Philip and Mayenne—The English attack upon Lisbon—Assassination of Henry III.—Philip’s plans in France—The war of the League—The battle of Ivry—Philip’s attitude towards Mayenne—Farnese enters France—Relief of Paris—Retirement of Farnese—Philip changes his plans in France—Farnese’s second campaign—Henry IV. goes to mass—Enters Paris as king—Exit of the Spaniards.
Philip and Mayenne—The English attack upon Lisbon—Assassination of Henry III.—Philip’s plans in France—The war of the League—The battle of Ivry—Philip’s attitude towards Mayenne—Farnese enters France—Relief of Paris—Retirement of Farnese—Philip changes his plans in France—Farnese’s second campaign—Henry IV. goes to mass—Enters Paris as king—Exit of the Spaniards.
HENRYIII. thought by one stroke to rid himself of his enemies by killing Guise, and terrorising his party. “At last,” he said to his mother, immediately after the execution, “at last I am King of France.” “You have plunged your country into ruin,” replied Catharine. “You have boldly cut out the cloth, but do not know how to sew the garment together.” She spoke truly, for she knew her son. When the news reached Paris a great gust of rage passed over the city. It was Christmas Day, but all rejoicing turned to sorrow, and dirges took the place of Te Deums. From the pulpits thundered denunciations of the royal murderer, and by the middle of January (1589) the Sorbonne, under the promptings of the Spanish party, had declared that the subjects of Henry III. were released from their allegiance. A council of government was formed, with Mayenne, Guise’s brother, as president and lieutenant-generalof the realm. All through France the example of Paris was followed, and the League was soon the great governing power of the country, Henry finding himself little more than King of Blois. He was therefore obliged to draw closer to Henry of Navarre; and at first Philip feared that this coalition would unite all Frenchmen against him, now that the popular Guise had fallen. But Mayenne had no one else to lean upon, and in the first letter after his brother’s death told the Spanish king that the whole of the Catholics of France threw themselves at his feet. Henceforward the springs that moved the puppets in Catholic France obtained their impulsion from Madrid. Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, although he had kept a few miles from the king’s court at Blois, had since the murder of Guise become more and more incensed with him, as he drifted nearer to the Huguenot cause, and now fled from the king’s court without a word of farewell to Paris, in the pretended fear that Henry intended to have him poisoned. Henceforward the old soldier, the last disciple of Alba, as he called himself, was tireless in organising and stimulating the resistance of the people of Paris against the king and the Huguenots. He was old and blind, but he went from outpost to outpost animating the soldiers; he laboured day and night with the nuncio, Gaetano, in stiffening Mayenne, and until his last ducat was spent and he had no food or firing for himself, he sheltered and fed the starving and homeless Leaguers. Through all the weary sieges of Paris, until broken and blind at last he went to end his days in despair as a monk, Mendoza continued to urge Philip to action against the Huguenots, to resist theinsults offered to himself, to harry France with fire and sword in the name of the faith—the counsels, indeed, of the old Alba school to which he belonged. Philip, as usual, was cool and irresponsive. He told his minister—when he condescended to write to him at all, which was very rarely—that he must be patient and prudent, and must seek to be friendly with all parties. Philip, indeed, was far from pleased at the drift of affairs in France. It was evident thus early that Mayenne was a weak reed upon whom to depend, and now that Protestantism and legitimate royalty in France were united, he (Philip) did not believe in the permanency of the League. All his life he had been manœuvring against France becoming officially Protestant, which would have foreboded the dreaded coalition of France, England, Holland, and the northern powers against him. His treasury, moreover, was drained almost to its last ducat by the catastrophe of the Armada, and terrifying rumours were reaching him from his spies in England of a great fleet of revenge being fitted out by Drake to invade his own shores, in conjunction with an attack across the Pyrenees by the forces of Henry of Navarre. Drake and Norris, however, with their joint-stock fleet in the interests of Don Antonio, turned out to be less formidable opponents on this occasion than had been feared. Philip was dangerously ill, and sick at heart. The Portuguese populace was almost entirely in favour of the native pretender, and was pledged to rise when he appeared. There were no adequate forces in Spain to resist an attack, and if the English expedition had not been entirely mismanaged from the first, there is but little doubt that Philip’s rule in Portugal might easily have been ended. Want ofmoney, shortness of provisions, and utter indiscipline of the men on the English fleet, contributed the germs of failure to the enterprise, and the waste of ten days in burning and sacking the lower town at Corunna, where the sickness and laxity caused by the drunkenness of the men practically disabled the English force, gave the stout-hearted Archduke Albert in Lisbon time to organise the defence and dominate the Portuguese by terror. In the meanwhile, too, Philip’s council in Madrid conquered their first paralysis of dismay, and took such hasty measures as were possible to repel the invasion. The fatal insistence also of Norris and Don Antonio to leave Drake and his fleet at Peniche whilst they marched overland to besiege Lisbon, placed the crown of disaster on the attempt. For Antonio had overrated his support. Only priests and a few peasants joined his standard. Lisbon was completely dominated by the archduke, and no Portuguese dared to raise a head, for fear of losing it. So when Norris and his 12,000 Englishmen appeared outside Lisbon (May 21, 1589), without siege-train or battering guns, they found the gates fast closed against them, and after a week of fruitless bloodshed they had sadly to retrace their steps again and join Drake’s fleet at the mouth of the river. Of 18,000 men that sailed out of Plymouth only about 6000 ever returned, and Don Antonio’s chance of reigning again in Portugal had gone for ever.
