History of The Reign of Philip The Second King of Spain History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain Part 1

History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain.

by William H. Prescott.

PREFACE.

The reign of Philip the Second has occupied the pen of the historian more frequently--if we except that of Charles the Fifth--than any other portion of the Spanish annals. It has become familiar to the English reader through the pages of Watson, who has deservedly found favor with the public for the perspicuity of his style,--a virtue, however, not uncommon in his day,--for the sobriety of his judgments, and for the skill he has shown in arranging his complicated story, so as to maintain the reader's interest unbroken to the end. But the public, in Watson's day, were not very fastidious in regard to the sources of the information on which a narrative was founded. Nor was it easy to obtain access to those unpublished doc.u.ments which const.i.tute the best sources of information. Neither can it be denied that Watson himself was not so solicitous as he should have been to profit by opportunities which a little pains might have put within his reach,--presenting, in this respect, a contrast to his more celebrated predecessor, Robertson; that he contented himself too easily with such cheap and commonplace materials as lay directly in his path; and that, consequently, the foundations of his history are much too slight for the superstructure.

For these reasons, the reign of Philip the Second must still be regarded as open ground for English and American writers.

And at no time could the history of this reign have been undertaken with the same advantages as at present, when the more enlightened policy of the European governments has opened their national archives to the inspection of the scholar; when he is allowed access, in particular, to the Archives of Simancas, which have held the secrets of the Spanish monarchy hermetically sealed for ages.

The history of Philip the Second is the history of Europe during the latter half of the sixteenth century. It covers the period when the doctrines of the Reformation were agitating the minds of men in so fearful a manner as to shake the very foundations of the Romish hierarchy in the fierce contest which divided Christendom. Philip, both from his personal character, and from his position as sovereign of the most potent monarchy in Europe, was placed at the head of the party which strove to uphold the fortunes of the ancient Church; and thus his policy led him perpetually to interfere in the internal affairs of the other European states,--making it necessary to look for the materials for his history quite as much without the Peninsula as within it. In this respect the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella presents a strong contrast to that of Philip the Second; and it was the consideration of this, when I had completed my history of the former, and proposed at some future day to enter upon that of the latter, that led me to set about a collection of authentic materials from the public archives in the great European capitals. It was a work of difficulty; and, although I had made some progress in it, I did not feel a.s.sured of success until I had the good fortune to obtain the cooperation of my friend, Don Pascual de Gayangos, Professor of Arabic in the University of Madrid.

This eminent scholar was admirably qualified for the task which he so kindly undertook; since, with a remarkable facility--such as long practice only can give--in deciphering the mysterious handwriting of the sixteenth century, he combined such a thorough acquaintance with the history of his country as enabled him to detect, amidst the ocean of ma.n.u.scripts which he inspected, such portions as were essential to my purpose.

With unwearied a.s.siduity he devoted himself to the examination of many of the princ.i.p.al collections, both in England and on the Continent.

Among these may be mentioned the British Museum and the State-Paper Office, in London; the Library of the Dukes of Burgundy, in Brussels; that of the University of Leyden; the Royal Library, at the Hague; the Royal Library of Paris, and the Archives of the Kingdom, in the Hotel Soubise; the Library of the Academy of History, the National Library at Madrid, and, more important than either, the ancient Archives of Simancas, within whose hallowed precincts Senor Gayangos was one of the first scholars permitted to enter.

Besides these public repositories, there are several private collections to the owners of which I am largely indebted for the liberal manner in which they have opened them for my benefit. I may mention, in particular, the late Lady Holland, who kindly permitted copies to be made by Senor Gayangos from the ma.n.u.scripts preserved in Holland House; Sir Thomas Phillips, Bart., who freely extended the same courtesy in respect to the present work which he had shown to me on a former occasion; and Patrick Fraser Tytler, Esq., the late excellent historian of Scotland, who generously placed at my disposal sundry doc.u.ments copied by him in the public offices with his own hand, for the ill.u.s.tration of the reign of Mary Tudor.

