by Henry Kamen
It soon became obvious in the Netherlands that Don Juan was not getting the material support he required. He sent Escobedo back to Spain in July 1577 to find out what was happening. The secretary found that Pérez was intriguing not only against his master but even against the king. Before he could do anything about it, he was murdered in March 1578, while riding through a dark Madrid street. Rumour quickly pointed to Pérez as the author of the crime. The king, for the moment, did nothing about the incident except press for inquiries.
No proof exists for the subsequent charges by Pérez that he had acted at the king's instigation. There is no evidence that the king was implicated, or that he encouraged his secretary.136 Philip, especially in those crucial years of debate, was surrounded by men who passionately espoused wildly different policies. He never silenced dissent by eliminating people. Unlike Henry II of England, whose anger against Thomas à Becket prompted murder, Philip did not suffer mortal rages. Only in cases of alleged treason did he consider action necessary. And then, as with the arrest of Vandenesse, he always followed due judicial process. Nor were his methods uniformly harsh. In 1583 an official of secretary Zayas was arrested ‘on suspicion of being a spy and having been in touch with the prince of Orange’. There was no concrete proof and Philip simply transferred the man to serve in Naples.137 After a while, he was recalled and given posts in Spain and in Flanders.
Philip's innocence in the affair cannot be proved. But the most convincing argument against his implication in Escobedo's murder is that it was not his style and he stood to gain nothing by it. Involvement would lose him the respect he required for his role as king. He always made plain his refusal to tolerate murder. ‘It's a bad business,’ he commented to his secretary a few years later, ‘that there are so many murders and all difficult to solve.’138 He was referring specifically to the murder in Madrid of the brother of the marquis of Montemayor. In 1578 he tried to cover up for Pérez. But this was, or so he said, because he had been grievously misled. As he scribbled late one night on a report from the committee investigating the case in 1590: ‘all the things he [Pérez] says arise out of what he said to me; they are contrary to the truth, though he tricked me into believing them’.139
Much of the evidence is wholly circumstantial. All the documents implicating Philip come from Antonio Pérez alone, and many were heavily doctored by him when he came to publish them. The archives have yielded few other secrets.140 The king's own reactions may certainly be read in different ways. But he was not a master of duplicity, and his closest colleagues saw nothing to suspect. The murder took place on Easter Monday, 31 March 1578. Early the next morning Philip in San Lorenzo was woken with the news. The first note he sent off said: ‘The news is very strange, and I don't understand what the officers say.’141 A subsequent note to Mateo Vázquez stated that ‘it's all very strange; it was very bold for someone to kill so important a person under my very eyes’. Father Chaves, his confessor, commented later that ‘His Majesty is very concerned’.142
We know from other sources that immediately after the murder the king tried to protect Pérez.143 In subsequent weeks Vázquez broached to the king his suspicions of Pérez, but Philip usually deflected the comments. It is quite reasonable to believe that he did this from a wish to protect his secretary rather than because he himself was implicated. On 12 April Vázquez sent the king a note explicitly pointing a finger at Pérez. Inexplicably, the king sent the note to Pérez to obtain his reaction. Pérez sent back to the king the draft of a suggested reply, which Philip accordingly sent in his own hand to Vázquez. ‘Since they are no more than suspicions,’ he wrote, ‘we should not give credit to them.’144 By acting in this way, the king immediately made himself the accomplice of a man under suspicion.
But Philip did not intend to become enmeshed in the Escobedo case. In November he scribbled to the persistent Vázquez another note about Pérez:
Over what you say in the paper that came here and that I have burnt, I gave you my response once before, and do so again … If it's a question of rumour, I don't believe there's anyone who is not the subject of talk. But it's necessary to get at the truth rather than at suspicions, for these have always existed in the world. But you can tell me by word of mouth, without him or anybody else to hear, so that I can see whether or not they are matters that have some basis. Don't say anything about all this.145
By this time it was virtually official news in Madrid that Antonio Pérez had engineered Escobedo's death. As with scandals today,146 the political elite preferred at first to stick together. Within a few weeks, it was as though nothing had happened to disturb the normal rhythm of life in the capital. But factional interests and rivalries were simmering. Vázquez and Pérez were at each other's throats. The king himself was concerned to discover more about what had happened. And there was, intriguingly, the princess of Eboli.
