontier from 
 Estremadura, while the other of 15,000 men, commanded by 
 the Duke of Osuna, invaded the north from Galicia. The 
 Portuguese could at most muster 13,000 men, but the marriage 
 of Charles II of England with the Infanta of Portugal brought 
 an auxiliary force under Schomberg to help them, in return 
 for her dowry of Tangier and Bombay. Thanks to this 
 support the Portuguese more than held their own. Don 
 Juan clamoured in vain for reinforcements, and complained 
 bitterly of Haro, who however died at the end of the year. 
 Civil divisions in Portugal soon gave to Don Juan an 
 opportunity for more effective action. The young King 
 Alfonso VI was a vicious lunatic, and his mother endeavoured 
 to keep him in tutelage. By a coup d'Eiai the young King, or 
 rather his favourite Count de Castel-melhor, seized the reins 
 of power. During the confusion caused by the change Don 
 Juan overran the Alem-Tejo and threatened Lisbon. But 
 as usual victory demoralised his troops, who fell to pillage 
 and were wasted by sickness, excesses, and desertion. Castel- 
 melhor was a man of energy and lost no time. Promptly 
 reorganising the government and army of Portugal, he sent 
 the forces to meet Don Juan. Marshal Schomberg was practi- 
 cally in command of the Portuguese, with a considerable force 
 of English auxiliaries. The Portuguese met Don Juan near 
 Evora, which place he had recently captured. Worsted in a 
 first encounter, he tried to retreat to Spain, but was overtaken 
 at Amegial an hour before sunset (8 June, 1663). liy nightfall 
 the Spanish army was utterly routed, mainly by the gallantry
 
 282 Spain : its greatness and decov. [Chap. 
 
 of the English contingent. Don Juan fought desperately, dis- 
 mounted and pike in hand, but all to no purpose. 8000 
 Spaniards were lost, with baggage, standards, and guns ; and 
 the prince with difficulty escaped to Badajoz. 
 
 But Philip would not accept defeat. Through 1664 the 
 struggle dragged on. In the following year 1665 every 
 soldier that could be spared from Italy and Flanders was 
 collected, and another army sent to the Portuguese frontier. 
 Don Juan was superseded, sulky and disgusted at the intrigues 
 of the Queen Mariana against him ; and Count Caracena was 
 sent to command the new army of 15,000 men. He set siege 
 to Villa Vigosa, and on the approach of Schomberg and 
 Marialva imprudently advanced to fight them. The armies 
 met at Montesclaros, and a fierce hand-to-hand struggle 
 ensued. After eight hours of carnage Caracena was forced to 
 retire, leaving 4000 of his men on the field and 4000 more 
 prisoners, with all his guns. On the 20th June, 1665, the news 
 came to Madrid, and it broke Philip's heart. The marble 
 mask was for once dropped. The man who in his life had 
 never allowed his features to betray emotion, but had bared 
 his suffering soul only in those terrible secret letters to the 
 nun Maria de Agreda, lost his self-control. Casting himself in 
 anguish on to the ground he could only sob out "God's will 
 be done"; almost the same words as those with which his 
 grandfather had received the news of the catastrophe of the 
 Armada. 
 
 Bitter, cruel disappointment had dogged him through life. 
 The pleasures for which he had surrendered his Kingship 
 had turned to ashes in his mouth ; the stately splendour that 
 surrounded him was that of the whitened sepulchre all rotten 
 within. The dreadful sin-steeped face, full of pride still, upon 
 which the great genius Velasquez stamped the inner soul of 
 the King, the lurid letters to the nun, of which his contem- 
 poraries knew nothing, compel us profoundly to pity a man 
 so weak of will, so potent of passion, upon whom tlie curse of
 
 IX.] Philip IV, 1643 — 1655. 283 
 
 such a thorny crown had fallen. There was no favourite, even, 
 now to take some of the burden from him. The intrigues of 
 his young Austrian wife and her second-self the Jesuit Father 
 Nithard had drawn him again into the vortex of the Empire, 
 and he had undertaken to maintain an army to help the 
 Emperor against the Turks ; while the English ambassador 
 (Fanshawe) was haughtily reminding him that his power on 
 the sea was gone, and that England insisted upon the free 
 right to trade with all of his dominions. France was again 
 planning fresh aggression upon his Flemish states. His only 
 legitimate son was a sickly infant, his wife was already plotting 
 for a time when he should be dead, and seeking to supplant 
 Don Juan. Whichever way he looked there was no light or 
 hope either for himself or for Spain. Humbled and in despair 
 at the age of 60, on the 17th September, 1665, Philip the 
 Great, " the Planet King," poet, dilettante, and man of 
 pleasure, ended his wasted life. Like his father before him 
 he learnt when it was too late that great positions call for 
 great sacrifices, and his death-bed was embittered with the 
 knowledge that his self-indulgence had reduced the country he 
 loved to utter ruin and degradation.
 
 284 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CHARLES II, 1665 — 1678. 
 
 Philip IV on his death-bed left his wife Mariana of Austria 
 regent during the minority of the new King, Charles II, who 
 was but four years old. To assist her he also nominated a 
 Council, consisting of the Archbishop of Toledo, the Inquisitor- 
 General, the President of the Council of Castile (Count de 
 Castrillo), the Vice-Chancellor of Aragon, the Marquis de 
 Aytona and Count de Penaranda. 
 
 We have seen that the roots of the calamities which 
 afflicted Spain were the traditions which bound it to the 
 imperial house of Austria. All that the country needed, even 
 now, was peace, rest, and freedom from foreign entangle- 
 ments, in which the Peninsula itself had no concern whatever. 
 Boldness, patriotism and common-sense might still have saved 
 the prosperity and happiness of the citizens, though illusive 
 national and dynastic claims would have to be abandoned. 
 But an evil fate at this crucial moment condemned Spain to 
 the rule of a princess, who, tliough possessed of considerable 
 ability, was absolutely dominated by those very traditions 
 which had been the origin of so many disasters. Ambitious, 
 intriguing and imprudent, she cared nothing for Spain and 
 everything for the Empire. An Austrian to the finger tips, she 
 had been for years before Philip's death plotting for the pre- 
 dominance of the influence of her kinsmen, and weakening the 
 bonds of friendship with France which had been cemented by
 
 Chap. X.] Charles II, 1665— 1678. 285 
 
 the marriage of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa. Her very 
 first act of government was to bring into tlie Council nomi- 
 nated by the King to assist her Father Nithard, whom she 
 appointed Inquisitor-General, in violation of the constitution 
 which excluded foreigners from the Council. Nithard and the 
 Queen were both unpopular. Don Juan had made no secret 
 of his belief that his failure in Portugal had arisen from their 
 machinations in withholding resources from him; and he retired 
 in disgust from Court soon after Father Nithard entered the 
 Council. 
 
 In the meanwhile Portugal was a prey to civil dissensions 
 between the unworthy King and his brother Don Pedro, and 
 peace was as needful to that country as to Spain. By the 
 intervention of Charles II of England, at length (February 
 1668) terms were arranged by which the independence of 
 Portugal was acknowledged, all places held by the enemy on 
 each side being given up, except Ceuta, which continued in the 
 hands of Spain. It was time that the fratricidal strife should be 
 ended, for the resources of Spain were quite inadequate to 
 meet the demands upon them. The whole of the evils noted 
 in a previous chapter existed still, but in a more acute form 
 than ever. Office-seeking and the Church were still the only 
 flourishing interests. Corruption of public officers at home and 
 abroad continued to keep the national treasury bankrupt, 
 however crushing was the weight of taxes upon the people. 
 Manufacture, except that of a few coarse articles for immediate 
 home consumption, was dead : idlers and discharged soldiers, 
 vagabonds and rogues of all sorts, swarmed in the cities and 
 about the Court, but the working hands were so few that even 
 the poor harvests still raised in North and Central Spain were 
 gathered by French labourers who returned to their country 
 again with their wages in their pockets. The trade and 
 industry of Madrid, such as they were, were almost exclusively 
 carried on by Frenchmen, of whom it was said there were 
 40,000 in the capital, mostly calling themselves Flemings and
 
 286 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Burgundians to escape the differential taxation imposed upon 
 Frenchmen. The total revenues of the Crown of Castile on 
 the accession of Charles II are given officially by a con- 
 temporary writer' as follows : 
 
 Ducats 
 
 The Millions (excise on meat, wine, oil, etc.) ... 2,500,000 
 
 Forfeitures 1,300,000 
 
 Ordinary and Extraordinary fixed Supply 400,000 
 
 Stamped paper 250,000 
 
 Customs dues. Wool dues, playing-cards, etc.... 2,600,000 
 Monopolies : Tobacco paper, sugar, choco- 
 late, etc 400,000 
 
 Extra excises on meat, wine, etc 1,600,000 
 
 Militia subsidy 300,000 
 
 Special grant for 8,000 soldiers 200,000 
 
 First-fruits of offices (half year's emoluments)... 200,000 
 Ecclesiastical subsidies (Cruzada, Escusado, 
 
 etc.) 1,600,000 
 
 Alcabalas, not assigned 2,500,000 
 
 Salt monopoly 700,000 
 
 Additional 2 per cent, on Alcabala 1,200,000 
 
 Ducats 15,750,000 
 
 Of this sum eight and a half million ducats are stated by the 
 writer to be pledged. In any case certainly not more than a 
 third would reach the Treasury. The average amount received 
 from Aragon, Valencia, etc., appears to have been two million 
 ducats, and the annual revenue from the Indies, derived from a 
 royalty of one-fifth of the precious metals mined and other 
 tributes, is set down by Bonnecasse^ at about one million 
 and a half of ducats. We shall therefore probably be not far 
 wrong if we estimate the national income — apart from the 
 royal patrimony, which was now mostly pledged or alienated — 
 
 * Solo Madrid es Cor/e, por Don Alonso Nuiiez de Castro. Cronista 
 del Rey. Madrid, 1669. 
 
 ^ Relation de r£tat et Gonvernement d^ Espagne {iG6f)), par R. A. Bonne- 
 casse. Cologne, 1767.
 
 X.] Charles II, 1665 — 1678. 287 
 
 at about 9 millions of ducats' actually encashed. The cost of 
 the royal establishments is stated at the same time to have 
 reached the sum of 1,700,000 ducats a year — approaching a 
 fifth of the whole amount received into the national ex- 
 chequer. The ecclesiastical revenues of the kingdoms of 
 Castile alone amounted to 12 millions of ducats; and the 
 entire annual revenues of the same kingdoms, clerical and lay, 
 are stated at 113 million ducats. If this really was the case 
 the taxation would not seem to have been so onerous as the 
 complaints would lead us to believe ; but, as much of the land 
 was now out of cultivation, and the country depopulated, it is 
 certain that the income was vastly inferior to that stated as the 
 nominal value. It will be seen by the above statement that 
 Spain was not in a position to undertake an adventurous 
 foreign policy. The ambition of Louis XIV, however, with a 
 rich and powerful France behind him, soon found a pretext in 
 the Queen-Mother's unconcealed Austrian leanings, for still 
 further aggrandising himself at the expense of his wife's 
 country. It will be remembered that the French diplomatists 
 at the Treaty of the Pyrenees had insisted that Maria Theresa's 
 renunciation of all rights to succeed to the Spanish dominions 
 should be conditional upon the payment of her dowry. The 
 dowry had not been paid, and Louis set up a claim on her 
 behalf to the Spanish Netherlands ^ The claim, for which 
 there seems to have been no legal ground whatever, was of 
 course resisted, and Louis invaded Flanders (May 1667) with 
 50,000 men. The Governor, the Marquis of Castel Rodrigo, 
 had only at his command a small, disorganised and unpaid 
 force, and the French without effective opposition captured 
 Charleroy, Courtrai, Oudenarde, Tournai, Lille, Alost, and 
 other Flemish towns. Holland, England and Sweden, against 
 whose interests it had always been that France should dominate 
 
 ^ This was the nominal copper ducat of _;;75 maravedis, equal to 2s. ^\d. 
 ^ The claim was based upon the precedent of the elder daughter of 
 Philip II, tlie Iiifanla Isabel, succeeding to Flanders.
 
 288 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Belgium, successively intervened, and Louis offered terms of 
 peace. But his claims to the surrender of Franche-Comte and 
 other provinces were indignantly rejected by Spain, and the 
 war continued. By the middle of February 1668, the Franche- 
 Comte' was in the hands of the French, and once more Spain 
 had to be bled to win back a part of the deadly inheritance 
 that had dragged her down. The nobles and the Church sub- 
 scribed largely, 15 per cent, more was deducted from the 
 assigned revenues, a tax on mules and coaches — the favourite 
 indulgence of the Spaniards — was imposed ; and somehow a 
 fresh army was collected. Don Juan was destined to com- 
 mand, in order chiefly to get him out of the way of the Queen 
 and Nithard; but he pleaded ill-health and avoided the trap. 
 Before anything could be done England, Holland and Sweden 
 had arranged with the French and Spanish plenipotentiaries 
 the famous peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (2 May, 1668) by which 
 France gave up the Franche-Comte, but retained all the places 
 she had conquered in Flanders — a most unfortunate and unwise 
 arrangement for Spain, as England and Holland would, as a 
 last resource, have fought her battle for her in Flanders, 
 whereas no power would help her to retain the Franche- 
 Comte ; which, moreover, was of no value to her and which 
 she was certain to lose sooner or later. 
 
 The dissensions in Madrid between Nithard and Don Juan 
 now deepened ; and already a party was forming around each 
 of the contending interests. Matters suddenly came to a head 
 with the arrest of one of Don Juan's closest friends, Malladas, 
 who was garrotted in prison by written order of the Queen two 
 hours afterwards without trial or accusation. Don Juan was 
 indignant, and said so. He was ordered to retire to his castle 
 of Consuegra'. Others of his friends were arrested; a plot, 
 real or pretended, was discovered; and Don Juan's own arrest 
 
 ^ He held Consuegra as a fief in virtue of his office as Grand Prior 
 of Castile.
 
 X.] Charles II, i66s — 1678. 289 
 
 was ordered. But on the arrival of the officers at Consuegra 
 he had fled, leaving behind him a letter for the Queen, 
 violently denouncing Father Nithard, and protesting his own 
 loyalty. Madrid began to murmur and take sides. Showers 
 of pamphlets and manifestoes were issued by both parties, but 
 the great mass of the people were unquestionably on the side 
 of Don Juan. He had tied to Barcelona, where the German 
 Nithard was especially hated ; and there nobles and people 
 received him with open arms. Messages of support came to 
 Don Juan from all parts of Spain, and matters looked dangerous. 
 The Queen took fright and tried conciliation, but Don Juan 
 became the more imperious, and peremptorily demanded the 
 dismissal of Nithard. With a powerful train Don Juan rode 
 through Cataluna and Aragon, as on a triumphal progress, and 
 with 200 horse and 300 foot-soldiers approached Madrid 
 (February 1669). The Queen was all amiability now, and 
 begged him to lay down his arms. Don Juan replied with 
 equal politeness that he intended to do so when the hated 
 German Jesuit had been sent away. The Nuncio exhorted 
 him to obedience, with the same result. " If Father Nithard 
 does not leave by the door," said Don Juan, "within two days 
 from now I will go myself and throw him out of the window." 
 Nearly all Madrid was against the Court, and disturbance 
 seemed inevitable unless the Jesuit departed, when the Council 
 of Castile decided to recommend the Queen to dismiss him. 
 With tears of rage she was obliged to give way, and Nit- 
 hard was sent off with all the honour she could pay him, and 
 the full enjoyment of his revenues and offices, but with a 
 surging populace around his coach thirsting for his blood. 
 
 Don Juan, however, was not allowed this time to carry his 
 triumph further. Having gained his first point, his demands 
 became more exacting, but the people were now inclined to 
 resent fresh pressure upon the Queen as disloyal. Long 
 negotiations were conducted between him and the Queen's 
 emissaries at Guadalajara, and promises of financial and 
 
 H. S. 19
 
 290 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 administrative reforms solemnly made to him. But in the 
 meanwhile the Queen's friends were raising an armed force, 
 particularly a body-guard, which afterwards became famous 
 under the name of Chambergos, because they were dressed in 
 French uniforms similar to those worn by the troops of 
 Marshal Schomberg. The formation of this guard was bitterly 
 resented by the town of Madrid, and aroused new sympathy 
 with Don Juan. At last a reconciliation was arranged. Don 
 Juan was appointed Viceroy of Aragon, and made submission 
 to the Queen (June 1669). 
 
 The ambition of Louis XIV in Flanders had been whetted 
 by his easy victories, but before he could venture to satisfy it 
 the triple aUiance of England, Holland and Sweden must be 
 broken up, and Spain alienated from them. His intrigues 
 to this end had been active ever since the peace of Aix- 
 la-Chapelle. Loving and reassuring messages were sent by 
 various ambassadors to Mariana, warning her of the greedy 
 Hollanders and Swedes and the false Englishmen. On one 
 occasion the French envoy Bonsy proposed that Flanders 
 should be surrendered to Louis in exchange for Portugal, 
 which he would conquer and cede to Spain ; and the 
 dethroned and exiled Alfonso VI of Portugal also tried to 
 draw Mariana into a renewal of the war against his country. 
 The designs of Louis, however, were too clearly the conquest 
 of Holland, which would of course have been fatal to the 
 Spanish dominion in Flanders ; and Mariana was well 
 advised in refusing to be diverted from the Netherlands. 
 England and Sweden were at length drawn away from Holland 
 by Louis, and the republic then stood alone. Mariana pro- 
 mised aid if Holland were attacked, but the help she could 
 send was but slight, when compared to the overwhelming 
 strength of the French king. Disasters, moreover, still con- 
 tinued to fall upon Spain. Morgan and the buccaneers were 
 carrying rapine and desolation into the Spanish possessions in 
 America. The accumulated hoard of silver, upon which to
 
 X.] Charles II, 1665 — 1678. 291 
 
 a large extent the Queen depended, was stolen at Porto Bello 
 on the Isthmus of Panama, while shipping and stores were 
 burnt and cities pillaged with impunity. In the same year 
 (167 1) a fearful hurricane destroyed 70 ships in the bay of 
 Cadiz ; and the suicidal system of raising the national revenue 
 by overtaxing industry continued unreformed. 
 
 When, therefore, Louis XIV invaded Holland (April 1672), 
 in union this time with the impolitic Charles II of England, he 
 at first carried all before him. Both the independence of the 
 United Provinces and the Spanish domination in Flanders 
 seemed trembling in the balance, for Spain was all unready. 
 With a fine, organised army, such as no other monarch could 
 gather, with generals like Conde, Turenne and Vauban, it was 
 easy for Louis to cross the Meuse, and capture, as he did, 
 all the cities he passed. The Rhine was as easily crossed, and 
 Holland lay almost at his mercy. The conditions offered by 
 Louis to the Dutch were such as the doughty burghers could 
 never accept, notwithstanding their disasters on land and sea : 
 but the position was dangerous for others as well as Holland. 
 With France dominating the western seaboard of Europe, 
 Germany would be shut in, and English trade ruined. Spain 
 and the Empire sent all the troops they could collect, and 
 by their aid the Prince of Orange drove back Louis to the 
 French frontier again (September 1673). ^^^j on the other 
 hand, the French established themselves in Franche-Comtd, 
 which they have possessed ever since, and the troops of 
 Louis XIV threatened Cataluna. At length (Feb. 1674) the 
 English Parliament, wiser than the King, compelled Charles to 
 withdraw from the French alliance. Some attempts at peace 
 negotiations were made in 1674 at Cologne, but were un- 
 successful, and thenceforward the war raged unchecked ; the 
 Emperor ravaging Alsace, the French overran Burgundy, whilst 
 the Prince of Orange with an army of allies 70,000 strong held 
 Holland. This army was met by Conde's force, 40,000 strong 
 (11 August, 1674), near Charleroi, and one of the most 
 
 19 — 2
 
 292 Spain : its greaUiess and decay. [Chap. 
 
 sanguinary battles of the campaign was fought with but small 
 permanent result, although 25,000 men were killed. At the 
 same time an attempt was made by the Spaniards to recover 
 Roussillon, where the French were commanded by Schomberg. 
 But brave as the Catalans were, the resources they received 
 from Madrid were not sufficient for success to crown their 
 efforts, and the Spanish troops in the principality had to be 
 hurried off to stifle another revolt which had broken out in 
 Sicily. Schomberg even invaded Calaluna, captured Figueras, 
 and attacked, but unsuccessfully, Gerona (1675). In the 
 meanwhile the war was raging fiercely in Flanders, where 
 Orange and the Spaniards under the Duke of Villa-hermosa 
 faced Crequi and Conde, and in Germany, where the French 
 were commanded by Turenne. 
 
 At length, principally by the intervention of England, 
 peace negotiations were opened, and the plenipotentiaries of 
 all the powers met at Nimeguen (December 1675). The 
 diplomatic delay was utilised by Louis in reorganising four 
 considerable armies, with which, in 1676, he reopened the 
 campaigns. Louis himself, with 50,000 men, operated in 
 Spanish Flanders, and the Duke de Noailles commanded the 
 French forces attacking Cataluna. During the whole of the 
 year fighting went on, almost without interruption, in Flanders, 
 Germany, and on the Catalan frontier; whilst PYench money 
 and ships supported the Sicilians in their revolt against the 
 Spanish dominion. The French defeated the Spanish and 
 Dutch fleets in the Mediterranean three times, the great De 
 Ruyter being killed in the second engagement (21 April, 1576). 
 As usual in wars in which Spain joined other powers she 
 was the principal sufferer. Roussillon and Cataluiia had been 
 the theatre of a war in which Spanish blood and money had 
 been poured out like water, the Spanish Netherlands had 
 been the field upon which most of the struggle between 
 Louis and the Hollanders had been fought out. 
 
 It now became evident that with such a combination as the
 
 X.] Charles II, 1665 — 1678. 293 
 
 King of France had against him, he would not be able to 
 conquer and hold Holland, especially since the English troops 
 had been withdrawn from his service, and a new treaty had 
 been signed (16 January, 1678) between England and Holland, 
 by which the former undertook, if France would not come to 
 terms, to aid the allies with a fleet of 80 ships and 30,000 men. 
 Louis' policy therefore was to draw Holland away from Spain. 
 Orange was principally interested in the independence of 
 the United Provinces, and was persuaded to abandon Spain 
 and the Empire, and make a separate peace. When this 
 was done Spain was obliged to accept almost any terms that 
 Louis would grant her. The pourparlers for peace had con- 
 tinued for over two years at Nimeguen. Each party tried to 
 make the best terms for itself, failing which the principal aim 
 of the allies was to prolong the war until England should be 
 obliged to take an active part against France, while Louis 
 sought to break up the confederacy, and kept Charles of 
 England quiet by heavy bribes of money. But when it suited 
 Louis to talk of peace Charles was allowed to intervene with 
 that object, and the long delayed peace of Nimeguen was the 
 result ; the conclusion being largely due to the arrangement 
 between Holland and England already mentioned, and the 
 marriage of the Prince of Orange with the Princess Mary, 
 daughter of the Duke of York (James II). The conduct of 
 Charles II of England both during the war and in the peace 
 negotiations was disgraceful in the extreme. He simply put 
 his influence up for sale, and changed sides according to the 
 amount of the bribe offered to him, although the interests of 
 England were exclusively concerned in preventing a French 
 domination of the Netherlands. This both the British people 
 and Parliament well understood, and to their influence, and 
 not the good faith of Charles, was it mainly owing that 
 Louis XIV did not succeed in holding the Flemish seaboard. 
 After the signature of the separate peace with Holland (10 
 August, 1678), which took place without the knowledge of
 
 294 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. x. 
 
 the Spanish envoys (although it surrendered cities in Spanish 
 Flanders to the French), Louis could exact almost his own 
 terms from Spain. By the treaty of Nimeguen (September 
 1678), the French restored to Spain the fortresses of Charle- 
 roy, Ath, Oudenarde, Courtrai, Binche, Limburg, Ghent, 
 Rodenhuys, St Ghislain and Weres, with the place of Puig- 
 cerda in Cataluna: whilst the King of France retained the 
 whole of the Franche-Comte, and (in Flanders) Valenciennes, 
 Bouchain, Conde, Cambrai, Aire, St Omer, Ypres, Cassel, and 
 a few less important places. The Emperor shortly afterwards 
 also accepted hard terms from France. It seemed impossible 
 that Spain could fall lower than this. Utterly beggared now, 
 scornfully taken up and betrayed, as it suited them, by Holland 
 and England ; obliged to accept, almost without question, the 
 terms dictated by its enemies ; with its young rival Louis XIV 
 growing daily in power, riches, and splendour, Spain had not 
 even yet fully learnt the bitter lesson taught by so many cruel 
 calamities. The tradition of pride and universal superiority 
 was still persevered in. The questions of precedence and 
 etiquette were not by any means the least difficult points in 
 the conclusion of peace, whilst in Spain itself the overwhelm- 
 ing grandeur and wealth of its own monarch continued to be 
 an article of national faith ; and his clemency in letting his 
 enemies off so easily a matter for admiring congratulation upon 
 his magnanimity.
 
 295 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CHARLES II, 1675 — 1700- 
 
 The canker of favouritism had eaten too deeply into the 
 political system of Spain to be eliminated, except by a 
 monarch of far greater genius and force than Mariana. Soon 
 after the disappearance of Father Nithard from the scene a 
 young hidalgo, who had served in the household of the 
 Duke of Infantado and had joined the party of the Queen, was 
 seen to be advancing with unusual rapidity. Fernando de 
 Valenzuela was one of those facile, plausible Andaluces, who 
 figured so prominently in the court of Philip IV, where the 
 accomplishment of deftly turning an amorous verse, writing 
 a dramatic interlude, or capping a bitter gibe, often opened 
 the way to fortune. After Nithard had introduced him into 
 the palace he married a favourite attendant of the Queen, 
 Dona Maria Eugenia de Uceda, and was appointed the Queen's 
 equerry. During the troubles with Don Juan Valenzuela was 
 invaluable. Quick, bold and ready, he served his mistress 
 well, both inside the palace and in the streets of the capital. 
 Every whisper in "Liars' Parade" was carried to the Queen, 
 and the gossips began to wonder wlio was the "fairy of the 
 palace." Jealous, watchful eyes surrounded the Queen, and it 
 soon became evident that Valenzuela was not only Mariana's 
 political right hand, but her lover as well. The new favourite 
 rapidly advanced from office to office. He was made a 
 marquis, and soon afterwards "valido," or universal confidant. 
 The nobles who had stood by the Queen against Don Juan
 
 296 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 were scandalised and indignant ; but there was hardly even an 
 affectation of concealment. Valenzuela, like most favourites, 
 began to form a party of his own, by lavishing offices, pensions, 
 honours, and grants, upon his friends ; whilst the idlers of the 
 capital were kept amused by continual festivals and by lavish 
 expenditure in beautifying the town. 
 
 But freely as Valenzuela might scatter his bribes, the actual 
 resources of the country did not admit of all the greedy crew 
 being satisfied ; and the discontented ones — by far the greater 
 number — rallied to Don Juan, who was sulking and intriguing 
 against the Queen in his capital of Zaragoza. When th? 
 dangerous rising in Sicily took place (1675) the Queen tried 
 to get rid of her rival by sending him thither in De Ruyter's 
 fleet as Viceroy ; but one of Don Juan's friends had persuaded 
 the boy King, unknown to his mother, to sign a letter recalling 
 his base brother to the capital, and Don Juan was already on 
 his way thither. The coup d'etat had been carefully planned. 
 By the will of Philip IV the King came of age at 15, and on 
 the morning of his birthday (6 November, 1675) Don Juan 
 secretly entered the palace of the Buen Retiro, Madrid. 
 The decree appointing him first minister was ready awaiting 
 the King's signature when Mariana took the matter in her 
 own hands. The boy had naturally been brought up under 
 her influence : he was nearly an idiot, ignorant and weak 
 beyond conception, and his mother, by tears and entreaties, 
 easily induced him to sign an order for Don Juan to return 
 to Aragon. The plan of Don Juan was to rule through the 
 King, and not in spite of the King, for the tradition of the 
 personal power of the monarch was still supreme in the country. 
 He could not disobey the King's order and he returned defeated 
 to Aragon, leaving Mariana and Valenzuela triumphant. All 
 the courtiers who had aided the plot were banished, and more 
 titles and honours were heaped upon the favourite. He was 
 made governor of the Andalucian coast. Master of the Horse 
 to the King, a grandee of Spain of the first class, and finally,
 
 XI.] Charles II, 1675 — 1700. 297 
 
 prime minister (November, 1676), with a residence in the 
 palace usually occupied by the heir to the Crown. 
 
 In the meanwhile Don Juan was plotting in Aragon, where 
 he was popular, and the jealous grandees were aiding him in 
 Madrid. All around him, fool as he was, the young King could 
 not fail to see misery and poverty almost beyond belief. 
 The letters of Madame D'Aulnoy, of Madame de Villars, and 
 other residents in Madrid at the time, testify that, even in 
 the capital, it was quite a common thing for people to die of 
 starvation in the streets, and that famine reigned even in the 
 King's palace, where Madame de Villars says that the ladies of 
 the household had had no food served out to them for a long 
 while, and that even the horses in the King's stable were 
 starving ; whilst Madame D'Aulnoy assures us that so great 
 was the penury, even in the houses of the grandees, that 
 although silver and gold plate was in abundance, food was 
 only to be obtained scantily and from hand to mouth. The 
 farmers in the outskirts of Madrid were forced by threats of 
 the hangman to sell the foodstuffs they raised to supply the 
 capital, at the risk of themselves being starved. The popula- 
 tion even of the capitals had diminished terribly. At the 
 death of Philip II Madrid was supposed to possess a population 
 of 400,000 souls, but at the period of which we are writing 
 (1677-80) it did not exceed 200,000; and a still greater 
 falHng off was seen in Burgos and other provincial capitals. 
 The crushing of agriculture and the corruption of government 
 had at first driven the population into the towns, but by the 
 end of the 17th century the food raised in the country was 
 quite insufficient to maintain them, and the only resource was 
 emigration or starvation. 
 
 Either the sufferings of his people or his own feebleness at 
 length prevailed upon Charles II to escape from the tutelage 
 of his mother and her paramour, to whom all the evils which 
 afflicted Spain were unjustly ascribed. Most of the great 
 nobles were in the plot. Valcnzuela, seeing they were too
 
 298 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 strong for him, suddenly lied, and, on the night of 14th January, 
 1677, the King escaped from the Alcazar to the Buen Retiro, 
 and sent an order for his mother not to leave the palace. The 
 nobles took care this time that her personal influence should 
 not be used on the King, and her voluminous letters probably 
 never reached his hands. Don Juan, as he approached 
 the capital, dictated the terms upon which he would take 
 the direction of affairs. The Queen must leave Madrid, 
 Valenzuela must be arrested, and the hated Chambergo 
 regiment of guards disbanded. Everything was conceded to 
 him, for anarchy, pillage and robbery had invaded even the 
 capital, and a saviour of society was needed. The Cham- 
 bergos were shipped to Sicily, the Queen was hurried off to 
 Toledo, and Valenzuela was captured in his refuge at the 
 Escorial, where, by order of the King, the monks were 
 secretly entertaining him. After a short confinement in the 
 castle of Consuegra, Valenzuela, stripped of all his honours, 
 was spirited away to the Philippine Islands, and afterwards 
 to Mexico, where he died in obscurity. 
 
 But a bitter disappointment awaited those who beheved 
 that Don Juan would turn Spain again from a desert to a 
 garden. The same evil systems were continued. Instead of 
 the prudence and restraint that had been expected of him, the 
 Prince displayed neither capacity nor application. He was 
 idle, vain and vindictive, and all those who had not aided him 
 in his plots felt the weight of his displeasure, while his spies 
 never left the Queen Mother, night or day. Whilst he was 
 issuing pragmatics for the adoption of French fashions in dress, 
 or trifling with questions of ceremony and etiquette for the 
 purpose of enforcing his position as a prince of the blood, the 
 Spanish troops were being beaten in Cataluiia by the French, 
 for want of support, Puigcerda was lost, the French were taking 
 Spanish towns in Flanders for the same reason, and Sicily was 
 in the hands of King Louis, until he finally left it of his own 
 accord (March 1678).
 
 XI.] Charles II, 1675 — 1700. 299 
 
 The distress in Madrid was worse than ever. All law and 
 order were at an end, and troops of robbers pillaged with 
 impunity the houses in which any valuables could be found. 
 The police and officers of justice were unpaid, there was no 
 armed force to restrain disorder : and soon the townspeople 
 began to clamour for Mariana ngain. But none could get ear 
 of the King but his brother, and the Queen-Mother was closely 
 guarded in her convent at Toledo. In vain plots were formed 
 against Don Juan, in vain the satires and pasquins were 
 scattered by the thousand : Don Juan stood firm because he 
 had control of the King's signature. The peace of Nimeguen, 
 disastrous as it was to Spain, was received with rejoicing, and 
 for a time distracted the people with renewed hopes of pro- 
 sperity. The truce thus allowed to Don Juan was utilised in 
 dealing another blow at the Queen-Mother and the Austrian 
 faction. It had been her intention to marry the King to one 
 of her own family, though the person of Charles himself might 
 have been a warning against the repetition of consanguineous 
 marriages. The constant intermarriage of members of the 
 Austrian family, of which Charles was the ultimate result, had 
 reproduced in him the peculiarities of the race to an extent 
 which made him a monstrosity. His chin was so enormous, and 
 stood out to such an extent, that he could masticate nothing ; 
 and his speech was almost unintelligible from the abnormal 
 size of his tongue. What had been religious gloom and 
 mysticism in his forefathers, in him had degenerated into 
 childish superstition. Up to the age of ten years he had been 
 treated as an infant in arms; in order not to endanger his 
 feeble health he had been taught nothing, so that he could 
 barely read ; and he died of senile decay when most men are 
 hardly in their prime. 
 
 This was the unfortunate creature upon whom rested the 
 responsibility of continuing the race of the Spanish house of 
 Austria. If Mariana had remained at his side he would have 
 married the Emperor's daughter, but under Don Juan that was
 
 300 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 out of the question, and negotiations were opened for a match 
 with Princess Marie Louise of Orleans, the daughter of the 
 brother of Louis XIV by Henrietta of England, daughter of 
 Charles L Favourable portraits of her were shown to the King, 
 who promptly fell in love with her ; no difficulties occurred on 
 either side, and the preliminaries were soon settled. The match 
 was popular in Madrid, and the Queen-Mother determined 
 to make the best of it, foreseeing that after the marriage the 
 influence of Don Juan would decrease, and probably her own 
 be in the ascendant again. The intrigues and events which 
 accompanied and followed this marriage are more fully related 
 than usual in such cases, owing to the then fashion in France 
 of writing letters and memoirs for publication. The French 
 ambassador de Villars, in his Memoires de la Cour d'Espagne, 
 and his wife and Madame D'Aulnoy, in their letters, present an 
 almost microscopic picture of Spain at the period ; and to those 
 works readers are referred for more minute details than can be 
 included in a general history like the present. With all the 
 pomp and splendour which the court of le roi soleil could 
 produce, the young French princess was married by proxy at 
 Fontainebleau (31 August, 1679), and slowly and with infinite 
 etiquette travelled, followed by a great train through France 
 and Spain, to meet her new husband. She was a light-hearted 
 creature, extremely beautiful, frankly pagan in her animal enjoy- 
 ment, as befitted a girl brought up amidst the cynical disso- 
 luteness of her uncle's court, but she lacked the common-sense 
 needed to carry out the task for which she was sent, namely, 
 to work upon the King, and influence him for French political 
 aims. Before she arrived at Madrid, Don Juan, whose star was 
 already on the wane, notwithstanding the success of his scheme, 
 died — of fever and ague, it was publicly said, but the Queen- 
 Mother's enemies whispered of poison (September 1679). The 
 breath was hardly out of his body before the King hurried off 
 to embrace and release his mother, who entered Madrid by his 
 side, cheered to the echo by the fickle populace.
 
 XI.] Charles II, 1675 — 1700. 301 
 
 On the 3rd November Marie Louise was delivered to her 
 Spanish court on the banks of the Bidasoa. The household 
 appointments had been made by Don Juan, but his death had 
 thrown everything into confusion, and the courtiers were all 
 quarrelling amongst themselves about their duties and preced- 
 ence. The Mistress of the Robes to the new Queen was a 
 harsh, imperious old woman of Don Juan's party, named the 
 Duchess of Terranova, who began tyrannising over the girl as 
 soon as she entered Spanish territory, and never ceased to 
 reproach her for allowing her youth and gaiety to overrule 
 gloomy Spanish etiquette. The poor princess had wept and 
 prayed on her knees to her father and uncle up to the last hour 
 to be saved from the sacrifice ; but when she saw that she was 
 doomed to be Queen of Spain in spite of all, she determined 
 to please herself in everything and to disregard all other 
 considerations. This made her position impossible from the 
 first. The King was frantically in love with the beautiful 
 creature and could not restrain his impatience, but went to 
 meet her on the road in spite of all remonstrance. The ways 
 were deep in mire, the rain fell in torrents, most of the King's 
 court had dropped behind when Charles met his bride at the 
 poverty-stricken village of Quintanapalla, near Burgos, where he 
 married her (19 November, 1679). Amidst the blighting gloom 
 of the palace of Madrid — " so thick," says Madame D'Aulnoy, 
 "that it can be seen, smelt, touched" — the toils were woven 
 around the young Queen. The Queen-Mother was amiable 
 and diplomatic, but determined that her daughter-in-law should 
 be influenced by her, or be left to her fate. Marie Louise was 
 never happy but when she was chatting with her French ladies 
 or to Madame Villars ; but the Austrian faction soon aroused 
 jealousy against them, and threw all sorts of obstacles in the 
 way of their seeing her. Instead of making the best of things, 
 like the former French Queens of Spain, and gradually asserting 
 her influence over her husband, she cast all prudence to the winds. 
 Her idiot husband alternated childish rage with maudlin caresses,
 
 302 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 but she paid no attention to either. In defiance of etiquette 
 she insisted upon constant violent horse exercise, ate and 
 drank fooUshly, to the injury of her health, slept 1 2 hours a day, 
 committed the dreadful sin of laughing heartily in pubhc, acted 
 in comedies, chatted and smiled from her balcony to French 
 people in the street, and generally scandalised the rigid Court, 
 Over and over again her hope of progeny was disappointed, 
 and by 1685 it was seen that in every sense of the word she 
 was a failure, and that her influence for the furtherance of 
 French aims or the welfare of Spain was past praying for. 
 
 The King himself, under the control of a sensible wife, 
 might have turned out better, but, as it was, he went from 
 bad to worse. His only pleasures were hunting and puerile 
 trifles — " such as," wrote a courtier, " running through the 
 rooms from balcony to balcony like a child of six years 
 old ; and his conversation corresponds." He only worked a 
 quarter of an hour a day signing the papers placed before 
 him, and the rest of the time was passed in absolute frivolity. 
 The Queen-Mother's Austrian faction, with Mansfeld, the im- 
 perial ambassador, were unceasing in their determination to 
 ruin the foolish, unhappy young Queen, although Mariana 
 herself kept ostensibly on good terms with her daughter-in-law. 
 The Queen's favourite companion was a Frenchwoman, a 
 widow, named Quintin, who in April 1685 married one of the 
 French equerries (Viremont). Both were deep in the Queen's 
 confidence, and an attempt was made in April to persuade the 
 King, on some accusation of immorality against them, to order 
 their expulsion. The Queen wept and stormed until the King, 
 greatly to the annoyance of the opposite faction, gave way, 
 and the French favourites were made more of than ever, the 
 Prime Minister Medina-Celi retiring in disgust. But in August 
 a more successful course was tried : Quintin and her husband, 
 and other French people, were accused of a plot to poison the 
 King, who was frightened out of his small wits, and every 
 French person near the Queen was banished. Tears and
 
 XI.] Charles II, 1675 — 1700. 303 
 
 threats from Marie Louise brought one French girl back to 
 her — the niece of Quintin, to whom the Queen left money in 
 her will — but that was all. Courtiers and populace made no 
 secret of their belief, absurd as it may seem, that the Queen 
 herself was at the bottom of the plot, and all hope for her now 
 was gone. The Austrians had conquered all along the line, 
 and Marie Louise was doomed. Charles from his infancy had 
 been taught to hate the French ; he now looked upon them 
 with horror and fear, including even his wife. Surrounded by 
 enemies on all sides, with such a husband as this, the wretched 
 Queen in despair gave herself to her caprices, and ceased to 
 be taken into account. Louis XIV himself tried to arouse 
 her to action, and urged her to take advantage of the King's 
 ineptitude to obtain influence, and in the case of no child 
 being born to her, to forward the succession of a French prince 
 to the Spanish throne. But it was of no avail, for until her 
 death (February 1689) — it was said of poison — she was a 
 cipher in the political intrigues which were thickening around 
 her. 
 
 Charles II was too weak and silly to be ruled by a favourite, 
 in the usual acceptance of the word ; and here was the crown- 
 ing failure of the laboriously constructed system of personal 
 concentration of power which Philip II had perfected. We 
 have seen its decadence through the indolence of the monarch 
 shifting his responsibility on to a favourite ; but a point had 
 now been reached when the monarch had no sense of responsi- 
 bility at all, and there was no point upon which to concentrate 
 power. It thus happens that we have in the reign of the last 
 Spanish King of the house of Austria the phenomenon of 
 power seeking for a centre. Prime ministers were appointed 
 who transferred their responsibility to the Councils, and these 
 again shifted it upon their secretaries or subordinate officers, 
 for the representative control had been practically abolished 
 when the personal power of the monarch was established ; so 
 that the public discontent, acute as it was, had no object upon
 
 304 spam : its greatjtess and decay. [Chap. 
 
 which it could cast the responsibility of the sufferings endured. 
 The Duke of Medina-Celi, who was prime minister from the 
 death of Don Juan until April 1685, had to face tumults in 
 the capital aroused by the absolute absence of food (1680) 
 caused by the traditional policy of fixing a low price in the 
 interest of the consumer, oblivious of the conditions which 
 made it impossible for the producer to sell at the price 
 without starving; but the Duke himself was not made a 
 scapegoat, for the responsibility of government was now 
 scattered. Hand in hand with the confusion and semi-anarchy 
 which prevailed, the blackest superstition existed amongst 
 the King, nobles, and people. It was no longer a fervid 
 determination, as it had been in Philip IPs time, to establish 
 Spanish domination by stamping out heresy; for the heretic 
 Dutch and Englishmen had fought by the side of the 
 Spaniards against the Catholic King of France, and dreams 
 of European domination had ceased to haunt the slumber 
 of feeble Spain. The Inquisition was no longer a political 
 instrument in the King's hands, but a means of fastening 
 upon the country the thraldom of the churchmen, ignorant, 
 idle, bigoted and tyrannical, who alone had thriven amongst the 
 general ruin. In May 1680, the greatest auto de fe ever seen 
 was enacted in the Plaza Mayor of Madrid with a pomp 
 and magnificence unapproached before or since. In the 
 presence of the King and Queen 105 poor wretches from 
 the dungeons of the Inquisition were arraigned ; 85 nobles 
 were enlisted as "familiars," and the criminals were either 
 burnt to death, or firsL garrotted and then burnt, in a great 
 bonfire sixty feet square and seven feet high outside the gate 
 of Fuencarral, the Inquisition, as usual, hypocritically handing 
 them over to the civil authorities for execution. 
 
 Spain never reached a lower depth than during the wretched 
 reign of the last Austrian King. "The country," writes Villars 
 to his government, " is reduced to a state of misery difficult to 
 realise without seeing it. The expulsion of the Moriscos, the
 
 XI.] CJiarles II, 1675 — 1700. 305 
 
 emigration and constant wars had depopulated the country," 
 and, continues the French Ambassador, "the excessive taxation 
 has rendered the few people that remain incapable of culti- 
 vating the land. During the last 40 years these taxes, the 
 officers to collect them, and the tribunals to enforce them 
 have been increased infinitely. Notwithstanding the pro- 
 digious sums raised the King gets hardly anything Com- 
 merce is in no better state. With the exception of Castilian 
 wool, which foreigners buy, there is no merchandise or manu- 
 facture to attract money. The King has no ships now to 
 protect trade, and his subjects none to trade with, so that all 
 commerce is done by strangers, and two-thirds of the money 
 from the Indies goes direct abroad, and the other third 
 gradually follows it in payment for goods." There was no 
 trade in Madrid but such as depended upon the State service 
 and the Church for its support. The nominal value of the 
 copper coinage (almost the only currency remaining) had been 
 gradually increased to six times its face value. One of 
 Medina-Celi's first acts was suddenly to reduce it to its real 
 value again. This might have been wise if prudently and 
 cautiously carried out, but, as it was, it completed the ruin, for 
 it enormously increased the price of commodities and utterly 
 disorganised trade. So effete had the nation grown that 
 Louis XIV hardly made a pretence of keeping his engage- 
 ments with it. He occupied Strasbourg, a city of the Empire, 
 laid siege to Luxembourg (which was Spanish), and at last, 
 after centuries of struggle, forced the Spaniards to acknowledge 
 the precedence of France in all things, and made Charles 
 surrender his hereditary title of Duke of Burgundy. But the 
 more Charles ceded the more exacting became Louis. The 
 laboriously arranged peace of Nimeguen became waste-paper 
 when the cupidity of the King of France had to be satisfied; 
 and when the latter claimed the county of Alost in Flanders 
 and other territories adjoining Holland and the Empire, a 
 league was projected between Spain and the two latter 
 
 H. s. 20
 
 3o6 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 powers to uphold the treaty. But the strength of France 
 bore all before it. Notwithstanding a gallant defence by the 
 Spaniards, Humieres captured Courtrai and Dixmunde (No- 
 vember 1683). Louis had proposed the arbitration of the 
 King of England, but laid down his own terms. He must, he 
 said, either have Luxembourg or Courtrai and Dixmunde, or 
 else a slice of Cataluna or Navarre, demanding in each case 
 the strongest fortresses. But exhausted as Spain was she 
 could not accept the position of a subject-power whilst she had 
 life at all, and again she had to fight. Louis diverted the 
 Hollanders from aiding Spain and thus had his enemy alone. 
 
 Threatening Navarre with one army, he rapidly marched 
 upon Gerona in Cataluna with another. The Spanish troops 
 were as yet unmustered, but the armed Catalan peasants 
 fought with perfect fury, and Marshal de Bellefonds raised the 
 siege (May 1684). At the same time a desperate attempt 
 was made by the French under Crequi and Vauban to reduce 
 the well-nigh impregnable fortress of Luxembourg, defended 
 by Spaniards and Walloons under the Prince of Chimay. 
 After 24 days of unceasing battery the garrison capitulated 
 with all the honours of war (June 1684). Having such 
 pledges as these in his hands Louis could dictate peace to 
 Spain and the Empire. He kept Luxembourg, the city of 
 Strasbourg, Bovines, Chimay, and Beaumont, but restored to 
 Spain Courtrai and Dixmunde after destroying the fortifica- 
 tions. Louis also had defeated the Spaniards in a pitched 
 battle at Ter in Cataluna, and had bombarded Genoa, which 
 was under the protection of Spain ; so that the government of 
 Charles was rejoiced to escape even with the hard terms 
 dictated by the treaty of Ratisbon (June 1684). Other 
 smaller potentates, like the Elector of Brandenburg and the 
 Prince Regent of Portugal, followed the example of the great 
 Louis and hectored Spain into humiliating concessions; whilst 
 pestilence swept through Andalucia (1684), floods ruined 
 Spanish Flanders (1683), hurricanes sank the silver fleets
 
 XI.] Charles II, 1675 — 1700. 307 
 
 (1682) or corsairs captured them, corruption stalked unchecked 
 through Spain, earthquakes shook Naples to bits and desolated 
 the Indies (1687), and the wretched King, growing more 
 decrepit in mind and body, mumbled his prayers or wandered 
 through his great, grim palace searching for pins in the 
 matting. The palace itself was a hot-bed of intrigue, mostly 
 carried on by priests and women, the Queen-Mother and the 
 Austrian ambassador being pitted against the French ambas- 
 sador and Marie Louise. In complete disgust Medina-Celi 
 abandoned the sinking ship, after having in vain sought to 
 stem the tide of ruin, and was succeeded by the Count de 
 Oropesa (April 1685). 
 
 The new minister began well ; he suspended all pensions, 
 abolished crowds of useless offices, civil and military, made a 
 clean sweep of some of the worst abuses of the royal household, 
 and, as a consequence, drew upon him the hate of all those 
 whose interests he touched. But he managed to relieve some of 
 the most pressing needs, and spent most of the money he had 
 saved in maintaining a Spanish force of 12,000 men to aid the 
 Emperor in his great struggle against the Turk. His energy, 
 too, infused some virility into Spanish foreign policy. Largely 
 by the efforts of Ronquillo, the ambassador in London, a secret 
 understanding, usually called the league of Augsburg, was 
 arranged between England, Spain, the Empire, and Sweden, 
 to withstand the encroachments of France, which were a 
 danger to them all (June 16S6). To counteract this Louis 
 invaded the territories of the Empire and captured Phalsburg, 
 Mannheim, Spires, Worms, Treves, and other places (1688), and 
 Spain once more prepared for war both on the French frontier 
 of Cataluna and in Flanders. Marie Louise had died (1689) 
 and Charles was the last of his race. He had been deeply in 
 love with his first wife, but he was past illusions now and had 
 no desire to marry again ; but Mariana and the Austrian party 
 were as active as ever, and were determined, if they could 
 help it, to prevent a French King from ruling over the
 
 3o8 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 crumbling Empire of Spain. The Prince of Orange had 
 surprised Europe by becoming King of England, and that fact 
 had to a great extent altered the political balance of the world. 
 It was no longer a shifty Stuart with an itching palm for Louis's 
 bribes who ruled England, but a prince whose very existence 
 was bound up in Protestantism and the exclusion of France 
 from Flanders ; a prince, moreover, under whom England and 
 Holland were really united. Nearly all Europe was interested 
 in keeping Spain and Flanders out of the hands of Louis, and 
 Madrid became more than ever the centre of political intrigue. 
 Generally speaking the Spaniards themselves were in favour of 
 a French prince, a descendant of Anne of Austria and of Maria 
 Theresa, but courtiers, confessors, and ministers were bought, 
 almost to a man, by one side or the other. Badgered and 
 pestered by those who urged upon the poor creature the duty 
 of marrying again, the King at last referred to his uncle the 
 Emperor the choice of a second wife for him. The lady 
 chosen was Princess Mary Anne of Neuburg, a sister of the 
 Empress and daughter of the Elector Palatine, to whom 
 Charles was married in 1689. This was a check to the French 
 interests which could only be met by war against Spain and 
 her allies. Humieres operated in Flanders against the Dutch 
 and Spanish forces all the summer of 1689, with but little 
 result; but in the following year (ist June, 1690) the Duke of 
 Luxembourg defeated the allies under the Prince of Waldeck at 
 Fleurus, where 6000 of the vanquished were killed, and 8000 
 made prisoners, although the Spanish rank and file covered 
 themselves with glory in their defeat, even as they had done at 
 Rocroy. Louis was not so fortunate in his support given to 
 James II in his attempt to recover his English crown, and the 
 battle of the Boyne established William of Orange firmly in his 
 seat. He, therefore, was able to withstand the vengeance of 
 the victorious King of France. Not so unfortunate Spain and 
 its other allies. Mons in Hainault fell in the presence of 
 Louis XIV himself (April 1691), and Hal in June. Savoy
 
 XI.] Charles II, 1675 — 1700. 309 
 
 was completely overrun before the end of the year, whilst the 
 armies of France on the Rhine oppressed the people and 
 country with a tyranny of the most revolting description. The 
 Duke of Noailles had been beaten in Cataluna (1689) by the 
 Catalans and the Castilian soldiers sent to their aid, but the 
 old quarrels between the people of the principality and the 
 King's troops continued. This paralysed the opposition to 
 the French, who in 1691 captured Ripoll and other places, and 
 in 1692 took Urgel, whilst a strong French fleet threatened 
 Barcelona and the coast towns, and a revolt of the Catalans 
 themselves took place in protest against the wars entailed by 
 the Austrian connection. The French also ceaselessly harried 
 the Spanish possessions on the north coast of Africa and in 
 America, either directly or by subsidising the Moors or the 
 buccaneers. With these constant wars the funds saved by 
 Oropesa's financial reforms were soon swallowed, whilst the 
 enmity towards the minister still remained. The traditions 
 of governmental corruption were not easily forgotten, and 
 although Oropesa himself may have been — probably was — 
 honest, his subordinates and relatives were certainly not so, 
 and especially his wife, whose unscrupulous greed was pro- 
 verbial. The German Queen too was greedy, rapacious and 
 a virago, and in order to fulfil her mission it was necessary 
 for her to form a party. She did so by heading Oropesa's 
 enemies, who were tlie strongest influence at Court and in the 
 country, and she was powerfully aided by Father Matilla, the 
 King's confessor, and by the Queen-AIother, whose influence 
 was still great. The poor King assailed on all sides by 
 intrigue, infirm of mind and will, in wretched bodily health, 
 had allowed himself to be persuaded that a curse of witchcraft 
 rested upon him. But he hated change. Oropesa was kind 
 and gentle to him, and for a time he held out. The Queen 
 and the ambassador left him no peace, night or day, and at 
 last he dismissed Oropesa (1691) with tears and lamentations 
 at his helplessness.
 
 3IO Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Around the King, his German wife and her friend the 
 baroness Berlips were now supreme, and the nominal minis- 
 ters of the crown were merely ciphers. There was no limit to 
 the greed of Mary Anne of Neuburg. The revenues again 
 began to fall off, for many of Oropesa's reforms were revoked, 
 and the most absolute confusion of administration resulted. 
 There was no first minister now, and no responsibility any- 
 where; the King consulted the Councils direct, or indeed 
 anyone who happened to be near him. 
 
