The Spanish prince was welcomed, on landing, by a goodly company of English lords, assembled to pay him their obeisance. The earl of Arundel presented him, in the queen's name, with the splendid insignia of the order of the Garter.[97] Philip's dress, as usual, was of plain black velvet, with a{47} berret cap, ornamented, after the fashion of the time, with gold chains. By Mary's orders, a spirited Andalusian jennet had been provided for him, which the prince instantly mounted. He was a good rider, and pleased the people by his courteous bearing, and the graceful manner in which he managed his horse.
The royal procession then moved forward to the ancient church of the Holy Rood, where mass was said, and thanks were offered up for their prosperous voyage. Philip, after this, repaired to the quarters assigned to him during his stay in the town. They were sumptuously fitted up, and the walls of the principal apartment hung with arras, commemorating the doings of that royal polemic, Henry the Eighth. Among other inscriptions in honor of him might be seen one proclaiming him "Head of the Church," and "Defender of the Faith;"—words which, as they were probably in Latin, could not have been lost on the Spaniards.[98]
The news of Philip's landing was received in London with every demonstration of joy. Guns were fired, bells were rung, processions were made to the churches, bonfires were lighted in all the principal streets, tables were spread in the squares laden with good cheer, and wine and ale flowed freely as water for all comers.[99] In short, the city gave itself up to a general jubilee, as if it were celebrating some victorious monarch returned to his dominions, and not the man whose name had lately been the object of such general execration. Mary gave instant orders that the nobles of her court should hold themselves in readiness to accompany her to Winchester, where she was to receive the prince; and on the twenty-first of July she made her entry, in great state, into that capital, and established her residence in the episcopal palace.
During the few days that Philip stayed at Southampton, he rode constantly abroad, and showed himself frequently to the people. The information he had received, before his voyage, of the state of public feeling, had suggested to him some natural apprehensions for his safety. He seems to have resolved, from the first, therefore, to adopt such a condescending, and indeed affable demeanor, as would disarm the jealousy of the English, and if possible conciliate their good-will. In this he appears to have been very successful, although some of the more haughty of the aristocracy did take exception at his neglecting to raise his cap to them. That he should have imposed the degree of restraint which he seems to have done on the indulgence of his natural disposition, is good proof of the strength of his apprehensions.[100]
The favor which Philip showed the English gave umbrage to his own nobles. They were still more disgusted by the rigid interpretation of one of the marriage articles, by which some hundreds of their attendants were prohibited, as foreigners, from landing, or, after landing, were compelled to reembark, and return to Spain.[101] Whenever Philip went abroad he was accompanied{48} by Englishmen. He was served by Englishmen at his meals. He breakfasted and dined in public, a thing but little to his taste. He drank healths, after the manner of the English, and encouraged his Spanish followers to imitate his example, as he quaffed the strong ale of the country.[102]
On the twenty-third of the month, the earl of Pembroke arrived, with a brilliant company of two hundred mounted gentlemen, to escort the prince to Winchester. He was attended, moreover, by a body of English archers, whose tunics of yellow cloth, striped with bars of red velvet, displayed the gaudy-colored livery of the house of Aragon. The day was unpropitious. The rain fell heavily, in such torrents as might have cooled the enthusiasm of a more ardent lover than Philip. But he was too gallant a cavalier to be daunted by the elements. The distance, not great in itself, was to be travelled on horseback,—the usual mode of conveyance at a time when roads were scarcely practicable for carriages.
Philip and his retinue had not proceeded far, when they were encountered by a cavalier, riding at full speed, and bringing with him a ring which Mary had sent her lover, with the request that he would not expose himself to the weather, but postpone his departure to the following day. The prince, not understanding the messenger, who spoke in English, and suspecting that it was intended by Mary to warn him of some danger in his path, instantly drew up by the road-side, and took counsel with Alva and Egmont as to what was to be done. One of the courtiers, who perceived his embarrassment, rode up and acquainted the prince with the real purport of the message. Relieved of his alarm, Philip no longer hesitated, but, with his red felt cloak wrapped closely about him and a broad beaver slouched over his eyes, manfully pushed forward, in spite of the tempest.
