Philip of Spain

by Henry Kamen

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  From around October 1565 there were strong rumours at court that Philip was going to Flanders. For months the advice to go there had been proffered to him. But, as del Canto complained in September to Granvelle, ‘His Majesty does not have even one person with him who will tell him how important it is to come to these lands.’14 The impression grew among those in the north that Philip or his advisers were indifferent. Ironically, both opposing tendencies shared this view. The aggrieved Flemish nobles wanted him to deal with the situation personally. Granvelle, no friend of theirs, felt that Philip needed to go himself to see how the nobles were mismanaging affairs.

  The king was undecided. In the summer of 1565, he eagerly welcomed fresh and direct reports made to him personally at Valsaín by Villavicencio, who had just returned from the Netherlands. In several audiences lasting up to three hours, Philip spoke alone and directly to the friar, quizzing him about both persons and events in Brussels. Villavicencio, a tireless writer, also heaped a number of memorials upon the king, who looked at them with care and passed them for attention to secretary Gonzalo Pérez. Though he did not share all the friar's views, the king was most impressed by his information. His reports appeared to be in accord with what was really happening. Late that summer, Philip received correspondence from Margaret in which the regent firmly supported concessions to the nobles and a measure of toleration. It was the drift against which the friar had warned him. The king consulted closely with Gonzalo Pérez, and through Pérez with Alba. ‘There is so much to consider here and it is so important that we get it right,’ he told the secretary.15

  At the end of August the king and Pérez, with the active help of Villavicencio, drew up a policy document on the measures to be adopted in the Netherlands.16 At crucial points, and notably in religious matters, the advice of the friar was explicitly accepted. Philip had at last made up his mind. The policy was to be hard-line: no easing of the placards, no increase in the political role of Egmont, Orange and the nobles. Philip arrived at this policy not because he was a resolute diehard, but because the arguments of Villavicencio, Granvelle and – at one remove – Alba, made more sense to him.

  He was still not sure how to implement it. Other major preoccupations, principally the provincial councils in Spain and the battle for Malta, kept him up to his eyes in work. He also, early in September, became ill with the severe headaches that periodically afflicted him. His instinct was for writing to Margaret of Parma, telling her to take a firm line. Villavicencio, however, insisted to him that only his presence there would resolve matters. In the event, Philip decided to do both things. From September onwards, the air was alive with rumours of the king's impending visit to the Netherlands. His work in Spain done, Villavicencio returned to the north in October. In the same month, Philip wrote to Granvelle in his retirement at Besançon and invited him to go to Rome to represent Spanish interests there.

  The way in which decisions had been reached during 1565, particularly over Bayonne and the Netherlands, confirmed the diminishing role of Ruy Gómez at court. At crucial points, the king consulted only with Gonzalo Pérez and a couple of members (Don Antonio de Toledo and Alba) of the council of State. It was, for him, a significant change of direction. Normally, he consulted as much opinion as possible. Now, however, the convincing testimony of Villavicencio helped him to take a more rigorous stance. The policy change had profound implications: it confirmed the shift of influence in favour of the Alba grouping, and it determined, for better or worse, the way in which the problem of Flanders would evolve. In mid-October, amid the beauty of the autumn woods at Valsaín, Philip signed and sent off to Margaret the letters which set out the policy he offered the Netherlands leaders.

  The instructions arrived in Brussels in November. When the content of the king's letters was made known, there was uproar. Orange, Egmont and Hornes withdrew from the council of State. There were protests in the provinces. Rumours swept the country, once again, that Philip intended introducing the Spanish Inquisition. Nothing could have been further from his mind. He was convinced, he told Granvelle, that the Spanish model of Inquisition was unsuitable for export to the Netherlands or Italy.17