In August 1589 Mendoza wrote from Paris in jubilant strains. The king (Henry III.) had been besieging the capital with 40,000 men, and it could have held out no longer. Mayenne had lost heart, the much-prayed-for Spanish troops to help them came not.Despair reigned in the League, when suddenly the last of the Valois, Henry III., in his turn, fell under the dagger of the fanatic monk Jacques Clement. “It was the hand of God,” said Mendoza, “that has done this for His greater glory, and for the advantage of His religion.” Philip, however, never loved the idea of the killing of kings, and was not so enthusiastic about this as was his ambassador. He was no hero; and if fanatics began killing anointed monarchs there was no telling where such an example would stop.
The event, moreover, added much to his present perplexity. If Guise had lived, and Henry of Navarre had been amenable to reason, the realm of France might have been divided between Guise, Navarre, the Infanta, the Duke of Savoy, and Philip; but the Huguenot king had assumed the sovereignty of the whole country as soon as Henry III. fell, and had already shown that he was a soldier and diplomatist of the highest order, whom no cajolery would induce to surrender any portion of his birthright. And yet it was a matter of life and death to Philip that France should not become a heretic power, and he was obliged to tackle the monster with what strength he had left.
The first impulse of the governing council of the League in Paris on the news of the death of the king was to elect Philip sovereign of France, but the idea of the Guises had always been to obtain all or part of the realm for themselves, and consequently Mayenne procured the proclamation in Paris of Henry of Navarre’s uncle, Cardinal de Bourbon, as Charles X. He was understood to be only a stop-gap, for he was old, foolish, and childless, and the problem of the fate of France was still held insuspense. But they could never even catch their king, for his nephew Henry seized him before the Leaguers could reach him, and he never let him go again. It is certain that by this time Philip had slowly made up his mind that, as he mainly would have to fight and destroy Protestantism in France, he alone should enjoy the reward. If the affair could have been settled cheaply and without fighting, the Lorraines, the Savoys, the Bourbons, and his own House might have divided the spoil; but if his arms and money had to win the reward, it must be his, and his alone. It was the most disastrous resolution he could have taken in his own interest, for it enabled Henry of Navarre to assume the position of the patriot withstanding foreign aggression; and gradually drew to him crowds of Frenchmen, who otherwise would have stood aloof. After the king’s death Henry IV. abandoned the siege of Paris and rapidly moved to Normandy, where Elizabeth’s subsidies and the aid from his own Rochelle might reach him. Then he began that brilliant series of victories over Mayenne that commenced at Arques. Through a country already rallying to his national banner, he marched to Paris again. He struck terror into the Leaguers and Spanish inside, who were intriguing for the crown of France, which the great Bourbon was winning by his sword; and, after harrying St. Germains, he again marched on to attack Mayenne’s main army at Dreux. The Spanish Leaguers from Flanders were commanded by Egmont, the son of the man whom Alba had killed. His cavalry at first charged Henry’s infantry and broke it. Then the king himself, with his white plume for a guide, led his 2000 horsemen like a whirlwind against the Leaguers. Nothing could standbefore them. The German mercenaries dropped their arms and fled, the Lorrainers and Egmont’s Walloons were swept away by the irresistible avalanche, and the battle of Ivry was won (March 14, 1590). Then without a pause Paris found itself again encircled with the victorious troops of the Béarnais. The sufferings of the rebel city and the events of the struggle cannot be recounted here. Philip’s far-off share in them alone concerns us for the moment. It is said by those who were near Philip at the time, that the news of Mayenne’s rout at Ivry was not entirely displeasing to him. It had been evident to the Spaniards for some time that Mayenne would take the first opportunity of causing himself to be proclaimed king in Paris. Mendoza and Moreo, the Spanish agents in Paris, were already sounding notes of alarm about him in their letters to the king, and Philip must have known, now he had lost Ivry, that, come what might, Mayenne’s chance had gone. It had become certain that, if Henry IV. was to be beaten at all, it must be by an experienced warrior like Alexander Farnese with great national forces, that France indeed must be conquered before Philip could be called its king. The alternative, however, seemed to be a Protestant rival nation on his frontier, and an entire alteration of the balance of Europe, in which he would be left isolated and impotent; and he must fight to the death to prevent that. Farnese had lost much of his popularity since the Armada, and he fretted at the fact. He knew that doubts wore whispered to his uncle, not only of his loyalty, but even of his orthodoxy; and, although Philip expressed himself as being quite satisfied with his explanations about the Armada, Farnese feared that his constant ill-healthforeboded death by poison. He was weary, too, with the petty war of treachery, surprises, and skirmishes which still continued between him and the Dutchmen under William the Silent’s son, Maurice. It was like new life to him when at last he got the stirring news from Philip that he was to conquer France for the Church and for the House of Spain. But for the Salic law, the Infanta would undoubtedly have been the heiress to the crown, and Philip made light of the Salic law, and boldly asserted his daughter’s right. Farnese was, above all things, a prudent commander, and insisted upon having sufficient resources for the business he had to do, and his persistence on this point again raised rumours against him. Philip’s principal agent in France, Moreo, did not hesitate to say that he was a traitor, who was plotting for his own ends; and the Spanish nobles about Farnese’s person, seeing which way the tide was running, joined in the sneers at his slowness. But he would not move, leaving Flanders unprotected, and risking his fame and life, by crossing the frontier with an inadequate force. His insistence at length gained his point, and large remittances were sent to him from Madrid, with which he could organise a good force of 13,000 men; and