The union of the Low Countries to Spain—The Italian suzerainty—The effects thereof—Etiquette of the House of Burgundy adopted in Spain—Ruy Gomez—Philip’s voyage—His unpopularity with Germans and Flemings—Fresh proposals for his marriage—The family compact for the imperial succession—Defection of Maurice of Saxony—War with France—Treaty of Passau—Defeat of the emperor at Metz.
The union of the Low Countries to Spain—The Italian suzerainty—The effects thereof—Etiquette of the House of Burgundy adopted in Spain—Ruy Gomez—Philip’s voyage—His unpopularity with Germans and Flemings—Fresh proposals for his marriage—The family compact for the imperial succession—Defection of Maurice of Saxony—War with France—Treaty of Passau—Defeat of the emperor at Metz.
ALBAleft Germany for Spain at the end of January 1548, travelling by way of Genoa, and taking with him the exposition of the emperor’s new policy, which was to result in so much trouble and suffering to future generations. The lordships of Flanders and Holland had never up to this period been regarded by Charles as attached necessarily to the crown of Spain. Indeed at various times the cession of Flanders to France had been amicably discussed, and only shortly before Charles had considered the advisability of handing the Low Countries over to his daughter Maria as a dowry on her marriage with Maximilian. But the step of making them the inalienable possessions of the ruler of Spain would burden the latter country with an entirely fresh set of interests, and render necessary the adoption of a change in its foreign policy. Flanders once attached to thecrown of Spain could never fall into the hands of France, and the latter Power would find itself almost surrounded by Spanish territory, with its expansion to the northward cut off. In the event of the Spanish suzerainty over Italy being established also, French influence in Italy would be at an end, and the papal power dwarfed. This therefore meant that France and the pope would make common cause in a secular struggle against Spain. The dishonesty of Ferdinand the Catholic about Naples had begun the feud, the rivalry of Francis I. for the imperial crown had continued it, and now if Flanders and Holland, instead of belonging to harmless Dukes of Burgundy, were to be held permanently by France’s great rival, the whole balance of power in Europe would be changed, and France must fight for life.
The Dukes of Burgundy and Counts of Holland, as possessors of the Flemish seaboard, 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. By Charles’s new resolve this obligation to hold fast by England was transferred permanently to Spain, which country had not hitherto had any need for intimate political relations with England, except such as arose out of mutual commercial interests. Spain itself—and no longer the emperor as Duke of Burgundy—was thus drawn into the vortex of Central European politics, and herefrom came its ruin.
That the emperor’s plans were not entirely to the taste of his son is certain, but whether in consequence of a dread of the new responsibilities to be forced uponSpain, or from motives of ambition, is not quite clear. On the face of the correspondence between Alba and De Granvelle on the subject, it would appear that the latter was the case. The objection probably arose from the ambitious Alba, fresh from his German triumphs, who would point out to the young prince that the arrangement would permanently cut him off from the succession to the imperial crown, and that the interval of uncertainty which would elapse before his suggested suzerainty over Italy was established, would give time for intrigues to be carried on which might render it impracticable when the time came. At his instance, therefore, the question of his suzerainty over Italy was left open, and with it what was doubtless Alba’s objective point, the arrangement by which the succession to the empire was secured to Maximilian.
In pursuance of his plan of keeping the Spanish nobles busy in affairs other than the interior politics of their country, Charles in August 1548, before Philip’s departure on his travels, gave orders which had a considerable influence in the future history of Spain. The kings of the petty realms into which the Peninsula had been divided, constantly at war for centuries with the Moors, had been obliged to depend for their very existence upon their feudal semi-independent nobles. The kings at best were but first amongst their peers, and were constantly reminded of the fact. The “fueros” of each petty dominion were stubbornly upheld against the rulers, and in the north of Spain, at all events, it had been for some centuries past a continuous policy of the kings to curb the power for harm of the nobles and limit the autonomous privileges of the people. The policyof the emperor, as we have seen, was to centralise the government of Spain, and to give to its rulers an overwhelming influence in the councils of Europe. This could only be effected by making the king the supreme master over the lives and property of all his subjects, drawing from Spain the growing stream of riches from the Indies, and attaching the powerful Spanish nobles personally to their prince.
The court life of Spain, except for a short time when Charles’s father, Philip the Handsome, had visited it, had been bluff and simple. The new order of the emperor introduced for the first time the pompous and splendid etiquette of the House of Burgundy, which has since been adopted in most monarchies. By virtue of this the proud Spanish nobility became personally attached to the household of the prince in nominally inferior capacities, chamberlains, equerries, ushers, and the like; and the young hidalgoes of the greatest Houses, all bedizened and bedecked in finery, no longer hunted the wild boar in their mountain homes, but dangled in the presence of the monarch and added lustre to his daily life.