 In 1693 the King was thought to be dying, and on his 
 recovery he was persuaded to divide the kingdom into three 
 governments, to be administered respectively by the Duke of 
 Montalto, the Constable of Castile, and the Admiral of Castile, 
 as the King's Lieutenants. This was a complete violation of the 
 constitutions and traditions of the various States, and nearly all 
 Spain was against it. It was for a government such as this to 
 wring from ruined Spain resources for carrying on the war with 
 the most powerful monarch in Christendom. The taxes could 
 not be increased, and the only means which occurred to the 
 ministers were to extort contributions from every person who 
 was thought to be able to afford them, and to compel every 
 town and village in the land to provide one soldier for each 
 ten inhabitants. Dismay and terror were the natural result. 
 Those chosen, and even those capable of bearing arms, fled by 
 the thousand, and a still greater dislocation of ordinary hfe was 
 produced (1695). Confusion grew daily. In 1696 it was 
 acknowledged that no more money could be obtained from 
 the country, and all payments were suspended. 
 
 This being the condition of things under the German 
 faction, the French party, aided by general discontent and the 
 money of King Louis, had now a promising prospect of 
 bringing about a change. The King was growing more and 
 more infirm, and had frequent fits of illness which seemed to 
 threaten his life. The party which had the control of him in 
 his last hours would in all probabiUty have tlieir way with
 
 XI.] Charles II, 1675 — 1700. 31 1 
 
 Spain, and the struggle now was on both sides to be in at the 
 King's death. In the meanwhile the wars continued without 
 cessation, and with varying fortunes. In 1693 the allies under 
 the King of England were routed at Neerwinden, and soon 
 after the Spanish garrison surrendered Charleroi after a 27 
 days' siege, whilst in the following year Noailles and Vendome 
 were victorious everywhere in Cataluna over the Catalan 
 guerrilleros, and over the Germans under Hesse-Darmstadt. 
 Then the tide changed somewhat. Luxembourg died, the 
 French lost Dixmunde and Huy, and most important of all, 
 Namur was captured by the King of England (September 
 1695). The gigantic armaments needed to face all Europe 
 victoriously, together with the lavish expenditure of the roi 
 soleil, had thrown even the finances of France into confusion, 
 and Louis again began negotiation. First he seduced the 
 Duke of Savoy away from the confederation, and secured 
 peace so far as Italy was concerned (1696), and then cast 
 all his available strength against Barcelona. There were 
 12,000 fighting men in the city under Hesse-Darmstadt, 
 and the warlike Catalans struggled bravely. But the Madrid 
 government was poverty-stricken and unready : a force was 
 hastily organised under Don Francisco de Velasco to relieve 
 the Catalan capital, but Vendome made short work of them, 
 and after 52 days' siege Barcelona fell, to be followed shortly 
 by most of the principality. There seemed to be no end to 
 the calamities which beset Spain all over the world. Marshal 
 Catinat in Flanders had captured important Spanish places. 
 The coasts of South America were devastated by buccaneers, 
 Cataluna was in the hands of the French, the Emperor was 
 again in a death-struggle with the Turk in Hungary, and 
 though with a bad grace, the Madrid government were forced 
 to join in the peace negotiations at Ryswick opened between 
 the French and the allies. The terms agreed upon were not 
 unfavourable to Spain. Louis restored Cataluna, Luxembourg, 
 Mons, Ath and Courtrai to Spain, recognised William III
 
 3 1 2 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 as King of England, and gave up to the German princes all 
 the territory he had taken from them. 
 
 This apparently lame ending to a great war, in which 
 France had been victorious at enormous cost, was the result of 
 the dynastic intrigues which with the failing health of Charles II 
 were now approaching a crisis. It did not suit Louis to 
 appear as an enemy to Spain at a time when he was plotting 
 to obtain the succession to the crown for himself or one of his 
 house. Both Louis and the Emperor Leopold were grandsons 
 of Philip III, and both of them had married daughters of 
 Philip IV. As we have seen, both the mother (Anne of 
 Austria) and the wife (Maria Theresa) of Louis had renounced 
 for themselves and their successors any claim to the Spanish 
 throne. The renunciation had been most precise and solemn, 
 but in the case of Maria Theresa had been made conditional 
 on the payment of the dowry, which had never been paid. 
 The claims of her descendants would seem therefore to have 
 been preferable to those of the Archduke Charles, the Emperor's 
 second son, who claimed as representative of Charles V in the 
 male line. 
 
 The respective claims divided Europe into two camps. 
 For centuries England and Germany had struggled to keep the 
 French out of Flanders. It now looked as if the prize would 
 fall to Louis from the mere force of circumstances. The 
 Queen-Mother had died (May 1696), but the English ambas- 
 sador Stanhope, the imperial ambassador Harrach, the Queen 
 and her courtiers were ceaseless in their intrigues to keep 
 possession of the King and to forward the succession of the 
 Austrian ; whilst the French party, headed by Cardinal Porto- 
 carrero, a former friend and minister of Mariana, and advised 
 by Harcourt the French ambassador, sought to counteract 
 them before the King finally succumbed. Soon after the 
 death of Mariana, Oropesa had been recalled by the King 
 (September 1696), but warned by his past experience his 
 reforming zeal had abated. The Queen and her camaritta
 
 XL] Charles II, i6y^ — 1700. 313 
 
 were all-powerful inside the palace, though cordially hated by 
 the people outside; and no person suspected of sympathy 
 with the French party was allowed to approach the King. 
 Poor Charles, sick nearly to death, in hourly fear of poison, 
 with a dread of his violent wife and her German blood- 
 suckers, and with the terror of witchcraft upon him, could only 
 weep and mourn the happy days with his beautiful French 
 wife. Whenever he was well enough to stand, the Queen 
 dragged him out and made him totter and stagger in religious 
 processions, or go through the ceremonial forms of his posi- 
 tion, nodding and babbling incoherently to the ministers or 
 ambassadors whom he was obliged to receive. "The King 
 is so weak" (writes Stanhope, 14 March, 1698) "that he can 
 scarcely lift his hand to his head to feed himself, and so 
 extremely melancholy that neither his buffoons, dwarfs, nor 
 puppet-shows... can in the least divert him from fancying every- 
 thing that is said or done to be a temptation of the devil, 
 and never thinking himself safe without his confessor and two 
 friars by his side, whom he makes lie in his chamber every 
 night." The confessor was an autocratic priest, called Father 
 Matilla, a creature of the Queen, but there was a great noble 
 also. Count Benavente, whose office of Gentleman of the Bed- 
 chamber gave him access to the King. He was gained by the 
 French faction, and when the King complained of the misery 
 he was in he advised him to consult the Cardinal Archbisliop 
 Portocarrero. One night, when the Queen had retired, the 
 Cardinal was introduced secretly to the King's chamber. 
 It was late at night when the Cardinal returned home, but 
 late as it was he summoned his friends to devise a plan for 
 rescuing the King. Monterey, Leganes, the Ronquillos, 
 Urraca, some of the ablest and most popular of Spanish 
 nobles, came to his summons. The first thing to do was to 
 change the confe'^sor, and in a few days the Court and Queen 
 were thunderstruck to find that the King had signed an order 
 banishing Matilla, and appointing a new confessor, Froilan
 
 314 spam: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Diaz. Matilla died of poison or a broken heart within the 
 week, and Father Diaz kept the conscience of the King in 
 favour of the French faction. The Queen bravely stood her 
 ground for a time, and tried to win over the priest, but with- 
 out success. When she began to pester the King he pkicked 
 up courage to tell her that she wanted to kill him, and bade 
 her leave him in peace ; and at length she saw that the French 
 faction was popular and strong and endeavoured to keep 
 friendly with both sides. 
 
 The succession was claimed not only by the French can- 
 didate, the young Duke of Anjou, second son of the Dauphin, 
 and the Austrian, Charles, second son of the Emperor, but 
 also by the Electoral Prince of Bavaria as grandson, through 
 his mother, of the Empress Margaret, younger daughter of 
 Philip IV and first wife of the Emperor Leopold; and this 
 candidature was the most favoured by the Spanish lawyers. 
 Oropesa considered it good policy for him to embrace it, and 
 this for a time introduced a third party into the palace intrigue. 
 Louis XIV, who knew that he could not obtain Spain for his 
 grandson without fighting for it, endeavoured as a preliminary 
 measure to divide his opponents, and proposed the dismember- 
 ment of the Spanish monarchy ; Spain, Flanders and the 
 Indies to go to the Prince of Bavaria; Naples, Sicily, the 
 Tuscan ports, and Guipuzcoa falling to the share of the 
 Dauphin, whilst Milan was to be taken by the Archduke. On 
 the plea of maintaining the balance of power he concluded a 
 secret treaty with England and Holland to enforce this solution. 
 Spain and Austria were indignant, and Oropesa under this 
 impression persuaded the King to appoint the Prince Joseph 
 Leopold of Bavaria his heir. Against this the Emperor pro- 
 tested so violently as to offend the Spaniards and still further 
 injure the chances of his son ; whilst Louis looked on, well 
 satisfied with the result of his diplomacy, especially when the 
 young Prince of Bavaria died at the age of six, under the grave 
 suspicion of poison (February 1699).
 
 XI.] Charles II, 1675— 1700. 315 
 
 Much now depended upon the transfer of Oropesa's in- 
 fluence to one side or the other. The chances were in favour 
 of his siding with the Austrian. Famine reigned in Madrid : 
 poverty and misery had reduced the population to the last 
 depth of despair. There was no government worthy of the 
 name ; no one had seen the King for a long time past, and it 
 was easy to raise a tumult under such circumstances. Suddenly 
 in April 1699 a riot broke out. "Death to Oropesa! give us 
 bread," cried the multitude, as they surged towards the palace. 
 "Let us see the King!" shouted they, as they stood in front of 
 the great balcony of the Alcazar. The Queen told them that 
 he was asleep. "He has slept too long: wake him," was the 
 answer, and the dying King was brought tottering out on to the 
 balcony. Benevente told the crowd in his name that the King 
 would pardon them for the tumult, but he could not reduce the 
 price of bread, for it was Oropesa who had the suppHes, they 
 must ask him. The hint was enough, and Oropesa became the 
 scapegoat, and to the sorrow of the King the minister was 
 forced to retire. With him went into exile all the friends of 
 the Austrian cause; and Portocarrero, the popular brothers 
 Ronquillo, and the Frenchmen were supreme. But the Queen 
 and a few churchmen who stood by her made one more effort 
 to recover the ground. Ever since the advent of the new 
 confessor Diaz she had caused him to be watched. His pro- 
 ceedings were secret, but it was at last reported by the spies 
 and even chattered in the capital that strange exorcisms and 
 ghastly incantations were being practised on the King. The 
 full details cannot be given here\ but the results of the exor- 
 cisms had been to reduce the King to the last extreme of 
 bodily and mental feebleness. The Queen was furious, and 
 tried to move the Inquisition to take action, but the Inquisi- 
 tion was no longer what it had been. Only three years before 
 
 1 P"or particulars see essay entitled, "The Exorcism of Charles the 
 Bewitched," in The Year after the Armada etc., by Martin A. S. Hume. 
 London, 1896.
 
 3l6 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 a royal commission had been appointed to report to the King 
 on the complaints against the Holy Office, and in a vigorous 
 and scathing denunciation the commission condemned the In- 
 quisition as a national danger. Thenceforward the Inquisition 
 walked warily and for a time refused to be used as a tool of 
 the Queen's intrigue. On the death of the Inquisitor-General 
 she procured the appointment for a nominee of her own, who 
 promptly laid hands on the King's confessor. But to the 
 Queen's dismay the Council of the Inquisition refused to 
 confirm the action of its chief. Then followed a dispute 
 which lasted for years, to the final triumph of Diaz and the 
 Council of the Inquisition, many of whose members were on 
 the French side. Again the Queen saw that the French party 
 were too strong for her and she had to make the best of it. 
 
 By the beginning of 1700 it was seen that the King's 
 end was near. Another attempt to arrange a partition was 
 made from London in February of that year by a treaty be- 
 tween France, England and Holland, the Archduke Charles 
 being given Spain, Flanders and the Indies, the Dauphin 
 receiving the Two Sicilies, the Milanese, the Tuscan ports and 
 Guipuzcoa; but the Emperor would have none of it, and 
 protested against the proposed dismemberment. The anger of 
 the Spaniards was unbounded, especially against England, and 
 William III dismissed the Spanish ambassador for his violent 
 language, whilst Stanhope was forced to leave Madrid. In the 
 meanwhile the dying King shifted from side to side as those 
 near him at the moment swayed him. Sometimes he broke 
 out in childish fury at his inheritance being wrangled about 
 before his own eyes, and even husbands proposed for his wife 
 before he was dead. Usually his sympathy was more on the 
 Austrian side than the French, through the influence of the 
 Queen and the excessive zeal of the French party; but 
 Portocarrero was a host in himself. The Pope was on the 
 side of the French prince, and Louis XIV now openly 
 threatened to oppose by force the attempt to establish the
 
 XI.] Charles II, 1675 — 1700. 317 
 
 Archduke on the throne. Torn with conllicting emotions 
 Charles the Bewitched lay on his death-bed at the end of 
 September 1700. All the images and relics of special sanctity 
 in Madrid were brought to his bedside, until the room became 
 too full to hold any more. Portocarrero never left him, and 
 the churchmen urged that his conscience would not be free 
 until he had by will left his kingdom to his rightful heir. 
 "Only God," he sighed, "can give kingdoms, I am nothing 
 now." But by the 3rd October he gave way and signed a will 
 leaving the whole of his vast dominions to Philip of Anjou. 
 Once after that he wavered under the Queen's persuasion, and 
 promised at last to make the Archduke his heir. But it was 
 never done. On the 2gth October he signed a decree appoint- 
 ing the Queen, Portocarrero, Arias, the Duke of Montalto, the 
 Inquisitor-General Mendoza, Counts Frigiliana and Benavente 
 a committee of government pending the arrival of the new 
 King in Spain. From that day till the afternoon of the ist 
 November, 1700, Charles the Bewitched lay dying. Violent 
 fevers and deadly lethargy alternately shook or paralysed his 
 decrepit frame — 39 years of age, but looking 80 — until it could 
 resist no longer, and like the last flickering ember of what once 
 was a great furnace, the degenerate worn-out race of the 
 Spanish Habsburgs sank to its inglorious ending, after nearly 
 two centuries of sustained calamity unexampled in the history 
 of the world. From the greatest Charles to the smallest one 
 disaster and decay had uninterruptedly pursued their unfor- 
 tunate people. The inheritance of the Empire, and especially 
 the possession of Flanders, had imposed untold misery upon 
 millions of innocent Spaniards ; unwise fiscal laws had brought 
 to ruin a prosperous country; favouritism, sloth and bigotry 
 had emasculated a vigorous and hardy race; and as a crowning 
 legacy of woe, the last King of the house of Austria left Spain 
 exhausted and bankrupt, a prey to the vultures who flocked 
 to fight over its remains.
 
 318 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PHILIP V, 1700 — 1 7 14. 
 
 Immediately following the death of Charles a hurried 
 meeting of the regents was held in the palace, and soon 
 afterwards the saloons and antechambers were crowded with 
 an anxious gathering of grandees, bishops, courtiers and 
 foreign ambassadors, to hear the contents of the momentous 
 will which was to decide the future of Spain. The dying 
 King had changed his mind so often that there was still 
 considerable doubt about his final disposition, at least among 
 the Austrian party, who hoped against hope that the Queen 
 had gained her point at last. But all uncertainty was soon 
 removed by the jubilant announcement that the young Duke 
 of AnjoUj Philip de Bourbon, was the new King of Spain. 
 Louis XIV himself was doubtless well prepared for the news, 
 but the decision imposed upon him was of vast importance. 
 It was clear that he would have to fight for it in either case, 
 but if the partition of Spain according to his own proposal was 
 persevered in the territory of France itself would be greatly 
 increased, whereas if he accepted for his grandson the whole 
 inheritance it would be the house of Bourbon, and not France, 
 which would permanently benefit. In such case his reported 
 boast, that the Pyrenees had disappeared with the accession of 
 Anjou, only meant that for a generation or two family ties 
 would unite the policy of the two nations. Not without some 
 hesitation he decided to prefer the aggrandisement of his
 
 Chap. xii.J Philip V, 1700 — 1714. 319 
 
 family to that of his country, and introduced his young 
 grandson to his Court as the new King of Spain. Phih'p V was 
 a bright-faced handsome lad of 17 — as his portrait at Versailles 
 testifies — and Spain was full of hope that the spell of evil was 
 broken at last. As soon as swift couriers could carry to 
 Madrid the news of his acceptance of the inheritance, Philip V 
 was proclaimed in his capital as King of Spain and the Indies, 
 with all the pomp and ceremonial of old times, and almost 
 simultaneously the first Bourbon was acclaimed in Flanders, 
 Naples, Sicily, and Milan. Even Cataluna, where the German 
 Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt was viceroy, accepted with rejoicing 
 the new sovereign whose first act of kingship was to dismiss 
 Hesse-Darmstadt and replace him by Portocarrero's nephew 
 the Count de Palma. 
 
 Philip bade farewell to France on the 28th January, 1701, 
 and his progress to his capital was a triumphal march. Hopes 
 beat high. Surely now, thought the people, the past of starva- 
 tion and oppression was gone for ever. This smiling young 
 prince would bring them peace and plenty — aye and glory too — 
 with the help of the all-powerful King of France, henceforward 
 for ever their friend against all the world. But the evils 
 of Spain were too deeply rooted to be smiled away by a 
 pleasure-loving boy. 
 
 The Duke of Harcourt, the clever French Ambassador who 
 knew Spain well, took his seat in the Council — which, said 
 Louis XIV, in future all French ambassadors must do. The 
 friends of the Austrians were banished to a man, and even the 
 Queen was sent away to Toledo. Portocarrero had nothing 
 to do now but carry out the orders of the Frenchmen, and he 
 did it with alacrity. Unwarned by the fate of Oropesa, the 
 first reforms he adopted were a wholesale abolition of offices, 
 concessions, grants and pensions conferred by previous 
 monarchs, a measure which, it is true, diminished the waste of 
 the treasury, but caused the deepest discontent in a capital 
 whose main industry was the public service. Frenchmen and
 
 320 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 foreigners had for many years done most of the work and 
 trading in Madrid and the north, and many of these men 
 with the advent of a French monarch also threw themselves 
 into government places, which redoubled the discontent of 
 Spaniards. The disorganisation in the finances was so com- 
 plete that those who lived on the confusion, a wealthy and 
 powerful class, were able successfully to obstruct all attempts 
 at real reform. 
 
 In his instruction to the new French ambassador Marsin, 
 sent to Spain to replace Harcourt, Louis XIV writes : 
 " Extreme confusion reigns in all affairs ; it would appear 
 as if the monarchs of Spain had tried by their bad conduct to 
 destroy their realm ralher than to preserve it. This disorder 
 has grown so much in the last reign that it may be said that 
 there is now in Spain no government at all. The rights of the 
 crown in the West Indies have been sacrificed to the greed of 
 the viceroys and subordinate officials, who have ruined 
 commerce, which is now monopolised by the foreign enemies 
 of Spain. The incapacity and self-seeking of ministers have 
 prevented the reform of the financial disorder; for it is 
 sufficient in Spain that an abuse be old-established for it to be 
 scrupulously maintained ivithout any care being taken to consider 
 whether a thing which perhaps may have been good in the past 
 is bad for the present." In these last words Louis expressed 
 tersely the principal difficulty which always stood in the way of 
 the introduction of reforms into Spain ; and it was this con- 
 servative feeling, and its kindred hatred to foreigners as such, 
 that rendered almost barren even the efforts of enlightened 
 ministers and financial experts sent by Louis. The young 
 King himself soon lost heart and gave himself up to idleness 
 and dissipation, which frequently called for the angry reproofs 
 of his grandfather, whose formal advice to him when he left foi 
 Spain, full of wisdom as it was, especially cautioned him 
 against self-indulgence in every form. But Philip was young 
 and thoughtless. " Never forget that you are a Frenchman,"
 
 XII.] Philip V, 1700 — 17 14. 321 
 
 wrote his grandfather to him, and in this he obeyed him. The 
 two men who swayed most of the administrative power, 
 Portocarrero and Arias, Archbishop of Seville, vied with each 
 other in truckling to France in order to keep supreme. 
 French peers were given the same rights in Spain as Spanish 
 grandees. French servants crowded the palace, French ad- 
 venturers swarmed and swaggered in the streets, and Porto- 
 carrero and his Council became more and more unpopular. 
 Anyone who dared to gainsay the French faction was branded 
 as an " Austrian," and jealousy and discontent soon pervaded 
 the capital. During all the reign of Charles II no new Cortes 
 of Castille had been called, the permanent deputation of the 
 previous Cortes continuing from time to time, as a mere for- 
 mality, the supplies formerly voted. It now became necessary 
 for the Cortes to recognise the new King and receive his 
 oath to maintain the privileges of Castile. The members of 
 the old Cortes collected for this ceremonial as usual in the 
 church of San Geronimo (April 1701); but when some of 
 the nobles, undesirous of leaving the reorganisation of the 
 finances in the hands of the Frenchman Orry, and anxious 
 to reassert the old constitution of Castile, clamoured for a new 
 Cortes to be convoked to discuss ways and means, Portocarrero 
 and his Council refused, and the extinction of the parliamentary 
 rights of the Kingdom was complete. 
 
 The young King was betrothed to Marie Louise, daughter 
 of Victor Amadeo of Savoy, and in September 1701 he went to 
 meet his bride at Barcelona, receiving the oath of allegiance of 
 the Cortes of Aragon at Zaragoza on his way thither. The 
 Aragonese received him with tumultuous joy, although when it 
 came to voting supplies they were less expansive, and after- 
 wards in Barcelona where the Catalan Cortes were assembled, 
 the same warm welcome was extended to him. The Cortes of 
 Cataluna also were not effete yet. They were liberal in their 
 offers of money, but they bargained for full return in the form 
 of privileges. Philip wanted money badly and gave the 
 II. s. 21
 
 322 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Catalans, but with a bad grace, almost all they wanted before 
 they voted the supplies. He was indeed already faced by the 
 coalition of Europe against him. The Emperor had protested 
 against his accession from the first : the Queen-Dowager and 
 her friend the Inquisitor-General swore that Charles II in his 
 last hours had verbally revoked his will and had left the 
 kingdom to the Archduke. William III of England was 
 furious at the way he and others had been hoodwinked by the 
 talk of partition, and still more at the recognition by Louis of 
 the Pretender as King of England on the death of James II 
 (September 1701). Thus, although England and Holland 
 had consented formally to recognise Philip, the elements of 
 a strife in which all Europe was to join were already let loose. 
 The Emperor was only just free of his struggle with the Turk, 
 but when the French troops occupied Mantua by permission 
 of the duke he at once declared war against Louis for the 
 violation of the treaty of Ryswick, and sent Prince Eugene in 
 command of the Imperial troops to Italy. A more direct 
 blow was struck at Philip V by the promotion of revolts in 
 Naples, and even before the young King had met his bride on 
 the frontier at Figueras he saw the embarcation of all the 
 troops he could muster in Cataluna for his Italian kingdom 
 (December 1701). But he showed thus early that he was 
 made of different stuff from the later Austrians by insisting, 
 against the advice of all his ministers, upon himself going to 
 Naples and Sicily and meeting his Italian subjects face to face. 
 Philip II, he said, had lost Holland because he had not gone 
 thither in person. " If I lose territories it shall not be for that 
 reason." 
 
 The new child-Queen (she was only fourteen), when she 
 crossed the frontier, dismissed her Piedmontese attendants, but 
 Louis XIV and Mme de Maintenon had placed by her side 
 one of the cleverest old women in Europe, Anne Marie de la 
 Tremouille, the widow of the Duke of Bracciano (Flavio 
 Orsini) whom the French called Princess des Ursins and the
 
 XII.] Philip V, 1700 — 1714. 323 
 
 Spaniards Ursinos. She was an epitome of political knowledge 
 and court-procedure, and soon ol)tained complete dominion 
 over the Queen and her young husband. Philip left his bride 
 behind him, to his grief and hers — for they were already 
 deeply in love with each other — and sailed from Barcelona for 
 Naples in April 1702, whilst the Queen slowly journeyed 
 through Cataluna and Aragon to Madrid. Nothing could 
 exceed the diligence and ability with which this girl of fourteen 
 superintended the government in Madrid during the absence 
 of her husband. Instead of the round of dull devotion and 
 idle entertainments with which other Queen-Consorts had filled 
 their lives, she, with the wise old Princess of Ursinos at her 
 side, was untiring in her application to work. She would sign 
 nothing until she understood it. She insisted upon all com- 
 plaints being investigated and reports made to her. Supplies 
 of men and money for the war in which Philip was engaged 
 were collected and remitted with a regularity unequalled for 
 years past. The manners of the Court were reformed; im- 
 morality, so long rampant in Madrid, was frowned at, and 
 instead of the news of the wars in which Spain was engaged 
 slowly filtering from the gossips of the palace to the streets, the 
 Queen herself read from the balcony to the people below the 
 despatches she received from her absent husband. She did 
 more in the way of administrative reform than any of her 
 predecessors, but as yet she could only administer things 
 as she found them, and, as we have seen, the root of the 
 governmental system itself was vicious. Portocarrero and his 
 Council were extremely unpopular, and the Austrian party was 
 busy intriguing, so that the brave young Queen was heavily 
 handicapped and was necessarily guided by the Princess of 
 Ursinos, whose task it was to bend Spain to the will and 
 interest of Louis XIV. But the Spaniards were suspicious 
 and hated foreigners. During Philip's absence from Madrid 
 Louis instructed his ambassador Marsin cautiously to broach 
 the cession of Flanders to France. Spain had no money, he
 
 324 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 said, to pay for the war in Italy, and as a last resource he had 
 to meet all the expense. It was not just that he should do so 
 without some return. The King was easily persuaded, but the 
 proposal got wind and a perfect storm of protest from the 
 country caused it to be shelved for the present. 
 
 Meanwhile Prince Eugene had been operating against the 
 French in Northern Italy, besieging Mantua and Cremona, but 
 with indefinite results except the capture of Marshal Villeroy ; 
 while the rebellion in Naples in favour of the Archduke, which 
 had broken out and been partly suppressed in September 1701, 
 still smouldered. Philip V arrived at Naples with a fleet of 
 28 French vessels on the i6th April, 1702, and found the city 
 seething with revolutionary excitement, which his ardent 
 attempts to conciliate the Neapolitans were insufficient entirely 
 to allay. Thence the King travelled to his dukedom of Milan 
 (June 1702) and with an army of 30,000 men, assisted by the 
 Duke of Vendome and Count Aguilar, he crossed the Po 
 in July, defeating on its banks an imperial force collected 
 to oppose him. On the 15th August the two armies met 
 in a great battle near Luzzara, where Prince Eugene unsuc- 
 cessfully attempted to surprise the French. The losses on 
 both sides were great, but the advantage was unquestionably 
 in favour of the Bourbon army. Philip in this and other 
 subsequent engagements bore himself with great gallantry, and 
 by the end of the campaign he had the satisfaction of seeing 
 the imperialists cut off from communication with the north 
 although Prince Eugene himself left for Vienna to be made 
 Minister of War. Philip V was back in Milan on his way to 
 Spain by the end of September 1702, a prey already, young as 
 he was, to the hypochondriacal melancholy which subsequently 
 engulphed him. He was a brave and ardent lad, but the task 
 imposed upon him was far beyond his capability and he 
 eventually sank beneath it. The evil traditions which were 
 ruining Spain had, indeed, now struck so deep that no one man 
 however gifted could have remedied them, much less a young
 
 XII.] Philip V, 1700 — 1714. 325 
 
 foreigner of no great ability. Troubles were thickening around 
 Spain on all sides. The league between England, Holland, 
 Denmark, Austria, and the new kingdom of Prussia was now 
 complete : England was to furnish two-thirds of the naval force, 
 and one-third of the troops required by the allies, and in the 
 case of victory, the Archduke Charles was to have Spain and 
 the Indies, most of Flanders was to have been annexed to 
 Holland, whilst England was to enjoy free commerce with 
 America, and retain any coast places she might capture. 
 
 A contingent of 10,000 men under Marlborough was sent 
 to the Rhine (1702), and King William was himself preparing 
 to follow when he suddenly died. Marlborough, however, was 
 instructed to assure Holland and the Empire that Anne would 
 respect the engagements entered into by her predecessor. In 
 Spain the enemies of the Bourbons were busy. The Admiral 
 of Castile (Melgar^), one of the prime advisers of the two 
 former German Queens, and many grandees of the highest rank 
 were in close communication with the allies; the dismissed 
 Hesse-Darmstadt — now a grandee of Spain — was plotting in 
 Lisbon, and between them they proposed that the English and 
 Dutch fleets should surprise Cadiz. In July 1702, fifty ships 
 under Sir George Rooke, with 12,000 men commanded by the 
 Duke of Ormond, suddenly sailed into the bay and summoned 
 the city to submit to King Charles HI. As had happened in 
 1587 and 1596, the place, and indeed all the coast of Andalucia, 
 were practically defenceless : 300 men only were in the garrison 
 and the walls were crumbling beneath the rusty guns. There 
 were no munitions of war and no naval force, and the whole 
 south of Spain was apparently at the mercy of the enemy. But 
 fortunately for the Spaniards there was no Drake, or Howard, or 
 Ralegh, on the English fleet this time. Whilst the commanders 
 
 ^ Juan Tomas Enriquez de Cabrera, Count de Melgar, and after 
 his father's death, seventh Duke of Medina de Rio Seco, in whose family 
 the Admiralty of Castile was hereditary. Melgar died in Portugal in 1705 
 and the hereditary post of admiral then became extinct.
 
 326 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 were wrangling over the plan of attack and sacking coast 
 villages, the brave heart of the little "Savoyarde" in Madrid 
 was shaming the slothful Spaniards into action. Unless they 
 moved more quickly she told them she herself would start on 
 the morrow and arouse Andalucia. Her jewels and valuables 
 were offered for the national defence, and lier eloquence 
 spurred Portocarrero and others to make similar sacrifices. 
 Archbishops gave their revenues, nobles their lands, the people 
 their poor savings, and soon Andalucia was in arms. A great 
 silver fleet of 13 galleons with a convoy of 23 Spanish and 
 French ships on its way to Spain heard that Cadiz was 
 threatened by enemies and took refuge in Vigo. Whilst 
 Andalucia was arming the English before Cadiz learnt the 
 news and sailed away to Vigo. There they forced the harbour, 
 and Chateau Renaud, the French admiral, was overpowered. 
 Nine of the galleons were captured and the rest sunk, and all 
 the convoy captured or destroyed. A part of the treasure had 
 already been landed and was seized by the government, but 
 most of it fell into the hands of the English, and the loss 
 crippled Philip sadly. 
 
 When the young Kmg arrived in Madrid from Italy 
 (January 1703), the nobles who sided with the Austrians 
 had cast off the mask and had fled, and the forces for and 
 against him were ranged at home and abroad. He acted with 
 spirit and decision beyond his years, taking into his own hands 
 the wliole management of affairs, to the exclusion even of 
 Portocarrero, and daring moreover to resent and check the 
 haughty interference of the new French ambassador Cardinal 
 d'Estrees, who had replaced Marsin. The Cardinal thought 
 that he had been sent to govern Spain and began by offending 
 Portocarrero and the rest of the Spanish ministers. He then 
 objected to the influence of the Princess of Ursinos and 
 managed to set Louis XIV against her. Louis wrote an 
 angry letter to his grandson, directing him to depend entirely 
 upon D'Estrdes and Portocarrero, and to abandon the manage-
 
 XII.] Philip V, 1700 — 1714. 327 
 
 meat of affairs himself. But the Princess outwitted the 
 diplomatists and the old King ; placed herself in the position of 
 the injured party, and instead of being driven out of Spain, as 
 was intended, had to be prayed by Louis as a favour to stay 
 where she was. 
 
 Thenceforward for a time she was almost supreme, and 
 independent of Louis XIV. Portocarrero and Archbishop 
 Arias retired ; d'Estrees returned to France, and the ministers 
 who surrounded the King, Count Montellano and the Marquis 
 de Canales, were deep in the confidence of the Princess. Very 
 gradually, and amidst constant jealousy and intrigues between 
 French and Spanish, some sort of order was introduced into 
 the financial management of the country. The lavish traditions 
 of favouritism which had grown up under the later Habsburgs 
 were superseded, old irrecoverable arrears of taxes which kept 
 land out of cultivation were remitted. The administration of 
 justice was simplified, a large number of special tribunals 
 abolished ; the monastic orders were regulated, and limited in 
 numbers; and many small measures of interior reform were 
 introduced, not on the recommendation of the Cortes — for 
 they were not called — but by edict of the King after enquiry 
 into petitions laid before him by men of standing or know- 
 ledge. But Spain was now fighting the allies nearly all over 
 Europe, in union with the Empire ; and most of Philip's time 
 and thoughts were taken up in the difficult task of raising men 
 and money from his exhausted country. He completely re- 
 organised the army; introduced the French system and tactics, 
 armed his infantry with bayonets on their muskets, abolished 
 the golilla or stiff curved collar, formed squadrons of dragoons 
 to act as mounted infantry, and companies of grenadiers. 
 Poor as the country was, the example of the King and his 
 wife infused some spirit into the people ; and in an incredibly 
 short space of time, Philip had a good force of 30,000 infantry 
 and 10,000 cavalry on the frontier of Portugal, the King of 
 which country had joined the great alliance against him.
 
 328 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Considerable forces were also sent to Flanders and Italy, and 
 once more Spain showed that, though misgovernment had 
 brought her down, her spirit had not been entirely crushed. 
 Some of Philip's success must in fairness be given to Orry, the 
 French financier who was bringing into order, with infinite 
 patience and skill, the monetary affairs of the country. There 
 were no lavish favourites to squander pensions to adherents, 
 no bombastic and inflated corruption to intercept funds before 
 they reached the treasury, and the only people who complained 
 were those whose pay, pensions and emoluments, had been 
 stopped. These formed a large and powerful class in Madrid 
 and the chief cities, and from them the supporters of the 
 Austrian were principally drawn. 
 
 Meanwhile the war had been going on with varying success 
 elsewhere. In 1702 Marlborough had driven Boufilers as far 
 south as Cologne on the Rhine, and Liege on the Meuse, 
 and in the following year he completed the conquest of the 
 Electorate of Cologne by taking Bonn, Huy, and Limburg, 
 whilst, on the other hand, the French under Villars and the 
 Elector of Bavaria had beaten the aUies at Hochstadt (Sep- 
 tember 1703). The unstable Duke of Savoy had been drawn 
 away from the side of the French King and his son-in-law 
 Philip, and joined the aUies against them, receiving the in- 
 vestiture of Montferrat as the reward of his apostasy. But 
 the main result of the fighting in the two years had been 
 to reduce the Emperor to a condition almost as abject as that 
 of his late Spanish kinsmen. The Hungarian rebels were at 
 the gates of Vienna, and the victory gained by Marshal Tallard 
 over the Prince of Hesse laid open the road to the French on 
 the other. It was then that the genius of Prince Eugene and 
 Marlborough shone brightest, and plucked victory out of 
 defeat. The story is told vividly by Eugene himself in his 
 memoirs, and cannot be repeated here, but it will suffice to say 
 that Marlborough, acting in concert with Eugene, followed the 
 course of the Rhine and Necker, reached the Danube near
 
 XII.] Philip V, 1700 — 1 7 14. 329 
 
 Ulm, where he joined Prince Louis of Baden (22 June, 1704), 
 and stormed the heights of Schellenberg on the 2nd July. 
 Thus he mastered the course of the Danube, with the exception 
 of Ulm and Ingoldstadt. On the nth August Marlborough 
 and Eugene joined, and together (13 August, 1704) attacked the 
 Bavarians and French under the Elector and Marshal Tallard, 
 at Blenheim. Marlborough with the English and Dutch 
 commanded the left wing, and Eugene with the Austrians the 
 right. The result, mainly owing to the skill of Eugene and 
 Marlborough, was the utter rout of the French. Tallard was 
 taken prisoner, and 40,000 men out of the 60,000 French and 
 Bavarians were captured or disabled. This drove the French 
 out of Germany, cowed the Hungarians, and placed Bavaria at 
 the Emperor's mercy. 
 
 But in Spain matters of even greater direct interest were 
 taking place. The Archduke had visited Holland and England, 
 and had been received in both countries as Charles HI of 
 Spain. An English and Dutch squadron under Sir George 
 Rooke, with 14,000 men, conveyed Charles to Lisbon, where 
 he disembarked with royal honours (4 May, 1704) surrounded 
 by the Spanish grandees who had espoused his cause. The 
 intention was to invade Spain rapidly in union with the 
 Portuguese army of 28,000 men, in the hope that discon- 
 tented Spaniards would join them. But Portugal was un- 
 ready, and in the meanwhile, with an activity new to Spain, 
 troops from Flanders, Milan, and elsewhere had been concen- 
 trated on the Portuguese frontier to the number of 40,000 men, 
 under the Duke of Berwick, natural son of James H. Philip V 
 joined him from Madrid, and invaded Portugal from Alcantara 
 (May 1704) simultaneously with movements on the north 
 under the Marquis de las Minas, and on the south under 
 Tilly. Place after place fell almost without a blow. With 
 hardly a check the Spanish force overran the greater part of 
 Portugal, until the heat became too great for the continuance 
 of the campaign, when (July 1704) Philip returned to Madrid
 
 330 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 after demolishing the fortresses of Portalegre, Castel Davide 
 and Montalvan, whilst Berwick joined the force operating in 
 the northern province of Beira. An English fleet commanded 
 by Rooke sailed from Lisbon with Hesse- Darmstadt and 4,000 
 men on board, and attacked Barcelona, but without success, 
 as the Catalans, for the moment, were loyal ; a similar result 
 attended another squadron which threatened the coasts of 
 Andalucia. But Rooke's fleet on its way back called in at 
 Gibraltar. The fortress was neglected, and there were only 
 100 men in garrison. The place capitulated with but little 
 difficulty (July 23, 1704), and the gate of the Mediterranean 
 became an English possession. 
 
 A powerful French fleet of 52 vessels had been concentrat- 
 ing at Toulon to oppose the EngHsh in the Mediterranean, and 
 on receiving news of the capture of Gibraltar sailed under the 
 Count de Toulouse, natural son of Louis XIV, but after an 
 indecisive engagement before Malaga (24 August, 1704) were 
 driven back to port by Cloudesley Shovell, and thenceforward 
 during the war the English and Dutch remained masters of the 
 sea. A desperate attempt of the Spaniards under Villadarias 
 and the French under Tesse to recover Gibraltar also failed 
 (February 1705), and Tesse was recalled. In the absence 
 of Philip on the Portuguese frontier the Princess of Ursinos 
 had at last succumbed to French intrigue against her (1704) 
 and had retired to Toulouse on the threat of Louis XIV that if 
 she did not do so immediately he would abandon Spain and 
 his grandson to their fate. The instructions of the Duke de 
 Grammont, the new French ambassador to Spain, were that he 
 was to make a clean sweep of all the friends of the Princess 
 and obtain control of the government. But Louis had under- 
 rated the power and ability of Marie Louise, who deeply 
 deplored the banishment of the Princess. Marshal Berwick 
 resented Grammont' s interference and retired. Orry, the 
 finance minister, was sent back to France, the Spanish minis- 
 ters were dismissed, and the obedient servants of France, the
 
 XII.] Philip V, 1700— 17 14. 331 
 
 Duke of Montalto, Counts Monterey and Mancera, Arch- 
 bishop Arias, and their like, were, restored to office. But the 
 young Queen took no pains to hide her opposition to the 
 change. Louis sent scolding letters to her upon her presump- 
 tion in wishing, "at the age of 18 to govern a vast disorganised 
 monarchy," against the advice of those so much older and 
 wiser than herself; but, at last recognising the uselessness of 
 openly opposing the wishes of Marie Louise, he took the wiser 
 course of conciliating and re-enlisting the offended Princess of 
 Ursinos. In vain his representatives in Madrid warned him 
 that she could not be trusted to serve J'rench interests blindly. 
 She was too clever and strong to be ignored, and was invited 
 to Versailles, given carte blatiche, and returned in triumph to 
 Madrid (August 1705). Orry was sent back to Spain, Gram- 
 mont was recalled to France, and once more the triumphant 
 Mistress of the Robes governed the Queen, the Queen governed 
 the King, and the King was supposed to govern the country, 
 whilst the Spanish nobles, in jealous gloom or fuming dis- 
 content, looked on at the foreign intrigues which were juggling 
 with the destinies of Spain. 
 
 During the year 1705 the English and Portuguese had been 
 carrying the war over the border into Spain, but with no 
 permanent result. In the autumn they besieged Badajoz 
 with a strong force under General Lord Galway, but Marshal 
 Tesse came up just in time to relieve the place and the allies 
 retired, Galway being wounded in the fight (15th October, 
 1705. The Earl of Peterborough also arrived in Lisbon with 
 12,000 men, and with a considerable fleet reduced a number 
 of places on the Spanish coast. Hesse-Darmstadt joined them 
 at Gibraltar, and in August 1705 they landed a strong force at 
 Denia on the Valencian coast. Already the kingdom of 
 Valencia was ready for revolt, and Charles III was pro- 
 claimed King of Spain amidst the plaudits of the people. 
 Brushing aside the attempt to restrain tliem the forces of the 
 allies marched to Valencia, largely reinforced by disaffected
 
 332 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Spaniards, and were received throughout the kingdom with 
 enthusiasm. In the meanwhile the fleet had pushed on to 
 Barcelona, where the Austrian King Charles III landed with 
 Peterborough and Hesse-Darmstadt. The Catalans were 
 " Austrians" now almost to a man ; the Viceroy Velasco in 
 the city was short of men and material, and was soon sur- 
 rounded by land and sea. On the 14th September, 1705, an 
 attempt was made to storm Monjuich by Hesse-Darmstadt 
 and Peterborough simultaneously, in which the former com- 
 mander was killed. The bombardment was kept up on the 
 following days, and on the 17th a bomb exploded the magazine 
 of Monjuich, which fortress then fell into the hands of the 
 allies. From this point of vantage the attack upon the devoted 
 city was redoubled and for a fortnight the terrible destruction 
 continued unabated. On the 3rd October, Peterborough gave 
 Velasco five hours in which to surrender the place, which it 
 was seen could hold out no longer. Whilst Peterborough was 
 arranging with the Viceroy the terms of the capitulation, 
 the Catalan citizens rose against the Neapolitan and Spanish 
 soldiers, and a terrible massacre occurred. The country 
 people in the suburbs joined the citizens, and the German 
 troops under the Archduke entered the walls at the same time. 
 Peterborough, indignant at the action of his allies, whilst he — 
 the commander-in-chief — was negotiating, offered to restore 
 order and save the lives of the Viceroy and the Bourbon 
 troops. He chivalrously kept his word, restoring the plunder 
 taken by his German allies, and escorting the Spaniards in 
 safety to the boats. When all was over, and the English 
 troops had mastered disorder, Charles III of Spain, the 
 Austrian Archduke, entered the Catalan capital in state, and 
 received the oath of allegiance as sovereign Count of Barcelona 
 (5 November, 1705). By the end of the year all Valencia and 
 Cataluha and part of Aragon had thrown off the yoke of the 
 Bourbon King, and rapine and anarchy reigned supreme over 
 the war-swept provinces. Whilst this was happening in Spain
 
 XII.] Philip V, 1700— 1714. 333 
 
 the Bourbon cause had prospered for the moment in Northern 
 Italy, Prince Eugene having been forced back by Vendome 
 into the Tyrol after the battles of Cassano and Cassinato; 
 whilst Villars succeeded in preventing Marlborough from 
 penetrating into Lorraine, the English general being confined 
 to Flanders, where he endeavoured to raise the siege of Liege, 
 which place was invested by Villeroy. In the following year 
 1706 (23 May) Marlborough vanquished Villeroy at the great 
 battle of Ramillies, driving the French to Brussels with a loss 
 of 13,000 killed. This led to the occupation of Brabant and 
 most of Spanish Flanders by the allies, Ostend itself falling 
 after only ten days' siege. The Bourbon cause was now (1706) 
 as unfortunate in Italy, where Prince Eugene at length suc- 
 ceeded in effecting a junction with Savoy, and at Turin (Sept. 
 7) completely routed the French under Marsin and the Duke 
 of Orleans, the French and Bourbon troops thereupon retiring 
 from Northern Italy by an arrangement with the Emperor. 
 
 The great interest in the struggle was thus centered in Spain. 
 Philip and his Queen were well-nigh at their wits' end. The 
 discontent of the Spanish nobles in the capital had come to a 
 head, and they had, through the Duke of Medina-Celi, remon- 
 strated against the exclusively French influence which sur- 
 rounded the King, demanding that the French ambassador 
 should not sit at the Council, and that affairs should be de- 
 spatched as formerly by a Spanish Secretary of State. But 
 when the complaining nobles themselves were invited to 
 take charge of affairs they refused. Most of their order in 
 Valencia, Aragon and Cataluna, had declared for the Austrian, 
 and those who still stood by the Bourbons were sulky at the 
 complete loss of the pay, pensions, and plunder which they 
 had enjoyed under the former Austrian regime. The struggle 
 for Philip's crown had reached its acute stage. All the east 
 of Spain had thrown off his allegiance ; and the south was 
 almost ready to do so. To whom could he turn but to the 
 France that had sent him on his difficult errand ? He and his
 
 334 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 young wife had tried their best to be Spanish first and French 
 afterwards, but if Spaniards stood aloof in suspicion of them, 
 then upon Louis XIV they must lean. And they did so. 
 "To your Majesty," wrote Philip, "after God I owe my crown. 
 You will not let the sceptre be torn from the hands in which 
 you have placed it, nor will you allow me to be sent back to 
 France a discrowned King." He would, he said, himself 
 head his army to recover Cataluna, and begged his grandfather 
 to advise and help him in this supreme crisis of his fortunes. 
 Marie Louise, too, humbled herself before the French King, 
 and promised to be guided in her regency only by the French 
 ambassador Amelot. All the French troops that could be 
 spared from the Portuguese frontier were withdrawn, Marshal 
 Berwick remaining there on the defensive with such fresh 
 Spanish levies as could be raised; and Philip, with immense 
 difficulty, at last found himself at the head of a force suf- 
 ficiently strong to march on Cataluna, under the guidance of 
 Marshal Tesse. He left Madrid in February 1706 with 20,000 
 men and marched through disaffected Aragon towards rebel 
 Cataluna. The plan agreed upon was for the King's army to 
 attack Barcelona direct from Aragon, whilst at the same time 
 the Duke de Noailles with a French force advanced upon the 
 city from the north, and the Count de Toulouse blockaded 
 it by sea. The Austrian King retired behind the walls of 
 Barcelona, and the bombardment began in April, the King 
 himself remaining in the midst of the operations. The Arch- 
 duke inside had but a small garrison, but the whole province 
 was in his favour, and the savage Catalan guerilleros left the 
 Bourbon besiegers no peace, while even the women and boys 
 in the city made frequent determined sallies against the French 
 army. At length on the 7th May, when Philip had gained the 
 outworks, and was about to capture the city, the English fleet 
 appeared and Toulouse fled. Eight thousand fresh troops 
 were landed for the Archduke, and as a crowning disaster news 
 came to Philip that the allies had beaten the Spaniards on the
 
 XII.] Philip V, 1700— 1 7 14. 335 
 
 Portuguese frontier and were marching on Madrid. Escape 
 was the only alternative. But how ? All Aragon behind the 
 King was in semi-revolt ; and Philip had the humiliation of 
 stealing away into France, leaving behind him all his baggage, 
 guns and stores. From Perpignan Philip travelled rapidly by 
 Narbonne, Toulouse, and Pau, into Navarre, and so to 
 Madrid, where he arrived heartbroken and well-nigh despairing 
 on the 6th June. But even there no repose was vouchsafed to 
 him. Marshal Berwick was in full retreat before the aUies 
 under the Earl of Galway, and the Marquis de las Minas 
 and the King and his Court fled to Burgos (20 June). With 
 marvellous rapidity the allies marched from Salamanca, and a 
 few days after Philip V had disappeared. Charles III was 
 proclaimed with all pomp King of Spain in the capital of the 
 realm, amidst the gloomy silence of the Madrilenos. The rest 
 of the cities of Castile which were occupied by the allied 
 troops followed the example of Madrid, offering only a tacit 
 opposition to the new King, but all Castile outside the reach 
 of the English muskets stood faithful to Philip. 
 
 But Berwick in the meanwhile was not idle. He had already 
 made Galway's communications difficult; and now with con- 
 siderable reinforcements from Navarre he advanced to attack 
 the allies in Madrid. Philip shook himself out of the melan- 
 choly which had prompted him to listen to suggestions for his 
 embarcation for America, and again became energetic. The 
 allies evacuated Madrid, and fled on Berwick's approach to 
 Alcala, where they were joined by Charles III and Peter- 
 borough. But disorganization had seized them, and they 
 made no stand at Alcala, but retreated into the kingdom of 
 Valencia ; and Philip entered his capital again amidst the joy 
 of his people (October 1706). In Valencia Charles III was 
 still supreme. The Marquis of Santa Cruz, admiral of the 
 Spanish galleys, joined Charles and delivered to him the 
 arsenal of Cartagena; and more important still, Aragon at last 
 decided to break with the Bourbons, and the Austrian King
 
 336 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 was proclaimed in Zaragoza (July 1706). Thenceforward the 
 war raged with varying fortunes. Cartagena was recaptured 
 by Count Mahony, but the allies took the Balearic Isles 
 for Charles. Alcantara was again taken by the Bourbon 
 troops, but Naples declared in favour of Charles (May 1707). 
 Alicante, which had held out so long for PhiUp, now fell into 
 the hands of the allies, and through the whole of the kingdom 
 of Valencia the war was pursued with vigour, particularly by 
 Berwick, who commanded Philip's forces. It may be said 
 generally that, so far as Spain was concerned, the beginning of 
 1707 marked a great change in favour of Philip's cause. The 
 two Castiles, Navarre, the Basque provinces, most of Andalucia 
 and Estremadura, had now definitely and vigorously espoused 
 the cause of the Bourbon, and had spared no sacrifice to help 
 it. Whatever may have been Philip's failings, his name of 
 "El animoso" (The Spirited) was well deserved, and his bravery 
 and activity in the excitement of war had touched a sympa- 
 thetic chord in the hearts of his people. Money that had been 
 hoarded for years was brought out for him. Men who might 
 well have avoided the hardships and dangers of war eagerly 
 joined his standard, and almost the last ducat to be obtained 
 in the towns of Castile was cheerfully lavished in his service. 
 Philip knew now who were his friends and who were his 
 enemies. The sulky nobles in Madrid who had welcomed the 
 Austrian were banished or had fled, the Queen-Dowager was 
 packed off to Bayonne, and the struggle had become localised. 
 It was all Spain against the East and North-East : the Gothic- 
 Celt-Iberians against the men of Romance blood. 
 
 Spain had lost the Milanese by the retirement of the 
 Bourbon troops from North Italy. But bitter as had been the 
 blow to her, the armies withdrawn were welcome as reinforce 
 ments for the defence of Spain itself. In the spring of 1707 it 
 was seen that the critical battle was approaching. Berwick 
 with the Bourbon army was at Almansa, endeavouring to avoid 
 an engagement until the new French army from Italy under
 
 XII.] Philip V, 1700 — 1714. 3S7 
 
 the Duke of Orleans should approach; whilst Galway and 
 Las Minas were trying to force a battle. Berwick's force was 
 weak, especially in infantry, but the Spanish officers under him 
 were chafing at his necessary inaction, and murmuring that his 
 English blood was stronger than his Spanish loyalty. Suddenly, 
 on the 25th April 1707, Galway attacked Berwick's army. 
 Everything was in favour of the allies, but the gallantry of the 
 Spanish cavalry and Berwick's dash turned the tide when the 
 victory of the allies seemed assured, and the English and 
 German troops were routed with great slaughter. The victory 
 was complete: 12,000 prisoners were taken by Berwick and 
 5,000 of the allies were killed, whilst the Spanish loss only 
 amounted to 2,000 men. The battle of Almansa gave Spain 
 to the Bourbons. Berwick was made a grandee of Spain, with 
 the dukedom now borne by his lineal descendant the Duke of 
 Alba, and was decorated with the Golden Fleece : it was 
 evident that the greater part of Spain preferred the Frenchman, 
 and this battle practically confined the Austrian to the princi- 
 pality of Cataluna. Zaragoza and the rest of Aragon did not 
 long resist the combined armies of Berwick and Orleans. 
 
 The autonomy of the Aragonese, so stubbornly held in the 
 past, those privileges which even Philip II, with all his power, 
 dared only sap stealthily, were abolished by a stroke of the 
 pen by Philip V, thanks to the victorious armies of Frenchmen 
 which crushed the ancient kingdom under their iron heels. 
 The French cause in Germany also prospered under Villars. 
 Marshal Tesse forced Prince Eugene to raise the siege of 
 Toulon and retire beyond the Alps into Italy again ; but 
 Marlborough in the Netherlands held Vendome on the de- 
 fensive. Early in the following year 1708 Admiral Leake with 
 a British squadron reduced the island of Sardinia — a Spanish 
 possession — and the Moors captured the fortress of Oran, which 
 for centuries had been held by Spanish arms. But in the 
 Netherlands the Bourbons received a crushing blow in 1708. 
 Vendome had been joined by a French force, nominally 
 
 H. s. 22
 
 338 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 led by the Duke of Burgundy, the eldest son of the Dauphin ; 
 and Ghent and Bruges opened their gates to him. Marl- 
 borough, who was waiting for Prince Eugene, placed himself 
 between them and Brussels, to protect the capital, but per- 
 ceiving that Vendome was about to besiege Oudenarde, he 
 determined to attack him at once. By a rapid march he 
 crossed the Dender and secured Lessines, and forced the 
 French across the Scheldt. Cadogan held the passage of the 
 Scheldt at Oudenarde, and, thanks to dissensions between 
 Vendome and Burgundy, was able to surprise and destroy the 
 French advance. The superior generalship of Marlborough 
 completely routed the main body, 9,000 Frenchmen escaping 
 to France, and the rest of the survivors taking refuge in Ghent 
 (11 July 1708). Marlborough followed up the victory by 
 capturing Lille (22 October 1708), Ghent, and Bruges (De- 
 cember), and practically driving the Bourbon force out of 
 what had been Spanish Flanders. The winter was a terrible 
 one, and the resources of France were well-nigh exhausted. 
 There was no adequate force between the victorious troops of 
 Marlborough and Eugene, and the gates of Paris. By a great 
 effort the Emperor Joseph had sent a fresh army under Starem- 
 berg to aid his brother in Cataluna, and the English parliament 
 had voted a million sterling to carry on the war vigorously. 
 Louis had in 1706 made overtures of peace, on terms which 
 would secure Spain and the Indies to the Austrian, Flanders 
 to the Dutch, whilst Philip was to receive Milan, Naples and 
 Sicily. This would have suited the Dutch; but neither the 
 Emperor nor the English would agree to it. After the dis- 
 astrous campaign of Oudenarde, Louis was again forced to sue 
 for peace (spring, 1709). This time he offered to surrender the 
 whole Spanish succession, but as Philip had just caused his 
 infant son Luis to receive the oath of allegiance from the 
 Cortes as heir to the Spanish Crown, the allies, not unnatur- 
 ally, demanded some guarantee that Louis XIV would insist 
 upon his grandson's renunciation of the Spanish Crown. This
 
 xii.] Philip V, 1700 — 1 7 14. 339 
 
 he refused — indeed it is almost certain that the proposal itself 
 was only a feint to gain time, and divide the allies — and the 
 war consequently re-commenced. 
 
