by Jean Plaidy
The court rested in Avila before the great ceremony was due to take place, and during that time Philip’s friendship with Ruy Gomez da Silva began.
Never in Philip’s four years had he known such an interesting companion. Ruy was a clever diplomatist; he took charge of the Prince, while he never gave the slightest sign that he knew he was doing so.
And what tales he had to tell! They were such tales that Leonor had never heard. When they returned to the quiet of the palace in Valladolid it would be Philip who would entertain Leonor with his stories of the wonders of the world. He wondered if he might ask if Ruy could stay with him in Valladolid. He was desolate at the thought of losing him, though he would not show his grief if a parting were necessary; but how he prayed that this would not be so! Perhaps he could offer a prayer at the tomb of Torquemada or by the urn that contained the arm of St. Thomas Aquinas. Perhaps he could go to the Church of San Vicente and pray to that saint, and if he thought of the horrible death that had befallen him, and if he suffered in thought that which San Vicente had suffered in actuality, the saint might listen and intercede for him.
In the meantime, here was Ruy attending the Prince, which the Queen and Leonor allowed, being glad that this should be so, for they had much to concern them. Maria, being so high-spirited, encroached on Leonor’s time; and the Queen had many self-imposed tasks to perform. She must let the people see her; she must visit the tombs of saints and martyrs; she must distribute alms to the beggars who cried out at the gates of the palace, exposing their sores while they wailed of their misfortunes, as she must to the water-carriers who called out a blessing on her as they forced their mules through the narrow streets.
So Ruy would come to the Prince’s apartment and bathe his feet and dress him; and all the time he talked, and his conversation was as colorful as he himself was.
“Did you see the great boulders on the road as we came along, Highness?”
“Yes,” said his Highness. “I did.”
“Did you know what they were?”
“Boulders,” said the Prince calmly, but he was excited. Nothing was as it seemed, according to Ruy.
“So it would seem,” said Ruy, coming closer, making his gleaming eyes long, bringing his face close to that of the Prince so that the little boy’s heart began to beat fast with expectation. “But they are the tears of Christ.” Ruy drew back to watch the effect of these words, but Philip was impassive, waiting. “He lived in Spain … here in Avila. He wandered among the plains and mountains of Spain, and when He saw this poor land … so dry that nothing would grow, He wept bitterly and when his tears fell on the barren land they turned into boulders.”
“If they had turned into a river,” said the grave little Prince, “that would have been better. For what good are the boulders but to make the way more difficult?”
Ruy burst out laughing, but he did not tell Philip why he laughed. Philip wondered whether to command him to tell, but though he was a prince, he knew the etiquette between friends. Even a Prince could not command a friend.
“It may be, Highness,” went on Ruy, “that Christ did not pass this way, for surely if He had, He would not have added to the difficulties of this land.”
“We will pray for a miracle,” said Philip. “It would be good to turn the boulders into water. Perhaps my father could do it.”
Sometimes they talked of the Cid. Philip had not heard of that hero before; there had only been one hero in his life: his father.
“What!” cried Ruy. “Your Highness does not know of the Cid!” The black eyes gleamed. If the Emperor was a hero to his son, the Cid was an even greater hero to Ruy.
Ruy smiled and said: “We have the same name. He was Ruy Diaz de Bivar, el mio Cid Campeador. His real name was Rodrigo but he was called Ruy … as I am. And ‘Cid,’ that is an Arabic name which means Lord—the Champion Lord. He freed Spain from the Infidel.”
Philip’s brow was puckered. “My great-grandfather and my great-grandmother did that,” he said haughtily.
“Indeed yes,” said Ruy hastily. “But the Cid was the first to rise against them with any success. He lived long ago … long before great Ferdinand and Isabella.”
“How long before?”
“Hundreds of years … two hundred at least; and there was fighting all that time; and when your great-grandfather and your great-grandmother married they united Castile and Aragon; and that was the beginning of good times for our country.”
