Sir Philip

“ There Sir Philip found her when he came down an hour after. She had not moved, she had not ordered lights, although the sun was down and the twilight somewhat murky. She did not move when he entered, but remained with her head leaning on her hand, and her eyes fixed on the table near which she sat. Sir Philip gazed at her gloomily, and said to himself, "Her heart smites her. Ha, ha, beautiful deceitful thing. Have you put the canker worm in your own bosom? Great crimes deserve great punishments. God of heaven! keep me from such thoughts. ”

“ He was no longer Philip the successful, resting in his easy-chair, the idol of the hour at the Folly; but he was Philip the ardent, and the impecunious; Philip in a badly made coat, heated and travel-stained, hurt and angry; standing in a room that was dainty in its luxury of flowers and half lights, with a vision of a drawing-room beyond, brilliantly lighted, softly coloured, and from whence came the echo of gay laughter, and bright voices. ”

“ In 1878 he received the honor of knighthood.
A good linguist and possessing rare tact and wonderful executive ability, Sir Philip has succeeded where many of his countrymen fail—namely, in making a favorable impression upon foreigners. Prepossessing in appearance and manner, he can dash through business at a speed calculated to astonish men of less energy and of a lower vitality, and he does it, moreover, without the faintest taint of the brusquerie which almost as a rule bristles all over the less capable official. Red tape he abhors, and is as easy of access as a republican. ”

“ When Philip had finished his narrative, the Prince clapped him on the shoulder and said: "Philip, listen! You're a sensible fellow. I can confide in you, and I am satisfied with you. What you have done in my name with the Chamberlain Pilzou, the Countess Bonau, the Marshal and his wife, Colonel Kalt, and the Minister of Finance—I will maintain—as if I had done it myself. But, on the other hand, YOU must take all the blame of my doings with the horn and staff. As a penalty for verses, you shall lose your office of watchman. ”

“ The man replied that it might possibly do so; he had never been allowed the opportunity of examining its contents; but that he was certain the casket held medicines, for he had seen Sir Philip take from it some small phials, by which he had performed great cures in the East, and especially during a pestilence which had visited Damascus, just after Sir Philip had arrived at that city on quitting Aleppo. Almost every European traveller is supposed to be a physician; and Sir Philip was a man of great benevolence, and the servant firmly believed him also to be of great medical skill. ”

“ It is doubtless true, that procrastination and distrust were the besetting sins of Philip, and were followed by their natural consequences. He had, moreover, as we have seen, a sluggishness of nature, which kept him in Madrid when he should have been in Brussels,—where his father, in similar circumstances, would long since have been, seeing with his own eyes what Philip saw only with the eyes of others. But still his policy, in the present instance, may be referred quite as much to deliberate calculation as to his natural temper. ”

“ Before this magnificent pile, in a manner the creation of his own taste, Philip's nature appeared to expand, and to discover some approach to those generous sympathies for humanity which elsewhere seemed to have been denied him. He would linger for hours while he watched the labours of the artist, making occasional criticisms, and laying his hand familiarly on his shoulder. ”

“ The traveller who gazes on its long lines of cold grey stone, scarcely broken by an ornament, feels a dreary sensation creeping over him, while he contrasts it with the lighter and more graceful edifices to which his eye has been accustomed. But he may read in this the true expression of the founder's character. Philip did not aim at the beautiful, much less at the festive and cheerful. The feelings which he desired to raise in the spectator were of that solemn, indeed sombre complexion, which corresponded best with his own religious faith. ”

“ And amidst the festivities and stage plays, the poetical recitals, the battues that stood for sport, and the autos-de-fe that stood for holiness, "Philip the Great" moved like a demigod, knowing in his heart of hearts that all was hollow—his wealth a lie, his dignity a mask, and he himself but a poor sinning trifler whose coward conscience denied him even pleasure in his sin.
Philip's love for ostentation had full opportunity for its exercise in October 1629, when, six months after the birth of his son by the Calderona, an heir was born to the Spanish crowns. ”

“ He had dreamt that he might be King of many countries, even King of England with Marie Stewart for wife, but he had never attained even recognition as a Prince of Spain.
All Philip’s promises, all Philip’s flatteries had amounted to nothing. While he was useful he was caressed; when he grew too great he was forsaken, left without arms, without money, without men, left with Farnese watching him night and day.
And they had killed the man he loved, his friend, his confidant Escovedo. ”

“ Indeed, it is in the nature of such a collection, covering so wide an extent of ground, that it can never be complete. The historian may be satisfied, if he has such authentic materials at his command, as, while they solve much that has hitherto been enigmatical in the accounts of the time, will enable him to present, in their true light, the character of Philip and the policy of his government. I must acknowledge my obligations to more than one person, who has given me important aid in prosecuting my further researches. ”

“ He was as tall as Philip; his shoulders were broader; his chest massive; and as he stood under the light of one of the hanging lamps, his face shining with a pale glow, one hand upon his breast, the other extended, it seemed to Philip that all of the greatness and past glory of Fort o' God, whatever they may have been, were personified in the man he beheld. He was dressed in soft buckskin, like Pierre. His hair and beard grew in wild disorder, and from under shaggy eyebrows there burned a pair of deep-set eyes of the color of blue steel. He was a man to inspire awe; old, and yet young ”

“ And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth: in his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth. And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus. ”

“ Lord Lovel seemed almost choaked with passion, to see every one giving some mark of approbation and respect to Sir Philip. He called out—
“I demand to know who is this pretended heir, whom he brings out to claim my title and fortune?”
“My noble auditors,” said Sir Philip, “I shall appeal to your judgment, in regard to the proofs of my ward’s birth and family; every circumstance shall be laid before you, and you shall decide upon them. ”