 Marlborough and Eugene held most of Flanders, but Mons 
 in Hainault was still in the hands of the French, closely be- 
 leaguered by the allies. Villars advanced from Valenciennes to 
 relieve the place. He had to cross a wooded ridge by an open 
 gap between two forests. Here Marlborough met him (11 
 September 1709), and the superior generalship of the English- 
 man enabled him, though repeatedly repulsed, completely 
 to rout Villars, the only French marshal he had not already 
 vanquished. This battle of Malplaquet was the most deadly 
 in the i8th century, no less than 40,000 men being returned 
 as killed and wounded, and Mons and the rest of Hainault 
 fell into the hands of the alUes. In Spain itself the war was 
 almost at a standstill. The jealousy between the French and 
 Spanish troops had reached such a point that, in the autumn of 
 1709, they were nearly attacking each other, and the important 
 fortress of Balaguer in Cataluna had been lost in consequence. 
 Bezons, the French marshal, was even accused of plotting to 
 come to terms with the allies and place the Duke of Orleans, 
 Philip's cousin, on the throne of Aragon. This feeling, added 
 to the critical condition of France, decided Louis to adopt a 
 fresh policy, in union with Philip. The latter affected to free 
 himself entirely from French tutelage, and to depend upon 
 Spanish support alone. The capital was already in revolt 
 against the interference of French ministers in the government 
 and even against the Princess of Ursinos. Amelot, the French 
 ambassador, was driven out of Spain, and barely escaped with 
 his life, whilst the Princess faithfully promised to abstain in 
 future from all political action. In September 1709 Philip 
 hurriedly left Madrid to join the army in Cataluna, and, in 
 pursuance of his new policy, sent most of the Frenchmen with 
 Marshal Bezons back to France, the Spanish Count de Aguilar 
 remaining in supreme command. The patriotic pro-Spanish
 
 340 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 nobles Medina Celi, Ronquillo and Bedmar were entrusted 
 with the government, on the advice of Portocarrero, who died 
 shortly afterwards, and for a time all went smoothly. But it 
 soon became evident that in secret Philip was as much swayed 
 by French influence as ever, and that the Spanish ministers 
 were merely figure-heads to beguile the public, and had no 
 power over the government. The improvement in finance and 
 administration introduced by the French, which alone had 
 rendered a continuance of the war possible, soon began to 
 fall away when left to the hands of Spanish administrators, 
 whose traditions and instincts were opposed to the new 
 system ; and but for the secret help of the Princess, and 
 Philip's Italian favourite the Marquis of Grimaldo, the 
 government of the State would have broken down com- 
 pletely. 
 
 Affairs had indeed reached a condition in the spring of 
 17 lo, that made it vital, both for France and Spain, that a 
 cessation of the war should be arranged, on almost any terms. 
 The characteristic course adopted by Louis was again to try 
 to convince the allies that a complete separation had taken 
 place between France and Spain, whilst secretly assuring Philip 
 that he should not be abandoned. Most of the remaining 
 French regiments were withdrawn from Spain, their places 
 being filled by Walloons and Frenchmen enlisted indepen- 
 dently under the Spanish flag. Louis began by approaching 
 the Elector of Bavaria and the Dutch, to the latter of whom he 
 offered the four strong places in the Netherlands still held for 
 Philip, namely Luxembourg, Namur, Charleroi, and Nieuport. 
 When Philip himself was informed of the proposal he violently 
 protested against it in the name of Spain ; but Holland was 
 diverted from the separate treaty by the rest of the allies, who 
 offered better terms. Louis, however, begged for peace so 
 earnestly, that a conference was finally held at Gertruydenberg 
 (March 17 10), where he offered to recognise Charles as King 
 of Spain and the Indies, leaving to Philip only Sicily and
 
 xil] Philip V, 1700 — 1 7 14. 341 
 
 Sardinia. He consented also to withdraw all aid from his 
 grandson, to allow the troops of the allies to march through 
 France for the subjugation of Spain, and even to contribute a 
 million livres a month to the cost of their campaign. But 
 nobody believed in Louis XIV now ; and the conference came 
 to nothing, Philip loudly protesting during the whole course of 
 the proceedings that, under no circumstances, would he sur- 
 render any part of his dominions — except Jamaica to the 
 English in exchange for Minorca, and Sardinia to the Duke of 
 Savoy in exchange for Lombardy. 
 
 When peace was found to be impossible, both Louis and 
 Philip made another vigorous effort to carry on the war. The 
 pride of the Spaniards, especially, was aroused. The whole of 
 Philip's forces for the first time were placed under the com- 
 mand of a Spaniard (Aguilar) and the youth of Spain once 
 more flocked to the standards. Louis XIV and his family 
 sacrificed even their household plate and jewels, and, by the 
 summer of 17 10, five fresh French armies were in the field. 
 Villars was again in Flanders, Harcourt on the Rhine, the 
 Duke of Berwick in Dauphine, B^/ons in Cataluna, and 
 Noailles in Roussillon. 
 
 Philip had in Cataluna a larger and more homogeneous 
 force than at any previous time. The bellicose loyalty of 
 Spain had been touched by the King's patriotic appeal. The 
 harvest had been an abundant one, the silver fleet from 
 New Spain had arrived intact and unusually rich, and when 
 Philip took the field in May 1710 he assumed the personal 
 command of his troops, full of hope and determined to hold 
 his crown in despite of all. His perplexities nevertheless were 
 many. His best general Aguilar had deserted him in conse- 
 quence of some dispute with the Queen, and the Prime 
 Minister Medina Celi had been discovered in communication 
 with the enemy for the recognition of the Archduke, and had 
 been imprisoned in the fortress of Pamplona where he shortly 
 afterwards died.
 
 342 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 Unfortunately Philip selected as his military adviser Villa- 
 darias, who had been beaten in his attempt to recover 
 Gibraltar; a man quite incompetent to conduct military 
 operations on a large scale, especially against generals like 
 Stanhope, Staremberg, and Belcastel. The armies first met at 
 Almansa, on the 13th June, and Philip was forced to retire 
 with considerable loss, owing to a dashing charge of the 
 English cavalry. His next stand was at Lerida, but the 
 unskilfulness of Villadarias allowed that place to be turned, 
 and the King himself had to escape by flight. The armies 
 ultimately met on the heights of Almenara where the Spaniards 
 were completely routed. The King and his army fell back 
 into Aragon, and, on the 20th August, made another stand 
 before Zaragoza, where, notwithstanding the partial success of 
 his right wing, Philip's army was again beaten, and driven in 
 full flight upon Madrid. The Archduke entered Zaragoza in 
 triumph, but on the advice of Stanhope foolishly neglected to 
 take advantage of his opportunity and seize Pamplona, by 
 which means he could have kept the French out of Spain. He 
 preferred to advance on Madrid, which capital he again entered 
 as a conqueror (28th September), the Madrilenos, as before, 
 turning upon him but frowning faces, whilst Philip was 
 vigorously re-organising his army at Casa Tejada. The ad- 
 ministration of Charles during his stay in Madrid was ex- 
 tremely oppressive, and increased the hatred of the people to 
 his cause ; but what aroused the fury of the city most was the 
 sacrilegious attacks upon churches made by the Protestant 
 English and Dutch troops. Soon up to the very gates of the 
 capital Castilian guerrilleros in great numbers harassed the in- 
 vaders, night and day: there was no safety for the "Austrians," 
 even in their quarters, for the stealthy knife or the shot out of 
 the darkness told — even as they did in the Peninsular War 
 a hundred years afterwards — that when Spaniards were too 
 weak to fight they were strong enough to murder. 
 
 In the meanwhile, prayers and entreaties went for help
 
 XII.] Philip V, 1700 — 1714. 343 
 
 from Valladolid, the seat of government, to Versailles. Marie 
 Louise was as brave and determined as ever, and when the 
 King's melancholy threatened to overcome him, she and the 
 Princess of Ursinos aroused him again to his duty as a king. 
 Aguilar nobly rallied to his sovereign again ; and soon Ven- 
 dome crossed the frontier from France with a fine force of 
 cavalry. With 30,000 men, mostly Spanish recruits, he at 
 once marched upon Madrid, where the allies were growing 
 more and more uncomfortable ; for news had reached them 
 that de Noailles was again busy in Catalufia. Their com- 
 munications, moreover, were threatened ; and on the approach 
 of Philip, Charles once more evacuated the capital and re- 
 treated to Barcelona; whilst Stanhope took the road to the 
 Portuguese frontier with 5,000 Englishmen. He was followed 
 and overtaken by Vendome at Brihuega, and forced to sur- 
 render before Staremberg's help could reach him ; and Starem- 
 berg himself was met at Villa- Viciosa by Vendome and com- 
 pletely defeated. He fought well and his retreat was masterly, 
 but Villa-Viciosa practically sealed the fate of Spain. Vendome 
 and PhiUp, with immense activity and all the prestige of 
 victory, pursued Staremberg and the remnants of his force. 
 Aragon submitted to Philip, Gerona fell before the attacks of 
 de Noailles, Tortosa was relieved, and the Portuguese frontier 
 harried by the victorious Spaniards under the Marquis de Bay. 
 The campaign of Vendome in Spain in the winter of 17 10- 11 
 proved that the Austrian Archduke would never be acknow- 
 ledged King of Spain. But an unexpected event provided 
 a solution and changed the whole aspect of affairs. The 
 Emperor Joseph I died in the prime of life, and the Archduke 
 became Emperor. It was as much opposed to the interests of 
 England and Holland that the Emperor should possess the 
 whole Spanish monarchy as that it should fall under the 
 dominion of France. A change of government in England 
 and the defeat of the French in their campaign on the Flemish 
 frontiers in 17 10 facilitated the opening of negotiations for a
 
 344 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 general peace. The first overtures were between England and 
 France alone, and in the autumn of 171 1 the bases of agree- 
 ment were settled, i. The Crowns of France and Spain 
 were never to be united, and to this Philip himself agreed. 
 2. Gibraltar, Minorca, St Kitts, Hudson's Bay and Newfound- 
 land were to be held by England. 3. The fortifications of 
 Dunkirk were to be demolished. 4. A treaty of peace and 
 commerce was to be made. 5. The English were to have a 
 monopoly of the slave trade with America, and 6. Louis was 
 to recognise Queen Anne and the Protestant succession in 
 England. 
 
 In the meanwhile Marlborough, who had captured Bou- 
 chain in September 17 11, was accused by the Tories of 
 peculation and replaced by the Jacobite Ormond, who merely 
 stood on the defensive and left the fighting to Eugene. After 
 infinite difficulty, particularly with regard to the cession of 
 fatal Flanders by Philip to the Elector of Bavaria, the treaties 
 of Utrecht were finally signed by all the powers but the Empire 
 (14 April 1713). The terms agreed upon were to set their 
 mark upon the map of Europe for a century at least and to 
 solve most of the questions which had made Europe a vast 
 camp for the greater part of two hundred years. The Emperor 
 held out until the following year 17 14, when, owing to the 
 defeat of Eugene by Villars at Freiburg and Landau, he was 
 forced to accept the terms agreed upon, and to make the 
 separate treaty of Rastadt in March 1714; whereby the 
 Austrians acquired the Spanish Netherlands, with the excep- 
 tion of the frontier towns, which were to be occupied by the 
 Dutch in accordance with the Barrier Treaty of the previous 
 year, and Gueldres, which had been ceded to Prussia. Austria 
 was also to retain Naples, Milan and Sardinia, Sicily having 
 been ceded to Savoy. All the places on the right bank of 
 the Rhine were returned to the Empire, and Landau was 
 ceded to France. The electors of Bavaria and Cologne were 
 restored to their dominions.
 
 XII.] Philip V, 1700— 1714. 345 
 
 It will be observed that these terms are infinitely less 
 favourable for the allies, and especially for the Emperor, than 
 the offers previously made by Louis ; but the desertion of the 
 confederation by England in consequence of Charles' accession 
 to the Empire, and the fall of the Whig Government in 
 England had changed the position. England's conduct to- 
 wards the Catalans is exceptionally open to criticism, as the 
 whole of their ancient privileges were abolished as a matter of 
 course when they came again under the sway of Philip, 
 although from the first their resistance against him had been 
 exerted on the understanding that in any case the allies should 
 protect them. The whole of Europe, however, was weary of 
 war, Louis XIV was old and failing, and the obstinate ad- 
 herence ot most of Spain to Philip proved that it would be 
 impossible for an Austrian archduke to conquer and hold the 
 country by force. And thus it happened that after an obstinate 
 struggle of eleven years in which all Europe took part, the 
 last will of Charles the Bewitched made a Bourbon King of 
 Spain.
 
 346 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PHILIP V, 1714— I73I. 
 
 During the long continued conferences of Utrecht, Baden 
 and Rastadt, Barcelona held out obstinately against the Duke 
 of Berwick. The Catalans would die, they said, in the breach, 
 but they would never accept the Bourbon for their King. In 
 vain Queen Anne of England urged them to accept Philip's 
 pardon, and enjoy in future the same liberties as the Castilians. 
 This was pouring oil upon the flame, for above all things the 
 stubborn Catalans claimed their almost independent rights. At 
 last (11 September 17 14) the place was stormed by Berwick's 
 troops amidst scenes of hellish carnage. " Kill and burn," 
 was the watchword. Every street corner was a shambles with 
 its great heap of slain, cannon-shot ploughed the streets, and 
 foot by foot the city had to be won. The Catalans sought no 
 quarter but fell where they fought, until at length Berwick gave 
 the command for the city to be burnt. Then the place sur- 
 rendered, and after 13 years of struggle, the most obstinate and 
 deadly in the modern history of Europe, Cataluna was brought 
 back to the fold, shorn of all her privileges, and assimilated to 
 contemned Castile. 
 
 Philip was now really King of Spain for the first time, and 
 at peace with all the world, except nominally with the Emperor. 
 The inheritance of Flanders, which had dragged the dominant 
 country down to ruin, was fortunately gone. The King's energy
 
 Chap. XIII.] Philip V, 1714 — 173 1. 347 
 
 in the wars and his determined adherence to Spain had made 
 him popular with most of his subjects; many of the bad tradi- 
 tions of the house of Austria had disappeared in the years of 
 stress, since Charles the Bewitched had died ; and at this 
 juncture a really able sovereign might have raised Spain 
 gradually to happiness and prosperity. But Philip was not the 
 man. We have seen how, when he was a mere lad, his first 
 temporary separation from his wife had thrown him into a 
 despairing lethargy resembUng insanity. As years had gone 
 on he had become more and more uxorious, and the Queen 
 and the clever old Princess of Ursinos had the most complete 
 dominion over him. Unfortunately the brave little Savoyarde, 
 who had long been ailing, sank at last under the anxieties and 
 fatigues of her position, and died (February 17 14); and Philip 
 was cast on his own resources. The first result was to increase 
 greatly the influence of the Princess. She was the only person 
 allowed to see him, and when he retired to mourn at the 
 palace of Medina Celi, the monks were turned out of a neigh- 
 bouring monastery to acconmiodate the Princess, and a passage 
 was made between the two houses. The gossips very soon 
 began to say that the King was about to marry her, though she 
 was old enough to be his grandmother. It was seen at once 
 that Philip must marry someone without loss of time, or he 
 would lose what wits were left to him, and the marriage- 
 mongers of Europe were promptly on the alert. During his 
 retirement the Princess persuaded him to dismiss Cardinal 
 Giudice, whom he had just made Inquisitor General, and to 
 entrust the principal management of affairs to Orry, the French- 
 man who had done so much to reorganise the finances. 
 
 The Princess and Orry immediately set about completely 
 revolutionising the administration, Ronquillo, who, like 
 many of the Spanish nobles, had opposed Philip's recent 
 edict — confirmed by the Cortes May 1713 — introducing the 
 Salic law into Spain, retired from the presidency of the Council 
 of Castile, and his duties were divided amongst five presidents
 
 348 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 of Councils. Grimaldo remained minister of war and the 
 Indies, but all the others were changed, Orry with the Princess 
 at his back being practically supreme. The result was a still 
 further advance in the administration and collection of the 
 revenues, but there was no reform in the system and incidence of 
 taxation. Almost immediately after the death of the Queen, 
 Philip's confessor Father Robinet and other courtiers began 
 intriguing for the choice of her successor. Louis XIV proposed 
 several princesses, but in the meanwhile the Princess of 
 Ursinos, who was nearer the King than any other person, was 
 settling the matter in her own way. There was in Madrid at 
 the time an ItaUan priest named Alberoni, who represented 
 the Duke of Parma at Philip's court, and had managed to 
 persuade the King that Parma had espoused the cause of the 
 Emperor in the late wars, not from sympathy but from com- 
 pulsion. Alberoni had come to Spain as a sort of clerical 
 buffoon to the coarse-minded Duke of Vendome, and on his 
 patron's death he was sufficiently established to remain. The 
 man was artful, cunning, and absolutely without finer feelings of 
 any sort. The day after the Queen's death he suggested to the 
 Princess of Ursinos the Duke of Parma's niece and step- 
 daughter, Elizabeth Farnese, as the future Queen of Spain. 
 The young princess was the daughter of Dorothea sister of the 
 Queen Dowager of Spain, widow of Charles II; and there was 
 no male heir to the Parmese throne. The proposition com- 
 mended itself to the Princess of Ursinos. This was a chance, 
 she thought, of re-establishing the Spanish footing in Italy, and 
 at the same time obtaining a consort for Philip who would 
 act under her influence. Louis had had other views for his 
 widowed grandson, and did not take kindly to the match, but 
 was grudgingly won over by Chalais the Princess' nephew. 
 Philip himself was as wax in the hands of the Princess, and 
 willingly accepted Elizabeth of Parma as his wife. No time 
 was lost, and, on the i6th September 17 14, Philip was married 
 by proxy in Parma. The connection was welcomed by the
 
 XIII.] Philip V, 17 14 — 1731. 349 
 
 bride's family and by the Pope as a protection against the 
 imperial claims to the suzerainty over Parma and Piacenza, 
 whilst for the reasons already stated it was flattering to Spanish 
 pride. Its principal recommendation, however, in the eyes of 
 the Princess of Ursinos was Alberoni's assurance that Elizabeth 
 was a simple tractable young maiden brought up humbly, who 
 would be a facile instrument in the hands of the masterful old 
 woman who had vicariously ruled Spain since the accession of 
 Philip. 
 
 Alberoni's part was a difficult one to play. He had to 
 keep up an appearance of adhesion to the Princess whilst 
 making plans for her sudden and complete overthrow. He 
 went to Alicante to meet the new Queen though he was 
 suffering from fever, but only to learn there that Elizabeth had 
 changed her plans and travelled overland. On her way she 
 stayed for some days with her aunt the Queen Dowager at 
 Bayonne. Marie Anne had her own score to settle with 
 Ursinos, and doubtless instructed her niece accordingly — not 
 that Elizabeth Farnese needed much instruction in imperious 
 self-assertion. The new Queen was in no hurry to meet her 
 husband, and from the first showed an intention of doing as 
 she liked, refusing to dismiss her Italian suite at the frontier as 
 had been arranged. When Alberoni first met her at Pamplona 
 she was inclined to look askance at him as a friend of Ursinos, 
 but she soon understood the position, and when the old prin- 
 cess advanced to meet her at Jadraque, a short distance from 
 Guadalajara where the King awaited her, she was fully armed 
 for the fray. The Princess herself was also quite aware by 
 this time of the impending struggle before her. It is asserted 
 that the Princess made some remark about the tardiness of the 
 Queen's journey; but be that as it may, hardly had the two 
 women met than the young termagant called loudly, "Take 
 this old fool away who dares to insult me": and then without 
 an hour's warning the Ursinos was pushed into a coach and 
 hurried through the snowy winter's night over the bleakest
 
 3 so Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 uplands in Europe. Dressed in her court dress, with no 
 change of clothes or proper protection against the weather, 
 without respect, consideration or decency, the old princess 
 who had done so much for Phihp and for Spain was hustled 
 out of the country she had served. She saw now for certain, 
 what she had feared for some time past, that the wily Italian 
 clerical-clown had tricked her, and that her day was past. 
 The dominion of the new Queen over the spirit of PhiUp was 
 soon more complete even than had been that of the Princess, 
 and a letter of cold compliment from him was all the consola- 
 tion or thanks that the Ursinos got for her protracted labours 
 in Spain. So long as Philip had a masterful woman always by 
 him to keep him in leading-strings, it did not matter to him 
 very much who. the woman was. The Queen was imperious, 
 ambitious, and intriguing. Alberoni, whose craft had raised 
 her to the throne, was her principal adviser, and almost the first 
 exercise of power on their part was to reverse all the arrange- 
 ments made by the Princess of Ursinos. Cardinal Giudice was 
 recalled and made principal minister. Orry and his coadjutor, 
 the enlightened Spaniard Macanaz, were obhged to fly to 
 France; and the reforms which they had so laboriously intro- 
 duced were for the most part abolished. The friends of the 
 absent Princess were persecuted without truce or mercy; the 
 complaints against the proceedings of the Inquisition, which 
 had been a feature of the more enlightened French party, 
 were rigidly suppressed, and Spaniards were flattered with the 
 idea that they were no longer ruled by French influence. 
 Even the King's confessor was forced to retire, and within a few 
 months of the arrival of Elizabeth the ideas which ruled Spain 
 were those of the sly churchmen from the petty Italian States. 
 Louis XIV died on the ist September 17 15, and his five- 
 year old great-grandson succeeded under the regency of 
 Orleans. There was no love lost between Philip and his 
 cousin, who more than once during the war had plotted to 
 supplant him on the Spanish throne. PhiUp himself had indeed
 
 XIII.] Philip V, 17 14— 1731. 351 
 
 some thought of claiming the regency of France. All this had 
 the effect of pushing still further into the background French 
 influence in Spain. During the war and the prevalence of 
 French ideas the old fabric of government had practically 
 disappeared. The grandees, who in the later Austrian 
 period had obtained so much power and profit, had lost their 
 foot-hold : many had espoused the cause of Charles, and most 
 of the rest were too effete for service in circumstances where 
 action and not boml)astic pretence was needed. The Cortes 
 as an initiator of legislation was practically effete; and the 
 Councils, which, in the plan of Philip II, had been the hands 
 and brains of the monarch, had under the long rule of favourites 
 now lost effective power. All that remained was the absolute 
 power of the monarch, advised by an informal camarilla 
 arbitrarily chosen and dismissed by him and the four Secre- 
 taries of State. Aragon and Catalufia had lost the privileges 
 so stubbornly upheld for centuries. The old order had gone : 
 it was the task of Philip to establish the new. It has already 
 been pointed out that the reforms introduced by the French 
 ministers in Spain during the long war had been mainly 
 administrative, and with the object that the revenues gathered 
 might really find their way into the exchequer, instead of 
 sticking to the hands of the collectors as previously ; but little 
 or no attempt was made to reform the system of taxation itself 
 Spanish industry was now almost dead, in consequence of the 
 " alcabalas " and " millions " raising the cost of production to 
 a point which rendered competition with foreign manufactures 
 impossible. Almost the only exports were food and raw 
 material, whilst Spanish hands were idle, and Spanish stomachs 
 starved. Already new ideas, in religion, politics and economics, 
 were rife throughout the rest of Europe ; but Spain, for many 
 reasons which will have been seen in the earlier pages of this 
 book, had been isolated from the general march of opinion, 
 and could hardly look for reform of its institutions, unless it 
 came in a foreign garb which Spaniards regarded with distrust.
 
 352 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 The task, therefore, which faced Phihp's new wife and her 
 Italian advisers, was a difficult one. The first step was for 
 Elizabeth to gain absolute mastery over her husband, and this 
 she did. Sacrificing her own ease-loving habits, she devoted 
 herself to his passion for hunting, and, knowing his uxorious 
 nature, she used all her woman's wiles to render herself 
 necessary to his hourly existence. She succeeded completely. 
 Alberoni was watchful, and kept the Queen up to the mark, 
 spurring her ambition, checking her extravagance, and counter- 
 acting her hankering after the young Italian chaplain Maggiali, 
 with whom she had enjoyed a girlish flirtation. Elizabeth was 
 fractious at times, but her uncle, the Duke of Parma, could 
 usually bring her to reason ; and at last the battle was won. 
 Philip had no will of his own, and Elizabeth Farnese was 
 absolute mistress of Spain. Thenceforward for many years the 
 country was ruled not by Spanish or by French methods, but 
 as an Italian State, and in a large measure to serve Italian ends. 
 These ends were the eventual succession of Elizabeth's issue 
 to the States of Parma and Tuscany, under Spanish influence ; 
 the recovery of Spanish territories in Italy occupied by the 
 Emperor ; and the consequent establishment of Spanish instead 
 of Austrian supremacy over most of the Italian peninsula. 
 
 The first step was to draw the maritime powers to the side 
 of Spain. A treaty of commerce was concluded with England, 
 by which the latter power gained great advantage (December 
 1715) and the implied recognition of George I as King of 
 England against the Pretender. The Dutch were also con- 
 ciliated, thanks to Ripperda, the Dutch ambassador in Madrid, 
 and the Pope was won over by the sending of six Spanish galleys 
 to aid the Venetians against the Turks in the Adriatic (July 
 1 7 16). Alberoni soon supplanted Giudice as principal adviser, 
 and, in spite of great opposition in Rome, was made a 
 Cardinal in July 1717. The Emperor was in the midst of a 
 renewed struggle with the Turk on the Danube, and most of 
 his allies had been drawn away from him. Alberoni was busy
 
 XIII.] Philip V, 1714— 1731. 353 
 
 winning the northern powers, either to sympathy or neutraUty, 
 and at length a pretext was taken, ostensibly against Alberoni's 
 wish, but really by his contrivance, to attack the imperial 
 occupation of Sardinia. 
 
 The Emperor in the meanwhile had again managed to draw 
 England into a defensive alliance with him ; but by Alberoni's 
 clever diplomacy it was rendered for some time ineffective. 
 The regent Orleans had remained cold to the blandishments 
 of the Cardinal, who tried to persuade him to join Philip in his 
 attack upon imperial interests, and equally unmoved at the 
 Breton plot against him fomented by Alberoni : but England, 
 France and Holland together endeavoured to mediate between 
 the Empire and Spain, on the basis of the recognition of the 
 right of presumptive succession of Elizabeth's infant son Charles 
 (born January 1716) to the Duchies of Parma, Piacenza and 
 Tuscany. The overtures were haughtily rejected by Spain; and 
 Sardinia was taken by a Spanish force in November 17 17. 
 Alberoni had from the first pretended that he was against the 
 war, but when the Emperor showed that he intended, if possible, 
 to enforce the terms of the treaty of Utrecht, the Cardinal dis- 
 played a vigour and energy that surprised Europe. Economies 
 had been introduced everywhere in the finances of Spain, silver 
 from the Indies came safely now, and money was forthcoming 
 in abundance. Once more Spanish patriotism was appealed to, 
 and again it responded splendidly. The Catalan irregulars, so 
 lately fighting on the other side, joined in bands ; the youth of 
 south and central Spain flocked to the standards, and even the 
 smugglers of the Sierra Morena deserted their trade of cheating 
 the State in order to serve it. France and England — especially 
 the latter — protested vigorously, and threatened war, if the 
 terms of the treaties of Utrecht guaranteed by the powers were 
 broken, and the Pope, deeply offended, withdrew the ecclesiasti- 
 cal subsidies collected in Spain, a fruitless step, for Alberoni dis- 
 regarded the withdrawal and collected them slill. The threads 
 of Alberoni's diplomacy were so numerous and cunningly 
 
 H. S. 2 X
 
 354 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 contrived that none of the Courts of Europe was free from his 
 intrigues. Jacobite plots in England, conspiracies against the 
 regent in France, plans for arousing the suspicions of the 
 Emperor against the new King of Sicily (the Duke of Savoy), 
 attempts to bribe the King of Sweden to aggression against 
 the Empire ; these and many others were resorted to, until all 
 Christendom was set by the ears, whilst Spanish armaments 
 were completed. At length, one of the finest forces that had 
 ever left Spain was ready in Barcelona (June 1718). There 
 were 30,000 choice, well-armed troops, with full supplies of 
 every sort, 22 ships of the line, 10 other ships of war, and 320 
 sail of transports. The expedition was under the command of 
 Don Jose' Patino, and landed its freight of armed men in 
 Sicily under the Marquis of Lede in July. The Sicilian nobility 
 and militia, who hated the Austrian and the Savoyard, joined 
 the invaders almost to a man, and in a few days the whole 
 island was in the hands of the Spaniards. Suddenly Admiral 
 Byng with the English fleet appeared, and landed 3,000 
 Germans at Messina, whereupon the Spaniards retreated to the 
 south of the island. On the nth August 17 18 the English 
 and Spanish fleets met off Syracuse. There had been no 
 declaration of war, and the Spanish admiral, Gastaiieta, lay to 
 until the stronger Enghsh fleet assumed a hostile attitude. 
 The Spaniards were divided and taken at a disadvantage ; they 
 could not compare in seamanship with the English, and though 
 they fought bravely the whole fleet was destroyed or captured, 
 with the exception of four ships and six frigates. The allies, 
 Austria, France, and England, had already oftered as an ulti- 
 matum to Philip that Sicily should become Austrian, Sardinia 
 go in exchange to the Duke of Savoy, and Parma and Tuscany 
 be secured in reversion to the Infante Charles ; but Alberoni 
 had violently refused such terms, and dismissed the English 
 ambassador Stanhope with the most haughty insolence. The 
 Spanish ambassador retired from England, and war was 
 declared in December 17 18; and a few weeks afterwards the
 
 XIII.] Philip V, 1714— 1731. 355 
 
 regent Orleans, against whom Alheroni had plotted a vast but 
 abortive conspiracy, also declared war against Spain, The 
 reply of Alberoni to this was the arming of an expedition in 
 Spain, to aid the Pretender in Scotland. Six sail of the line, 
 with 6,000 men and a great store of arms, left Corunna in 
 March, but only two ships with 1,000 Irishmen arrived in 
 Scotland, the rest being driven back to Spain. 
 
 Alberoni worked like a giant to organise a great naval ex- 
 pedition to attack and raise Brittany against the Regent, but in 
 this respect the force and readiness of the allies frustrated him. 
 In April 1719, 30,000 Frenchmen under Berwick crossed the 
 Bidasoa, and overran the Basque provinces. Philip, with his 
 wife, his eldest son Luis, and Alberoni, with difficulty raised a 
 fresh force of 15,000 men in Navarre, to relieve Fuenterrabia, 
 but he was too late, for the whole of the provinces offered to 
 submit to France, an offer which Berwick refused. He was 
 not, he said, fighting against Philip, but only to free him from 
 an odious foreign minister; whilst the King of Spain was just 
 as careful to assert everywhere that he was not in arms against 
 his nephew but against Orleans. Without apparent reason 
 Berwick suddenly abandoned the Basque provinces, and ad- 
 vanced on to the Catalan frontier from Roussillon, capturing 
 Urgel and attacking Rosas. But tempest and pestilence deci- 
 mated his army, and he again retired into France (November 
 17 19). In the meanwhile an English squadron had captured 
 Vigo and Pontevedra (October 1719) and had devastated the 
 north-west coast of Spain. After hard and constant fighting 
 all the summer in Sicily, Messina had finally capitulated to the 
 Austrians in October; and to make matters worse for Philip, 
 the Dutch had at last been drawn into the confederation 
 against him. This was not at all what the Queen had been 
 led to expect from Alberoni's artful intrigues, and she began to 
 listen to the private approaches made by the allies through the 
 Duke of Parma and others, for the dismissal of a minister who, 
 it was believed, had brought so much trouI)le to Spain. The
 
 356 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 King had sunk into a condition of hypochondria, but ^vhen he 
 could be aroused, he too was anxious for the cessation of a 
 war which he personally had never sought. His Jesuit Con- 
 fessor, Daubenton, had turned against Alberoni, and used his 
 influence to ruin the Cardinal. On the 5th December 1719 
 Philip and the Queen left Madrid for the suburban palace of 
 the Pardo, leaving behind them a decree of expulsion for 
 Alberoni. He was not allowed to see the King or Queen 
 again, but was hurried off to France through Cataluha, where, 
 in dire danger of being torn to pieces by the Catalans who 
 hated him, he bade farewell to Spain, thunderstruck and 
 indignant at the blow that had been dealt to him. Alberoni 
 always insisted that he had been opposed to the war, but was 
 over-ruled by the Queen, the Duke of Parma, and the King. 
 Whether this be true or not, he had no sooner disappeared from 
 the scene than the whole of the responsibility for the war, and all 
 the other troubles of the country, was placed upon his shoulders. 
 No accusations against him were too gross or calumnious to be 
 welcomed at Court, and the Queen professed herself grateful 
 even to the allies for opening her eyes to the real character of 
 such a monster. Alberoni was a convenient scapegoat, for his 
 enemies were many and bitter, and his fiscal reforms — the 
 reduction of the value of the coinage, and the abolition of 
 interior provincial custom houses — had injured many interests, 
 but there is no denying that he showed immense energy and 
 ability in raising and employing the resources needed for the 
 carrying on of the war, and that his political combinations, 
 however treacherous and dishonest, were masterly in their 
 extent and aims. In his later period he was unquestionably 
 hampered, and perhaps frustrated, by the wilfulness of the 
 Queen and the secret attacks of his enemies at Court, but for 
 all his faults, he was the first minister who succeeded in raising 
 Spain again from the slough of ignorant impotent pride into 
 which she had fallen, to be an active force in the councils of 
 Europe.
 
 XIII.] Philip F, 1 7 14— 1 73 1. 357 
 
 As soon as Alberoni had left, talk of peace began to 
 prevail, the initiative being taken by the United Provinces. 
 But Philip was in no yielding mood, especially on the much 
 debated question of the surrender of Gibraltar and Minorca 
 by the English. The powers, however, sent envoys to Madrid 
 and negotiations were continued, the principal aim of the 
 English being to arouse the fears of Philip against Orleans, 
 and to separate Spain from France in the coming peace. At 
 length (26 January 1720) Philip adhered to the agreement 
 of the Triple Alliance, persuaded thereto to a great extent 
 by his new prime minister, a slow-witted Parmese called 
 the Marquis Scotti. Philip by this instrument surrendered 
 Sardinia to Savoy, repeated his renunciation of the crown of 
 France in exchange for the Emperor's abandonment of his 
 claim to Spain, renounced for ever any claim of Spain to 
 Flanders, or to the territories in Italy occupied by the Empire, 
 including Sicily; and by the same agreement the presumptive 
 succession of the issue of Elizabeth Farnese to Tuscany and 
 Parma was acknowledged. No sooner was the treaty signed 
 and Philip free from war in Europe than a great force sailed 
 from Cadiz, and with admirable gallantry relieved Ceuta, which 
 Spanish fortress had for many years been intermittently be- 
 sieged by the Moors. 
 
 Philip was now himself really at peace for the first time 
 since his accession twenty years before. Spain had sacrificed 
 much, but her position was stronger and more stable for the 
 sacrifice, coupled with the improved administration which 
 Philip's foreign ministers had successively introduced. But the 
 Emperor, though he had adhered to the agreement, was still 
 sulky, and delayed a final settlement; whilst the regent of 
 France also delayed the surrender of Fuenterrabia in the hope 
 of getting better terms from Spain separately. England, with 
 similar views, sent Stanhope to Madrid to make a separate 
 alliance for the purpose of forcing the Emperor to comply with 
 the terms of his agreement. The result was a diplomatic
 
 358 Spain: ils greatness and decay . [Chap. 
 
 scramble in Madrid, each of the powers trying to outwit the 
 other, and to turn Spanish policy in the direction of its own 
 interests. At length the treaty of peace and mutual restitution 
 between Spain and England was signed (13 June 1721), in which 
 England certainly obtained the advantage; and on the same 
 day a league of England, Spain and France was formed for 
 maintaining the articles which had been agreed upon. Re- 
 peated promises were made by George I that Gibraltar 
 should be restored, but the question of compliance was 
 always left open on some pretext, and the promise was never 
 kept. 
 
 In order to cement the new alliance between Spain and 
 France it was arranged that the Prince of Asturias, the Infante 
 Luis, Philip's heir, should marry Louise Elizabeth, the daughter 
 of the regent Orleans, and that the infant daughter of Philip 
 and his second wife should in due time be wedded to the 
 young King of France, Louis XV, the two princesses being 
 exchanged on the frontier in January 1722, and Louise 
 Ehzabeth married to Luis, whose age was 17, at the end 
 of the same month. This was followed by an engagement 
 between the Infante Carlos and the younger daughter of the 
 regent, by which stroke of policy Elizabeth Farnese appeared 
 to secure her son's safety when he should succeed to his 
 Italian dominions. French influence thus again became para- 
 mount in Madrid ; England was thrown into the background, 
 and the carefully planned combinations of Stanhope and his 
 instruments, including the Duke of Parma, were disappointed. 
 The congress of the powers for the final settlement of peace 
 still continued at Cambrai, and thither to a great extent the 
 intrigues were now transferred. The Emperor was delaying 
 the fulfilment of the terms with regard to the Italian suc- 
 cession of Carlos, whilst preparations were openly made in 
 Spain for an expedition to enforce the Infante's claims, and 
 England, which had now sided with the Emperor as against 
 the regent and Spain, was threatened by the help given
 
 XIII.] Philip K, 1714— 1 73 1. 359 
 
 by the Spanish government to James Stuart the Pretender. 
 But again death stepped in and altered the situation. The 
 Marquis Scotti had never been much more than a figure- 
 head of the government, the real power behind the throne 
 being the Confessor Daubenton, whose advancement to the 
 post of first minister had been imminent when suddenly, in 
 August 1723, he died; and almost simultaneously Cardinal 
 Dubois, the prime minister of France, also died, to be followed 
 to the grave very shortly afterwards by the regent Orleans 
 himself and the Duke of Tuscany. The first three deaths 
 took away the principal promoters of the intrigue, the object 
 of which was the subjection of Spain to French interests; but 
 their plot had already been carried too far for their death 
 entirely to frustrate it. 
 
 The King had fallen into a condition of melancholy re- 
 ligious mania, and for long periods together he would retire 
 from the sight of the world to a hunting-box in the wood 
 of Balsain. In 1721 he had commenced to build near to 
 this place, at immense expense, a sumptuous palace called 
 St Ildefonso de la Granja, which should remind him of the 
 beloved Versailles of his youth. Here he moped, fretted and 
 prayed, passing his monotonous life without change from year 
 to year in constant tete-a-tete with his wife, who never left his 
 side night or day. The Council of State was practically dead, 
 and affairs were conducted by the nominal chief minister and 
 an informal camarilla. In these years, however, after the 
 strong Alberoni had gone, and only Scotti or the King's fa- 
 vourite friend Grimaldo remained, the Queen had to depend 
 in a great measure upon herself Her task was a difficult 
 one, for she dared not let her influence appear openly. Her 
 every thought was the promotion of the interests of her own 
 children by the King, but the Spanish people were already 
 resentful and jealous at the thought of being dragged into 
 war again for the purpose of making the sons of the King's 
 second wife Italian sovereigns, and she knew that if she lost
 
 360 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 her popularity entirely she could do nothing. Daubenton 
 and the French ambassador Chavigny, therefore, had exer- 
 cised more power than they otherwise would have done, and in 
 the King's lethargic frame of mind easily persuaded him of 
 the vanity of all human grandeur and of the advisability of 
 abdication in favour of his heir Luis, who had married the 
 regent's daughter. In January 1724, the world was startled 
 with the news that the King of Spain was tired of the world 
 and had laid down his crown, intending henceforward to live 
 privately with his wife in his favourite abode of St Ildefonso, 
 high up on the mountains of Segovia looking towards France. 
 "Having," says Philip in his decree, "considered maturely 
 for the last four years the miseries of this life, owing to the 
 infirmities, wars and turmoil which God has sent me during 
 the twenty-three years of my reign ; and seeing that my eldest 
 son Luis. ..is married and of sufficient age, judgment and 
 ability to govern with justice...! have determined to abdi- 
 cate all my States... to my said eldest son Luis." 
 
 The instructions given to the new king by his father 
 were more like those of a monk than a monarch, and 
 Philip II himself was not more devout on his deathbed 
 than was his descendant at a time when the ideas which 
 produced the French revolution were already throbbing in 
 men's minds. 
 
 Some of the more old-fashioned Spaniards were in favour 
 of convoking Cortes to confirm the abdication, but the ideas 
 of Louis XIV had by this time thoroughly permeated the 
 councils of the Spanish monarch, and the once powerful Cortes 
 of Castile was now but a shadow. Luis was still a mere youth, 
 but as he had been born in Spain and was of frank, plea- 
 sant manner and affable address, his accession was extremely 
 popular with the Spanish people, who promptly dubbed him 
 " the well-beloved." Philip had appointed a council of nobles 
 to advise him, all Spaniards, with Don Juan Orendain as 
 principal Secretary of State, in place of Grimaldo, who
 
 XIII.] PJiilip V, 1714 — 1731. 361 
 
 remained near his old master, with very good reason, as 
 we shall presently see. The Queen had done her best to 
 prevent the abdication ; and, although she at last consented to 
 bury herself in St Ildefonso, it was with no intention of be- 
 coming a cipher. On the contrary, it soon became evident 
 that the young king and his advisers did nothing without 
 orders from the Granja, and that Grimaldo was still in reality 
 principal Secretary of State. The matter which principally 
 concerned the government was the succession of Elizabeth's 
 eldest son Charles to the grand duchy of Tuscany. The 
 Emperor's long-delayed recognition of his right was at last 
 grudgingly given, but when Elizabeth endeavoured to send 
 her son to Florence with the title of Grand Prince, almost 
 everyone in Europe objected. The Spaniards were deter- 
 mined not to be dragged into war ; the Emperor, of course, 
 opposed the premature assertion of Spanish power in Italy; 
 the reigning Grand Duke and his people objected to be ruled 
 from Spain, and the King of England protested. Again the 
 congress of Cambrai was called upon to settle the vexed 
 question, and once more the intrigues were woven both in 
 Spain and all over Europe, either for or against the ex- 
 tension of Spanish power in Italy. We have seen in the 
 earlier pages of this book that nearly the whole of Spain's 
 calamities had their origin in her foreign possessions in 
 Europe. Now that she was free of Flanders and might 
 have had peace, an evil fate had decreed that an intriguing 
 and ambitious queen-consort should keep all Europe in a 
 turmoil for years after the peace of Utrecht, in order that 
 her sons might become petty Italian sovereigns under the 
 aegis of Spain rather than that of the Empire. The Spanish 
 party, who objected to see their country dragged at the tail 
 of the Queen's maternal ambition, tried again and again to 
 withdraw the young king from the tutelage of St Ildefonso; 
 but the Queen and Grimaldo were always too clever for 
 them. The vast sums taken from the treasury by Philip to
 
 362 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 build his new palace in the last years of his reign were made 
 a pretext for sowing dissension between father and son ; the 
 light and imprudent behaviour of Elizabeth of Orleans, the 
 young wife of the boy king, was seized upon for the promo- 
 tion of a plot for the separation of the young couple that set 
 both palaces by the ears. Confusion was paramount, with, 
 as Marshal Tesse wrote, a king who was no king, when an 
 attack of malignant smallpox cut short the already troubled 
 life of Luis the Well-beloved after a reign of only seven 
 months (August 1724). 
 
 The position of Philip was extremely difficult. He had 
 solemnly renounced the crown and public affairs for ever : but 
 his next son, Fernando, was only 11 years old, the peace of 
 Europe was still trembling in the balance at Cambrai, and 
 above all the busy brain of Elizabeth Farnese was plotting and 
 planning for the aggrandisement of her own children. Prompted 
 by her, the Council of Castile met and begged Philip once 
 more to take the reins of government, but the feeling of the 
 country was strongly against it, especially amongst the nobles, 
 whose political power had now almost disappeared. The next 
 heir however, being a child, could hardly be acclaimed without 
 a Council of Regency, to which there were many powerful 
 objections. Philip himself was, as usual, torn by agonies of 
 doubt between devotion to his oath and his own, and his wife's, 
 ambition. Churchmen met in solemn conclaves, and decided 
 the point — according to the political party to which they 
 belonged. Elizabeth Farnese eventually triumphed. Philip's 
 scruples were overcome, and he again accepted the crown 
 which he had a few months before sworn to abandon for ever. 
 The Spaniards were bitterly disappointed at the return of the 
 gloomy, uxorious, semi-lunatic to govern them, for tliey knew 
 that the Italian clique would be paramount, and Spain's wel- 
 fare sacrificed to the interests of Elizabeth Farnese's sons. 
 But, as frequently happens in politics, events which could 
 not have been foreseen again shifted the kaleidoscope and
 
 xiu.J Philip V, 1 7 14— 1731. 363 
 
 all the combinations were changed in the course of a few 
 weeks. 
 
 Louis XV was a sickly, backward boy of 15, and the death 
 of Orleans had brought his enemy the Duke of Eourbon to the 
 head of affairs in France. He was determined that, if he could 
 help it, none of the house of Orleans should succeed in the 
 expected event of the King's death. Marshal Tesse' had accord- 
 ingly been sent during the short reign of Luis to Spain for 
 the purpose of urging upon Philip the assumption of the heir- 
 ship to the crown of France on his nephew's death, notwith- 
 standing the renunciation made before, at, and after, the peace 
 of Utrecht. Philip refused, although it has often been asserted 
 that his abdication of the crown of Spain was etfected with a 
 view of claiming that of France, and on his refusal Tesse had 
 more than hinted that Bourbon, in order to prevent the 
 succession of an Orleans, would at once marry Louis XV to a 
 Princess capable of bearing an heir to the French crown, and 
 break off the marriage with Philip's six-year-old daughter, who 
 had been brought up from infancy in France with the object 
 of being married to the King. Philip seems to have shown no 
 resentment at the time ; but when Luis died, and his French 
 widow, whose behaviour had shocked everyone, was sent back 
 to France, it must have been evident to Elizabeth Farnese that 
 the French connections were weakening, and if the little 
 Spanish Princess were returned unwed, relations would become 
 strained indeed. 
 
 For over twenty years an insuperable gulf had yawned 
 between the Austrian and Bourbon descendants of the 
 Emperor Charles V ; but cunning brains had for some time 
 past been thinking of the possibility of union. Alberoni 
 had always played off Austria against France, and one of his 
 many schemes was the re-establishment of a community of 
 interests between the two countries. He was in Rome, in 
 good favour, and on Philip's re-accession the gossips of Madrid 
 talked about his recall. But a craftier head, even than his,
 
 364 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 was working secretly in the same direction, and the new poHcy 
 was carried out by a new man. Baron Ripperda, one of the 
 most extraordinary adventurers in history, was a Dutch noble- 
 man of some wealth, who had represented the United Provinces 
 in Spain after the treaty of Utrecht. Facile, plausible, and 
 ambitious, he had managed to ingratiate himself with the 
 Spanish Court and Alberoni : his ostentatious conversion to 
 Catholicism aiding his popularity. On his resignation of the 
 Dutch ministry at the end of 17 16, he decided to settle in 
 Spain, and was full of great projects for reviving the cloth 
 industry in his adopted country, for which purpose valuable 
 monopolies were granted to him ; Dutch spinners, weavers 
 and machinery, were imported, and a flourishing manufacture 
 was successfully established at Segovia. He was still about 
 the Court, and had the Queen's ear : on several occasions he 
 had hinted that a close alliance with the Empire might force 
 England to surrender Gibraltar; and now on the return of 
 Philip to the throne, and the impending rupture of the marriage 
 contract between the little Infanta and Louis XV, his project 
 assumed practical form. His activity in restoring Spanish 
 industries by the introduction of foreign workmen, enabled 
 him to travel without remark, and he undertook a secret 
 mission to Vienna to lay his plans before the Emperor (No- 
 vember 1724). His mission coincided in point of time with 
 the rupture of the two marriage contracts between France and 
 Spain, namely that of Louis XV with the Infanta, and Don 
 Carlos with Mdlle de Beaujolais, younger daughter of the late 
 Duke of Orleans. Elizabeth Farnese, and of course her 
 husband also, were furious at the insult offered to them ; and 
 Ripperda was ordered to accede to almost any terms to bring 
 about an alliance with Austria. He succeeded beyond ex- 
 pectations, and the treaty of Vienna resulted ; with which he 
 returned to Madrid in the late autumn of 1725. 
 
 Concurrently with this, an intrigue had been conducted 
 in Rome by Cardinals Alberoni and Cienfuegos, with a
 
 XIII.] Philip V, 1714 — 1731. 365 
 
 similar object ; namely the humiliation of England, the ruin 
 of the house of Hanover, the restoration of the Stuarts, the 
 spoliation of France, and the re-establishment of Catholic 
 supremacy in Europe. By the treaty of Vienna Elizabeth 
 Farnese's son Charles was to be acknowledged in his Italian 
 succession : but at what a cost ! In addition to vast sums of 
 money, commercial privileges were granted to the Emperor 
 such as no treaty had ever given before. All Spanish ports in 
 Europe and the Indies were thrown open to Austrian com- 
 merce : the trading companies established by the Emperor at 
 Trieste and Ostend were to conduct the trade of the east and 
 west through his dominions, to the ruin of England and 
 Holland. Ripperda was voluble and boastful, and his mission 
 leaked out long before it was concluded. It was soon answered 
 by a counter-combination of the other powers : England, 
 France and Prussia, who signed the treaty of Hanover in 
 September. In Spain honours were showered upon Ripperda 
 without stint. He was made a Spanish duke, director-general 
 of commerce and shipping, and eventually prime minister. 
 His ministry was a thorny one, for he had deceived the Queen 
 into the belief that the Emperor would send his eldest daughter, 
 Maria Theresa, to be married to the Infante Charles, and his 
 idle boasting rendered easy of defeat his persistent intrigues 
 to separate France and England. His restless activity in the 
 introduction of reforms into Spain, and the importation of 
 foreign workmen and ideas, rendered him intensely unpopular, 
 whilst the Catalans and Aragonese, disappointed that the 
 Emperor had made no stipulation in the treaty for the restora- 
 tion to them of their provincial privileges, raised a revolutionnry 
 outbreak in the north-east. Ripperda's fall was rapid and 
 complete. In May 1726 he learnt that a warrant was drafted 
 for his arrest and seclusion. He fled to the shelter of the 
 English embassy, where he endeavoured to make terms with 
 the King. After much discussion he was taken from the 
 embassy and removed to the castle of Segovia, whence he
 
 366 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 escaped. His subsequent extraordinary adventures in England, 
 and in Morocco, where he became a Mahometan and prime 
 minister of the Sultan, although of great interest, do not 
 belong to the history of Spain. 
 
 Though Ripperda had fallen, the one object of the Queen's 
 life, namely the aggrandisement of her own children, at 
 the expense of Spain if necessary, remained. In Spain 
 itself this was now well understood, and resented : the 
 Austrian connection was extremely unpopular, especially 
 amongst the nobles ; and even the King's ministers were 
 divided, Orendain (Marquis de la Paz) being in favour of 
 it, whilst Grimaldo, Bermudez the King's confessor, Patino 
 and others, were desirous of an alliance with England and 
 France. The scale was turned by the Queen's new favourite, 
 the Austrian ambassador Marshal Konigsegg, who became, all 
 but in name, prime minister of Spain. All those who had 
 opposed the Austrian alliance were sent about their business. 
 Bermudez, the King's confessor, was replaced by Father Clarke, 
 a rabid Jacobite, Stanhope the English ambassador (Lord 
 Harrington) was treated with studied insult, and Cardinal 
 Fleury's attempts to restore good relations between England 
 and France were frustrated. Through the winter of 1726, the 
 Spanish coasts rang with naval preparations for the coming war 
 with England: and in February 1727 the Spaniards laid siege 
 to Gibraltar, and Stanhope left Madrid. Admiral Hozier in- 
 effectually tried to blockade Porto Bello, and seize the silver 
 fleet, but the home government would not allow him to attack 
 the place, and pestilence swept his crews from his rotting ships, 
 he himself dying broken-hearted. After four months of fruit- 
 less siege of Gibraltar, under Count de las Torres, against the 
 advice of the more experienced Spanish Generals, who saw 
 that whilst England held the sea they were powerless, Philip 
 grew disgusted at the failure. The Emperor sent him no help ; 
 his own resources were giving out, and the dangerous illness of 
 Louis XV once more seemed to bring near the possibility of
 
 XIII.] Philip V, 1714— 1731. 367 
 
 Philip, or one of his sons, becoming King of France. In 
 these circumstances, therefore, he listened willingly to the ad- 
 vances made to him by the Abbe Montgon, the Duke of 
 Bourbon's secret agent, for a reconciliation ; Ehzabeth Farnese, 
 indeed, at once began to plot for the purpose of obtaining the 
 crown of France for her son Charles, whilst Ferdinand, the 
 King's eldest son, should inherit Spain. But Cardinal Fleury 
 had other views, and Louis XV lived on, so the dynastic intrigue 
 came to nothing, but the ultimate result was negotiations for a 
 general peace. The negotiations dragged for a long time, for 
 the contending interests were many, but finally, thanks to 
 Fleury's loyalty to the English alliance and Patino's efforts, 
 the Congress of Soissons met in order to arrive at an agree- 
 ment for peace. The Emperor's principal object was to secure 
 the succession of his daughter Maria Theresa ; and for this he 
 was willing to sacrifice the Ostend Company of the Indies. 
 England was determined to keep Gibraltar, and this was the 
 main difficulty with Spain ; whilst Elizabeth Farnese's desire 
 was to establish her son in the Italian duchies, and to revenge 
 herself upon the Emperor for cheating her twice in the matter 
 of the marriage of his daughter with the Infante Charles. In 
 order to compass this object she practically gave to England 
 all it demanded. Gibraltar was passed over in silence, English 
 trade to the Indies and the slave monopoly were restored, 
 and the separate treaty of Seville was signed in November 
 1729 between England, France, Holland and Spain, leaving 
 the Emperor isolated, and providing for the sending of Spanish 
 garrisons to the Italian duchies to support the claims of the 
 Infante Charles, when he should succeed. 
 