The change was certainly not in consonance with Philip’s natural inclinations. His personal tastes were of the simplest; he was always sober and moderate in eating and drinking, looking with positive disgust on the excess of Flemings and Germans in this respect. He hated pomp and blare, and his attire on ordinary occasions was as modest and simple as it was handsome. But he was a slave to duty, and when the exigencies of his high station demanded magnificence, he could be as splendid as any man on earth. So henceforward inpublic the quiet, modest man moved in a perfect constellation of glittering satellites. One great consolation the change gave him. In the emperor’s exhortation to him in 1543 he was told that in future his young friends must only approach him as his servants, and “that his principal companions must be elderly men and others of reasonable age possessed of virtue, wise discourse, and good example.” But Philip was yet (1548) only twenty-one, and was devotedly attached to some of the friends of his boyhood, such as Ruy Gomez de Silva and Gomez Suarez de Figueroa, Count de Feria, and to these and the like he gave offices which kept them constantly near him. Philip for the whole of his life was on his guard to prevent favourites from obtaining influence over him, and few monarchs have been less dominated by individual courtiers than he. But the man who gained most ascendency over him was Ruy Gomez, who, as will be shown later, led a party or school of thought whose policy was for many years followed by the king, and largely coloured subsequent events. On October 1, 1548, Philip left Valladolid on his voyage, leaving as regents his sister Maria and her bridegroom Maximilian. By slow stages, and followed by a great train of courtiers, he rode through Aragon and Catalonia, worshipping at the shrines of Saragossa and Monserrate on his way, and receiving the homage of Barcelona and Gerona. In the bay of Rosas, in the extreme north-east point of Spain, Andrea Doria awaited him with a splendid fleet of fifty-eight galleys and a great host of sailing ships.
Doria, the greatest sailor of his day, who had grown grey in the service of the emperor, knelt on the shore at the sight of the prince, overcome with emotion, andsaid in the words of Simeon: “Now, Lord, let Thy servant depart in peace, for his eyes have seen Thy salvation.” It is no exaggeration to say that this intense devotion to the Spanish prince reflected generally the feeling with which he was regarded in Spain, at least. The prince landed at Savona in the territory of Genoa, where princes and cardinals innumerable awaited him. In the city of Genoa he stayed at the Doria palace, and there Octavio Farnese came to him from his uncle, Pope Paul III., with a significant message. The Farneses had but small reason to greet Philip with enthusiasm just then, for the plans afoot for the aggrandisement of Spain were a grave menace to the interests of the papacy, and Octavio himself was being kept out of his principality by the emperor’s troops. But the pope’s champion against the emperor, Francis I, had recently died, and the pontiff was obliged to salute the rising sun of Spain, in the hope that he would prove a better friend to Rome than his father was. So Farnese was fain to bear to Philip from the pope a sanctified sword and a hat of state, “hoping that some day he might behold in him the true champion of the Holy Church.” Milan and Mantua vied with Genoa in the splendour of their rejoicings for Philip’s arrival, and so through the Tyrol, Germany, and Luxembourg he slowly made his way to meet his father at Brussels. On April 1, 1549, he made his state entry into the city, but so great was the ceremonial, that it was almost night before he arrived at the palace. Charles was still ailing, but gained, it seemed, new life when he saw the heir of his greatness. Thenceforward for a time the festivals, tourneys, and rejoicings went on unceasingly, to a greater extent, sayeye-witnesses, than had ever been known before. Philip had no taste for such frivolities, but he did his best. He was a graceful, if not a bold, rider, and the custom of his time demanded that he should break lances with the rest. His courtly chroniclers relate how well he acquitted himself in these exercises, and the enthusiasm aroused by his gallant mien; but less partial judges do not scruple to say that at one of the tourneys during his stay in Germany on his way home “no one did so badly as the prince,” who was never able “to break a lance.” His inclinations were in a totally different direction. The drunken orgies and rough horseplay of the Germans and Flemings disgusted him, and he took but little pains to conceal his surprise at what appeared to him such undignified proceedings. He was unable, moreover, to speak German, and his voyage certainly did not help forward the project of securing to him the succession to the imperial crown.
For the next two years the emperor kept his son by his side, indoctrinating him with his principles and policy. For two hours nearly every day the Spanish prince learnt the profound lessons of government from the lips of his great father, government founded on the principle of making all other men merely instruments for carrying out the ends of one.
Philip had now been a widower for four years, and doubtless during this period contracted his connection with Doña Isabel de Osorio, by whom he had several children; and he had one at least by a Flemish lady in Brussels. His only legitimate son was the lame, epileptic Don Carlos, and the emperor had no other sons; so during the intimate conferences which followed Philip’s arrivalin Brussels, Charles pressed upon his heir the necessity of taking another wife, and once more brought forward Jeanne d’Albret, titular Queen of Navarre, who had claimed a divorce from the Duke of Cleves, whom she had been constrained to marry. But whether because cautious Philip saw that to extend his dominions into the south of France would be a source of weakness rather than strength to him, or whether he was influenced by the greed for dowry, and the persuasions of his widowed aunt Leonora, who was with his father in Brussels, he certainly leant to the side of her daughter, another Princess Maria of Portugal, aunt of his former wife, and negotiations were opened in this direction, although Ferdinand, King of the Romans, the brother of the emperor, tried his hardest to promote his own daughter to the place of Philip’s consort. Philip had contrived to persuade his probably not unwilling father to endeavour to promote his claims to the succession of the imperial crown in the place of Ferdinand, and the Austrian archives contain full details of the almost interminable family discussions with this end. At last, in March 1551, a compact was made with which Philip was forced to be satisfied. It was to the effect that Ferdinand should succeed Charles as emperor, but that on the death of Ferdinand the imperial crown should pass to Philip instead of to Maximilian, who was to govern the empire in his name, holding a similar position towards Philip to that occupied by Ferdinand towards Charles. The emperor’s suzerainty over Italy was to be exercised vicariously by Philip during the life of Ferdinand. This last provision was a bitter pill for Ferdinand to swallow, but it was, in Charles’s view, themost important of them all. Spain, with a supremacy over the Italian states, would be the mistress of the Mediterranean, with infinite possibilities of extension to the east and in Africa, whilst France would be checkmated on this side, as she had been on the north. Philip, who had accompanied his father to Augsburg for the Diet, only stayed until this arrangement was settled and he had received the fiefs of the empire, and then (in May 1551) started on his way home to Spain.
