Philip of Spain

by Henry Kamen

  The policy of repression continued. In popular parlance the council of Troubles became known as the council of Blood. In the months since Alba's arrival over a thousand people, including people from all social echelons, were executed after being tried by the council. The scale of the repression was well known to many in Spain. A study published there in 1577 estimated, with considerable accuracy, the number of executed at 1,700 persons.83 By the end of 1568 the liberties of the Netherlands were finished.

  Though there was outrage throughout Europe at Spain's policy, the king had no misgivings. He wrote to his ambassador in France that he was ‘surprised at the sinister interpretation’ put on events in Flanders by the French court, where the Huguenots had considerable influence. His policy was exclusively ‘concerned with punishing rebels and not with religion’. ‘I have never written or said otherwise’.84 He was not about to launch an anti-heresy crusade. Moreover, after the successful repression it was time to arrive at a settlement. In February 1569 he wrote to Alba: ‘let us talk about the general pardon, since I feel that it is now time to concede if.85

  In Germany the criticism, on the part of both Catholics and Protestants, was particularly strong,86 since the Netherlands had always had close links with the Holy Roman Empire. Philip tended to pay special attention to German views. His long stay there had given him good insight into the complexity of German politics. Above all, he needed the emperor's support if he was to continue to be able to recruit German soldiers – valued above those of any other nation – for his armies in Flanders and Milan. He periodically sent money87 to help Maximilian's war effort against the Turks and through his ambassador Chantonnay, the brother of Granvelle, he kept Maximilian in close touch with his policy in the Netherlands. In May 1568 he explained that he was going to perform his duty there even if ‘the whole world should fall in on me’.88 The execution of Egmont and Hornes, however, stretched relations between the two branches of the Habsburg family to breaking point. The emperor's ambassador in Madrid, Dietrichstein, in August delivered to the king a firmly worded letter from his master.89 So strong was the feeling among the German princes that the emperor on their behalf sent his younger brother, the twenty-eight-year-old archduke Charles of Styria, to try and mediate with the king. He was also to discuss the case of Don Carlos.

  The archduke left Vienna at the end of October 1568 and reached Madrid on 10 December.90 During his journey news arrived in Vienna of Elizabeth's death. Charles was thereupon instructed to offer Philip the hand of the emperor's daughter Anna, who had originally been proposed for Don Carlos. The suggestion was opportune. At the end of January 1569 the cardinal of Guise, Louis de Lorraine, came to Madrid on behalf of Catherine de’ Medici.91 Among the matters he discussed was the possible marriage of Philip to Elizabeth's sister, Marguerite of Valois. After considering the alternatives, Philip and his advisers opted for Anna, apparently because it was felt the Valois girls did not produce sons. Moreover, the king said, ‘I have such scruples about marrying two sisters, that I could never agree to it’.92

  The theme opened up several possibilities. A suitable marriage alliance, Philip wrote to Granvelle, might be the path to peace in Europe. As a widower of advancing years, although ‘I would be very happy to remain in the state in which I find myself’, this ‘would not satisfy my duty to God and to my subjects, which must always be put before my own happiness’. He was therefore thinking of a triple marriage arrangement involving himself and the emperor's daughter Anna, the Infanta Isabel and the king of France, and the French king's sister Marguerite and the king of Portugal. The alliances would, he thought, ‘bring peace and universal quiet to all Christendom, hurt the Turk our common enemy, and extirpate heresies everywhere’.93

  Charles's visit was the first occasion since the Augsburg family reunion that the Habsburgs had put their heads together. The frank and open interchange of views between the two members of the family offers an unusual glimpse into the justifications offered by the king. Charles brought from Maximilian a plea for less rigour in the Netherlands, and for reconciliation with the prince of Orange. He presented the proposals in a memorandum which the king's ministers discussed and debated.

