Philip of Spain

by Henry Kamen

  Philip was very likely aware that Parma's victories were not bringing peace any nearer. He committed himself now to finding a political solution at all costs. In June 1592 Mayenne and the Catholic League convoked a meeting of the Estates General, which opened its sessions in the Louvre in January 1593. In May Jean Baptiste de Tassis addressed the Estates. He used the occasion to argue for a legitimate Catholic succession to the throne, but the Catholics found it impossible to agree on any candidate of their own. Tassis therefore formally proposed on his master's behalf the claims of the Infanta Isabel. The biggest obstacle, in principle, was that in France the so-called Salic Law excluded females from the line of succession. Though Philip had instructed his ambassador, the duke of Feria,185 to press Isabel's claims, he was willing to accept the candidature of any other reliable Catholic claimant, and had no political ambitions in France.186 His calculations were upset by Henry of Navarre, who in July publicly abjured his heresy and was received into the Catholic Church.

  Navarre's move was distrusted by the Catholics and lost him much Protestant support, but it seriously weakened Spanish efforts to get the Estates to accept Isabel. Most Frenchmen preferred a French candidate, however doubtful his religious position, to a foreign one. ‘Weary of travails’, Tassis reported, and of war and foreign intervention, they bit by bit declared for Navarre.187 Mayenne proved to be an unreliable ally. In February 1594 Henry IV was formally crowned king of France in the cathedral at Chartres. Early in the morning of 22 March he and his army were let into Spanish-occupied Paris by French officials, and the enemy troops allowed to march out with military honours. Henry gave them a safe conduct, with two officials to accompany them and help obtain provisions. The duke of Feria described the exit:

  I left at two in the afternoon, with all our men in file, flags flying and beating drums. First to leave were the Italians, followed by myself on horseback with all the rest of our men, and the Walloons behind me. The prince of Béarn [Henry IV] was at a window overlooking the Porte St Denis through which we left. I took off my hat to him when I passed and he did the same.188

  On this note of gallantry another unsuccessful chapter in Spanish imperialism closed. Henry IV's position was infinitely strengthened when, in 1595, his conversion was accepted by Rome and a papal pardon issued. Some months before this, on 17 January 1595, he formally declared war against Spain, which now faced a struggle on all fronts in western Europe.

  Long before then, it was plain to the Spanish government that its military interventions in the west must be ended. One final effort against France was made by the governor of Milan, who assembled an army which crossed the passes through Savoy and launched an attack on French Burgundy.189 But the forces were unexpectedly defeated by Henry IV in June 1595 at Fontaine-Française, and withdrew to Italy. The other interventions in France had collapsed. In Brittany, where Juan de Aguila faced French royalist troops, English troops under Sir John Norris, and Breton peasant rebels, the Spanish position was completely untenable. ‘In Brittany there isn't a single man Your Majesty can rely on, nor any who wouldn't give his own or his children's last drop of blood to see the Spaniards out. Anyone who says otherwise to Your Majesty is deceiving you.’190 In Marseille too the tide turned. Early in February 1596 a coup took place, the brilliant rebel leader Charles de Casaulx was murdered, and the city surrendered to the French. The small Spanish force was expelled. ‘Only now am I king of France!’ a delighted Henry IV is said to have exclaimed as he entered the city. Wherever possible, the Spanish government tried to suppress news of the reverses. ‘They are wrong to ban the publication of news,’ protested an official, ‘because the way we Spaniards function is that however bad an event may be what we imagine is always worse.’191

  Profiting from the absence of part of Parma's army in France, Dutch forces under William of Orange's second son, Maurice of Nassau, began a southward drive which netted significant gains. They were enormously helped by the mutinies which racked the Spanish forces. From the Netherlands the bishop of Antwerp complained to Arias Montano of ‘this wretched war’, saying that it served only to enrich the rebels with all the gold sent from Spain to pay for it.192 The provinces under Spanish rule were unhappy with Parma's replacement, the count of Fuentes. Philip appointed the archduke Ernst, the emperor Rudolf's brother, as governor. But Ernst arrived only in 1594, and died shortly after, in February 1595. The financial situation in the Spanish exchequer was desperate. Disengagement became inevitable.

