The Moorish king would fain make terms, and Don Juan was in favour of entertaining his approaches. Philip was at his wits’ end with two wars on his hands, both the result of his blind, rigid policy; his treasury, as usual, was well-nigh exhausted. Elizabeth of England had recently seized all the ready money he could borrow for the payment of Alba’s army, and the Turk was busy in the Mediterranean, with the more or less overt encouragement of Catharine de Medici. But though Don Juan begged for clemency for the submissive Moors, the fanatics Deza and Espinosa would have none of it, and Philip’s zeal was aroused again in the name of religion to strike and spare not for the interests of “God and your Majesty.”
Deza and one of his officials of the Inquisition managed to bribe a Moor to betray and kill the king, Ben Abó. The body of the dead king was brought into Granada, and Deza, churchman though he was, struck off the head and had it nailed to the gate of what was once the Moorish quarter, with a threat of death to the citizen who should dare to touch it.
There was to be no mercy to the vanquished, said the churchmen, and Philip obeyed them, in spite of Don Juan’s protests against their interference with theclemency of a magnanimous victor. Death or slavery were the only alternatives, and no mercy was shown. From the fair plains they and theirs had tilled for eight centuries, from the frowning Alpujarras, which their tireless industry had forced to yield a grudging harvest; from the white cities, which had kept alive the culture of the east when the barbarians had trampled down the civilisation of the west, all those who bore the taint of Moorish blood were cast. Bound in gangs by heavy gyves, they were driven through the winter snow into the inhospitable north. Don Juan, soldier though he was, was pierced with pity at the sight. “They went,” he wrote to Ruy Gomez, “with the greatest sorrow in the world, for at the time they left, the rain, snow, and wind were so heavy that the daughter will be forced to leave the mother, the husband the wife, and the widow her baby by the wayside. It cannot be denied that it is the saddest sight imaginable to see the depopulation of a whole kingdom. But, sir, that is what has been done!”
By the end of November 1570 Andalucia was cleared of the Moriscos, and at the same time cleared of its industry, its prosperity, and its enlightenment. The fanatic churchmen had had their foolish way, and Philip went back to his desk, certain in his narrow soul that he had served the cause of God and the welfare of his country.
Philip and England—Elizabeth seizes his treasure—Spanish plots against her—Philip and the northern rebellion—The excommunication of Elizabeth—Ridolfi’s plot—Philip’s hesitancy—Prohibition of English trade with Spain—Its futility—Alba’s retirement from Flanders—Philip’s responsibility for Alba’s proceedings—The tenth penny—Philip’s disapproval—Orange’s approaches to the French.
Philip and England—Elizabeth seizes his treasure—Spanish plots against her—Philip and the northern rebellion—The excommunication of Elizabeth—Ridolfi’s plot—Philip’s hesitancy—Prohibition of English trade with Spain—Its futility—Alba’s retirement from Flanders—Philip’s responsibility for Alba’s proceedings—The tenth penny—Philip’s disapproval—Orange’s approaches to the French.
THEpersistent plotting of Cardinal Lorraine and the Monlucs to bring about a union of Spain, France, and the pope, with the object of fighting Protestantism and placing Mary Stuart on the throne of a Catholic united kingdom, had failed. Catharine de Medici hated Mary Stuart and the Guises, and Philip had no wish, if even he had the power, to fight England for the purpose of making Mary’s French uncles paramount. Religion apart, it was better for Philip’s policy that England should remain Protestant than that this should happen, always provided that he could keep Elizabeth friendly, and either frighten or cajole her into a position of neutrality towards his rebellious Protestant subjects in the Netherlands. He could no longer attempt to dictate to her, as he had sought to do at the beginning of her reign, but only strove now to gain her goodwill; andboth parties were fully cognisant of their changed position towards each other.
It was only ten years since Elizabeth’s accession, and even in this short period Philip’s perverse and inelastic policy had reduced him to a position of comparative impotence. But with his views, it was hopeless to expect that he should learn wisdom from events. Reverses and disappointments usually make men consider whether the course they are pursuing is a wise one. No such doubt could assail Philip. He was in union with God to do His work, for the success of which it was necessary for Philip to have absolute power; and any reverses which occurred were sent by the Almighty for some good purpose of His own, not to prevent ultimate success, but to make it the more glorious when it came.
With such ideas as these, Philip was proof against adversity; it was impossible to defeat or degrade him. The considerations which rule the conduct of other men had no influence over him; he was above human laws, and, no doubt, thought that he was above human frailty. Subornation, treachery, and secret murder, odious and reprehensible in others, were praiseworthy in him, for was he not working with and for Providence for divine ends, before which all mundane and moral considerations must give way?