In Spain the collection made by Senor Gayangos was enriched by materials drawn from the family archives of the marquis of Santa Cruz, whose ill.u.s.trious ancestor first had charge of the Spanish armada; from the archives of Medina Sidonia, containing papers of the duke who succeeded to the command of that ill-starred expedition; and from the archives of the house of Alva,--a name a.s.sociated with the most memorable acts of the government of Philip.

The ma.n.u.scripts, thus drawn from various quarters, were fortified by such printed works as, having made their appearance in the time of Philip the Second, could throw any light on his government. Where such works were not to be purchased, Senor Gayangos caused copies to be made of them, or of those portions which were important to my purpose. The result of his kind, untiring labors has been to put me in possession of such a collection of authentic materials for the ill.u.s.tration of the reign of Philip as no one before had probably attempted to make. Nor until now had the time come for making the attempt with success.

There still remained, however, some places to be examined where I might expect to find doc.u.ments that would be of use to me. Indeed, it is in the nature of such a collection, covering so wide an extent of ground, that it can never be complete. The historian may be satisfied, if he has such authentic materials at his command, as, while they solve much that has. .h.i.therto been enigmatical in the accounts of the time, will enable him to present, in their true light, the character of Philip and the policy of his government. I must acknowledge my obligations to more than one person, who has given me important aid in prosecuting my further researches.

One of the first of them is my friend, Mr. Edward Everett, who, in his long and brilliant career as a statesman, has lost nothing of that love of letters which formed his first claim to distinction. The year before his appointment to the English mission he pa.s.sed on the Continent, where, with the kindness that belongs to his nature, he spent much time in examining for me the great libraries, first in Paris, and afterwards more effectually in Florence. From the _Archivio Mediceo_, in which he was permitted by the grand duke to conduct his researches, he obtained copies of sundry valuable doc.u.ments, and among them the letters of the Tuscan ministers, which have helped to guide me in some of the most intricate parts of my narrative. A still larger amount of materials he derived from the private library of Count Guicciardini, the descendant of the ill.u.s.trious historian of that name. I am happy to express my lively sense of the courtesy shown by this n.o.bleman; also my grat.i.tude for kind offices rendered me by Prince Corsini; and no less by the Marquis Gino Capponi, whose name will be always held in honor for the enlightened patronage which he has extended to learning, while suffering, himself, under the severest privation that can befall the scholar.

There was still an important deficiency in my collection,--that of the _Relazioni Venete_, as the reports are called which were made by amba.s.sadors of Venice on their return from their foreign missions. The value of these reports, for the information they give of the countries visited by the envoys, is well known to historians. The deficiency was amply supplied by the unwearied kindness of my friend, Mr. Fay, who now so ably fills the post of minister from the United States to Switzerland. When connected with the American legation at Berlin, he, in the most obliging manner, a.s.sisted me in making arrangements for obtaining the doc.u.ments I desired, which, with other papers of importance, were copied for me from the ma.n.u.scripts in the Royal Library of Berlin, and the Ducal Library of Gotha. I have also, in connection with this, to express my obligations to the distinguished librarian of the former inst.i.tution, Mr. Pertz, for the good-will which he showed in promoting my views.

Through Mr. Fay, I also obtained the authority of Prince Metternich to inspect the Archives of the Empire in Vienna, which I inferred, from the intimate relations subsisting between the courts of Madrid and Vienna in that day, must contain much valuable matter relevant to my subject. The result did not correspond to my expectations. I am happy, however, to have the opportunity of publicly offering my acknowledgments to that eminent scholar, Dr. Ferdinand Wolf, for the obliging manner in which he conducted the investigation for me, as well in the archives above mentioned, as, with better results, in the Imperial Library, with which he is officially connected.