  In 1593 the Venetian ambassador Contarini felt that the king had reached an age that was ‘very perilous in all old men’.193 He was likely to live several years yet, thanks to the ‘good regime’ in his diet and way of life. But the government represented a ‘heavy and unbearable weight’. Preoccupations of state, the debt, the heavy taxes, the famine (there was a severe drought and harvest failure in 1593–4) were part of his burden. Above all, there was the problem of the succession. ‘These travails trouble the king's spirit and do much harm to his appearance.’ The portrait done of him, probably in this year, by Juan Pantoja de la Cruz,194 reflects perfectly the wastage of the years. Philip stands erect, dressed from top to toe in black, with the Fleece as his only ornament. His face is an ashen white, the same colour as his beard and hair. The lips sag. His eyes now, instead of glaring defiantly as in the portrait by Wierix of seven years before, are old and weary, the lids half-closed.

  11

  Last Years 1593–1598

  I don't believe that my life matters so much, at least not to me.1

  After his return from Tarazona the king's health was poor and he was patently unable to cope. He made it to San Lorenzo for Holy Week in 1593, and then spent a restful May in Aranjuez. Most of the summer was spent at San Lorenzo. But Philip was seriously ill with the gout. Surgeons had to open two fingers of his right hand to let out the pus.2 He could barely write, and could no longer manage the tasks of government. The troika which had been functioning since 1585 was therefore given a new lease of life. Its membership was the same: Moura, Idiáquez and Chinchón. Their duties were also the same. But since the king could no longer carry out the roles reserved for himself in 1586, a substitute had to be found.

  It was agreed that the prince was still too young for the job, so the decision was made to summon the archduke Albert from Lisbon. Philip had been thinking of this possibility since as long ago as January 1589. ‘For some days,’ he commented then, ‘I have been considering this matter of bringing my nephew over here.’3 Official duties, Philip wrote now to Moura, ‘have put even more pressure on me this year than last year, and because of this I wish to see my nephew over here, and have thought hard about it’. The archduke would have to be carefully instructed, a task he entrusted to Moura. The king signed off with a reflective sigh: ‘affairs these days are terrible’.4

  The cardinal archduke Albert was aged thirty-four in 1593. Philip had always placed great hope in his capacities. Albert came directly to San Lorenzo from Lisbon, arriving in the afternoon of 11 September.5 In a special gesture, Philip went by coach two miles down the road to meet him. He honoured the archduke by placing him between himself and the prince as they entered San Lorenzo. The prince was unhappy at this arrangement and came round to take his father's right hand. The king frowned sternly at him and made him go to the left hand of the archduke.6 It was a little incident that summed up for observers the problem of the succession.

  Shortly after, the king sent Albert a handwritten note (backdated to 8 September) which thanked him for coming and set out his functions. He was to work in Madrid, accompanying the prince to official meetings, celebrations and church services. Public audiences took up much of the king's time. First audiences of ambassadors would be given by himself (the king) or by the prince; all other audiences were to be given, in the morning, by Albert. Afternoons must be kept free for council meetings. The troika, joined by the prince's tutor the marquis of Velada, was to be presided over by the prince, with Albert sitting to one side. The prince, on this sh
owing, attended only the troika and not council meetings. Even then, according to one source, he stayed for only about half an hour,7 leaving the others to make decisions without him. A few days later the king gave the troika his instructions. They were to meet every afternoon, and could implement all their decisions except for financial ones, which had to go to the king first.8

  He was, in effect, preparing to hand over the regime. The prince's appearance alone on horseback in a public procession for the Nativity of the Virgin, in December 1593, was taken by some as a sign that his independent role was recognised. He was allowed to sign some documents but as yet did not have formal authority to act for the king.