His haughty dismissal of the English ambassador in the spring of 1568 on religious grounds had been bitterly resented by Elizabeth, notwithstanding the palliative influence of Philip’s ambassador, Guzman de Silva. This, and rumours that Cardinal Lorraine had at last succeeded in obtaining armed help for Mary Stuart against Murray, caused Elizabeth to repeat her bold and previously successfulaction. Fresh encouragement was sent to Condé and the Huguenots. Protestantism in the Netherlands, under the iron heel of Alba, was accorded a more hearty sympathy than ever, and expeditions of Flemish refugees were now allowed almost openly to fit out in English ports to go over and help their compatriots. Events fought on Elizabeth’s side, and threw Mary Stuart into her grasp, from which she never escaped. The captive queen clamoured for Philip’s help, but Philip had no help to give yet beyond procrastinating generalities. Elizabeth and her ministers were well served by spies, and were quite cognisant of Philip’s impotence for harm at present, so far as open hostility was concerned. All they feared was that he might seek to attain his end by secret plotting, and this was eventually the course he adopted. For the time, however,—in the autumn of 1568—he was sincerely desirous of keeping on good terms with Elizabeth, and instructed his new ambassador, Gerau de Spes, to use every effort to that end. Late in November 1568 the violence and indiscretion of De Spes, who began plotting with the English Catholic party in favour of Mary Stuart as soon as he arrived, had brought matters to a much less peaceful complexion between Philip and Elizabeth. This was from no fault of Philip, and was against the tenor of his instructions. Cardinal Chatillon was in England, arousing sympathy and obtaining aid for the Huguenots, the Flemish refugees were spreading abroad a feeling of indignation against Alba’s atrocities in the Netherlands, and money was being sent daily across to help their brethren against the oppressor. Privateers and pirates, who called themselves such, were swarming in the Channel, and few vessels bearing theflag of Spain escaped their depredations. To escape them, some ships carrying money—mostly borrowed by Philip from Genoese bankers—to pay Alba’s troops had to run for refuge into Southampton, Plymouth, and Falmouth. On the pretence of protecting the specie from the pirates, most of it was landed, and retained by Elizabeth for her own purposes. Promises, professions of honesty, and specious excuses of all sorts were made; negotiations, open and secret, for its recovery went on for years, but the treasure was never restored to Philip. It was a great blow to him and a great help to Elizabeth, who was almost alarmed at her own temerity in seizing the money. Philip retaliated by seizing English property in Spanish and Flemish ports, immensely inferior in value to that seized by England. It was an unwise step, because it gave Elizabeth some ground for retaining what she had taken, and appropriating more, which she promptly did. Even then Philip could only plead futilely for restitution. His ambassador stormed and threatened, urged his master to assert his power and crush Elizabeth. But Philip, and even fiery Alba, knew better now, and both of them strained every nerve to avoid being drawn into open hostility towards England. The keynote of Philip’s foreign policy—that which he had inherited from his Burgundian forefathers—was to keep on good terms with England. It was only after many years that he was for a time absolutely driven by circumstances, and against his will, to fight England outright, and then only with the object of coercing her into a friendly attitude towards him. In view of De Spes’s constant assurance that the time had now come when, by giving a little aid to the English Catholics, Elizabethmight be deposed and Mary Stuart made Queen of England, Philip referred the decision of the matter to Alba (February 1569). But Alba frankly told him that he had neither men nor money for the purpose, and that Elizabeth must be conciliated at all costs. Even when De Spes’s plotting and insolence became too much for Elizabeth to bear and she placed him under arrest, his master told him he must suffer everything patiently for the king’s sake. The humbler became Philip the more aggressive became Elizabeth. She refused to have anything to do with Alba, or to recognise him in any way, and the proud noble took this to heart more even than the seizure of the treasure. So when De Spes sent him news of the plot in progress with Arundel, Norfolk, and Lumley; and Ridolfi the banker went over to Flanders as their envoy to the duke, he was ready enough to listen, and try to effect by treason what he was powerless to do by war, if only it could be done without compromising Philip. The latter was more distrustful even than Alba, and it was only with much apparent hesitation that he consented to lend aid to Norfolk’s plot. After Norfolk’s folly and pusillanimity and Cecil’s vigilance had brought about the collapse of the first conspiracy, and the northern lords were in arms and, in their turn, begging for Philip’s aid, a good instance occurred of the inadequacy of the king’s timid temporising policy to the circumstances of the times. The crisis was really a dangerous one for Elizabeth, and a little prompt aid from Philip might have turned the scale. The Catholic north was all in arms, and Mary Stuart’s party was still a strong one, and yet these are the only words that Philip could find in answer tothe appeal written to Alba on December 16, 1569: “English affairs are going in a way that will make it necessary, after all, to bring the queen to do by force what she refuses to reason. Her duty is so clear that no doubt God causes her to ignore it, in order that by these means His holy religion may be restored in that country, and Catholics and good Christians thus be rescued from the oppression in which they live. In case her obstinacy and hardness of heart continue, therefore, you will take into consideration the best direction to be given to this. We think here that the best course will be to encourage with money and secret favour the Catholics of the north, and to help those in Ireland to take up arms against the heretics and deliver the crown to the Queen of Scotland, to whom it belongs. This course, it is presumed, would be agreeable to the pope and all Christendom, and would encounter no opposition from any one. This is only mentioned now in order that you may know what is passing in our minds here, and that, with your great prudence and a full consideration of the state of affairs in general, you may ponder what is best to be done.” What could be weaker than this in a great crisis?
Events marched too quickly for pondering, and the northern rebellion was stamped out by the promptness of Elizabeth’s Government whilst Philip was timidly weighing the chances. This was a fresh triumph for the Protestant cause throughout Europe, and a new impetus was given to it in France, Holland, Germany, and Scotland, as well as in England. De Spes continued to urge upon Philip plans for the overthrow of Elizabeth, but his charming fell upon deaf ears now. Only oncewas the king tempted into any approach to hostility. Stukeley went to Spain with a great flourish of trumpets, and gave him to understand that Ireland was at his bidding if a little armed help were provided. At Madrid they thought for a time that Stukeley was a great man, and entertained him royally; but Philip and his councillors soon found he was but a windbag, and dropped him promptly.