  In a reply of January 1569, meant for the eyes of the German princes,94 Philip put forward four main points. His concern, he claimed, was defence of the faith. Experience showed that any compromise on religion led to

  the ruinous and sad state in which matters of religion stand. The example of events in the Netherlands, caused by laxity, licence, and consentment, is sufficient to make one see clearly that a different road has to be pursued. If there is division and disagreement over religion, neither government nor state nor the authority of princes nor peace and concord and tranquillity among subjects can be maintained.

  Second, the punishments in Flanders had caused him ‘great distress and sadness’, but were necessary. Those arrested were tried by legal process: ‘they were heard and defended before competent judges, and were found guilty of their offences fully and entirely’. The only people punished were ‘the leaders and heads of the plot and conspiracy’. Third, no part of the laws or constitution of the Netherlands had been altered. ‘I have not till now made any change in the form of government or in its laws and tribunals.’ Finally, the Spanish troops were no threat to any other state, and had not crossed the frontiers of the Netherlands. Any aggression would be contrary to his ‘line of conduct, which has always been far from causing harm or hurt to anyone’.95

  The defence can obviously be faulted. The council of Blood was not a normal court; and changes had certainly been made, if not in the government then at least in the way it operated. The remarkable thing is that Philip was willing to defend his policy in public. The archduke disagreed strongly with the king's arguments, and came back immediately with a strongly worded reply. He accepted Philip's sincerity, but denounced the policy of blood. ‘Many will not cease to criticise Your Majesty for this until you have ordered a complete stop to killing so many poor people … One cannot fail to affirm at every step, now as before, that there has been an excessive and abominable use of rigour.’ Those in the empire advised ‘kindness and compassion rather than naked rigour’. ‘Apart from this,’ he concluded, ‘His Imperial Majesty is of the opinion that anyone who thinks he can control and govern Flanders like Italy or Spain, is very much deceived.’96

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  By 1569 Spain was being driven into a position of isolation. Philip felt keenly that the Catholic side was ‘very divided, while the heretics stand united and together’.97 The execution of Egmont and his colleagues shocked and alienated opinion everywhere. Only Granvelle commented sardonically that until the Spaniards caught Orange the hunt was still on. Even in Rome, from which Granvelle was writing, opinion was not in favour of Spain, and the papal Curia was still trying to reach a conclusion on the highly sensitive Carranza case. Philip put a brave face on the presence at court of the archduke Charles (who left Spain only in April 1569), but it was hardly the right moment to have a foreign observer on his doorstep. Montigny and Vandenesse had recently been imprisoned in the castle of Segovia, and the court was alive with rumours about their fate.

  Jacques Vandenesse, a Flemish gentleman of the king's chamber, aged thirty-five when arrested in September 1567, was accused of passing information from the king's office directly to the prince of Orange. As early as the spring of 1566 a leak was suspected and it did not help when Egmont publicly claimed to know everything that went on in the king's bedchamber.98 Vandenesse was also too free and open about his hostility to Alba's expedition. Once, when told to keep quiet in case the king overheard, he answered angrily that he would be even more outspoken in the king's presence. He was arrested on Alba's request and confined. His case was dealt with confidentially in 1569.99 In December 1570 he was moved to the fortress at Santorcaz,100 where he died of an illness.

  Montigny's position had been untenable from the first. His arrival in 1566 coincided with news of the image-breaking. Thereafter h
e became involved in various efforts, both open and covert, to change policy decisions affecting the military intervention in Flanders. At one stage he and Berghes may even have spoken to Don Carlos. They received information from Vandenesse and others, which they sent on to Orange. Montigny was arrested shortly before Vandenesse in September 1567, and confined likewise in Segovia. Sentence of death against him was decreed by the council of Troubles in Brussels on 4 March 1570,101 and was received by the king at the end of June. In August Montigny was moved to the castle of Simancas, outside Valladolid. He was the last of the group of important nobles implicated in the troubles in Flanders. After the protests against the 1568 executions and the visit of the archduke, Philip would have been unwise to send Montigny, scion of the great Montmorency family of France, back to face punishment in Flanders. It also made little sense to carry out a public execution in Spain. Public executions were meant to edify, and the point would have been lost.