In concluding the list of those to whose good offices I have been indebted, I must not omit the names of M. de Salvandy, minister of public instruction in France at the time I was engaged in making my collection; Mr. Rush, then the minister of the United States at the French court; Mr. Rives, of Virginia, his successor in that office; and last, not least, my friend, Count de Circourt, a scholar whose n.o.ble contributions to the periodical literature of his country, on the greatest variety of topics, have given him a prominent place among the writers of our time.

I am happy, also, to tender my acknowledgments for the favors I have received from Mr. Van de Weyer, minister from Belgium to the court of St. James; from Mr. B. Homer Dixon, consul for the Netherlands at Boston; and from my friend and kinsman, Mr. Thomas Hickling, consul for the United States at St. Michael's, who kindly furnished me with sundry ma.n.u.scripts exhibiting the condition of the Azores at the period when those islands pa.s.sed, with Portugal, under the sceptre of Philip the Second.

Having thus acquainted the reader with the sources whence I have derived my materials, I must now say a few words in regard to the conduct of my narrative. An obvious difficulty in the path of the historian of this period arises from the nature of the subject, embracing, as it does, such a variety of independent, not to say incongruous topics, that it is no easy matter to preserve anything like unity of interest in the story.

Thus the Revolution of the Netherlands, although, strictly speaking, only an episode to the main body of the narrative, from its importance, well deserves to be treated in a separate and independent narrative by itself.[1] Running along through the whole extent of Philip's reign, it is continually distracting the attention of the historian, creating an embarra.s.sment something like that which arises from what is termed a double plot in the drama. The best way of obviating this is to keep in view the dominant principle which controlled all the movements of the complicated machinery, so to speak, and impressed on them a unity of action. This principle is to be found in the policy of Philip, the great aim of which was to uphold the supremacy of the Church, and, as a consequence, that of the crown. "Peace and public order," he writes on one occasion, "are to be maintained in my dominions only by maintaining the authority of the Holy See." It was this policy, almost as sure and steady in its operation as the laws of Nature herself, that may be said to have directed the march of events through the whole of his long reign; and it is only by keeping this constantly in view that the student will be enabled to obtain a clew to guide him through the intricate pa.s.sages in the history of Philip, and the best means of solving what would otherwise remain enigmatical in his conduct.

In the composition of the work, I have, for the most part, conformed to the plan which I had before adopted. Far from confining myself to a record of political events, I have endeavored to present a picture of the intellectual culture and the manners of the people. I have not even refused such aid as could be obtained from the display of pageants, and court ceremonies, which, although exhibiting little more than the costume of the time, may serve to bring the outward form of a picturesque age more vividly before the eye of the reader. In the arrangement of the narrative, I have not confined myself altogether to the chronological order of events, but have thrown them into ma.s.ses, according to the subjects to which they relate, so as to produce, as far as possible, a distinct impression on the reader. And in this way I have postponed more than one matter of importance to a later portion of the work, which a strict regard to time would a.s.sign more properly to an earlier division of the subject. Finally, I have been careful to fortify the text with citations from the original authorities on which it depends, especially where these are rare and difficult of access.

In the part relating to the Netherlands I have pursued a course somewhat different from what I have done in other parts of the work. The scholars of that country, in a truly patriotic spirit, have devoted themselves of late years to exploring their own archives, as well as those of Simancas, for the purpose of ill.u.s.trating their national annals. The results they have given to the world in a series of publications, which are still in progress. The historian has reason to be deeply grateful to those pioneers, whose labors have put him in possession of materials which afford the most substantial basis for his narrative. For what basis can compare with that afforded by the written correspondence of the parties themselves? It is on this sure ground that I have mainly relied in this part of my story; and I have adopted the practice of incorporating extracts from the letters in the body of the text, which, if it may sometimes give an air of prolixity to the narrative, will have the advantage of bringing the reader into a sort of personal acquaintance with the actors, as he listens to the words spoken by themselves.

In the earlier part of this Preface, I have made the acknowledgments due for a.s.sistance I have received in the collection of my materials; and I must not now conclude without recording my obligations, of another kind, to two of my personal friends,--Mr. Charles Folsom, the learned librarian of the Boston Athenaeum, who has repeated the good offices he had before rendered me in revising my ma.n.u.script for the press; and Mr.