  In Madrid, the reign was drawing to a close. Seriously ill, on 7 March 1594 Philip had his final testament signed and witnessed.9 It was a long document in forty-nine numbered paragraphs, conventional in phrasing and content, but careful to assert clearly the royal rights he was leaving in the hands of his son. It also carefully laid down the line of succession. Finally came the firm signature, ‘I the king’.

  When despatching his paperwork the king refused to be separated from Isabel, now his closest comfort. For years she had helped him, reading papers and aiding him with decisions. In 1590 ‘he wants her always at his side, and she is sometimes with him three or four hours while he attends to petitions, which she helps him to read’.10 Well into 1595 Philip continued to annotate the principal papers of the Junta. The hours he worked were dictated by his health. In April 1594 he ordered that ‘from now on don't send me anything unless it is before lunch, because afterwards I am already burdened with work for the afternoon’.11 Though final decisions continued to be his, effective direction was in the hands of Cristóbal de Moura and Juan de Idiáquez. The council of State no longer ran affairs. ‘And the other councils don't play any part in day-to-day business, but are sent matters of little moment.’12 All reports on major matters were drawn up by Moura and Idiáquez alone, without going through the council. Idiáquez determined foreign affairs, Moura domestic politics.

  As his illness worsened, the king's unmistakable scrawl tended to disappear from state papers, and in its place appeared the terse directions of Don Cristóbal: ‘His Majesty says …’.13 Important legal documents were still retained for the king's signature, and well into 1597 he continued to make written comments on select affairs of state. But his role was almost nominal. When the news came in 1595, for instance, that the pope had recognised Henry IV as king of France, he was too tired and unwell to absorb its significance. In large, shaky letters he scribbled: ‘There has been so much today from Madrid, that I cannot look at this nor do I dare read or write much.’ Let Idiáquez come tomorrow, he wrote, to explain the situation to him; though ‘I think I have understood something of it’.14 Despite Philip's incapacity, the government of the country did not collapse. Never adequately controlled from the centre, the provinces continued in tranquillity under their local authorities. Administrative and defence functions were confirmed in the hands of local nobility, who continued to play an important part in the politics and government of the country.15

  His family rallied round the invalid. ‘He recovers more quickly than before,’ Isabel wrote to her sister Catalina in September 1594, ‘and has begun again to drink wine, which he left two years ago. You can imagine what sort of summer we have had with all this, since in the whole summer we have not gone out once.’16 But Philip's body did not respond to his will. In March 1595 the Venetian envoy Vendramin wrote home: ‘The doctors say that his body is so withered and feeble that it is almost impossible that a human being in such a state should live for long.’ He suffered continuous fever during the first three weeks of May 1595, but recovered from it; ‘and as his sixty-ninth birthday fell on the first day that he was free of fever, he insisted on assisting at a procession, being carried to a window in a chair’.17 Since 1590, he had walked only with the help of a stick.

  As his health continued to deteriorate, Philip agreed it was time to hand over some of his powers to his son. The step could no longer be avoided, for he had decided to make use of Albert elsewhere. His original plan was what he had always intended: to appoint his nephew to the archbishopric of Toledo. Hardy old Quiroga died eventually, aged an incredible ninety-four, in November 1594. Albert's succession had been approved by the papacy, and his investiture robes were fitted out for him. But the unexpected death of the archduke Ernst in February 1595 left the Netherlands without a ruler. Philip immediately decided to replace him with his brother. Albert was nominated as the new governor on 26 April. He did not leave at once, because the king's illness took a sudden turn for the worse in May, but eventually left Madrid for the Netherlands in August. As an earnest of his good intentions, the king sent with him the young prince of Orange, whom the Spaniards had spirited away during the troubles over twenty years before. Albert arrived in Brussels in February 1596.

  There was a general unease in the administration in Madrid, normal when a regime is about to change. Because the king was installed in San Lorenzo a group of ministers worked there. But another group, mainly those in finance, had to work in Madrid. The government in this way had two groups of ministers. They worked independently of, and sometimes against, each other. In August 1595 the president of the council of Finance, Poza, protested that ‘here we try to turn stones into bread, there they turn bread into stones’.18 In one report he referred inadvertently to a ‘committee of chairmen’, an informal committee of the heads of councils in Madrid, which had met periodically in the past to consider financial matters. The king was surprised by this constitutional innovation. ‘I know of no committee of chairmen,’ he said. He wanted to know ‘who goes to it and what matters they deal with’.19 It was something that could not have occurred in the days when he had his hands on the reins.