A good example is provided of Philip’s subordination of religion to politics by his attitude when the pope’s bull excommunicating Elizabeth was fixed by Felton on the Bishop of London’s gate. The English Catholics had long been suggesting to Philip that such a bull should be obtained, but he had no desire to drive Elizabeth farther away from the Catholic Church than necessary. Her religion was a secondary consideration, if she would be friendly with him, and he was coldly irresponsive about the desired excommunication. The English Catholics then addressed the pope direct; and he, having no interests to serve other than those of his religion, promptly granted the bull. But when Philip learnt that the pope had excommunicated Elizabeth without consulting him, he was extremely indignant, and did not mince his words in reprehending the pontiff’s action.
At the instance of his over-zealous ambassador, Philip was induced to receive Ridolfi, who had again gone as an envoy from Norfolk and Mary to the pope, Philip, and Alba (July 1571) to seek aid for Norfolk’s second plot to destroy Elizabeth, whilst at the same time he (Philip) was negotiating in Madrid with Fitzwilliams a pretended plot by which JohnHawkins was to place his fleet at the disposal of the Spaniards. Philip’s reference to the subject of killing Elizabeth is characteristic. He “sincerely desires the success of the business, not for his own interest, or for any other worldly object, but purely and simply for the service of God. He was therefore discussing the matter, and in the meanwhile urged all people concerned not to be premature.” Whilst he was discussing with his council the murder of Elizabeth, the queen and Cecil were acting. They had known everything that had been going on in Madrid and elsewhere; Philip had been hoodwinked again. His ambassador was expelled with every ignominy, Norfolk deservedly lost his head, and Philip’s hesitancy once more convinced the English Catholics that no broad, bold, or timely action in their favour could be expected from him.
It had been constantly urged upon Philip that the best way to bring the English to their knees was to stop their trade with his dominions. He had always laid it down as a rule that no ships but Spanish should be allowed to trade in the Spanish territories in America, but the English adventurers made light of the prohibition, and the settlers were quite willing to wink at their distant sovereign’s edicts, if they could profitably exchange their drugs and dyewood for the slaves which the English brought from the African coast. After Elizabeth’s seizure of Spanish property the prohibition against English trade was extended to Spain and the Netherlands. The English clothworkers grumbled, but they found new outlets for their goods at Embden and Hamburg. On the other hand, the wine-growers of Spain and the merchants of Flanders were well-nighruined. Spanish ships were harried off the sea, and Philip was ere long forced to connive at the violation of his own edict in face of the clamour of the Andalucian shippers, whose produce rotted for want of sea-carriage and a market. Alba held out as long as he could, but the persuasions of Orange that the Queen of England should assume the protectorate of Holland and Zeeland brought even him to his knees at last. He had always tried to make the restitution of Elizabeth’s seizures a condition of the reopening of trade, but early in 1573 he was obliged to give way, to the immense advantage of Elizabeth, who thus kept the bulk of what she had taken, whilst her subjects again obtained a free market for their cloth. This agreement alone would prove how completely Philip’s cumbrous policy of personal centralisation had failed when applied to a huge disjointed empire such as his. His selfish dread of responsibility and his constant aim of making catspaws of others had alienated him at this time from every power except perhaps for the moment the Venetians and the pope, who both had selfish reasons for adhering to him, the first as their chief bulwark against the Turk in the Mediterranean, and the latter because he was champion of the Church the world over. Alba’s policy of blood and iron had failed too, in the Netherlands. He had only succeeded in making his own and his master’s name execrated. From the day he left Spain his enemies there had been busy. In his absence the party of Ruy Gomez was almost supreme; the clever favourite had taken care to surround the king with promising young secretaries, and the failure of Alba to pacify the Netherlands was made the most of. The duke himself was heartsick ofhis task, crippled for want of means, his troops unpaid and mutinous, his fleet destroyed; and Holland, Zeeland, and a good part of Flanders were still in the hands of Orange. The constant dropping of detraction at last had its effect upon Philip, and he was induced to try a new policy. Alba was allowed to withdraw, with rage at his heart for his failure, which he ascribed to the lack of support from Madrid, and Luis Requesens was sent by the influence of the Ruy Gomez party, to endeavour to bring about by conciliation and mildness the pacification which severity had been powerless to effect.
This is not the place for any detailed account to be given of the proceedings of Alba in the Netherlands, which have so often been recounted, but it may be interesting to consider how far Philip is personally responsible for them. It may be conceded at once that the king would have no sentimental scruples whatever in ordering the sacrifice of any number of lives he considered necessary for the success of his object, which in his eyes transcended all human interests. There is no doubt that when Alba was first despatched to Flanders it was for the express purpose of utterly stamping out the Flemish claims of autonomy. The first men to be struck at were the great nobles who had dared to formulate such a claim. The Regent Margaret was dismissed with every sign of disgrace. Her edict of toleration was revoked as “illegal and indecent,” and she herself was ordered to obey the Duke of Alba in all things. She was the king’s sister, however, and she was allowed to go to Parma, complaining bitterly of the outrages to which the king had submitted her. But with Orange, Egmont,Horn, Montigny, and Bergues it was another matter. At some time or another all of these had raised their voices, however submissively, in favour of the national rights of self-government. The blow was carefully planned beforehand, and the treacherous seizure of Egmont and Horn after the dinner party on September 9, 1567, immediately after Alba’s arrival in Brussels, was promptly followed by the even more underhand detention and imprisonment of Bergues, Montigny, and Renard in Spain. Fortunately the greater wariness of Orange and Mansfelt saved them from falling victims to Alba’s lying caresses. The charge against the nobles was not religious, but purely political. It is true that Orange in his absence was accused of speaking disrespectfully of the Inquisition, but the real crime was for having requested the convocation of the States-General on the pretext that “the king could not determine anything in these provinces except with the approval of the States-General, which means stripping the king of all authority and power and adorning him merely with the title.” That Alba’s persecution was not a religious but a political one, is also proved by the fact that the conventual clergy were struck at the same time as the Catholic nobles because they had ventured to protest against Philip’s reorganisation of