John Foster Kirk, whose familiarity with the history and languages of Modern Europe has greatly aided me in the prosecution of my researches, while his sagacious criticism has done me no less service in the preparation of these volumes.

Notwithstanding the advantages I have enjoyed for the composition of this work, and especially those derived from the possession of new and original materials, I am fully sensible that I am far from having done justice to a subject so vast in its extent and so complicated in its relations. It is not necessary to urge in my defence any physical embarra.s.sments under which I labor; since that will hardly be an excuse for not doing well what it was not necessary to do at all. But I may be permitted to say, that what I have done has been the result of careful preparation; that I have endeavored to write in a spirit of candor and good faith; and that, whatever may be the deficiencies of my work, it can hardly fail--considering the advantages I have enjoyed over my predecessors--to present the reader with such new and authentic statements of facts as may afford him a better point of view than that which he has. .h.i.therto possessed for surveying the history of Philip the Second.

BOSTON, _July, 1855_

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

ABDICATION OF CHARLES THE FIFTH.

Introductory Remarks.--Spain under Charles the Fifth.--He prepares to resign the Crown.--His Abdication.--His Return to Spain.--His Journey to Yuste.

1555.

In a former work, I have endeavored to portray the period when the different provinces of Spain were consolidated into one empire under the rule of Ferdinand and Isabella; when, by their wise and beneficent policy, the nation emerged from the obscurity in which it had so long remained behind the Pyrenees, and took its place as one of the great members of the European commonwealth. I now propose to examine a later period in the history of the same nation,--the reign of Philip the Second; when, with resources greatly enlarged, and territory extended by a brilliant career of discovery and conquest, it had risen to the zenith of its power; but when, under the mischievous policy of the administration, it had excited the jealousy of its neighbors, and already disclosed those germs of domestic corruption which gradually led to its dismemberment and decay.

By the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, most of the states of the Peninsula became united under one common rule; and in 1516, the sceptre of Spain, with its dependencies both in the Old and the New World, pa.s.sed into the hands of their grandson, Charles the Fifth, who, though he shared the throne nominally with his mother, Joanna, became, in consequence of her incapacity, the real sovereign of this vast empire.

He had before inherited, through his father, Philip the Handsome, that fair portion of the ducal realm of Burgundy which comprehended Franche Comte and the Netherlands. In 1519, he was elected to the imperial crown of Germany. Not many years elapsed before his domain was still further enlarged by the barbaric empires of Mexico and Peru; and Spain then first realized the magnificent vaunt, since so often repeated, that the sun never set within the borders of her dominions.

Yet the importance of Spain did not rise with the importance of her acquisitions. She was, in a manner, lost in the magnitude of these acquisitions. Some of the rival nations which owned the sway of Charles, in Europe, were of much greater importance than Spain, and attracted much more attention from their contemporaries. In the earlier period of that monarch's reign, there was a moment when a contest was going forward in Castile, of the deepest interest to mankind. Unfortunately, the "War of the _Comunidades_," as it was termed, was soon closed by the ruin of the patriots; and, on the memorable field of Villalar, the liberties of Spain received a blow from which they were destined not to recover for centuries. From that fatal hour,--the bitter fruit of the jealousy of castes and the pa.s.sions of the populace,--an unbroken tranquillity reigned throughout the country; such a tranquillity as naturally flows not from a free and well-conducted government, but from a despotic one. In this political tranquillity, however, the intellect of Spain did not slumber. Sheltered from invasion by the barrier of the Pyrenees, her people were allowed to cultivate the arts of peace, so long as they did not meddle with politics or religion,--in other words, with the great interests of humanity; while the more adventurous found a scope for their prowess in European wars, or in exploring the boundless regions of the Western world.