  At the end of the year a number of the Calvinist-inclined lesser nobility of the Netherlands, led by Henry de Brederode and Louis of Nassau (younger brother of the prince of Orange), made a secret agreement to oppose the enforcement of the placards. Philip, meanwhile, reiterated his intention to go to Brussels. ‘From the day I grasped that my presence was necessary in order to remedy the affairs of Flanders, I resolved to go there in person.’ So far he had not been able to, ‘because of waiting for the queen's childbirth; because both of us were taken ill for several days; and because of the need to settle the affairs of these realms so that they are adequately governed during my absence’. Now, however, the situation seemed better. He would go as soon as possible, but preceded by an army. ‘My going is the true road’ towards peace in Flanders and with France, he said.18

  In April 1566, Brederode and Nassau at the head of some 300 armed confederates presented to Margaret of Parma a ‘Request’ demanding toleration. The nobles were sneeringly dismissed as ‘Beggars’ (Gueux) by a minister at Margaret's side, but she was powerless to refuse their demands. On 9 April she issued an order modifying the application of the heresy laws. It was greeted with satisfaction by the leading Catholic clergy and officials, who felt a policy of total suppression to be unworkable. That same week the leading grandees, Orange, Egmont and Hornes, presented an ultimatum to the regent that they would resign from the council of State if the king did not give it a greater voice in government (which they saw as being dominated by the court in Madrid) and if the policy of toleration were not continued. Once again, Margaret had to give in. It was agreed that two spokesmen, the baron Montigny and the marquis of Berghes, go to Madrid to explain matters. Floris de Montmorency, baron Montigny, was the brother of Hornes. He had been to Madrid in 1562 and knew his way around the politics of the court.

  The support of moderate Catholics in Flanders for a policy of toleration was not wholly outrageous to Spanish opinion.19 Philip himself had favoured moderation in England. The situation in Germany also supplied a precedent. There, as the king well knew from personal experience, princes could decide the religion of their subjects. But in the case of the Netherlands, Philip was inflexible. When Elizabeth of Valois was asked early in April 1566 why her husband did not adopt an Interim for the Netherlands, as Charles V had done in Germany, she replied that ‘she knew the king, and he had told her often that he would never permit it to his subjects, and would sooner renounce ruling over them’.20 There was no possibility of compromise on this point. The issue was never simply one of religion. Philip could see the need for moderation instanced by his father's Interim, just as in England he had advised caution over the persecution of heretics. In the Netherlands, by contrast, he was now convinced that any concession to the nobles would lead to a rapid collapse into the situation that France was currently facing. The threat came primarily from the recalcitrant nobles, only secondarily from their religious demands. The issue was rebellion, much more than heresy. He could see the same danger materialising in France. ‘The flames are spreading everywhere and if those realms [he was referring to France] do not make haste to quench them they could be consumed in them beyond remedy.’21

  At the end of April 1566, long before any disorders had taken place, he was preparing for the possibility of military intervention in the Netherlands. ‘Every day,’ Fourquevaux noted, ‘the council of War meets over the Netherlands.’22 Military commanders were coming and going all day in the palace. There were rumours that the preparations might be against the Turks, but Flanders seemed the most probable objective. ‘It must be something very important,’ a correspondent informed the emperor, ‘and so secret that they say the king himself always takes the papers to and from the council personally, and does not leave them in the hands of secretaries.’23

  The pope, for his
part, saw the situation less as rebellion than as a threat from heresy. From the beginning of 1566, in every meeting he had with Spain's ambassador Luis de Requesens or with cardinal Granvelle, he insisted that the king must go urgently to settle matters in person.24

  Philip still kept all his options open. What remained undecided was whether the king himself would go. In May 1566 several conservative advisers, who favoured the harsh placards, were also firmly against armed intervention. Both cardinal Granvelle in Rome and fray Villavicencio in Brussels argued that the presence of the king would be sufficient to remedy matters. Philip accordingly confirmed his intention to go in person. His letters to his brother-in-law the emperor, and to the pope, emphasised that the decision was firm.