the ecclesiastical establishment in Flanders, which was intended to make him supreme over the clergy, as he was in Spain. The abbots and monks, we are told, were the first that fled on Alba’s advent. They were followed by rich burgesses, Catholics almost to a man. They fled not for religion yet, but because the ruffianly Spanish and Italian soldiers whom Alba had brought withhim were quartered in all the houses—six in each house—and were robbing, murdering, and ravishing right and left. They were an unpaid mutinous rabble, who respected no distinction of nationality, faith, or sex, and their function was utterly to terrorise the Flemings into abject submission. When the people began to escape in shoals Alba considered it necessary to prevent this evasion of his terrorism, and began by hanging 500 citizens who were suspected of attempting to emigrate or to send property abroad. The people, in fact, were absolutely unresisting, and flocked to church, as Alba himself records, as plentifully as did “Spaniards at jubilee time.” At the execution of Egmont and Horn, Alba expressed his surprise to the king that the populace was so unmoved—much less so, indeed, than the Spanish soldiers who surrounded the scaffold—and he feared that the king’s clemency might raise their courage. Alba was determined that this should not happen if he could help it. Thus far, then, Philip must be held responsible for Alba’s acts, namely, for the first seizure of the nobles, and their condemnation by the tribunal of blood, to the number of about twenty, and for the terrorism over the friars and the citizens. But here probably Philip’s personal responsibility ends. He was not wantonly and fiercely cruel as Alba was. No consideration of any sort was allowed to stand in the way of what he held to be his sacred task, but he did not kill for the sake of killing. The flight of Orange’s mercenary Germans at Heliger Lee, and the consequent collapse of his first attempt at armed resistance, had been looked upon by most Flemings without any outward sign of sympathy, and the unprovoked, horrible holocaust of innocent citizensall over Flanders and Brabant which followed, must be laid at the door of Alba alone, who intended thus to strike such terror into the townsfolk as should effectually bridle them if Orange tried his fortune again; so with the nobles dead or in exile, the townspeople might be crushed without a show of resistance. As long as only their national or religious liberty was at stake, the Flemings bent their necks to the yoke, and Orange in his despairing attempt depended mainly upon German mercenaries and French Calvinists. On July 14, 1570, Alba the merciless could read from his gold-covered throne in Antwerp the amnesty of forgiveness and peace to all the subjects of the king: but when he ventured to lay hands on the wealth of the Netherlands, then the blood of the burgesses rose, and those who meekly saw themselves despoiled of their national rights stood up sturdily against the depletion of their fat money-bags. The seizure of the treasure by Elizabeth had been the last stroke to complete Alba’s penury. He had been importuning plaintively for money almost since his arrival; his troops had not been paid for two years, and were almost out of hand. Money he must have, and, certainly without Philip’s consent, he took the fatal step that at last aroused the slumbering people. The various provincial assemblies were terrorised into voting a tax of one per cent on all property, five per cent on sales of land, and, above all, ten per cent on sales of all other property. Utrecht refused to accept the impossible tax, and the tribunal of blood condemned the whole property of the citizens to confiscation. A tax of ten per cent upon commodities every time they changed hands was proved to be absurd. Alba’s most faithful henchmen, and even his confessor,pointed this out to him, but to no purpose. Business was suspended, factories closed. Their proprietors were threatened with heavy fines if trade was not carried on as usual. It was obviously impossible, but still the duke would not give way.
Philip’s council were indignant at such a measure, and Alba wrote to Madrid, “Let the tax be reduced as much as may be necessary, but the king cannot have an idea of the obstacles I encounter here. Neither the heads smitten off nor the privileges abolished have aroused so much resistance as this.”
Nearly all the great bankers upon whom Philip had depended for loans became insolvent, and appeals against the unwise tax reached Philip by every post. He knew money must be obtained somehow, and hesitated to condemn Alba unheard, but he ordered an inquiry to be made, and the protests grew louder and deeper. Bishops, councillors, loyal servants of the Spaniards, joined in condemnation. “Everybody turns against me,” wrote the duke, and for once he was right.
The “beggars of the sea” seized Brille on April 1, 1572; all Holland and Zeeland rose. Help and money came from England, and Alba saw himself face to face with an enraged nation instead of downtrodden serfs. First he crushed the south and then held the French Huguenots out of Brabant. Mons was captured, Genlis’s Frenchmen massacred, and swift and relentless as a thunderbolt swept Alba’s vengeance through the southern provinces of Flanders. Submission the most abject, or slaughter was the only alternative. But Holland and Zeeland were made of sterner stuff, and the shambles of Naarden only made Haarlemthe more obstinate. Then followed that fell struggle which lasted until Alba’s confession of failure. Cruelty could not crush the Dutchmen, for they were fighting for their faith now as well as their money, and by the end of 1572 Philip had become tired of the useless slaughter. It was difficult for him to revoke or interfere with his commander-in-chief in the midst of such a war, but long before Alba’s final retirement from Flanders at the end of 1573, the king showed his displeasure with his proceedings unmistakably, and it well-nigh broke the old duke’s heart, hard as it was. When at last Philip wrote that his successor, Requesens, was on his way to replace him with an amnesty, these were the king’s words: “I am quite aware that the rebels are perfidious. I understand all your arguments in favour of a continuance of the system of severity, and I agree that they are good; but I see that things have arrived at such an extreme that we shall be obliged to adopt other measures.” Alba’s fall had been decided upon long before, and Medina-Celi had actually been sent to Flanders to replace him, but Philip had always hesitated to withdraw him while he was actually in arms against the enemy. Thirty years before his father had told him that Alba was the best soldier in Spain, and Philip knew that he was so still. But how deeply Philip disapproved of his wanton cruelty in time of peace will be seen by the words already quoted above, and by his sudden degradation of the powerful Cardinal Espinosa when the king discovered that he was being deceived with regard to Alba’s proceedings (September 1572). The number of victims and the reasons for the sacrifices were kept backby the favourite, for Espinosa was for crushing the Dutchmen as he had crushed the Moriscos. But there were others, like Antonio Perez, by Philip’s side to open his eyes to Alba’s enormities, and one day in the council the king turned upon the astounded Espinosa and told him roundly that he lied. When Philip, usually so impassible, said such a thing it meant disgrace and death, and Cardinal Espinosa promptly went home and died the same night.