by August 23 he joined Mayenne at Meaux and marched to attack Henry’s besieging army before Paris. Some provisions were passed into the famished city, the siege was partly raised, and soon the tactical skill of Farnese began to tell upon Henry’s army, which was melting away with discouragement. He once more abandoned the siege, and the League army entered Paris on September 18, 1590. But then began the feeling that eventually led even the Parisians towelcome Henry. Farnese made no pretence to respect Mayenne’s authority, and the Frenchmen who had looked upon the Spanish forces as their allies found now to their dismay that they were their masters. Mayenne himself was inclined to be sulky and rebellious, and it was necessary for Farnese to teach him and Paris that they were powerless without Spanish troops; so he and his force once more marched towards the Flemish frontier, and Paris was again invested. Philip’s fanatic councillors insisted that Farnese had abandoned the task because of his want of sympathy, and the king grew colder still towards his nephew, and somewhat changed his plans. It must now have been evident to him that the French nation would not willingly accept him or his daughter as sovereign, and he reverted to his former idea of dismemberment. The Infanta really had a good claim to the duchy of Brittany, which had never formed part of the French realm, and was excepted from the action of the Salic law. The Duke of Mercœur, whose wife was also descended from the House of Brittany, had been holding the province for the League, and was hard pressed. He begged for aid from Philip, who sent him a force of 5000 men under Don Juan del Aguila, whilst the Duke of Savoy, Philip’s son-in-law, had entered Marseilles with his army, Toulouse was garrisoned by 4000 Spaniards, and all Provence and Dauphiné was falling under the Savoy-Spanish yoke. The Spaniards in Brittany were not long in showing their teeth. They seized and fortified Blavet and other ports against Mercœur himself, and this brought Elizabeth on the scene with 3000 English troops. She could never have the Spaniards in ports opposite her shores, she said. And so practicallyall over France little wars were being waged. The country, utterly desolated and exhausted, yearned for peace and firm government before all things, and gradually came to the conclusion that they were more likely to obtain them from their own countryman, Henry, than from the Spanish king and his hangers-on. At the same time Philip’s treasury had become more and more depleted and his credit quite ruined with the bankers. He was, moreover, himself old and weary with never-ending labour at small details, and decided to strike a supreme blow once more to end heresy in France before he gave up the struggle in despair. Farnese therefore, to his annoyance this time (for he was obliged to leave Maurice of Nassau in undisturbed possession of Holland), received fresh orders from the king in September 1591 once more to cross the frontier and end the fight.
He found the leaders of the League all at discord one with the other and with the Spaniards. Mayenne’s vanity and greed had disgusted every one, and it soon became apparent to Farnese that no aid towards Spanish aims could be gained from him. He had, indeed, selfishly done his best only a few months before to impede the solution which might have drawn a majority of Frenchmen to the side of the League and the Spaniards, namely, the marriage of the Infanta with the young Duke of Guise. Henry IV. was besieging Rouen with an army of 20,000 men, nearly all mercenary Germans and English, and although his energy somewhat delayed Parma’s advance, when the latter reached Rouen he found Mayenne disinclined to accept the assistance of the Spaniards, such was his growingjealousy of them, owing partly to the diplomacy of Henry. It was not until the end of April 1592 that Parma entered Rouen in triumph. But the triumph did not last long. Parma was wounded and seriously ill, and found his supplies cut off and his force hemmed in by Henry. It was only by consummate strategy that he withdrew with the loss of nearly half his men to Flanders, there to die in December of the same year (1592). Philip could not now shut his eyes to the fact that he had lost. Frenchmen of all classes hated the idea of Spanish domination, Mayenne and the Catholics understood that the Béarnais was going to win, for he had taken the patriotic side, and they began to cast about for means to secure themselves from ruin. If the king would only go to mass, all might be well. Henry on his side was also desirous of coming to terms. The war had desolated France, and the time was ripe for an arrangement. When, however, in January 1593, the Estates met in the Louvre, a last attempt was made by the Spanish party to have their way by diplomacy. Feria, the son of Philip’s old friend by his English wife, entered Paris as the king’s representative to claim the crown for the Infanta, who might be married to a French prince, to be chosen by Philip, or if the Estates refused this, that the crown should be given to the Duke of Guise, who might marry the Infanta. If Philip had proposed the latter solution first, it might have been accepted; but whilst Feria was bickering over the Infanta’s impossible claim, and losing precious weeks in communicating with his distant master almost daily, Henry, outside the city, was busy gaining over the Estates, showing himself gay, confident, conciliating, and,above all, French. Gabrielle d’Estrées, thepoliticians, the Leaguers, the clergy, and his own interests, all urged him to conform to the Catholic faith. On July 25, 1593, he took what he called “the mortal leap,” and attended mass at St. Denis. In March 1594 the Béarnais entered Paris as king. The next day, through a pitiless storm, the Spanish garrison, with Feria, marched out of the gate of St. Denis. “Commend me to your master, gentlemen,” cried Henry, “but come back hither no more.” The war lingered on until Philip was nearly dying in 1598. Spanish troops still held parts of Picardy and French Flanders, and once Amiens fell into their hands, but at the end of the period even Mayenne commanded the French forces against them; and pride, and belief in the divine support, alone prevented Philip from making terms before. Henry at last listened to the promptings of the pope, and made peace with his enemy alone. He broke faith with Elizabeth and the Dutch, but he consolidated once more the French nation. Philip’s ill-starred attempts to dominate France had thus failed, but he had succeeded in preventing it from becoming a Protestant Power.