While there was so little pa.s.sing in Spain to attract the eye of the historian, Germany became the theatre of one of those momentous struggles which have had a permanent influence on the destinies of mankind. It was in this reign that the great battle of religious liberty was begun; and the attention and personal presence of Charles were necessarily demanded most in the country where that battle was to be fought. But a small part of his life was pa.s.sed in Spain, in comparison with what he spent in other parts of his dominions. His early attachments, his lasting sympathies, were with the people of the Netherlands; for Flanders was the place of his birth. He spoke the language of that country more fluently than the Castilian; although he knew the various languages of his dominions so well, that he could address his subjects from every quarter in their native dialect. In the same manner, he could accommodate himself to their peculiar national manners and tastes. But this flexibility was foreign to the genius of the Spaniard. Charles brought nothing from Spain but a religious zeal, amounting to bigotry, which took deep root in a melancholy temperament inherited from his mother. His tastes were all Flemish. He introduced the gorgeous ceremonial of the Burgundian court into his own palace, and into the household of his son. He drew his most trusted and familiar counsellors from Flanders; and this was one great cause of the troubles which, at the beginning of his reign, distracted Castile. There was little to gratify the pride of the Spaniard in the position which he occupied at the imperial court. Charles regarded Spain chiefly for the resources she afforded for carrying on his ambitious enterprises. When he visited her, it was usually to draw supplies from the cortes. The Spaniards understood this, and bore less affection to his person than to many of their monarchs far inferior to him in the qualities for exciting it. They hardly regarded him as one of the nation. There was, indeed, nothing national in the reign of Charles. His most intimate relations were with Germany; and as the Emperor Charles the Fifth of Germany, not as King Charles the First of Spain, he was known in his own time, and stands recorded on the pages of history.

[Sidenote: SPAIN UNDER CHARLES THE FIFTH.]

When Charles ascended the throne, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, Europe may be said to have been much in the same condition, in one respect, as she was at the beginning of the eighth. The Turk menaced her on the east, in the same manner as the Arab had before menaced her on the west. The hour seemed to be fast approaching which was to decide whether Christianity or Mahometanism should hold the ascendant. The Ottoman tide of conquest rolled up to the very walls of Vienna; and Charles, who, as head of the empire, was placed on the frontier of Christendom, was called on to repel it. When thirty-two years of age, he marched against the formidable Solyman, drove him to an ignominious retreat, and, at less cost of life than is often expended in a skirmish, saved Europe from invasion. He afterwards crossed the sea to Tunis, then occupied by a horde of pirates, the scourge of the Mediterranean.

He beat them in a b.l.o.o.d.y battle, slew their chief, and liberated ten thousand captives from their dungeons. All Europe rang with the praises of the young hero, who thus consecrated his arms to the service of the Cross, and stood forward as the true champion of Christendom.

But from this high position Charles was repeatedly summoned to other contests, of a more personal and far less honorable character. Such was his long and b.l.o.o.d.y quarrel with Francis the First. It was hardly possible that two princes, so well matched in years, power, pretensions, and, above all, love of military glory, with dominions touching on one another through their whole extent, could long remain without cause of rivalry and collision. Such rivalry did exist from the moment that the great prize of the empire was adjudged to Charles; and through the whole of their long struggle, with the exception of a few reverses, the superior genius of the emperor triumphed over his bold, but less politic adversary.

There was still a third contest, on which the strength of the Spanish monarch was freely expended through the greater part of his reign,--his contest with the Lutheran princes of Germany. Here, too, for a long time, fortune favored him. But it is easier to contend against man than against a great moral principle. The principle of reform had struck too deep into the mind of Germany to be eradicated by force or by fraud.

Charles, for a long time, by a course of crafty policy, succeeded in baffling the Protestant league; and, by the decisive victory at Muhlberg, seemed, at last, to have broken it altogether. But his success only ministered to his ruin. The very man on whom he bestowed the spoils of victory turned them against his benefactor. Charles, ill in body and mind, and glad to escape from his enemies under cover of the night and a driving tempest, was at length compelled to sign the treaty of Pa.s.sau, which secured to the Protestants those religious immunities against which he had contended through his whole reign.