After that Alba’s disgrace was inevitable, even if it had not been in principle already decided upon. The evidence, therefore, seems to prove that Philip did not consider Alba’s cruelty necessary or politic for the ends he had in view, which, be it repeated, were ultimately political and not religious.
Requesens’ new policy at first was eminently successful in drawing away the Walloons and Catholic Flemings from the side of Orange, and by the late autumn of 1575 the position of the Protestants had become critical. Money was running short, the mercenaries were unpaid, and Elizabeth would not be forced by any persuasion from the position which she had taken up of helping Orange with money and men, but never pledging herself so deeply that she could not recede and become friendly with Philip if it suited her. She had, indeed, managed to get the whole of the cards in her hand, and could secure his friendship at any time without cost to herself. But this non-committal policy did not suit Orange in his present straits, and he began to make approaches to the French Huguenots. Elizabeth was perfectly willing that he should get their aid, as in the long-run they too had mainly to depend upon her;but she changed her tone directly when she learnt that the King of France and his mother where to be parties to the arrangement. Anything that should mean a French national domination of Flanders she would never allow. Better, far better, that Philip and the Spaniards should stay there for ever, than that the French flag should wave over Antwerp. So an English envoy, Henry Cobham, was sent to Madrid in August 1575, with all sorts of loving messages, to open Philip’s eyes to Orange’s intrigues with the French court. Philip received Cobham coldly, and referred him to Alba for his answer, which was to the effect that the king was as willing to be friendly as Elizabeth, and would receive a resident English ambassador, on condition that he made no claim to exercise the reformed religion. Not a word about Orange and the French. Whatever the Huguenots might do, he knew full well that he had only to hold out his hand to the Guises and the Catholic party, and Catharine and her son would be paralysed for harm against him.
Philip’s fourth marriage—The killing of Montigny—Anne of Austria—Philip’s domestic life—His industry—The Escorial—His patronage of art—His character—Renewed war with the Turks—Don Juan commands the Spanish force—The victory of Lepanto—Don Juan’s great projects—Antonio Perez.
Philip’s fourth marriage—The killing of Montigny—Anne of Austria—Philip’s domestic life—His industry—The Escorial—His patronage of art—His character—Renewed war with the Turks—Don Juan commands the Spanish force—The victory of Lepanto—Don Juan’s great projects—Antonio Perez.
PHILIPwas left a widower for the third time in 1568, at the age of forty-two, with two children, both girls, by his beloved third wife. With such an empire as his, and with his views of his mission, it was most undesirable that he should be succeeded by a female, and especially one of French extraction, and he had already recognised this by causing some of his young Austrian nephews to be brought up in Spain under his influence. The emperor, however, largely dependent as he was upon the Lutheran princes, could not look quite unmoved at Alba’s barbarities in the ancient patrimony of his House, and became uncomfortably pressing upon the matter at the commencement of Alba’s rule. Philip resented his interference, but thought well to disarm him for the future by marrying the Archduchess Anne, the emperor’s daughter, whom her father had so persistently put forward as a bride for the unfortunate Carlos.The preliminaries were easily arranged. Philip was more than double the bride’s age, and was her uncle, but that mattered nothing. The pope’s dispensation was obtained, and in August 1570 the new consort travelled in state through Flanders to take ship for Spain. The fleet which was to escort the queen was a powerful one, and threw Elizabeth of England into a fever of alarm until it had safely passed. On her way through Antwerp the new queen was appealed to by the sorrowing mother of Horn and Montigny. Her eldest son had fallen on the scaffold, but her second was alive, a prisoner in the castle of Segovia. He had been smiled upon by Philip until Alba’s blow had fallen upon his brother and the rest of the Flemish nobles, and had then suddenly been imprisoned. He was innocent of all offence, said his mother, a loyal subject, and a good Catholic, and she prayed the queen earnestly to plead for her son. Anne arrived at Santander on October 12, 1570, and slowly progressed through Spain to Segovia for the wedding. For two years the tribunal of blood in Flanders had been trying the Flemish nobles for treasonin absentia. Bergues had died in semi-arrest, and faithful Renard, the victim of Granvelle’s hate, had also died mysteriously a week after his imprisonment. But Montigny—Florence de Montmorenci—still remained in seclusion in the strong castle of Segovia. Philip was always a stickler for the fulfilment of legal forms, and awaited the result of the trial in Flanders with ill-disguised impatience. At last the decision came, the finding being that which might have been foreseen. Montigny was condemned for treason in defending the action of the Flemish nobles before theking’s secretary. The judgment was submitted to the council—Ruy Gomez, Espinosa, and the rest of the camarilla—who advised that Montigny should be poisoned slowly. But no, the king would have none of that. The law prescribed death by strangulation for the crime, and the law must be carried out. A public execution was out of the question, and the marriage festivities were to be held at Segovia; so Montigny was spirited away to the bleak castle of Simancas, and on the very day (October 1) that Philip arranged the pompous ceremony of the queen’s reception at Segovia he penned an order to the gaoler of Simancas to hand over to the alcalde of the chancery of Valladolid the person of Florence de Montmorenci. Arellano had been an inquisitor at Seville, and was appointed specially to the chancery of Valladolid for the purpose in hand. To him the most minute instructions were given for the execution of Montigny. The priest that was to administer the last consolations to the dying man was named, and at the same time a doctor was instructed to visit the prisoner daily, ostentatiously taking with him from