Blighting influence of Philip’s system on his officers—Effects of Philip’s routine on the administration—Social condition of Spain and the colonies—Dr. Lopez and Antonio Perez—Philip II. and Tyrone’s rebellion—The English sacking of Cadiz—Philip’s resignation—His last illness and death—Results of his life—Causes of the decadence of the Spanish power.
Blighting influence of Philip’s system on his officers—Effects of Philip’s routine on the administration—Social condition of Spain and the colonies—Dr. Lopez and Antonio Perez—Philip II. and Tyrone’s rebellion—The English sacking of Cadiz—Philip’s resignation—His last illness and death—Results of his life—Causes of the decadence of the Spanish power.
THEdeath of Alexander Farnese had removed from Philip’s service the last of the great men of his reign. He had been treated by his master in the same way that all the rest of them had been—with cold half-confidence and veiled suspicion. There is nothing more surprising—more pitiable—in the phenomena of Philip’s reign than the way in which he pressed men of the highest gifts into his service, only to break their hearts and spirits by his tardiness of action and inexpansiveness of mind. His system left no room for independent judgment on the part of his instruments, and any attempt to exercise it met with the passive, stony resistance, against which one ardent soul after another dashed itself to death. As Philip grew older, and his periodical attacks of illness became more frequent, the vast tide of papers which flowed into the king’s cell became moreand more unmanageable. He had no sense of proportion whatever, and would frequently waste hours of precious time over ridiculous trifles—the choice of an unimportant word, the ordering of a religious procession, or the strictly private affairs of his subjects,—whilst matters of the highest import to the welfare of his great empire were allowed to drag on for months without decision.
The centralising system had now been established to his satisfaction, and from all four quarters of the earth viceroys, governors, ministers, and spies sent their contribution of papers to Madrid. Everything came under the eyes of the monarch, toiling early and late, even when his malady stretched him on a sick-bed. The council that surrounded him in his last years was composed of very different men from the Granvelles, the Albas, the Ruy Gomezes, or even the Perezes, who had served him in his prime. The principal secretary of state was Don Juan de Idiaquez, one of the indefatigable writers whom Philip loved. No detail was too small for Idiaquez. With his swift-current clerkly hand he wrote day and night, deciphering, drafting, annotating. Every day after the king’s frugal early dinner Idiaquez came with his bundle of papers, and was closeted with him until nightfall. The communications had been opened, considered, and reported upon by the council during the previous night, and the results were now submitted to Philip. The second secretary, Don Cristobal de Moura, had charge especially of Portuguese and Castilian affairs. He had to report his budget of council minutes whilst the king was dressing in the morning, and the Count de Chinchon had audience for the affairs of Italy, Aragon, and the south of Spain at, and after, theking’s dinner. Every draft despatch was read and noted by the king; Mateo Vasquez, the sly enemy who had hunted Perez, being always at his side to help him. Whilst the king of the greatest realm on earth, and four men with the minds of superior clerks, were thus immersed in endless papers, the social condition of Spain went from bad to worse. The efforts of Philip had been directed towards making his people as rigid as monks. Pragmatics had been showered upon Spain, prohibiting for the hundredth time luxury or splendour in dress, furniture, and appointments, restricting the use of carriages, abolishing courtesy titles. No person was allowed to be educated out of Spain, and all attempts at introducing science in any form were sternly suppressed by the Inquisition. The most slavish and extravagant conformity in religious observance was enforced, but the loosest and most licentious conversation was tolerated. The women of Spain had in previous times been modest, almost austere and oriental in their retirement. They now became perfectly scandalous in their freedom, and remained a bye-word for the rest of civilised Europe for a century afterwards. Camillo Borghese was sent by the pope to Madrid in 1593, and thus speaks of the state of affairs at that time: “The main street of Madrid ... is unutterably filthy, and almost impassable on foot. The better class of ladies are always in carriages or litters, whilst the humbler folk ride on donkey-back or pick their way through the mire. The ladies are naturally shameless, presumptuous, and abrupt, and even in the streets go up and address men unknown to them, looking upon it as a kind of heresy to be properly introduced. They admit all sorts of men totheir conversation, and are not in the least scandalised at the most improper proposals being made to them.” Philip’s pragmatics were useless. Extravagance checked in one direction broke out in others, and in the midst of the most appalling poverty, luxury and waste ran riot. The immense loss of life in constant wars, and the vast emigration to America, had depopulated wide tracts of country, and the laws which favoured the aggregation of property in the hands of the Church had turned whole towns into ecclesiastical settlements. The friars had grown more insolent as their riches increased, and as the king’s slavishness to their cloth became more abject, and now during his last years their power was practically supreme in the king’s court.
Whilst Philip’s system had reduced his own country to this state, the ships of Drake, Ralegh, Hawkins, Cumberland, and the rest of them were harrying the Indies, the English were trading openly with Spanish settlements in spite of royal prohibition, and in the insensate thirst for gold, the Spanish colonists were wiping out whole nations of inoffensive Indians who were unable or unwilling to satisfy their greed. The missionary friars sometimes raised their voices against the wholesale murder of their possible converts, but they cried in vain, for Philip’s hide-bound system only referred the protests against the slaughter to the men who perpetrated it. Philip’s American possessions consequently were enriching his enemies rather than himself, and, as Ralegh said, were furnishing the means for them to carry on war against him. In the meanwhile his own coasts, both of Italy and Spain, were practically undefended. The loss of the Armada had been a blow both to hiscredit and to his naval power, from which he could never entirely recover, and neither men, money, nor ships could easily be obtained.