Not long after, he experienced another humiliating reverse from France, then ruled by a younger rival, Henry the Second, the son of Francis. The good star of Charles--the star of Austria--seemed to have set; and as he reluctantly raised the siege of Metz, he was heard bitterly to exclaim, "Fortune is a strumpet, who reserves her favors for the young!"

With spirits greatly depressed by his reverses, and still more by the state of his health, which precluded him from taking part in the manly and martial exercises to which he had been accustomed, he felt that he had no longer the same strength as formerly to bear up under the toils of empire. When but little more than thirty years of age, he had been attacked by the gout, and of late had been so sorely afflicted with that disorder, that he had nearly lost the use of his limbs. The man who, cased in steel, had pa.s.sed whole days and nights in the saddle, indifferent to the weather and the season, could now hardly drag himself along with the aid of his staff. For days he was confined to his bed; and he did not leave his room for weeks together. His mind became oppressed with melancholy, which was, to some extent, a const.i.tutional infirmity. His chief pleasure was in listening to books, especially of a religious character. He denied himself to all except his most intimate and trusted counsellors. He lost his interest in affairs; and for whole months, according to one of his biographers, who had access to his person, he refused to receive any public communication, or to subscribe any doc.u.ment, or even letter.[2] One cannot understand how the business of the nation could have been conducted in such a state of things.

After the death of his mother, Joanna, his mind became more deeply tinctured with those gloomy fancies which in her amounted to downright insanity. He imagined he heard her voice calling on him to follow her.

His thoughts were now turned from secular concerns to those of his own soul; and he resolved to put in execution a plan for resigning his crown and withdrawing to some religious retreat, where he might prepare for his latter end. This plan he had conceived many years before, in the full tide of successful ambition. So opposite were the elements at work in the character of this extraordinary man!

Although he had chosen the place of his retreat, he had been deterred from immediately executing his purpose by the forlorn condition of his mother, and the tender age of his son. The first obstacle was now removed by the death of Joanna, after a reign--a nominal reign--of half a century, in which the cloud that had settled on her intellect at her husband's death was never dispelled.

The age of Philip, his son and heir, was also no longer an objection.

From early boyhood he had been trained to the duties of his station, and, when very young, had been intrusted with the government of Castile.

His father had surrounded him with able and experienced counsellors, and their pupil, who showed a discretion far beyond his years, had largely profited by their lessons. He had now entered his twenty-ninth year, an age when the character is formed, and when, if ever, he might be supposed qualified to a.s.sume the duties of government. His father had already ceded to him the sovereignty of Naples and Milan, on occasion of the prince's marriage with Mary of England. He was on a visit to that country, when Charles, having decided on the act of abdication, sent to require his son's attendance at Brussels, where the ceremony was to be performed. The different provinces of the Netherlands were also summoned to send their deputies, with authority to receive the emperor's resignation, and to transfer their allegiance to his successor. As a preliminary step, on the twenty-second of October, 1555, he conferred on Philip the grand-masters.h.i.+p--which, as Lord of Flanders, was vested in himself--of the _toison d'or_, the order of the Golden Fleece, of Burgundy; the proudest and most coveted, at that day, of all the military orders of knighthood.

Preparations were then made for conducting the ceremony of abdication with all the pomp and solemnity suited to so august an occasion. The great hall of the royal palace of Brussels was selected for the scene of it. The walls of the s.p.a.cious apartment were hung with tapestry, and the floor was covered with rich carpeting. A scaffold was erected, at one end of the room, to the height of six or seven steps. On it was placed a throne, or chair of state, for the emperor, with other seats for Philip, and for the great Flemish lords who were to attend the person of their sovereign. Above the throne was suspended a gorgeous canopy, on which were emblazoned the arms of the ducal house of Burgundy. In front of the scaffolding, accommodations were provided for the deputies of the provinces, who were to be seated on benches arranged according to their respective rights of precedence.[3]