That was better. That was history as Philip knew it. But Ruy had many tales to tell of the Cid. He told of the hero’s love for the beautiful Doña Ximena, and how the Cid had had to fight a duel for her before he won her; he told of how she loved him and how broken-hearted she was when he must tear himself from her to fight the Infidel. From Ruy, Philip learned her prayer:
“Tu que atodos guias, vala myo Cid el Campeador.”
It was a prayer he might well say for his father. “Thou, who guardest all men, guard my lord and champion.” But his father did not need such prayers, since even the Cid could not have been so important in the eyes of God as the Emperor Charles.
Now Ruy was telling him of the Cid’s cleverness, how, wishing to raise money to pay his soldiers, he, with the help of his squire, filled coffers with sand and nails; these he showed to the Jews, telling them that they contained treasures he had won from the Moors, and proffered them as security for a loan. The Prince listened gravely. It seemed to him that sand and nails could not be worth very much, but he did not say so, as Maria would have done; he remained silent, waiting.
And the foolish Jews lent the money without opening the coffers which were heavily sealed. They dared not open them, for they knew that the Cid would be angry if they doubted his word. So … he got the money and the Jews got the coffers full of worthless sand and nails.
Philip had to question this. He cried: “But … how could the Cid keep the money when he had given nothing for it?”
“He rode away with their money, and it was too late to do anything about that when the coffers were opened.”
“But that is stealing,” pronounced the Prince. “And it is forbidden to steal.”
The merry black eyes were opened very wide. “I see I forgot to explain to your Highness. These were Jews … and Jews are infidels.”
“They are … heretics?” said Philip uncertainly.
“Infidels and heretics, your Highness … one and the same. Burn them all … torture them and send them to the flames…. That is the verdict of Holy Church.”
Philip dropped his eyes. All was well. The Cid’s honor was saved. He had stolen; but it was only from Jews.
Yet it did not say in the Scriptures: “Thou shalt not steal … except from Jews, infidels, and heretics.” He wondered why. Perhaps one day he would find out.
Ruy slipped Philip’s shirt over his head. When the little boy was naked he seemed stripped of his dignity. His body was so small and white. He guessed that Ruy’s was big and strong and brown. He felt that he was a very small boy without his clothes.
He said: “I wish that you could help me to dress with my new clothes. I wish I did not have to undress with so many people looking on.”
“That,” said Ruy, “is one of the penalties of being a prince who will one day be a king.”
“But to stand there … naked before them all.”
Ruy laughed his merry laugh. “Think nothing of it, Highness. It is no more than standing before me. There will merely be several hundred pairs of eyes upon you instead of one.”
“But …” began Philip.
“You will not be afraid,” soothed Ruy. “And when you wear the clothes of a man, you will have taken the first step toward becoming a man.”
Philip was silent. He thought of the Cid, fighting for the lady he wished to marry, cheating the Jews with his coffers full of worthless sand. He supposed it was given to some, like the Cid, to do great and glorious deeds, and to others to be quiet and grave and clever enough to hide their fears and
their joys, to learn to become, not what they wished to be, but what others had decided they must be.
At last there came that hot day when they set out for the ceremony.
The Queen, with her son and little daughter, rode in state to the Cloister of St. Anne. About them were the soldiers of the King’s Guard, without whom the little Prince was never allowed to travel beyond the palace. The holy monks and nobles made up the procession, and all was pomp and ceremony of the most solemn kind.
Along the route the people had gathered. Philip was aware once more of thousands of eyes upon him. He felt smaller than he did in the privacy of his own apartments; he longed to be grown up, and as tall and strong as Ruy.
But Ruy was riding close to him. That gave him courage. He did not turn his head to look at his friend, but he was aware of him. He recalled his encouraging words: “Do not be afraid. There will be just several hundred pairs of eyes instead of one.”
The procession, this time led by the Queen, had reached the gates of the Cloister. There it halted, and one of the nuns, who had been waiting at the gate, said in a loud voice, which could be heard by the stragglers on the edge of the crowd: “Who would enter in?”
