



Produced by Al Haines








[Frontispiece: Philip IV at the age of 55.  _From a portrait by
Valazquez in the National Gallery, London._]




  The Court of
  Philip IV.

  SPAIN IN DECADENCE


  BY

  MARTIN HUME

  EDITOR OF THE CALENDARS OF SPANISH STATE PAPERS
  (PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE)
  LECTURER IN SPANISH HISTORY AND LITERATURE
  PEMBROKE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.



  _Vuestras augustisinas Soberanias vivan_, O GRAN
  FELIPE, _inclitamente triunfantes, gravadas en los Anales
  de la Fama, pues sois sólida columna y mobil Atlante de
  la Fe, unica defensa di la iglesia, y bien universal de
  vuestras invencibles reinos_



  LONDON
  EVELEIGH NASH
  1907




{v}

PREFACE

"I lighted upon great files and heaps of papers and writings of all
sorts....  In searching and turning over whereof, whilst I laboured
till I sweat again, covered all over with dust, to gather fit matter
together... that noble Lord died, and my industry began to flag and
wax cold in the business."


Thus wrote William Camden with reference to his projected life of Lord
Burghley, which was never written; and the words may be applied not
inappropriately to the present book and its writer.  Some years ago I
passed many laborious months in archives and libraries at home and
abroad, searching and transcribing contemporary papers for what I hoped
to make a complete history of the long reign of Philip IV., during
which the final seal of decline was stamped indelibly upon the proud
Spanish empire handed down by the great Charles V. to his descendants.
I had dreamed of writing a book which should not only be a social
review of the period signalised by the triumph of French over Spanish
influence in the civilisation of Europe, but also a political history
of the wane and final disappearance of the prodigious national
imposture that had enabled Spain, aided by the rivalries between other
nations, to dominate the world for a century by moral force unsupported
by any proportionate material power.

{vi}

The sources to be studied for such a history were enormous in bulk and
widely scattered, and I worked very hard at my self-set task.  But at
length I, too, began to wax faint-hearted; not, indeed, because my
"noble Lord had died"; for no individual lord, noble or ignoble, has
ever done, or I suppose ever will do, anything for me or my books; but
because I was told by those whose business it is to study his moods,
that the only "noble Lord" to whom I look for patronage, namely the
sympathetic public in England and the United States that buys and reads
my books, had somewhat changed his tastes.  He wanted to know and
understand, I was told, more about the human beings who personified the
events of history, than about the plans of the battles they fought.  He
wanted to draw aside the impersonal veil which historians had
interposed between him and the men and women whose lives made up the
world of long ago; to see the great ones in their habits as they lived,
to witness their sports, to listen to their words, to read their
private letters, and with these advantages to obtain the key to their
hearts and to get behind their minds; and so to learn history through
the human actors, rather than dimly divine the human actors by means of
the events of their times.  In fact, he cared no longer, I was told,
for the stately three-decker histories which occupied half a lifetime
to write, and are now for the most part relegated, in handsome leather
bindings, to the least frequented shelves of dusty libraries.

I therefore decided to reduce my plan to more modest proportions, and
to present not a universal {vii} history of the period of Spain's
decline, but rather a series of pictures chronologically arranged of
the life and surroundings of the "Planet King" Philip IV.--that monarch
with the long, tragic, uncanny face, whose impassive mask and the
raging soul within, the greatest portrait painter of all time limned
with merciless fidelity from the King's callow youth to his sin-seared
age.  I have adopted this method of writing a history of the reign,
because the great wars throughout Europe in which Spain took a leading
part, under Philip and his successor, have already been described in
fullest details by eminent writers in every civilised language, and
because I conceive that the truest understanding of the broader
phenomena of the period may be gained by an intimate study of the mode
of life and ruling sentiments of the King and his Court, at a time when
they were the human embodiment, and Madrid the phosphorescent focus, of
a great nation's decay.