As he advanced, his retinue received continual accessions from the neighboring gentry and yeomanry, until it amounted to some thousands before he reached Winchester. It was late in the afternoon when the cavalcade, soiled with travel and thoroughly drenched with rain, arrived before the gates of the city. The mayor and aldermen, dressed in their robes of scarlet, came to welcome the prince, and, presenting the keys of the city, conducted him to his quarters.
That evening Philip had his first interview with Mary. It was private, and he was taken to her residence by the chancellor, Gardiner, bishop of Winchester. The royal pair passed an hour or more together; and, as Mary spoke the Castilian fluently, the interview must have been spared much of the embarrassment that would otherwise have attended it.[103]{49}
On the following day the parties met in public. Philip was attended by the principal persons of his suite, of both sexes; and as the procession, making a goodly show, passed through the streets on foot, the minstrelsy played before them till they reached the royal residence. The reception-room was the great hall of the palace. Mary, stepping forward to receive her betrothed, saluted him with a loving kiss before all the company. She then conducted him to a sort of throne, where she took her seat by his side, under a stately canopy. They remained there for an hour or more, conversing together, while their courtiers had leisure to become acquainted with one another, and to find ample food, doubtless, for future criticism, in the peculiarities of national costume and manners. Notwithstanding the Spanish blood in Mary's veins, the higher circles of Spain and England had personally almost as little intercourse with one another at that period, as England and Japan have at the present.
The ensuing day, the festival of St. James, the patron saint of Spain, was the one appointed for the marriage. Philip exchanged his usual simple dress for the bridal vestments provided for him by his mistress. They were of spotless white, as the reporter is careful to inform us, satin and cloth of gold, thickly powdered with pearls and precious stones. Round his neck he wore the superb collar of the Golden Fleece, the famous Burgundian order; while the brilliant riband below his knee served as the badge of the no less illustrious order of the Garter. He went on foot to the cathedral, attended by all his nobles, vying with one another in the ostentatious splendor of their retinues.
Half an hour elapsed before Philip was joined by the queen at the entrance of the cathedral. Mary was surrounded by the lords and ladies of her court. Her dress, of white satin and cloth of gold, like his own, was studded and fringed with diamonds of inestimable price, some of them, doubtless, the gift of Philip, which he had sent to her by the hands of the prince of Eboli, soon after his landing. Her bright-red slippers, and her mantle of black velvet, formed a contrast to the rest of her apparel, and, for a bridal costume, would hardly suit the taste of the present day. The royal party then moved up the nave of the cathedral, and were received in the choir by the bishop of Winchester, supported by the great prelates of the English Church. The greatest of all, Cranmer, the primate of all England, who should have performed the ceremony, was absent,—in disgrace and a prisoner.
Philip and Mary took their seats under a royal canopy, with an altar between them. The queen was surrounded by the ladies of her court; whose beauty, says an Italian writer, acquired additional lustre by contrast with the shadowy complexions of the south.[104] The aisles and spacious galleries were crowded with spectators of every degree, drawn together from the most distant quarters to witness the ceremony.
The silence was broken by Figueroa, one of the imperial council, who read aloud an instrument of the emperor, Charles the Fifth. It stated that this marriage had been of his own seeking; and he was desirous that his beloved son should enter into it in a manner suitable to his own expectations and the{50} dignity of his illustrious consort. He therefore resigned to him his entire right and sovereignty over the kingdom of Naples and the duchy of Milan. The rank of the parties would thus be equal, and Mary, instead of giving her hand to a subject, would wed a sovereign like herself.