 This meant another change in the influences that sur- 
 rounded the Queen. The Austrian party, Konigsegg, Oren- 
 dain (Paz) and the rest of them gave way to the first really 
 capable statesman that Spain had produced for a long time, 
 Patino, a financier and organiser of all but the first rank, 
 and to others of the modern school of politicians, wlio
 
 368 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 had from the first opposed the aUiance with Austria. The 
 Emperor protested against the Itahan agreement, but fruit- 
 lessly. A large Spanish force was collected in Barcelona; 
 and Elizabeth called upon France and England to send 
 their contingents, as stipulated by the treaty of Seville. They 
 were in no hurry to do so ; and when Antonio Farnese, 
 Duke of Parma, died (January 1731) the Emperor at once 
 seized the duchy : nominally in the interest of the Infante 
 Charles, but really to assert his own suzerainty. The diver- 
 gence of English and French interests, and the complaints 
 reciprocally made by Spain and England of depredations at 
 sea, Gibraltar being again threatened by the Spaniards, had 
 already caused a coolness between the signatories of the 
 treaty of Seville. The entrance of the imperial troops into 
 Parma, however, brought matters to a crisis. Patino, wisely, 
 was for peace with all the world, especially with England. 
 The adventurous foreign policy which a close French alUance 
 had always forced upon Spain was distasteful to him : the 
 aid of England under the circumstances was vital, and had 
 none of the objections which the introduction of French 
 forces into Italy would have offered. English influence was 
 invoked, George II exerted himself, and without Fleury's 
 knowledge, a separate treaty was agreed to in Vienna (March 
 1 731), between Spain, England, Austria and Holland. The 
 "pragmatic sanction" of the Emperor establishing his daughter's 
 succession was guaranteed by t'he maritime powers, on the con- 
 dition that she should not marry a Bourbon; the Ostend Indian 
 Company was abandoned, and the Infante Charles peacefully 
 recognised as Duke of Parma and heir of Tuscany. Philip 
 and his wife were still at Seville, whither they had gone nearly 
 two years before for the translation of the body of St Ferdinand, 
 when the glad news came to them (July 1731). In October 
 the 6000 Spanish troops to occupy the duchies sailed from 
 Barcelona, escorted by the English fleet, commanded by 
 Sir Charles Wager. The young Infante was enthusiastically
 
 xiii.J Pliilip V, 17 14 — 1731. 369 
 
 welcomed by his present and future Italian subjects ; and so at 
 last after years of constant plotting, and secret treaties innu- 
 merable, Elizabeth Farnese had triumphed in the great object 
 of her life : all Europe accepted the sovereignty of her son 
 over the Italian dominions of her forefathers. She had kept 
 Europe in effervescence for years, but she had her way ; and 
 the persistence of one woman had re-estabhshed Spanish in- 
 fluence in Italy and raised Spain once more to a leading place 
 in the councils of the world. 
 
 H. s. 24
 
 370 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PHILIP V — FERDINAND VI, 1732 — 1759. 
 
 The questions which had for so long divided Europe 
 appeared for the moment to be settled, but before the conditions 
 of the treaties were comphed with, new causes of anxiety arose. 
 Spanish naval armaments continued actively: the fleet that had 
 returned from Italy remained in commission, and no adequate 
 explanation could be obtained from Philip's government. By 
 the spring of 1732 a fleet of no less than 600 sail was collected 
 at Alicante with an army of nearly 30,000 men, and half the 
 nobility of Spain. Since the great times of Charles V no such 
 armament had been seen in the Mediterranean. The Emperor 
 and the republic of Genoa, especially, were alarmed, but their 
 fears were set at rest in June, just as the fleet was sailing, by a 
 manifesto of Philip announcing the object to be the re-conquest 
 of Oran, which it will be recollected had been lost in 1708 by 
 reason of the desertion of Santa Cruz to the Archduke with 
 the fleet destined for its relief. On the approach of the 
 Spaniards the Moors of Oran evacuated the place, and the 
 Christian flag again floated over the citadel. The Moors made 
 several unsuccessful attempts to recapture the city ; and at the 
 instigation of Ripperda, now Moorish prime minister, a deter- 
 mined attack was made upon the Spanish garrison at Ceuta, 
 but also without success. The Spanish show of force had, 
 however, other objects than the conquest of Oran. The Pope 
 was offended that the new Duke of Parma had not recognised 
 his suzerainty over the duchy, and the refusal of Spain to
 
 Chap. xiY.] P/ii/ip V — Ferdinaiui VI, 1732 — 1759. 371 
 
 regard Tuscany entirely as an imperial fiet kept the Emperor 
 sulky. The yoke of the Austrian, too, had galled the Nea- 
 politans and Sicilians more than that of the Spaniard, and they 
 were ready for revolt. Spain and Austria both considered them- 
 selves aggrieved on the question of the suzerainty, and both 
 appealed to the King of England to mediate between them. 
 George II was patiently endeavouring to arrange a reconciliation 
 when the death of Augustus II, King of Poland (Elector of 
 Saxony), threw all Europe again into ebullition. France was 
 interested in restoring the dispossessed Stanislaus, Louis XV's 
 father-in-law, to the throne, and this the Emperor would not 
 allow. Austria, Russia and Prussia joined their arms, and 
 France became more friendly with Spain j England and Holland 
 being principally concerned in maintaining peace. 
 
 For two years Philip had lived in absolute retirement in the 
 palace at Seville, sunk into lethargy, slovenly and dirty in his 
 habits, repulsive in appearance, and vacant in mind ; but by a 
 sudden revulsion, such as occurred to him at intervals, he 
 became interested anew in the great problems which agitated 
 Europe, and once more took charge of his government, which 
 had been carried on entirely by the Queen and Patino. The 
 Queen's idea was to grab, if possible, the crown of Poland for 
 her son Charles, but Patino suggested a better idea. Whilst 
 the Emperor was busy about Poland, why not seize Naples and 
 Sicily for Charles? The French would be only too ready to 
 help, the people were eager for the return of Spanish rule, and 
 the plan would be easy. The Queen was delighted, and an 
 alliance with France to carry out the idea was signed in the 
 Escorial in October 1733. Charles declared himself free of 
 the imperial suzerainty, and whilst the war raged in Central 
 Europe and Lombardy a considerable Spanish force sailed 
 from Barcelona to help the young Infante Charles, Duke of 
 Parma, to reconquer Naples. The Pope was in favour of Spain, 
 and sent his aid to Charles ; the Austrian garrisons were weak, 
 and the expected reinforcements of 20,000 men had not arrived. 
 
 24—2
 
 372 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 One strong place after another was abandoned by the Austrians. 
 On the loth May 1734, Charles entered the city of Naples in 
 triumph, and the kingdoms of Naples and the Two Sicilies 
 returned to a Spanish prince after 27 years of Austrian domi- 
 nation; but they were no longer to be provinces governed by 
 greedy viceroys from Spain, but were to have a king of their 
 own, who in time should become a Neapolitan. Gaeta and 
 Capua held out for a time in the kingdom of Naples, and 
 Messina, Syracuse, and Trapani in Sicily, but at last all 
 surrendered and Charles was crowned at Palermo King of the 
 Two Sicilies in July 1735. 
 
 All had gone adversely for the Emperor in Italy : the 
 French, Sardinians and Spaniards had beaten him out of 
 Lombardy with immense slaughter. But the siege and fall of 
 Dantzig destroyed the last hope of Stanislaus: Augustus III 
 of Saxony was accepted by the Poles as their king, and the 
 raison d'etre of the war disappeared. Again, owing to the efforts 
 of George II, peace negotiations were commenced ; at first 
 secretly between France and Austria, with the result that in 
 October 1735 it was agreed between them, that Stanislaus 
 should possess for life the duchy of Lorraine, which on his 
 death should pass to France, while the future Dukes of 
 Lorraine should be compensated with the duchy of Tuscany, 
 which in the interim should be garrisoned by Austrians instead 
 of Spaniards. Charles was acknowledged King of Naples and 
 Sicily, on his renunciation of Parma and Tuscany, the former 
 of which duchies should be joined to Milan, and go to the 
 Emperor. 
 
 The Spaniards, and particularly the Queen, were violently 
 indignant at this treaty being made over their heads, but they 
 protested in vain. Parma was Elizabeth's own duchy : her 
 son Charles had been popular with the people, who hated the 
 Germans. The Spanish Queen had other sons to provide for 
 and wished to make one of them Duke of Parma and Tuscany 
 in place of his brother ; but Spain could not fight all Europe
 
 XIV.] Philip V — Ferdinand VI. 1732 — 1759. 373 
 
 for it, and Elizabeth decided to bide her time till the next 
 scramble gave her another chance, the preliminaries of the 
 second treaty of Vienna being reluctantly accepted by Spain 
 in May 1736. 
 
 For a short time Spain tasted the blessings of peace. 
 During the stay of the court at Seville the Queen had taken a 
 fancy to the magnificent pictures by Murillo, which were there 
 seen at their best, and of which, curiously enough, there was 
 no specimen amongst the enormous accumulations of paintings 
 amassed by the successive Spanish monarchs, and no less than 
 twenty-nine of his canvasses were brought back to Madrid for the 
 galleries of St Ildefonso. All Europe was being ransacked in 
 the intervals of war to satisfy the Queen's craving for sculpture, 
 paintings and the like ; and the King himself vied with his 
 wife in his eagerness to purchase specimens of the works of the 
 most approved artists of the time. The gloomy old palace of 
 Madrid, which Philip hated, had been destroyed by fire on 
 Christmas Day 1734, and the best artists in Italy and Spain 
 were summoned under the abbe Juvara to erect the present 
 splendid granite edifice on its bluff over the Manzanares. 
 Thenceforward both Philip and his wife were indefatigable in 
 their zeal for collecting beautiful things, according to their 
 lights, to adorn their palaces. No small part of the duties of 
 the Spanish ambassadors was to l)argain with artists and 
 dealers for their treasures ; and, notwithstanding the fact that 
 many hundreds of splendid canvasses, torn from their frames 
 during the fire at the palace, lay forgotten in the cellars of the 
 Archbishop's palace, vast numbers more were bought of all 
 schools, from the splendid Flemish and Italian masters to the 
 insipid degeneracy of the modern court painters, from Titian, 
 Diirer, Rubens and Vandyck, to Ranc and Van Eoo. Again 
 and again, during his attacks of despondency, the King had 
 talked of abdicating, but Elizabeth Farnese was always at hand 
 to prevent it. 
 
 The vast expenditure of the palace and the drain of constant
 
 374 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 war had exhausted even the increased resources provided by 
 the wisdom of Patino and his brother the Marquis of Castelar; 
 all the people desired was peace, but the maternal ambition of 
 Elizabeth was still unsatisfied, and all had to give way to her 
 imperious will. Her duchy of Parma had gone to the Emperor, 
 and until she got it back for her kin Europe could know no 
 durable peace. In August 1737 she contrived to marry her 
 second son Philip to the Princess Marie Louise, eldest daughter 
 of Louis XV, and this was a distinct step in advance ; but before 
 another could be taken the storm burst in a new direction. 
 
 The treaties of Utrecht had given to England the monopoly 
 of the slave trade, and many trading privileges in Spanish 
 America. British factories existed at Panama, Vera Cruz, 
 Buenos Ayres, Cartagena and elsewhere, and the ships trading 
 with slaves were exempt from examination or duty. This 
 enabled the Jamaica colonists, who were already enriched 
 by the plunder of the Buccaneers, to carry on an active 
 contraband trade to the great loss of the Spaniards. Reprisals 
 and mutual recrimination were the result, and matters at length 
 reached a crisis. Spain did not wish for war, especially with 
 England, and agreed by the convention of the Pardo (January 
 1739) to pay an indemnity of ;^ 95,000, pending a peaceful 
 arrangement of all open questions by a conference at ALadrid'. 
 In return Spain pressed for the payment by England of certain 
 claims made by her against the South Sea Company. The 
 answer was a commencement of hostilities on the part of 
 England, owing mainly to public clamour and greatly against 
 the will of Walpole. Admiral Vernon suddenly appeared before 
 Porto Bello (Isthmus of Panama) with six ships of the hne. 
 The garrisons of the fortresses fled, and the city, which was one 
 of the great depots for the wealth of Central America and the 
 West Indies, was sacked and destroyed (22 November 1739). 
 
 1 Tlie main points at issue, beyond the indemnity claims, were the right 
 of search and the delimitation of Georiria.
 
 XIV.] Philip V— Ferdinand VI, 1732 — 1759. 375 
 
 The news once more awoke Philip from his lethargy. All 
 Spain rang with indignation : their country, said the Spaniards, 
 was no longer impotent, as it had been under the later 
 Austrians, but could resent and revenge attacks upon its 
 honour and welfare. Money had already been collected for 
 another purpose ; expenses were cut down to the lowest, 
 pensions and salaries suspended ; the interest on debts had 
 been reduced and forced loans resorted to ; and just in time 
 the Indian silver fleet fortunately arrived safely. Spanish 
 corsairs soon scoured the sea in search of English mercliant- 
 men, and in a few months prey to the value of ^^234,000 had 
 fallen into their hands. This was a new Spain which England 
 had to face, no longer the helpless victim of the previous 
 century. All Englishmen were expelled from Spain and trade 
 with them strictly prohibited; Gibraltar was threatened by an 
 army under the Duke de Montemar, another Spanish force 
 threatened the English in the Balearic Isles, whilst the Duke 
 of Ormond collected a squadron in Galicia to invade Ireland 
 in the interests of the Pretender. A French fleet also hovered 
 on the English coast. England, on the other hand, was not 
 idle. A squadron of English ships attempted to blockade 
 Ferrol, but the Spanish fleet gave them the slip and sailed to 
 South America to reinforce the Spaniards there. Anson, though 
 he had lost most of his ships, plundered and ravaged on the 
 Pacific coasts of South America ; and Admiral Vernon, after 
 his exploit at Porto Bello, determined to attack Cartagena on 
 the Spanish Main. The city was rich and populous, defended 
 by the citadel of St Lazaro on a hill commanding the port. 
 The loss of the place would have ruined the Spanish power in 
 America; and at first it seemed as if its loss was inevitable. 
 General Wentworth with 10,000 men landed under the guns 
 of the fleet, and carried all before him in the harbour. The 
 splendid courage of Eslava the Viceroy, however, saved the 
 place. The English attack on the citadel failed, the deadly 
 climate thinned their ranks, and Vernon was forced to abandon
 
 3/6 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 his attempt, a similar evil fortune attending his attack upon 
 Santiago de Cuba shortly afterwards. The great Patiiio had 
 not lived to see the triumph of his enlightened colonial and 
 naval policy — he had died in 1736 — but the vigour he had 
 introduced into all branches of the administration had borne 
 rich fruit, and England found, as Walpole had predicted, 
 that a new Spain had been called into existence, capable of 
 defending herself even upon England's own element. 
 
 Patino's scheme had been to revive Spain by imitating the 
 policy of England and Holland ; the fostering of trade by 
 subsidised companies, by bounties, and by the exclusion of 
 foreign goods from the colonies. During the fourteen years 
 that had elapsed since he had first guided the administration 
 this great change had occurred. Spain was able to hold her 
 own in America, as well as in Europe, and to defend her rights 
 upon the sea. Elizabeth Farnese, however, cared nothing 
 about America or the sea, except so far as concerned the 
 pieces of eight brought by the silver fleets. Her view at present 
 was bounded by the desire of regaining the lost Italian duchies 
 for her second son Philip; the war which had been forced upon 
 her by England could not help her in this, and caused her to 
 spend the money she had scraped together to buy the duchies 
 if possible. But in October 1740 an event occurred which 
 again threw all Europe into the seething cauldron of war, 
 and opened to Elizabeth's unquiet spirit a wider ambition than 
 ever for the aggrandisement of her offspring. The Emperor 
 Charles VI died, and with him the male line of the imperial 
 house of Austria. For years he had struggled to obtain the 
 guarantee of Europe for the succession of his daughter Maria 
 Theresa, and had secured the confirmation of his "pragmatic 
 sanction " by the last treaty of Vienna. But the interests in 
 opposition were many and diverse. The dominions of the 
 Habsburgs were scattered and disunited in race, faith, and 
 language, and though Charles' daughter at first succeeded 
 peacefully, the muttering of the great storm could already be
 
 XIV.] Philip V — Ferdinand VT, 1732 — 1759. Z77 
 
 heard approaching. The Austrian monarchy was poor and 
 exhausted with the long struggle against the Turk, and lay an 
 easy prey to ambition. Phihp V was made to claim the whole 
 inheritance, as the senior descendant of the Emperor Charles V, 
 whose line it had been arranged in the family compact should 
 succeed in case of the extinction of that of Ferdinand I ; but 
 the Spanish claim was only intended as a lever for obtaining the 
 Austrian dominions in Italy — Lombardy and the Milanese — 
 which, joined to Parma and Tuscany, now possessed by Maria 
 Theresa's husband, would make a respectable kingdom for 
 Elizabeth's second son Pliilip. The new King of Poland, the 
 Elector of Bavaria, the King of Sardinia and the King of 
 Prussia, also claimed the whole or parts of the imperial 
 inheritance, and all P^urope was interested in preventing the 
 whole from again falling to one monarch. Whilst diplomatic 
 protests and paper claims were being made, Frederick II of 
 Prussia occupied Silesia with 20,000 men, defeating the 
 Austrians at MoUwitz, and a general war commenced. 
 
 The details of the long and terrible struggle for the Austrian 
 succession cannot be related in this work : only the Spanish 
 share in it can be lightly summarised. The English Mediter- 
 ranean fleet under Admiral Haddock was jealously watching 
 the movements of Spain, and a plan of the Duke of Montemar 
 had been approved by Philip V to take a Spanish army to 
 Italy through the republic of Genoa, whilst a Neapolitan force 
 advanced through Papal territory, and a French army accom- 
 panied Don Philip to Milan. At the last moment Campillo, 
 the new minister of war in Madrid, changed the plan, in 
 spite of Montemar's remonstrances, and the Spanish squadron, 
 which in November 1741 left Barcelona with 25 battalions of 
 infantry and a few cavalry, sailed to Orbitello as its rendezvous 
 instead of to Sestri, as Montemar wished. At the same time 
 Montemar himself with another force marched into Italy through 
 France by permission of Fleury. Protected by a French fleet, 
 the Spanish squadron mannged to escape Haddock's ships,
 
 3/8 Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 and 14,000 Spanish troops were landed on Genoese territory. 
 Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy (King of Sardinia), had old 
 ambitions in Lombardy as well as Elizabeth Farnese, and after 
 some hesitation sided with Maria Theresa, in order to check the 
 spread of Spanish influence in Italy. By the time Montemar 
 advanced with the united armies of Spain and Naples, Charles 
 Emmanuel and an Austrian army were ready to receive them. 
 Montemar's army was discouraged with the long delay and 
 many contretemps which had befallen it, and the men deserted 
 by thousands ; Cardinal Fleury broke his promise to send a 
 French army with young Philip, the Neapolitans had no 
 stomach for the fight, the English fleet blockaded the French 
 and Spanish ports ; and at last, hopeless of effecting any useful 
 purpose, Montemar fell back before Charles Emmanuel and 
 General Traun, and re-entered Neapolitan territory (August 
 1742). Almost simultaneously (22 August) Commodore Martin 
 with an English squadron appeared in the Bay of Naples, and 
 gave the King one hour in which to agree to withdraw the 
 Neapolitan contingent from the Spanish army. Under the 
 threat of immediate bombardment of the city Charles was 
 forced to comply. 
 
 The treaty of Breslau (July 1742), by which the Kings of 
 Prussia and Poland withdrew from the war, placed Spain in a 
 difficult position. Charles Emmanuel could aff"ord to be obsti- 
 nate now, for he had Austria at his back, and he knew that the 
 old Cardinal Fleury would not involve France in a great war 
 to benefit Elizabeth Farnese's second son. But in January 
 1743 the timid, temporising Cardinal died, and Louis XV was 
 free from a tutelage which had galled him. A bolder policy was 
 adopted, and soon young Philip on the frontier of Piedmont 
 was joined by 10,000 French troops, whilst Count de Gages, 
 the new Spanish General, unsuccessfully attacked the Austrians 
 at Panaro. Charles Emmanuel now thought the time had 
 arrived for him to receive payment for his efforts and carried 
 on a comphcated double set of negotiations with Austria on
 
 XIV.] Philip V — Ferdinand Vf, 1732 — 1759. 379 
 
 the one hand, and France on the other, for the possession of 
 Lombardy. With much repugnance Maria Theresa at last 
 partly gave way, and the treaty of Worms was signed (September 
 1743)5 by which Charles Emmanuel received Vigevano, with 
 part of Pavia and Piacenza, and abandoned his claim to Milan. 
 This led to an immediate declaration of war by France against 
 Austria and a close alliance between France and Spain. The 
 treaty of Fontainebleau (October 1743) was intended to be 
 a permanent family pact, binding the Bourbons together for 
 offence and defence; Gibraltar and Mahon were to be taken 
 from the English ; the portion of Savoy nominally ceded to 
 France by the treaty of Utrecht was to be wrested from 
 Charles Emmanuel; Parma and Piacenza, with Milan, were 
 to be won for young Don Philip; and the two Bourbon 
 sovereigns of France and Spain were to stand shoulder to 
 shoulder against the world. The war in Italy now commenced 
 in earnest. The great naval battle off Hyeres, between the 
 Spanish and French fleets and Admiral Matthews, was indecisive 
 (22 February 1744), but at least it reHeved the blockade of 
 Toulon; whilst on the other hand the Austrian Lobkowitz 
 drove the Spaniards back along the east coast of Italy to the 
 frontier of Naples. Charles III then abandoned his neutrality 
 and joined the Spaniards, in spite of Lobkowitz's energetic 
 generalship, and the Austrians were obliged to retire on to the 
 Adriatic coast. All through the summer (1744) the struggle 
 went on in the north of Italy. Don Philip and his Frenchmen 
 and Spaniards penetrated into Piedmont, but ineffectually 
 besieged Coni ; and in October were forced to retreat to 
 Dauphine, abandoning their artillery and baggage, and barely 
 escaping capture. 
 
 The Bourbon cause was strengthened early in 1745 by the 
 adhesion of the republic of Genoa, where, in May, Gages and 
 Don Philip effected a junction, and, including the Genoese 
 contingent of 10,000 men, marched an army of over 60,000 
 strong to invade the Milanese. By clever strategy they
 
 380 spam : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 separated Charles Emmanuel from the Austrian Schulemburg 
 and completely routed the former (September), capturing 
 thereafter in rapid succession the cities of Alessandria, Valenza, 
 Casale and Asti. Don Philip was thus able to enter Milan in 
 triumph in December, the whole country greeting him as its 
 sovereign, except the citadels of Milan, Mantua, Alessandria 
 and Asti. Thus beaten, Charles Emmanuel listened to a talk 
 of separate negociations with France — so weak had the family 
 pact proved already. Preliminaries were agreed to in February 
 1746, by which Charles Emmanuel was to have Lombardy, 
 and Don Philip to be contented with Parma and Piacenza; 
 but, when Elizabeth Farnese learnt that her affairs were being 
 settled without her consent, the embryo arrangement was soon 
 upset, and the war recommenced more energetically than ever, 
 particularly on the part of Charles Emmanuel, who promptly 
 drove the Spaniards out of Milan. A Spanish force in Parma 
 under Castelar only escaped by the strategy of Gages ; and 
 soon Parma shared the fate of Milan. At Piacenza the 
 Franco-Spanish army was literally cut to bits by Lichtenstein 
 (16 July 1746), and the ambitious dreams of Elizabeth Farnese 
 seemed to melt into thin air. 
 
 The waste of life and treasure, for the purpose of winning 
 a throne for the Queen's second son, had caused the most bitter 
 discontent in Spain, where peace was recognised as being the 
 first need of the country. Under the fostering care of the 
 modern statesmen of the Patino school, particularly Ustariz, 
 the Spanish industries were painfully struggling to life again, 
 and at the very time when every man and every ducat were 
 wanted at home, blood and gold were poured out like water 
 for no object but to satisfy an imperious woman's maternal 
 ambition. Louis XV and the French people were still less 
 concerned in Elizabeth's object — notwithstanding the family 
 pact — and urged that peace should be made. 
 
 Elizabeth was forced to agree, for without French aid she 
 was powerless against Austria and Savoy. Her only condition
 
 xiv.J Pldlip V— Ferdinand VI, 1732—1759. 381 
 
 was that Charles Emmanuel should not receive Lombardy, 
 whoever else had it. Whilst the negociations were in progress 
 — on the 9th July 1746— Philip V was struck with apoplexy 
 and died. He had for years past at frequent intervals 
 believed himself to be in articulo mortis, but the troubles 
 and disasters of the war had at last realised his dream. He 
 was a heavy, dull devotee, frequently quite insane for con- 
 siderable periods in his later years. For him, his throne had 
 been a constant penance and anguish, and only the command 
 of his imperious wife had kept him in it so long : some great 
 crisis or strong excitement alone shook him out of his lethargy, 
 and enabled him for a brief period to do justice to his original 
 qualities, which were overlaid by indolence and sensuousness. 
 Spain owed little to him personally, but he was a new man, 
 belonging to a fresh family, coming from a more enlightened 
 country than Spain, and his very presence broke the gloomy 
 spell of the house of Austria, which by regular gradations had 
 descended from genius to idiocy, and dragged unhappy Spain 
 to the lowest depths of humiliation and despair. Philip V 
 represented a new era ; and modern ideas, though strenuously 
 combatted by ignorance, selfishness and bigotry obtained some 
 small footing under his rule. Saddled with the exhausting 
 wars of succession, and the awful waste of resources caused by 
 Elizabeth Farncse's ambition ; bled to death, almost, by the 
 lavish expenditure entailed by a desire to rival in arid Spain 
 the splendours of the Court of Versailles ; in intellectual 
 and material progress the country during Philip's reign was 
 nevertheless remarkable. It is true that the evil old system 
 of taxation in Castile was unaltered. The alcabalas of 14 per 
 cent, on all sales were still supposed to be collected, but were 
 mostly paid in quotas, and monopolies and exemptions were 
 granted, and bounties paid to certain industries, which in many 
 instances counteracted the oppressive taxes ; the hated food 
 tax of the "millions" still rendered life expensive, and pro- 
 duction costly ; but the people were to some extent saved from
 
 382 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap, 
 
 the constant extraordinary demands, oppressive procedure and 
 illegal extortions of the tax-farmers, which had driven land out 
 of cultivation under the Austrian Kings. A beginning of 
 reform had been made in the kingdom of Valencia in 17 17. 
 The revenue there had been raised by a tax of 5 per cent, on 
 every retail transaction, a 5 per cent, duty on all merchandise 
 or produce entering or issuing by land or sea from the territory, 
 and an additional 5 per cent, on certain specified goods. 
 These Valencian taxes were all abolished except the coast 
 custom-houses in the year mentioned, and replaced by a single 
 tax upon salt, all tolls, octrois etc. being also cleared away. 
 The result of this was that, although the Valencian textiles 
 could not compete with foreign goods for America, they could 
 now supply the home market \ and the looms increased in 
 number from 300 in 17 17, to 2,000 in 1722. The decayed 
 industries, moreover, were revived by the introduction of large 
 numbers of artificers from abroad ; and especially the trade of 
 ship-building was practically re-introduced by the incessant 
 care of Patino. The Cortes were now never summoned for 
 financial pmrposes, and many of the taxes imposed in times of 
 pressure during Philip's constant wars are indefensible from the 
 point of view of the modern economist ; but, withal, the ten- 
 dency was in the right direction, and in such a country as 
 Spain it was impossible to proceed except by very slow stages, 
 as the zealous Frenchman Orry had found to his cost. 
 
 In the year of Philip's accession the national revenue of 
 Spain is stated by Canga-Argiielles to have amounted to 142 
 millions of reals (equal to 2\d. each), whereas it had grown by 
 1737 to 211 millions, the expenditure, however, increasing in 
 still greater proportion ; namely, in the reign of Charles II, 
 193 million reals, in 1701, 247 millions, and in 1737, 336 
 millions of reals. The palace expenditure of Charles II had 
 amounted to about 11 miUions of reals annually, but the 
 extravagant tastes of Philip and his wife increased the ex- 
 penditure of the palaces to three times that amount.
 
 XIV.] Philip V— Ferdinand VI, 1732 — 1759. 383 
 
 Philip was well-meaning, merciful and magnanimous, but 
 he was overweighted. His mental infirmities and his bodily 
 indulgence made him a mere cipher in the hands of his wife, 
 and although the material renaissance of Spain coincides with 
 his period, it received little impulse from him, except in 
 acquiescence and good intentions — which in the case of a 
 monarch counts for much. 
 
 By his first wife Philip had had four children, of whom only 
 his successor Ferdinand VI survived him. By Elizabeth 
 Farnese he had six children, of whom four were living at the 
 time of his death, Charles King of Naples, Don Philip, and 
 the Cardinal Don Luis, with three daughters, one of whom, 
 the Dauphiness, died a few days later. With the accession of 
 Ferdinand "VI, whom she hated and had treated badly, the 
 sun of Elizabeth Farnese set, though she did not cease to 
 intrigue in her retirement at St Ildefonso in favour of her sons. 
 She was treated by her step-son with characteristic generosity 
 and kindness. Her ambition of course ceased to be the turn- 
 ing point of Spanish foreign policy, but Ferdinand's filial respect 
 and magnanimity prevented any sudden or violent change in 
 his councils. He maintained his father's principal ministers, 
 the Marquises of Villarias and Ensenada, and continued the 
 pourparlers of peace which had been commenced : but the 
 famous Marquis de la Mina was sent to replace Gages and 
 Castelar in command of the defeated Spanish forces in Italy, 
 most of which had taken refuge in Genoa, where they were 
 blockaded by the English fleet and threatened by the Austrians 
 and Savoyards. Mina and Maillebois, the French marshal, 
 decided to escape whilst they could by land, and left Genoa to 
 the far from tender mercy of the Empress-Queen (September 
 1746). Charles Emmanuel and the Austrians, under Count 
 Brown, with the co-operation of the English fleet, invaded 
 Provence, and were sweeping all before them when (December 
 1746) a popular rising took place in Genoa. The infuriated 
 people, mad with rage at the humiliation they had suffered,
 
 384 Spain : ils greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 defeated the 10,000 Austrian troops in their neighbourhood. 
 This demoralised the Austrians in Provence, who were driven 
 back again over the Var by the French and Spaniards 
 (February 1747), and finally after much desultory fighting 
 Schulemburg and the English were forced to raise the siege of 
 Genoa (6 July 1747), the former hurrying to the aid of Charles 
 Emmanuel. But before he could arrive the King of Sardinia 
 had inflicted a crushing defeat on the French at Exilles. All 
 through the autumn and winter the hostilities continued with- 
 out important result; but in the meanwhile the negociations 
 for peace proceeded. Marshal Saxe had carried the French 
 arms successfully through Flanders, which somewhat equalised 
 matters. England was desirous of friendship with Spain ; 
 Europe was anxious for peace ; and so, above all, was the 
 amiable and popular Ferdinand, whose great ambition was to 
 make Spain happy, prosperous and enlightened. He, too, was 
 married to a woman of stronger will than his own. It was a 
 common saying in Madrid that Ferdinand had not succeeded 
 Philip, but that Queen Barbara (of Braganza) had succeeded 
 Queen Elizabeth (Farnese) ; and though Elizabeth tried her 
 hardest to cause a continuance of the war, which with French 
 aid should give her son Philip a crown, Barbara had her way ; 
 her Portuguese kinsmen succeeded in their mediation, and the 
 treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which had already been agreed to by 
 the English and French, was accepted by Ferdinand and 
 Maria Theresa (October 1748). The new treaty, though it did 
 not satisfy Elizabeth Farnese's ambition for her son Philip, 
 made him the sovereign Duke of Parma, Piacenza and Guas- 
 talla. Maria Theresa was acknowledged by all Europe ; England 
 obtained important commercial concessions, Charles Emmanuel 
 was guaranteed his kingdom of Sardinia, and Europe was at 
 peace once more. An additional separate treaty was made 
 between England and Spain in the following year, October 
 1749, called the treaty of Aquisgran, by which Spain undertook 
 to pay the South Sea Company ^100,000 for the suspension
 
 XIV.] Philip V— Ferdinand VI, 1732 — 1759. 385 
 
 of its slave trade privileges for four years, and confirmed the 
 many commercial advantages granted to England in previous 
 treaties. 
 
 Ferdinand was now 36 years of age, and found his country, 
 for the first time for at least a century, in the enjoyment of a 
 durable peace with all the world. We have seen how, in spite 
 of the constant waste of war, the tenacity of the Iberian race 
 had shown itself under the newer regime of the Bourbons. 
 In the midst even of the calamities which Elizabeth Farnese's 
 ambition had brought upon Spain, the arts of peace had still 
 re-blossomed. Philip and Elizabeth were not only the liberal 
 patrons of the arts, but had helped and encouraged Spanish 
 literature as actively, and far more judiciously, than had Philip 
 IV. To them and their advisers is owing the foundation of 
 the noble National Library in Madrid, the Royal Academy of 
 History, the Seminary of Nobles, and a host of learned societies 
 and universities which placed Spanish scholars at no disadvan- 
 tage with those of other countries. It was this part of his 
 father's character, a love of peace, enlightenment and the 
 gentler arts, that Ferdinand inherited from Philip V, and 
 during his short reign he, and his Queen Barbara, devoted 
 most of their attention to promoting the best interests of their 
 country. The French and Italian influence over Spanish 
 politics was now thrown into the background : Ferdinand and 
 his ministers were Spaniards before all, and inaugurated a truly 
 patriotic poHcy. On the death of Villarias, he had been suc- 
 ceeded by Don Jose Carvajal, a descendant of the house of 
 Lancaster, and consequently more inclined to the English 
 than the French connection, but honest, upright and intelli- 
 gent. With him, and soon to become omnipotent, was a man 
 of immense energy and ability, a banker and commercial man 
 by origin, Somodevilla, Marquis de Ensenada, who practically 
 re-created the Spanish navy, and gave great impulse to Spanish 
 commerce, but whose career was ruined subsequently by his 
 extravagance and lavishness. To these two ministers was left 
 H. s. 25
 
 386 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 the government of the country. Both the King and Queen 
 loved quietude and family life, and all they asked was that 
 Spain should be peaceful and prosperous, and that they per- 
 sonally should be relieved from harassing cares. Little intrigues 
 of course went on around them. The sweet voice of the 
 Italian singer Carlo Broschi (FarinelU), of which Philip V had 
 never tired, charmed the new monarchs, especially Barbara, 
 still more, and the singer was surrounded by place-hunters 
 and diplomatists ; the king's confessor Rabago was head of a 
 palace clique which dreamed of governing Spain ; and the 
 envoys of France and England, already at issue again about 
 the delimitation of their American colonies, made of Madrid a 
 focus of intrigue, in which Sir Benjamin Keene was generally 
 victorious. 
 
 In the teeth of French opposition a treaty was arranged in 
 1752 between Spain, Maria Theresa and the Dukes of Tuscany 
 and Parma, with the adherence of Charles Emmanuel, which 
 guaranteed at length the neutrality of Italy, and banished one 
 of the principal pretexts for future wars. Curiously enough, 
 the Infante Charles, King of Naples, was the only one who 
 now sounded a note of discord at the Italian arrangement, 
 which deprived his children of the hope of obtaining the duchy 
 of Tuscany; and Charles consequently made approaches to 
 France against his brother's kingdom. Keene found in this a 
 pretext to try to draw Ferdinand more to the side of England, 
 but Carvajal avoided the pitfall. French intrigue also 
 captured the other Spanish Infante, Philip Duke of Parma, 
 who had married a French princess. Thanks to Keene's 
 sleepless diligence Ferdinand's breach with his half brothers 
 grew wider and wider. Charles, the elder, already gave him- 
 self airs as assured successor to the crown of Spain — for 
 Ferdinand had no children — and encouraged Ensenada, who 
 favoured the French faction, to promote the influence of Duras 
 the French ambassador in Madrid. The Spanish ambassador 
 in London, an Irishman named Richard Wall, seconded
 
 XIV.] Philip V— Ferdinand VI, 1732— 1759. 387 
 
 Carvajal and Keene in their efforts to unite England and Spain. 
 The French Government demanded his recall on charges of 
 intrigue against French interests. A strict enquiry proved the 
 accusations to be groundless (October 1752), and Wall was 
 raised to the post of minister of State after the death of 
 Carvajal in the following year. The acquittal of Wall and his 
 temporary restoration to his post in London dealt a blow to 
 French interests, and especially to the Marquis of Ensenada, 
 whose foreign policy tended to a close offensive and defensive 
 alliance between the Bourbon kings. Whilst Carvajal lived, 
 he steadily avoided entanglement with either France or Eng- 
 land, who were now rapidly drifting towards war, although his 
 sympathy was in favour of the latter power, and his friendship 
 with Sir Benjamin Keene was intimate and sincere. In April 
 1754 this high-minded minister died; and for a moment it 
 seemed as if Ensenada would become supreme, in which case 
 Spain might once more be dragged into the impending war at 
 the tail of France. But Ferdinand was determined to have 
 peace in his time, and was supported in his determination by 
 his friends the Duke of Alba (Duke of Huesca) and the Count 
 de Valparaiso, who advised him to recall Wall and entrust him 
 with the ministry of State. Ensenada and his friends were not 
 shelved without a struggle, and for a time intrigues on both 
 sides were active, Farinelli on this occasion using his great in- 
 fluence with the Queen in favour of the Marquis. 
 
 But the arrival of Wall on the scene completed the triumph 
 of the anti-French party. The new minister, eloquent and 
 ingratiating, with all the vivacity of the Irishman, soon became 
 master of the situation, and a pretext was found for the disgrace 
 of Ensenada. At the instance of the English government a pro- 
 posal had been made by Portugal to cede to Spain the colony 
 of Sacramento, at the mouth of the river Plate, in exchange 
 for seven provinces belonging to Spain on the north of that 
 river, and the province of Tuy in Galicia. The Jesuits of 
 Paraguay protested and the inhabitants of the seven provinces 
 
 25—2
 
 388 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 revolted against the change, and when after Carvajal's death, 
 Ensenada first discovered the negotiation which had been con- 
 cluded through English influence, he secretly appealed to the 
 King of Naples to interfere. Charles accordingly sent a protest 
 to his brother, to the immense indignation of the latter. The 
 treaty was suspended, and the English and Portuguese interests 
 were for the moment vanquished. Ensenada lost no time 
 in negotiating secretly a close aUiance with P'rance, unknown 
 to his colleagues, or even the king ; he subsidised opposition to 
 the English in America, and was rapidly dragging Spain into 
 war, vi^hen Keene, Wall and the Duke of Alba discovered his 
 proceedings and divulged them to the king. On the night of 
 2oth July 1754, Ensenada was arrested in bed by the king's 
 guard, and hurried off to Granada; and with him fell all his 
 friends of the French party. His wealth and splendour had 
 raised up many enemies, and accusations of all sorts were rife 
 against him, but none were proved, and he was allowed to live 
 in dignified retirement away from the court. He had during 
 his ministry given an enormous impetus to the prosperity of 
 the country, reviving agriculture, promoting irrigation-canals, 
 improving roads, subsidising manufactures, and once more 
 created a Spanish marine. To him was due also the re-open- 
 ing of Spanish mines. It had been illegal to export any of the 
 precious metals from Spain. Ensenada encouraged silver 
 mining and allowed export of metal, but imposed a royalty for 
 the benefit of the State — 3^ per cent, in Spain, and 6 per cent, 
 in America. But above all he continued in Castile, to a 
 great extent, the financial reforms already adopted in Valencia, 
 abolished tax-farming, and initiated a project for suppressing 
 the hateful tax of the "millions" on meat and other articles of 
 food'. Under his auspices, also, the long pending questions 
 
 ^ Between 1742 and 1750 the increase of the revenue was 5 millions of 
 ducats annually, the estimated revenue for the latter year being 27 million 
 ducats. The Indian revenues, which — as has already been shown — were 
 about 3 to 4 millions of ducats, rose under Ensenada to 6 millions yearly.
 
 xiv.J Philip V — Ferdinand VI, 1732 — 1759. 389 
 
 with Rome, respecting the patronage of the Spanish church, 
 were set at rest. The sleepless papacy had never ceased, 
 during the long period of Spain's weakness, to encroach, so far 
 as it could, upon the royal patronage of the church, which we 
 have seen was insisted upon by Charles V and Philip II. 
 Complaints of the encroachments of the clergy had been 
 constant, and convention after convention had been negotiated 
 with the popes for the remedy of the crying abuses, the papacy 
 always seeking in the alleged interests of discipline to exercise 
 some control over the selection of church dignitaries. At last 
 (1753) the famous Concordat was signed, by which the King of 
 Spain's right of patronage was unreservedly acknowledged by 
 the Pope (Benedict XIV), with the exception of 52 benefices 
 reserved for the Pope; and for the prelates the patronage of all 
 benefices which might fall vacant in their dioceses during the 
 months of March, June, September and December. Although, 
 unfortunately, Ensenada and Carvajal differed in their foreign 
 policy, it is not too much to say that they, together with their 
 predecessor Campillo, opened a new period of prosperity and 
 power for their country. 
 
 Wall wisely followed the same course, and thanks to the 
 determination of the King and Queen, as well as to the wisdom 
 of the minister, the persistent efforts of the EngUsh and French 
 governments to drag Spain into their quarrel in America failed. 
 The wounds which Spain had received in her century of con- 
 stant war, as well as the natural calamities which befell her by 
 the terrible earthquakes, destroying whole cities in Spain 
 (1755), needed, indeed, the prudent, tranquil policy followed 
 
 The adoption by Ensenada of measures similar to those referred to in a 
 former chapter with regard to Valencia (17 17) had the effect of enormously 
 promoting the national industry of silk weaving, the number of looms 
 having increased in 1751 to 14,600 in all Spain, in addition to the royal 
 factory at Talavera. Ensenada's great plan for replacing the alcabalas 
 and millions by a single tax upon salt and the revenues from exterior 
 custom-houses was under consideration when he fell.
 
 390 Spaiji : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 by Ferdinand Vi. There were, it is stated, still 18,000 square 
 leagues of the best land in Spain entirely out of cultivation, 
 and 2,000,000 of the inhabitants on the verge of starvation. 
 The recovery from such long-standing misery was necessarily 
 very slow, but as much as any human beings could do under 
 the circumstances, was done by Ferdinand and his ministers. 
 It needed all their prudence to keep clear of the war between 
 the two great powers, for part of the struggle was enacted on 
 Spanish land, Minorca being captured from the English by 
 the Duke of Richelieu, while the ill-fated Byng was defeated in 
 Spanish waters (1756). Efforts, indeed, were made to bribe 
 Ferdinand into taking sides against England by an offer of the 
 cession of Minorca, and the crown of Poland for his half 
 brother Philip ; but he was firm in his determination. Spain 
 needed all her resources for herself and she should not be 
 drawn into her neighbour's quarrels whilst he lived, though his 
 new fleet was now able to protect Spanish commerce against 
 the depredations of the corsairs of either nation and of the 
 Moorish pirates. In August 1758 Queen Barbara died, to the 
 intense grief of her husband. Like his father before him, he 
 fell into a complete state of lethargy and shut himself off from 
 all communication with the world. Whilst he was thus isolated, 
 and in a condition of intermittent lunacy, the French party 
 formed a conspiracy to raise his brother Philip (Duke of 
 Parma) to the throne, to the detriment of Charles King of 
 Naples; but Pitt divulged the plot, and it fell through. 
 Gradually the King lapsed into entire madness, and eventually 
 died on the loth August 1759 after a reign of 13 years. He 
 was buried with his beloved wife Barbara in the Church of the 
 immense convent of the Salesas at Madrid — now the law- 
 courts — which they had founded, leaving his crown to his half- 
 brother King Charles, and appointing as regent pending the 
 new King's arrival, his mother Elizabeth Farnese. 
 
 It is difficult to exaggerate the intellectual advance which 
 Spain had made during the short breathing time of peace
 
 xiv.J Philip V— Ferdinand VI, 1732 — 1759. 391 
 
 under Ferdinand. The foundation of academies and learned 
 bodies went on apace ', subsidies and scholarships were granted 
 hberally to men of science, art, and letters, to enable them to 
 pursue their investigations in Spain and abroad; and foreign 
 scholars and artificers were also attracted to Spain. In almost 
 every direction advancement was remarkable. The Inquisition 
 in the reign of Philip V had continued its proceedings with as 
 much vigour as ever, though with less publicity. During the 
 reign of PhiHp there were no less than 14,000 persons sen- 
 tenced to various punishments by the Inquisition, 782 autos- 
 de-fe being held; but a great change came with Ferdinand. 
 Not only were the causes much less numerous, but the tribunal 
 itself was entirely altered in character. The age of light had 
 dawned, and the Holy Office itself was on its trial. The pro- 
 cedure now was mild, the punishments trifling, and without 
 degradation to the offender. Ferdinand had found Spain, 
 struggling painfully into the light, still ruined, bankrupt, and 
 miserable. He left it enjoying comparative prosperity, with a 
 fleet of fifty ships of war and three millions sterling in the 
 treasury.
 
 392 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 CHARLES III, 1759 — 1788. 
 
 Only a very brief summary can be given of the events of 
 the reign of Charles III. He was extremely popular with his 
 Neapolitan subjects, who had prospered exceedingly under his 
 rule. By the treaty of Aquisgran (1749), against which Charles 
 had protested, it was provided that the throne of Naples should 
 pass to the Duke of Parma, his brother, in case Charles suc- 
 ceeded to Spain; Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla being divided 
 between Austria and Sardinia. Both Charles and his subjects 
 were opposed to this arrangement ; and by means of diplomacy 
 and a money payment, an arrangement was made by which 
 Naples should pass to Ferdinand, the third son of Charles, then 
 aged 8 years. The eldest son, Philip, was excluded from the 
 succession in consequence of imbecility, and the heirship of 
 the crown of Spain was secured to the second son, Charles 
 Antonio, thenceforward Prince of Asturias. Charles III landed 
 at Barcelona on the 17th October 1759, and it very soon be- 
 came evident that neither he nor his wife, Amelia of Saxony, 
 intended to allow the Queen Mother to obtain the upper hand 
 again. They were polite and considerate to her, but firm in 
 excluding her from the political influence, for which she yearned 
 in order to obtain the duchy of Tuscany for her youngest son 
 Luis, the cardinal archbishop of Toledo. On his slow progress 
 through Cataluna and Aragon, the new King won all hearts by 
 remitting arrears of taxes, and restoring some of the privileges
 
 Chap. XV.] Charles III, 1759 — 1788. 393 
 
 which the provinces had lost under Philip V. In Madrid he 
 adopted a similar policy, and the rejoicings of the people at 
 his state-entry (13 July 1760) were such as had not been seen 
 since the palmy days of the house of Austria. 
 
 Up to this time, Madrid had remained one of the most 
 backward and filthy capitals of Europe ; the people even, of the 
 lower class, still swaggered about armed to the teeth ; and in 
 defiance of pragmatics, the big slouch hats of the men were 
 pulled over the eyes, and the corner of the long cloaks thrown 
 over the lower part of the face, until they looked, as Charles' 
 favourite the Marquis of Squillaci (Esquilache) said, more like 
 conspirators than the subjects of an enlightened monarch. 
 Charles was entirely surrounded by ministers and friends be- 
 longing to the new "philosophical" French school, who looked 
 upon religion as a relic of the dark ages, and exalted the secular 
 power of the monarchy in order to oppose the priest. The first 
 acts of the new kingwere therefore to endeavour to turn Spaniards 
 into as close an imitation of Frenchmen as possible, and to 
 make Madrid a bright, clean European city of the modern type, 
 rather than the gloomy capital it was. Streets were to be paved 
 and swept, pipes and gutters were to carry off the drainage, and 
 the warning cry of " agua va " was to be heard no more. An 
 urban police was established, men were to go " unmuzzled " and 
 unarmed, and lanterns were to illuminate the streets at night. 
 Wall had still remained at the head of affairs, the only change 
 in the ministry being the appointment of Squillaci as minister 
 of finance. All the new-fangled changes which the Spaniards 
 hated were laid to the charge of the ItaHan minister. Broad- 
 brims and long cloaks had been good enough for their fathers : 
 why said the Madrilehos, should they be forbidden to wear 
 them ? Lanterns might be wanted in some cities, but Spaniards 
 could be trusted, as well by night as by day. Personally the 
 King did not run counter to the religious convictions of his 
 people, and his first act after the ceremony of taking the oath 
 to the united Cortes of the nation, was to proclaim the Virgin
 
 394 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 of the Immaculate Conception the official patron of Spam; but 
 the men he had brought from Naples with him made no secret 
 of their contempt for the fat priests and monks that crowded 
 the capital, and with their ecclesiastical pretensions trenched 
 upon the royal prerogative. 
 
 Only a few months after his accession the King, at the 
 age of 43, lost his wife (September 1760): he remained a 
 widower for the rest of his life. Thenceforward Charles allowed 
 himself to be drawn more and more to the side of France. 
 Negotiations for peace were opened between Austria and 
 France early in 1761, but the conferences of Augsburg hung 
 fire, and later in the year the new Spanish ambassador in 
 Paris, Grimaldo, opened negotiations for a treaty, in which 
 France and Spain mutually agreed to defend each other's 
 territories^a most one-sided arrangement for Spain. When, 
 therefore, the French ambassador in London (Bussy) pre- 
 sented to Pitt the terms of France for peace, he also made 
 claims on account of Spain, with whom England was at peace. 
 The English government indignantly refused to consider such 
 demands, and in answer to Lord Bristol's remonstrances, Charles 
 informed him that he had signed a new " family compact " with 
 the French King (August 1761), Naples and Parma being in- 
 cluded in the arrangement. Bristol left Madrid in December. 
 In two years, therefore, Charles had allowed himself to be caught 
 in the snare which his less able half-brother had avoided for 13 
 years, and Spain was once more at war with England, for no 
 quarrel of her own. English subjects were expelled from Spain, 
 English ships in Spanish ports captured, and on the refusal of 
 the King of Portugal to join in the "family compact" (May 
 1762) his country was invaded by Spanish and French troops. 
 An English army of 10,000 men under Count Lippe, with 
 large stores of arms for the Portuguese, was promptly sent to 
 Portugal. Through the summer the campaign on the frontier 
 continued, some partial successes of the Spaniards under 
 O'Reilly and Ricla being more than counterbalanced by the
 
 XV.] Charles III, 1759 — 178^. 395 
 
 victories of Lippe and Burgoyne; the Spanish commander-in- 
 chief, Count de Aranda, being compelled to retire into Spain 
 on the approach of winter. In the West Indies the English 
 carried all before them, capturing Martinique from the French, 
 and Granada, St Vincent, Sc Lucia and Tobago from the 
 Spaniards. Finally, in June 1762, Admiral Pocock with a 
 powerful English fleet appeared before Habana, and landed 
 8000 men under the Earl of Albemarle. The place was well 
 prepared for attack, with a strong garrison and 16 ships of war 
 in the harbour, and the defence was both gallant and sanguinary; 
 but after a month of siege the EngHsh stormed the fortress of 
 Morro, capturing it only after immense carnage. At last, to 
 the great indignation of his countrymen, the governor, Pardo, 
 surrendered the place with 15 million dollars of treasure, an 
 enormous quantity of arms and stores, and 12 ships of war 
 (13 August 1762). In October Manila surrendered to another 
 English fleet, with a promised ransom of 4 million dollars, 
 which was never paid. Although the Spaniards had captured 
 the Portuguese province of Sarmiento on the river Plate, it was 
 clear to Charles that, at this rate, Spain would soon sink into 
 its former position of penury again; and he willingly listened 
 now to Lord Bute's suggestions for peace. The Duke de 
 Nivernais and Grimaldo were sent to London, and a treaty 
 was concluded in February 1763, by which the French ceded 
 to England various territories in Asia, America and Africa, and 
 again surrendered Minorca ; whilst Spain gave up Florida, the 
 exclusive claim to cut logwood on the coast of Campeachy and 
 the right to fish on the banks of Newfoundland, and England 
 returned Habana and Manila. 
 
 Wall had done his duty to Spain, but the family pact with 
 France and the war with England were distasteful to him, and 
 he earnestly sought permission to retire, now that the war was 
 ended. For a time the King absolutely refused to part with so 
 able a minister, and it was not until Wall feigned semi-blind- 
 ness that he was allowed to resign upon a handsome pension.
 