  In reality, events delayed him. Significant changes had taken place at court. In April 1566 Gonzalo Pérez died depriving the king of one who for eighteen years had been his closest and most reliable aide. Pérez was literally irreplaceable. His responsibilities were, from the summer of 1566, divided between his son Antonio Pérez, and Gabriel de Zayas, a nominee of Alba. Another new development was the rise of Diego de Espinosa. A Navarrese priest and university-trained lawyer with a long career on judicial tribunals, Espinosa was appointed president of the royal council in 1565. He was admitted to the council of State, and in 1566 appointed Inquisitor-General in succession to Fernándo de Valdés. He accumulated further posts, and in 1568 Philip obtained for him the rank of cardinal. It was a meteoric rise, and destined to be short; but for a short while he was the most powerful man in the monarchy after the king. He brought with him his personal secretary, Mateo Vázquez de Leca.

  In the midst of this flurry of changes, Montigny and Berghes arrived in June from Flanders. It was an unpropitious time to show up. Philip was about to retire with the whole court to Valsaín. He was immensely tied up with his wife's imminent childbirth in August. But in spite of this he and his advisers concentrated their minds on the issue of the Netherlands.

  In the tranquillity of the woods of Segovia the king attempted to reach some firm decisions.25 He left the whole apparatus of government behind in Madrid, but summoned particular officials. Over several days, he had talks with the council of State and other selected ministers. At a crucial meeting of the council on 22 July the nobles were supplemented by three Netherlanders, the secretaries Tisnacq and Courteville and the newly arrived Joachim Hopperus, official representative of the States General in Spain. The king was already in possession of a memorial from Montigny whereby he had access to a representative range of opinion. In the event, the meeting did little more than summarise the options available and Philip was left to make his own decision. Four days later he announced his course of action: he would go to the Netherlands in the spring. This was not new, for it simply reaffirmed an old decision, but at least it met a basic demand of many Netherlanders. His next decision was not so palatable: he rejected categorically the demands made by Egmont, Orange and the nobles.

  When Montigny was told by Hopperus and Tisnacq about the decisions, he could not conceal his anger and demanded to speak to the king. That evening he was given an audience. He ‘spoke very freely’, according to a witness, ‘to the point of bringing the colour to His Majesty's cheeks’.26 The information he was receiving from the Netherlands, however, could hardly have led Philip to make any other decision. In July, he heard from del Canto that Brederode and the Gueux were raising men for an insurrection, and that Calvinist preachers from France and Geneva were entering the country and preaching sedition.27 The great nobles were doing nothing to stop this. Letters that arrived from Margaret on 21 July told the same story. The king must either act firmly, the regent urged, or concede the demands. This was more than enough to concentrate the king's mind. For over a year, ever since Egmont's visit, he had allowed events to take their course. Now, it appeared, was the time to call a halt.

  The council of State convened every day in the last week of July. On the thirty-first the king wrote to Margaret. His instructions were, on the face of it, an attempt at moderation. The placards must be enforced, but with various modifications. A general pardon would be issued, but religious offences were excluded. No sooner had the letters gone than Philip regretted even his few concessions. In a small legal ceremony, witnessed only by the officiating notary together with Alba and two other councillors, on 9 August he retracted the offer of a pardon, on the grounds that he had issued it under duress. Shortly after, he instructed Margaret to raise troops in Germany.

  During that summer he was kept informed of the recruitment of soldiers by the Calvinist nobles. By August 1566 he had clarified the issues to himself. In a letter to Requesens he explained that if he went north it must be with an army, because ‘it would be pointless and of little use if I went without strength’. He went on, in one of his most quoted declarations: ‘you can assure His Holiness that rather than suffer the least injury to religion and the service of God, I would lose all my states and a hundred lives if I had them, for I do not intend to rule over heretics’.28 The apparently uncompromising statement, framed in terms of religion, was meant above all to reassure the pope, who had repeatedly, through his nuncio in Madrid, demanded to know why Philip tolerated heresy in the Netherlands. ‘He has told me several times,’ the nuncio reassured His Holiness, ‘that he has no wish to rule over heretics.’29 A fuller guide to the king's intentions were the words that followed his quoted declaration. Philip stated: ‘if possible, I shall attempt to settle affairs of religion in those states without the use of arms, because I know that it would be their total destruction to resort to them. But if matters cannot be settled as I wish without using arms, then I am determined to resort to them.’