Some embarrassment occurred as to the person who should give the queen away,—a part of the ceremony not provided for. After a brief conference, it was removed by the marquis of Winchester and the earls of Pembroke and Derby, who took it on themselves to give her away in the name of the whole realm; at which the multitude raised a shout that made the old walls of the cathedral ring again. The marriage service was then concluded by the bishop of Winchester. Philip and Mary resumed their seats, and mass was performed, when the bridegroom, rising, gave his consort the "kiss of peace," according to the custom of the time. The whole ceremony occupied nearly four hours. At the close of it Philip, taking Mary by the hand, led her from the church. The royal couple were followed by the long train of prelates and nobles, and were preceded by the earls of Pembroke and Derby, each bearing aloft a naked sword, the symbol of sovereignty. The effect of the spectacle was heightened by the various costumes of the two nations,—the richly-tinted and picturesque dresses of the Spaniards, and the solid magnificence of the English and Flemings, mingling together in gay confusion. The glittering procession moved slowly on, to the blithe sounds of festal music, while the air was rent with the loyal acclamations of the populace, delighted, as usual, with the splendor of the pageant.
In the great hall of the episcopal palace, a sumptuous banquet was prepared for the whole company. At one end of the apartment was a dais, on which, under a superb canopy, a table was set for the king and queen; and a third seat was added for Bishop Gardiner, the only one of the great lords who was admitted to the distinction of dining with royalty.
Below the dais, the tables were set on either side through the whole length of the hall, for the English and Spanish nobles, all arranged—a perilous point of etiquette—with due regard to their relative rank. The royal table was covered with dishes of gold. A spacious beaufet, rising to the height of eight stages, or shelves, and filled with a profusion of gold and silver vessels, somewhat ostentatiously displayed the magnificence of the prelate, or of his sovereign. Yet this ostentation was rather Spanish than English; and was one of the forms in which the Castilian grandee loved to display his opulence.[105]
At the bottom of the hall was an orchestra, occupied by a band of excellent performers, who enlivened the repast by their music. But the most interesting part of the show was that of the Winchester boys, some of whom were permitted to enter the presence, and recite in Latin their epithalamiums in honor of the royal nuptials, for which they received a handsome guerdon from the queen.
After the banquet came the ball, at which, if we are to take an old English authority, "the Spaniards were greatly out of countenance when they saw the English so far excel them."[106] This seems somewhat strange, considering that dancing is, and always has been, the national pastime of Spain. Dancing is to the Spaniard what music is to the Italian,—the very condition of his{51} social existence.[107] It did not continue late on the present occasion, and, at the temperate hour of nine, the bridal festivities closed for the evening.[108]
Philip and Mary passed a few days in this merry way of life, at Winchester, whence they removed, with their court, to Windsor. Here a chapter of the order of the Garter was held, for the purpose of installing King Philip. The herald, on this occasion, ventured to take down the arms of England, and substitute those of Spain, in honor of the new sovereign,—an act of deference which roused the indignation of the English lords, who straightway compelled the functionary to restore the national escutcheon to its proper place.[109]
On the twenty-eighth of August, Philip and Mary made their public entry into London. They rode in on horseback, passing through the borough of Southwark, across London Bridge. Every preparation was made by the loyal citizens to give them a suitable reception. The columns of the buildings were festooned with flowers, triumphal arches spanned the streets, the walls were hung with pictures or emblazoned with legends in commemoration of the illustrious pair, and a genealogy was traced for Philip, setting forth his descent from John of Gaunt,—making him out, in short, as much of an Englishman as possible.
Among the paintings was one in which Henry the Eighth was seen holding in his hand a Bible. This device gave great scandal to the chancellor, Gardiner, who called the painter sundry hard names, rating him roundly for putting into King Harry's hand the sacred volume, which should rather have been given to his daughter, Queen Mary, for her zeal to restore the primitive worship of the Church. The unlucky artist lost no time in repairing his error by brushing out the offending volume, and did it so effectually, that he brushed out the royal fingers with it, leaving the old monarch's mutilated stump held up, like some poor mendicant's, to excite the compassion of the spectators.[110]
But the sight which, more than all these pageants, gave joy to the hearts of the Londoners, was an immense quantity of bullion, which Philip caused to be paraded through the city on its way to the Tower, where it was deposited{52} in the royal treasury. The quantity was said to be so great, that, on one occasion, the chests containing it filled twenty carts. On another, two wagons were so heavily laden with the precious metal as to require to be drawn by nearly a hundred horses.[111] The good people, who had looked to the coming of the Spaniards as that of a swarm of locusts which was to consume their substance, were greatly pleased to see their exhausted coffers so well replenished from the American mines.