The ground was practically virgin.  John Dunlop, three-quarters of a
century ago, wrote a stolid history of the reign, mainly concerned with
the Spanish wars in Germany, Flanders, and Italy.  But that was before
the archives of Europe were accessible; and, creditable as was Dunlop's
history for the time in which it was written, it is obsolete now.  The
Spanish reproduction in recent years, of seventeenth-century documents,
for the most part unknown in England, has added much to recent
information; whilst numerous original manuscripts, and old printed
narratives and letters of the time, in Spanish, English, and French,
have also provided ample material for the embodiment {viii} in the text
of first-hand descriptions of events.  The book as it stands is far
less ambitious than that originally projected; but it contains much of
the contemporary matter which would have provided substance for the
wider history; and though it is limited in its scope, it may
nevertheless render the important period it covers human and
interesting to ordinary readers who seek intellectual amusement, as
well as intelligible to students who read for information alone.

The book--"a poor thing, but mine own"--owes nothing to the labours of
previous English historians, except that in describing the Prince of
Wales' visit to Madrid I have referred to two documents published by
the Camden Society under the editorship of the late Dr. Gardiner.  With
these exceptions the material has been sought in contemporary
unpublished manuscripts and printed records and letters, in most cases
now first utilised for the purpose.  Whatever its faults may be--and
doubtless the critical microscope may discover many--it is the only
comprehensive history of Philip IV. and the decadent society over which
he reigned that modern research has yet produced.  May good fortune
follow it; for, as the Bachiller Carasco sagely said: "_No hay libra
tan malo que no tenga algo bueno_," and I hope that in this book, at
least, the "good" will be held to outbalance the "bad."

MARTIN HUME.

LONDON, _October_ 1907




{ix}

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY--PHILIP'S BAPTISM, 1605--THE ENGLISH EMBASSY--EXALTED
RELIGIOUS FEELING--DEDICATION OF PHILIP'S LIFE TO THE VINDICATION OF
ORTHODOXY--STATE OF SPAIN--EFFECTS OF LERMA'S POLICY--POVERTY OF THE
COUNTRY--EXPULSION OF THE MORISCOS--PHILIP'S CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH--HIS
BETROTHAL--FALL OF LERMA--THE PRINCE AND OLIVARES--DEATH OF PHILIP III.


CHAPTER II

ACCESSION OF PHILIP IV.--OLIVARES THE VICE-KING--CONDITION OF THE
COUNTRY--MEASURES ADOPTED BY THE NEW KING--RETRENCHMENT--MODE OF LIFE
OF PHILIP AND HIS MINISTER--PHILIP'S IDLENESS--HIS
_APOLOGIA_--DISSOLUTENESS OF THE CAPITAL--VILLA MEDIANA--THE AMUSEMENTS
OF THE KING AND COURT--A SUMPTUOUS SHOW--ARRIVAL OF THE PRINCE OF WALES
IN MADRID--HIS PROCEEDINGS--OLIVARES AND BUCKINGHAM


CHAPTER III

STATE ENTRY OF CHARLES INTO MADRID--GREAT FESTIVITIES--HIS
LOVE-MAKING--ATTEMPTS TO CONVERT THE PRINCE--THE REAL INTENTION OF
OLIVARES--HIS CLEVER PROCRASTINATION--CHARLES AND BUCKINGHAM LOSE
PATIENCE--HOWELL'S STORY OF CHARLES AND THE INFANTA--THE FEELING
AGAINST BUCKINGHAM--ANXIETY OF KING JAMES--HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH {x}
"BABY AND STEENIE"--CHARLES DECIDES TO DEPART--FURTHER DELAY--THE
DIPLOMACY OF OLIVARES--BUCKINGHAM AND ARCHY ARMSTRONG--DEPARTURE OF
CHARLES--HIS RETURN HOME, AND THE ENGLISH DISILLUSION


