Martin A. S. Hume

“ The humbler became Philip the more aggressive became Elizabeth. She refused to have anything to do with Alba, or to recognise him in any way, and the proud noble took this to heart more even than the seizure of the treasure. So when De Spes sent him news of the plot in progress with Arundel, Norfolk, and Lumley; and Ridolfi the banker went over to Flanders as their envoy to the duke, he was ready enough to listen, and try to effect by treason what he was powerless to do by war, if only it could be done without compromising Philip. ”

“ What Philip really wanted, as will be seen, was to employ the English fleet against France.
On the much-desired arrival of Philip in Brussels he found the great emperor a prey to the last extreme of mental and bodily senile depression. Things had been going from bad to worse with Charles almost uninterruptedly since the defection of Maurice of Saxony in 1552. “Fortune is a strumpet,” he cried at his disaster before Metz, “and reserves her favours for the young.” And so to the young Philip he had determined to shift the burden he himself could bear no longer. ”

“ In all probability the first cause of Carranza’s arrest was the jealousy of Valdes, Archbishop of Seville, the inquisitor-general. He was, like all the chief inquisitors, a Dominican, and during the many years he had been at the head of the Holy Office had become intolerably overbearing and ambitious. Carranza, on the other hand, was a much younger man (fifty-five) , and had, after several years’ absence from Spain, been suddenly lifted from the position of a simple friar to that of Primate of Spain, the holder of the richest ecclesiastical benefice in the world. ”

“ If we must hold Philip blameless with respect to his son’s imprisonment, we must still keep in suspense our judgment with regard to his responsibility for the prince’s death, because the evidence as to what passed after his arrest comes mainly from persons in the king’s interest and pay, and because the accusation that Carlos was murdered was formulated by Philip’s bitterest enemy, Antonio Perez, a man, moreover, utterly unworthy of credit, a murderer, a perjurer, and a traitor to his country. ”

“ The natural want of sympathy between sovereign and people arising out of these circumstances doubtless began the trouble which ended in Spain’s downfall. No part of Philip’s career shows so clearly as his treatment of the Netherlands the limited and inelastic character of his policy, the lack of adaptability of his methods; for how should a man be yielding or conciliatory who supposed that he was part and parcel of Divine Providence, the one man on earth selected by the Almighty to carry out His irresistible decrees? ”

“ No wonder that this sad, slow, distrustful man, with his rigid methods and his mind for microscopic detail, firm in his belief that the Almighty was working through him for His great ends, should have been hopelessly beaten in the fight with nimble adversaries burdened with no fixed convictions or conscientious scruples, who shifted their policy as the circumstances of the moment dictated. Philip thought that he was fittingly performing a divine task by nature’s own methods. He forgot that nature can afford to await results indefinitely, whilst men cannot. ”

“ Spain indeed, alone and aloof, with a fertile soil, fine harbours, and a well-disposed population, seemed destined to enjoy a career of activity, prosperity, and peace. But the possession of Flanders brought it into constant rivalry with France, and necessitated a close alliance with England, whilst the imperial connection dragged it into ceaseless wars with the Turks, and, above all, with the rising power of Protestantism, which ultimately proved its ruin. ”

“ An army of 15,000 men was sent from Castile to occupy Zaragoza under Alonso de Vargas, one of the butchers of Antwerp. The townspeople were disinclined to hopeless resistance, and only some of the nobles, the friars, and the country people made any attempt at it. Anarchy was rife all over Aragon, and Philip’s troops made a clean sweep of such marauding bands of rebels as stood in their way. ”

“ THE principle of a direct Spanish invasion of England had now been adopted by Philip as the only means of getting rid of Elizabeth, and again uniting the country to him in a close alliance. He clearly foresaw that the absorption of Great Britain into his own dominions would be resisted to the last by France, the pope, and most of the Italian princes, as well as by Protestants everywhere, and that the opposition would be too strong for him to overcome. ”

“ The sacking and pillage of the devoted town and the heartrending cruelty wreaked upon the defenceless people, mainly by the German mercenaries, will ever remain one of the most horrible episodes of history. Philip had given orders that women and children should be spared, but his instructions were set at naught, and when, on the third day after the capture, he entered the city, he saw such sights as left upon him impressions of horror which he never forgot. ”

“ Rogations, prayers, fastings, and propitiatory masses were performed ceaselessly, not only on board the Armada, but all over Spain. In the most solemn manner the soldiers and sailors were inflamed with the idea that they were God’s own chosen warriors, going under His divine protection to restore the faith to millions of English people, who were yearning for their coming—to millions held in subjection by a wicked queen and a few heretics. The weather was bad—like December, said the duke,—and it was May 30 before the great fleet could be got out of the Tagus. ”

“ The general tone of religion, indeed, at the time seems to have been one of extreme looseness and cynicism, accompanied by a slavish adherence to ritual and form. The terms in which the king and his ambassadors in their correspondence refer to the pontiffs and to the government of the Church in Rome, are often contemptuous in the last degree. They are always regarded as simple instruments for forwarding the interests of “God and your Majesty,” the invariable formula which well embodies Philip’s own conception of his place in the universe. ”