The battle of Mühlberg, three years before, together with the ambition of Maurice of Saxony, had laid Lutheranism prostrate at the feet of Charles, but the plan to perpetuate Spanish domination over the empire once more aroused the spirit of the sovereigns to resistance, and the powerful Maurice of Saxony, the emperor’s own creature, joined his fellow-countrymen against him. Sent by Charles to besiege the Protestant stronghold of Magdeburg, he suddenly changed sides. The opportunity thus offered was too good to be neglected by France, where Henry II. was now firmly seated on the throne; and in October 1551 a compact was signed at Friedwald in Hesse, by which Maurice, the King of France, and the Protestant princes joined against the emperor. Henry II. had just made peace with England, and had recovered Boulogne, so that he was in a better position to face his enemy than ever before. Octavio Farnese, with the connivance of France, raised a tumult in Italy to recover his principalities of Parma and Piacenza; and thus Charles found himself suddenly confronted by war on all sides, just when the prospects of his House had looked brightest. There is no space in this work to follow the fortunes of the remarkablecampaign in which Maurice swept through Germany, capturing the imperial cities, surprising the emperor himself in Innspruck, and forcing Cæsar to fly for his life through the darkness. Suffice it to say that Charles was humbled as he had never been before, and was obliged to sign the peace of Passau at the dictation of Maurice (July 31, 1552) on terms which practically gave to the Lutheran princes all they demanded. This put an end for once and for all to the dream of making Philip Emperor as well as King of Spain. Nor had Henry II. been idle. On his way to join the German Protestants he had captured the strong places of Alsace and Lorraine, and Charles’s army before Metz was utterly defeated by Guise (January 1553). In Italy, too, the emperor was unfortunate, for the French had obtained a footing in Siena, and had overrun Piedmont. And thus the idea of a permanent supremacy of Spain over the Italian states also fell to the ground.
Proposal to marry Philip to Queen Mary of England—The need for alliance with England—The negotiations of Renard—Opposition of France—Unpopularity of the match in England—Philip’s voyage to England—His affability—His first interview with Mary—The marriage—Philip made King of Naples—Failure of the objects of the marriage—Philip’s policy in England—Pole’s mission—Philip and the persecution of Catholics in England—Philip’s disappointment and departure.
Proposal to marry Philip to Queen Mary of England—The need for alliance with England—The negotiations of Renard—Opposition of France—Unpopularity of the match in England—Philip’s voyage to England—His affability—His first interview with Mary—The marriage—Philip made King of Naples—Failure of the objects of the marriage—Philip’s policy in England—Pole’s mission—Philip and the persecution of Catholics in England—Philip’s disappointment and departure.
INthe meanwhile Philip was doing well in Spain. He had raised both men and money in plenty to reinforce the emperor, and Alba himself was sent to command them. He pushed on vigorously the negotiations for his marriage with his Portuguese cousin, whose dowry would once more provide the sinews of war. But King John III. was less liberal with a dowry for his sister than he had been for his daughter, and the project hung fire month after month on this ground alone, notwithstanding the efforts of Ruy Gomez, who was sent by Philip to Portugal in June 1553 to persuade the king to loosen his purse strings and send his sister to Spain with a rich dowry.
Then, almost suddenly, the whole aspect of affairs changed. It had been known for some time that theyoung King of England, Edward VI., was in failing health, and would probably die without issue, but the uncertain element in the situation had been the extent of the Duke of Northumberland’s power and the strength of Protestantism in the country. Hardly pressed as he was, Charles’s principal preoccupation with regard to England was to keep on good terms with it, although doubtless many a time his busy brain must have conjured up circumstances which would admit of fresh combinations being formed in which England should share. The events in Germany, the terms of the peace of Passau, and the unpopularity of Philip out of Spain, had convinced him that his dreams of ambition for his son in that direction were impossible of realisation. He must have seen also that the possessor of Flanders and Holland without the strength of the empire behind him, and with a covetous France on one flank and Protestant princes on the other, would be in an untenable position, unless he could depend upon England’s co-operation through thick and thin. This was the first manifestation of the evil results which logically followed his ill-starred action in attaching the dominions of the House of Burgundy permanently to the crown of Spain.
Edward VI. died on July 7, 1553, and the popular acclamation of Mary and the complete collapse of Northumberland’s house of cards, caused a new departure in the emperor’s political plans. The hollow crown of the empire might go, with its turbulent Lutheran princes and its poor patrimony, but if only rich England could be joined in a lasting bond to Spain, then France would indeed be humbled, Flanders andItaly would be safe, the road to unlimited expansion by the Mediterranean would be open, and Spain could give laws to all Latin Christendom, and to heathendom beyond.