CHAPTER IV

FOREIGN WAR RENDERED INEVITABLE BY OLIVARES' POLICY--ITS EFFECTS IN
SPAIN--CONDITION OF THE COURT--WASTE, IDLENESS, AND OSTENTATION OF ALL
CLASSES--EXTRAVAGANCE IN DRESS--PHILIP'S EFFORTS TO REFORM
MANNERS--RETRENCHMENT IN HIS HOUSEHOLD--THE SUMPTUARY ENACTMENTS--THE
_GOLILLA_--THE INDUSTRY OF OLIVARES--HIS CHARACTER AND APPEARANCE--HIS
MAIN OBJECT TO SECURE POLITICAL AND FISCAL UNITY IN SPAIN--THE
DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF THIS--THE COMEDIES--THEATRES IN
MADRID--PHILIP'S LOVE FOR THE STAGE--AN _AUTO DE FE_--LORD WIMBLEDON'S
ATTACK ON CADIZ--RICHELIEU'S LEAGUE AGAINST SPAIN--SPANISH
SUCCESSES--"PHILIP THE GREAT"--VISIT OF THE KING TO ARAGON AND
CATALONIA IN 1626--DISCONTENT AND DISSENSION--PHILIP'S LIFE TRAGEDY


CHAPTER V

RISE OF THE PARTY OPPOSED TO OLIVARES--THE QUEEN AND THE INFANTES
CARLOS AND FERNANDO--OLIVARES REMONSTRATES WITH PHILIP FOR HIS NEGLECT
OF BUSINESS--PHILIP'S REPLY--ILLNESS OF THE KING--FEARS OF
OLIVARES--PHILIP'S CONSCIENCE--ASPECT OF MADRID AT THE TIME--HABITS OF
THE PEOPLE--A GREAT ARTISTIC CENTRE--MANY FOREIGN
VISITORS--VELASQUEZ--PHILIP'S LOVE OF ART, LITERATURE, AND THE
DRAMA--CONTEMPORARY DESCRIPTION OF A PLAYHOUSE--PHILIP AND THE
_CALDERONA_, MOTHER OF DON JUAN OF AUSTRIA--BIRTH AND BAPTISM OF
BALTASAR CARLOS--PHILIP'S FIELD SPORTS--GENERAL SOCIAL DECADENCE


{xi}

CHAPTER VI

RENEWED WAR WITH FRANCE, LATE IN 1628--RECONCILIATION WITH ENGLAND--THE
PALATINATE AGAIN--COTTINGTON IN MADRID--HIS RECEPTION AND NEGOTIATIONS
WITH OLIVARES AND PHILIP--FETES IN MADRID FOR BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF
WALES--DEATH OF SPINOLA--TREATY OF CASALE--A "LOCAL PEACE" WITH
FRANCE--SPAIN AND THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR--POVERTY AND MISERY OF THE
COUNTRY--UNPOPULARITY OF OLIVARES--HIS MONOPOLY OF POWER--HIS GREAT
ENTERTAINMENT TO THE KING--HIS INTERVENTION IN PHILIP'S DOMESTIC
AFFAIRS--"DON FRANCISCO FERNANDO OF AUSTRIA"--THE BUEN RETIRO--HOPTON
IN MADRID--HIS DESCRIPTIVE LETTERS--THE INFANTES--PHILIP'S VISIT TO
BARCELONA--DISCONTENT OF THE CORTES--THE INFANTE FERNANDO LEFT AS
GOVERNOR--DEATH OF THE INFANTE CARLOS--DEATH OF THE INFANTA ISABEL IN
FLANDERS--THE INFANTE FERNANDO ON HIS WAY THITHER WINS BATTLE OF
NORDLINGEN--GREAT WAR NOW INEVITABLE WITH FRANCE


CHAPTER VII

INTRIGUES TO SECURE ENGLISH NEUTRALITY--HOPTON AND OLIVARES--SOCIAL
LAXITY IN MADRID--CHARLES I. APPROACHES SPAIN--THE BUEN RETIRO AND THE
ARTS--WAR IN CATALONIA--DISTRESS IN THE CAPITAL AND FRIVOLITY IN THE
COURT--PREVAILING LAWLESSNESS--THE RECEPTION OF THE PRINCESS OF
CARIGNANO--SIR WALTER ASTON IN MADRID--THE ENGLISH INTRIGUE ABANDONED


CHAPTER VIII

FESTIVITIES IN MADRID--EXTRAVAGANCE AND PENURY--NEW WAYS OF RAISING
MONEY--HOPTON AND WINDEBANK--BATTLE OF THE DOWNS--VIOLENCE IN THE
STREETS OF MADRID--REVOLT OF PORTUGAL--FRENCH {xii} INVASION OF
SPAIN--REVOLT OF CATALONIA--PHILIP'S AMOUR WITH THE NUN OF ST.
PLACIDO--THE WANE OF OLIVARES--PHILIP'S VOYAGE TO ARAGON--INTRIGUES
AGAINST OLIVARES--FALL OF OLIVARES