“ On the fatal November 4, 1576, six thousand mutinous troops, panting for blood and plunder, swooped down from the citadel on to the town. The citizens had done their best. Barricades had been raised, the burgesses stood to their arms, and brave Champigny, the governor,—De Granvelle’s brother, and hitherto a staunch friend of the Spaniards,—worked heroically. But the Walloons fled, young Egmont was captured, the citizens, unused to arms, were no match for the veteran infantry of Sancho de Avila, and Antwerp soon lay a panting quarry under the claws of the spoiler. ”

“ But the pope’s champion against the emperor, Francis I, had recently died, and the pontiff was obliged to salute the rising sun of Spain, in the hope that he would prove a better friend to Rome than his father was. So Farnese was fain to bear to Philip from the pope a sanctified sword and a hat of state, “hoping that some day he might behold in him the true champion of the Holy Church.” Milan and Mantua vied with Genoa in the splendour of their rejoicings for Philip’s arrival, and so through the Tyrol, Germany, and Luxembourg he slowly made his way to meet his father at Brussels. ”

“ Mendoza was strongly in favour of immediately closing with the Scottish offer. He pointed out that to attack England by sea was to strike her in her strongest place, whilst a disaster to the Armada, in which all the national resources had been pledged, would bring irretrievable ruin. But Philip and Farnese were slow, and wanted all sorts of guarantees and assurances, which kept Bruce in Flanders and France for months, whilst his principals, sick of vague half-promises, lost heart, and talked of going over to the Protestant side, on a pledge that their religion should be tolerated. ”

“ In pursuance of his plan of keeping the Spanish nobles busy in affairs other than the interior politics of their country, Charles in August 1548, before Philip’s departure on his travels, gave orders which had a considerable influence in the future history of Spain. The kings of the petty realms into which the Peninsula had been divided, constantly at war for centuries with the Moors, had been obliged to depend for their very existence upon their feudal semi-independent nobles. The kings at best were but first amongst their peers, and were constantly reminded of the fact. ”

“ He accordingly begged Philip to let him alone, and threatened, if not, to publish his secret papers; but Philip was resolved to fight it out to the death now. To be thwarted and threatened by such a man was too much, even for his patience. Perez must die. For once, however, the king had to deal with a man even more crafty than himself, who knew every trick in his armoury and was fighting for his life. Perez drew up a most masterly exposition of his case, painting the king in his blackest colours, and presented it to his judges. The tribunal called upon the king for a refutation. ”

“ Mary of Scotland, whom he had aided with counsel and money during her short married life with Darnley, was a prisoner, and the reformers were predominant in Scotland. Elizabeth of England was firmly established on the throne, more than holding her own, the English and Dutch corsairs were scouring the seas after Spanish shipping, and England was burning with indignation at Alba’s régime of blood in the Netherlands. But withal Philip had to speak softly and temporise, for he dared not go to war with Elizabeth whilst Holland was in arms, and the Huguenots strong. ”

“ I believe that he will not hesitate to endeavour to tempt you even by means of women, and I beg you most especially to avoid this. In foreign affairs and war make use of him, and respect him, as he is in this the best man we now have in the kingdom.” And so, one by one, the bishops and ministers who were to be Philip’s advisers are dissected for his benefit. The prince was ready enough to learn lessons of distrust, and it afterwards became one of the main principles of his system that only creatures of his own making should be his instruments for the political government of Spain. ”

“ Cruelty could not crush the Dutchmen, for they were fighting for their faith now as well as their money, and by the end of 1572 Philip had become tired of the useless slaughter. It was difficult for him to revoke or interfere with his commander-in-chief in the midst of such a war, but long before Alba’s final retirement from Flanders at the end of 1573, the king showed his displeasure with his proceedings unmistakably, and it well-nigh broke the old duke’s heart, hard as it was. ”

“ It will thus be seen how anomalous was Philip’s position in Italy. He was independent King of Naples, a tributary prince of the empire in Milan, and a substitute for the emperor in his suzerainty over Siena. The imperial troops in Milan had hitherto been a coercive power over the other imperial fiefs, but they could no longer be so regarded, as they were the forces of a Spanish prince, who in Milan was himself a tributary prince of the empire, with no rights over the rest. ”

“ Guise’s detachment from French interests made all the difference, and this marked a change of Philip’s policy towards England, which, as will be shown, ultimately led him into the quagmire of the Armada. Mary, unfortunately for herself, was always ready for a plot against her enemy; and Beaton assured Vargas shortly afterwards that she would not leave prison except as Queen of England. The Catholics were so numerous, said Beaton, that if they rose, it would be easy, even without assistance; but if the King of Spain helped, the result would be prompt and undoubted. ”

“ Feria, who, of course, knew him well, writing from Brussels at the date of his first arrest to Bishop Quadra in England, says: “Things are going so badly in Spain, and they are coming to such a pass, that we shall soon not know who are the heretics and who the Christians. I will not believe evil of the archbishop, or of his companion, or of the Archbishop of Granada, who has also been summoned by the Inquisitors. What drives me crazy is to see the lives led by the criminals (i.e. the accused) and those led by their judges, and to compare their respective intelligence.” ”

“ The war was extremely unpopular; all the country insisted that they had been dragged into it to please Philip, and the queen, desirous as she was of pleasing her husband, was weak and weary, utterly unable to dominate her council, with whom religious matters in England were the first consideration, and the predominance of Spain in Europe a matter of no concern. When Guise’s designs upon Calais were evident, Philip sent his favourite. Count de Feria, post-haste to England to insist upon the need of sending troops, at least to defend the fortress. ”