Perez lived caressed and flattered in Essex House, and knew all that passed in Spain. Everything which his wickedness and malice could devise to injure his enemy he urged with ceaseless pertinacity. He persuaded the queen that her physician, the Jew Dr. Lopez, had plotted with Philip to murder her. There was just enough foundation to give a plausible appearance to the assertion, and Lopez was executed (June 7, 1594). That he was ready to undertake such commissions is doubtless true, but evidence is now forthcoming which tends to show that in this case Perez lied, and that Lopez was innocent.[4]
The accusation, however, was believed by Elizabeth and her ministers, and when Perez proposed to his ambitious patron Essex a plan for revenging his mistress he was eager to listen. But there was another reason as well. The English Catholic refugees were still intriguing, and urging Philip to take action to secure the crown of England for the Infanta on Elizabeth’s death, whilst the Scots Catholics were endeavouring to gain it for James, under their auspices if possible. Now that a direct invasion of England by Philip was acknowledged to be impossible, it was constantly pressed upon him by the English exiles that he might disturb and paralyse Elizabeth by sending armed support to the Irish Catholics. The complete collapse of the Desmond rebellion in Munster, and the slaughter of the papalSpanish contingent (1580) had made Philip cautious; so when Irish priests and emissaries came to him from Tyrone and O’Donnell, he had been, as usual, vaguely sympathetic, and took means to discover the real strength behind them before he pledged himself. Spanish officers were sent to spy out the land and report upon the capabilities of Tyrone. The latter was still keeping up an appearance of great loyalty to the English, but his correspondence with Philip was well known in London, as well as the hopes and promises sent from Spain to the Irish Catholics. It would be a great stroke if the fleet, which spies stated was fitting out for Ireland, could be destroyed. As a matter of fact, Philip was so poor that he could do but little to help Tyrone; and for years afterwards the agonised appeals of the Irish Catholics were only answered by fair words and tardy, inadequate, and ineffectual assistance. But for the moment Elizabeth was led to believe that a powerful invasion of Ireland was imminent.
When it came to finding the money and incurring the responsibility of a direct invasion of Spain, however, the queen more than once drew back, and it required all hot-headed Essex’s personal influence to bring her to the point. At last when the commission was granted, the precedent of the ill-fated Portuguese expedition of 1589 was followed. The first object was, as then, stated to be the destruction of the King of Spain’s fleet, and, secondly, the attack upon the homeward-bound Indian flotilla. Only as a doubtful resource was a rich town to be attacked. As in 1589, the command was to be divided—on this occasion between Lord-Admiral Howard and Essex, with Ralegh as lieutenant. It was difficult toget men to serve. “As fast as we press men on one day,” writes Ralegh, “they run away the next.”
The fleets left Plymouth on June 3, 1596. They were divided into four English squadrons of nearly equal strength, the aggregate consisting of 17 queen’s ships, 76 freighted ships, and some small craft, while the Dutch squadron had 24 sail. The crews in all amounted to 16,000 men.
It was known that in Cadiz was concentrated the greater part of what was left of Philip’s naval strength, and the city was the richest in Spain. Ranged underneath the walls were 8 war galleys, and 17 galleons and frigates were in the harbour, whilst 40 great ships were loading for Mexico and elsewhere.
On June 20 (O.S.) the fleets appeared before Cadiz, and, thanks to Ralegh’s intervention, a combined attack was first made upon the shipping. Essex cast his plumed hat into the sea in his exultation when he heard the news. At dawn next morning Ralegh led the van in theWar-sprite. The city was taken by surprise and was panic-stricken, but the Spanish ships in harbour had assumed some attitude of defence. The effect of Philip’s system had been, as we have seen, to paralyse initiative in his officers, and when there was no time to communicate with him they were lost. After a few shots had been fired, Sotomayor, the admiral, withdrew the ships he could save to the end of the bay at Puerto Real, out of reach of the English guns. At night, before the decisive attack, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the craven of the Armada, but still Philip’s high admiral, arrived. As usual, he could only look on helplessly, whilst the English squadronssailed into the harbour, sank two great galleons, then landed the soldiers, stormed the old crumbling walls and seized the city, almost without resistance. The terror inspired now by the English at sea perfectly dominated the Spaniards. The fortress of Cadiz was ruinous, the guns were old and dirty, ammunition was short, and after two days of starvation the defenders made terms of surrender. Every ship in harbour was burnt or sunk, either by the English or the Spaniards themselves, and the terrified sailors had been drowned by hundreds, out of sheer fright at the “devilish folk.” There were 5000 Spanish women who had taken refuge in the fortress. They were allowed to leave without the slightest molestation, and the English commanders even provided boats to convey the nuns and sick from the hospitals to a place of safety. Then for fifteen days the city was submitted to a systematic pillage. Nothing was left, and the richest city in Spain was reduced to a smoking wreck.
“Neither ship, nor fleet, nor Cadiz remains,” wrote Medina Sidonia to Philip. The fighting, such as it was, had only lasted three hours, and there had been destroyed, mostly by the Spaniards, 13 Spanish men-of-war, all the war galleys, and 40 of the best merchantmen in Spain, with merchandise worth 11,000,000 ducats. The fortresses and defences were razed to the ground, the first maritime city in the country was destroyed, and the seal stamped deep on the final decadence of Spain.