CHAPTER IX

DEATH OF RICHELIEU AND OF THE CARDINAL INFANTE--PHILIP'S GOOD
RESOLUTIONS--HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE NUN OF AGREDA--PHILIP WITH HIS
ARMIES--DEATH OF QUEEN ISABEL OF BOURBON--THE WAR CONTINUES IN
CATALONIA--DEATH OF BALTASAR CARLOS--PHILIP'S GRIEF--HE LOSES
HEART--INFLUENCE OF THE NUN--HIS SECOND MARRIAGE WITH HIS NIECE
MARIANA--HIS LIFE WITH HER--DON LUIS DE HARO--NEGOTIATIONS WITH
ENGLAND--CROMWELL'S ENVOY, ANTHONY ASCHAM--HIS MURDER IN
MADRID--FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN PHILIP AND THE ENGLISH
COMMONWEALTH--CROMWELL SEIZES JAMAICA--WAR WITH ENGLAND


CHAPTER X

MORAL AND SOCIAL DECADENCE IN MADRID--PHILIP'S HABITS--POVERTY IN THE
PALACE--VELAZQUEZ--THE MENINAS--BIRTH OF AN HEIR--THE CHRISTENING--THE
PEACE OF THE PYRENEES--PHILIP'S JOURNEY TO THE FRONTIER--MARRIAGE OF
MARIA TERESA--CAMPAIGNS IN PORTUGAL--DON JUAN--DEATH OF HARO--PHILIP
BEWITCHED--DEATH OF PHILIP PROSPER--BIRTH OF CHARLES--FANSHAWE'S
EMBASSY--LADY FANSHAWE AND SPAIN--ROUT OF CARACENA IN
PORTUGAL--PHILIP'S ILLNESS--THE INQUISITION AND WITCHCRAFT--DEATH OF
PHILIP


INDEX




{xiii}

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PHILIP IV. AT THE AGE OF 55... _Frontispiece_

_From a portrait by_ VELAZUEZ _in the National Gallery, London._


ISABEL DE BOURBON, FIRST WIFE OF PHILIP IV

_From a portrait by_ VELAZQUEZ _in the possession of Edward Huth, Esq._


PHILIP IV. AS A YOUNG MAN

_From a contemporary portrait in the possession of His Grace the Duke
of Wellington, at Strathfieldsaye._


CASPAR DE GUZMAN, COUNT-DUKE OF OLIVARES

_From a portrait by_ VELAZQUEZ _in the possession of Edward Huth, Esq._


PRINCE BALTASAR CARLOS ON HORSEBACK

_From a picture by_ VELAZQUEZ _at the Prado Museum._


THE NUN SOR MARIA DE AGREDA

_From an etching reproducing a contemporary portrait in the Franciscan
Convent of St. Domingo de la Calzada._


{xiv}

MARIANA DE AUSTRIA, SECOND WIFE OF PHILIP IV.

_From a portrait by_ VELAZQUEZ _at the Prado Museum._


THE MAIDS OF HONOUR

_Portrait of the Infanta Margaret; from a picture by_ VELAZQUEZ _at the
Prado Museum._




{1}

THE COURT OF PHILIP IV.



CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY--PHILIP'S BAPTISM, 1605--THE ENGLISH EMBASSY--EXALTED
RELIGIOUS FEELING--DEDICATION OF PHILIP'S LIFE TO THE VINDICATION OF
ORTHODOXY--STATE OF SPAIN--EFFECTS OF LERMA'S POLICY--POVERTY OF THE
COUNTRY--EXPULSION OF THE MORISCOS--PHILIP'S CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH--HIS
BETROTHAL--FALL OF LERMA--THE PRINCE AND OLIVARES--DEATH OF PHILIP III