Valladolid the usual medicines for fever. The hour of the night that the alcalde and the executioner were to leave the city and the smallest particulars were set forth for their guidance, but before and above all, no one was to know that Montigny had not died a natural death. His property had been confiscated for his crime, and so, said Philip, he has nothing to leave; but still he may make a will, and dispose of the property, if he will consent to do so, in the form of a man who knows he is dying of a natural illness. He might write to his wife, too, in the same way. The king iscareful to repeat that he had been tried and condemned by a legal tribunal, and it was only out of mercy and consideration for his rank that he was to be saved the ignominy of a public execution. The poor creature expressed his thanks for the king’s clemency, avowed his unshaken fidelity to the Catholic Church, and the shameful deed was done in that same round turret room in which the bishop Acuña, the leader of the Comuneros, lived for years, before he met a similar fate fifty years previously. Montigny was executed on October 16, whilst Anne was on her way to Segovia. The first favour she asked of her husband was to spare the life of Montigny. Philip replied that he could not have refused to grant her request, but unfortunately the prisoner had died of sickness. Couriers, swifter than the queen, had long ago brought to Philip the tidings of the promise made to Montigny’s mother. Forewarned, forearmed, he doubtless thought, and the hapless Montmorenci’s fate was sealed by his mother’s apparently successful intercession with the queen.
Philip’s fourth wife was a devout, homely, prolific creature, intensely devoted to her husband and children, of whom she bore many, though most of them died in early childhood. “She never leaves her rooms, and her court is like a nunnery,” wrote the French ambassador. All around her was frigid, gloomy etiquette and funereal devotion. As years and disappointments gathered on Philip’s head his religious mysticism deepened. “For God and your Majesty,” was now the current phrase in all addresses to him. He never gave an order—hardly an opinion—without protesting that he had no worldly end in all his acts. It was all for the sake of God, whoseinstrument he was. For his own part, his life was a constant round of drudgery and devotion. The smallest details of government went through his hands, besides the most trivial regulations with regard to the lives and habits of his subjects. Their dress and furniture were prescribed with closest minuteness, their styles of address, number of servants and horses, their amusements, their funerals, their weddings, their devotions were settled for them by the gloomy recluse whom they rarely saw. Whilst he was busy with such puerilities, affairs of great moment were set aside and delayed, his ambassadors in vain praying for answers to important despatches, his armies turning mutinous for want of money, and his executive ministers through his wide domains alternately despairing and indignant at the tardiness of action which they saw was ruining the cause he championed.
The king’s only relaxations now were the few hours he could spare in the bosom of his family, to which he was devotedly attached, especially to his elder daughter, Isabel. But even in his home life his care for detail was as minute as it was in public affairs. The most unimportant trifle in the dress, management, studies, or play of his children came within his purview. The minutiae of the management of his flower-gardens, the little maladies of his servants, the good-or ill-temper of his dwarfs and jesters did not escape his vigilance. The private and financial affairs of his nobles came as much within his province, almost, as his personal concerns, the furnishing and decoration of his rooms had to be done under his personal supervision, and the vast task of building the stupendous pile of the Escorial on an aridmountain-side, and adorning it with triumphs of art from the master hands of all Christendom, was performed down to the smallest particular under his unwearied guidance. With all his prodigious industry and devotion to duty, it is no wonder that this want of proportion in the importance of things clogged the wheels of the great machine of which he was mainspring, and that the nimble wit of Elizabeth of England and Catharine de Medici foresaw, in ample time to frustrate them, the deep-laid ponderous plans against them which he discussedad infinitumbefore adopting. His favourite place for work was at the Escorial, where, said the prior, four times as many despatches were written as in Madrid. As soon as a portion of the edifice could be temporarily roofed in, the monks were installed, and thenceforward Philip passed his happiest moments in the keen, pure air of the Guadarramas, superintending the erection of the mighty monument which forms a fitting emblem of his genius—stupendous in its ambition, gloomy, rigid, and overweighted in its consummation. Here he loved to wander with his wife and children, overlooking the army of workmen who for twenty years were busy at their tasks, to watch the deft hands of the painters and sculptors—Sanchez Coello, the Carducci, Juan de Juanes, the Mudo, Giacomo Trezzo, and a host of others—whom he delighted to honour. As a patron of art in all its forms Philip was a very Mæcenas. He followed his great father in his friendship for Titian, but he went far beyond the emperor in his protection of other artists. Illuminators, miniaturists, and portrait painters were liberally paid and splendidly entertained. The masterpieces of religious art, thecunning workmanship of the Florentine goldsmiths and lapidaries, the marvels of penmanship of the medieval monks, the sculptures of the ancients, were all prized and understood by Philip, as they were by few men of his time. This sad, self-concentrated man, bowed down by his overwhelming mission, tied to the stake of his duty, indeed loved all things beautiful: flowers, and song-birds, sacred music, pictures, and the prattle of little children, a seeming contradiction to his career, but profoundly consistent really, for in the fulfilment of his task he considered himself in some sort divine, and forced to lay aside as an unworthy garment all personal desires and convenience, to suppress all human inclinations. He was a naturally good man, cursed with mental obliquity and a lack of due sense of proportion.