Philip’s system had brought him to this. He could not defend his own harbours, much less avenge the injuries done to him. Henry IV. had beaten him inFrance, the Nassaus had beaten him in Holland, the English had beaten him on the sea. He was utterly bankrupt, his country ruined, his dream of the universal predominance of Catholicism, and the omnipotence of Spain proved to be a chimera. He was old and weary, suffering incessant bodily agony, and yet with all this he never lost his faith in his divine mission and the final success of his cause. “Thy will, God, be done, not mine,” says an eye-witness of his last days, were the words constantly on his lips.
During the spring of 1598 the king was almost unable to move from gout, but still continued his work at his papers. At the end of June he was carried to the Escorial in a litter, and soon afterwards malignant tumours broke out in various parts of his limbs. The pain of his malady was so intense that he could not even endure a cloth to touch the parts, and he lay slowly rotting to death for fifty-three dreadful days, without a change of garments or the proper cleansing of his sores.
Through all the repulsive and pitiful circumstances that accompanied his last illness his patience and serenity never left him. His awful sufferings were borne without a plaint, and his constant words were those of resignation and assurance of divine forgiveness for his sins. Night and day, ceaselessly around him, went on the propitiatory offices of his Church; through the weary hours of pain the eyes of the dying king were fixed in ecstasy on the holy emblems, and often in his anguish of devotion he would bite and worry the coarse crucifix which never left him, the same crucifix that had been grasped by the dying hands of the emperor.On August 16 the nuncio brought him the papal blessing and plenary absolution. Philip by this time was incapable of moving, a mere mass of vermin and repulsive wounds, but his spirit conquered the frailty of the flesh, and he fervently repeated his immovable faith in the Church and the cause to which he had devoted his life. On September 1, in the presence of his son and daughter Isabel, the extreme unction for the dying was administered, and although he had hitherto been so weak as to be inaudible, he suddenly surprised the priests by himself reading in a loud voice the last office of the Church. When the administrant, fearing to tire him, said that it was unnecessary to repeat the office when the sacrament was administered, the dying man objected: “Oh yes, say it again and again, for it is very good.”
Then all the attendants were sent from the room, and Philip was left alone with his son. “I meant to save you this scene,” he said, “but I wish you to see how the monarchies of the earth end. You see that God has denuded me of all the glory and majesty of a monarch in order to hand them to you. In a very few hours I shall be covered only with a poor shroud and girded with a coarse rope. The king’s crown is already falling from my brows, and death will place it on yours. Two things I especially commend to you: one is that you keep always faithful to the Holy Catholic Church, and the other is that you treat your subjects justly. This crown will some day fall away from your head, as it now falls from mine. You are young, as I was once. My days are numbered and draw to a close; the tale of yours God alone knows, but they too must end.”
This was Philip’s farewell to his royal state, for he concerned himself no more with mundane affairs. Patient, kindly solicitous for those around him, in gentle faith and serene resignation, he waited for his release. On September 11, two days before he died, he took a last farewell of his son, and of his beloved daughter, the Infanta Isabel, who for years had been his chief solace and constant companion, even in his hours of labour. He was leaving her the sovereignty of the Netherlands, in union with the Archduke Albert, whom she was to marry, and he urged her to uphold inviolate the Catholic faith in her dominions. The farewell was an affecting one for the Infanta, but the father was serene through it all. When it was ended he gave to his confessor, Father Yepes, his political testament for his son, copied from the exhortations of St. Louis. He would fain have taken the sacrament again, but Moura was obliged to tell him that the physicians feared he was too weak to swallow the host. Towards the next night Moura warned him that his hour had nearly come, and he smiled gratefully when he heard it. All through the dragging night in the small gloomy chamber the prayers and dirges for the dying went on. When for a moment they ceased, the dying king would urge their continuance. “Fathers,” he said, “go on. The nearer I draw to the fountain, the greater grows my thirst.” During the night the watchers thought the great change had come, and hastily placed in the king’s hand a blessed candle he had kept for many years to illumine his last moments upon earth. But he was still collected. “No,” he said, “not yet. The time has not come.”
Between three and four in the morning, as the firstpale streaks of coming dawn glimmered beyond the stony peaks of the Guadarramas, Philip turned to Fernando de Toledo, who was at his bedside, and whispered, “Give it to me; it is time now”; and as he took the sacred taper, his face was all irradiated with smiles. His truckle bed almost overlooked the high altar of the cathedral, the building of which had been his pride, and already the shrill voices of the choristers far below were heard singing the early mass which he had endowed long ago for his own spiritual welfare. With this sound in his ears and prayers upon his lips, his last moments ebbed away. When those around him thought that all was over and had fallen to weeping, he suddenly opened his eyes again and fixed them immovably on the crucifix. He shut them no more, and as they glazed into awful stoniness he gave three little gasps, and Philip the Prudent had passed beyond. He died gripping the poor crucifix which still rests upon his breast, and he was buried inclosed in the coffin he had had made from the timbers of theCinco Chagas, one of the great galleons that had fought the heretics. In the awful jasper charnel-house at the Escorial, which will ever be the most fitting monument of his hard and joyless life, his body has rested through three centuries of detraction and misunderstanding.
Through all the tribulations and calamities that have afflicted his country, the affectionate regard in which Spaniards bear the memory of Philip the Prudent has never waned. His father was an infinitely greater man, but he has no such place in the hearts of his countrymen, for Philip was a true Spaniard to the core, a faithful concentration of the qualities, good and evil, ofthe nation he loved. If Spaniards were narrow and rigid in their religious views, it was the natural result of centuries of struggle, foot to foot with the infidel; if they were regardless of human suffering in the furtherance of their objects, it was because they lavishly and eagerly gave up their own lives for the same ends, and oriental fatalism had been grafted upon Gothic stubbornness in their national character. But they, like their king, were patient, faithful, dutiful, and religious.