 396 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 and with every mark of honour ; Hving beloved and respected 
 on hi^ estate near Granada until 1778. He was succeeded 
 by Grimaldo, the negotiator of the "family compact"; "more 
 of a Frenchman," wrote Lord Rochford, "than the French 
 ambassador." With such a minister, Spanish relations with 
 Great Britain soon became strained again, and for a time war 
 seemed almost inevitable on the question of the expulsion of 
 the English settlers from Honduras, and the recriminatory 
 claims of both powers with regard to the non-fulfilment of the 
 clause relative to the logwood question in the last treaty of 
 peace. Finally, however, concessions on both sides were made, 
 and by the end of 1764 the imminent war was avoided; but 
 the discussions on the subject, following a war in which the 
 Spanish American colonies were principally interested, had 
 attracted the attention of Spaniards to that part of the world. 
 During the constant wars in the mother country the colonies 
 had been allowed to go on in their own way, Spanish Gover- 
 nors and officials, clerical and lay, plundering right and left, 
 with little or no thought of the benefit of the people over 
 whom they ruled. The one object was to get rich quickly and 
 return to Spain ; and all the evils of the mother country were 
 magnified in the colonies. Out of the 4 to 6 millions of dollars 
 which were sent from America annually for the royal treasury, 
 it is stated that less than a fifth actually reached its destination; 
 whilst one Archbishop Viceroy of Mexico sent no less than a 
 million dollars to Spain on his own account. 
 
 A vigorous attempt was now made (1765) to reform and 
 modernise the colonial governments. Inspectors with large 
 discretionary powers were sent out, and the administrations 
 were entirely reorganised, not without some resistance, but to 
 the immense benefit both of Spain and the colonies. The 
 reforming zeal continued also in Spain itself, under the two 
 Italian ministers Grimaldo and Squillaci. The Madrilenos had 
 looked sourly from the first upon the introduction of foreign 
 ideas in the capital, and particularly upon the attempt by
 
 XV.] Charles III, 1759 — 1788. 397 
 
 sumptuary laws to compel Spaniards to wear cocked hats, bag- 
 wigs and coats, instead of "chambergos" (wide brimmed hats), 
 "guedejas" (sidelocks) and long cloaks; and their discontent 
 had been artfully kept alive by the priests and by grandees of 
 the old Spanish school. Squillaci was the principal scapegoat. 
 The King had from the first made the Inquisition and the 
 Clergy understand that in future he, and not they, should be 
 master, and though the monarch himself was too high to be 
 attacked, his foreign advisers were fair game. In March 1766 
 a strict pragmatic was issued forbidding the wearing of cloaks 
 beyond a certain length, and wide brimmed hats, on pain of 
 imprisonment; and public officers were posted in the streets 
 with shears, to clip the offending garments to the required 
 dimensions. This order, coming after several similar attempts 
 to interfere with the personal habits of the people, aroused 
 popular fury. Some hidden hands organised a revolt. On 
 the 23rd March 1766, Palm Sunday, some men ostentatiously 
 paraded in the Plaza of Anton Martin in the forbidden garb. 
 They were challenged and resisted, and an infuriated mob 
 collected, as if by magic, in cloaks and broad brims. The 
 officers were overpowered, and the tumult swept in irresistible 
 numbers into the Great Square before the palace. "Death to 
 Esquilache " was the cry, and "Viva Espaha." The minister 
 had fled to hiding, but his house (the famous house with the 
 seven chimneys) was sacked. The crowd at first was induced 
 to disperse on the promise from the King that all their de- 
 mands should be conceded, but encouraged by their success, 
 they returned to the palace. A small picquet of the King's 
 Walloon guards fired upon the mob. This was enough ; for 
 the Walloons were foreigners too. Henceforward every Wal- 
 loon guard to be discovered was murdered; the corpses 
 were dragged through the streets, and the heads, crowned with 
 broad brimmed hats, were carried aloft on the tops of poles. 
 For the next two days slaughter and pillage raged supreme, 
 and those who raised the storm were powerless to stay it.
 
 398 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 They demanded that only Spaniards should rule them, and 
 that the Walloon guard should be suppressed ; that Spaniards 
 should dress as they pleased ; that municipal monopolies 
 should be abolished, that the price of bread should be lowered, 
 and that the King himself should personally promise com- 
 pliance. Some attempts at temporising only further aroused 
 their fury, and at last Charles had to give way and do as he 
 was bidden. But during the night the King was ill-advised . 
 enough to fly to Aranjuez, and the mob, feeling that they were 
 betrayed, again took possession of the capital. The King saw 
 now that they were not to be trifled with, and was persuaded 
 to return in a few days, whilst Squillaci went disguised to 
 Cartagena, and thence to Naples, where he died. 
 
 The revolt of Esquilache, as the Spaniards call it, struck a 
 death blow to two long standing institutions in Spain, the 
 domination of foreign ministers, and the right of the Sovereign 
 to interfere in the dress and personal habits of his people ; but 
 if, as was alleged, the priests were behind it and thought that it 
 would re-establish the power of the Inquisition and the Church 
 they were mistaken. The new Spanish ministers were Mus- 
 quiz for Finance, General Muniain for War; the presidency 
 of the Council was given to Count de Aranda, a man of 
 great intelligence, but greater vanity, who cared nothing for 
 the Church ; a zealous, but not too prudent, reformer. The 
 revolutionary agitation still continued and a plot was dis- 
 covered to kill the King ; the most arbitrary and revolting 
 punishments were inflicted upon the supposed offenders. The 
 Jesuits on the one hand, and the Voltairians on the other, were 
 accused of being at the bottom of the unrest ; and all over 
 Spain the feeling became more and more bitter between the 
 erstwhile omnipotent Church, and the free thought which 
 stood at the back of the coming French revoluiion. Bread 
 riots, and demands for the fixing of lower prices for food, 
 continued all through the spring and summer of 1766; and 
 Aranda, when he took in hand the reins of government, was
 
 xv.J Charles III, 1759 — 1788. 399 
 
 face to face with a state of affairs which could only be dealt 
 with by vigorous measures. The new minister was full of 
 liberal ideas. The monopoly of wealth and consideration held 
 for so many years in Spain by the clergy, whilst the country 
 was backward in material progress, compared with the rest of 
 Europe, galled his patriotism and common sense. He had 
 lived abroad for years, and saw how enlightenment had spread 
 in other countries, which had shaken off the yoke of priest- 
 craft ; and his one idea was to bring Spain abreast of Europe, 
 let the cost be what it might. In his zeal he forgot that the 
 people for whom he desired to legislate were conservative in 
 thought, bound to old prejudices and traditions, with a history 
 of three centuries in which the Church and the priest had been 
 the main instruments of secular policy ; and, although he 
 perseveringly sought for popularity, by almost undignified 
 means, his severity against the rioters, and his hurry in reform, 
 made the populace regard him with doubtful eyes. The 
 King's promises to the mob were broken : the Walloon Guard 
 was re-established, the municipal monopolies still flourished, 
 the price of food was still almost prohibitive, and pressure was 
 again put upon the leaders of the people, to persuade them to 
 abandon the Spanish dress. When the change of costume had 
 at last been made, and not till then, did Charles III con- 
 descend to re-enter his capital in triumph with the intention of 
 again residing there (December 1766): but though the Madri- 
 lenos were at last tricked out like Frenchmen to please their 
 monarch, many a grim look, many a muttered curse, followed 
 him in his progress. 
 
 Early in April 1767 an order was suddenly given for the 
 expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain, and under circumstances 
 of great hardship the decree was executed ; the fathers, with 
 nothing but their personal belongings, being hurried simul- 
 taneously from their monasteries to various ports appointed, 
 and shipped for foreign countries, to the number of 6000. 
 Almost at the same time the Spanish colonies were also freed
 
 400 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 from the presence of the fathers of the Company. Charles III 
 explained the expulsion to the Pope as "simply an indispen- 
 sable economical measure"; but it fell like a thunderbolt upon 
 Spain and the papacy. "This," wrote the Pontiff, "is the last 
 drop in the cup of our affliction": but neither prayers nor 
 threats could move Aranda, or his King. It had been proved 
 to their satisfaction, that the Jesuits were at the bottom of the 
 revolutionary disturbances, with the real object of re-establishing 
 the supremacy of the clergy in Spain, and the Jesuits must go — 
 not, it was explained, because they were monks, but because 
 they were members of a society disloyal to the government of 
 the country. The society was rich, and had many friends in 
 Spain, and the expulsion threatened for a time to provoke 
 revolt, but the severity of Aranda had cowed the people ; none 
 dared to move, and the omnipotence of the Church in Spain, as 
 an instrument of secular government, fell before the new order 
 of ideas which was hurrying Europe to revolution. The Cortes 
 had gone, the Inquisition and the Church were powerless, and 
 the personal despotism of the monarch stood forth, naked and 
 unshamed, unprotected now by the glamour of the faith from 
 the attacks of the legions advancing against it. 
 
 In the meanwhile, foreign affairs again grew overcast. 
 The cession of Louisiana by France to Spain, in the treaty of 
 Fontainebleau, had been resisted by the colonists to the extent 
 that the territory had to be conquered forcibly by Spanish 
 troops. Choiseul continued to try his hardest to draw Spain 
 into war with Great Britain, and had prompted Charles to 
 establish a governor on the Falkland Isles, which were claimed 
 by England. A considerable Spanish force sailed from Buenos 
 Ayres and ejected the English from the islands (June 1770), 
 and public opinion in England at once clamoured for war. 
 Spain, backed by Choiseul, refused the demands of Harris, 
 afterwards Lord Malmesbury, the English charge d'affaires, and 
 active preparations on both sides were made for hostilities. 
 But Choiseul fell, thanks to the influence of Mme. Dubarry,
 
 XV.] Charles III, 1759—1788. 401 
 
 and Louis XV drew back and left Spain to face England alone. 
 This did not suit Charles III, who had hoped that the "family 
 compact" would have stood the strain, and he had to apologise 
 to George III and withdraw his forces from the sterile and 
 inhospitable Falkland Isles, which were useless to him. The 
 blow to Spanish pride, however, was none the less great; and the 
 enemies of Aranda, who were many, succeeded in causing his 
 dismissal; Figueroa at first, and afterwards the celebrated Count 
 de Campomanes, succeeding him. In the meantime Clement 
 XIV, whilst openly pretending to agree with the Bourbon 
 sovereigns who had demanded the suppression of the Society 
 of Jesus, had astutely avoided compliance. The Spanish 
 bishops, with the exception of fourteen, sided with the King, but 
 the fall of Choiseul in France, and the change of ministers in 
 Parma, had left Spain almost alone on the question; and by 
 the end of 1771 the immediate danger to the society appeared 
 at an end. But Charles himself was as obstinate as the 
 Pontiff, and the appointment (May 1772) as his ambassador of 
 Monino, afterwards the famous Count de Floridablanca, as 
 zealous a reformer, but a far more tactful diplomatist than 
 Aranda, turned the scale against the Jesuits. Clement shuffled 
 as long as he dared, but even Austria, under the enlightened 
 Joseph II, had deserted him, and in the face of a great 
 European coalition, which threatened the Catholic supremacy 
 of the Papacy, he signed (July 1773) the decree suppressing 
 the Society of Jesus throughout Christendom: but he bitterly 
 resented the pressure which wrested the brief from him, and 
 invested it with as little force and authority as he could. 
 "This suppression will be my death," he said, as he signed the 
 brief, and though in this his anticipation may not have been 
 fulfilled, his act condemned to extinction one of the most 
 powerful organizations ever devised by man, and confiscated 
 the property of one of the richest corporations in the world, 
 to please the Bourbon family confederacy. 
 
 The civil reforms initiated by Caiiipillo and Ensenada con- 
 H. s. 26
 
 402 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 tinued uninterruptedly under Aranda and his successors. The 
 vast tracts of land which had been abandoned and left waste 
 were equitably divided amongst the inhabitants of neighbouring 
 villages, the poorer people being first considered : the export 
 and import of grain were allowed, under certain prudent re- 
 strictions with regard to the price of food in the home markets. 
 Agriculture revived as if by magic, and the royal revenue bene- 
 fited to an unprecedented extent. A government registry for 
 titles and mortgages made the transfer of land easy and cheap, 
 the coinage was reformed and unified, prohibitive protective 
 duties were placed upon calicoes, muslins and other foreign 
 textiles, greatly to the loss of the English manufacturers but to 
 the advantage of the home producer ; whilst raw material was 
 freed from duties, operatives were brought from abroad in great 
 numbers to teach Spaniards industrial processes in factories 
 subsidised by Government, and an attempt even was made 
 by royal decree to break down Spanish pride by announcing 
 (1773) that it was no degradation for hidalgos to engage in 
 handicrafts. Canals and splendid roads, which are still a just 
 source of pride to Spaniards, were constructed from one end 
 of the country to the other, marshes were drained, irrigation 
 works fertilising great areas were opened, the postal service 
 throughout Spain was organised, diligences ran regularly on the 
 fine new highways, and even the grim deserts of the Sierra 
 Morena, the lurking place of brigands and outlaws, were popu- 
 lated by 6000 Bavarian immigrants planted in thirteen new 
 villages by the reforming ministers of Charles III. The sloth 
 of centuries was at last broken through. This was a new Spain 
 which had arisen out of the ashes of the old. Wiser than his 
 French kinsman, Charles opened his arms to the spirit of 
 reform which was throbbing through the world, and the horrors 
 of the French Revolution spared his country; though the weak- 
 ness and folly of his son and grandson subsequently exposed 
 it to trials almost as terrible. Financial and administrative 
 reform also progressed apace ; the collection of the public
 
 XV.] Charles III, 1759 — 1788. 403 
 
 revenue was now economical and regular, the cost not exceed- 
 ing 8 per cent, of the amount collected; and the great plan for 
 the substitution of one single impost for all taxes was still the 
 favourite project of each successive minister. The police 
 regulations for the preservation of decency and order were 
 minute and severe, in accordance with the ideas of the time, 
 but they completely transformed Spanish urban society, sup- 
 pressing license, discouraging vagabondage, and promoting 
 industry and thrift. Education, taken from the hands of the 
 Jesuits, was nationalised and secularised, the Universities were 
 purged and rendered effective, and the Inquisition was sternly 
 told for once, and for all, that civil offences must be tried by 
 civil tribunals (April 1774). The Holy Office had, indeed, 
 lost its importance, and its last struggle to keep up its ancient 
 power in the face of new ideas was its persecution for alleged 
 Voltairianism of Olavide, the enlightened director of the 
 German colonies in the Sierra Morena, whom it kept in prison 
 for two years, when he escaped to France. The odium and 
 scandal brought upon the Inquisition by this persecution was 
 a death-blow to what remained of its power, thenceforward but 
 a shadow. In 1780 its last victim was burnt alive in Seville, 
 a poor friendless old woman accused of sorcery: for it dared 
 now to grasp no higher prey. 
 
 The Spanish army was in the meanwhile reorganised on the 
 Prussian model of the great Frederick, and the navy once 
 more became such as befitted that of a leading maritime power. 
 Charles soon found occasion to employ both services against 
 the Moors, who attacked the Spanish fortresses of Ceuta and 
 Melilla on the coast of Africa (February 1775), and who were 
 defeated and were obliged to sue for peace. The treaty was 
 promptly broken by the Spaniards, who in July 1775 sent a 
 strong expedition of 20,000 men under Count O'Reilly to attack 
 Algiers. It had been intended to take the Moors by surprise, 
 but they had their spies in Spain, and on O'Reilly's arrival he 
 found them fully prepared. The result of the attack was a 
 
 26 — 2
 
 404 Spain : its greatjiess and decay. [Chap. 
 
 hideous rout and carnage of the Spaniards, and O'Reilly for 
 a time became the best abused man in Spain, Grimaldo the 
 Italian minister sharing his unpopularity. Most of the ministers 
 were Aragonese, and friends of Aranda; the heir apparent, 
 the Prince of Asturias, and his wife (Maria Luisa, Princess of 
 Parma), were also opposed to Grimaldo ; whose great supporter 
 in France, the Duke of Choiseul, had fallen, on the death of 
 Louis XV (March 1774); and the author of the "family com- 
 pact," distrusted by all parties, gladly accepted the embassy to 
 Rome, in order to be free from his thankless ministry. He was 
 replaced by Count de Floridablanca (Monino), a politician of 
 his own school, but a Spaniard. Spain was however not long 
 at peace. The great Portuguese minister, the Marquis of 
 Pombal, always vigilant to extend the frontiers of the Portu- 
 guese colonies, in union with England, as against France and 
 Spain, had attacked the Spanish colony of Buenos Ayres. In 
 return, a strong Spanish fleet had captured, without resistance, 
 the island of Santa Catalina on the coast of Brazil, and had 
 once more taken possession of the colony of Sacramento. 
 When England and France were about to join in the war, 
 Joseph I of Portugal died (February 1777), and the new Queen, 
 a niece of Charles III, promptly dismissed Pombal, who had 
 plotted to exclude her from the succession. An arrangement 
 with Spain was thus made easy, and a treaty of peace was 
 signed in October, by which Sacramento and the navigation of 
 the rivers Plate, Parana and Paraguay, became Spanish in 
 exchange for vast disputed territories in the interior of the 
 continent on the Amazon. But though henceforward Spain 
 and Portugal were friends, a still greater contest was brewing, 
 in which the former country had to take part. 
 
 The war of independence had broken out in North America 
 (August 1776). The French Government had eagerly welcomed 
 the deputies sent by the United States and had recognised 
 the new republic (March 1778). The result was a declara- 
 tion of war between England and France, who were soon at
 
 XV.] Charles III, 1759— 1788. 405 
 
 close grip in all four quarters of the globe. Both belligerents 
 sought the aid of Spain, the one pointing out the evil example 
 of aiding colonial revolt and the other invoking the terms of 
 the "family compact" and the desirability of crippling England. 
 Aranda in Paris was for war against England ; Floridablanca, 
 more cautious, was in favour of a temporising pohcy, in pur- 
 suance of which the Spanish Government offered to mediate 
 between the disputants (January 1779), a proposal which, as 
 no doubt was foreseen, was indignantly rejected by England, 
 who claimed to deal alone with her revolting colonies. The 
 answer of Spain was a declaration of war against England (June 
 1779), although the " family compact " was no longer quoted 
 as an excuse for the measure which, as its results proved, was 
 a disastrous precedent for a great colonial power like Spain. 
 Aranda, the Spanish ambassador in France, was full of wild 
 talk of invading England, of capturing Gibraltar, of ousting 
 England from Hindostan and much else ; and patriotic fer- 
 vour was raised to fever pitch in Spain itself against England, 
 whose maritime power was considered a standing danger to 
 the rest of the world. In the summer of 1779 the French 
 fleet of 32 sail of the line joined the Spanish fleet of a 
 similar strength in Cadiz harbour, under Don Luis de 
 Cordoba, whilst another Spanish squadron lay at Ferrol. In 
 all, Spain alone had afloat 68 ships of the line and many 
 smaller vessels, whilst the English squadron in the Channel 
 under Hardy only consisted of 38 ships, the coasts of Great 
 Britain being also in a bad state of defence. But the plans 
 of invasion again came to nothing. Hardy lay in the Downs, 
 and the allies did not like the look of him, though they were 
 the stronger. Autumn came on, bad food and consequent 
 scurvy killed great numbers of French and Spaniards, and 
 the allied fleets were glad to seek shelter in Brest, crippled 
 and disabled, with all hopes of the invasion at an end. 
 
 Spain had blockaded Gibraltar by land and sea with a 
 force ten times as large as Lord Elliot had for the defence of
 
 4o6 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 the rock ; but gallant Rodney, after capturing a Spanish flotilla 
 with supplies for the Cadiz fleet (January 1780), slipped 
 through the Spanish squadrons which had intended to in- 
 tercept him, and relieved Gibraltar, entirely routing and 
 capturing the Spanish blockading fleet, which however made a 
 briUiant defence under Admiral Langara. Thence the English 
 admiral sailed to attack the Spanish possessions in America. 
 The Spaniards in the meanwhile had expelled the English 
 from Campeachy and had co-operated with the Americans 
 against the English in Florida and on the Mississippi, cap- 
 turing Mobile in March 1780. The cordiality between the 
 French and Spanish had not survived their joint fiasco in the 
 invasion of England, and negotiations for peace with Spain 
 were commenced at an early stage by Lord North's govern- 
 ment on the basis of the cession of Gibraltar. Floridablanca 
 was quite willing to listen to them, but it was soon found 
 that the quid pro quo demanded by the English, namely the 
 Island of Porto Rico, the territory of Oran, the fortress of 
 Omoa, with a money indemnity of two million sterling, was 
 too high a one for Spain to pay, and the negotiations were 
 broken off. During the war Floridablanca initiated a policy 
 of what was called " armed neutrality," by which, in union 
 first with Russia and subsequently with most of the other 
 powers of Europe, it was agreed, among other things, that the 
 ships of neutral powers should in future be allowed to enter 
 or leave the ports of belligerents freely, except during a 
 bona-fide blockade or when they carried contraband of war. 
 This understanding, as it did not include England, amounted 
 to a universal confederation against her at sea, and threatened 
 to bring into open hostilities against her all the countries of 
 Europe. 
 
 In the face of this formidable coalition England stood firm ; 
 but, whilst she was struggling in America, her small garrison in 
 Minorca was surprised by a strong French and Spanish fleet 
 with 8000 troops on board, who captured the island. General
 
 XV.] Charles III, 1759 — 1788. 407 
 
 Murray and his little band held out in the castle of St Philip 
 for many months against an army, but at length (February 
 1782), decimated by starvation, scurvy and fire, they surrendered 
 to honourable terms, even the enemy acknowledging their 
 bravery : Minorca thus returning to the crown of Spain after 
 74 years of English possession. The victorious Spaniards 
 then again besieged Gibraltar, where Elliot's garrison had been 
 increased to 7000 men. The Spanish land forces outside 
 numbered 40,000 soldiers; and, for the first time in modern 
 warfare, "floating batteries," with ironclad decks, were em- 
 ployed by the allies. They were constructions of enormous 
 size, very heavily armed, and great results were expected from 
 such huge machines. For a time their cannonading was 
 damaging, but on the 13th September Elliot's red-hot shot set 
 fire to some of them, and the Spaniards burnt the others. A 
 terrible panic ensued, in which 1500 men were burnt or 
 drowned, whilst the English gunboats captured as many more. 
 On the loth October the English fleet under Howe approached 
 to relieve the garrison. Although he only had 30 sail against 
 the enemy's 50, he managed to run four ships of munitions 
 into the harbour, and with the rest of his fleet successfully 
 evaded the allies. Every plan which science or experience 
 could suggest was adopted to capture the place, but without 
 success, for the Spanish and French officers were at variance 
 from the first, and effective co-operation was impossible. 
 
 On the other side of the Atlantic the struggle still raged. 
 Florida was now in the hands of the Spaniards, and Lord 
 Cornwallis had been beaten at Yorktown : but on the other 
 hand the allied expedition against Jamaica had been scattered 
 by Rodney and Hood. The result of Spain's help to American 
 revolt was soon seen in her own colonies. Revolts against 
 Spanish misrule and oppression gained force from the example 
 of the north. Tumults arose in Peru and Buenos Ayres, where 
 anarchy reigned for months ; and as many, it is said, as 100,000 
 men, mostly Indians, were sacrificed, England, Spain and
 
 4o8 Spain : its greatness and decay. [Chap. 
 
 France had suffered much, American independence was seen 
 to be inevitable, and terms of peace were at length discussed. 
 Spain's first demands were exaggerated and impossible, and the 
 war was about to recommence when France began to negotiate 
 alone. This brought Floridablanca to his senses, and though 
 at first he roundly rejected the preliminary treaty signed at 
 Paris (January 1783), he had to give way with much reluct- 
 ance, and made peace in the autumn without the recovery 
 of Gibraltar, though Minorca and Florida remained Spanish. 
 
 For the next three years the efforts of the Spanish Govern- 
 ment were principally directed against the Algerian and 
 Tunisian pirates, and at length a treaty was made by which 
 (June 1786), for a payment of money by Spain to the Re- 
 gency of Algiers, an undertaking was given that piracy in 
 the Mediterranean should cease. After many centuries, the 
 Christian and the infidel sheathed their arms. Thousands of 
 Christian captives were liberated, commerce was safe, and 
 the scores of leagues of fine land on the Valencian coast, 
 freed from the raids of the pirates, were again brought under 
 smiling cultivation by a prosperous and happy population. 
 Spain was at peace throughout the world, emerging from the 
 dark, past into the light of day : free to continue by the hands 
 of Spaniards tlie work of regeneration begun by impulse from 
 abroad — or to sink back again into the slough from which 
 foreign enlightenment had partly lifted her. 
 
 For the last two years of his life Cliarles successfully strove 
 to keep the peace of Europe unbroken. The death of Frederick 
 the Great, and the continued dissensions between England and 
 France, together with the revolution in Holland, furnished 
 elements of strife which, but for the prudent intervention of 
 the King of Spain and Floridablanca, would have led to war. 
 The only question remaining for which it was worth while 
 for Spain to fight, was the possession of Gibraltar; and both 
 Whigs and Tories in England made it clear now that the rock 
 would not be surrendered, unless Britain itself was crushed.
 
 XV.] Charles III, 1759 — 1788. 409 
 
 This was wisely recognised by Charles and his enlightened 
 minister, and the rest of the monarch's days were given up to 
 the re-organisation and reform of his own country. There was 
 no phase of public welfare that did not receive attention. 
 Hospitals, asylums, poor-houses and free-schools, sprang up all 
 over Spain, thanks to the initiative of the monarch. Savings- 
 banks, benefit societies, and philanthropic institutions, were 
 established, whilst vagrancy and mendicancy were put down 
 with a stern hand. Men of science and learning, skilled 
 organisers of industry', and experienced artificers, were brought 
 from abroad in large numbers, and under their guidance new 
 industries were founded and fostered by the Government. The 
 famous glass factory of the Granja, whose products vied with 
 Venice, the porcelains of the Buen Retiro, the cotton velvets 
 of Avili, the fine leathers of Seville and Cordoba, tlie machi- 
 nery, watches, optical instruments, and fancy goods of Madrid, 
 all became famous and profitable under the patronage of 
 Charles III. Public credit was raised and funds procured for 
 these reforms, and to pay off old loans, by the establishment of 
 the national Bank of St Carlos, and the issue of interest-bearing 
 government bonds for 800 millions of reals, which were freely 
 circulated at par. The "alcabalas" and "millions," which had 
 killed Spanish industry, were reduced from 14 per cent, to 5 per 
 cent, in Castile, and suspended altogether in the case of goods 
 or produce sold in the place of origin; and the deficit was 
 made up by a 5 per cent, tax on incomes from land, and 2 or 
 3 per cent, on the rental of holdings. The great project of the 
 
 ' An ancestor of the writer — Andrew Hume — ^was one of these. He 
 was appointed in 1788 Director-General of the new Royal button factory 
 in Madrid, with a monopoly for all Spain. A large number of other 
 English, Scots and Irishmen, of all ranks, at the same period were similarly 
 established in Madrid and .Seville. In the Capital all these families have 
 now died out or have been merged into Spanish families. More curious 
 still is the complete assimilation of the large Bavarian agricultural com- 
 munities in the south.
 
 4IO Spain: its greatness and decay. [Chap, 
 
 single tax was abandoned in favour of this system of gradua- 
 tion, and the " alcabalas " ceased to have the disastrous effect 
 which they had exercised for so long. 
 
 During the reign of Charles Til, the population of Spain 
 had increased to \o\ millions of souls, a rise of a million and 
 a half in twenty-seven years ; and the public revenue, which 
 is stated by Dr Clarke to have been ;^5,43i,899 in 1760, 
 had grown to 616,300,000 reals — over ;^6, 000,000 — in 1787, 
 although the reforms and economies in the collection of taxes 
 must have caused the actual increase of the receipts in the 
 Treasury to be much greater than here represented. It will be 
 seen that most of Floridablanca's reforms were directed to the 
 relief of industry and the workers, at the expense of the land- 
 owners, the nobles and the Church. These classes were still 
 vigorous, and naturally looked upon the reformer with dislike. 
 Turbulent Aranda too, though a reformer himself, was jealous 
 of Floridablanca, and, with Count O'Reilly, joined the malcon- 
 tents. Satires, pasquins, and newspaper attacks rained upon the 
 great minister, who unwisely retorted by prosecutions and pro- 
 scriptions, which increased his unpopularity, and at length, to 
 the grief of the King, he begged permission to retire. 
 
 Already (October 1788) the mutterings of the great storm 
 that was to shake the world were heard on the other side of the 
 Pyrenees. Charles had stood firm against all attempts to draw 
 him into the complications which foreboded another great war, 
 and begged his minister not to abandon his post. Whilst the 
 matter was yet pending, the King's health broke down. He was 
 an old man, but his regular, temperate life, passed mostly in the 
 open air, had so far preserved his vigour unimpaired. Trouble, 
 however, had not spared him. His son, the King of Naples, 
 had turned out badly; death had been busy of late in his family, 
 his heir was a poor weak-minded creature with a termagant 
 wife ; and the cloud that hung over the Bourbons in France 
 oppressed the King's spirit with ideas of coming calamity. 
 When he came from the Escorial to Madrid in December
 
 XV.] Charles III, 1759 — .i/SS. 411 
 
 1788, it was seen that he was failing ; and in a few days he fell 
 ill of fever. His answer to the bishop who asked him on his 
 deathbed, whether he pardoned his enemies, reveals the mag- 
 nanimity of the man. " How should I wait for this pass 
 before forgiving them ?" he said. "They were all forgiven the 
 moment after the offence." He died at dawn on the 14th 
 December, 1788, aged 73, the only good, great and patriotic, 
 King that providence had vouchsafed to Spain in modern 
 times. Enlightened, generous, and just ; sleepless in his 
 vigilance for the good of his people, in his 29 years of reign he 
 did much to repair the calamity and misery which the errors 
 of his predecessors had brought upon his country. With a 
 strong and wise successor Spain might have continued happy, 
 prosperous and powerful. But Charles IV was too weak, 
 worthily to wield the sceptre of his great father, and once more 
 the afflicted country became the plaything of a contemptible 
 favourite. The shameful days of the Lermas, the Olivares, 
 and the Valenzuelas, were enacted over again ; until at last 
 the generous, sound-hearted people, purified and strengthened 
 by suffering, arose in their might, and claimed the rights of 
 popular self-government, which the Cortes of Castile in the 
 days of darkness had allowed tyrants and favourites to filch 
 from them. But the remedy came too late. The evils from 
 which the country suffered were too deejjly seated to be cured 
 by paper Constitutions, unless they were accompanied by re- 
 straint and enlightenment on the part both of governors and 
 governed. Betrayed again and again by unworthy rulers, 
 made the plaything of military and political adventurers, 
 unhappy Spain was forced into the revolutionary career which 
 it has followed almost uninterruptedly for the last ninety years.
 
 412 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SPANISH HISTORY, 
 
 1479— 1788. 
 
 GENERAL. 
 
 Historia General de Espana. Modesto Lafuente and Juan Valera. 
 
 25 vols. Barcelona, 1888. The best modern history of Spain. 
 Historia General de Espaiia. J. de Mariana and J. M. Miniana. 
 
 10 vols. Madrid, 1794 — 5. Miniana's portion is useful. 
 Reinas Catolicas. Flores. Madrid, 1770. Lives of the Spanish 
 
 Queens. 
 Historia eclesiastica de Espafia. V. Lafuente. Madrid, 1874. 
 History of Religious Intolerance in Spain. A. de Castro. London, 
 
 1852. Translated by Parker. Written from the anti-Catholic 
 
 point of view. 
 The Spanish Protestants. Same author. London, 1851. Ditto. 
 Histoire critique de I'lnquisition. Llorente. Paris, 1817. 
 Historia de la Civilizacion Iberica. J. Oliveira Martins. Madrid, 
 
 1893. Translated from the Portuguese by Tajonera. 
 El Podcr Civil en Espaiia. M. Danvila y Collado. 6 vols. Madrid, 
 
 1885 — 7. A work of the highest value, giving a full history of 
 
 all the Cortes held, and the growth and decay of civil power. 
 Documentos ineditos para la historia de Espaiia. In progress. 
 
 Madrid. 112 volumes published. Containing innumerable 
 
 documents of the highest value relating to episodes in Spanish 
 
 history. See General index of the series. 
 Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti. Alberi, and continuations 
 
 by Berchet and Barozzi. Florence, 1839 — 1863. 
 Restablecimiento de las fabricas y comercio do Espana. Ulloa. 
 
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 History of the Expulsion of the Moriscos. Wars of the Comuneros. 
 
 Inquisition, etc., etc. Tracts by (icddes. London, 1702 — 6.
 
 Bibliography. 4 1 3 
 
 Historia Constitucional de la Monarquia espanola. Du Hamd. 
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 Fiirsten und Volker von Sud-Europa im sechszehnten und sieb- 
 zehnten Jahrhundert. Vol. i. L. von Ranke. Berlin, 1857. 
 
 {a) The Ottoman and Spanish Empires in the sixteenth and seven- 
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 by W. K. Kelly.) London, 1843. 
 
 {p) L'Espagne sous Charles V, Philippe II et III. (French transla- 
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 Gobierno Politico de los Pueblos de Espana, Santayana. 
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 Civil, Commercial, Political and Literary, History of Spain. 
 Wyndham Beawes. London, 1793. 2 vols. A much slighter 
 work than its title implies. 
 
 Historia de la legislatura espailola. Antequera. Madrid, 1849. 
 
 Histoire des Cortes d'Espagne. Sempere, Bordeaux, 1815. 
 
 Boletin de la Real Academia de la Historia. 31 vols. 
 
 Memorial historico Espaiiol. 33 vols. These two periodicals 
 contain many valuable monographs and documents. 
 
 Apuntes sobre et bien y et mal de Espaiia. Causas de su deca- 
 dencia. Gandara. Cadiz, 18 10. 
 
 Biblioteca Espaiiola economico-politica. Sempere. Madrid, 1804. 
 3 vols. (Economic causes of Spain's decay.) 
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, Philip I and Charles I (V). 
 
 Calendar of State Papers. Foreign and domestic, Henry VIII 
 (to 1539. In progress). Foreign. Edward VI and Mary 
 (to 1558). Spanish (to 1542. In progress). Venetian to 1556. 
 
 Cronica de los Reyes Catolicos. Hernando del Pulgar (the royal 
 chronicler). Valencia, 1780. 
 
 vElii Antonii Nebrissensis Decades ll. Ejusdem de Bcllo 
 
 Navarrensi libri ll. Lucii Marinaei Siculi de Rebus Hispaniaj 
 memorabilibus libri xxil. These three works are printed in 
 Hispaniae illustratc'E...Scriptores varii. A. Schott. Frank- 
 fort, 1603. 
 
 Anales de la corona de Aragon. J. Zurita (to 15 16), continued by 
 B. L, Argensola and D. J. Dormer. Saragossa, 1610— 1697,
 
 4 1 4 Bibliography. 
 
 Opere inedite. F. Guicciardini. Vol. vi (his embassy to Spain, 
 
 with a description of country and people). Florence, 1864. 
 Cronica de los Reyes de Castilla. Cayetano Rosell. Biblioteca 
 
 de autores Espanoles. Vol, LXX, 1878. 
 Ferdinand and Isabella. W. H. Prescott. 3 vols. London, 1838 
 
 (and other editions). 
 Los Reyes Catdlicos. V. Balaguer. Madrid, 1894 (in progress). 
 Geschichte von Spanien. F. W. Schirrmacher. Vol. vi. Gotha, 
 
 1893 (to 1492 only. In progress). 
 Elogio de la reina catolica Donna Isabel. D. Clemencin. Madrid, 
 
 1821. (Valuable for its treatment of social and economic 
 
 history.) 
 Histoire de la reunion de la Navarre a la Castille, 1479 — 1521. P. 
 
 Boissonnade. Paris, 1893. 
 Der Kardinal Ximenes. P. Hefele, 1 844 (translated by J. Dalton. 
 
 London, i860). 
 Studien und Skizzen zur Geschichte der Reformationszeit. W. 
 
 Maurenbrecher. Leipsic, 1874 (essays mainly relating to 
 
 Spanish history). 
 La reina D. Juana la Loca. A. Rodriguez Villa. Madrid, 1892. 
 
 (M. Gachard has also in several monographs criticised the 
 
 theory of Juana's sanity as advanced by Bergenroth in 
 
 Calendar of State Papers. Spanish.) 
 Letras de Fernando de Pulgar. Cartas de Gonzalo Ayora. 
 
 Biblioteca de autores Espanoles. Vol. XIll. Madrid, 1856. 
 Cartas de los secretarios del Cardinal D. Fr. Francisco Jimenez 
 
 durante su regencia. V. de la Fuente. Madrid, 1885. 
 N^gociations diplomatiques entre la France et I'Autnche, 
 
 1500 — 1530. 2 vols. E. Le Glay. Collection doc. in^d. 
 
 Paris, 1845. 
 Opus epistolarum. Petrus Martyr ab Angleria. Amsterdam, 
 
 1670. (Monographs on these invaluable letters by J. H. 
 
 Mari^jol. Paris, 1887. H. Heidenheimer. Berlin, 1881. 
 
 J. Gerigk. Braunsberg, 1881. J. Bernays. Strassburg, 1891. 
 
 H. A. Schumacher. New York, 1879.) 
 Naugcrii Opera. Containing a journey of Navagero in Spain. 
 Historia de la vida y hechos del emperador Carlos V. Prudencio 
 
 de Sandoval. 2 vols. Pamplona, 1634. 
 De rebus gestis Caroli V. Juan Gin^s Sepulveda. Madrid, 1780.
 
 Bibliography. 415 
 
 Vida y historia de Carlos V. P. Mejia. Biblioteca de autores 
 
 Espanoles. Vol. xxi. Madrid, 1858. 
 Collection de voyages des souverains des Pays-Bas. Vol. 11. 
 
 Itindraire de Charles-Quint. M. Gachard, Brussels, 1884. 
 Papiers d'Etat du Cardinal Granvelle. Vols. I to v. C. Weiss. 
 
 Collection doc. ined. Paris, 1845. 
 Correspondance de Charles-Quint et d'Adrien VI. M. Gachard. 
 
 Brussels, 1859. 
 Korrespondenz des Kaisers Karl V. K. Lanz. 3 vols, (from the 
 
 Brussels Archives). Leipsic, 1844 — 6. 
 Correspondence of the Emperor Charles V. W. Bradford (from 
 
 the Vienna Archives). London, 1850. ' 
 Comentario de la guerra de Alemania hecha por Carlos V. L. de 
 
 Avila y Zuiiiga (giving a Spanish view of the Emperors 
 
 German campaign). Biblioteca de autores Espaiioles. Vol. 
 
 XXI. Madrid, 1858. 
 History of the reign of Charles V. Robertson. Ed. by W. H. 
 
 Prescott. 2 vols. London, 1857. 
 Geschichte Karls V. H. Baumgarten. 3 vols. Stuttgart, 1885-92. 
 
 (The best history of the Emperor, but ends at 1539.) 
 Historia del Levantamiento de las Comunidades de Castilla. 
 
 A. Ferrer del Rio. Madrid, 1850. 
 Der Aufstand der Castilianischen Stadte gegen Kaiser Karl V. 
 
 K. von Hofler. Prag, 1876. 
 Don Antonio de Acuiia genannt der Luther Spaniens. K. von 
 
 Hofler. Vienna, 1882. 
 
 (This writer has made the reign of Philip I and the early 
 years of Charles peculiarly his own, but his valuable mono- 
 graphs are usually buried in the necropolis of scientific 
 periodicals.) 
 La Germanfa de Valenciau M. Danvila. Madrid, 1884. 
 
 (M. Danvila is engaged upon an exhaustive history of 
 
 the revolt of the Communes, based upon the innumerable 
 
 documents hitherto only partially utilised in local histories.) 
 
 Rivalitc de Frangois I" et de Charks-Quint. F. A. A. Mignet. 
 
 2 vols. Paris, 1875. (A useful book becoming rare.) 
 Storia documentata di Carlo V. in correlazione all' Italia. G. de 
 
 Leva. 5 vols. Venice, 1 864-1 894. (Relates mainly to the 
 
 Emperor's Italian policy, but has a wider use.)
 
 41 6 Bibliography. 
 
 Los Espafioles en Italia. F. Picatoste. 3 small vols. Madrid, 
 1887. (Illustrates the demoralisation of Spanish character 
 due to the Italian Wars.) 
 
 Constitutional and Economic History of the above 
 Reigns. 
 
 Cortes de los antiguos reinos de Leon y de Castilla. Vol. IV. 
 
 Madrid, 1882. (The text of the proceedings to 1537.) 
 Introduction to the above. 2 vols. M. Colmeiro. Madrid, 
 
 1883-6. 
 L'Espagne sous Ferdinand et Isabelle. J. H. Mariejol. Paris, 
 
 1892. (A concise and very useful description of society and 
 
 institutions.) 
 Essais sur I'administration de la Castille au xvi^ si^cle. M. J. 
 
 Gounon Loubens. Paris, i860. (Constitutional subjects ad- 
 mirably treated.) 
 Die wirthschaftliche Bliite Spaniens im xvi. Jahrhundert und ihr 
 
 Verfall. K. Habler. Berlin, 1888. (This original monograph 
 
 has been more censured than confuted.) 
 Die Geschichte der Fugger'schen Handlung in Spanien. K. 
 
 Habler. Weimar, 1897. 
 Spaniens Niedergang wahrend der Preisrevolution des XVi. 
 
 Jahrhunderts. M. J. Bonn. Stuttgart, 1896. 
 Historia de la Economia politica. M. Colmeiro. Madrid, 1863. 
 
 (Rich in statistics.) 
 Derecho administrativo Espanol. M. Colmeiro. Madrid, 1876. 
 
 Note. The introductory chapters are necessarily so slight that it has 
 been thought useful to add a bibliography extending in some respects 
 beyond their limits. 
 
 The relations of the Catholic Kings and of Charles V to Italy, America 
 and North Africa, and of Charles V to the Netherlands and Germany 
 would require separate bibliographical schedules beyond the compass of 
 this work. 
 
 The following list is strictly confined to the books actually consulted in 
 writing the main body of the work.
 
 Bibliography. 4 1 7 
 
 Philip II. 
 
 Calendar of Spanish State Papers. Elizabeth. Rolls Series, 
 
 1892—8. 
 History of the Reign of Philip II. Prescott. 3 vols. London, 
 
 1855. Valuable only for the early part of the reign to 1568. 
 Philip II of Spain. Martin Hume. London, 1897. 
 The Year after the Armada. Same author. London, 1896. 
 The Rise of the Dutch Republic. Motley. London, 1859. 
 La Historia de Felipe II. Luis Cabrera de Cordoba. Madrid, 
 
 1876-7. 
 Vida y hechos del Senor Rey Felipe II. PoiTeno. Valladolid, 
 
 1863. 
 Testimonio autentico y verdadero de las cosas notables que pasaron 
 
 en la dichosa muerte del Rey Felipe II. Valencia, 1589. (An 
 
 account of Philip's death by an eye-witness.) Cervero de la 
 
 Torre. 
 Nueva Luz y verdad historica sobre Felipe II. Fernandez Mon- 
 
 tafia. Madrid, 1891. An unrestrained panegyric. 
 Mas Luz etc. Madrid, 1892. Same author. Ditto. 
 Estudios historicos del reinado de Felipe II. Fernandez Duro. 
 
 Madrid, 1890. (Defeat of Los Gelves, Antonio Perez etc.) 
 Guerra de Granada. Mendoza. Valencia, 1795. (A contempo- 
 rary account of the Morisco war.) 
 Historia de la rebelion y castigo de los Moriscos de Granada. 
 
 Marmol Carbajal. Malaga, 1600. 
 Historia de los Vandos, etc. and Guerras Civiles de Granada. 
 
 Perez de Hita. Valencia, 1597 and Cuenca, i6ig. 
 Estudios sobre Felipe II. R. Hinojosa. Madrid, 1887. 
 La Princesa de Eboli. Muro. Madrid, 1877. 
 La Armada Invencible. Fernandez Duro. Madrid, 1885. 
 La gloriosa defensa de Malta. Calderon de la Barca. Madrid, 
 
 1796. (Best account of the siege of Malta.) 
 Correspondance de Granvelle. Piot. Biussels, 1884. 
 Papiers d'Etat de Granvelle. Weiss. Paris, 1843. 
 Histoire de Philippe II. Forneron. Paris, 1882. 
 Correspondance de Philippe II. Gachard. Brussels, 1848 — 79. 
 
 (Mainly on Flemish affairs.) 
 
 H. S. 27
 
 41 8 Bibliography. 
 
 Correspondance de Philippe II avec ses fiUes. Gachard. Paris, 
 
 1884. (Familiar letters to his children.) 
 Histoire de la Guerre de Flandres. Strada. Brussels, 17 12. 
 Philippe II Roi d'Espagne. Baumstark (translated by Kurth). 
 ^ Liege, 1877. 
 Elisabeth de Valois. Du Prat. Paris, 1850. Life of Phihp's third 
 
 wife. 
 Don Carlos et Philippe II. Gachard. Brussels, 1863. 
 Antonio Perez ct Philippe II. Mignet. Paris, 1881. 
 Historia de las alteraciones de Aragon. Pidal. Madrid, 1862 — 3. 
 
 (Account of the revolt of the Aragonese.) 
 Obras y relaciones de Antonio Perez. Geneva, 1649. 
 Histoire de la Reunion de Portugal ^...Castille. Conestaggio. 
 
 (French translation.) Paris, 1680. 
 Recueil des actions et paroles m^morables de Philippe II. Cologne, 
 
 1661. 
 De Rebus Gestis Philippi II. Sepulveda. Madrid, 1780. 
 Vita del Catolico Rd Filippo II. Leti. Cologne, 1679. 
 Vita del Catolico Don Filippo II con le guerre de suoi tempi. 
 
 Campana. Vicenza, 1605. 
 L'Espagne au 16""^ et 17™^ si^cles. Morel Fatio. Paris, 1878. 
 Ein Ministerium unter Philipp II. Philippson. Berlin, 1895. 
 
 (An account of Granvelle's Ministry, 1579 — 86.) 
 Epochen und Katastrophen : Don Carlos und Philipp II. Schmidt. 
 
 Berlin, 1864. 
 Zur Geschichte des Don Carlos. (In the Wiener Jahrbiicher, Vol. 
 
 XLVI.) Ranke. Vienna, 1829. 
 Calendar of Venetian State Papers. Rolls Series. In progress. 
 The Defeat of the Armada. (Collection of English documents.) 
 
 Laughton. London, 1894. 
 Bosquejo historico de la casa de Austria. Canovas de Castillo. 
 
 Madrid, 1869. 
 Historia del Mundo del tiempo de... Felipe II. Herrera. Valladolid 
 
 and Madrid, 1606 — 1612. 
 Relacion del Viage de Felipe II a Zaragoza, Barcelona, etc. 
 
 (1585). Madrid, 1876. 
 History of the Progress and Suppression of the Reformation in 
 
 Spain. McCrie. Edinburgh, 1829. 
 Don Philipe el Prudente. Vanderhammen. Madrid, 1632.
 
 Bibliography. 4 1 9 
 
 Philip III. 
 
 V'ida y hechos del Rey Felipe III. Gonzales Davila, the king's 
 
 historiographer. Madrid, 177 1. (The original MS. is in the 
 
 possession of the author.) 
 Dichos y hechos del S'' Don Felipe III. Porreiio. Madrid, 1628. 
 Memorias para la historiade Don Felipe III. Yaiiez. Madrid, 1723. 
 Historia de Felipe III. (Usually attributed to his gentleman-in- 
 waiting Vivanco, but now known to have been written by 
 
 another courtier named Novoa.) A minute record of court 
 
 life and intrigues. Documentos ineditos LX y LXi. Madrid, 
 
 1875. 
 Relacion de las cosas sucedidas en Espana desde 1599 hasta 1614. 
 
 Cabrera de Cordoba. Madrid. (Documentos ineditos.) Avery 
 
 full contemporary chronicle. 
 Relacion de Simon Contarini a la Republica de Venecia. Madrid. 
 
 (Documentos ineditos.) A valuable descriptive and statistical 
 
 account of Spain in 1605. 
 Viage del Rey (Felipe III) a Valencia. Anon. Valencia, 1599. 
 Guerre di Fiandra. Bentivoglio. (English translation by the Earl 
 
 of Monmouth.) London, 1652. 
 History of the United Netherlands. Motley. London. 
 Sucesos de Sevilla 1592 — 1604. Ariiio. Sevilla, 1873. 
 Memorable espulsion...de los Moriscos de Espaiia. Guadalajara 
 
 y Xavier. Pamplona, 16 14. 
 Condicion Social de los Moriscos de Espaiia: causas de su espul- 
 
 sion etc. Janer. Madrid, 1857. 
 Viage de la Catolica Real Majestad Felipe 1 1 1... a Portugal. 
 
 Lavana. Madrid, 1622. 
 Casamientos de Espaiia y Francia y Viage del Duque de Lerma. 
 
 Mantuano. Madrid, 16 18. An account of the marriage of 
 
 Anne of Austria, etc. 
 Winwood State papers. London, 1725. 
 Vita di Don Pietro Giron Duca d'Osuna Vicer^ di Napoli. Leti. 
 
 Amsterdam, 1699. 
 B. M. Egerton MSS. 347 (Life and death of R. Caldcron). 
 
 27 — 2
 
 420 Bibliograpliy. 
 
 Philip IV. 
 
 Estudios del reinado de Felipe IV. Canovas del Castillo. Madrid, 
 
 1888—9. Full accounts of' the revolt of Portugal and of the 
 
 battle of Rocroy. 
 Cartas de Sor Maria de Agreda y de Felipe IV. Madrid, 1885. 
 
 An extraordinary political and religious correspondence be- 
 tween the king and the nun, extending over several years. 
 Documentos ineditos, vols. 69, ']'], 80 and 86 for histories of 
 
 Philip's reign ; and vols. 96 and 97 for correspondence 
 
 touching the wars in Catalonia. 
 Viage del Rey Felipe IV a la frontera de Francia. Castillo. 
 
 Madrid, 1657. Account of the marriage of Maria Theresa. 
 Historia de los hechos de...Don Juan de Austria en Catalufia. 
 
 Bremundan. Zaragoza, 1673. 
 Epitome de los principios y progresos de las guerras de Cataluiia 
 
 1640 y 1641. Barcelona, 1641. Written from the Catalan 
 
 point of view by Sala. 
 Avisos, 1654 — 58 and 1660 — 64. Barrionuevo. Madrid, 1895. 4 vols. 
 
 Interesting Spanish news letters. 
 Avisos (1640—44). J. Pellicer. Seminario Erudito, vols. 31 to 33. 
 
 (News letters.) 
 Guerra de Cataluna. F. M. de Melo. Madrid, 1808. (Minute 
 
 account by an eye-witness.) 
 L'Espagne au xvi""^ et XVli'"« si^cles. Morel Fatio. Bonn, 1878. 
 Memoirs of Spain during the reigns of Philip IV and Charles II. 
 
 John Dunlop. Edinburgh, 1834. 
 Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe, with letters. London, 1829. Relating 
 
 to the last years of Philip IV. 
 Original letters of Sir Richard Fanshawe (English Ambassador in 
 
 Spain). London, 1702. 
 Recueil des Instructions donndes aux ambassadeurs de France etc. 
 
 (Espagne). Edited by Morel Fatio. ist volume, 1649 — 1700. 
 
 Paris, 1894. 
 Tratado de...algunas fiestas que se han hecho etc. MS. G 32. 
 
 Royal Academy of History, Madrid. (Transcript in possession 
 
 of author.) Diego de Soto y Aguilar. Very minute account of 
 
 the visit of Charles Stuart to Madrid, by a Spanish courtier.
 
 Bibliography. 42 1 
 
 Fragmentos historicos de la vida de...OIivai'es. Unpublished (?) 
 contemporary MS. in possession of author. Full biography 
 and apology of Olivares by Vera y Figueroa, Count de la 
 Roca, one of his strongest partisans ; containing also much 
 information about Charles Stuart's visit. See also a similar 
 manuscript, B. M, Add. MSS. 25689 and Egerton 2053. 
 
 Uiscursos y Apuntamientos de Don Mateo de Lison y Biedma. 
 Secretly printed (Madrid, 1623?). A most valuable statement 
 of the condition of affairs on Philip's accession. 
 
 Revolutions de Portugal. Vertot. Bruxelles, 1843. The revolt 
 of Portugal. 
 
 Voyage d'Espagne (1655). Aersens de Sommerdyk. Amsterdam, 
 1666. Extremely curious and valuable account of Spain at 
 the period. 
 
 Relation de I'dtat et Gouvernement d'Espagne. Bonnecasse. 
 Cologne, 1667. A few years later. 
 
 The Earl of Bristol's defence. Camden Miscellany, vol. 6. Edited 
 by S. R. Gardiner, 1871. 
 
 Lettres ecrites de Madrid en 1666 et 1667. J. Muret. Ed. Morel 
 Fatio. Paris, 1879. 
 
 Epitome de los principios y progresos de la Guerra de Cataluiia 
 (1640 — 41). Sala. Barcelona, 1641. 
 
 Historia de la Conjuracion de Portugal. Amsterdam, 1689. 
 
 Masaniello 6 la sublevacion de Napoles. Rivas. Madiid, 1848. 
 
 Historia de Don Felipe IV. Cespedes. Barcelona, 1634. The 
 first years of the reign. 
 
 Letters from Spain. J. Howel. London, 1754. 
 
 Historia del levantamiento de Portugal. A. Seyner. Zaragoza, 
 1644. 
 
 Prince Charles and the Spanish marriage. S. R. Gardiner. 
 London, 1869. (Dr Gardiner's History of England from 
 the accession of James I contains much information on the 
 relations between England and Spain.) See also Clarendon, 
 " Cabala " and Thurloe State papers ; and B. M. Egerton 
 MSS, where there is a large number of Spanish docu- 
 ments relating to this reign and to those of Philip III 
 and Charles II, etc. See Gayangos' Catalogue of Spanish 
 MSS.
 
 422 Bibliography. 
 
 Charles II. 
 