No time was lost in commencing the preliminaries. The first thing evidently for the emperor to do was to consolidate Mary’s position on the throne by counselling prudence and moderation in religious affairs. The imperial ambassador was instructed immediately (July 29, 1553) to urge upon the new queen not to be in a hurry openly to avow herself a Catholic until she had sounded public opinion and conciliated the nobles who had helped her to the throne.
Mary entered London on August 3, and in the place of honour near her rode Simon Renard, the emperor’s ambassador. Only four days afterwards, on the 7th, he first hinted to the queen that the Prince of Spain would be a fitting husband for her. She affected to laugh at the idea, but, Renard thought, not unfavourably. The English people had almost unanimously fixed upon young Courtney as the queen’s future consort, and Mary was as yet uncertain how far she could venture to thwart them. “Do not overpress her,” wrote Granvelle, “to divert her from any other match, because if she have the whim she will carry it forward if she be like other women.” But Renard knew the human heart as well as any man, and his report to the emperor was satisfactory as far as it went. The next step was to consult Philip himself, the person principally interested. He was a dutiful son, it is true, but Charles must have known of his domestic arrangements with Doña Isabel Osorio, and could not be certain thata man of twenty-six would be absolutely docile. So Renard was instructed to say no more until a reply came from Spain. But tongues began to wag in London, and by September 6, Noailles, the French ambassador, knew what was in the wind. Henceforth it was a duel to the death between him and Renard. The emperor was still at war with France, burning to avenge the disaster of Metz; and if this marriage were effected it would be revenge indeed. From the French embassy accordingly flowed money in plenty to subsidise disaffection, hints that those who held Church property would be forced to disgorge it, and panic-striking rumours of what would happen if Spain got the upper hand in England. The hatred and prejudice aroused against Philip by Noailles for purely political reasons in 1553 have left an abundant crop of prejudice, even to our own times. Philip was a politician and a patriot before all things. However distasteful to him the marriage may have been, his own personal pleasure was never his aim, and he saw the increment of strength which the union with England would bring to his father’s cause and his own; so, like a dutiful son, he wrote, “I have no other will than that of your Majesty, and whatever you desire, that I will do.” On receipt of this news Renard opened the attack, and pressed Philip’s suit. Mary was coy and doubtful at first, mainly, it would seem, on personal grounds, but Renard’s persuasions prevailed even over the powerful Gardiner, and the Queen of England formally accepted the hand of the Spanish prince when Egmont came with his splendid embassy to offer it in January 1554. London was in a perfect whirlwind ofpanic, thanks mainly to Noailles, and the gallant Egmont himself and his followers were attacked in the streets by London prentices. Carews, Wyatts, and Greys struggled, rebelled, and fell, but the queen knew her own mind now, and in her sight the Spanish marriage meant the resurrection of her country and the salvation of her people. Philip and his father doubtless thought so too, in a general way; but that was not their first object. What they wanted was to humble France for good and for all, and make Spain henceforward the dictatress of Europe. It was a disappointment to Philip when, at Valladolid in the early spring, he learnt the conditions by which he was to be bound for life. They were very hard, for Mary’s council were determined that the marriage should not mean the political subjugation of England by Spain, and all Renard’s cunning and the emperor’s bribes failed to move them.
Philip was a gallant suitor withal, and determined to do the thing handsomely if it were to be done at all. First he sent a special envoy, the Marquis de las Navas, to England, sumptuously attended, with “a great table diamond mounted as a rose in a superb gold setting, valued at 50,000 ducats; a necklace of eighteen brilliants, worth 32,000 ducats; a great diamond with a fine pearl pendant from it, worth 25,000 ducats; and other jewels, pearls, diamonds, emeralds, and rubies of inestimable value for the queen and her ladies.” Never before had so much magnificence been witnessed in Spain as in the preparations for Philip’s voyage to England. He left Valladolid on May 14, with nearly 1000 horsemen and half the nobility of Spain, all glitteringand flashing with splendour. Puling little Carlos, with his big head and frail limbs, was by his side for a day on the way to Corunna, and when Philip left him he was to see him no more as a child. Passionate devotion and loyalty followed Philip on his progress through North-western Spain. He was a true national monarch, and his people knew it. Charles had always been a Fleming before all things, and his wide-spreading dominions had kept him mostly away from Spain; but the Spaniards knew well that, no matter what other nations fell under his sway, Philip would remain a true Spaniard to the end, and rule them all from the country he loved. It has been said that Philip was naturally grave and unexpansive, and in his previous voyage in Germany and Flanders his demeanour had made him extremely unpopular. Charles, indeed, had to remonstrate with him, when it was already too late, for his want of geniality. The emperor was determined that his son should not again fall into a similar error for want of timely warning, and sent him—as also did Renard—urgent exhortations to bear himself affably, and to conciliate the stubborn English by respecting all their prejudices and adopting their customs. It was against his very nature, but he had schooled himself to self-control and sacrifice, and his most intimate friends were astonished at the change in his manner from the day he set foot on English soil at Southampton on July 20, 1554. He was no longer the grave and moody prince they had known, but smiling, courteous, and frank. Gifts and favours were lavished on all sides, and although he came heavily handicapped by the prejudice against him, and London especially bitterly hated theSpaniards, and did not hesitate to show it, Philip himself became personally not unpopular during his stay in England. He brought with him in his fine fleet of 100 sail 6000 or 8000 soldiers to reinforce the emperor in his war with the French, and not a man of them was allowed to land in England; they and many of Philip’s courtiers proceeding to Flanders as soon as might be. The nobles and gentlemen who accompanied the prince were warned that they must in all respects make way for the English and take a secondary place. This was gall and wormwood to them, and their scorn and hatred grew as they became convinced of the fruitlessness of their sacrifice and that of their master.