Philip was born to a hopeless battle. Spain, always a poor country of itself, was saddled by the marriage of Philip’s grandparents with a European foreign policy which cursed it with continuous wars for a century. The tradition he had inherited, and his own knowledge, showed him that his only chance of safety was to maintain a close political alliance with England. We have seen how, by fair means and by foul, he strove to this end through a long life, and how from the mere force of circumstances it was unattainable. Spain’s power was imperilled from the moment that Philip the Handsome brought the inheritance of Burgundy to Jane the Mad, and the doom was sealed when Henry Tudor cast his eyes upon Anne Boleyn; for the first event made a fixed alliance with England vital, and the second made it impossible. It may be objected that if a man of nimble mind and easy conscience had been in Philip’s place, and had fought Elizabeth, Catharine, and Orange with their own weapons of tergiversation and religious opportunism, the result might have been different, as it also might have been if he had opened his mind to new ideas and accepted the reformed faith. But apart from his mental qualities, and his monastic training, whichmade such an attitude impossible for him, his party had been chosen for him before his birth, and he inherited the championship of obscurantism, as he inherited the task which obscurantism was powerless to perform. Burdened thus, as he was, with an inherited work for which neither he, nor his inherited means, was adequate, it was only natural that he should adopt the strange views of the semi-divinity of himself and his mission that so deeply coloured most of the acts of his life. The descendant and the ancestor of a line of religious mystics, he looked upon himself as only an exalted instrument of a higher power. Philip of Austria could not be defeated, because Philip of Austria was not fighting. It was God’s battle, not his; and he might well be calm in the face of reverses that would have broken another man’s heart; for he knew, as he often said, that in the long-run the Almighty would fight for His own hand, and that defeat for Him was impossible. Where his reasoning was weak was in the assumption that the cause of the Almighty and the interests of Philip of Austria were necessarily identical.
ALISTof some of the printed authorities upon which the present monograph has been based, in addition to the unpublished State papers at Simancas, in the Archives Nationales (Paris), and in the British Museum, etc.:—
Calendar of Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, Rolls Series, volumes i. to iv., 1892-1897.Prescott,History of the Reign of Philip II., 3 volumes, London, 1855.Estudios sobre Felipe II.(translation of articles by G. Maurenbrecher, M. Philippson, and C. Justi, with prologue and appendices by Ricardo Hinojosa), Madrid, 1887, 1 volume.Cabrera de Cordoba,Felipe II. Rey de España, Madrid, 1619.Leti Gregorio,Vita del Catolico Ré Filippo II., Cologne, 1679.Porreño,Vida y Hechos del Señor Rey Felipe II., el Prudente(new edition), Valladolid, 1863.Cervero de la Torre,Testimonio autentico y verdadero de las cosas notables que pasaron en la dichosa muerte del Rey Felipe II.(an account of Philip’s death by his Chaplain), Valencia, 1589, 1 volume.Fernandez Montaña,Nueva Luz y verdad historica sobre Felipe II.(an unrestrained panegyric of Philip from a Catholic priest’s point of view), Madrid, 1891, 1 volume.Fernandez Montaña,Mas Luz y verdad historica sobre Felipe II. el Prudente(supplement to the same), Madrid, 1892, 1 volume.Correspondence de Granvelle(edited by C. Piot), Brussels, 1884.Papiers d’État de Granvelle(edited by Weiss), Paris, 1843.H. Forneron,Histoire de Philippe II., Paris, 1880.Martin Hume,The Year after the Armada(for accounts of Philip’s marriage, the English attack on Portugal, the social condition of Spain, etc.), London, 1896, 1 volume.Documentos ineditos para la historia de España, Madrid, in progress. (A large number of these volumes contain valuable papers referring to the reign of Philip II.)Flores,Reinas Catolicas, Madrid, 1770 (an account of the Queens of Spain).Philippson,Ein Ministerium unter Philipp II., Berlin, 1895 (an account of Granvelle’s ministry in Spain, 1579-1586).Gachard,Correspondence de Philip II., Brussels (correspondence mainly on Flemish affairs).Gachard,Correspondence de Philippe II. avec ses filles, Paris, 1884, 1 volume (familiar letters from the king to his two children in 1580-1581).M. la Fuente,Historia General de España, Madrid, 1885.Strada,Histoire de la Guerre de Flandre, Brussels, 1712, 3 volumes.Muro, Gaspar,La Princesa de Eboli, Madrid, 1877, 1 volume (with valuable preface by Señor Canovas de Castillo).Perez Antonio,Relaciones, etc., Geneva, 1649, 1 volume.Mignet,Antonio Perez et Philippe II., Paris, 1881.Llorente,Histoire critique de l’Inquisition, Paris, 1817.Fernandez Duro,Estudios historicos del Reinado de Felipe II., Madrid, 1890 (an account of the disaster of Los Gelves, etc.).Fernandez Duro,La Armada Invencible, 2 volumes, Madrid, 1885 (a Spanish account of the Armada).Baumstark,Philippe II. Roi d’Espagne(French translation by G. Kurth), Liège, 1877 (German Catholic view of the king).Du Prat,Elizabeth de Valois, Paris, 1850 (Life of Philip’s third wife).Ranke,Zur Geschichte des Don Carlos(in the “Wiener Jahrbüchen der Literatur,” vol. xlvi., gives all the early relations about Don Carlos), Vienna, 1829.Schmidt,Epochen und Katastrophen: Don Carlos und Philipp II., Berlin, 1864 (against Philip).Alberi,Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti, 15 volumes, Firenze, 1839-1863.V. la Fuente,Historia eclesiastica de España, Madrid, 1874.Calendars of Venetian State Papers, Rolls Series, in progress.Sepulveda,De Rebus Gestis Philippi II., Opera, vol. ii., Madrid, 1780.Motley,The Rise of the Dutch Republic, London, 1859.Gachard,Don Carlos et Philippe II., Brussels, 1863.Campana,Vita del catolico Don Filippo secondo, con le guerre dei suoi tempi(Vicenza, 1605).Calderon de la Barca, J. M.,Gloriosa defensa de Malta, Madrid, 1796 (best account of the siege of Malta).Morel Fatio,L’Espagne au 16meet 17meSiècles(accounts of Madrid, letters from Don Juan, etc.), Paris, 1878.Mendoza,Guerra de Granada, Valencia, 1795 (contemporary account of the Morisco war).