Ana de Mendoza y de la Cerda, only daughter of Diego de Mendoza, count of Melito, was born in 1540, the same year as Antonio Pérez. In 1553, at the age of thirteen, she was married to Ruy Gómez, later prince of Eboli, twenty-four years her senior. Because of her years as well as her husband's absence abroad with Philip II, the marriage was not consummated until 1559. Young, attractive,147 energetic and ambitious, the princess of Eboli propelled herself into the social and political life of the court. From 1561 she entered into the first of her non-stop pregnancies (she had a total of ten children), but still found time to cultivate the friendship of the highest in the land, including Elizabeth Valois. When Eboli died in July 1573, the princess went into reclusion for three years. She emerged, to take part once again in the ebullient life of the court. Among her close friends was Antonio Pérez. It was rumoured that she was his lover. When Escobedo found this out, some said, his fate was sealed. But others in Madrid also considered that La Eboli had been the king's lover.
The story of a liaison between Philip and the princess is both unproven and absurd.148 By contrast, her link with Pérez is certain. But it was probably based on political scheming, not on passion.149 At the subsequent inquiry into Escobedo's murder a witness stated that Pérez ‘was with the princess so many hours and so frequently that they suspected that the secretary was talking of many confidential matters of his state’. Another claimed that ‘the princess knew secrets of state’ which could only have come from a senior minister. As suspicion of La Eboli's role in the Escobedo affair grew, the president of the royal council, Pazos, commented to the king that ‘we suspect that she is the leaven of all this’.150 Philip had every reason to think that the killing of Escobedo was merely a detail in a turbid matter involving his secretary and Ana de Mendoza.
The king had always kept his distance from La Eboli. His attitude was encouraged by Vázquez, whose serious differences with Pérez had a crucial influence on events. When Vázquez in July 1578 made a critical observation about the princess, the king commented firmly that ‘if it can be believed of anybody it is of that lady, of whom as you know I have always been cautious, because I have known of her ways for some time’.151 A few weeks later he emphasised ‘the great care that I have taken all my life not to meddle in the affairs of these persons’. By ‘these persons’ he meant La Eboli, her father and Antonio Pérez. As though he had said too much, he warned Vázquez: ‘all this is directed only to you, you are not to say a word to anybody else’.152
The crux of the matter, forming the substance of the subsequent legal accusations against Pérez, was that the secretary had misused his office to leak secrets of state. When it appeared that Escobedo might reveal this, Pérez had him killed. A labyrinth of political schemes and personal interests led simply to this.
Within those schemes, high affairs of state were involved. It explains why the king busied himself with the case, which has not ceased to fascinate historians. There are signs that La Eboli, at the most delicate of moments in the struggle for the Portuguese succession, was hoping to marry one of her daughters to the son of the duke of Braganza.153 It was a flagrant interfe
rence in Portuguese politics which also offers an explanation for the date of the arrest of Pérez and Eboli on the king's orders, in July 1579.