The queen’s first interview with her husband was at night on July 23 in the bishop’s palace at Winchester. He was dressed in a suit of white kid covered with gold embroidery, and wore a French grey satin surcoat, “and very gallant he looked.” He was surrounded by ten of the highest nobles in Spain, and from the first moment the queen saw him she seems to have fallen in love with him. She had fervently invoked divine guidance in her choice, and had managed to work herself into a condition of religious exaltation, which rendered her peculiarly open to hysterical influences—for she too was a granddaughter of Isabel the Catholic. All that pomp and expenditure could do to render the marriage ceremony at Winchester for ever memorable was done. Philip himself and his friends had no illusions about the matter. They all confess with depressing unanimity that the bride was a faded little woman with red hair, and no eyebrows, and that the Spanish objects in the marriage were purely political.But Mary looked upon it in quite a different light. She was taking part in a holy sacrament which was to bring salvation to thousands of souls, and make her for ever memorable as the saviour of her country and her race. Philip acted like a gentleman, under very difficult circumstances. He treated his wife with gentle courtesy, returning her somewhat embarrassingly frequent endearments with apparent alacrity, and never by word or deed hinting that her charms were on the wane. On the day of the marriage Charles had equalised his son’s rank with that of Mary by making him King of Naples, but still English suspicion and jealousy resented the idea of his coronation, or even his aspiring to equal place with the queen. “He had only come,” said the Londoners, “to beget an heir to the crown, and then he might go—the sooner the better.” So by the time when the king and queen entered the city in state on August 27 it was clear that, come what might, Philip would never be allowed to govern England. “The real rulers of this country,” wrote one of Philip’s courtiers, “are not the monarchs, but the council,” and the councillors, though ready enough to accept Spanish gold, were Englishmen above all things, and would never submit to Spanish government. The hard terms of the marriage contract had been accepted by Charles and Philip in the belief that they could be nullified after the marriage by the influence of the husband over the wife. It was now seen that however great this influence might be, the queen herself was almost powerless in the hands of the council and the nobles who had raised her to the throne.
Philip whilst in England showed his usual diplomacy. He carefully abstained from publicly interfering in thegovernment, but he had not failed to draw to his side some of the principal members of the council, and his influence certainly made itself felt, if it was unseen. His efforts were at first entirely directed to the conversion of England to the faith by preaching and persuasion, the subsequent object, of course, being the complete return of the country to the papal fold, which would be but a stepping-stone to the political domination by Spain. But Charles and Philip were statesmen first, and religious zealots afterwards. On this occasion, as on several subsequent ones in Philip’s career, the zeal of the churchmen outran the discretion of the politicians, and the king-consort’s influence, such as it was, had to be exercised mainly in the direction of moderation and temporisation.
Immediately after Mary’s accession the pope had appointed Cardinal Pole to negotiate for the submission of England to the Holy See, and the cardinal was eager to set his hand to the work at once. He was an Englishman of royal blood, a firm Catholic, who had no other end in view than to bring back his country to what he considered the true faith. Mary at first was just as eager as Pole, but Charles saw from afar that, if affairs were to be directed into the course he wished, they must be managed gently. The new pope, Julius III., was a docile and vicious pontiff, and was soon brought round to the emperor’s views. He was induced to alter Pole’s appointment to that of legate, with instructions first to go to Brussels and endeavour to mediate in the pope’s name between the emperor and the King of France, and then await a favourable opportunity for proceeding to England.
The great difficulty in the English question was the restitution of the property taken from the Church during the previous reigns. It was evident to the emperor that, if an uncompromising stand were taken up on that point, the whole edifice would collapse. Pole was all for complete and unconditional restitution, and his powers, indeed, gave him little or no discretion to compromise or abandon the claim of the Church. The first point therefore agreed upon by Charles and Philip was to delay Pole’s voyage to England until the pope had been induced to confer large discretionary powers on Pole, and the latter had been made to promise that he would do nothing except in accord with Philip. When this had been effected, and Renard, at Philip’s instance, had seen Pole and obtained a promise that he would not insist upon restitution of the property that had passed into private hands, he was allowed to proceed to England. Forty years afterwards, one of Philip’s English adherents, Father Persons, told him that all the ill-fortune that had attended his efforts in England was due to the impious omission at this juncture of insisting upon some sort of restitution of the ecclesiastical property in private hands.
In November 1554 England returned to the bosom of the Church, and Pole to this extent was satisfied; but he was no politician, and could never be brought round to the purely Spanish view of English politics, which may be said indeed of most of Mary’s advisers.
On the very day of Pole’s arrival it was officially announced that the queen was with child, and the new legate and the rest of the churchmen fell into what would now be looked upon as blasphemous comparisons,the people at large being suddenly caught up by the wave of rejoicing at the promise of an heir to the throne. The opportunity was discreetly taken by Philip to cause his instruments to propose in Parliament the sending by England of armed aid to the emperor against France, and the nomination of himself as Regent of England in the event of the looked-for heir outliving his mother. But again the over-zeal of the churchmen spoilt his game. Bonner and Gardiner began to think that persecution of Protestants was necessary and holy. Reaction in the country was the natural result, and Philip and Mary were obliged to dissolve Parliament in a hurry, without the political plans being effected.