 Solo Madrid es Corte. Nuiiez de Castro. Madrid, 1669. Sta- 
 tistical account of Spain on the accession of Charles. 
 Dunlop, op. cit. 
 
 Recueil des instructions, etc., op. cit. 
 Mdmoires de la Cour d'Espagne 1679 — 81. Villars. Edited by 
 
 Morel Fatio. Very valuable statistical account of Spain by 
 
 the French Ambassador. Paris, 1893. 
 Lettres de Madame de Villars. Paris, 1823. Familiar letters 
 
 about Charles and his first wife. 
 Relation du voyage d'Espagne. M™^ d'Aulnois. La Haye, 1702. 
 
 Similar letters on same period. 
 Spain under Charles II. (Correspondence of Stanhope, English 
 
 Ambassador at the end of the reign.) London, i860. 
 Descripcion de las circunstancias, etc. (Description of Charles's 
 
 first marriage.) Madrid, 1679. 
 Mdmoires touchans le mariage de Charles II. Paris, 1681. 
 Documentos ineditos, LXXix. (Letters from the Duke de Montalto 
 
 to Ronquillo, Spanish ambassador in England.) Accounts of 
 
 events at court, 1685—88. 
 The Year after the Armada, etc. Hume. For particulars of the 
 
 exorcism. 
 Negotiations relatives k la succession d'Espagne sous Louis XIV. 
 
 Mignet. Paris, 1835 — 42. 
 Letters of Sir William Temple, etc. London, 1700. Relating to 
 
 the peace of Nimeguen (1665 — 1672J. 
 Menor edad de Carlos II. Documentos ineditos, vol. 67. An 
 
 account of the regency of Mariana of Austria. 
 Relation of the differences in the Court of Spain. (Don Juan and 
 
 Nithard.) London, J678.
 
 Bibliography. a^2i 
 
 Philip V and Fernando VI. 
 
 Memoirs of the kings of Spain of the house of Bourbon. Coxe. 
 
 London, 1815. 
 Ehzabeth Farnese. E. Armstrong. London, 1892. 
 Memoirs of the Duke of Ripperdd. London, 1740. 
 Lives of Ripperda and Alberoni. Moore. London, 1819. 
 Memoirs and Correspondence of the Earl of Peterborough. 
 
 London, 1853. 
 The Spanish war of Succession. Parnell. London, 1892. 
 Mdmoires du Due de St Simon. Paris, 1842. 
 History of Cardinal Alberoni. London, 1819. 
 Mdmoires du Mardchal de Berwick. Paris, 1778. 
 Mdmoires du Mardchal de Grammont. (Collection Petitot.) Paris, 
 
 1826. 
 Mdmoires du Marquis de Louville. Paris, 1818. 
 Lettres de M™^ de Maintenon et de la Princesse des Ursins. 
 
 Paris, 1826. 
 Recueil des instructions, op. at 
 Comentarios de las Guerras de Espaiia 6 historia de Felipe V. 
 
 Bacallar y Saiia Marques de San Felipe (up to 1711, with 
 
 continuation to 1725 by Campo Raso). Madrid, 1790. 
 Mdmoires de I'abbe Montgon. Lausanne, 1752. 
 Recueil des lettres, etc. dcrites par M. I'abbd Montgon. Liige, 1732. 
 Relacion de lo ocurrido desde la batalla de Zaragoza hasta la 
 
 vuelta de S. M. Zaragoza, 171 1. 
 Relacion diaria desde que el Rey Don Felipe V. salio de esta corte 
 
 hasta la victoria de Brihuega. Madrid, 17 11. 
 Noticia biografica del Marques de Ensenada. Navarrete. I\Tadrid, 
 
 1848. 
 Correspondence of Sir Benjamin Keene and Colonel Stanhope 
 
 at the Record Office (Spanish papers), and Lord Essex's 
 
 papers in the Brit. Museum, Add. MSS. 27731, are of the 
 
 greatest value in elucidating the relations between England 
 
 and Spain at this period. 
 Historia Civil de Espaiia. Belando. The valuable portions of 
 
 this history are the notes and comments by Macanaz on the 
 
 reign of Philip V, forming a bitter attack on foreign influence 
 
 in Spain. They were published separately in 1744.
 
 424 Bibliography. 
 
 Charles III. 
 
 Historia del reinado de Carlos 111. Danvila y Collado. Madrid, 
 
 1893—5. A monumental work of the highest value. 
 Storia del regno di Carlo III Rd di Spagna. Beccatini. Venezia, 
 
 1790. 
 Historia del reinado de Carlos III en Espana. Ferrer del Rio. 
 
 Madrid, 1856. 
 Gobierno del Senor Rey Don Carlos III. Muriel. Madrid, 1839. 
 Charles III et les jdsuites de ses dtats. Carayon. Paris, 1868. 
 Coxe, op. cit. 
 
 Letters concerning the Spanish nation. Clarke. London, 1763. 
 
 Interesting statistical account of Spain on the accession of 
 
 Charles, written by the chaplain of Lord Bristol's embassy 
 
 (1761). 
 
 Travels through Spain in 1775 and 1776. Swinburne. London, 
 
 1787. 
 Modern state of Spain. Bourgoing (English translation). London, 
 
 1808. An entertaining and valuable book. 1777 — 88. 
 Real detencion con que S. M. Don Carlos III honro la ciudad de 
 
 Barcelona. Barcelona, 1759. Charles' arrival in Spain. 
 B. M. Egerton MSS. 368. For contemporary account of the 
 
 Squillaci riots. 
 The MS. State Papers of the reign, especially important documents 
 of Aranda and Floridablanca, are in the archives of AlcaM de 
 Henares, where they have been consulted by the author. 
 There are also numerous Spanish manuscripts of great value 
 relating to this period, and to the wars with England, in the 
 Brit. Museum. See Gayangos' Catalogue of Spanish MSS.
 
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 425 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Aben Humeya, 153, 154 
 
 Acuiia, Antonio de, Bishop of Za- 
 mora, leads a revolt, 36, 40; en- 
 throned as Archbishop by the 
 mob, 41; aids Padilla's widow, 
 42 ; flees and is captured, ib. 
 
 Administration under Ferdinand 
 and Isabella, 22-24; division of 
 the Royal Council, 22 ; see Coun- 
 cils 
 
 Admiral, Grand, loses all import- 
 ance, 13 
 
 Adrian of Utrecht, tutor to Charles 
 I, 32; coadjutor in the Spanish 
 regency, ih. ; protests against 
 foreign intruders, 33 ; appointed 
 regent, 35 ; attacks Segovia, 36 ; 
 is deposed, //'. ; his retirement 
 demanded, 39; sent to Valencia 
 to take the oath for Charles, 43 ; 
 reviews the armed trades of 
 Valencia, ib. ; elected Pope, 50 ; 
 at disaccord with Juan Manuel, 
 ib.\ will not join the alliance 
 against France, ib. ; takes the 
 Emperor's side, 51; dies, ib. 
 
 Africa, Spanish in, 3, 5,6, 30; Fer- 
 dinand's view of, 10 ; Jimenez's 
 conquests in, ih. ; Spanish garri- 
 sons in, 11; America distracts 
 attention from, ib. ; Mahometan 
 power in, 67-70; see Algiers, 
 Tunis 
 
 Agreda, Maria de, 282 
 
 Agriculture in Spain, increase of 
 
 tillage, 84 ; thriving state of, 85 ; 
 ruin of, 195, 247, 271, 297 
 
 Aguila, Don Juan del, 189; in- 
 vades Ireland, 204 
 
 Aguilar, Count, 324, 339, 341 
 
 Aigues-Mortes, meeting of Charles I 
 and Francis I at, 71 
 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaties of, in 1688, 
 288; in 1748, 384 
 
 Alba, Duke of, sails against Algiers, 
 73 ; defends Perpignan, 74, 103 ; 
 besieges Metz, 92; at Miihlberg, 
 93 ; Neuburg intended for, ib. ; 
 Charles' character of, 105, 106; 
 sent to Spain, 109 ; his advice to 
 Philip, no; sent to Italy by 
 Philip, 121; represents Philip at 
 Cateau-Cambresis, 123; leads the 
 war-party, 124; marries Eliza- 
 beth of France for Philip U, 126; 
 furious at the Fleming nobles, 
 144; hated in the Netherlands, 
 147; overbears Gomez and the 
 peace-party, ib. ; leaves Spain, 
 ib. ; meets Catherine de' Medici 
 at Bayonne, 150; destroys Eg- 
 mont and Horn, 158 ; hangs 500 
 would-be emigrants, 159; de- 
 feats Orange at Heiliger Lee, 
 ib. ; his executions, ib. ; publishes 
 an amnesty, ib. ; introduces the 
 Akabala, 135, 159; massacres 
 the Huguenots, 160 ; crushes 
 Flanders, but not Holland, ib. ; 
 recalled, ib.', disgraced through
 
 426 
 
 Index. 
 
 Perez' wiles, 160, 167; conquers 
 Portugal, 167, 1 6S 
 
 Alba, Duke of (Duke of iluesca), 
 387. 388 
 
 Albany, Duke of, 47 
 
 Albemarle, Earl of, 395 
 
 Alberoni, Cardinal, arranges Philip 
 V's second marriage, 348 ; in- 
 trigues against Ursinos, 349 ; 
 chief adviser of Elizabeth, 350; 
 his policy, 352, 365 ; plots against 
 Cieorge I and Orleans, 354 ; 
 takes Sicily, ib. ; dismisses the 
 English ambassador, ib. ; aids the 
 Pretender, 355; expelled, 356; 
 at Rome, 363 
 
 Albert, Archduke, Viceroy of Por- 
 tugal, 185 ; defends Lisbon, ib. ; 
 husband of Isabel and joint sove- 
 reign of the Netherlands, 194, 
 198; arrives in the Netherlands, 
 202 ; negotiates with Maurice and 
 Elizabeth, 203 ; defeated by 
 Maurice, ib. 
 — see 'the Archdukes.' 
 
 Albret, House of, robbed of its 
 Spanish territories, 7, 45 ; has a 
 party in Spanish Navarre, 46 ; 
 abandoned by Francis, 55 
 
 Albret,Jeanned', heiress of Navarre, 
 2 ; bride-elect of Philip II, 72, 
 105 ; marries the Duke of Cleves, 
 72 ; again proposed to Philip, 
 
 113 
 
 Alburquerque, Duke of, 268 
 Alcabala, 21, 26, 38, 41, 136, 195, 
 
 226, 228, 245, 271, 28r, 351, 381, 
 
 409; in Flanders, 159 
 Alcala, 335 
 Alcaldes, 18 
 
 Alcantara, battle of, 168 
 Alcantara, Order of, 14 
 Alcazar, battle of, 167 
 Alcira, 43, 44 
 Alen9on, Duke of, schemes to rule 
 
 the Netherlands, 167 ; crowned, 
 
 171 ; dies, 185 
 Alessandria, taken by Lautrec, 60 ; 
 
 by Don Philip, 380 
 Alfonso of Aragon, his exploits, 4 
 
 Alfonso VI of Portugal : his ac- 
 cession, 279; a vicious lunatic, 
 281 ; quarrels with Don Pedro, 
 285 ; dethroned and exiled, 290 
 
 Algiers, threatened by Spain, 10 ; 
 Barbarossa ruler of, 67; under 
 Turkish suzerainty, 68 ; attacked 
 by Charles, 73 ; by J. A. Doria, 
 210; by Count O'Reilly, 403; 
 undertakes to suppress piracy, 408 
 
 Allen, Dr, 175 
 
 Almaden, mines of, 87 
 
 Almansa, battles of, 337, 342 
 
 Almeida, Antonio de. Archbishop of 
 Lisbon, 253, 254 
 
 Almenara, battle of, 342 
 
 Alsace, assigned to France at 
 Munster, 275 
 
 Alumbrados, the, 248 
 
 Amelia of Saxony, wife of Charles 
 III, 392 ; dies, 394 
 
 Amelot, Michel, ambassador at 
 Madrid, 334, 339 
 
 America, discovery of, 3, 6, 11 
 — Spanish Colonies in, 83-85, 88; 
 90-91, 396, 407 
 
 Amiens, League of, 92 
 
 d'Ancre, Marshal, 229 
 
 Andalusia, revolt in, 35-6; chiefly 
 loyal, 39 ; Moors expelled from, 
 155) 1951 213; Philip IV in, 228 
 
 Andrew, Archduke, occupies Cleves 
 and Westphalia, 203 
 
 Anjou, House of, its claims on 
 Naples, 6 
 
 Anna, Infanta, daughter of Philip 
 III, marries Louis XIII, 216, 
 217; renounces her claim to the 
 Crown, ib., 312 
 
 Anne, daughter of Maximilian II, 
 marries Philip II, 168; dies, ib. 
 
 Anne of Austria, Regent of France, 
 266 
 
 Anne of Brittany, marries Charles 
 VIII, 6 
 
 Anne of England, adheres to Wil- 
 liam Ill's engagements, 325; re- 
 cognised by Louis XIV, 344 
 
 Anson, ravages South America, 375 
 
 Antonio, Don, Prior of Crato, claims
 
 Index. 
 
 427 
 
 the Portuguese Crown, 167 ; 
 defeated by Alba, 168; flees to 
 England, ib. ; favoured by clergy 
 and people, 184 ; invades Por- 
 tugal, 185 
 
 Antwerp, 'Spanish Fury' at, 164 
 
 Aquisgran, treaty of, 3S4, 392 
 
 Arabella Stuart, chosen by English 
 Catholics as Elizabeth's successor, 
 205 
 
 Aragon, united with Castile, i ; its 
 connection with Sicily, Naplesetc, 
 3, 4; its relations with France, 6; 
 resists the Inquisition, 18; Council 
 of, 24; constitution of, 25; inde- 
 pendence of, 26 ; opposition to 
 Charles in. 34; acquires Roussillon, 
 45 ; Charles's treatment of, 82 ; 
 Philip visits, 112; rising in, 192; 
 Philip III beloved by, 199, 321 ; 
 Moors expelled from, 213; loses 
 its autonomy, 337; submits to 
 Philip, 343; revolts, 365; see 
 Cortes 
 
 Aranda, Count de, in Portugal, 
 395 ; president of the Council, 
 398 ; his reforms, 399, 402 ; 
 secures the expulsion of the Jesuits, 
 400; dismissed, 401 ; ambassador 
 in Paris, 405 ; opposes Florida- 
 blanca, 410 
 
 'Archdukes, the,' inherit the Ne- 
 therlands, 194 ; enter Ostend, 
 206 ; make an eight months' 
 truce with Maurice, 207 ; sign 
 the truce for 12 years, 208 
 
 Arcos, Duke of, viceroy of Naples, 
 272 ; flees, 273 ; deposed, 274 
 
 Arias, Archbishop of Seville, 317, 
 
 321. 327. 33' 
 
 Armada, the, 177-184 
 
 'Armed Neutrality,' 406 
 
 Army, Spanish, before the war of 
 Granada, 27, 28; reputation of 
 the infantry, 47, 267 ; reorganised 
 by Philip V, 327 ; by Charles III, 
 
 403 
 Arras, battle of, 276 
 Arthur, Prince of Wales, marries 
 
 Catherine of Aragon, 9 
 
 Artillery, in the Moorish war, 28 ; 
 in the Anglo-French war of 1415- 
 
 1453' i^- 
 
 Artois, ceded by Spain to France, 
 280 
 
 Arundel, Earl of, represents Eng- 
 land at Cateau-Cambresis, 123 
 
 Asti, courty of, 65, 67, 217; citadel 
 of, 380 
 
 Athens, claimed by the Kings of 
 Aragon, 4 
 
 Aubigny, M. d', 260 
 
 Audience, see Chancery ; at Seville 
 and Galicia. 23 
 
 Augsburg, Diet of, 113; League 
 
 of, 307 
 Augustus II of Poland, 371 
 Augustus III accepted as King of 
 
 Poland, 372 
 d'Aulnoy, Madame, 297, 300 
 d'Avalos, see Pescara 
 Avenne, battle of, 239 
 Aversa, the French capitulate at, 
 
 62 
 Avila, Santa Junta at, 36 
 Ayamonte, ^Iarquis of, discovers 
 
 the plot to murder John IV, 255; 
 
 executed for treason against Philip 
 
 IV, 256 
 Aytona, Marquis of, 240 
 
 Badajoz, sieges of, 279, 331 
 
 Baden, Prince Louis of, 329 
 
 Balaguer, Fort, 339 
 
 Balearic Isles, conquered by Aragon, 
 4 ; raided by Barbarossa, 73 
 — see Minorca, Majorca 
 
 Baltasar Carlos, Infante Don, 269 
 
 Barbara of Braganza, marries Fer- 
 dinand VI, 384 ; secures peace, 
 ib. ; dies, 390 
 
 Barbarossa, alias Kheir-ed-Din, 
 succeeds his brother in Algiers, 
 67 ; accepts the suzerainty of the 
 Porte, 68; takes Bona, Constantine 
 and Tunis, ib. ; loses 80 ships at 
 Goletta, 69 ; raids the Balearic 
 Isles, 73 ; allied with France, ib. ; 
 Charles second expeditionagamst, 
 ib. ; dies, 74
 
 428 
 
 Index. 
 
 Barcelona, revolt in, 258; declares 
 Louis XIII its Count, 260; with- 
 stands Los Velez's assault, 261 ; 
 capitulates, 279 ; taken by Van- 
 dome, 311 ; attacked by Rooke, 
 330; taken by Peterborough, 332 ; 
 besieged by Philip V, 334; storm- 
 ed by Berwick, 346 
 
 — Treaties of, in 1493, 6 ; in 1529, 
 
 63 
 Barrier Treaty, 344 
 Bavaria, Elector of, 328, 329, 344 
 
 — Joseph Leopold, Electoral 
 prince of, claims the Spanish 
 crown, 314; dies, ib. 
 
 Bay, Marquis de, 343 
 
 Bayard, Chevalier, as a general, 47; 
 dies, 50 
 
 Beatrice of Portugal, wife of 
 Charles III of Savoy, an ad- 
 mirer of Charles I, 70; daughter 
 of Manoel, 167 
 
 Beck, Baron de, 267 
 
 Bed mar, Marquis of, ambassador 
 at Venice, 218 
 
 Beggars of the Sea, 146, 208 
 
 Belcastel, General, 342 
 
 Bellefonds, Marshal de, 306 
 
 Benedict XIV, concludes a Con- 
 cordat with Ferdinand VI, 389 
 
 Benevente, Count, 313, 315, 317 
 
 Bergen-op-Zoom, Truce of, 208 
 
 Berghes, Marquis de, Governor of 
 Hainault, prevents persecution, 
 144; at Madrid, 147; overborne 
 by Alba, ib., 158 
 
 Bergues, Count die, 240 
 
 Berlips, Baroness, 310 
 
 Bermudez, Father, 366 
 
 Berwick, Duke of, invades Portu- 
 gal, 329; resigns, 330; in Spain, 
 334-336; wins Almansa, 337; 
 conquers Aragon, ib.; in Dau- 
 phine, 341 ; storms Barcelona, 
 346; invades Spain, 355 
 
 Bezons, Marshal, accused of treach- 
 ery to Philip V, 339; in Cata- 
 lonia, 341 
 
 Bicocca, battle of, 49 
 
 Biserta, ceded to Charles I, 70 
 
 Blake, Robert, 277 
 
 Blanche, Queen of Navarre, di- 
 vorced from Henry IV of Cas- 
 tile, 2 ; bequeaths Navarre to 
 him, ib. 
 
 Blavet, seized by the Spanish, 189 
 
 Blenheim, battle of, 329 
 
 Boleyn, Anne, execution of, 75 
 
 Bologna, Charles I crowned at, 64; 
 the Council of Trent transferred 
 to, 94 
 
 Bombay, acquired by England, 281 
 
 Bona, 68, 70 
 
 Bonn, 328 
 
 Bonnivet, Guillaume de, outgene- 
 ralled by Pescara, 50 
 
 Bordeaux, taken by Mazarin, 276 
 
 Bothwell, Earl of, 205 
 
 Bouchain, 344 
 
 Boufflers, Marshal, 328 
 
 Bouillon, Principality of, 46 
 
 Boulogne, taken by Henry VIII, 
 75 ; negotiations at, 203 
 
 Bourbon, Cardinal de, proclaimed 
 King as Charles X, 187 
 
 Bourbon, Constable, deserts Francis 
 I, 51; Charles' promises to him, 
 ib., 52; invades Provence, 52; 
 quarrels with Pescara, 53 ; retreats, 
 ib. ; at Pavia, 54 ; loses his pro- 
 mised crown and bride, 55 ; at- 
 tacks Rome and dies, 59 
 
 Bourbon, Duke of, 363 
 
 Boyne, battle of the, 308 
 
 Braganza, Barbara of, see Barbara 
 
 — Catherine of, see Catherine 
 
 — Catherine, Duchess of, grand- 
 daughter of Manoel of Portugal, 
 167 
 
 — Prince Edward of, 256 
 
 — John, Duke of, see John IV 
 of Portugal 
 
 Breda, siege and fall of, 233 
 
 Brederode, Admiral, 146, 208 
 
 Bremo, battle of, 241 
 
 Breslau, treaty of, 378 
 
 Breze, Due de, wins Avenne, 239; 
 
 in Spain, 262 
 Brihuega, battle of, 343 
 Bristol, G. W. Hervey, Earl of, 394
 
 Index. 
 
 429 
 
 Bristol, John Digby, Earl of, 229, 230 
 
 Brittany, united to ?" ranee, 6; pro- 
 tected by Henry VII and Maxi- 
 milian, 8 
 
 Biochero, Diego, commands fleet 
 sent to Ireland in 1601, 204 
 
 Broschi, Carlo (Farinelli), 386, 387 
 
 Brown, Count, 383 
 
 Biuges, taken by ^Iarlborough, 338 
 
 r.russels, 112, 165 
 
 Buckingham, Duke of, leans to 
 Spain, 229; visits Madrid, 230; 
 quarrels with Olivares, 231; turns 
 to France, 232; his expedition to 
 Rochelle, 236; assassinated, ib. 
 
 Buenos Ayres, factory at 374; at- 
 tacked by Portugal, 404 ; anarchy 
 in, 407 
 
 Bugia, acquired by Spain, 10 
 
 Burgos revolts, 35 
 
 Burgoyne, General, 395 
 
 Burgundy, claimed t)y Charles I, 
 45i 63; ancient English alliance 
 with, 51, 75, 98; ceded by the 
 treaty of Madrid, 55 
 
 V.ussy, M. de, 394 
 
 Bute, Lord, 395 
 
 Byng, Admiral, defeats the Spanish 
 at Syracuse, 354; defeated, 390 
 
 Cadiz, factions in, 20; prosperity 
 of, 88; burnt by Essex, 193; 
 attacked by Wimbledon, 232 ; 
 threatened by Rooke and Or- 
 mond, 325 
 
 Cadogan, Earl, 338 
 
 Calahorra, Bishop of, 172, 173 
 
 Calais, captured l)y (luise, 22 ; re- 
 tained by France 124 
 
 Calatrava, Order of, 14 
 
 Calderon, Maria, 269 
 
 — Pedro, 247 
 
 — Don Rodrigo, 209, 219, 220, 
 225 
 
 Cambrai, Treaties of, 1 508, 7 ; 
 1529 ("the Ladies' Peace"), 63 
 
 — congress of, 358, 361 
 Campeachy, 395, 406 
 Campillo, 377, 389, 401 
 Campomanes, Count de, 401 
 
 Canales, Marquis de, 327 
 Capua, 372 
 
 Caracena, Count, defeated at Mon- 
 tesclaros, 282 
 
 — Marquis de, Viceroy of Va- 
 lencia, 212 
 
 Cardenas, Alonso de, Spanish am- 
 bassador to Cromwell, 277 
 
 — Inigo de, Spanish ambassador 
 at Paris, 216 
 
 Cardona, Duke of, 258 
 
 Carew, Lord, 229 
 
 Carlos, Don, son of Philip II, 113; 
 betrothed to Elizabeth of Valois, 
 125; at an atito da fe, 130; de- 
 formed, 147; plans for his mar- 
 riage, 147, 148; his lunacy, 148; 
 bent on going to Flanders, 149; 
 plots to murder his father, ib. ; 
 imprisoned, ib.; dies, 150 
 
 Carmona, Duke of, 241 
 
 Carranza, Bartolome de. Archbishop 
 of Toledo, 129; imprisoned by 
 the Inquisition, ib.; dies, 130 
 
 Cartagena (Spain), 336 
 
 — (S. America), 375 
 
 Carvajal, Don Jose, 385, 389; dies, 
 
 Casa de Contratacion, 82, 88 
 Casale, 380 
 
 — Treaty of, 237 
 Cassano, battle of, 333 
 Cassinato, battle of, 333 
 Castelar, Marquis of, 374, 3S0 
 Castel Davide, 330 
 Castel-melhor, Count de, seizes 
 
 power in Portugal, 281 
 
 Castelnovo, 73 
 
 Castile, united to Aragon, 1 ; re- 
 lations with Portugal, 2 ; and 
 France, 6 ; position of the Crown 
 at Isabella's accession, 11 ; towns 
 of, 18 — 20, 35, 80, 81 ; judicial 
 system of, 23, 24 ; revenue of, 2, 
 6, 27, 286 ; Ferdinand regent 
 of, 31, 32; Philip I in, 31 ; 
 Charles and Juana succeed to, 
 32 ; craves a resident king, 33 ; 
 dissatisfied with Charles I, 33, 
 34 ; decline of lil)erty in, 78,
 
 430 
 
 Index. 
 
 '33' i57> 3-0 5 reforms advocated 
 in, 79, 321 ; under Philip II, 
 134; Moors expelled from, 213; 
 cleaves to Philip V, 335 ; see 
 Cortes arid Council 
 
 Catalonia, in the 15th century, 2; 
 resists the Inquisition, 18 ; pros- 
 perity of, 27 ; visited by Philip 
 II, 112; Moors expelled from, 
 213; repels Conde, 242 ; charac- 
 ter of its people, 256 ; Santa 
 Colonna on, 257 ; revolt in, 
 258 — 261 ; occupied by the 
 French, 262, 263 ; recovered, 
 279, 280 ; twice invaded by Louis 
 XIV, 292, 306, 310, 311 ; re- 
 stored at Ryswick, 311; welcomes 
 Charles VI (III), 332 ; conquered 
 by Philip V, 346; loses privi- 
 leges, ib.; revolts, 365; i'^^ Cortes 
 
 Cateau Cambresis, Peace of, 124, 
 125 
 
 Catherine of Aragon, marries Arthur 
 of England, 9 ; marries Henry 
 VIII, ib. ; divorce of, 60 ; dies, 
 
 75 
 Catherine of Austria, sister of 
 
 Charles I, marries John III of 
 
 Portugal, 104 
 Catherine of I3raganza, marries 
 
 Charles II, 281 
 Catherine de' Medici, LeoX plans a 
 
 French match for her, 48 ; marries 
 
 Henry II, 66; her Italian claims, 
 
 70; Dauphiness, 72; political 
 
 guide of Elizabeth Valois, 132 ; 
 
 tries to marry Margaret Valois to 
 
 Don Carlos, 147 ; declines to 
 
 exterminate the Huguenots, 150 ; 
 
 covets Flanders for Alenfon, 166; 
 
 Philip's policy towards, ib., 173 
 Catherine of Navarre, marries Jean 
 
 d'Albret, 2 
 Catherine of Spain, daughter of 
 
 Philip II, marries the Duke of 
 
 Savoy, 178 
 Catinat, Marshal, 311 
 Cerda, Don Martin de la, 203 
 Cerdagne, mortgaged to Louis XI, 
 
 3 } united to France by Louis 
 
 XIV, ib. ; ceded to Spain by 
 Charles VIII, 6 
 
 Ceri, Renzo da, 53, 59 
 
 Cerisola, battle of, 74 
 
 Cervantes, Miguel, 247 
 
 Cervia, held by Venice, 62 ; re- 
 stored to the Pope, 64 
 
 Ceuta, 285, 357, 370, 403 
 
 Ckambergos, the, 290, 298 
 
 Champigny, joins Orange, 164 
 
 Chancellorship, Grand, attached to 
 the See of Toledo, 13, 33, 34 
 
 Chanceries or Audiences, the, at 
 Valladolid and Granada, 23 
 
 Charleroi, battle of, 291 ; fall of, 
 311 ; offered to Holland, 340 
 
 Charles I (V) of Spain, his birth, 
 31 ; his accession, 32 ; arrives in 
 Spain and dismisses Jimenez, 33 ; 
 takes the oath in Aragon, 34 ; 
 encounters opposition there and 
 in Catalonia, ib ; elected Em- 
 peror, ib.; his dealings with the 
 Castilian Cortes, 21, 34, 35; 
 makes Adrian regent, 35 ; his 
 conduct after the revolt of the 
 Communes, 42 ; quarrels with the 
 Valencian Cortes, ib. ; aids the 
 Valencian nobles, 44 ; causes of 
 the war with Francis I, ib. ; his 
 resources, ib. , 46 ; his army, 
 47; courts Henry VIII and the 
 papacy, ib. ; Mary Tudor pro- 
 mised to, 48 ; meets Henry VIII, 
 ib. ; abandons Ferrara, ib. ; de- 
 taches Parma and Piacenza from 
 Milan, 49 ; crowned at Aix, ib. ; 
 at the Diet of Worms, ib. ; drives 
 the French from Lombardy, ib.; 
 rules harshly in Italy, 50 ; his 
 offers to Bourbon, 51; invades 
 Provence, 52, 53 ; wins Pavia, 
 54 ; makes the treaty of Madrid, 
 ib., 55; sends Francis to Spain, 
 56 ; his relations with Clement 
 VII, 51, 56, 58 ; threatened by 
 the League of Cognac, 57 ; his 
 Italian position, 56 — 58 ; takes 
 Milan, 58 ; disavows Moncada's 
 actions, 59 ; captures Clement,
 
 Index. 
 
 431 
 
 60; his difficulties, 60, 61 ; makes 
 the treaties of Barcelona and 
 Cambrai, 63 ; lands at Genoa, 
 64 ; crowned with the Iron 
 Crown at Bologna, ib.; crowned 
 as Emperor, ib. ; makes peace 
 with Venice, ib. ; restores the 
 Medici, ib. , 96 ; his treatment of 
 Savoy and Genoa, ib. ; change in 
 his circle, 66 ; his settlement of 
 the succession, 66, 76, 94, 108, 
 113; leagued with the Italian 
 States, 66 ; his attitude towards 
 the Turks, 67 ; takes Goletta and 
 Tunis, 69 ; restores Muley Hassan, 
 
 70 ; receives Goletta, Bona, and 
 Biserta, ib.; acquires Milan, ib.; 
 invades Provence but retreats, 
 
 71 ; signs a ten years' truce at 
 Nice, ib.; meets Francis at 
 Aigues-Mortes, ib. ; quarrels with 
 P'rancis, 72; invests Philip with 
 Milan, ib. ; invades Algiers, 73 ; 
 his last war with France, 74 ; at 
 the Diet of Speyer, ib. ; crushes 
 the Duke of Cleves, ib. ; annexes 
 Guelders, ib.; invades France in 
 concert with Henry VIII, 75 ; 
 makes peace at Crespy, ib., 91 ; 
 his policy in Spain, 76 ; his man- 
 ners, ib. ; marries Isabella of 
 Portugal, 77; his relations with 
 the Cortes of Castile, 78 — 81 ; 
 his system of government, 82 ; 
 encourages agriculture, 85 ; makes 
 the Ebro canal, ib. ; sells the 
 Moluccas to Portugal, 88 ; his 
 debts, 89 ; his colonial policy, 
 91; attacks the Protestant Princes, 
 ib.; wins Miihlberg. 92; publishes 
 the Interim, ib., 95 ; driven from 
 Innsbruck by Maurice of Saxony, 
 92 ; recovers South Germany, 
 ib. ; fails to take Metz, ib. ; his 
 ecclesiastical policy, 93 — 95 ; his 
 disputes with Paul III, 95 ; con- 
 fers Milan, Siena, and the Vica- 
 riate of Italy on Philip, 97 ; his 
 friendship with England, 98 ; 
 marries Philip to Mary Tudor, 
 
 ib., 115; retires to Yuste, 98, 
 ri8; trains Philip, 102, 105, 106, 
 113; makes him regent, 105; 
 guarantees Maximilian's succes- 
 sion, 108 ; his policy in the 
 Netherlands, 108, 109 ; sends 
 Philip to Italy, no; attends the 
 Diet of Augsburg, 113; confers 
 on Philip Naples and Sicily, 
 Milan, the Netherlands, and 
 Spain, 118 ; takes farewell of the 
 Flemings, ib. ; resigns the im- 
 perial crown, ib.; makes the truce 
 of Vaucelles, ib- 
 
 Charles II of Spain, his accession, 
 284 ; comes of age, 296 ; escapes 
 his mother's power, 298 ; his ap- 
 pearance, 299 ; marries, 301 ; his 
 habits, 302, 306 ; government of, 
 303 — 305, 310 ; accepts the treaty 
 of Ratisbon, 306 ; marries Mary 
 Anne of Neuburg, 308 ; dismisses 
 Oropesa, 309; illness of, 310, 
 313; recalls Oropesa, 312; said 
 to be bewitched. 315 ; leaves his 
 dominions to Philip and dies, 317 
 
 Charles III of Spain, his Italian 
 claims, 353, 357; betrothed to 
 Orleans' daughter, 358 ; the 
 match broken off, 364 ; recognised 
 as Duke of Parma, 368 ; wel- 
 comed in Italy, 369 ; repudiates 
 the imperial suzerainty, 371 ; 
 conquers Sicily and Naples, 372 ; 
 aids the French faction in Spain, 
 386 ; protests against the ex- 
 change of Tuy for Sacramento, 
 388 ; succeeds to Spain, 392 ; 
 arranges the succession, ib. ; lands 
 in Spain, ib. ; signs the ' Family 
 Compact' of 1761, 394 ; at war 
 with England, ib. ; invades Por- 
 tugal, ib.; makes peace, 395; his 
 regulations of dress, 397, 399 ; 
 expels the Jesuits, 399; occupies 
 the Falkland Islands, 400 ; aban- 
 dons them, 401 ; his reforms, 402, 
 409 ; attacks the Moors, 403 ; 
 makes a treaty with Portugal, 
 404 ; joins France and America
 
 432 
 
 Index. 
 
 against England, 405 ; attempts 
 to make peace, 406 ; signs the 
 treaty of Paris, 408 ; makes a 
 treaty with Algiers, ib.; dies, 
 411; his character, ib. 
 Charles IV of Spain, 392, 404, 410, 
 
 4" 
 
 Charles I of England, visits Madrid, 
 
 230, 231 ; marries Henrietta 
 Maria, 232 ; his foreign policy, 
 235 — 237 ; his death, 277 
 
 Charles II of England, marries 
 Catherine of Braganza, 281 ; pro- 
 cures the recognition of Portu- 
 guese independence by Spain, 
 285 ; in the Triple Alliance, 
 288, 290 ; allied with Louis, 291 ; 
 allied with Holland, 293 
 
 Charles VI, Emperor (called III of 
 Spain), his claim to the Spanish 
 Crown, 312 ; lands at Lisbon, 
 329 ; proclaimed in Valencia, 
 331; enters Barcelona, 332; be- 
 sieged there, 334; proclaimed in 
 Madrid, 335 ; accepted by Aragon 
 and Naples, 336 ; wins Almansa 
 and Almenara, and re-enters 
 Madrid, 342 ; evacuates it, 343 ; 
 becomes Emperor, ib.; accepts 
 the treaty of Rastadt, 344 ; allied 
 with England, 353 ; postpones a 
 final settlement, 357 ; acknow- 
 ledges the Italian claims of 
 Charles of Spain, 361, 365 ; 
 makes the treaty of Vienna in 
 1725, 364; desires Maria Theresa 
 to succeed, 367, 368, 376; agrees 
 to the treaty of Vienna of 1731, 
 368 ; recognises Charles as King 
 of Naples and Sicily, 372 ; makes 
 the treaty of Vienna of 1736, 
 373; dies, 376 
 
 Charles VIII of France, 6, 7 
 
 Charles the Bold, confiscates Guel- 
 ders, 46 
 
 Charles Emmanuel, King of Sar- 
 dinia, joins Maria Theresa, 378 ; 
 receives Vigevano, 379 ; beaten 
 by Don Philip and Gages, 380; 
 treats with Louis XV, ib.', defeats 
 
 the Spanish, ib. ; invades Pro- 
 vence, 383 ; wins Exilles, 384 
 
 Charles Louis, Elector Palatine, 237 
 
 Cliatelet, 276 
 
 Chatillon, Marshal, wins Avenne, 
 239, besieges St Omer, 241 
 
 Chavigny, persuades Philip V to 
 resign, 360 
 
 Chievres, Guillaume de Croy, Lord 
 of, minister of Charles I, 33 ; 
 dies, 49, 66 
 
 Chili, colonisation of, 88 ; trade 
 with, ib. 
 
 Chimay, Prince of, 306 
 
 Chinchon, Count de, 169 
 
 Choiseul, Due de, 400, 401, 404 
 
 Christian of Denmark, crushed by 
 Tilly, 235 
 
 Christine of Denmark, marries 
 Francesco Sforza, 64 
 
 Cienfuegos, Cardinal, 364 
 
 Cinq Mars, Marquis of, intrigues 
 with Olivares, 263 
 
 Clarke, Father, 366 
 
 Clement VII, Pope, 51; the centre 
 of the Spanish party under Leo 
 X, ib. ; aids Francis I, 54 ; his 
 relations with Charles, 56, 58, 
 59 ; flees to Sant' Angelo, 59 ; 
 escapes from the sack of Rome, 
 ib. ; in Charles's power, 60 ; sur- 
 renders the keys of the Papal 
 States, 61 ; his policy, 62 ; con- 
 cludes the treaty of Barcelona, 
 63 ; veers towards France, 66 ; 
 meets Francis I, 67 ; his death, 
 ib. 
 
 Clement XIV, forced to suppress 
 the Jesuits, 400, 401 
 
 Clement, Jacques, murders Henry 
 III, 187 
 
 Clergy, Spanish, power and wealth 
 of, 15 ; taxation of, ib., 135 ; 
 reformation of, 16, 30, 38; in 
 the revolt of the communes, 40; 
 in the Valencian revolt, 44 ; re- 
 fuse a subsidy, 61, 79; supply 
 money for Charles's German war, 
 93; dependent on the Crown, 
 119, 128; numbers of, 221
 
 Index. 
 
 433 
 
 Cleves, Duchy of, occupied by 
 Archduke Andrew and Mendoza, 
 
 Cloves, Duke of, occupies Guelders, 
 72 ; marries the heiress of Na- 
 varre, ib. ; crushed by Charles, 74 
 
 Cloth-trade, the, growth of, 8.',— 
 85, 136; revived by Rippcrdd, 
 
 364 
 
 Cobos, Francisco de los, niinister of 
 
 Charles I, 66, 105, 106 
 Cognac, League of, 57, 92 
 Coligny, Admiral, 122 
 Colonna, Fadrlque, Prince of 
 
 Butera, 261, 262 
 
 — Prospero, as a general, 47 ; 
 defeats Lautrec, 50 
 
 — Vittoria, wife of Pescara, 57 
 Columbus, his voyages, 3 
 Committee of Thirteen, of Valencia, 
 
 43' 44 
 Communeros, revolt of, 35 — 42 
 ConcinijConcino (Marshal d'Ancre), 
 
 murder of, 229 
 Concordat of 1753, between Fer- 
 dinand VI and Benedict XIV, 
 
 389 
 Conde, Henry, Prince of, 241, 242 
 
 — Louis, Prince of, wins Rocroy, 
 267 ; takes Thionville, 268 ; wins 
 Lens, 270; joins the Spaniards, 
 276; governor of Burgundy, 280; 
 his Flemish campaigns, ib., 291, 
 292 
 
 Coni, 379 
 
 Constantine, taken by Barbarossa, 
 68 
 
 Contarini, Gaspard, 208, 209 
 
 Corbie, siege of, 239 
 
 Cordoba, revolts against the In- 
 quisition, 18 ; forms a loyal union 
 with Seville, 39 
 
 — Gonsalvo de, wins Naples 
 for Spain, 7; assumes the pro- 
 tectorate of Pisa, 8 ; creates the 
 Spanish infantry, 28 ; aided in 
 Italy by Pedro Navarro, 29 ; 
 suspected of infidelity, 31 
 
 — Don Luis de, 405 
 CoiTiwallis, Lord, 407 
 
 H. S. 
 
 Corregidores, 19, 20, 37, 81, 133 
 
 Corsica, almost conquered by Al- 
 fonso of Aragon, 4 
 
 Cortes, Fernando, shares in the 
 Algerian expedition, 73; conquers 
 Mexico, 90 ; honoured by Charles, 
 91 ; his expeditions to the North- 
 West, ib. ; dies in poverty, ib. 
 
 Cortes of Aragon, Composition 
 and powers of, 25, 104; lake the 
 oath of allegiance to Philip II, 
 103; in 1518, 34; in 1542 (Mon- 
 zon), 103, 104; in 1551, 114; in 
 1564, 141; in 1593 (Tarazona), 
 192; in 1626, 234; in 1701 (Zara- 
 goza), 321 
 — of Castile, their powers and 
 composition, 20, iio, note; fre- 
 quently summoned by Charles I 
 and Philip II, less often by Fer- 
 dinand and Isabella, 21, 78; re- 
 lations with Charles I, 33, 78; 
 projected reform of, 38; demand 
 reforms, 79, in; advise an am- 
 nesty for the communes, 79 ; re- 
 fuse to allow a sisa, 80; the nobles 
 cease to be summoned to, ib. ; 
 deterioration of, ib., 8r ; their 
 economic standpoint, heresies, 
 and measures, 84-87, 89, 90, 112; 
 their laws abrogated by Charles I 
 and Philip II, 128; a mere 
 machine for legalising exactions, 
 133; protest against illegal taxa- 
 tion, 156, 157; Philip declares 
 their annual supplies to be obli- 
 gatory tribute, 157; cease to be 
 summoned afresh, 320; in 1476, 
 21; in 1480 (Toledo), 15, 21; in 
 1498, 22; in 1499, ib.; in 1501, 
 ib.; in 1502, ib.; in 15 18 (Valla- 
 dolid), 33; in 15 19 (Santiago 
 and Corunna), 34, 35; in 1523, 
 78; in 1525 (Toledo), 79; in 
 1527, 61, 79; in 1528 (Madrid), 
 87, 102; in 1538, 79-80; in 1544 
 (Toledo), 106, 108; in 1548 
 (Valladolid), 110-112; in 1551 
 (Madrid), 114; in 1555, 127, 128; 
 in 1560 (Toledo), 137; in 1563, 
 
 28
 
 434 
 
 Index. 
 
 140, 148; in 1566, 155; in 1570, 
 156; in 1573, 157; in 1576, ib.\ 
 in 1586, 179; in 1588 (Madrid), 
 ib.; in 1593, 198; in 1598, 199; 
 in 1621, 226; in 1623, 228; in 
 1632, 245; in 1638, ib.\ in 1639, 
 ib.; in 1643, 269; in 1654, ^7n 
 in 1 70 1, 321; in 171 3, 347 
 Cortes of Catalonia, in 1519 (Barce- 
 lona), 34; in 1542 (Monzon), 103, 
 104; in 1626 (Lerida), 235, 257; 
 in 1632 (Barcelona), 257; in 1701 
 (Barcelona), 321 
 
 — of Valencia, 25 ; crushed by 
 Philip IV, 235; in 1520 (Valen- 
 cia), 43; in 1542 (Monzon), 103; 
 in 1626 (Monzon), 234 
 
 Corunna, Cortes removed to, 35, 38 
 
 Cottington, Lord, 229 
 
 Councils, Administrative, growth 
 of, 82; rendered ineffective by 
 Olivares, 249; rehabilitated, 264; 
 become effete, 351 
 
 Council of Aragon, 24, 77, 82 
 
 — Royal, of Castile, its legal 
 element increased, 13, 22; its 
 composition and organisation, 22 
 — 23; its functions, 23, 134; dis- 
 likes the spread of tillage, 84; 
 inquires into the causes of dis- 
 tress, 221 
 
 — of the Chamber, detached from 
 the Council of Castile, 82 
 
 — of P'inance, 24, 134 
 
 — of Inlanders, 82 
 
 — of the Hermandad, 24 
 
 — of the Indies, 82 
 
 — of Italy, 82 
 
 — of the Military Orders, 24 
 
 — of Night, the, 169 
 
 — of State, the, separated from 
 the Royal Council, 22; its cha- 
 racter, ib. ; its functions consul- 
 tative and relating • specially to 
 foreign affairs, ib., 133, 134; only 
 two Spaniards in, 76; defined, 82 
 
 — of War, 134 
 
 — of Trent, see Trent 
 Courtenay, Edward, a candidate for 
 
 Mary Tudor's hand, 115 
 
 Courtrai, battle of, 270; taken by 
 Louis XIV, 306; restored at 
 Ryswick, 311 
 
 Crequi, Marshal de, 241, 292, 306 
 
 Crespy, peace of, 75, 109 
 
 Creswell, Father, 205 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, attacks the Span- 
 ish Indies, 277 ; his demands, ib. ; 
 allied with France, 278 
 — Thomas, fall of, 75 
 
 Cruzada, the Bull of, Council of, 
 24; nature of, 27; the Santa 
 Junta on, 37; proceeds seized by 
 the Communes, 41 ; a source of 
 revenue, 135; Pius IV threatens 
 to withdraw the King's right to 
 sell, 142; Pius V renews it, 161 
 
 Cuba, 5, 91 
 
 Cuenca, See of, 15 
 
 Currency, scarcity in Spain, 86, 89, 
 200 ; measures regarding, ib., 201, 
 
 245. 305 
 Cyprus, taken from Venice by the 
 Turks, 161 
 
 Daubenton, Father, 356, 359, 360 
 
 Dauphine, promised to Bourbon, 52 
 
 Denia, Marquis of, confidant of 
 Charles I, 76 
 
 Denmark, joins the league against 
 Louis XIV, 325 
 
 Desmond, Earl of, rebels, 166; sup- 
 ported by Philip and the Pope, ib. 
 
 Deza, Cardinal, persecutes the 
 Moriscos, 153, 154 
 
 Diaz, Father, 314; accused of be- 
 witching Charles II, 315, 316 
 
 Dixmunde, 278, 306, 311 
 
 Dominican Friars, the Inquisition 
 in their hands, 16; attack the 
 followers of Erasmus, 61 
 
 Doria, Andrea, recovers Genoa for 
 the French, 60; abandons Francis 
 1,62; Doge of Genoa, 65 ; shares 
 in the invasion of Tunis, 69 ; and 
 in Charles' attack on Algiers, 73 ; 
 meets Philip II in the Bay of 
 Rosas, 112 
 — John Andrea, in the expedition
 
 Index. 
 
 435 
 
 to Tripoli, 137; flees, 138; at Le- 
 panto, 162; attacks Algiers, 210 
 
 Dragut Reis, 74; ravages Sicily, 
 Naples, and Minorca, and cap- 
 tures Tripoli, 137; defeats the 
 Spanish, 138; besieges Malta, 139 
 
 Drake, Sir Francis, harries the 
 Spanish colonies, 170; burns the 
 shipping in Cadiz, 180; attacks 
 the Armada, 182; invades Por- 
 tugal, 184 
 
 Duarte, son of Manoel of Portugal, 
 167 
 
 Dubarry, Madame, 400 
 
 Dubois, Cardinal, 359 
 
 Dunkirk, taken by Conde, 276; 
 retaken, 278; kept by England, 
 280; dismantled, 344 
 
 Eboli, Princess of, 190, 191, 252 
 Ebro canal, made by Charles I, 85 
 Edward VI, his friendly relations 
 with Charles I, 98; dies, ib., 115 
 Egmont, Count, signs a petition for 
 the withdrawal of Spanish troops, 
 126; remonstrates against Gran- 
 velle's conduct, 144; visits Philip, 
 146; executed, 158 
 Elba, seized by France, 272 
 Eleanor, Queen of Portugal, and 
 
 France, 51, 55, 113 
 Elizabeth of Bourbon, daughter of 
 Henry IV, marries Philip IV, 
 216, 217; renounces her claim to 
 the Crown, tV^ ; her relations with 
 Philip, 249; desires Olivares' fall, 
 263; dies, 269 
 Elizabeth Farnese, marries Philip V, 
 348; banishes Ursinos, 349; her 
 rule, 350; her policy, 352, 356, 
 3S9> 361; aims at the French 
 crown, 367; her success in Italy, 
 369; her later schemes, 371, 374, 
 376, 390; opposes the treaty of 
 Vienna, 373; retires, 383; regent 
 on Ferdinand's death, 390 
 Elizabeth Tudor, her accession, 123; 
 her attitude towards Philip, 124; 
 Philip's policy towards, ib., 166; 
 aids the Flemings, 150, 158; 
 
 negotiates for a marriage with 
 Charles IX, ib.; seizes ^31,000 
 from a Spanish fleet, 156; expels 
 the Spanish ambassador, ib. ; 
 seizes Spanish shipping, ib. ; sup- 
 ports Alen9on and the Hugue- 
 nots, ib.; Scotch, French, and 
 Spanish plots against, 174—176; 
 assists Don Antonio, 184; sub- 
 sidises Henry IV, 188; sends 
 Essex to France, 189; dies, 205 
 
 Elizabeth of Valois, daughter of 
 Henry II, betrothed to Don Car- 
 los, 125; marries Philip II, 126, 
 131 ; beloved by the Spaniards, 
 126; catches smallpox, /^.; object 
 of her marriage, 132, 147-148; 
 dies, 150 
 
 Elliot, Lord, defends Gibraltar, 
 405-407 
 
 F.lvas, battle of, 280 
 
 Emanuel of Portugal, marries the 
 Infanta Isabella, 9 
 
 Empire, The, Charles I in, 92; 
 refuses a Spanish Emperor, 94; 
 relations with Milan, 97; succes- 
 sion to, 108-110; Thirty Years' 
 War in, 218, 219, 238, 275; at 
 war with France, 232, 237, 239, 
 291-294, 305-312,322-344, 371- 
 372 ; religious question in, settled 
 at Miinster, 275; straggles with 
 the Turks, 63, 66, 283, 307, 311, 
 352 
 
 Enghien, Due d', defeats Guasto 
 at Cerisola, 74 
 
 England, relations with Spain, 4 ; 
 alliance with Burgundy, 51, 75, 
 98; relation to the Netherlands, 
 47, 63, 97; importance of her 
 friendship to the Spanish Crown, 
 97,98,115,124; dread of Philip's 
 marriage in, ib. ; persecution in, 
 117; unwilling to fight France, 
 ib., 121; loses Calais, 122; loses 
 Guisnes, 123; supplies Philip with 
 money and a fleet, ib.; alleged 
 Catholicism of, 125; Flemish im- 
 migrants in, 145; seminary priests 
 in, 174; proposed invasions of. 
 
 2«— 2
 
 436 
 
 Index. 
 
 i'j4-6; prosperity of, 201; Philip 
 Ill's altempted invasion of, 202; 
 inclines to Spain under James I, 
 229; dragged into war with Spain 
 by Richelieu, 232 ; at war with 
 France, 235 ; unimportant on the 
 Continent, 237; intervenes be- 
 tween Louis XIV and Spain, 287; 
 her conduct at Utrecht, 344; 
 makes a commercial treaty with 
 Spain, 352 ; allied with the Em- 
 pire, 353 ; forces a war on Spain, 
 
 374 
 
 Englefield, Sir Francis, 175 
 
 Ensenada, Marquis of, 383 ; re- 
 creates the navy, reforms the 
 taxation, and encourages com- 
 merce, 385, 388, 401 ; favours 
 France, 386, 389; set aside, 387 ; 
 secretly negotiates with France, 
 388; arrested, 16. 
 
 Epernon, General d', occupies Tarra- 
 gona, 260; returns to France, zd. 
 
 Erasmus, his followers defend 
 Charles I, 61 
 
 Escobedo, Juan de, sent to be a 
 mentor to Don Juan, 163; accom- 
 panies him to Madrid and Flan- 
 ders, 164; sent to Spain, 165; 
 murdered by Philip's order, 166, 
 190, 191 
 
 Eslava, Viceroy of Cartagena, 379 
 
 Espinosa, Cardinal, Don Carlos tries 
 to murder, 148; made Inquisitor- 
 General, 152; persecutes the Mo- 
 riscos, 153; dies, 160 
 
 Essex, Earl of, sent to France, 189; 
 burns Cadiz, 193 
 
 d'Estrees, Cardinal, ambassador at 
 Madrid, 326; offends Portocar- 
 rero andUrsinos, zd. ; recalled, 327 
 
 Estremadura, Moors expelled from, 
 
 213 
 Eugene, Prince, in North Italy, 
 322, 324; defeated at Luzzara, 
 z6. ; wins Blenheim, 329 ; de- 
 feated by Vendome, 333 ; wins 
 Turin, /6.; raises the siege of 
 Toulon, 337; defeated at Frei- 
 burg and Landau, 344 
 
 Exilles, battle of, 384 
 
 Falkland Isles, seized by Spain, 
 400 ; restored to England, 401 
 
 Family Compact of 1761, 394 
 
 Farinelli, see Broschi 
 
 Farnese, Alexander, Duke of Parma, 
 sent to conquer the States, 165; 
 wins Gemblours, 166; sows strife 
 between the Catholics and Pro- 
 testants, id.; marries, 167; col- 
 lects 30,000 men for the Armada, 
 177; advocates peace, id.; re- 
 fuses to start till the Channel is 
 clear, 181, 183; joins Mayenne 
 and relieves Paris, 188; quarrels 
 with Mayenne, 189 ; relieves 
 Rouen, but retreats and dies, id. 
 