Whilst Alba was pursuing his campaign of blood in the Netherlands, Philip found it necessary once more to struggle for the supremacy of Christianity in the Mediterranean. It has been related how, after the heroic defence of Malta, the Turks and Algerines had been finally driven off with the death of Dragut in 1565. A new sultan, Selim II., had arisen in the following year, and he had determined to leave Spanish interests alone and to concentrate his attacks upon the Venetians, through whom most of the Eastern trade of the Levant passed. Philip’s interests and those of Venice had not usually been identical, as Spain aspired to obtain a share of the oriental commerce, and France and the Venetians had made common cause, more or less openly, with the Turk against Spain. When the republic saw its great colony of Cyprus attacked by the Turks, it consequently appealed in the first place to Pius V.Piala Pasha, the Italian renegade, was already (1569) besieging Nicosia with a great fleet, whilst the Moriscos were yet in arms in Andalucia. The inhabitants of Cyprus were welcoming the infidel, and without prompt and powerful help Cyprus would be lost to Christianity. The pope, at all events, acted promptly, and sent his legate to Philip with proposals for an alliance with the Venetians against the common enemy of their faith. He arrived in Andalucia at the time when the Moriscos had been finally subdued, and entered Seville with Philip. Alba for the moment had crushed out resistance in Flanders, and had not yet aroused the fresh storm by his financial measures. Philip therefore willingly listened to the pope’s proposal, backed energetically, as it was, by the young victor of the Moriscos, Don Juan of Austria, all eager to try his sword against an enemy worthy of his steel; and after three days of devotion and intercession before the bones of St. Ferdinand in Seville, Philip decided to lay aside his unfriendliness with the merchant republic and join it to beat the infidel (spring of 1570).
By the summer Nicosia had fallen, and before Doria’s galleys from Genoa and Colonna’s galleys from the pope could be ready for service, private negotiations were in progress between Venice and the Turks for a separate peace. Here was always the danger for Philip. His Neapolitan and Sicilian possessions, as well as the Balearics and the African settlements, were very open to the Turk, and if the Venetians deserted him, he would have brought upon his own coasts the scourge of Piali and his three hundred sail with a fierce army of janissaries. It was not until the end of 1570, therefore,that Philip was satisfied that the Venetians would stand firm. Philip’s views undoubtedly extended far beyond the recapture of Cyprus for the Venetians. This was the first opportunity that had fallen to him of joining together a really powerful league to crush the strength of Islam in the Mediterranean. Cardinal de Granvelle was in Rome, and at last, through his persuasions, Pius V. regranted to the Spanish king the much-desired privilege of selling the Crusade bulls, and other financial concessions. Pius had also to give way on another point which was very near Philip’s heart, for the king never missed an opportunity of gaining a step forward in his policy of centralisation of power in himself. Undeterred by the ill success of the Aragonese in their protest against the abuses in the civil jurisdiction of the Inquisition, the Catalans had proceeded still further, and had taken the dangerous step of sending an envoy direct to the pope to beg him to put an end to the oppression of the Holy Office, by virtue of an old bull which gave to the pontiff the right to decide in all doubtful cases, and limited the jurisdiction of the Inquisition to matters of faith. The pope dared not go too far in offending Philip, but he went as far as he could, and issued a bull reasserting the right of appeal to Rome in certain cases. Philip did as he had done before, simply prohibited the promulgation of the bull in Spain, and clapped the leaders of the Catalans into the dungeons of the Inquisition. Things had arrived at this stage when Pius had to beg Philip’s aid for the Venetians. Then he was obliged to cede to the king’s instances, and promise not to interfere in any way with the prerogatives of the Spanish crown. The league against Islam was to be a permanent one,and the urgent prayers of Don Juan obtained for him the supreme command of the expedition. He was a fortunate and a dashing young officer, but he was in no sense the great commander that he has often been represented, and the work of organisation of his force on this occasion must be credited mainly to the famous seaman Alvaro de Bazan, Marquis of Santa Cruz; whilst De Granvelle, who had been appointed Viceroy of Naples, was indefatigable in his efforts to collect the resources and men necessary for the struggle. By the summer of 1571, when the Spanish fleet was gathered at Messina, Cyprus had fallen amidst scenes of hellish carnage which aroused the Christian force to fury. The fleet of Venice had suffered much, and notwithstanding the reproaches of the pope for his tardiness in following up the Turks, who were now harrying the Adriatic, it was September 1571 before Don Juan and his combined fleets left Messina. He had 208 galleys, 6 galleasses, and 50 small boats, 29,000 men-at-arms, and 50,000 sailors and rowers. The force was a great one, but it had a great task before it. Piali and Uluch Ali had joined, and had a fleet which had never yet been beaten at sea in the Mediterranean. Time after time the Turks had shown that in a sea-fight they were superior to any power in the world; but this was a holy war. The pope had sent to Don Juan in Naples a blessed banner of blue damask covered with sacred emblems; all the pomp and solemnity that the Church could confer upon an expedition was extended to this; prayers and rogations for its success were sounding through every church in Catholic Christendom, and, above all, the hearts of men, and women too, were aflame with enthusiasm when theysaw the fervent zeal of the splendid young prince who was to lead the hosts of Christ against the infidel. Dressed in white velvet and gold, with a crimson scarf across his breast, his fair curls glinting in the sun, he looked, they said in Naples, like a prince of romance, and men, high and low, upon his fleet were ready to go whithersoever he might lead them. Every man on the fleet fasted, confessed, and received remission of his sins, and all