  In September 1595 Poza sent in a report saying that the committee to discuss taxes with the Cortes was not functioning well. Moura scribbled in the margin: ‘the same can be said of many other things’.20 In a lighter moment, Poza dashed off a joke to the chief minister in the middle of a financial report. Moura, with the cares of a monarchy on his shoulders and a dying king on his hands, responded from San Lorenzo: ‘the story is very good, and it's even better that someone who is in charge of the king's treasury at this juncture should have time to tell it. It is clear that you are a more capable person than we thought.’21 The moments of humour were welcome relief. In October Poza laughed in a council meeting on receiving a note from Moura. On hearing of it Moura commented, ‘It's encouraging that letters about serious business should contain something to make you laugh.’22 The burden of work was heavy. But, said Moura, who had the habit of referring informally to the king as ‘the Boss (el patrón)’, ‘here we are used to not complaining about anything’.23

  Philip discussed with Idiáquez the terms on which the prince could be brought into the government. On 30 July 1595 at the Escorial, he wrote out in his own hand a short instruction for his son. The document commences: ‘Since God has given you the desired good health and you are of age to carry out your share of responsibilities, it is time for us to help each other.’24 The prince was to take over all essential public duties, such as attendance at audiences and councils, and was to rely for advice on Don Cristóbal. Where feasible, he was to report back directly to his father. The king in another document supplied some detail of the prince's duties. On feast-days he was to attend mass at 9 a.m., eat in public, and go riding in the park on some afternoons. On work days, he was to rise at 8 a.m., go out riding or hare-hunting, and then return to hear mass and give audiences. On some afternoons he was to study; and from six to eight was to assist in the relevant councils. He must always be in bed by ten at night.25

  The Infante Philip was in his eighteenth year when he assumed these responsibilities. The king had made no previous attempt to bring him into the process of government, an attitude which contrasts with the confidence he had placed in the Infanta Isabel when she was even younger. The prince was, on
all the evidence, a disappointment to his father. When he was twelve the best that his tutor could say of him was that he was ‘intelligent, and concerned not to be idle’. By contrast, the tutor went on, he was ‘very childish in many things’, and of poor health. His favourite occupation was to imitate his father, ‘writing memoranda and drawing up reports’.26 He appeared to have little intellectual capacity. His study of languages did not extend to French. When the prince was sent a letter from the duke of Guise in 1593 his father opened it and explained apologetically to the secretary: ‘I opened it because the prince would not be able to read it’.27 Philip specially contracted Jean Lhermite to teach the prince French, but little progress was made. The ministers at court had little confidence in the prince, even when it was clear that he must succeed his father. Many despised him. When he was fifteen an ambassador described him as ‘not very lively, short in stature, of quiet temperament’, totally obedient to his father, whom he followed everywhere. He had not yet learned the use of arms, nor knew anything of matters of state.28 At eighteen he had changed little, imitating his father ‘not only in deeds but also in words’.29

  In October 1596 Velada, who had been the prince's governor for nearly ten years, sent the king a confidential report. In part, it was also a comment on how the prince had managed three months of government. His Highness, he stated, ‘is very quiet and withdrawn’. In order to overcome this shyness, he should have more contact with people and go out in public more often. He should be allotted a more active role in the councils where, it seems, he said nothing. ‘What some wish for from His Highness, is that he speak on important matters.’ He should be encouraged to lead more of an outdoor life and leave his indoors activities. He should get up very early in the morning to go hunting. This would oblige him to ‘go to bed early and give up his music’.30 Apparently the prince preferred to stay indoors, playing the guitar. There was little in the report to give comfort to the king. He was obliged to rely yet more on the good offices of Velada, whom he promoted in 1596 to the council of State in order to back up the prince.