 — Antonio, see Parma, Duke of 
 
 — Cardinal, elected Pope as Paul 
 III, 67 
 
 — Elizabeth, see Elizabeth 
 
 — Orazio, affianced to the Dau- 
 phin's bastard, 96 
 
 — Ottavio, marries the Duchess 
 of Parma, 95, 96, 126 
 
 — Pier Luigi, son of Paul III, 
 95 ; murdered by Gonzaga, 96 
 
 l''elton, John, 236 
 
 Ferdinand of Aragon, 1,6, 7, 8-10; 
 his domestic policy, 12-15; and 
 the Papacy, 15, 16; jealous of 
 the towns, 20 ; and the Castilian 
 Cortes, 21; appoints assessors to 
 the Justicia, 25; rarely summons 
 the Cortes of Aragon, 27; studies 
 artillery, 28; regent of Castile, 
 31 ; surrenders the regency, id. ; 
 regent again, 32 ; restores order, 
 id. ; his intentions as to the suc- 
 cession, id., 108; encourages 
 foreign settlers, 87 ; admits Ara- 
 gon to the American trade, 88 
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, their sys- 
 tem of government, 12-15, 19- 
 
 21 
 
 Ferdinand VI of Spain, his acces- 
 sion and policy, 362, 383, 387- 
 390; marries Barbara of Bra- 
 ganza, 384; makes the treaties
 
 Index. 
 
 437 
 
 of Aix-la-Cliapelle and Aquis- 
 gran, 384 ; his character and coun- 
 sellors, 385, 387 ; concludes a 
 Concordat with Benedict XIV, 
 389; a lunatic, 390; dies, ib. 
 
 Ferdinand I, Emperor, 32, 33 ; sent 
 out of Spain by Charles, 34 ; elect- 
 ed King of the Romans ,66, 108; 
 makes a truce with the Turks, 
 91; negotiates with Charles V 
 as to the succession, 94, 108; 
 Emperor, 118 
 
 Ferdinand II, Emperor, attacked 
 by Frederic of Bohemia, 218; 
 aided by Philip III, ib.; has 
 Wallenstein murdered, 238 
 
 Ferdinand, King of Naples, son of 
 Charles III, 392, 410 
 
 Ferdinand, Cardinal Infante, gover- 
 nor of Flanders, 238; at Nord- 
 lingen, ib.; resists Richelieu, 
 239; his straits, 240; Viceroy of 
 Catalonia, 257; dies, 266 
 
 Feria, Count, Spanish ambassador 
 in England, 123; demands aid 
 for Philip II, ib.; propitiates 
 Elizabeth, 124 
 
 — Jane Dormer, Duchess of, 175 
 
 — Lorenzo, Duke of, ambassador 
 in Paris, 190 
 
 — Duke of, recovers the French 
 conquests, 233 
 
 Ferrara, claimed by Leo X, 48 
 
 — Duke of, holds Modena and 
 Reggio, 62 ; pardoned by Charles 
 I, 64 ; dependent on him, 65 
 
 Ferte, Marshal la, 276 
 
 Fieschi, John Louis, attempts to 
 
 seize Genoa, 96; is drowned, ib. 
 Figueras, 279, 291 
 Figueroa, chief minister of Charles 
 
 III, 401 
 Flanders, suzerainty ceded to Charles 
 
 by Francis, 55; Alba in, 159-160; 
 
 Requesens in, 160; Don Juan in, 
 
 164, 165; Farnese in, 165, 166; 
 
 governed by the Archdukes, 194; 
 
 claimed and invaded by Louis 
 
 XIV, 287; ceded by Philip V 
 
 to the Austrians, 344 
 
 Flanders, Council of, 82 
 
 Fleurus, battle of, 308 
 
 Fleury, Cardinal, 366, 367, 368; 
 gives the Spanish passage to 
 Italy, 377; dies, 378 
 
 Florence, controlled by Leo X, 
 48; ri.led by a Medici, 56; op- 
 poses Charles I, 58, 63-64, 71, 
 96; Spanish garrison withdrawn 
 from, 96 ; see Medici 
 
 Florida, exploration of, 11; ceded 
 to England, 395 ; fighting in, 406 ; 
 retained by Spain, 408 
 
 Floridablanca, Mofiino, Count de, 
 ambassador at Rome, 401; chief 
 minister, 404; initiates the 'Arm- 
 ed Neutrality' policy, 406; ac- 
 cepts the treaty of Paris, 408 ; 
 his reforms, 408-410; retires, 410 
 
 Foix, House of, marriages of, 2, 7 
 — Germaine de, marries Ferdi- 
 nand of Aragon, 7 ; punishes the 
 Valencian rebels, 44 
 
 Fontainebleau, treaty of, 379, 400 
 
 France, hostility of Maximilian and 
 Ferdinand to, 45 ; grounds of 
 quarrel with Spain, ib.; position 
 of, 46; Reformers in, 123, 125; 
 Philip proposes to dismember or 
 conquer, 186-189 ; united by 
 Henry IV, 190; allied with 
 Cromwell, 278; acquires Alsace, 
 Artois, and Roussillon, 280 
 
 Franche Comte, proposed union of 
 with the Netherlands, 72 ; re- 
 stored to Spain at Aix, 288; fin- 
 ally occupied by France, 291 
 
 Francis I, wins Marignano, 8, 45, 
 47; his rivalry with Charles, 44, 
 45 ; saves Ferrara from Leo X, 
 ib.; disavows responsibility for 
 attacks on the Netherlands, 49; 
 overruns Spanish Navarre, ib., 
 53; captured at Pavia, 55; ac- 
 cepts the treaty of Madrid, ib.; 
 Eleanor of Portugal betrothed to 
 him, ib.; concludes the League of 
 Cognac, ib.\ unites with Henry 
 VIII to procure Clement's re- 
 lease, 60; invades Italy, ib.; alien-
 
 438 
 
 Index. 
 
 ates Doria, 62 ; his armies de- 
 stroyed, ib.\ accepts the treaty of 
 Cambrai, ib.; abandons de la 
 Marck and the Duke of Guelders, 
 ib.\ meets Clement at Marseilles, 
 66; intrigues with Pope and Pro- 
 testants, 67; demands Milan, 
 Genoa and Asti, ib.\ allied with 
 the Sultan, ib. ; claims and oc- 
 cupies Savoy, ib. ; makes a truce 
 with the Netherlands, ib.\ con- 
 cludes a ten years' truce at Nice 
 with Charles, ib.; meets Charles 
 at Aigues-Mortes, ib. ; allied with 
 Barbarossa, 73 ; last war with 
 Charles, 74 ; allied with the Turk, 
 ib.; attacked at home by Henry 
 and Charles, 75 ; makes peace at 
 Crespy, ib., 91 
 
 Franciscans, Quinones, General of 
 the, 60; attack the Erasmian sect, 
 61 
 
 J'ranquesa, Secretary, 209-214 
 
 Frederic II, occupies Silesia, 377; 
 makes treaty of Breslau, 378 
 
 Frederic, Elector Palatine, elected 
 King of Bohemia, 218; ruined at 
 Prague, 219; dies, 237 
 
 Fregoso, 74 
 
 Freiburg, battle of, 344 
 
 F"rigiliana, Count, 317 
 
 Fronde, the, 275 
 
 Frundsberg, at Pavia, 54; crosses 
 the Alps, 58; joins Bourbon, 59 
 — the younger, shares in the Al- 
 gerian expedition, 73 
 
 Fuenterrabia, occupied by the 
 French, 51; siege of, 241; held 
 by Orleans, 357 
 
 Fuentes, Count de, 268 
 
 Fuero, or For, town charter, 18, 19 
 
 Fugger, House of, their dealings 
 with Charles I, 87, 88 
 
 Gaeta, 372 
 
 Gages, Count de, 378, 379 
 
 Galera, 155 
 
 Galicia, separate Audience of, 23; 
 
 represented in the Cortes, 81 
 Gal way, Lord, 331, 335-337 
 
 Garay, defeated by Catalan rebels, 
 259 
 
 Gardiner, Bishop, imposes hard 
 conditions on Philip II, 116 
 
 Gastenata, Admiral, 354 
 
 Gattinara, Chancellor, 34, 56 
 
 Gavignana, battle of, 64 
 
 Gelves, Los, island of, captured by 
 the Spanish, 1 38 ; defended by 
 de Sande, ib. 
 
 Gemblours, battle of, 166 
 
 Genoa, attacked by Alfonso of Ara- 
 gon, 4 ; French partisans replaced 
 by Imperialists in, 49; recovered 
 by Doria for the French faction, 
 60, 61 ; Charles lands at, 64, 65 ; its 
 fleet, bankers and merchants, ib., 
 87 ; aids the attack on Tunis, 69 ; 
 jealous of Venice, 73; Gonzaga's 
 intentions towards, 96; Fieschi's 
 attempt to betray, ib.; Philip II 
 visits, 112; joins Spain against 
 Richelieu, 232 ; bombarded by 
 Louis XIV, 306; aids the French 
 and Spaniards, 379; blockaded 
 by the English, 383; the popu- 
 lace defeat the Austrians, 384 
 
 George I, promises to restore Gib- 
 raltar, 358; signs the treaty of 
 Seville, 367 
 
 George II, makes the treaty of 
 Vienna, 1731, 36S; attempts to 
 reconcile Austria and Spain, 371; 
 arranges the treaty of 1735, 372; 
 espouses Maria Theresa's cause, 
 378; makes the treaties of Aix- 
 la-Chapelle and Aquisgran, 384 
 
 George III, at war with Spain, 
 394; aids Portugal, ib.; makes 
 peace with Spain and Fiance, 
 395 ; vindicates his claim to the 
 Falkland Isles, 401; at war with 
 the colonies and France, 404; at- 
 tacked by Spain, 405 ; treats for 
 peace, 406; makes the treaty of 
 Paris, 408 
 
 Gennania de Valencia, the, its ori- 
 gin, etc. 43 
 
 Gerona, 279, 292, 306, 343 
 
 Gertruydenberg, Conference of, 340
 
 Index. 
 
 439 
 
 Ghent, rebels, 72 ; crushed by 
 Charles I, ib.; taken by Marl- 
 borough, 338 
 
 Gibraltar, taken by Rooke, 330; 
 held by England, 341, 344; ne- 
 gotiations concerning, 358, 367, 
 406; besieged in 1727, 366; be- 
 sieged by Montemar, 375; block- 
 aded by Spain, in 1779, 405; .'e- 
 lieved by Rodney, 406 ; block- 
 aded in 1782, 407; relieved by 
 Howe, ib. 
 
 Giron, Pedro de, 35 ; supersedes 
 Juan de Padilla, 40; is suspected 
 of treason and withdraws, ib. 
 
 Giudice, Cardinal, 347, 350 
 
 Goletta, siege of, 69, 70 
 
 Gomez, Ruy, 114; leader of the 
 peace party, 121; desires to get 
 rid of Alba, ib. ; governor to Don 
 Carlos, 148 ; his views on Flan- 
 ders, 149; protests against the 
 oppression of the Moors, 153; 
 his party paramount, 160; dies, 
 163 
 
 Gondomar, D. S. de Acufia, Count 
 de, ambassador to James I, 229; 
 procures Raleigh's execution, ib. 
 
 Gonzaga, Ferrante, sails in the ex- 
 pedition against Algiers, 73; go- 
 vernor of Milan, 95; his plots and 
 plans, 96 
 
 Grammont, Duke de, ambassador 
 at Madrid, 330; recalled, 331 
 
 Granada, conquest of, 1-6, 15, 
 17; represented in the Castilian 
 Cortes, 20; Chancery, 23; mainly 
 loyal in the revolt of the Com- 
 munes, 39; Charles I visits, 77; 
 the Moors buy exemption from 
 the Inquisition, 78; cloth trade 
 in, 84; revolt in, 153; Don Juan 
 sent to, 154; Moors expelled 
 from, ib.; unable to pay taxes, 
 
 157 
 Granada (West Indies) captured by 
 
 England, 395 
 Granvelle, Nicholas de, minister of 
 
 Charles 1, 66 
 Granvelle, Cardinal de, corresponds 
 
 with Alba, no; in the Nether- 
 lands, 118; represents Philip at 
 Cateau Cambresis, 123; advises 
 moderation, 125 ; chief adviser to 
 the Duchess of Parma, 127; his 
 recall demanded, 144, 145; vice- 
 roy of Naples, 163; recalled to 
 govern Spain, ib.\ dies, 169 
 
 Granvelle, De (Champigny), brother 
 of the Cardinal, at one with 
 Orange, 164 
 
 Gravelines, battle of, 123; taken 
 by Conde, 276; by the English, 
 278 
 
 Gregory XIII, and Carranza, 130; 
 urges Philip to invade England, 
 164; quarrels with him, 172, 173 
 
 Grey, Lord, loses Guisnes, 123 
 
 Grimaldo, Marquis of, minister of 
 Philip V, 340, 347, 359, 360, 
 361, 366 
 
 — Marquis of, ambassador, ne- 
 gotiates the ' Family Compact,' 
 394 ; minister, 396 ; ambassador 
 at Rome, 404 
 
 Guadalajara, revolts, 35 
 Guadalcanal, mines of, 87 
 Guastalla, Don Philip, Duke of, 
 
 384 
 Guasto, Marquis del, governor of 
 
 Milan, 74, 95 
 Guayaquil, Dutch expelled from, 
 
 233 
 Guelders, Duchy of, confiscated by 
 Charles the Bold, 46 ; reverts to 
 Charles I, 72; occupied by the 
 Duke of Cleves, ib. ; annexed by 
 Charles, 74; ceded to Prussia, 344 
 
 — Duke of, dispossessed by Charles 
 the Bold, 46; attacks the Nether- 
 lands, 49; abandoned by Francis 
 I> 55> ^3; makes a convention 
 with Charles, 72 
 
 Guevara, Antonio de, sues for par- 
 don, 42 
 
 Guicciardini, Francis, his opinion 
 of Ferdinand of Aragon, 10 
 
 Guise, House of, paramount in 
 France, 132; its policy, 166, 173, 
 '74
 
 440 
 
 Index. 
 
 Guise, Francis, Duke of, in Italy, 
 121 ; takes Calais, 122 
 
 — Henry, Duke of, aims at the 
 crown, 174; in Philip's pay, ib.., 
 175, 186; murdered, 186 
 
 — and Lorraine, Henry, Duke of, 
 192, 274 
 
 Guisnes, taken by the French, 123 
 Gustavus Adolphus, at Liitzen, 238 
 
 Habana, taken by England, and re- 
 stored, 395 
 
 Haddock, Admiral, 377 
 
 Hainault, Calvinism in, 144 
 
 Hal, fall of, 308 
 
 Hanover, treaty of, 365 
 
 Hapsburg, Austrian House of, 
 7, 9, 198 
 
 Harcourt, Count de, 240, 250, 267, 
 
 341 
 
 — Duke of, ambassador at Madrid, 
 
 312, 319 
 Hardy, Admiral, 405 
 Haro, Don Luis de, favourite of 
 Philip IV, 266; defeated at Elvas, 
 280; dies, 281 
 Harrington, see Stanhope 
 Harris, see Malmesbury 
 Hassan, son of Barbarossa, 74 
 Heidelberg, League of, 94 
 Heidelburg, capture of, 230 
 Heiliger Lee, battle of, 159 
 Henrietta Maria, marries Charles I, 
 
 232 
 Henry II of France, marries Cathe- 
 rine de' Medici, 66 ; becomes 
 Dauphin, 72 ; allied with Maurice 
 of Saxony, 92 ; seizes the Three 
 Bishoprics, ib. ; aids Fieschi, 96; 
 overruns Roussillon and besieges 
 Perpignan, 103; makes the Treaty 
 of Vaucelles, 119; breaks it, 120, 
 121 ; intriguesagainst Mary Tudor, 
 121 ; at war with England, ib. ; 
 defeated at St Quentin, 122; 
 acquires Calais and Guisnes, 122, 
 123 ; defeated at Gravelines, ib. ; 
 signs the treaty of Cateau Cam- 
 bresis, 124; dreads the reformers, 
 123, 125; killed, 126 
 
 Henry HI of France, childless, 185; 
 murders the Guises, 1 86 ; aided 
 by Navarre and the Huguenots, 
 187 ; murdered, ib. 
 
 Henry IV of France, 185 ; excom- 
 municated by Sixtus V, 186; 
 aids Henry III, 187; proclaims 
 himself King, ib. ; defeats Ma- 
 yenne, wins Ivry, and invests 
 Paris, 188; repulses Farnese, 
 189; becomes a Catholic, 190; 
 enters Paris and makes peace with 
 Spain, ib. ; forms an anti-Spanish 
 league, 215; assassinated, 216 
 
 Henry IV of Castile, 2 
 
 Henry VII of England, 8 
 
 Henry VIII of England, marries 
 Catherine of Aragon, 4, 9 ; at- 
 tacks France, 8 ; visited by Charles 
 I, 34, 48; lends him money, 47 ; 
 his power and wealth, 48, 51 ; 
 attempts mediation, 51 ; openly 
 joins Charles, ib. ; invades Pi- 
 cardy, 51, 75, 97; Protector of 
 the Holy League, 58; his divorce, 
 60 ; demands Clement's release, 
 ib. ; makes peace, 63 ; excom- 
 municated by Clement VII, 66 
 
 Henry, Cardinal, King of Portugal, 
 167; dies, ib. 
 
 Her/inindad, the, 12, 13, 23, 24, 27 
 
 Hesse, Philip, Landgrave of, re- 
 stores Duke Ulrich to Wiirtem- 
 berg, 67; captured at MUhlberg, 
 92 ; imprisoned, 93 
 
 Hesse-Darmstadt, Prince of, 311, 
 3'9' 325. 328, 330, 33i> 332 
 
 Ilinojosa, Marquis of. Viceroy of 
 Milan, defeats Savoy, 217; in 
 Spain, 262 
 
 Hochstadt, battle of, 328 
 
 Holland, Lutherans in, 145; resists 
 Alba and Refjuesens, 160; revo- 
 lution in, 408 ; see United Pro- 
 vinces 
 
 Honnecourt, battle of, 267 
 
 Hood, Admiral, 407 
 
 I'Hopital, Marshal, 267, 268 
 
 Horn, Count, demands Granvelle's 
 recall, 144; executed, 158
 
 Index. 
 
 441 
 
 Hospitallers, the Knights, expelled 
 from Rhodes, 68 ; settled in 
 Tripoli and Malta, ib. ; at the 
 invasion of Tunis, 69 ; lose 
 Tripoli, 137; besieged in Malta, 
 139, 140; repel the Turks, 140 
 
 Howard, Lord, defeats Armada, 182 
 
 Howe, Lord, relieves Gibraltar, 407 
 
 Hozier, Admiral, blockades Porto 
 Bello, 366 
 
 Hudson's Bay, 344 
 
 Huguenots, under Henry II, 123, 
 125; hate the Guises, 132 ; mas- 
 sacred by Alba, 160; support 
 Alen^on's Flemish claims, 166 ; 
 threatened by the treaty of Ne- 
 mours, 186 
 
 Humieres, Marshal, 306, 308 
 
 Huy, 311, 328 
 
 Hyeres, battle of, 379 
 
 Idiaquez, Juan de, 169 
 
 '/« Ccvna Domini,^ the Bull, 173 
 
 Indulgences, Sale of, 24, 27, 37, 
 38, 135, 142, 161 
 
 Industry in Spain, growth of, 83- 
 6 ; depressed by taxation, 90 ; 
 crushed, ib., 244, 271, 351 ; en- 
 couraged, 380-382; revived, 402, 
 409 
 
 Infantry, Spanish, created by Gon- 
 salvo de Cordoba, 28; reputation 
 of, 47, 267 ; at Ravenna, ib., 54 ; 
 at Pavia, 55 ; at Gavignana, 64 ; 
 at Rocroy, 268 
 
 Ingolstadt, battle of, 238 
 
 Inquisition, the, its origin and cha- 
 racter, 16, 17; its value to the 
 Crown, 18, 119; a source of 
 revenue, 18, 27; extent of its 
 popularity, 18 ; slighted by Philip 
 I, 32 ; supported by Charles 
 I in Valencia, 77 ; Philip Il's 
 attitude towards, 119, 128, 142; 
 its treatment of Carranza, 129; 
 resisted in Naples, 139, 140 ; 
 regulated by the Cortes of Aragon, 
 
 141 ; at the Council of Trent, 
 
 142 ; and Pius V, i6r ; imprisons 
 Perez, 192; the Aragonese desire 
 
 its abolition, 199; persecutes Por- 
 tuguese Jews, 248; attacks the 
 ' Alumbrados, ' ib. ; under Charles 
 II, 304, 315, 316; under Philip 
 V and Ferdinand VI, 391 ; under 
 Charles III, 403 
 
 Interim, the, published, 92, 95 
 
 Ireland, invaded with Philip's aid, 
 166; Spanish commissioners in, 
 203 ; del Aguila's invasion of, 
 204 
 
 Irun, fall of, 241 
 
 Isabella of Castile, marries Ferdi- 
 nand of Aragon, i ; aspires to 
 conquer Tlemcen, 10; her ac- 
 cession, 11; her position, 11,12; 
 her policy, 12-15; 'i^'' opinion of 
 Aragon, 26; leaves the regency 
 of Castile to Ferdinand, 31 ; en- 
 courages foreign settlers, 87 
 
 Isabella of Portugal, marries Charles 
 I, 77 ; her conduct at Philip's 
 birth, loi ; her death, 103 
 
 Isabella, daughter of Ferdinand of 
 Aragon, marries John II of Por- 
 tugal, 9 ; and on his death his 
 brother Emanuel, ib. ; dies, ib. 
 
 Isabella, daughter of Philip II, 
 born, 150 ; intended for the Eng- 
 lish Crown, J 78; her Breton 
 claims, 186 ; proclaimed Queen 
 of France, 1 88 ; proposed as bride 
 to Guise, 190; wife of Archduke 
 Albert and sovereign of the Ne- 
 therlands, 194, 198; arrives in 
 Flanders, 202 ; dies, 238 
 — see 'Archdukes, the' 
 
 Italy, Charles VIII invades, 6; 
 Ferdinand of Aragon in, 6-9 ; 
 Leo X's position in, 48; hostilities 
 of 1521-5 in, 49-54; hatred of 
 the Spanish in, 55, 56 ; league 
 to secure liberty for, 56-57 ; 
 French expelled from, 62 ; Charles 
 in, 64; changed state of, 65 ; 
 Charles' settlement of, 97, 108, 
 113; Philip Il's position in, 120, 
 121 ; Henry IV's schemes in, 
 215; Philip Ill's wars in, 217- 
 218; Philip IV's wars in, 233,
 
 442 
 
 Index. 
 
 237, 241, 250, 272-274; Philip V 
 visits, 324; his wars in, 333; 
 Charles Emmanuel's wars in, 378- 
 381, 384 
 Ivry, battle of, 188 
 
 Jamaica, conquered by England, 
 277 ; contraband trade of, 374 ; 
 expedition against, 407 
 
 James IV of Scotland, 8 
 
 James I of England, attempts to con- 
 vert, 175; disinherited by Mary, 
 179; King of England, 205; 
 makes peace with Spain, 206 ; 
 exposes the treachery of the Valen- 
 cian Moors, 211 ; joins Henry 
 IV's anti-Spanish league, 215; 
 mediates between Savoy and 
 Spain, 217 ; sacrifices Raleigh, 
 229; his policy as to the Pala- 
 tinate, 229-231 
 
 James II of England, joins the 
 League of Augsburg, 307 ; de- 
 feated at the Boyne, 308 
 
 James Stuart, the Pretender, 322, 
 
 355, 359 
 
 Jativa, a centre of revolution, 43 
 
 Javennes, battle of, 237 
 
 Jesuits, expelled from Spain and 
 her colonies, 399-400; suppressed 
 by Clement XIV, 401 
 
 Jews in Spain, their power, wealth, 
 and position, 16, 17; persecuted 
 by the Inquisition, ib., 248 
 
 Jimenez, Cardinal, undertakes the 
 conquest of North Africa, 10 ; on 
 the conversion of Granada, 17; 
 hates the Cortes, 2 1 ; regent of 
 Spain, 32; proclaims Charles, 33; 
 dismissed, ib. ; dies, ib. 
 
 John, Don, of Portugal, marries 
 Juana, sister of Philip II, 127 ; 
 dies, ib. 
 
 John, Don, of Austria, j^^ Juan 
 
 John II of Aragon, 4 
 
 John II of Portugal, marries the 
 Infanta Isabella, 9 ; dies, ib. 
 
 John III of Portugal, marries Cather- 
 ine, sister of Charles I, 104; lends 
 Philip II money, 108; negotiates 
 
 for Philip's marriage with his 
 
 sister, 114 
 John IV of Portugal, his marriage, 
 
 252, 253; proclaimed King, 254; 
 
 dies, 279 
 Joseph I, Emperor, 333, 338, 343 
 Joseph II, Emperor, 40 1 
 Joseph Emmanuel, King of Portugal, 
 
 394' 404 
 
 Juan, Infante, marries Margaret of 
 Austria, 7, 9 ; dies, 9 ; pretended 
 son of, 44 
 
 Juan of Austria, Don, brought up 
 in Gomez's tenets, 154 ; expels 
 the Moors from Granada and 
 Andalucia, ib. 155; takes Galera, 
 155; defeated at Seron, ib.; ad- 
 vises a compromise, ih. ; wins 
 Lepanto, 162, 163 ; captures 
 Tunis and refuses to dismantle 
 it, 163; wins over Escobedo, 
 ib.\ visits Madrid, 164; be- 
 trayed by Perez, ib., 191 ; arrives 
 in the Netherlands, 165; sends 
 Escobedo to Spain, ib. ; breaks 
 with the States and occupies 
 Namur, ib. ; wins Gemblours, 
 166 ; dies, ib. 
 
 Juan Jose of Austria, Don, General- 
 in-Chief of Spain, 269 ; his birth 
 and character, ?(5. ; recovers Naples 
 for Spain, 274; governor of Flan- 
 ders, 276; defeats Turenne, ib.\ 
 defeated at Dunkirk, 278; block- 
 ades Barcelona, 279 ; invades 
 Portugal, 281 ; beaten at Amegial, 
 282 ; superseded, ib. ; flees from 
 arrest, 289 ; secures Nithard's dis- 
 missal, ib. ; Viceroy of Aragon, 
 290; procures his own recall, 
 296; defeated by Mariana, ib.; 
 plots against her, 297 ; at the 
 head of affairs, 298; arranges the 
 King's marriage, 299 ; dies, 300 
 
 Juana, daughter of Ferdinand of 
 Aragon, marries Philip I, 9, 31 ; 
 mentally deranged, 31 ; lands 
 in Spain, ib. ; kept in confine- 
 ment by Philip, ib. ; succeeds 
 jointly with Charles, 32; refuses
 
 Index. 
 
 443 
 
 to join the Santa Junta, 36; re- 
 covered by the royalists, 40 
 
 Juana, sister of Philip II, marries 
 Don John of Portugal, 127 ; regent 
 of Spain, ib.\ imprisons the bearers 
 of Papal Bulls, 128 
 
 Julius III, Pope, 96 
 
 Junta, Santa, at Avila, 36 
 
 Junta, Supreme, of the Hermandad, 
 12 ; abolished, 13 
 
 jfurats, the, in towns, 19, 20 
 
 yiiros, mortgages on land or taxes, 
 26 
 
 Justice, administration of, in Castile, 
 23 ; in Aragon, 25 
 
 Justicia, ihe, of Aragon, his 
 position and functions, 25, 82 
 
 Justin of Nassau, 182 
 
 Juvara, Abbe, 373 
 
 Keene, Sir Benjamin, ambassador 
 at Madrid, 386, 387, 388 
 
 Kheir-ed-din, see Barbarossa 
 
 Kinsale, beleaguered by Mountjoy, 
 204 
 
 Konigsegg, Marshal, 366, 367 
 
 La Chapelle, captured, 240 
 
 ' Ladies' Peace, the,' 63 
 
 La Force, Marshal, 237 
 
 Lake, Admiral, captures Sardinia, 
 
 337 
 Landau, battle of, 344 ; ceded to 
 
 France, ib. 
 Landrecy, 240, 276 
 Landriano, battle of, 62 
 Langara, Admiral, 406 
 Lannoy, Viceroy of Naples, 56, 57, 
 
 59' 60 
 Las Casas, Bartolomeo de, 37 
 Laso, Pedro, 40 
 Laulrec, Marshal, 50, 60, 62 
 La Valette, Cardinal de, reduces 
 
 Landrecy and La Chapelle, 240 ; 
 
 dies, 250 
 
 — Duke de, 241 
 
 — Parisot de, Grand-master of 
 the Knights of St John, 139, 140 
 
 League, the Holy, opposes Henry 
 III and Henry IV, 187 
 
 Leagues, of Amiens, 92 ; of Augs- 
 burg, 307 ; of Cognac, 57, 92 ; 
 of Heidelberg, 94 ; of Venice, 
 
 6,9 
 
 Lede, Marquis of, 354 
 
 Leganes, Marquis of, 241, 250, 
 261, 263, 313 
 
 Leghorn, 96 
 
 Lemos, Count de, 220 
 
 Lennox, Earl of, intrigues with 
 Philip, 174 ; flees, 175 
 
 Leo X, holds the balance in Italy, 
 48 ; declares his alliance with 
 Charles I, 49; dies, 50 
 
 Leopold I, Emperor, governor of 
 Flanders, 270 ; defeated at Lens, 
 ib.\ and at Arras, 276; resigns, 
 ib.\ joins the League of Augsburg 
 (as Emperor), 307 ; claims Spain 
 for his son, 312 ; resents the first 
 Partition Treaty, 314 ; protests 
 against the second, 316 ; declares 
 war on Louis XIV on Philip V's 
 accession, 322; joins William 
 Ill's last league, 325 ; his diffi- 
 culties, 328 
 
 Lepanto, battle of, 162 
 
 Lerida, 269, 270, 342 
 
 Lerma, Duke of, favourite of Philip 
 III, 198; his extravagance, 199; 
 transfers the capital to Valladolid 
 and back, 200, 209 ; his dealings 
 with the currency, 200, 201 ; pro- 
 motes the invasion of Ireland, 
 204 ; his corruption, 208 ; per- 
 secutes the Moriscos, 210, 211, 
 212; attacks on, 214, 219; dis- 
 missed, 220; promotes Olivares, 
 224 ; tries to kill him, ib. 
 
 Lesdiguieres, Constable, commands 
 Henry I V's army, 216; aids 
 Savoy, 217 
 
 Leyva, Antonio de, 29, 47 ; defends 
 Pavia, 54 ; wins Landriano, 62 ; 
 dies, 71 
 
 Lichtenstein, Prince of, wins Pia- 
 cenza, 380 
 
 Lille, falfof, 338 
 
 Limburg, fall of, 328 
 
 Lindsay, Earl of, 236
 
 444 
 
 Index. 
 
 Lionne, Hugues de, 278 
 Lippe, Count, 394, 395 
 Lisbon, English expedition against, 
 
 184, 185 
 Literature in Spain, 247, 248 
 Lobkowitz, in Italy, 379 
 Lodi, 53 
 Lombard y, French expelled from, 
 
 7, 8, 49; Charles L's success in, 
 
 51; Imperialist plots in, 96; 
 
 Charles VI expelled from, 372 
 Longueville, Duke of, 241 
 Lorraine, assigned to Stanislaus, 
 
 with reversion to France, 372 
 
 — Cardinal of, represents Henry 
 II at Cateau Cambresis, 123 
 
 — Charles, Duke of, defeated at 
 Courtrai, 270; imprisoned at 
 Toledo, 275 
 
 Louis XI has a mortgage on Rous- 
 sillon and Cerdagne, 2 ; his saying 
 about France, 47 
 
 Louis XII, 7-9 
 
 Louis XIII, betrothed to the In- 
 fanta Anna, 216, 217; quarrels 
 with Philip IV, 232 ; at war 
 with Charles II, 235 ; accepts 
 the Crown of Catalonia, 261 ; 
 sends an army to Spain, 262 ; 
 dies, 266 
 
 Louis XIV, accession of, 266 ; 
 marries Maria Theresa, 281 ; 
 claims the Netherlands and in- 
 vades Flanders, 287; makes the 
 treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 288 ; 
 tries to gain Mariana, 290 ; allied 
 with Charles II, 291 ; in Flanders, 
 292 ; aids the Sicilian rebels, ib. ; 
 makes peace with Orange, 293 ; 
 makes the Peace of Nimeguen, 
 294; marries his niece to Charles II 
 of Spain, 300; his advice to her, 
 303; seizes Strasburg, 305; claims 
 Alost, ib.; invades Catalonia, 
 bombards Genoa, and captures 
 Luxemburg, 306 ; his gains by 
 the Treaty of Ratisbon, ib.\ in- 
 vades the Empire, 307; supports 
 James II, 308; takes Mons, ib.\ 
 captures Spanish towns, 309 ; 
 
 wins Neerwinden, but loses 
 Namur, 311; makes peace with 
 Savoy, ib. ; takes Barcelona, ib. ; 
 concludes the Treaty of Ryswick, 
 ib. ; claims the Spanish Crown, 
 312; makes the first Partition 
 Treaty, 314; makes the second, 
 316; accepts Charles IPs will, 
 318; his opinion of Spain, 320 ; 
 recognises the Old Pretender, 
 322 ; makes the Princess of 
 Ursinos adviser to Marie Louise, 
 323 ; proposes the cession of 
 Flanders to France, ib. ; out- 
 witted by Ursinos, 327 ; asks for 
 peace, 328 ; feigns abandonment 
 of Spain, 340 ; his offers at Ger- 
 truydenberg, ib. ; makes the 
 Treaties of Utrecht and Rastadt, 
 344 ; dies, 350 
 Louis XV, his accession, 350; be- 
 trothed to the Infanta, 358 ; 
 breaks off the Spanish matches, 
 
 364 ; signs the treaty of Hanover, 
 
 365 ; signs the treaty of Seville, 
 367 ; freed from tutelage by 
 Fleury's death, 378 ; signs the 
 treaty of Fontainebleau, 379 ; 
 treats with Charles Emmanuel, 
 381; negotiates with Philip V, 
 38 1 ; makes the treaty of Aix-la- 
 Chapelle, 384; at war with Eng- 
 land, 389; takes Minorca, 390; 
 offers Mmorca to Ferdinand VI 
 and Poland to Don Philip, ib. ; 
 signs the 'Family Compact,' 394; 
 makes peace with England, 395 ; 
 dies, 404 
 
 Louis XVI, recognises the United 
 States, 404 ; at war with Eng- 
 land, 405 
 
 Louis, Prince, of Portugal, takes 
 part in the invasion of Tunis, 69 
 
 Louise of Savoy, Queen-Mother of 
 France, affects a general peace, 
 63 
 
 Louise Elizabeth of Orleans, 
 marries Luis, Prince of Asturias, 
 358 ; her conduct, 362 ; sent 
 back to France, 363
 
 Index. 
 
 445 
 
 Louisiana, ceded by France to 
 
 Spain, 400 
 Lucca helps Philip IV against 
 
 France, 232 
 Lucena, secretary of John IV of 
 
 Portugal, 256 
 Luis of Spain, son of Philip V, 355 ; 
 
 marries Louise Elizabeth of 
 
 Orleans, 358 ; succeeds on Philip's 
 
 abdication, 360; dies, 362 
 Luis, Archbishop of Toledo, son of 
 
 Philip V, 383, 392 
 Luther, Martin, condemned at 
 
 Worms, 49 
 Liitzen, battle of, 238 
 Luxemburg, conquered by Louis 
 
 XIV, 306 ; restored at Ryswick, 
 
 311 ; offered to Holland, 340 
 
 — Duke of, 308, 311 
 Luzzara, battle of, 324 
 Lyons, peace of, 215 
 
 Macanaz, 350 
 
 Machiavelli, Nicolo, his opinion of 
 Ferdinand of Aragon, 10 
 
 Madrid, rising in, 35; capital re- 
 moved from, 200 ; capital restored 
 to, 209; state of, under Philip IV, 
 246 ; population of, 297 ; devoted 
 to Philip V, 335-342 ; Charles 
 Ill's improvements in, 393 ; re- 
 volts against his regidation of 
 dress, 397 
 
 — treaty of, 55 
 Maggiali, Father, 352 
 Mahony, Count, 336 
 Maillebois, Marshal, 383 
 Maintenon, Madame de, 322 
 Majorca, war of classes in, 44 
 Malladas, 288 
 
 Malmesbury, Harris, Lord, 401 
 Malplaquet, battle of, 339 
 Malta, Hospitallers settled in, 68; 
 
 siege of, 139, 140 
 
 — Knights of, see Hospitallers 
 Man, Dr, ambassador at Madrid, 
 
 156 
 Mancera, Count, 331 
 Maiiifestacion , privilege of, 82 
 Manila, taken by England, 395 
 
 Mannheim, siege of, 230 
 
 Manoel, King of Portugal, marries 
 
 Leonora, sister of Charles I, 113; 
 
 dies, ib.', his descendants, 167 
 Mansfield, Count, defeated by Wal- 
 
 lenstein, 235 
 Manuel, Juan, ambassador at Rome, 
 
 10, 47, 50 
 
 Mantua, house of, 96; Philip II in, 
 112; seized by Charles Emmanuel, 
 217; disputed succession to, 236; 
 taken by the Imperialists, 237 ; 
 taken by Don Philip, 380 
 
 — Duke of, 65 
 
 — Margaret, Duchess of, regent 
 of Portugal, 251; warns Olivares 
 of Braganza's plans, 253 ; arrested 
 and forced to yield the citadel to 
 Braganza, 254 
 
 Marck, Robert de la, threatens 
 Luxemburg and Namur, 46 ; at- 
 tacks the Netherlands, 49; aban- 
 doned by Francis I, 63 
 
 Margaret of Austria, sister of Philip 
 I, marries the Infante Juan, 9 ; 
 Regent of the Netherlands, 63 ; 
 converts the truce with England 
 into a general peace, ib. ; death 
 of, 66 
 
 Margaret, bastard daughter of Charles 
 
 I, marries Alessandro de' Medici, 
 63 ; see also Parma 
 
 Margaret, daughter of Maximilian 
 
 11, marries Philip III, 198; dies, 
 216 
 
 Margaret Tudor, Duchess of, 8 
 
 Margaret Valois, intended by her 
 motlier for Don Carlos, 147 
 
 Maria, daughter of Charles I, mar- 
 ries Maxiuiilian II, 108; co-regent 
 of Spain, 11 1 
 
 Maria of Portugal, marries Philip 
 
 II, 104, ro6 ; dies, 108 
 Maria, Queen of Portugal, 404 
 Maria Luisa, of Parma, marries 
 
 Charles IV, 404 
 Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip 
 IV, 269; marries Louis XIV, 
 281 ; renounces her claim to Spain, 
 280, 287, 312
 
 446 
 
 Index. 
 
 Maria Theresa, Empress, 365; her 
 succession conditionally guaran- 
 teed, 368; her accession, 376; 
 signs the treaty of Worms, 379; 
 accepts the treaty of Aix-la- 
 Chapelle, 384 ; guarantees Italian 
 neutrality, 386 
 
 Mariana of Austria, marries Philip 
 IV, 270; intrigues willi Father 
 Nithard against Don Juan, 282, 
 283; regent of Spain, 284; makes 
 Nithard Inquisitor-General, 285 ; 
 forced to dismiss him, 289 ; at 
 war with France, 289-293 ; ac- 
 cepts the Peace of Nimeguen, 294 ; 
 her relations with Valenzuela, 
 295; outwits Don Juan, 296; 
 driven from power, 298 ; recalled 
 by her son, 300 ; her treatment 
 of Marie Louise, 301, 302, 307; 
 her policy, 30S, 309; dies, 312 
 
 Marie Louise of France, marries 
 Phihp, son of Philip V, 374 
 
 Marie Louise of Orleans, marries 
 Charles II of Spain, 300-301 ; 
 her conduct, 302, 307 ; conspiracy 
 against, 303 ; death of, ib., 307 
 
 Marie Louise of Savoy, marries 
 Philip V, 321 ; her government, 
 323 ; rouses Andalucia to arms, 
 326 ; overcomes Louis XIV's op- 
 position, 331; dies, 347 
 
 Marignano, battle of, 8, 45, 47, 
 64 
 
 Marlborough, Duke of, on the Rhine, 
 325; conquers Cologne, 328; wins 
 Schellenberg and Blenheim, 329 ; 
 wins Ramillies, 333; in the Nether- 
 lands, 337; wins Oudenarde, 338; 
 takes Bruges, Ghent, and Lille, 
 ib.\ wins Malplaquet, 339; takes 
 Bouchain, 344; recalled, ib. 
 
 Marseilles, its value to France, 52 ; 
 attacked by Charles, 53 
 
 Marsin, Marshal, ambassador at 
 Madrid, 320, 323, 333 
 
 Martin, Commodore, 378 
 
 Martinique, taken by England, 395 
 
 Mary, Queen of Hungary, sister of 
 Charles I, Regent of the Nether- 
 
 lands, 66 ; concludes a truce with 
 France in 1537, 71 
 
 Mary de' Medici, Queen Regent of 
 France, adheres to Spain, a 16; 
 effects a double marriage with the 
 Spanish house, ib. ; overthrown, 
 229 
 
 Mary Tudor, schemes of marriage 
 for, 48; Charles I's attitude to- 
 wards, 75 ; marries Philip II, 94, 
 98, 115; enters London, 115; 
 childless, 116; parts from Philip, 
 117; declares war on France, 
 121; dies, 123 
 
 Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, Dau- 
 phiness, 125; Philip II's attitude 
 towards, z'i^. 173; Queen of France, 
 132; proposed as a wife for Don 
 Carlos, 1 48 ; marries Darnley, ib. ; 
 imprisoned, 158; Don Juan pro- 
 poses to marry, 163; throws her- 
 self into Philip's hands, 174; dis- 
 inherits James and makes Philip 
 her heir, 179; implicated in Bab- 
 ington's plot, ib. 
 
 Mary Stuart, daughter of James II, 
 marries Orange, 293 
 
 Mary Anne of Neuburg, marries 
 Charles II of Spain, 308; secures 
 Oropesa's fall, 309 ; greed of, 310; 
 her policy, 312-314; struggles 
 with Diaz and the Inquisition, 
 3i5> 316; sent to Toledo, 319; 
 to Bayonne, 336 
 
 Masaniello (Tommaso Aniello), 273, 
 274 
 
 Mascarenhas, Leonor de, educates 
 Philip II, 102 
 
 Massa, Prince of, 274 
 
 Matilla, Father, 309, 313, 314 
 
 Matthews, Admiral, 379 
 
 Maurice of Nassau, joined by the 
 Protestant princes, 203 ; besieges 
 Nieuport and defeats Archduke 
 Albert, ib. ; takes Sluys, 206 ; 
 concludes the 12 years' truce with 
 Spain, 207, 208 
 
 Maurice of Saxony, makes a treaty 
 with Henry II, 92 ; drives Charles 
 I from Innsbriick, ib.
 
 Index. 
 
 447 
 
 Maximilian I, Emperor, 7, 8; pro- 
 posed as regent of Castile, 32 ; his 
 hostility to France, 45 
 
 Maximilian II, Emperor, resents 
 Charles I's settlement of the suc- 
 cession, 94; marries his daughter 
 Maria, 108; Charles guarantees 
 his succession, ib. ; co-regent of 
 Spain, 1 1 1 
 
 Mayenne, Due de, heads the League, 
 187; proclaims the Cardinal de 
 Bourbon, ib. ; defeated by Henry 
 
 IV, 188; quarrels with Farnese, 
 ib.\ hates the Spaniards, 189; 
 opposes the marriage of Guise and 
 Isabel of Spain, 190; proxy for 
 Louis XIII, 216 
 
 Mazarin, Cardinal, abandons Guise 
 in Naples, 274 ; Peace of Miinster 
 a blow to, 275 ; struggles with the 
 Parliament of Paris, ib.\ treats 
 with Spain, 277 
 
 Medici, Alessandro de', marries 
 Margaret, daughter of Charles I, 
 63; restoredto Florence by Charles 
 I, ib., 64; murdered, 96 
 
 — Cardinal, see Clement VII 
 
 — Catherine de', see Catherine 
 
 — Cosimo de', Duke of Florence, 
 71, 96 ; forces the French in 
 Siena to capitulate, 97 
 
 — Mary de', see Mary 
 Medina del Campo, burnt, 36; mart 
 
 of the woollen trade, 83 
 
 Medina Celi, Viceroy of Sicily, 137; 
 commands the expedition to Tri- 
 poli, ib.; flees, 138 
 
 Medina Celi, Duke of, prime minister 
 of Spain, 302, 304, 305, 307 ; re- 
 monstrates against French in- 
 fluence, 333; in power, 340; dies 
 in prison, 341 
 
 Medina Sidonia, Duke of, com- 
 mands the Armada, 180-183 
 
 Caspar, Duke of, plots 
 
 against Philip IV, 255 
 
 Meilleraie, Marshal, 262 
 
 Melgar, Count de, a traitor to Philip 
 
 V, 325 
 
 Melilla, 5, 403 
 
 Mello, Don Francisco de, Governor 
 of Flanders, wins Honnecourt, 
 267 ; defeated at Rocroy, 268 
 
 Mendoza, Bernardino de, Philip's 
 ambassador at Paris, 178, 179 
 
 — Diego de. Viceroy of Valencia, 
 43; leads the Spanish bishojis at 
 Trent, 94 
 
 — Inquisitor-General, 317, 322 
 
 — Juan de (Marquis de Guade- 
 lete), occupies Cleves and West- 
 phalia, 203 
 
 Mercoeur, Due de, opposes Henry 
 IV in Brittany, 189 
 
 Mers-el-Kebir, besieged by the 
 Turks, 1 38 
 
 Messina, taken by the Austrians, 
 35-1. 355; siege of, 372 
 
 Mesta, the, 84 
 
 Metz. taken by Henry II, 92; be- 
 sieged by Charles I, ib. 
 
 Mexico, conquest of, 90, 91 ; at- 
 tacked by Cromwell, 277 
 
 Miguel of Portugal, heir to Spain 
 and Portugal, 9 ; dies, ib. 
 
 Milan, Duchy of, occupied by Louis 
 XII, 7-9; held by Francis I, 
 46; hatred of the French in, 46, 
 50 ; Parma and Piacenza detached 
 from, 49, 50; occupied by Francis 
 I, 53; joins the Italian league, 
 56 ; Francesco Sforza besieged by 
 Charles' troops in, 58 ; he is in- 
 vested by Charles, 64 ; reverts to 
 Charles on his death, 70, 71 ; 
 Charles' proposals regarding, 72, 
 75; conferred on Philip II, 72, 
 97, ir8; lost to Philip V, 336; 
 retained by Austria at Rastadt, 
 344 ; captured by Don Philip, 
 380 
 
 Milian, Don Francisco, 234 
 
 Millions {{^-x), 135, 179, 245, 27 1, 
 351. 381. 388, 409 
 
 Mina, Marquis de la, commands in 
 Italy, 383 
 
 Minas, Marquis de las, 329, 335, 
 
 .337 
 Minorca, overrun by the Turks, 
 137 ; ceded to England, 344 ;
 
 /7, 
 
 7/ ^'^ 
 
 448 
 
 Index. 
 
 taken by Richelieu, 390; offered 
 to Ferdinand VI, ib.; ceded to 
 England, 395 ; captured by Spain, 
 
 497 
 
 Mirandola, French piotectorate of, 
 71 ; ami- Spanish intrigues in, 74 
 
 Mississippi, the, Soto'sexpedition to, 
 90, 91 
 
 Mobile, capture of, 406 
 
 Modena, held by the Duke of Fer- 
 rara, 62 ; helps Philip IV against 
 Richelieu, 232 
 
 MoUwitz, battle of, 377 
 
 Moluccas, the, spice trade with, 
 88 ; sold to Portugal, ib., 89 
 
 Moncada, Hugo de, 10; envoy at 
 Rome, 59; surprises the Vatican, 
 ib.; Viceroy of Naples, 60 ; figlits 
 the Genoese, 61 ; his death, ib. ; 
 attacks Algiers, 68 
 
 Mondejar, Marquis of, governor of 
 Granada, protests against the per- 
 secution of the Moors, 153 ; de- 
 feats the rebels, ib. ; complaints 
 of his moderation, 154 
 
 Monjuich, Fort, 260, 332 
 
 Mons, taken by Louis XIV, 308 ; 
 restored at Ryswick, 311; taken 
 by the allies, 339 
 
 Montalto, Duke of, 317, 331 
 
 Montalvan, Fort of, 330 
 
 Montellano, Count, 327 
 
 Montemar, Duke de, 375 ; invades 
 Italy, 377 ; retires before Charles 
 Emmanuel, 378 
 
 Monterey, Count, 313, 331 
 
 Montesciaros, battle of, 282 
 
 Montferrat, overrun by France, 
 232 ; recovered, ib. ; seized by 
 Charles Emmanuel of Savoy, 217; 
 assigned to Savoy, 328 
 
 Montgon, Abbe, 367 
 
 Montigny, Florence de Montmo- 
 renci, lord of, sent to Madrid by 
 the Flemings, 147, 158 
 
 Montmedy, capture of, 278 
 
 Montmorenci, House of, jealous of 
 the Guises, 132 
 — Constable de, defeated and 
 taken prisoner at St Quentin, 
 
 122; represents Henry II at 
 Cateau Cambresis, 123 
 Montmorenci, Florence de, see 
 Montigny 
 
 — Marshal, 237 
 
 Monzon, Philip II at, 103; seized 
 by the French, 263; recaptured 
 by Philip IV, 269 
 
 Moors, in Spain and Africa, 3, 4; 
 expelled from Andalucia, 155, 
 213; from Aragon, Murcia, Cata- 
 lonia, Castile, La Mancha, and 
 Estremadura, 213 
 
 — of Granada, religious liberty 
 guaranteed to, \jjx enforced con- 
 version of, ib.\ buy exemption 
 from the Inquisition, 77 ; ex- 
 pelled, 154 — ' 
 
 — of Vateucia, defend the nobles, 
 44 ; their enforced conversion, 
 ib., 46, 77; they rebel and are 
 crushed, 78; their thrift and in- 
 dustry, 152, 210; Espinosa's per- 
 secution of, 153; revolt, 153, 154; 
 intrigue with Elizabeth and the 
 Swiss, 2 11 ; persecuted by Ribera, 
 ib.\ expelled from Spain, 211-213 
 
 Mora, Cristobal de, 169, 197 
 
 Morone, Secretary, intrigues against 
 Charles I in Italy, 57 
 
 Mortara, General, captures Tortosa 
 and Barcelona, 279 
 
 Motte, Count de la, invades Cata- 
 lonia, 261; captures a Spanish 
 force, 262; defeats Leganes, 263 
 
 Mountjoy, Lord, Viceroy of Ireland, 
 defeats Tyrone and the Spaniards, 
 204 
 
 Miihlberg, battle of, 92, 93 
 
 Muley Hassan, driven from Tunis, 
 and restored, 68-70 
 
 Muniain, General, 398 
 
 Miinster, Peace of, 275 
 
 Murcia, Moors expelled from, 213 
 
 Murray, General, defends St Philip, 
 Minorca, 407 
 
 Musquiz, 398 
 
 Namur, taken by William III, 311 ; 
 offered to Holland, 340
 
 /?ldfX. 
 
 449 
 
 Naples, taken by Alfonso of Ara- 
 gon, 4; claimed by the House 
 of Anjou, 6; taken by Charles 
 VIII, ib.; divided by Ferdinand 
 and Louis XII, ib.; Ferdinand 
 obtains the whole of,/^.,45 ; heavy 
 taxation of, 27; Charles I holds, 
 46; Pescara proposed as king of, 
 57; the French besiege, 62; con- 
 ferred on Philip II, 118; dreads 
 the Inquisition, 139; extortion 
 and chronic revolt in, 171; re- 
 volts, 273 ; Guise claims the 
 Crown of, 2 74 ; recovered by Don 
 Juan, ib.\ revolts against Philip 
 
 V, 322, 324 ; accepts Charles 
 
 VI, 336; retained by Austria at 
 Rastadt, 344; Charles III king 
 of, 372; P'erdinand king of, 392, 
 410 
 
 Navarre, 2, 7, 45; French invasion 
 of, 49-52 ; proposed settlement 
 of, 72 ; supports Philip V, 335, 
 336 
 
 Navarro, Pedro, 28, 29 
 
 Navy, Spanish, strengthened by 
 Olivares, 243 ; re-created by En- 
 senada, 3S5, 390, 391 ; under 
 Charles III, 403 
 
 Neerwinden, battle of, 311 
 
 Nemours, treaty of, i86 
 
 Netherlands, relations with France, 
 45 ; power of England over, 47 ; 
 attacked by Robert de la Marck 
 and the Duke of Guelders, 49; 
 Margaret Regent of, 63 ; truce 
 with England, ib.; Mary, Queen 
 of Hungary, Regent of, 66; truce 
 with France, tb., 71 ; proposed 
 union with FVanche Comte, 72 ; 
 their treatment at Crespy, 75, 
 109; relations with England, 97, 
 98, 107, 115; attached to the 
 Spanish Crown, 108; Charles' 
 plans regarding, log; conferred 
 on Philip II, 118; Charles takes 
 leave of, ib.; Philip's ecclesiastical 
 measures in, 126; petition for the 
 withdrawal of the Sjianish troops, 
 ib.; the Duchess of Parma Regent 
 
 of, 126; hate Granvelle, 127, 143; 
 troops withdrawn from, 143; re- 
 ligious troubles in, 144; emigra- 
 tion to England from, 145; the 
 Iconoclasts in, 146; peace re- 
 stored in, ib; Philip determines 
 to visit, 147; Alba in, 158; 
 Alba's tyranny in, 159; resist the 
 Alcabala, ib. ; Alba recalled from, 
 160; Don Juan sent to, 164; 
 'Spanish Fury,' ib. ; Don Juan 
 breaks with, 165; Farnese sent 
 to conquer, ?<5. ; Alen9on crowned 
 sovereign of, 171; left by Philip 
 to the Archdukes Albert and 
 Isabel, 194; Maurice in, 203; 
 the 12 years' truce of 1609, 208 
 
 — see Flanders and United Pro- 
 vinces 
 
 Nevers, Due de, claims Mantua, 
 
 236; receives it at the Peace of 
 
 Casale, 237 
 Newfoundland, ceded to England, 
 
 344; fishing in, 395 
 Nice, truce of, 71 
 Nicosia, captured by the Turks, 161 
 Nieuport, besieged by Maurice of 
 
 Nassau, 203; offered to Holland, 
 
 340 
 Nimeguen, peace of, 294 
 Nithard, Father, 283-288, 285; 
 
 forced to leave Spain, 289, 295 
 Nivernais, Duke de, 395 
 Noailles, Francois de, 121 
 
 — Marshal (Due de), in Cata- 
 lonia, 292, 309, 311; attacks 
 Barcelona, 334; in Roussillon, 
 341 ; takes Gerona, 343 
 
 Nobles, Spanish, their position and 
 influence, 13, 14, 15, 20, 22, 31, 
 32, 35. 3^. 41. 61, 79. 80, 82, 134, 
 135. 
 