Leonor answered for the Queen. “It is Doña Isabella, Queen and Empress, with her offspring, Philip and Maria.”
The nun immediately made a deep obeisance and signed for the gates to be flung wide open.
How cold it was inside the Cloister! Philip dreaded the moment when he would be stripped of his clothes. If he felt cold he must not give the slightest sign. When he was stripped he must not shiver, for if he did, all would see, and what would they think of the one who was destined to rule them if they looked on a poor, shivering baby?
The Abbess had come forward to greet the Queen, and when the Prince was presented to her, she knelt before him so that her cold gray eyes beneath her hood were level with his.
They went along to the great hall where food was laid out for them, and the Queen sat at the head of the table with Philip on her right hand. Maria, who sat next to Leonor, did not realize the solemnity of the occasion.
“Philip!” she called. “Look at me!”
But he did not look at her. He gave no sign that he had heard her. How could he, heir to half the world, allow himself even to notice the frivolity of a careless child who, it seemed, would never understand Spanish dignity and Spanish solemnity. Leonor was smiling indulgently. They would all be saying: “Ah, but she is a Hapsburg. What can one expect?” Yet why should he not also be a Hapsburg? He had the same father and mother as Maria. But a prince who would one day be a king of Spain must be Spanish in every way. His father was a Hapsburg, but the people of Spain wanted a Spaniard to rule over them. Philip had no choice. He had to be a quiet, solemn little Spaniard. Philip of Spain must be what others wished him to be.
But in any case he would have been quiet on this day because he was frightened. This was his first big public ceremony, and it was devised for him. If there had been no Philip, there would have been no gathering of solemn people. He must not fail to play his part in the manner that was expected.
The meal was over and they left the table. His mother had taken him by the hand and was leading him through the cold corridors. He had become intensely aware of the cold; that was because he knew that soon they would take his clothes from him. He would shiver. He knew he would shiver; he would shiver with cold and fright. They would despise him and … his father would hear of it.
They had entered the chapel—surely the coldest in the world. Now he must stand on a dais. His mother had left him and he stood alone. The nuns came forward. He did not like their black, flowing garments; their cold, pale faces seemed to leer at him from their hideous cowls; they were like creatures from a nightmare.
His teeth began to chatter. He prayed to the Holy Virgin, to the saints, and to the Cid: “Help me to be like the Cid … like my father.”
The nuns laid their cold hands upon him; deftly they stripped him of his clothes; they took everything from him, even his shift. There he stood, with all those eyes upon him, a naked little boy, with the whitest of bodies, which in itself was somehow shameful among these brown-skinned people.
He knew that somewhere among the watching crowd was Leonor; and the impulse came to him to look for her, to run to her and to cry against her breast, begging her to take him away from all these people and give him back his clothes.
He lowered his pale eyes and looked at his toes. None would guess how hard he was fighting to hold back his tears, to prevent the frail body from showing, by its shivering, how frightened he was.
The moments of nakedness could not last forever, although it seemed to the little boy that they would never end. But at last the cold hands were laid upon him and clothes were being slipped over his head. He was turned this way and that. The tight hose were put on his legs and he was forced into the breeches—the kind worn by men. Now came the black velvet jacket and the feather-decorated biretta. He watched the nuns’ white fingers fix the jewel-encrusted dagger in his belt. He was tired with so much standing and he found it difficult to stand straight and still as he had been told he must.
And now that he was dressed the ceremony was not over. The noblemen and monks had come to the dais, and one of them began to enumerate his titles in a very loud voice. Philip had not known that there were so many. He tried to remember them, for he expected it was very wrong not to know them all. He discovered that not only was he heir to half the old world, but also to the new one. So many possessions and the tight new clothes were almost more than he could bear.
Then his eyes caught the face of his new friend, Ruy Gomez. Ruy smiled at him. Philip did not return the smile. He gave his friend a solemn stare, but he was happier suddenly.