felt that they were engaged in a struggle for the Cross. The Turks were still ravaging the Venetian territories, as they had ravaged Corfu, but the experienced commanders of Don Juan’s force were opposed to attacking the dreaded enemy in the open. Better repeat the policy of the past, and lay siege to some fortified place. Doria especially, was for turning back and awaiting the spring. But Don Juan would have no such timid tactics, and decided to attack the Turkish fleet, which, his spies told him, was lying in the bay of Lepanto. He sighted the enemy at daybreak on October 7—Sunday—advancing with flags flying and cymbals clashing; and after giving orders for the fray, Don Juan knelt with all his army before the crucifixes, the whole of the force being solemnly absolved by the Jesuits and other monks, who swarmed on the ships. Then through the fleet in a pinnace the young general sailed, crying out words of exhortation to his men. “Christ is your general!” “The hour for vengeance has come!” “You are come to fight the battle of the Cross, to conquer or to die,” and so forth. There is no space here to describe the battle in detail. The story is a familiar one; how the Turks were swept from the seas and their power on the Mediterranean gone for ever. There was no resistinga force worked up to the pitch of fervour which Don Juan had infused into his. Much of the glory must be given to the cool and timely support afforded at a critical moment by the Marquis of Santa Cruz, but Don Juan, exalted in fervour and enthusiasm, personified the victory; and to him the palms of conquest were awarded. The world rang with adulation of the young hero. The pope forgot his dignity, Titian forgot his ninety-five years, the Christian world forgot prudence and restraint, and talked of conquering anew the empire of Constantine, of which Don Juan was to be the ruler. There was one man, however, who did not move a muscle when he heard the stirring news, and that man was Philip II. He was at vespers when the courier came, but after he read the despatch he said no word until the sacred service was over, and then a solemn Te Deum was sung. But when he wrote to Don Juan it was in no uncertain words. With his views he was of course incapable of personal jealousy, though not of suspicion, and he wrote: “Your conduct undoubtedly was the principal cause of victory. To you, after God, I owe it, and I joyfully recognise this. I am rejoiced that He has deigned to reserve the boon for a man who is so dear to me, and so closely allied in blood, thus to terminate this work, glorious to God and men.”
The next year Pius V. died and the league was loosened. Don Juan, full of vast projects of conquest in Tunis, Constantinople, and elsewhere, with encouragement of Rome and the churchmen, kept his fleet together for two years, always clamouring for money for his great projects. But Philip had his hands full now with Alba’s second struggle in the Netherlands, and had nowish or means for acquiring a great Eastern empire which he could not hold, and he was already looking askance at his brother’s ambitious dreams. The mercantile Venetians too, had justified Philip’s distrustful forebodings and had made a submissive peace with the Turk, who kept Cyprus, and Philip could not fight the Turks alone. But Don Juan was not to be entirely gainsaid. In October 1573 he sailed for Tunis, which he captured, almost without resistance, and then returned to the splendour of Naples, still full of projects for a vast North African Christian empire, of which he hoped to obtain the investiture from the new pope, Gregory XIII. Such ambitious dreams as these had floated through Don Juan’s mind after he had suppressed the Morisco rising in Andalucia; and even then prudent Ruy Gomez, whose pupil he had been, took fright, and warned the prince’s secretary, Juan de Soto, one of his own creatures, that these plans must be nipped in the bud. The prince was over headstrong then, but he had got quite out of leading strings now.
When the king’s orders were sent to him to dismantle Tunis and make it powerless for future harm, he disobeyed the command. He wanted Tunis as strong as possible as his own fortress when he should be the Christian emperor of the East. All this did not please Philip, and he simply cut off the supply of money. Artful De Granvelle too, the Viceroy of Naples, saw which way the tide was setting, and took very good care not to strengthen Don Juan’s new conquest. Within a year Tunis and Goleta were recovered by the Turk, and the 8000 Spaniards left there by Don Juan were slaughtered. Neither Philip nor De Granvellecould or would send any help. Better that the two fortresses should be lost for ever, as they were, than that the king’s base brother should drag him into endless responsibilities with his high-flown schemes.
Don Juan, in fact, was evidently getting out of hand. Ruy Gomez had recently died; Cardinal Espinosa had also gone, and the most influential person with the king now was his famous secretary, Antonio Perez. He was the legitimised son of Charles V.’s old secretary of state, and had been brought up by Ruy Gomez in his household. Young as he was, he was already famous for his extravagance, luxury, and arrogance, which added to the hatred of the nobles of the Alba school against him. He was overpoweringly vain and ambitious, but was facile, clever, and ingratiating, and, above all, had the king’s confidence, which once gained was not lightly withdrawn. Philip, in pursuance of his father’s principle, liked to have about him as ministers men whom he himself had raised from the mire, and whom he could again cast down.
Perez aspired to succeed to Ruy Gomez, and was dismayed to lose so promising a member of his party as Don Juan. He therefore persuaded the king to recall Don Juan’s secretary, Soto, who was blamed for encouraging his young master’s visions; and, to be quite on the safe side, sent in his place as the prince’s prime adviser another pupil and page of Ruy Gomez, also a secretary to the king—Juan de Escobedo—with strict orders that he was to bring Don Juan down from the clouds and again instil into him the shibboleths of the party of diplomacy, chicanery, and peace. With such a mentor surely the young prince could not go wrong, theythought. But Don Juan was stronger than the secretary. Juan de Escobedo was quickly gained over to his ambitious views, more completely than Soto had been, and was soon perfectly crazy to make his master Emperor of the Catholic East.