“ Soon after the prince's death, Philip retired to the monastery of St. Jerome, in whose cloistered recesses he remained some time longer secreted from the eyes of his subjects. "He feels his loss like a father," writes the papal nuncio, "but he bears it with the patience of a Christian." [1537] He caused despatches to be sent to foreign courts, to acquaint them with his late{490} bereavement. In his letter to the duke of Alva, he indulges in a fuller expression of his personal feelings. ”

“ While Philip spoke the Duke never took eyes from his face—that face so facile in the display of feeling or emotion. The voice also had a lilt of health and vitality which rang on the ears of age pleasantly. As he listened he thought of his eldest son, partly imbecile, all but a lusus naturae, separated from his wife immediately after marriage, through whom there could never be succession—he thought of him, and for the millionth time in his life winced in impotent disdain. He thought too of his beloved second son, lying in a soldier’s grave in Macedonia ”

“ Philip was not a man of violent initiative, the planner of daring and fateful operations, otherwise there would have been some signs of it. His personality was that of a well-instructed, outwardly cold, because cool and calculating man, essentially receptive, afire for only one idea: the highest possible development of the French monarchy, internally and externally, as against both the secular powers and the Church. ”

“ The Prince stepped forward. "Let the man go, good people," he said, and searched in all his pockets for his purse. As he found it nowhere, he was going to whisper to Philip to give it him, but the police tore them apart, and one of them shouted: "On! We can't stop to talk here."
"The masked fellow must go with us too; he is suspicious-looking."
"Not so," exclaimed Philip; "you are in search of the watchman. Here I am, if you choose to answer for taking me from my duty. But let this gentleman go."
"We don't want any lessons from you in our duty," replied the sergeant; "march! all of them!" ”

“ Surrounded by a full gathering of grandees in gold chains, Philip stood under his canopy dressed in his military garb, almost English in fashion, as he stands in the Dulwich Gallery portrait, with a splendidly embroidered scarlet {225} ropilla doublet, a broad lace collar and "paned" hose, his breast covered with rich jewels and with a great feather in his hat. As Sir Francis Cottington approached him the King expressed his joy at the news. He was as glad, he said, as if the son had been his own; and he had prayed upon his knees for the happiness of the young prince. ”

“ This affected Philip favourably: the newcomer was a somebody then, and knew his place: for just in proportion as Philip felt afraid to begin conversation himself with an unplaced stranger, did he respect any other man who felt so perfectly sure of his own position that he shared no such middle-class doubts or misgivings. A duke is never afraid of accosting anybody. Philip was strengthened, therefore, in his first idea, that the man in the grey suit was a person of no small distinction in society, else surely he would not have come up and spoken with such engaging frankness and ease of manner. ”

“ In 1214 came the great crisis of Philip's life. All the forces against which he had been struggling united to overwhelm him. Paris was to be attacked from Flanders and Guienne at the same time. A league including his rebel vassals, Renaud of Dammartin, count of Boulogne and Ferdinand, count of Flanders, with the emperor Otto IV. and a number of German princes of the Rhine region, had been formed in the north-east, while John of England made one more attempt to recover his heritage at the head of an army of mercenaries aided by the fickle baronage of Poitou. ”

“ In 1546, when scarcely twenty-four years of age, he was admitted to the order of the Golden Fleece,—and, by a singular coincidence, on the same day on which that dignity was bestowed on the man destined to become his mortal foe, the duke of Alva. [1176] Philip, on his accession, raised him to the dignity of a councillor of state, and made him governor of the important provinces of Artois and Flanders. ”

“ Thus all the concessions of Philip, not merely his promises of grace, but those of abolishing the Inquisition and mitigating the edicts, were to go for nothing,—mere words, to amuse the people until some effectual means could be decided on. The king must be allowed, for once at least, to have spoken with candor. There are few persons who would not have shrunk from acknowledging to their own hearts that they were acting on so deliberate a system of perfidy as Philip thus confided in his correspondence with another. ”

“ House of Austria threw her weight into the wavering balance of Philip's fortunes. The death of Parma had already lightened the peril of the United Provinces, but though their struggle in the Low Countries was to last for years, from the moment of Henry the Fourth's conversion their independence was secure. Nor was the restoration of the French monarchy to its old greatness of less moment to England. Philip was yet to send an armada against her coasts; he was again to stir up a fierce revolt in northern Ireland. But all danger from Spain was over with the revival of France. ”

“ Though no other man should hold out in the Alpujarras, I would rather live and die a Mussulman than possess all the favours which King Philip can heap on me. At no time, and in no manner, will I ever consent to place myself in his power. ”

“ England is glad to see that, like herself, we have dethroned a king; the other sovereigns forsake the Legitimacy, which they did not find obedient. Philip has lorded it over the men who have come closer to him; he has made game of his ministers; he has employed them, dismissed them, reemployed them, dismissed them afresh, after compromising them, if anything can compromise one nowadays.
Philip's superiority is real, but it is only relative; place him in a period when society still retains some life, and his mediocrity shall come to the surface. ”

“ Upon this Edmund kneeled to the Baron; he embraced his knees. "My dear Lord! I am, and will be your servant, in preference to any man living; I only ask your permission to live and die in your service."
"You see, Sir Philip," said the Baron, "how this boy engages the heart; how can I part with him?"
"I cannot ask you any more," answered Sir Philip, "I see it is impossible; but I esteem you both still higher than ever; the youth for his gratitude, and your lordship for your noble mind and true generosity; blessings attend you both!" ”