He listened to the protestations of loyalty; he accepted the homage; he looked with indifference, as he had been taught to do, from the swathed figures of the Dominican monks to the helmeted soldiers of the guard. He might be Don Philip the Prince of Spain; but he was also the friend of Ruy Gomez da Silva; he was still Leonor’s little Philip.
Philip never forgot the day his father returned. That was the end of childhood.
He had changed considerably from that frightened little boy of four who had stood naked before the grandees and ladies of the court, the monks, the nuns, and the soldiers in the Cloister of St. Anne.
He was less delicate, though still small for his age; his hair was yellow now, but his eyes were still the same pale shade of blue. He was quiet, dignified, and if he was not brilliant, he was intelligent; the most unusual of his characteristics was his astonishing self-control.
Friendship with Ruy Gomez had continued. Philip liked to have the boy in attendance, and if at times he wondered whether Ruy’s affection for him was tempered by the knowledge that he would one day be the King, and a king’s friendship could be a profitable one, Philip did not hold that against him.
Each day the importance of his position was impressed on Philip anew. When his father’s letters arrived, they were read to him. Charles wished his son to follow the course of his campaigns in Europe; and Philip, always docile, always obedient had listened when he was expected to listen, and absorbed as much as he could. He could speak no other language than Castilian; he had not distinguished himself in any branch of learning; but he could discuss his father’s campaigns as intelligently as though he had taken part in them.
And it was at this stage that Charles found an opportunity to break away from his military life and visit his family.
Philip stood in the great hall waiting to receive his father. He was clad in black velvet according to the fashion, but he wore a blue feather in his biretta—chosen by Leonor because she said it made his eyes look more blue.
Philip was aware of the anxiety all about him. He knew that his mother wished he were a few inches taller, and that the blue feather was meant to add that extra blue to his eyes so that they did not seem weak. All those about him were apprehensive as to the
effect of the Prince on his father, the Emperor.
Then came the sound of heralds, the clatter of horses’ hooves and the cries of welcome; and into the hall stepped the hero, the legend, Charles the Fifth of Germany, Charles the First of Spain.
Their eyes met—father’s and son’s.
Charles saw a little boy—a very little boy—and his heart leaped with compassion and tenderness. He whispered to himself: “So that’s my Philip. Holy Mother of God, give him a good life.”
Philip had looked at the god and taken in as much as he could before making his obeisance. He saw a heavy man who seemed large more on account of his girth than his height. There was yellow hair, not unlike Philip’s, a yellow beard, a broad forehead, and a large, aquiline nose. His eyes were bluer than Philip’s; his face was crisscrossed with many lines etched, not only by anxieties, but by wind and sun of Germany, Italy, and Flanders as well as Spain. His aspect would have been benign but for the heavy, jutting jaw, which implied that ruthlessness and cruelty would not be lacking if the occasion demanded it.
To Philip he seemed to fit the picture of his imagination. There was power in the man and it emanated from him.
Charles had eyes for no one but the boy.
“My son!” he cried. “My son Philip!”
Then he strode forward and, as the boy would have remained kneeling, he cried: “Come, let me look at you. So you are my son, eh? You are Philip?”
Then he laughed loudly—for he was after all a Hapsburg, and if he wished he would defy Spanish ceremony—and embraced the boy, and held him fast against him as though he would never let him go.
At length he released him, and the Queen came forward with Maria. Maria, who was six, was old enough for decorum, but she showed none. She threw her arms about her father’s neck and refused to let go when commanded by her mother. Over her fair curly head the Emperor’s eyes met the solemn ones of his son and he smiled with approval, for he saw in this boy one who would be loved by the people of this alien land.
Throughout the town there was feasting and revelry at that time. Philip heard the continuous shouting of the people in the streets; and later he must stand on a balcony beside his father while the people cried out their loyalty; and when they declared that they could not see the Prince, his father lifted him on to his shoulders while the people cheered more wildly.