  Philip also made a further move to reassure the pope in August, by agreeing, against his own instincts and certainly against the wishes of the Inquisition, to allow the imprisoned archbishop Carranza to be transferred to Rome to have his case examined there. The archbishop sailed from Cartagena for Rome in December.

  On 3 September a sheaf of letters from Margaret arrived at Valsaín. They reported widespread anti-religious riots and destruction of images in the cities of the Netherlands. ‘Defilements, abominations, sacrileges’, were the words Margaret used. In a subsequent letter she said that ‘matters are worse than you could possibly imagine’.30 In Ypres cathedral the Calvinists had blasphemed in the pulpit and had then spent all day sacking the building. In west Flanders alone some 400 churches were sacked.31 After this, a shocked Philip was in no doubt that a state of rebellion existed. His views were shared by the Spanish public. In Madrid anger against Netherlanders was so great that, said one of them, ‘we daren't go out in the street’.32 But the king was still hesitant. He was literally sickened by the news, and let it be known, in the despatch sent to Brussels, that he had ‘received the information with immense grief, but have been unable to reply because of my indisposition’.33 He came down with fever almost immediately after hearing what had happened,34 and had to be bled. The news and the illness were not necessarily connected, for other members of the court, including the queen, were also laid low with fever.35 But the illness conveniently helped him to put off a decision. Not until 22 September was a special meeting of the council convened. There was now no doubt at all that an army must be sent in. The day after the council meeting Philip looked relaxed and confident.36

  In a special council meeting at the end of October, the argument for armed intervention was reconfirmed. The king, exceptionally, presided over the session.37 In December, when all military preparations had been made, Alba stated that ‘in this question of Flanders the issue is not one of taking steps against their religion but simply against rebels’.38

  Meanwhile, at the end of 1566 the king had to deal with a proposal, put forward by Montigny and Berghes, that Ruy Gómez be sent to the Netherlands if he himself could not go. When spring 1567 came the only certainty was that an army would be going, and that Alba would be leading it. Knowledge that the duke, appointed in November 1566,
would be coming north with an army, helped powerfully to concentrate the minds of the Catholic leadership in the Netherlands. Some remained openly scornful. ‘What can an army do?’ Egmont asked Margaret. ‘Kill 200,000 Netherlanders?’39 During the winter and early spring Margaret and her officials, with the help of Orange, Egmont and other aristocrats, used troops to eliminate the centres of Calvinist sedition. In April 1567 Brederode fled. Margaret sent an emissary to report to Philip that armed intervention was not now necessary. It was too late. The very day that the emissary arrived at court, 27 April, Alba set sail from Cartagena, on the Mediterranean coast. His destination: Italy, the Alpine passes, and then Flanders.40

  The sixty-year-old general, in poor health and riddled with gout, was not the king's first choice for command of the army.41 He would have preferred the duke of Parma – Margaret's husband Ottavio Farnese – or the duke of Savoy. Both were in good standing with the Netherlanders, and (possibly more important) were not Spaniards. When he failed to enlist their support, Philip turned instinctively to Alba. His choice was made easier by the fact that Alba's rivals in the council considered this a good opportunity to get him out of the way. The duke had firmly supported the decision that the king go to Flanders. He also understood that a small army must accompany the king in order to restore order. But at no time had he lent support to the idea of a punitive force, without the king, being sent north.42

  On 22 August Alba entered Brussels at the head of his army of 10,000 Castilian troops. He came armed with few precise instructions, and in the belief that he would soon be followed by the king. Philip gave him full military powers, with instructions to arrest and punish the rebel leaders before the king's arrival. The idea, as the king had explained to the pope some months before, was to ‘avoid bloodshed’ by taking firm action.43 On 5 September a special court, called the ‘Council of Troubles’, was set up to instil order into the affairs of the Netherlands.