Immediately after the murder of Escobedo, Philip ordered a secret investigation, which he entrusted to his secretary, the judge Rodrigo Vázquez de Arce.154 In those same weeks, Philip was refusing to accept Pérez's guilt. By the end of the year, information and rumours obliged him to change his attitude. In March 1579 he decided to bring the matter out into the open. ‘I cannot manage to clear my conscience,’ he mused. ‘I shall go to confession and communion and trust God to guide me to make the proper decision. I am encouraged a bit to see that the matter is now public, which is no surprise considering a woman is involved.’155 It was not only his conscience that weighed on him. The king also received a direct rebuke from one of his chaplains, fray Hernando de Castillo, the man who years before had assisted at the secret execution of Montigny. ‘I neither know nor understand,’ the aged Dominican reproved him, ‘what reason you have in conscience for withholding punishment.’156 Three weeks later, on 30 March, precisely a year after the murder, Philip wrote to cardinal Granvelle in Rome, summoning him immediately to Madrid to take charge of affairs of state. The letter, ironically, was drawn up by Pérez. But the king had still not made up his mind. In April and May he was still assuring the secretary of his support. ‘I shall not let you down,’ he wrote.157
That June the king went with Anna and the family to Aranjuez for a brief stay, and then to Toledo for the Corpus Christi celebrations. On 20 June they left Toledo and made their way to San Lorenzo, arriving there in three days. The family settled down to their routine of leisure, but the king had other things on his mind. To everybody's surprise, and completely breaking his normal pattern, on 9 July he suddenly left for Madrid, citing important affairs of state.158 It was thought that some development in Flanders or Portugal had emerged. Over the next few days the king in the Alcázar was largely absorbed in sorting out the problems raised by the activities of Pérez and the princess of Eboli.159 He also had before him a report of a threat, presumably by these two, to Vázquez's life. Events moved to their climax on the night of 28 July. Antonio Pérez, unsuspecting, had been working on papers with the king until ten that night. ‘Your business,’ the king commented to the secretary, ‘will be dealt with before I leave.’160 When Pérez returned home, at eleven, he was detained and placed under house arrest. Moments later the captain of the royal guard detained the princess and conducted her to prison in a castle at Pinto. The king stayed up all night.161 He spent the time writing letters, counter-signed by secretary Gaztelu, to explain his decision. They were directed to the duke of Infantado, the duke of Medina Sidonia, and other grandees related by blood to the princess.162 This done, he returned the next day to San Lorenzo.
Granvelle arrived in Madrid on 28 July. The capital was soon buzzing with news of the arrests, which seem to have caused general satisfaction to the public.163 Among friends of Pérez (like Quiroga) and powerful relatives of La Eboli (like Medina Sidonia), there was deep dismay. On 3 August cardinal Granvelle was at San Lorenzo, where he kissed the king's hand and received instructions. Shortly after, Philip fell ill of a throat infection and had to be bled. He managed, nonetheless, to discuss business with his new chief minister. In mid-October the royal family moved on to the Pardo. Granvelle on the same day went to Madrid to take control of the councils of Italy and Flanders. Now aged sixty-two, he was the first non-Spaniard ever to assume direction of the affairs of the monarchy.
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The virtual settlement of the conflict in the southern Netherlands enabled Philip to pay more attention to the urgent matter of the Portuguese succession.
Philip was as Portuguese as he was Castilian. To his own family links were added those of his sister Juana, mother of the ill-fated Sebastian. When the latter succeeded to the Portuguese throne in 1557, at the age of three, Philip began to take an interest in the career of his unpredictable nephew. Sebastian's evident lack of interest in women and in the need to marry and procure an heir, together with his excessive dedication to war games, were alarming signs. He disappeared for three months into northern Africa in 1574, on a reconnaissance visit. In a famous interview between the two kings, held at the monastery of Guadalupe during Christmas 1576, with the duke of Alba present, Philip tried to reason with him. Sebastian, however, was interested only in concrete offers of help for his plans to invade Africa. At a moment when Philip was working to bring about a truce with the Turks in the Mediterranean, it made little sense to open up a new war in the south. He unbent to the extent of offering some support. ‘I decided to offer him fifty galleys and 5,000 Spanish troops’, for which he would have to pay.164 He also insisted that, because of the obvious risks, Sebastian must not participate personally. The Spaniards would be drawn from those returning to Italy from Flanders. On his return to Madrid Philip told ambassador Khevenhüller that Sebastian ‘has good intentions but little maturity’. ‘I have pressed him by word and by letter,’ he said, ‘but to no avail.’165 In 1578 he sent Juan de Silva as ambassador to Portugal to try to restrain Sebastian. Benito Arias Montano was also sent to Lisbon with a similar mission.