 Nordlingen, battle of, 23S 
 
 Norfolk, Duke of, plots to marry 
 Mary Stuart, 158 
 
 Norris, Sir John, 185 
 
 North, Lord, 406 
 
 Northumberland, Duke of, 115 
 
 Novon, treaty of, 45 
 
 Nuremberg, Compromise of, 66 
 
 H. S. 
 
 29
 
 450 
 
 Index. 
 
 O'Donnell, rebels in Ireland, 204; 
 dies in Spain, 205 
 
 Olavide, Count de, 403 
 
 Oleron, fortress of, 236 
 
 Olivares, Count de, Spanish ambas- 
 sador at Rome, 177; negotiates 
 for financial aid from Sixtus V, 
 178 
 
 — Caspar de Guzman, Count de, 
 plots against Lerma, 220; de- 
 clines the Roman embassy, 224; 
 attempts to murder, ib.; controls 
 Philip IV, 225; obtains Lerma's 
 dismissal, ib. ; made a duke, 226 ; 
 his measures, 227, 228; and the 
 marriage of Charles Stuart, 230; 
 quarrels with Buckingham, 231; 
 projects of, 232 ; overawes the Va- 
 lencian Cortes, 235 ; treats with 
 England, 236; and the navy, 243; 
 his economic measures, 245 ; his 
 method of government, 249; his 
 Portuguese policy, 251, 252; sus- 
 pects Braganza, 252; tries to 
 have him murdered, 255; causes 
 Lucena's death, 256; his policy 
 in Catalonia, 257, 259; relieves 
 Tarragona, 261; opposes Philip's 
 taking the field, 262; intrigues 
 with Cinq Mars, 263 ; dismissed, 
 ib.; his policy, 264 
 
 Omoa, Fort, 406 
 Ofiate, Viceroy of Naples, 274 
 Oran, 10, 67, 337, 370, 406 
 Orange, Henry Frederic, Prince of, 
 allied with Richelieu, 239; be- 
 sieges Breda, 240 
 
 — Philibert, Prince of, one of 
 Charles I's generals, 60; forces 
 the French to cajiitulate at Aver- 
 sa, 62 ; requests Charles to come 
 to Italy, 64 
 
 — William I, Prince of, with 
 Charles at Brussels, 118; repre- 
 sents Philip at Cateau Cambresis, 
 123; petitions for the withdrawal of 
 the Spanish troops in the Nether- 
 lands, 126; remonstrates against 
 Granvelle's conduct, 144; begs 
 the Regent to summon the States- 
 
 General, 144; Philip tries to win, 
 146; embraces Protestantism and 
 sides with the rebels, ib.', raises 
 troops in Germany, ib. ; escapes 
 Alba's trap, 158; defeated at 
 Heiliger Lee, 159; joined by the 
 Catholic Flemings, 164, 165 
 
 Orange, William III, Prince of, see 
 William III of England 
 
 Orders, Military, Ferdinand made 
 Grandmaster of, 14; Council of, 
 24 ; their revenues farmed by the 
 Fuggers, 87 
 
 O'Reilly, Count, in Portugal, 394; 
 invades Algiers, 403 ; defeated, 
 404 
 
 Orendain, Don Juan, 360, 366, 367 
 
 Orleans, Gaston, Duke of, wins 
 Courtrai, 270 
 
 — Philip, Duke of, defeated at 
 Turin, 333 ; regent for Louis 
 ■^V, 350; rejects Alberoni's over- 
 tures, 353 ; declares war on Spain, 
 355 ; delays to surrender Fuenter- 
 rabia, 357; dies, 359 
 
 Ormond, Duke of, 325, 344, 375 
 Oropesa, Count de, his reforms, 
 307; falls, 309; recalled, 312; 
 supports the claims of Joseph ot 
 Bavaria, 314; exiled, 315 
 Orry, Jean, reorganises Spanish fi- 
 nance, 321, 328; dismissed, 330; 
 reinstated, 331; supreme, 348; 
 driven from Spain, 350 
 Osnabriick, negotiations at, 275 
 Osorio, Dona Isabel de, her con- 
 nection with Philip II, 113, 115 
 Ostend, negotiations at, 180; sieges 
 of, 205, 206, 333 
 
 — Company of the Indies, 365, 
 367- 368 
 
 Osuna, P. T. de Giron, Duke of. 
 Viceroy of Naples, 218; falls and 
 dies, 225 
 
 — Duke of, invades Portugal, 281 
 Oudenarde, capture of, 278; battle 
 
 of. 338 
 Oviedo, Mateo de, 203 
 
 Pace, Richard, 54
 
 Index. 
 
 451 
 
 Padilla, Juan de, insurgent leader, 
 35, 36, 40, 41 ; defeated at Villa- 
 lar, 42 
 
 — Don Martin, 202 
 Palermo, revolt of, 273 
 Palisse, Jacques de la, 47 
 Pamplona, 341, 342 
 Panama, 374 
 
 Papacy, the, its relations with Spain, 
 i5> 16, 38, 61, 65, 93, 120, 128, 
 
 389 
 Paraguay, R., 404 
 Parana, R., 404 
 Pardo, convention of the, 374 
 Pardo, Governor of Habana, 395 
 Paris, besieged by Henry III, 187; 
 besieged by Henry IV, 188; re- 
 lieved by Farnese, ib.; entered 
 by Henry IV, 190 
 
 — treaty of {1783), 407 
 
 Parma, added to the Papal States 
 by Charles I, 49, 50; held by the 
 French, 96; occupied by Philip 
 II, 120; joins Philip IV against 
 France, 232 ; opposes Philip V, 
 348; accepts Charles III, 368; 
 annexed to Milan, 372; Don 
 Philip Duke of, 384 
 
 — Alexander Farnese, Duke of, 
 see Farnese 
 
 — Antonio Farnese, Duke of, 
 marries his heiress to Philip V, 
 348 ; his policy, 355, 358 ; dies, 
 368 
 
 — Margaret, Duchess of, daughter 
 of Charles I, and Regent of the 
 Netherlands, 126; marries Ottavio 
 Farnese, 126 ; summons the 
 Knights of the Golden Fleece, 
 144; her rule, 144, 145; urges 
 gentle measures, 146; enters 
 Antwerp in state, ib. ; retires, 147 ; 
 see also Margaret 
 
 — Philip, Duke of, 384, 386, 
 
 390 
 Parsons. Father, 175, 205 
 Partition Treaties, 314-316 
 Pastrana, Duke of, 216 
 Patiiio, Don Jose, 354, 366, 367 ; 
 
 advocates peace, 368 ; proposes 
 
 the conquest of Naples and Sicily, 
 
 371; dies, 376; his naval and 
 
 colonial policy, ib. 
 Paul III, 67, 69, 71, 92, 93, 95, 96, 
 
 104 
 Paul IV (Caraffa), 92, 120, 121, 137 
 Pavia, occupied by the Imperialists, 
 
 53, 54; taken by Lautrec, 60 
 
 — Peace of, 217 ; repudiated by 
 Osuna and Toledo, 218 
 
 Pedemales, Juan Martinez, alias 
 Siliceo, tutor to Philip II, (03 
 
 Pedro II of Portugal, joins the 
 league against Philip V, 327 
 
 Penn, William, 277 
 
 Pennington, Admiral, 243 
 
 Pefion, attacked by Algiers, 67 ; 
 taken by Barbarossa, 68 ; cap- 
 tured by Don Garcia, 139 
 
 Perennot, A. de, see Granvelle, 
 Cardinal 
 
 Perez, Antonio, on Don Carlos' 
 death, 150; hates Alba, 160; 
 principal secretary to Philip, 163; 
 proposes the mission of Escobedo, 
 ib.\ leads the peace party, 164; 
 breaks with Don Juan, ib. ; has 
 Escobedo murdered, 166, 190, 
 191 ; discovered by Philip II, 
 191 ; imprisoned and tortured, ib.\ 
 flees to Aragon, 192 ; imprisoned 
 and escapes ib. ; dies, ib. 
 
 — Gonzalo, Secretary under 
 Charles I, 82 
 
 Perpignan, besieged by Henry II, 
 74, to3 ; repels the French, 262 
 
 Perquisidores, 24 
 
 Persia aids Philip III against 
 Turkey, 210 
 
 Peru, trade with. 88; conquest of, 
 90 ; Charles vindicates his au- 
 thority in, 91 ; anarchy in, 407 
 
 Pescara, Marquis of, as a general, 
 47' 50 > quarrels with Bourbon, 
 53 ; relieves Pavia, 54 ; refuses 
 the crown of Naples, 57 ; betrays 
 Morone, ib. 
 
 Peterborough, Earl of, lands in 
 Portugal, 331 ; in Valencia, ib. ; 
 takes Barcelona, 332 
 
 29 — 2
 
 452 
 
 Index. 
 
 Philip I, claims Castile, 7, 31 ; 
 marries Juana, 9 ; intrigues with 
 Castilian nobles, 31 ; lands in 
 Spain, ib. ; keeps Juana in close 
 . confinement and rules alone, 31,32 
 Philip II, frequently calls the Cortes, 
 21 ; his birth, 60, loi ; Charles 
 I's plans for, 76, 94, no; Regent 
 of Spain, 93, 105, 108 ; marries 
 Mary Tudor, 94, 98 ; receives 
 Siena and the Vicariate in Italy, 
 97, 108 ; Cortes of Castile swears 
 allegiance to, 102 ; his ancestry, 
 ib. ; his education, 102, 103 ; ac- 
 companies Alba to Perpignan, ib. ; 
 plan for his marriage to Jeanne 
 d'Albret, 72, 105; marries Maria 
 of Portugal, 104, 106 ; Charles' 
 instructions to, 105, 106; financial 
 straits of, 106 ; loses his wife, ib.; 
 wins the affection of the Spaniards, 
 ib. ; his views on the Imperial suc- 
 cession, no; at the Cortes of Val- 
 ladolid in 1.S48, ib.; his reforms, 
 III ; leaves Valladolid, 112; with 
 Charles in the Netherlands, 113; 
 negotiates for a Portuguese bride, 
 ib.; his morganatic connection 
 with Isabel de Osorio, ib., 115 ; 
 attends the Diet of Augsburg, 
 ib. ; summons Cortes, 114; pro- 
 posed as Mary Tudor's husband, 
 115 ; lands at Southampton, 116; 
 his policy in England, ib. ; keeps 
 persecution in check, 117; leaves 
 England, ib. ; King of Naples and 
 Sicily and Duke of Milan, sove- 
 reign of the Netherlands and King 
 of Spain, 118; his character and 
 political position, 119; his view of 
 the Papacy, 120; excommunicated 
 by Paul IV, ib. ; his position in 
 Italy, ib. ; sends Alba thither, 121 ; 
 makes peace with the Pope, ib.; 
 visits England, ib. ; gains her 
 support against France, ib. ; re- 
 turns to Brussels, 122; forbids 
 Savoy to march on Paris, ib. ; 
 obtains an English fleet, 123 ; his 
 financial straits, ib. ; his marriage 
 
 negotiations with Elizabeth, 124; 
 signs the Peace of Cateau Cam- 
 bresis, ib.\ his policy of alliance 
 with England, ib. ; betroths Don 
 Carlos to Elizabeth of France, 
 125; his attitude towards Eliza- 
 beth Tudor, 125, 173; his treat 
 ment of Mary Stuart, 125, 158; 
 marries Elizabeth Valois, 126, 
 131 ; his Flemish policy, 126, 127; 
 and the Castilian Cortes, 128, 157; 
 his religious policy, 128; supports 
 the Inquisition, 129, 130, 141, 
 142, 161 ; his system of govern- 
 ment, 134-137, 169 ; tries to 
 recover Tripoli, 137, 138 ; lays 
 siege to Malta, 139; quarrels 
 with Pius IV, 1 42 ; and the 
 Council of Trent, 143; withdraws 
 his troops from the Netherlands, 
 ib. ; recalls Granvelle, 145 ; allows 
 the suppression of the Inquisition 
 and forgives the confederates, 146 ; 
 withdraws the permission, ib. ; 
 sends Alba to the Netherlands, 
 147; imprisons Don Carlos, 149; 
 loses his third wife, 150; sends Don 
 Juan to Granada, 154; his finan- 
 cial straits, 155-158; expels the 
 English ambassador, 156; recalls 
 Alba, 160; aids Venice against 
 the Turks, 161; and Pius V, ib.; 
 wins Lepanto, 162 ; orders Don 
 Juan to dismantle Tunis, 163 ; 
 sends Escobedo to him, ib. ; 
 orders him to the Netherlands, 
 164; suspects him, ib., 191; 
 orders Escobedo's murder, 165, 
 190, 191 ; sends Farnese to 
 Flanders, 165 ; aids the Irish 
 rebels, 166, 173; intrigues with 
 the Guises, 166, 173; claims the 
 Portuguese Crown, 167 ; loses his 
 fourth wife, 168 ; accepted by the 
 Portuguese Cortes, ib. ; builds 
 the Escorial, ib. ; his ' Council of 
 Night,' 169; his court, 170; his 
 quarrel with the Papacy, 172; 
 expels the Nuncio, 173 ; plans 
 the invasion of England, 174-
 
 Index. 
 
 453 
 
 177; aided l^y Sixtus V, 178; 
 intends Isabel to be Queen, ib.\ 
 made heir by Mary Stuart, 179; 
 levies millions, ib.\ hears the fate 
 of the Armada, 184 ; his policy 
 in France, 186, 188; claims the 
 Crown for Isabel, ib. ; proposes 
 her marriage with Guise, 190; 
 evacuates France, ib.; imprisons 
 and tortures Perez, 191; punishes 
 the Aragonese rebels, 192; his 
 last illness and death, 194; leaves 
 the Netherlands to Isabel, ib. 
 
 Philip III, born, 168 ; his accession 
 and character, 197, 223; under 
 Lerma's influence, 198; marries 
 Margaret of Austria, ib.\ asks 
 the Cortes for money, 199; his 
 extravagance, ib., 214; pardons 
 the rebels of Aragon, 199; 
 lavishes titles and offices, ib. ; his 
 poverty, 201, 208 ; tries to in- 
 vade England, 202 ; sends Aguila 
 to Ireland, 204; makes terms 
 with the English Catholics, 205 ; 
 makes peace with James I, 206; 
 makes a twelve years' truce with 
 the Dutcli, 207, 208 ; his super- 
 stition, 208; expels the Moors, 
 212; at war with Savoy, 217; 
 recalls Osuna, 218; aids Ferdi- 
 nand II in the Thirty Years' War, 
 219; visits Portugal, 222; dies, 
 220, 222 
 
 Philip IV, born, 216; betrothed to 
 Elizabeth of Bourbon, ib. ; mar- 
 ried, 217; becomes king, 225; 
 ruled by Olivares, ib. ; cuts down 
 his expenses, 227; at war with 
 Holland, 228, 233 ; signs the 
 treaty for the English match, 231 ; 
 at war with France, 232, 233; 
 crushes the Valencian Cortes, 234 ; 
 quarrels with the Catalonian 
 Cortes, 235 ; makes peace with 
 England, 236 ; at war with 
 France, 237 ; makes his brother 
 Ferdinand governor of Flanders, 
 238 ; his pleasures, 248 ; loses 
 Portugal, 254; quarters troops on 
 
 Catalonia, 258 ; takes the field 
 himself, 262 ; dismisses Olivares, 
 ib. ; recaptures Monzon, 269 ; 
 loses his wife and son, ib. ; 
 his licentiousness, ib. ; marries 
 Mariana of Austria, 270; accepts 
 the Peace of Miinster, 275 ; sup- 
 ports the Fronde, 276; friendly 
 to Cromwell, 277 ; signs the 
 Treaty of the Pyrenees, 279 ; 
 attempts to reconquer Portugal, 
 281 ; hears of Montesclaros, 282; 
 his character, ib. ; dies, 283 
 Philip V, claims the Crown, 314: 
 appointed heir by Charles II, 
 317, 318; proclaimed, 319; his 
 reception in Spain, 319-321 ; 
 marries, 321 ; in Italy, 323, 324 ; 
 agrees to cede Flanders to Louis, 
 324; his melancholy, ib., 359; 
 his reforms, 327; reorganises the 
 army, ib. ; invades Portugal, 329 ; 
 invokes Louis XIV's aid, 334; 
 flees from Barcelona, 335 ; re- 
 enters Madrid, ib. ; abolishes 
 the privileges of Aragon, 337 ; 
 dismisses French officials, 339 ; 
 protests against the proposals of 
 Gertruydenberg, 341 ; defeated at 
 Almansa and Almenara, 342 ; 
 master of Spain, 343 ; accepts the 
 treaties of Kastadt and Utrecht, 
 344; conquers Catalonia, 346; 
 loses his wife, 347 ; introduces 
 the Salic law, ib. ; marries Eliza- 
 beth Farnese, 348 ; makes a com- 
 mercial treaty with England, 352; 
 at war with the Empire, 353 ; 
 takes Sardinia and Sicily, ib., 
 354 ; expels Alberoni, 356 ; 
 makes peace, ceding Sardinia to 
 Savoy, 357; relieves Ceuta, ib.; 
 aids the Pretender, 359 ; resigns, 
 360 ; resumes the Crown, 362 ; 
 makes the treaty of Venice, 364 ; 
 at war with England, 366 ; makes 
 the treaty of Seville, 367 ; makes 
 the treaty of Vienna, 1731, 368; 
 allied with France, 371 ; aids 
 Charles III in Italy, ib. ; makes
 
 454 
 
 Index. 
 
 the treaty of Vienna, 1736, 373 ; 
 an art collector, ib. ; claims the 
 Empire, 377; invades Italy, 378; 
 makes the treaty of Fontainebleau, 
 379 ; dies, 381 ; his rule, 381-383 
 
 Piiilip, Don, son of Philip V, 
 marries Marie Louise of France, 
 374; projected kingdom for, 377, 
 379 ; invades Italy and retreats, 
 379 ; joins Gages and defeats 
 Charles Emmanuel, 380 ; Duke 
 of Parma, Piacenza, and Gua- 
 stalla, 384 ; makes a treaty with 
 Maria Theresa, 386; plots for the 
 Spanish Crown, 390 
 
 Philippine Islands, 5 
 
 Piacenza, added to the Papal States, 
 49, 50 ; occupied by Gonzaga, 
 96; held by Philip II, 120; Don 
 Philip, Duke of, 384 
 
 Piali Pasha, 137, 139 
 
 Piedmont, the French occupy, 70 ; 
 war in, 71; the French in, 120; 
 war in, 217 
 
 Pirates, Moorish, 43, 73, 202, 208, 
 233' 408 
 
 Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, 390 
 
 Pius IV (Medici), his relations with 
 Philip II, 139, 142 
 
 Pius V, threatens Philip with ex- 
 communication, 129; summons 
 him to fight the Turk, 161; ac- 
 cepts his conditions, ib. 
 
 Pizarro, Francisco, conquers Peru, 
 90; his house crushed by Charles, 
 
 91 
 Plate, River, exploration of, 11; 
 
 navigation of, 404 
 Pocock, Admiral, 395 
 Poland, disputed succession to, 371 ; 
 
 offered to Ferdinand for Don 
 
 Philip, 390 
 Pole, Cardinal, 116 
 Pombal, Marquis of, 404 
 Pomerania, assigned to Sweden at 
 
 MUnster, 275 
 Pontevedra, battle of, 355 
 Population of Spain, in 1559, 136; 
 
 in 1600 and 1619, 221 ; under 
 
 Charles III, 410 
 
 Portalegre, Fortress of, 330 
 
 Porter, Endymion, envoy to Spain, 
 230, 236 
 
 Porto Bello, blockaded by Hozier, 
 366 ; sacked by Vernon, 374 
 
 Portocarrero, Cardinal, heads the 
 French party in Spain, 312-317 ; 
 his reforms, 319; truckles to 
 France, 320 ; refuses to call a 
 new Cortes, ib. ; retires, 327; dies, 
 
 340 
 
 Portugal, her relations with Castile, 
 2 ; her discoveries, 3; matrimonial 
 alliances with Spain, 9 ; supports 
 Isabella of Castile's rival, 1 1 ; 
 buys the Moluccas, 89 ; disputed 
 succession in, 167 ; invaded by 
 Alba, 168; Philip King of, ib.\ 
 Don Antonio's party in, 171, 184; 
 invaded by England, 184 ; Philip 
 II's policy in, 250; Olivares' 
 taxation of, 251 ; revolt in, 251- 
 254 ; Braganza, King of, 253, 254; 
 invaded by Haro, Don Juan, and 
 Osuna, 280, 281 ; aided by Eng- 
 land, 281 ; civil strife in, 283 ; her 
 independence recognised, 285 ; 
 invaded by Philip V, 329; nego- 
 tiates for the exchange of Tuy 
 and Sacramento, 387 ; invaded 
 by Charles III, 394; attacks 
 Buenos Ayres, 404 ; cedes Sacra- 
 mento to Spain, ib. 
 
 Prague, battle of, 219 
 
 Prices, rise of, 86, 89, 136 
 
 Provence, invasion of, 52, 53; pro- 
 mised to Bourbon, 52 ; Charles I 
 invades, 71 ; invaded by Charles 
 Emmanuel, 383 
 
 Prussia acquires Guelders, 344 
 
 Puerto Rico, Dutch expelled from, 
 233 ; demanded by England, 406 
 
 Pyrenees, Treaty of the, 278-280. 
 
 Quesnay, capture of, 276 
 Quevedo, Francisco de, 248 
 Quiftones, Francisco, General of* 
 
 the Franciscans, 60 
 Quintin, Madame, 302
 
 Index. 
 
 455 
 
 Rabago, Father, 386 
 
 Ramillies, battle of, 33.^ 
 
 Ramirez, Francisco, 28 
 
 Rastadt, treaty of, 344 
 
 Ratisbon, treaty of, 306 
 
 Ravenna, 8, 45, 47, 62, 64 
 
 Regidores, 18, 19 
 
 Renard, Simon, Imperial ambassa- 
 dor to Mary Tudor, 115, 116, 
 117 
 
 Requesens y Zuniga, Don Luis de, 
 sent to the Netherlands, 160; 
 calms the Southern provinces, 
 ib.; dies, tb., 163 
 
 Revenues, Crown, their sources, 
 25-27; alienated by Philip I, 
 32; under Philip II, 135; under 
 Charles II, 286; under Philip V, 
 382; under Charles III, 410 
 
 Rhe, Fortress of, 286 
 
 Rhodes, captured by the Turks, 
 68 ; the Hospitallers expelled 
 from, ib. 
 
 Ribera, Archbishop of Valencia, 211 
 
 Richelieu, Cardinal, forms an anti- 
 Spanish league, 232 ; invades the 
 Valtellina, ib. ; gains over Eng- 
 land, ib.', takes Rochelle, 236; 
 forms a second anti-Spanish 
 league, 237 ; makes the treaty 
 of Casale, ib. ; aided by Gustavus 
 Adolphus, 238; subsidises the 
 Dutch, 239 ; declares war on 
 Spain and the Empire, ib. ; his 
 successes, 240 ; twice attempts to 
 invade Spain, 241, 242; aids the 
 Catalans, 259-263 ; dies, 263 
 
 — Armand, Duke of, 274 
 
 — Louis, Duke of, 390 
 Ricla, Spanish general, 394 
 Ridolfi's plot, 158 
 Rimini, 62 
 
 Rincon, murder of, 74 
 
 Ripperda, Baron, 352; revives the 
 Spanish cloth trade, 364 ; nego- 
 tiates the treaty of Vienna, ib.\ 
 falls, 365 ; prime minister of 
 Morocco, 366, 370 
 
 Robinet, Father, 348 
 
 Rochelle, siege of, 235; fall of, 236 
 
 Rochford, Lord, 396 
 
 Rocroy, battle of, 267; taken by 
 
 Conde, 276 
 Rodney, Admiral, relieves Gibraltar, 
 
 406 ; saves Jamaica, 407 
 Rome, sacked by Bourbon's troops, 
 
 59, 61, lOI 
 Ronquillos, the, 307, 313, 340, 347 
 Rooke, Sir George, 325, 329, 330 
 Rosas, Bay of, 112 
 Rouen, siege of, 189 
 Roussillon, Catalan character of, 2 ; 
 
 mortgaged to Louis XI, ib. ; final 
 
 union with France under Louis 
 
 XIV, ib. 262, 280; ceded to 
 
 Spain by Charles VIII, 6, 45 ; 
 
 overrun by Henry II, 103 
 Rudolph, Emperor, claims Cleves, 
 
 216 
 Ruggio, 62 
 Russia, and Poland, 371; joins in 
 
 the 'armed neutrality,' 406 
 Ruthven, Raid of, 175 
 Ruyter, De, Admiral, 292 
 Ryswick, treaty of, 311 
 
 Sacramento, proposed cession of, 
 387 ; taken by Spain, 404 ; ceded 
 to her, ib. 
 
 Ste Aldegonde, Philip de, 145 
 
 St Andre, Marshal, 123 
 
 St Honore, 240 
 
 St Kitt's, 344 
 
 St Marguerite, 240 
 
 St Omer, siege of, 241 
 
 St Philip, Castle of, 407 
 
 Saint-Pol, Count of, defeated by 
 Leyva, 62 
 
 St Quentin, battle of, 122 
 
 St Vincent, taken by England, 395 
 
 Salces, siege of, 242 
 
 Salic Law, introduced by Philip V, 
 
 347 
 San Domingo, 88, 277 
 San George, Duke of, 260 
 San Guillain, capture of, 276 
 San Juan, Prior of, 40, 41 
 San Pol, 260 
 Sande, Alvaro de, defends Los 
 
 Gelves, 138
 
 456 
 
 Index. 
 
 Santa Catalina, 404 
 
 Santa Coloma, Viceroy of Catalonia, 
 257. 258 
 
 Santa Cruz, Alvaro de Bazan, 
 Marquis of, shares in the attack 
 on Algiers, 73; his conduct at 
 Lepanto, 162; beats Don Antonio's 
 fleet under Strozzi; 171, 176; 
 wishes to invade England, 176; 
 estimates the cost of invasion, 
 177; dies, 179 
 
 — Marquis of, 210, 237, 276, 335 
 Santa Junta, the, at Avila, 36 ; 
 
 petitions Charles I, 37, 38; dis- 
 solved, 39, 40 
 Santa Lucia, taken by England, 
 
 395 
 
 Santiago (Spain), 34 
 
 Santiago, Order of, 14 
 
 Santiago de Cuba, 376 
 
 Sardinia, conquered by Aragon, 4; 
 captured by Lake, 337 ; retained 
 by Austria at Rastadt, 344; taken 
 by Spain, 353 ; surrendered to 
 Savoy, 357 
 
 Sarniiento, captured by Spain, 395 
 
 Sauvage, Chancellor, 33, 34 
 
 Savoy, French leanings of, 70; in 
 French hands, ib., 237; acquires 
 Sicily, 344 ; acquires Sardinia, 
 
 357 
 
 — Carlo Emmanuele, Duke of, 
 marries Philip's daughter Cathe- 
 rine, 178; enters Marseilles, 189; 
 receives Saluzzo at the Peace of 
 Lyons, 215; seizes Mantua and 
 Montferrat and invades Lom- 
 bardy, 217 ; makes peace at 
 Pavia, ib. ; joins Richelieu against 
 Spain, 232 ; joins Spain, 236 ; 
 dies, 237 
 
 — Charles III, Duke of, marries 
 Beatrice of Portugal, 68, 70 ; 
 receives Asti from Charles I, 65 ; 
 refuses the French passage through 
 Savoy, 70; at Nice, 74 
 
 — Christine, Duchess of, Regent 
 for her son, 250 
 
 — Emmanuel Pliilibert, Duke of, 
 wins St Quentin, 122; a candi- 
 
 date for Elizabeth Tudor's hand, 
 124; a claimant to the Crown of 
 Portugal, 167 
 Savoy, Prince Thomas of, defeated at 
 Avenne, 239 ; in Italy, 241, 250 
 
 — Victor Amadeus, Duke of, 311 ; 
 joins the allies, 328 ; acquires 
 Sicily as King, 344, 354; ex- 
 changes it for Sardinia, 357 
 
 Saxe, Marshal, 384 
 Saxony, Frederic, Elector of, cap- 
 tured at Miihlberg, 92 
 Schellenberg, battle of, 329 
 Schomberg, Cardinal, 48 
 
 — Marshal, before Rochelle, 236; 
 in Spain, 262, 292; in Portugal, 
 281, 282 
 
 Schulemburg, Count of, 384 
 
 Scotland, detached from the French 
 alliance, 8 ; Spanish intrigues 
 with, 174-176, 193 
 
 Scotti, Marquis, 357 
 
 Sebastian, Don, King of Portugal, 
 his birth and parentage, 127; 
 killed at Alcazar, 167 
 
 Secretary of State, origin and func- 
 tions of, 82, 134 
 
 Segovia, revolt of, 35, 36; a manu- 
 facturing town, 83 
 
 Selim, Sultan, attacks Cyprus, 161; 
 takes Nicosia, ib. ; negotiates with 
 Venice, ib. ; defeated at Lepanto, 
 162 
 
 Semple, Colonel, 205 
 
 Seron, battle of, 155 
 
 Servicioy the, 21, 27 
 
 Sessa, Duke of. Ambassador at 
 Rome, 51, 52, 59; his death, 60 
 
 — Don Carlos de, 130 
 
 Seville, the centre of Judaism and 
 the Inquisition, 17; factions in, 
 20; Audience of, 23; forms a 
 'loyal union' with Cordoba, 39; 
 manufactures of, 84, 88, 409 
 
 — treaty of, 367 
 Seymour, Lord Henry, 182 
 Sforza, Francesco, Duke of Milan, 
 
 46. 50. 56-58, 64, 70 
 
 — Maximilian, Duke of Milan, 
 established by Swiss arms, 8
 
 Index. 
 
 457 
 
 Sheep-farming, 84, 85 
 
 Shovell, Sir Cloudesley, 330 
 
 Sicily, its relation to Africa, 3; an 
 Aragonese possession, 4 ; taxation 
 of, 37; revolt in, 46; conferred 
 on Philip II, 118; ravaged by the 
 Turks, 137; revolt in, 292; ceded 
 to Savoy, 344; taken by Spain, 
 354; part of Charles Ill's king- 
 dom, 372 
 
 Siena, admits the French, 96; the 
 French capitulate, 97 
 
 Sigismund, Archduke, replaces Don 
 Juan, 279 
 
 Siguenza, 35 
 
 Silesia, occupied by Frederic II, 
 
 377 
 Siliceo, su Pedernales. 
 Silk manufacture, among the Moors, 
 
 83,210; inSevilleand Toledo, 84; 
 
 encouraged by Ensenada, 389 
 Silva, Felipe de, 269 
 Simancas, 40 
 Sinan the Jew, 74 
 Sisa, 80, 81, 135 
 Sixtus IV, his contest with the 
 
 Spanish Crown, 15 
 Sixtus V, and the Scotch Catholics, 
 
 177; promises money for the 
 
 Armada, 178; excommunicates 
 
 Henry IV, 186 
 Slave trade with America, England 
 
 secures the monopoly of, 344, 
 
 367- 374 
 Sluys, taken by Maurice of Nassau, 
 
 206 
 Soissons, Congress of, 367 
 Solyman, Sultan, 120 
 Soria, envoy at Genoa, 61 
 Soto, Fernando, his expedition to 
 the Mississippi, 90, 91 
 — Pedro de, 93 
 South Sea Company, 374, 384 
 Spain, consolidation of, i, 2 ; foreign 
 relations of, 3, 5 ; under Ferdi- 
 nand and Isabella, 30; mililary 
 position and power, 46, 47 ; under 
 Charles I, 76, 80, 81; agriculture 
 in, 84, 5; sheep farming in, ib.\ 
 economic difficulties of, 85-7, 89, 
 
 90, 195 ; colonial trade of, 88; 
 financial problems of, 89, 90, 
 195; the people of, 107; friend- 
 ship with England necessary to, 
 ill., log, 115; ruined by the Nether- 
 lands, 109; economic condition of 
 in 154S, 112; in 1559,133 se^. ; in 
 '559> -36; in 1600 and 1619, 221 ; 
 morals of, 170; poverty of, id., 
 195, 240, 271, 297; Moors ex- 
 pelled from, 213; state of in 162 1, 
 226; destruction of industry in, 
 244, 271; luxury in, 246; the 
 drama in, id., 247; literature in, 
 id. ; state of under Charles II, 
 285. 297, 303, 305, 310; revenues 
 of, 286 ; state of, under Philip V, 
 351, 380-382 ; progress under 
 Ferdinand, 388-39 1 ;underCharles 
 111,402,409,410; after his death, 
 4H 
 
 'Spanish Fury, the,' 164 
 
 Spes, De, 136 
 
 Speyer, Diet of, 74 
 
 Spinola, Marquis of, besieges Os- 
 tend, 206; crosses the Rhine, id.; 
 reduces the Lower Palatinate, 
 232 ; recovers the French con- 
 quests, 233 ; takes Breda, id. ; 
 dies, 237 
 
 Squillachi, Marquis of, 393 ; his 
 reforms, 397 ; dies, 398 
 
 Stafford, Thomas, 121 
 
 Stanhope, William, Earl of Harring- 
 ton, ambassador at Madrid, 312, 
 316, 342, 343, 357, 358, 366 
 
 Stanislaus, King of Poland, 371 ; 
 Lorraine assigned to, 372 
 
 Staremberg, Count de, 338,342, 343 
 
 Strasburg, taken by Louis XIV, 
 
 305. 30'5 
 Strozzi, Filippo, 71, 96, 171 
 Sttbsidio, the, or clerical tenth, 27 
 Sully, Due de, minister to Henry 
 
 IV, 215; dismissed, 216 
 Sweden, receives Ponierania at Miin- 
 ster, 275 ; intervenes between 
 Louis XIV and Spain, 287 ; joins 
 the League of Augsburg, 307 
 Swiss, the, 8, 46, 49
 
 458 
 
 Index. 
 
 Syracuse, battle of, 354; siege of, 
 372 
 
 Talavera, Archb. of Granada, 17 
 Tallard, Marshal, 328, 329 
 Tamarit, 261 
 
 Tangier, acquired by England, 281 
 Tarragona, occupied by d'Epernon, 
 
 260; Colonna besieged in, 261 ; 
 
 held by the Spaniards, 270 
 Tavara, Archbishop of Toledo, 105 
 Taverna, Bishop of Lodi, Nuncio 
 
 in Spain, 172; expelled, 173 
 Taxation, 15, 21, 26, 27, 80, 87, 89, 
 
 90, 135, 136, 157. 179. 210, 228, 
 
 245, 271, 381, 382, 388, 409 
 Ter, battle of, 306 
 Terranova, Duchess of, 301 
 Tesse, Marshal, 330, 331, 334, 
 
 337. 362, 363 , ^ 
 
 Thionville, taken by Conde, 268 
 Thirlby, Dr, Bishop of Ely, 123 
 Thirty Years' War, begins, 218; 
 
 ends, 275 
 Tilly, John, Count de, 233, 235, 
 
 238 
 Tlemcen, Moorish kingdom of, 10, 
 
 67 
 Tobago, taken by England, 395 
 Toledo, 33, 35, 42, 49, 83, 84 
 
 — Don Fadrique de, 233 
 
 — • Don Garcia de, captures Pefion, 
 139; Viceroy of Sicily, ib.; re- 
 lieves Malta, 140; governor to 
 Don Carlos, 148 
 
 — Don Pedro de, Viceroy of 
 Naples, 95 
 
 — Don Pedro de. Constable of 
 Castile, 217, 218 
 
 Tordesillas, 36, 40 
 
 Torrecusa, C. Carraciolo, Marquis 
 
 of, repulsed from Barcelona, 201 ; 
 
 at Rosas, 263 
 Torres, Count de las, 366 
 Tortosa, 343 
 
 Toul, taken by Henry II, 92 
 Toulouse, seized by the Spanish, 
 
 189 
 
 — Count de, 330, 334 
 Towns, Castilian, their origin, and 
 
 constitution, 18 — 20; revolt a- 
 gainst Charles I, 35; rise of the 
 lesser gentry in, 80, 81; muni- 
 cipal life destroyed, 133 
 
 Trapani, 372 
 
 Traun, General, 378 
 
 Tremouille, Louis de la, 47 
 
 Trent, Council of, meets, 91; alarms 
 Paul III, 92 ; Charles I's policy 
 at, 94; transferred to Bologna, 
 7b.; reassembles in 1562, 142; 
 its discussions, 142, 143; its reso- 
 lutions published in Spain, 143 
 
 Triple Alliance, the, 288, 290, 357 
 
 Tripoli, acquired by Spain, 10; 
 Hospitallers settled in, 68; cap- 
 tured by the Turks, 137; Philip 
 II's expedition to, ib. 
 
 Tromp, Admiral Van, 242 
 
 Tunis, Muley Hassan driven from, 
 68 ; occupied by Barbarossa, 69 ; 
 invaded by Charles I, ib.; Muley 
 Hassan restored, 70; captured by 
 Don John, 160; recovered by the 
 Turks, ib. 
 
 Turenne, Marshal, joins the Span- 
 iards, 275; returns to France, 
 276; his Flemish campaigns, ib. 
 
 Turin, taken by the French, 70 ; 
 battle of, 333 
 
 Turks, the allies of Francis I, 47, 
 70-74; threaten the Empire and 
 Catholicism, 63; advance on Vi- 
 enna, 66; retreat, ib.\ gain the 
 suzerainty of Algiers, 67; the 
 fleet attacks Nice, 74 ; make a 
 truce with Ferdinand, 91; overrun 
 Minorca and capture Tripoli, 137; 
 defeat Philip's fleet, 138; besiege 
 Mers-el-Kebir, ib. ; besiege Malta, 
 139, 140; attack Venice, i6r; cap- 
 ture Cyprus, ib.; defeated at Le- 
 panto, 162; recover Tunis and 
 Goletta, 163; Philip III and 
 Persia attack, 210; struggle with 
 the Empire, 283, 307, 311, 352 
 
 Tuscany, assigned to the Dukes of 
 Lorraine, 372 
 — Duke of, 359 
 
 Tuttlinghen, battle of, 268
 
 Index. 
 
 459 
 
 Tuy, Province of, proposed exchange 
 of, 387 
 
 Tyrone, Hugh O'Neil, Earl of, in- 
 trigues with Spain, 203 ; aided 
 by del Aguila, 204; defeated by 
 Mountjoy, ib. 
 
 — John killed at Barcelona, 260 
 
 Uceda, Duke of, son of Lerma, 
 plots against his father, 220; falls 
 and dies, 225 
 
 Ulm, 329 
 
 United Provinces, join Richelieu 
 against Spain, 232 ; harry Spanish 
 commerce, 233 ; subsidised by 
 Richelieu, 239 ; prosperity of, 
 240 ; Spain recognises the inde- 
 pendence of, 275; trade of the 
 Indies opened to, ib. ; intervene 
 between Louis XIV and Spain, 
 287; attacked by Louis, 291; al- 
 lied with England, 293; make 
 peace, ib.\ united with England 
 under William III, 308; formally 
 recognise Philip V, 322 ; form a 
 league with VVilliam, 325; ac- 
 quire the ' front er towns,' 344; 
 join the alliance against Alberoni, 
 355; treat for peace, 357 
 
 Urbino, Duke of, 58, 62, 65 
 
 Urgel, 309, 355 
 
 Urraca, 313 
 
 Ursinos, Princess of, adviser of 
 Marie Louise, 322, 323 ; outwits 
 Louis XIV, 327; forced to re- 
 tire, 330; recalled, 331; revolt 
 against, 339; rules Philip after 
 his wife's death, 347; arranges 
 his second marriage, 348; ban- 
 ished by Elizabeth, 349 
 
 Ustariz, Jerome, encourages indus- 
 try, 380 
 
 Utrecht, peace of, 344 
 
 Valdes, Alfonso and Juan, defend 
 Charles I, 61 
 
 — Don Pedro de, 182 
 Valencia, resists the Inquisition, 18; 
 
 does not recognise Charles I, 34 ; 
 rising in, 42, 44; Moorish rebel- 
 
 lion in, 77, 78 ; manufactures 
 of, 84 ; Moors expelled from, 
 210-213; the Cortes crushed by 
 Philip IV, 235; proclaims Charles 
 VI (III), 331 
 
 Valenciennes, 144 
 
 Valenzuela, Don Juan, his rise, 295, 
 296; arrest and death of, 298 
 
 Valladolid, 23, 77, 83, 200 
 
 Valparaiso, Count de, 387 
 
 Vahellina, the, disputed by France 
 and Spain, 229, 231; overrun by 
 the French, 232, 233; recovered 
 by Feria, 233; settlement of, ib. 
 
 Vargas, Aionso de, 192 
 
 — Juan de, Philip's ambassador 
 at the Council of Trent, 142 
 
 Vasconcellos, Secretary, 252-254 
 
 Vasquez, Mateo, 169, 190, 191 
 
 Vauban, Marshal, 291, 306 
 
 Vaucelles, treaty of, 119-121 
 
 Veedores, 24 
 
 Vega, Lope de, 247 
 
 Velasco, Constable of Castile, 206 
 
 — Don Francisco de, 311; sur- 
 renders Barcelona, 332 
 
 Velez, Marquis de los, slaughters 
 the Moorish rebels, 154 
 
 — Marquis de los, sent to crush 
 the Catalans, 259; makes terms 
 with d'Epernon, 26c; \iceroy of 
 Sicily, 273 
 
 Venables, Robert, 277 
 Vendonie, House of, jealous of the 
 Guises, 132 
 
 — Marshal, takes Barcelona, 311; 
 in Italy, 324, 333; in the Nether- 
 lands, 337; defeated at Oude- 
 narde, 338; wins Brihuega and 
 Villa-Viciosa, 343; dies, 348 
 
 Venezuela, colonisation of, 88 
 Venice, 9, 50, 56, 58, 61, 62, 64, 73, 
 121, 161, 217, 218, 237, 335 
 
 — League of, 6, 9 
 
 — treaty of, 364 
 
 Vera Cruz, trade with, 88, 374 
 Verdun, taken by Henry II, 91 
 Vernon, Admiral, sacks Porto Bello, 
 374 ; attacks Cartagena and Sant- 
 iago de Cuba, 376
 
 460 
 
 Index. 
 
 Viana, battle of, 168 
 
 Vicariate of Italy, the, conferred by 
 
 Charles I on Philip, 97, 108 
 Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, 
 
 King of Sicily and Sardinia, see 
 
 Savoy 
 Vienna, treaties of, I7'25, 364, 365; 
 
 1731, 368; 1736, 373. 
 Vigevano, ceded to Sardinia, 379 
 Vigo, 326, 355 
 
 Villadarias, Marquis de, 330, 342 
 Villa-hermosa, Duke of, 292 
 Villalar, battle of, 41, 42, 76, 78, 80 
 Villamediana, Count de, 705 
 Villa Mediana, Count de, 249 
 Villarias, Marquis of, 383, 385 
 Villars, Marshal, 328, 337, 339, 341, 
 
 344 
 Villars, De, ambassador at Madrid, 
 
 300, 305 
 — Madame de, 297, 300, 301 
 Villa-Viciosa, battle of, 343 
 Villeroy, Marshal, 324, 333 
 
 Wager, Sir Charles, 368 
 
 Waldeck, Prince of, 308 
 
 Wall, Richard, Spanish ambassador 
 in London, 386; recalled and re- 
 stored, 387 ; minister of State, ib., 
 393; exposes Ensenada, 388; his 
 peace policy, 389; retires, 395 
 
 Wallenstein, Duke of, defeats Mans- 
 feld, 235; defeated at Liitzen, 238; 
 murdered, ib. 
 
 VValpole, Sir Robert, opposes war 
 with Spain, 374, 376 
 
 Weimar, Duke of, 241 
 Welser, House of, 88 
 Wentworth, General, 375 
 
 — Lord, loses Calais, 122 
 William III of England, defends 
 
 Holland, 291, 292; makes peace 
 with Louis, 293; marries Mary 
 of York, ib.; becomes King of 
 England, 308; his policy, ib.\ 
 defeats James II, ib.; defeated at 
 Neerwinden, 311; takes Namur, 
 ib.\ recognised by Louis at Rys- 
 wick, ib.\ makes the Partition 
 Treaties, 314, 316; resents Louis' 
 recognition of the Pretender, 322 ; 
 forms a league with Holland, 
 Denmark, and the Empire, 325; 
 dies, ib. 
 Wimbledon, Lord, 232 
 Winwood, Sir Ralph, 215, 229 
 Wolsey, Cardinal, 52, 55, 75 
 Worms, Diet of, 49 
 
 — treaty of, 379 
 Wotton, Dr, 123 
 Wiirtemberg, Duke of, 65 
 
 Ximenes, Cardinal, see Jimenez 
 
 Yorktown, 407 
 
 Yuste, Charles I retires to, 118 
 
 Zamora, 20, 35, 81 
 Zaragoza, 18, 336, 337, 342 
 Zeeland, 145, 159, 160 
 Zumel, Dr, 33, 40 
 
 CAMBKIDGB: PRINTED BY J. k. C. P. CLAY, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
 
 CAMBRIDGE HISTORICAL SERIES 
 
 Edited by G. W. Prothero, Litt.D., LL.D , Honorary Fellow 
 of King's College, Cambridge, Editor of the " Quarterly 
 Review," and formerly Professor of History in the Uni- 
 versity of Edinburgh. 
 
 The Volumes already published are indicated by an asterisk, 
 those not so marked are in hand, for which the orders are 
 registered, and others will be added from time to time. 
 
 *1m The French Monarchy, 1483—1789. By A. J. 
 
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 /With 4 Maps. In 2 vols. 
 
 j^. Germany and the Empire, 1493 — 1792, By 
 
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 Biography," and author of " England under Protector Somerset." 
 
 3. Italy in disunion, 1494 — 1792. By Mrs H. M. 
 
 Vernon (K. Dorothea Ewart), late scholar of Somerville College, 
 and author of " Cosimo de' Medici." 
 
 *4. Spain; its greatness and decay, 1479 — 1788. 
 
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 of Elizabeth," &c. With an Introduction by Edward Armstrong, 
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 — 1815. By J. Holland Rose, Litt.D., author of "Life of 
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 ^ 8. Modern Germany, 1815 — 1889. By J. W. 
 
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 Literature," &c.
 
 Cambridge Historical Series. 
 *11. The Expansion of Russia, 1815—1900. By 
 
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 Sir W. W. Hunter," "An Indian Journalist," and (with Prof. E. D, 
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 M.A.. author of "The Nearer East," "A Wandering Scholar in the 
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 and Archaeology " (Essays), &c. 
 
 13. The Netherlands since 1477. By Rev. G. 
 
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 "Charles XII and the Collapse of the Swedish Empire," "The 
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 16. History of Scotland. By P. Hume Brown, M.A., 
 
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 graphy in the University of Edinburgh, author of "John Knox," 
 " George Buchanan," &c. In 3 vols. 
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 *17. Ireland, 1494—1868. With Two Introductory 
 Chapters. By William O'Connor Morris, late County Court 
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 *18. The United States of America, 1765—1865. 
 
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 mentary Procedure and Practice in the Dominion of Canada," 
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 20. European Colonies in South America. By 
 
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 "History of the New World called America," &c. 
 
 21. British India, 1603—1858. By G. W. Forrest, 
 
 M.A., author of "The Administration of Warren Hastings," 
 " Selections from Indian State Papers," «S;c. 
 
 *22. Europe and the Far East. By Sir R. K. Douglas, 
 
 Professor of Chinese in King's College, London, and Keeper of 
 Oriental Printed Books and MSS. in the British Museum. Author 
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 *23. A History of the Colonization of Africa by 
 
 Alien Races. By Sir Harry H. Johnston, K.C.B., late Com- 
 missioner in Uganda, author of "British Central Africa," "The 
 River Congo," &c. With 8 Maps. Second Edition.
 
 Cambridge Historical Series. 
 *24. The History of the Australasian Colonies, 
 
 from their foundation to the year 1893. By Edward Jenks, M.A., 
 Reader in English Law in the University of Oxford, author of " Law 
 and Politics in the Middle Ages," "The Government of Victoria, 
 Australia," &c. With 2 Maps. Second Edition. 
 
 *25. Outlines of English Industrial History. By 
 
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 and Vicar of Great St Mary's, author of "Growth of English 
 Industry and Commerce," <ic., and Ellen A. McArthur, 
 Lecturer at Girton College. Crown 8vo. Second Edition. 
 
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 Ancient Times. With 5 Maps. Vol. IL Mediaeval and Modern 
 Times. With 3 Maps. 
 
 Extracts from the Reviews. 
 Prof. Hume Brown's '■'■History of Scotland^ 
 
 The Athenizuni. — " The promise of Prof. Hume Brown's first volume is 
 more than fulfilled in the second. The author's thorough knowledge of 
 the sources, his gift of lucid condensation, and fine sense of proportion 
 have made this comparatively short work the most complete and satis- 
 factory history of Scotland which we possess. His pages are not over- 
 crowded with details, and the reader's interest is secured from beginning 
 to end by the admirable way in which he is led to find, in the conflict 
 of political and social forces, the gradual evolution of the national 
 destiny." 
 
 The Times. — -"Mr Hume Brown's learning and accuracy are as great as 
 €ver and his conclusions are clear and ilefinite. Eveiy page of the book 
 shows that Mr Brown is a careful and patient investigator. He is always 
 scientific alike in manner and in method, and he can condense the results 
 of weeks of patient work into fine, clear and lucid lines. He can resist all 
 temptations to wander from the path which he has marked out for himself; 
 his book is invariably consistent in treatment, and its divisions show a due 
 sense of proportion. He has produced a work which will render im- 
 measurably easier the attempt to understand the difficult and involved story 
 of seventeenth century Scotland." 
 
 Manchester Guardian. — " Bids fair to be by far and away the best 
 extant compendium of Scottish history. Here we have a calm and 
 judicious verdict on all, based on a thorough examination of a vast mass of 
 evidence. A thoroughly good piece of work, \\hich we can heartily 
 recommend as singularly trustworthy, and eminently readable." 
 
 Prof. Grant's " French Monarchy." 
 
 The Spectator. — "This is a clear, thoughtful, readable, and most useful 
 history of the Monarchy in France, from the consolidation of its power 
 under Louis XI to the many causes of its downfall with Louis XVI." 
 
 The Pilot. — " The series to which these volumes are contributed 
 belongs to the utilitarian school of history. It is not designed for the 
 entertainment of those who merely desire, with the story-teller's audience, 
 to know ' what happened,' but is intended rather to assist those more 
 serious persons ' who are anxious to understand the nature of existing 
 political conditions.' Such readers will find much to interest them in these 
 clear, impartial pages." 
 
 [ Turn over
 
 Cambridge Historical Series. 
 
 Major Hiinie^s ^^ Spain." 
 
 The Speaker. — " Major Hume's volume is in all respects worthy of the 
 great reputation which he has won as an expert in the domain of Spanish 
 
 history Major Hume's knowledge is as complete as possible, and to a 
 
 perfect mastery of his material he adds an impartiality and luminous insight 
 
 which are exceedingly rare His wide and deep acquaintance with the 
 
 immense literature of his subject, his singular grasp of detail, and his cold 
 lucidity have enabled him to present us with an historical handbook, 
 convincing, brilliant and final in its kind. This is no dry chronicle, but 
 a vivid and picturesque transcript of events." 
 
 Dr Stillman's ^^ Union of Italy." 
 
 The Times. — "Few men are better qualified by personal knowledge, 
 by political sympathies, or by direct contact with events than Mr W. J. 
 
 Stillman to write a history of modern Italy His volume is, especially in 
 
 its later chapters, a history largely written from sources of knowledge not 
 yet fully accessible to the outside world." 
 
 Sir J. G. Bouritwfs '■'■Canada." 
 
 Daily Chronicle. — " It would scarcely be possible to find a man in the 
 Dominion better suited to play the part of its historian than the author of 
 this volume.... As a textbook of Canadian history Sir John Bourinot's work 
 is admirable." 
 
 Sir H. H. Johnstoth ''Africa." 
 
 The Times. — " Sir Harry Johnston has devoted both industry and 
 ability to its performance, and deserves the thanks of future students for the 
 result. This history... presents within handy compass an extremely valuable 
 expanded index of African history as a whole.... As a textbook of African 
 study his book supplies a want which has been generally felt, and should be 
 in proportion warmly welcomed." 
 
 Dr Cunningham's " Western Civilization" &^c. 
 
 The Athenaum. — "One of the most important portions of the equip- 
 ment of the student of economics. They are not merely storehouses of 
 trustworthy and wide-ranging fact, of lucid and stimulating generalization, 
 they are a trenchant blow struck in the long strife over the method of 
 economics The sweep and scope of the work are immense." 
 
 The Guardian. — " Dr Cunningham's book is the outcome of unusually 
 wide and various learning. The references in his footnotes are numerous 
 enough to form a bibliography of economic history. Nor is his over- 
 whelming material unskilfully put together. On the contrary, he is clear 
 and connected, and succeeds in holding the reader's attention throughout." 
 
 English Historical Review. — " It may be doubted whether any book of 
 equal educational value for its size has appeared for many years past." 
 
 HonKon: C. J. CLAY and SONS, 
 
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