The mean city of Valladolid reached the summit of its glory on the 28th
of May 1605.  Seven weeks before--on Good Friday, the 8th April--there
had been born in the King's palace an heir to the world-wide monarchy
of the Spains, the first male child that had been vouchsafed to the
tenuous reigning house for seven-and-twenty years; and the new capital,
proud of the fleeting importance that the folly of Lerma had conferred
upon it, curtailed its lenten penance, and gave itself up to sensuous
devotion blent with ostentatious revelry.  King Philip III. and his
nobles, in a blaze of splendour, had knelt in thanksgiving to sacred
images of the {2} Holy Mother bedizened with priceless gems; well-fed
monks and friars had chanted praises before a hundred glittering
altars; and famished common folk, in filthy tatters, snarled like
ravening beasts over the free food that had been flung to them, and
fought fiercely for the silver coins that had been lavishly scattered
for their scrambling.[1]  From every window had flared waxen torches;
for the hovels of beggars were illumined as well as the palaces of
nobles,--nay, the courtly chronicler records that the very bells in the
church tower of St. Benedict, seventeen of them, "melted in glittering
tears of joy" when, to put it more prosaically, the edifice was gutted
by a conflagration accidentally caused by the torches.[2]  Cavalry
parades, bull fights, and cane-tourneys by knights and nobles had
alternated with banquets and balls during the fifty days that had been
needed to bring together in the city of the Castilian plain the
chivalry of Philip's realms.  One after the other grandees and
prelates, with long cavalcades of followers as fine as money or credit
could make them, had crowded into the narrow streets and straggling
plazas of Valladolid; and as the great day approached for the baptism
of the Prince, who had been pledged by his father at his birth to the
Virgin of San Llorente as the future champion of Catholic orthodoxy,
news came that a greater company than that of any {3} grandee of them
all was slowly riding over the mountains of Leon to honour the
festival, and to pledge the most Catholic King to lasting peace and
amity with heretic England, that in forty years of bitter strife had
challenged the pretension of Spain to dictate doctrine to Christendom;
and had, though few saw it yet, sapped the foundation upon which the
imposing edifice of Spanish predominance was reared.

[Sidenote: Howard in Spain]

Then grave heads were shaken in doubt that this thing might be of evil
omen.  Already had the rigid Ribera, Archbishop of Valencia,[3]
solemnly warned the King and Lerma of their impiety in making terms
with the enemies of the faith; lamentations, as loud as was consistent
with safety, had gone up from churches and guardrooms innumerable at
this tacit confession of a falling away from the stern standard of
Philip II.  But now that Lord Admiral Howard, Earl of Nottingham, who
had defeated the great Armada in 1588, and had commanded at the sack of
Cadiz in 1596, was to ruffle and feast, with six hundred heretic
Englishmen at his heels, in the very capital of orthodox Spain, whilst
the baby prince whom God had sent to realise the dream of his house was
baptized into the Church, offended pride almost overcame the stately
courtesy and hospitality which are inborn in the Spanish character.
But not quite: for though priests looked sour, and soldiers swaggered a
little more than usual when they met the Englishmen in the {4} cobbled
streets, yet to outward seeming all was kind on both sides; and even
the biting satires of the poets were decently suppressed until the
strangers had gone their way.[4]

[Sidenote: Howard's reception]

Howard and his train were lodged on the night of the 25th May in the
castle and town of Simancas, on its bold bluff seven miles from the
city; and betimes in the morning the six hundred and more British
horsemen, all in their finest garb, set forth over the arid sandy plain
on the banks of the Pisuerga, to enter in stately friendship the
capital of the realm that they and theirs had harried by land and sea
for two score years.  For seven months no drop of rain had fallen on
the parched earth; and as the noble figure of the old earl, in white
satin and gold, surrounded by equally splendid kinsmen, passed on
horseback to the appointed meeting place outside the walls of the city,
the dust alone marred the magnificence of the cavalcade.  For two hours
the Englishmen were kept waiting under the trees, {5} where the Grand
Constable, the Duke of Frias,[5] and the other grandees were to meet
them; for Spanish pride was never at a loss for a device to inflict a
polite snub upon a rival.  This time it was a diplomatic illness of the
Duke of Alba that delayed the starting of the great crowd of nobles who
were to greet the English ambassador, and it was five o'clock in the
afternoon before the Spanish horsemen reached their waiting guests.
Then, as if by magic, the heavens grew suddenly black as night, and
such a deluge as few men had seen[6] descended upon the gaudy throng;
"heaven weeping in sorrow at their reception," said the bigots.  In
vain the Constable of Castile besought the stiff old Lord Admiral to
take shelter in a coach.  He would not balk the people of the sight, he
said, and the costly finery of both English and Spanish received such a
baptism as for ever spoilt its pristine beauty.  Wet to the skin, their
velvets and satins bedraggled, their plumes drooping, and their great
lace ruffs as limp as rags, the thousand noble horsemen passed through
dripping, silent, but curious crowds to their quarters.