Philip’s Spanish chaplains had been extremely unpopular. Such insults indeed had been offered to them, that they dared not appear in the streets in priestly garb. But they were really mild and conciliating, and when the fierce zeal of the English bishops led them to burn the Protestants, Philip’s principal confessor openly denounced them from the pulpit, doubtless at his master’s instance—certainly with his approval. The cruel persecution of the Protestants, indeed, was dead against the realisation of Spanish aims. Philip and Renard clearly saw that it would bring about reaction and hatred, and used their influence to stay it. Charles himself was appealed to by Renard. “If,” he said, “this precipitancy be not moderated, affairs will assume a dangerous appearance.” For nearly six months Philip’s efforts stayed the storm of persecution, and his active intercession saved many condemned to the stake.
But Charles was impatient for his presence inFlanders. The deadly torpor had already seized upon the great emperor. The man who had been indefatigable in his youth and prime had now sunk into indifference to the world. For weeks together no word could be got from him, and of action he was almost incapable. He had begged Philip to come to him before his honeymoon was over, and had continued to do so ever since. The king had waited and waited on, in the ever-deluded hope that Mary’s promise of issue would be fulfilled, but at last even she had become incredulous, and her husband could delay his departure no longer. By August 1555 the rogations and intercessions to the Almighty for the safe birth of a prince were discontinued, and the splendid plot was seen to be a failure.
Consider what this meant for Philip and for the Spanish power. An Anglo-Spanish dynasty ruling England, Spain, and Flanders, supreme over Italy and the Mediterranean, with the riches of the Indies in its hands, would have dominated the world. The German Protestant princes, without effective seaboard, must remain a negligeable quantity outside of their own country. 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 Charles’s first dream of the universal spread of the power of the Roman-Austrian empire had been realised.
But it was not to be, and Philip made the best of it without exhibiting disappointment. In vain Renard wrote to the emperor that as soon as Philip’s back was turned the fires of persecution would recommence in England; Charles would wait no longer, and peremptorily ordered his son to come to Flanders. OnAugust 26 Mary accompanied her husband to Greenwich, where he took leave of her three days later. The queen was in deep affliction, but she bore up before the spectators of the scene. With one close embrace she bade the king farewell, but so long as the boat in which he went to Gravesend remained in sight from the windows of the palace, the unhappy queen, her eyes overflowing with tears, watched the receding form of her husband, who on his part continued to wave his hand as a signal of adieu, a quiet, courteous gentleman to the last, though his heart must have been heavy with disappointment, and his crafty brain full of plans for remedying it.
Philip in favour of a moderate policy in England—His attitude towards religion generally—He requests armed aid from England against the French—The emperor’s embarrassments in Italy—Alba made Philip’s viceroy in Italy—Factions in Philip’s court—Ruy Gomez and Alba—The emperor’s abdication—Philip’s changed position—His attitude towards the papacy—The Spanish Church—Pope Paul IV. and the Spaniards in Italy—Excommunication of Philip—Invasion of Rome by Alba—Philip’s second visit to England.
Philip in favour of a moderate policy in England—His attitude towards religion generally—He requests armed aid from England against the French—The emperor’s embarrassments in Italy—Alba made Philip’s viceroy in Italy—Factions in Philip’s court—Ruy Gomez and Alba—The emperor’s abdication—Philip’s changed position—His attitude towards the papacy—The Spanish Church—Pope Paul IV. and the Spaniards in Italy—Excommunication of Philip—Invasion of Rome by Alba—Philip’s second visit to England.
BEFOREPhilip left England he drew up for the guidance of the queen and council full instructions for the administration of affairs. Minutes were sent to him of the proceedings of the meetings of the council, upon which, as was his custom during the rest of his life, he made exhaustive notes and comments.
The month after his departure he was informed by the council that the bull had been promulgated surrendering the claim to Church property alienated to private persons, and against this information the king emphatically notes that it is “well done,” but in the same document an indication is given that the zeal of the Catholic council in England is outrunning discretion, and Philip’s hand is brought down heavily in favour of cautiousmoderation. The proposal was that the first-fruits and tenths, and ecclesiastical revenues which had been suspended or alienated, should be brought back to their original uses. Here the king has no approving word to say. He recommends that the question should be considered by a committee of eight councillors, who should report to him for decision. He then goes on to urge caution, and to direct that the Government should not propose any measure to Parliament until it had been submitted to him. He evidently dreaded the rash zeal of the Catholic party in England, and did his best to hold it in check; but before he had been gone from England six months Renard’s prophecy came true, and the flames of persecution burst out, to be extinguished no more until the death of the queen. Philip was certainly not responsible for this; his influence was exerted in the contrary direction.
Religious persecution was with him simply a matter of political expediency, and in the existing state of affairs it was the most injudicious thing in the world for the Catholic party in England to run to extremes. Philip was a cold-blooded statesman, and was never really blinded by religious zeal. That he was a deeply religious man, according to his narrow view, with an all-consuming belief in the identity of interests between himself and the Almighty, is certain; but his motive was never the exaltation of the Church itself, or even of Catholicism, except as the most convenient instrument for establishing the political predominance of Spain over the rest of the world.