  Montigny had every reason to hope that his offences would be over-looked and he would be restored to favour. In default of this, he attempted to escape early in 1570. The harsh punishment meted out to those who took part in the plan – of the seven private servants and jailers involved three were sentenced to death, the rest to the galleys – was a clear sign that no mercy was forthcoming. By late September 1570 Philip, who never in his life erred on the side of mercy, decided that the execution must be carried out, but in Spain and in private. On 1 October a special instruction was sent to the bailiff (alcalde) of the high court at Valladolid. At the same time one of Philip's chaplains, fray Hernando de Castillo, was instructed to go to Simancas and prepare the prisoner. Montigny was informed twenty-four hours in advance of his impending execution. He prepared a short written testament and was garotted in the early hours of 16 October 1570.102 The body was buried soon after. Inexplicably, the government decided to give out that the baron had died from natural causes. This was the message that secretary Zayas told Alba to communicate to the grieving widow.103

  The execution has often been presented as a secret and private crime of the king.104 The manner of death, certainly, was shrouded in secrecy. But the execution itself was openly decreed, by a tribunal in whose decisions the king (as was his custom) did not intervene, and the details of its implementation were known to the king's council and several other persons. It was a political act for which the king bore final responsibility, but which he himself did not decree.

  The true fate of Montigny remained secret and was unlikely to provoke reactions. What most embarrassed the king was the outbreak, soon after the archduke's arrival, of a full-scale rebellion among the Moriscos of the kingdom of Granada.

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  Since the fall of the Muslim kingdom of Granada in 1492, the rulers of Spain had pursued an equivocal policy of repression and toleration towards their Islamic subjects. The Inquisition, established in Granada in 1526, began to prosecute Moriscos for not observing their new religion. However, in many parts of the peninsula, above all where Moriscos were subjects of the nobility, there was by contrast an effective tolerance of the practice of Islam.

  Philip had little direct experience of the situation of his Morisco subjects, and seems not to have had fixed views about them. It is likely that he found the current mixture of persecution and toleration, not so different from medieval practice in the peninsula, to be acceptable. There were occasions when he personally had contact with individual Moriscos. A Morisco doctor was among those called upon to attend to Don Carlos during his illness in 1561, and another Morisco managed to cure prince Philip in 1586.105 When prince Fernando, then nearly two years old, fell seriously ill in September 1572, the king did not rule out consulting a Morisco doctor.106 In 1573 the king asked Alonso del Castillo, Morisco scholar and physician, to come to the Escorial to help catalogue the priceless collection of Arab manuscripts.107 For security reasons, perhaps because of the permanent threat from Muslim states, Philip kept his distance from Moriscos as a people. They were, for instance, not permitted to work on the construction of the Escorial (a prohibition also extended to French immigrants). Most educated Spaniards looked down on the Moriscos, who were generally poorer, tended in some parts of the country to dress differently and spoke Castilian with a thick accent. Some respected their culture; very many others despised them as a race.

  Numbering about 300,000 in the 1560s (some 4 per cent of Spain's population), the Moriscos lived mainly in the southern half of the country. Most cherished Spain as their home but resented their inferior status. The majority remained practising Muslims and looked for help to their co-religionists in Africa and the Ottoman empire. It was an explosive situation that bred constant violence. Disaffected Moriscos in Valencia and Granada were active as bandits.