In spite of Spanish efforts, the famous expedition to Morocco took place. On 4 August 1578 the army of Portugal, comprising the flower of its nobility with the young twenty-five-year-old king at their head, was wiped out by Berber forces at the battle of Alcazar-el-Kebir. Over 10,000 men were taken prisoner. The news reached Madrid on 12 August. The king had only just left the city, alone, for San Lorenzo. He was in the Escorial when messengers brought him the news on the thirteenth. He was visibly shaken, and immediately withdrew.166 He spent the next few hours walking around the patio garden, alone,167 and the friars judged that he was overcome with grief. He certainly grieved. But Sebastian's death also opened up the formidable question of the Portuguese succession. When he went indoors the king wrote at once to Cristóbal de Moura.
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It was not the kindest of autumns. On 22 September the archduke Wenzel, whom Philip had cared for as a son, died in Madrid at the age of seventeen. Barely a month later, it was the turn of the little Infante Fernando, who died on 18 October. Don Juan had died a fortnight before. The loss of two nephews, one son, and a brother in the space of three months was shattering. The king evaded the mourning by immersing himself in the question of Portugal. The day after receiving the news of Alcazar-el-Kebir he went to Madrid and issued orders to the marquis of Santa Cruz to take the Andalusian galleys to protect the Portuguese forts on the African coast. In effect, the battle for north Africa was now lost. The king, significantly, took no further military measures in that zone. Instead, he concentrated his attention on the peninsula.
He sent Cristóbal de Moura, a Portuguese and one of his most trusted advisers, to Portugal to sound out the situation. Moura, aged forty in 1578, had come to Spain in 1554 in the train of the princess Juana. Like several other Portuguese (among them Ruy Gómez) who sought their fortune at the court of Spain, Moura won the king's favour, thanks largely to the patronage of Juana. He proved exceptionally useful in missions involving his native land, and had helped to arrange the meeting with Sebastian at Guadalupe. Moura was informed that his close friend Juan de Silva, Spanish ambassador to Sebastian who was among those captured at Alcazar-el-Kebir, would be reappointed ambassador as soon as he managed to return from Africa. While Moura was assessing matters, Philip despatched letters of sympathy to the chief authorities. Portugal was defenceless and leaderless, and the most urgent issue was the succession.
The nearest male heir was the late king's great-uncle, the sixty-seven- year-old cardinal Henry. He was proclaimed king at the end of August. Henry was deaf, half-blind, toothless, senile and racked by tuberculosis. He was, reported Moura, half-dead with fright at being nominated king.168 The best legal right to the throne after him was held by Philip, through his mother. There were Portuguese claimants to the throne, notably the cardinal's nephew Antonio, prior of Cra
to, and a niece who was married to the duke of Braganza.169 But Philip was determined to assert his own claims.
For the first and only time in his life, he conducted a campaign to win over opinion. Over problems such as the Netherlands, he had limited himself to defending his policies, for he was the legitimate ruler. Now he was obliged to court the support both of the Portuguese and of Europe. He fervently hoped to secure the throne without the expense and blood of a fight, but he also accepted that even strong claims needed the firm consent of the political elite. Three approaches were made. First, leading jurists from all over Europe were employed to write in support of his cause, so as to convince not only the Portuguese but other European powers. Second, his representatives in Portugal, most notably his ambassador Juan de Silva, his representative the duke of Osuna, and his special envoy Moura, attempted to win over individuals as well as cities. Finally, selective bribes were used. Moura orchestrated a brilliant campaign to win support for his master. He talked to nobles and clergy, collected information on Portuguese defences, and distributed money liberally.