What Philip wanted of the English councillors was not the hellish bonfires of Smithfield, but ships and menwith which to fight the French. Here the fervid churchmen were not so ready. The English navy, the council told Philip, was unfit for sea; but the best of the ships, with the pick of the sailors and soldiers on board, should as soon as possible be sent to guard the Channel. This was not enough for the king, who wrote (September 1555) a vigorous marginal note on the minute, saying that “England’s chief defence depends upon its navy being always in good order to serve for the defence of the kingdom against all invasion. It is right that the ships should not only be fit for sea, but instantly available.” He wishes the fleet to be put in order, and sent, not to Dover but to Portsmouth, as the emperor is going to Spain in November, and wishes twelve or fourteen ships to accompany him beyond Ushant. This was, of course, the thin end of the wedge. What Philip really wanted, as will be seen, was to employ the English fleet against France.
On the much-desired arrival of Philip in Brussels he found the great emperor a prey to the last extreme of mental and bodily senile depression. Things had been going from bad to worse with Charles almost uninterruptedly since the defection of Maurice of Saxony in 1552. “Fortune is a strumpet,” he cried at his disaster before Metz, “and reserves her favours for the young.” And so to the young Philip he had determined to shift the burden he himself could bear no longer.
The emperor’s principal embarrassments had occurred in Italy. It will be recollected that Naples and Sicily belonged to the crown of Spain by conquest, and that the dukedom of Milan, a vacant fief of the empire, had been conferred upon Philip. Charles’s warlike and turbulentrepresentatives in these states had plunged him into endless troubles, first by their encroachment on the principalities of Parma and Piacenza, belonging to the papal Farneses, and, secondly, by the seizure of the republic of Siena. The discontent caused by these encroachments was taken advantage of by the French king to side with the Italians against their suzerain, the emperor. The French already held Piedmont, one of the fiefs of the empire, and now expelled the imperialists from Siena. The Pope and the Duke of Florence, who had hitherto been neutral, then sided with the French; the populations of Milan and Naples cried aloud against the oppression they suffered from the Spanish governors, and the Spanish imperial domination of Italy seemed tottering to its fall. The Spanish governors were hastily changed, and an arrangement patched up with the Medicis. Thenceforward the war was carried on against the French in Italy with varying success, the Turks frequently making diversions on the coast in the interest of France. The imperial and Spanish officials in the various states of Italy were quarrelling with each other in face of the common enemy, and all was in confusion when Philip made his marriage journey to England. It was then decided by the emperor to transfer to his son the crowns of Naples and Sicily, and the dukedom of Milan, with which he had been nominally invested in 1546, and the act of abdication of these dominions was read in Winchester Cathedral before the marriage ceremony. This was doubtless intended as a first step towards the old project of transferring to Spain the suzerainty of the empire over Italy, as Philip bad also received a transference of the rights of theemperor over Siena as soon as the republic had been recaptured from the French. It will thus be seen how anomalous was Philip’s position in Italy. He was independent King of Naples, a tributary prince of the empire in Milan, and a substitute for the emperor in his suzerainty over Siena. The imperial troops in Milan had hitherto been a coercive power over the other imperial fiefs, but they could no longer be so regarded, as they were the forces of a Spanish prince, who in Milan was himself a tributary prince of the empire, with no rights over the rest. Philip soon found that it was practically impossible to govern from England his Italian states in this complicated condition of affairs, and in November 1554 appointed Alba with very full powers to exercise all his sovereignties in Italy, with supreme command of the army. The emperor did not like the idea. We have seen the opinion he held of Alba and how he dreaded making so great a noble too powerful, and it was only with great difficulty that he consented. Alba had been Philip’s principal mentor in England, chafing at being kept away from the wars, and condemned to humiliating subordination in a country he hated; but it may safely be assumed that this was not the only reason why Philip decided to remove him from his side.
Already the two political parties which were in after years alternately to influence Philip were being developed. Ruy Gomez de Silva, his bosom friend, upon whom he had bestowed the hand of the greatest heiress of Spain, and whom soon afterwards he was to load with titles, was an hidalgo of Portuguese birth, ten years older than his master. According to all contemporaryaccounts never was royal favour better deserved. No person has an ill word for Ruy Gomez. Gentle, conciliatory, modest, and diplomatic, he was the very antithesis of the haughty and intolerant Alba, and found himself constantly at issue with him on every political point under discussion. His views and methods were more in consonance with those of Philip than were the harsh and violent counsels of the warlike Alba. He was, moreover, nearer the king’s age, and possessed his real regard. It is not surprising, therefore, that when an opportunity came for the removal of Alba from the king’s side, Ruy Gomez and his friends urged it; and in December 1554 the favourite himself went from England to Brussels to persuade the reluctant emperor to consent to the appointment. Alba’s administration of Italy opened an entirely new page in the relations between Spain, Italy, and the papacy, to which reference will be made in its proper place.