Calendar of Spanish State Papers, Elizabeth, Rolls Series, volumes i. to iv., 1892-1897.
Prescott,History of the Reign of Philip II., 3 volumes, London, 1855.
Estudios sobre Felipe II.(translation of articles by G. Maurenbrecher, M. Philippson, and C. Justi, with prologue and appendices by Ricardo Hinojosa), Madrid, 1887, 1 volume.
Cabrera de Cordoba,Felipe II. Rey de España, Madrid, 1619.
Leti Gregorio,Vita del Catolico Ré Filippo II., Cologne, 1679.
Porreño,Vida y Hechos del Señor Rey Felipe II., el Prudente(new edition), Valladolid, 1863.
Cervero de la Torre,Testimonio autentico y verdadero de las cosas notables que pasaron en la dichosa muerte del Rey Felipe II.(an account of Philip’s death by his Chaplain), Valencia, 1589, 1 volume.
Fernandez Montaña,Nueva Luz y verdad historica sobre Felipe II.(an unrestrained panegyric of Philip from a Catholic priest’s point of view), Madrid, 1891, 1 volume.
Fernandez Montaña,Mas Luz y verdad historica sobre Felipe II. el Prudente(supplement to the same), Madrid, 1892, 1 volume.
Correspondence de Granvelle(edited by C. Piot), Brussels, 1884.
Papiers d’État de Granvelle(edited by Weiss), Paris, 1843.
H. Forneron,Histoire de Philippe II., Paris, 1880.
Martin Hume,The Year after the Armada(for accounts of Philip’s marriage, the English attack on Portugal, the social condition of Spain, etc.), London, 1896, 1 volume.
Documentos ineditos para la historia de España, Madrid, in progress. (A large number of these volumes contain valuable papers referring to the reign of Philip II.)
Flores,Reinas Catolicas, Madrid, 1770 (an account of the Queens of Spain).
Philippson,Ein Ministerium unter Philipp II., Berlin, 1895 (an account of Granvelle’s ministry in Spain, 1579-1586).
Gachard,Correspondence de Philip II., Brussels (correspondence mainly on Flemish affairs).
Gachard,Correspondence de Philippe II. avec ses filles, Paris, 1884, 1 volume (familiar letters from the king to his two children in 1580-1581).
M. la Fuente,Historia General de España, Madrid, 1885.
Strada,Histoire de la Guerre de Flandre, Brussels, 1712, 3 volumes.
Muro, Gaspar,La Princesa de Eboli, Madrid, 1877, 1 volume (with valuable preface by Señor Canovas de Castillo).
Perez Antonio,Relaciones, etc., Geneva, 1649, 1 volume.
Mignet,Antonio Perez et Philippe II., Paris, 1881.
Llorente,Histoire critique de l’Inquisition, Paris, 1817.
Fernandez Duro,Estudios historicos del Reinado de Felipe II., Madrid, 1890 (an account of the disaster of Los Gelves, etc.).
Fernandez Duro,La Armada Invencible, 2 volumes, Madrid, 1885 (a Spanish account of the Armada).
Baumstark,Philippe II. Roi d’Espagne(French translation by G. Kurth), Liège, 1877 (German Catholic view of the king).
Du Prat,Elizabeth de Valois, Paris, 1850 (Life of Philip’s third wife).
Ranke,Zur Geschichte des Don Carlos(in the “Wiener Jahrbüchen der Literatur,” vol. xlvi., gives all the early relations about Don Carlos), Vienna, 1829.
Schmidt,Epochen und Katastrophen: Don Carlos und Philipp II., Berlin, 1864 (against Philip).
Alberi,Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti, 15 volumes, Firenze, 1839-1863.
V. la Fuente,Historia eclesiastica de España, Madrid, 1874.Calendars of Venetian State Papers, Rolls Series, in progress.
Sepulveda,De Rebus Gestis Philippi II., Opera, vol. ii., Madrid, 1780.
Motley,The Rise of the Dutch Republic, London, 1859.
Gachard,Don Carlos et Philippe II., Brussels, 1863.
Campana,Vita del catolico Don Filippo secondo, con le guerre dei suoi tempi(Vicenza, 1605).
Calderon de la Barca, J. M.,Gloriosa defensa de Malta, Madrid, 1796 (best account of the siege of Malta).
Morel Fatio,L’Espagne au 16meet 17meSiècles(accounts of Madrid, letters from Don Juan, etc.), Paris, 1878.
Mendoza,Guerra de Granada, Valencia, 1795 (contemporary account of the Morisco war).
THE ENDPrinted byR. & R. Clark, Limited,Edinburgh.