  Traditional aristocrats like the third marquis of Mondéjar, captain- general of Andalusia, whose family had helped to govern the province for half a century, favoured a policy of benevolent subjugation, keeping the Moriscos in their place but treating them and their culture with tolerance. The view was common among feudal nobles, who appreciated the Moriscos as a workforce and as taxpayers. In some measure the king shared this attitude. When a Valencian noble had to deal with a Morisco rebellion on his lands in 1568 the king urged him to use ‘moderation and mildness, and let them off with light punishments’.108 Others, like cardinal Espinosa, took the opposite view and felt that only a vigorous policy of cultural assimilation would convert the Moriscos into Spaniards. Church leaders had just been holding their provincial councils. In December 1565 the council held in Granada petitioned the crown to put into effect the existing laws (above all, those of 1526) prohibiting Moorish customs, language and dress.109 Early in 1567 the government began to do so. Mondéjar protested vigorously but was overruled. He forecast a rebellion, which in fact broke out at Christmas 1568.

  At the time Philip must have seen 1568–9 as possibly the worst year of his reign. Though the situation in the Netherlands seemed to be stabilising, it was at the cost of men, money and the understanding of other countries. Meanwhile, there were potential threats from France and England, and in America the news from both Mexico and Peru, racked by problems and rebellions, was depressing. In the Mediterranean it was obvious that the Turks were on the offensive, which made the Granada rebellion doubly dangerous. Ambassador Juan de Zúñiga wrote from Rome to Philip in October 1569: ‘It seems that there is a wave of rebellions in the world.’110

  The Morisco rebellion drew its support primarily from the villages of the Alpujarra region, rather than from the population of the city of Granada. Numbering only 4,000 at the beginning, by 1569 the rebels amounted to perhaps 30,000. With Spain's crack troops away in Flanders, the threat to internal security was serious. Two independent forces under the marquises of Mondéjar and Los Vélez carried out an energetic repression from January 1569. But support for the rebels among the Moriscos increased. Muslims in north Africa sent arms and volunteers, and quarrels among the Christian commanders hindered efficiency. In April 1569 it was decided to put the campaign under the overall command of Don Juan of Austria. By now it was no longer a question of mere rebellion. Virtually the entire population of the kingdom of Granada was up in arms, in a ferocious war in which little mercy was shown. There was a real risk that the conflict would also bring in the large Morisco population of Valencia and Aragon. Just across the straits, in north Africa the Turkish governor of Algiers, Uluj Ali, chose this moment (January 1570) to seize the city of Tunis.111

  In December 1569 Philip had already made the decision to hold the next Cortes in Andalusia, in Córdoba as he wanted to visit the confines of the battle zone. From January 1570 Don Juan succeeded in imposing his strategy on the military campaign. There were massacres on both sides. Particularly notable was the resistance put up in February 1570 by the town of Galera. When it fell, all its 2,500 inhabitants, women and children included, were slaughtered, the town was razed and salt poured over it. Slowly and brutally, the cruel war drew to its close. On 20 May the rebe
l leader came to the prince's camp and signed a peace treaty. Resistance continued everywhere, above all in the Alpujarra mountains. But the end was in sight.

  Philip's visit to the south of the peninsula was historic. It was his only visit as king to the major cities of Andalusia. The entire government accompanied him; he left the two princesses behind in Madrid, but took with him the archdukes Rudolf and Ernst. They set out from Guadalajara on 9 February 1570. It was an opportune moment to visit. The poorest of all the regions of Spain, Andalusia had suffered drought since 1568. In Granada the war had meant that most of the land was not being cultivated.112 Philip wanted to be in Andalusia specifically, as he said, ‘to give more direct support and help to resolving affairs in Granada’.113 At the end of February the Cortes of Castile met in special session in his presence in the chapter hall of the spectacular mosque-cathedral of Córdoba. The opening speech made it clear that the crown needed money, and that lack of it would put the nation in peril. After the money was voted, the king postponed further sessions to Madrid, where the Cortes resumed in July.114 Debates in Córdoba revealed deep differences between the two sides over the problem of taxes. Both crown and cities were, for all that, only too aware of the threat to their existence posed by the Morisco rebellion only a few miles away.