[Sidenote: English peculiarities]

Howard himself was lodged in seven fine rooms in the palace of Count de
Salinas, hard by the yet unfinished palace; and his six hundred
followers were billeted in the houses of nobles and citizens.[7] {6}
Fifty English gentlemen of rank dined together that evening in Howard's
lodging, and their manners, dress, and demeanour furnished food for
curious discourse in Spain for many days to come.  How tall and
handsome they were, though some of them were spoilt by full beards!
said the gossips; how careful to show respect for the objects of
worship in the churches, although only fourteen of the whole number
were avowed Catholics.  Many of them spoke Spanish well, as did Howard
himself, and their dress was, on the whole, adjudged to be handsome;
"though their ornaments were not so fine as ours."  But what amused
their critics more than anything else was their industrious poking
about the city in search of books, and a curious fashion they had of
breaking off in their discourse--or in a pause of the conversation--and
practising a few steps of a dance, the tune of which they hummed
between their teeth.[8]  In the innocence of their hearts, too, they
imagined that they were {7} paying a compliment to the Spaniards by
saying how little real difference there was between their own creed and
that of their hosts; a view which the latter received in courteous
silence in their presence, but rejected with scorn and derision behind
their backs.[9]  Brave doings there had been, too, the next day, when
Howard had his first interview with Philip III.  Surrounded by the
King's Spanish and Teuton guard, in new uniforms of yellow and red, the
Lord Admiral was led by the Duke of Lerma into the presence of the
King.  Of the genuflections and embraces, of the advances on each side,
measured and recorded to an inch by jealous onlookers, of the piled-up
sumptuousness of the garments and the gifts, it boots not here to tell
in full, but the King's new liveries alone on this occasion are said to
have cost 120,000 ducats; and Howard excused himself for the poverty of
his country when he handed to Queen Margaret an Austrian eagle in
precious stones worth no more than the same great sum.[10]

All this, however, was a mere foretaste of the overwhelming
magnificence of the following day, Whit Sunday, the 28th May, for ever
memorable in the annals of Valladolid as the greatest day in its long
history; for then it was that in solemn majesty, and lavish ostentation
without example, there was dedicated to the great task in which his
ancestors had failed, a babe with a lily-fair skin and wide open light
blue eyes, upon whom were {8} centred the hopes and prayers of a
sensitive, devout people, who had seen in a few years their high-strung
illusions vanish, their assurance of divine selection grow fainter and
fainter, the cause they thought was that of heaven conquered everywhere
by the legions of evil, and their own country reduced to chronic
penury; burdened with a weight beyond its strength, yet too proud to
cast the burden down or to acknowledge its own defeat.

The almost despairing cry that constant disaster had wrung from Philip
II: "Surely God will in the end make His own cause triumph," still
found an echo in thousands of Spanish hearts; and this child of many
prayers was greeted as an instrument sent at last from heaven, on the
most solemn day in the Christian year, to put all things right when he
should grow to be a man.[11]  The presence of the "heretic" peace
embassy seemed of no good omen, though some men even affected to
interpret it as such when Howard knelt before the King and was raised
and embraced by him; but, as if to banish every doubt, and mark for all
the world that the vocation of the Prince was irrevocably fixed
beforehand, there was brought in solemn pomp, from the remote village
of Calguera, the {9} crumbling little font in which, five hundred years
before, had been baptized the fierce firebrand St. Dominic, scourge of
heresy and founder of the Holy Inquisition, whose work it was to make
all Christians one, though blood and fire alone might do it.