On October 25, 1555, the renunciation by the emperor of the sovereignty of the Netherlands took place in the great hall of the palace of Brussels. The scene, one of the most dramatic in history, has often been described, and need not here be repeated. All the circumstances added impressiveness and solemnity to the ceremony. The prematurely aged emperor, standing on a dais, leaning on the shoulder of the youthful William the Silent, in a broken voice took leave of the Flemish subjects, whom he loved best. He had always been a Fleming at heart, and the leave-taking was an affecting one on both sides. Philip, on the other hand, was to all intents a foreigner, and though Charles fervently prayed his son to treat hispeople well, the Flemings present knew that his heart and sympathies were in Spain, and that Philip might be a ruler over them, but never a friend and father, as the emperor had been. Philip’s own impassibility for once gave way at the affecting scene, and for some time he could not summon sufficient composure to speak; and when he did, alas! it was only to confess that, as he could not address his new subjects in their own tongue, he must depute the task to another. We may be sure that the Bishop of Arras—the coming De Granvelle—was elegant, fluent, and appropriate in his speech; but the charm that loosely held together the states under the House of Burgundy was broken, and the sturdy burghers felt that henceforward they were to be regarded as a colony of Spain. On January 16, 1556, the crowns of Spain were also transferred to Philip, and Charles remained now only emperor nominally, until the German electors were prepared for the abdication in favour of Ferdinand. Before he left for Spain and turned his back upon the world for ever, he arranged (February 1556) a truce for five years, by the treaty of Vaucelles, with his old antagonist the King of France.
Philip now stands on the stage alone, the greatest monarch in the world, although disappointed of the apostolic crown. We have seen how his statecraft had been formed, and how from his childhood he had absorbed the worldly experience of his father. We can see how he had schooled himself to self-repression, concentration of effort to political ends, and profound distrust in all men. To his melancholy mysticism and belief in his divine inspiration, the result of his descent, had been superadded the teachings of his mentors, andthe result was the man who was to lead to defeat one of the two great forces into which the world was divided. The judgment on a great historical figure must be pronounced, not in view of what he achieved, so much as what he aimed at, and in the case of Philip the objects were great. These objects were not, however, conceived by him, but were imposed upon him by the accident of birth. He accepted the inheritance as a sacred duty and strenuously did his best, but his inherited personal qualities were not equal to his inherited task, and he failed.
The irony of events decreed that the very first task to which Philip was to put his hand was to fight with the Holy See. Charles and his predecessors had wrested from one pontiff after another the rights of presentation to all bishoprics, prelacies, and other preferments of the Church in Spain, so that the Spanish clergy depended now upon their sovereign more than upon the pope, and the king practically used the vast revenues of the Church as an instrument of his policy. The royal council, moreover, had the power of supervision over the ecclesiastical courts in Spain, nominally to protect Spanish priests from injustice, but really to make the civil power supreme, and give to the State a predominance over the Church. The Inquisition itself was quite as much a political as an ecclesiastical institution, and was jealously regarded by Philip and his predecessors as under their immediate control, and not that of the pope. Similar, and even greater power, was exercised by the king over the Spanish Church in Naples and Sicily, to the exclusion of papal influence. These facts, together with the encroachments of the Spaniards in Italy, hadbeen suffered with a bad grace by previous pontiffs, but Cardinal Caraffa, Paul IV., was a Neapolitan, and a deadly enemy of the Spanish power, and immediately after his accession began to intrigue with the King of France to join with him for the purpose of expelling the Spaniards from Naples, and curbing their power in Italy generally. The arrogant and intemperate pontiff launched against the emperor and his son invective more bitter even than he did against heretics. “The Spaniards,” he was wont to say, were “the vile and abject spawn of Jews, the dregs of the world,” and “now the time had come when they should be castigated for their sins, be expelled from their states, and Italy should be free.” The aid of the Grand Turk was also invoked, and Henry II., tempted by the bait of conquering Naples by such a coalition, signed the treaty with the pope in December 1555.
The emperor’s one desire, however, was to leave his son at peace, and he offered such terms that in February 1556 Henry II. withdrew from the papal alliance and signed the truce of Vaucelles. The defection of the French was only a temporary check to the fiery pontiff. Before four months had passed he had persuaded the King of France once more to enter into an offensive alliance with him, and the Sultan Solyman, to fight against the Catholic king. Wherever the pope’s voice or arm could reach, persecution and insult were heaped upon Spaniards. When once he had prevailed upon the King of France to break the truce of Vaucelles he thought he had his enemy at his mercy. All bounds of decency and decorum were abandoned, and a violent bull of excommunication was issued against the emperor andKing Philip. 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, rivalling, and even endeavouring to surpass him in infamy.”[1]Alba invaded the papal states, and nearly captured Rome itself, carrying fire and sword through Italy; but he was well matched by Guise, who commanded the Franco-Papal army. Then suddenly Henry II. found that the army from Flanders was marching on Paris, and Guise was recalled to France. By the intervention of the Doge of Venice a peace was patched up between the pope and Philip, Alba sulkily entering Rome, not as a conqueror but as a pretended penitent. The pope was conciliated with ceremonies and futile concessions, and France and Philip were again left face to face.
During the new coalition against him Philip had again urged the English council to join him in the war against France, but could get no satisfactory reply. The poor queen was wearing her heart away with sorrow and disappointment, and the English Catholics in power, from Pole downwards, were determined not to serve purely Spanish aims or allow themselves to be diverted from the holy task of extirpating heresy, so the king, sorely against his will, was obliged, himself, to go to England and exert his personal influence.