[Sidenote: Philip and the Dominicans]

Nothing was omitted that could connect the Prince with the Dominican
idea.  Early in the morning of the day of the baptism, the King, who
was to take no public part in the later christening ceremony, walked in
state with all his Court[12] in a great procession of six hundred monks
of Saint Dominic from their monastery of San Pablo to the cathedral,
there again solemnly to dedicate his infant heir to the vindication of
the Church; and at the dazzling ceremony which took place the same
afternoon in the Dominican church of San Pablo a similar note was
struck.  The fair infant, with its vague blue eyes, was borne in
triumph by the Duke of Lerma, a half dozen of the proudest dukes in
Christendom carried the symbols and implements of the ceremony,
cardinals and bishops in pontificals received the baby with royal state
at the church porch, the populace pressed in thousands around with
tears and blessings to see their future King; all that lavish
extravagance and exuberant {10} fancy could devise to add refulgence to
the solemnity was there; but, looking back with understanding eyes, we
can see that the two significant objects which stand forth clearly in
antagonism from all that welter of gew-gaws are the humble rough font
of St. Dominic under its jewelled canopy, supported by great silver
pillars, and the stately white-haired figure of the "heretic"
ambassador with his prominent eyes bowing gravely, yet triumphantly, in
his balcony, as the pompous procession swept by.

Other less important things there were which must have told their tale
and cast their shadow as plainly to those who witnessed them as to us.
The two black-browed Savoyard cousins, who walked in the place of
honour, the eldest of them as chief sponsor, must have been but
skeletons at the feast, for the birth of the Prince had spoilt their
cherished hope of the great inheritance; and, as we shall see in the
course of this history, Victor-Amadeus of Savoy and his kin brought,
therefore, abounding sorrow to his god-son and to Spain.  When the
infant, too, was denuded of his rich adornments for the ceremony, and
they were deposited upon the solid silver bed that had been erected in
the church for the purpose, some of the great personages, who alone
could have had access to the precious objects, stole them all, and the
heir of Spain, Prince Philip Dominic, who entered the church with his
tiny body covered with gems, left it as unadorned as ascetic St.
Dominic himself could have wished.[13]

{11}

[Sidenote: Philip's dedication]

Thus, in a whirlwind of squandering waste, surrounded by pompous pride,
unscrupulous dishonesty, and ecstatic devotion, Philip from his birth
was pledged to the hopeless task of extirpating religious dissent from
Christendom: the task that had been too great for the Emperor and his
steadfast son, that had drained to exhaustion the wealth of the Indies,
had turned Castile into a wilderness, and was to drag the Spanish
Empire to ruin and dissolution under the sceptre of the babe whose
christening we have witnessed.  The life-story of the unhappy monarch
which we have to tell is one of constant struggle amidst the
antagonistic circumstances that surrounded his baptism; against the
impossibility of reconciling the successful performance of the work, to
which devotional pride and not national interest had bound him, with
the poverty and exhaustion that had forced Philip III. and Lerma to
seek peace with Protestants, and had made the victor of the Invincible
Armada an honoured guest when the heir of Catholic Spain was dedicated
to the ideal of Dominic.  For, in good truth, it was from no lack of
either devotion or pride that Philip III. had been forced to parley
with the thing that he had been taught to look upon as accursed of God.
Almost the only policy in which he was ever vehemently energetic was
the attempt in the first days of his reign to invade Ireland in the
interests of the Catholics, and to secure the control of the Crown of
England by {12} means of the anti-Jacobite party.[14]  He was, as
Llorente truly says, more fit himself for a Dominican friar's frock
than a regal mantle; and if rigid obedience to the directions of his
spiritual guides had enabled him to root out Protestant dissent from
Christendom, as he rooted out the Moriscos from his realms, Philip III.
would have succeeded where his greater father and grandfather failed.

[Sidenote: The Philips compared]

But devotion was not enough to secure the triumph of Spain; fervent
belief in the divine approval was not enough.  Both Philip II. and the
Spaniards of his time possessed those qualities to excess, and yet they