From London the royal pair proceeded to the shady solitudes of Hampton Court, and Philip, weary of the mummeries in which he had been compelled to take part, availed himself of the indisposition of his wife to indulge in that retirement and repose which were more congenial to his taste. This way of life in his pleasant retreat, however, does not appear to have been so well suited to the taste of his English subjects. At least, an old chronicler peevishly complains that "the hall-door within the court was continually shut, so that no man might enter unless his errand were first known; which seemed strange to Englishmen that had not been used thereto."[112]
Yet Philip, although his apprehensions for his safety had doubtless subsided, was wise enough to affect the same conciliatory manners as on his first landing,—and not altogether in vain. "He discovered," says the Venetian ambassador, in his report to the senate, "none of that sosiego—the haughty indifference of the Spaniards—which distinguished him when he first left home for Italy and Flanders.[113] He was, indeed, as accessible as any one could desire, and gave patient audience to all who asked it. He was solicitous," continues Micheli, "to instruct himself in affairs, and showed a taste for application to business,"—which, it may be added, grew stronger with years. "He spoke little. But his remarks, though brief, were pertinent. In short," he concludes, "he is a prince of an excellent genius, a lively apprehension, and a judgment ripe beyond his age."
Philip's love of business, however, was not such as to lead him to take part prematurely in the management of affairs. He discreetly left this to the queen and her ministers, to whose judgment he affected to pay the greatest deference. He particularly avoided all appearance of an attempt to interfere with the administration of justice, unless it were to obtain some act of grace. Such interference only served to gain him the more credit with the people.[114]{53}
That he gained largely on their good-will may be inferred from the casual remarks of more than one contemporary writer. They bear emphatic testimony to the affability of his manners, so little to have been expected from the popular reports of his character. "Among other things," writes Wotton, the English minister at the French court, "one I have been right glad to hear of is, that the king's highness useth himself so gently and lovingly to all men. For, to tell you the truth, I have heard some say, that, when he came out of Spain into Italy, it was by some men wished that he had showed a somewhat more benign countenance to the people than it was said he then did."[115] Another contemporary, in a private letter, written soon after the king's entrance into London, after describing his person as "so well proportioned that Nature cannot work a more perfect pattern," concludes with commending him for his "pregnant wit and most gentle nature."[116]
Philip, from the hour of his landing, had been constant in all his religious observances. "He was as punctual," says Micheli, "in his attendance at mass, and his observance of all the forms of devotion, as any monk;—more so, as some people thought, than became his age and station. The ecclesiastics," he adds, "with whom Philip had constant intercourse, talked loudly of his piety."[117]
Yet there was no hypocrisy in this. However willing Philip may have been that his concern for the interests of religion might be seen of men, it is no less true that, as far as he understood these interests, his concern was perfectly sincere. The actual state of England may have even operated as an inducement with him to overcome his scruples as to the connection with Mary. "Better not reign at all," he often remarked, "than reign over heretics." But what triumph more glorious than that of converting these heretics, and bringing them back again into the bosom of the Church? He was most anxious to prepare the minds of his new subjects for an honorable reception of the papal legate, Cardinal Pole, who was armed with full authority to receive the submission of England to the Holy See. He employed his personal influence with the great nobles, and enforced it occasionally by liberal drafts on those Peruvian ingots which he had sent to the Tower. At least, it is asserted that he gave away yearly pensions, to the large amount of between fifty and sixty thousand gold crowns, to sundry of the queen's ministers. It was done on the general plea of recompensing their loyalty to their mistress.[118]
Early in November, tidings arrived of the landing of Pole. He had been detained some weeks in Germany, by the emperor, who felt some distrust—not ill-founded, as it seems—of the cardinal's disposition in regard to the{54} Spanish match. Now that this difficulty was obviated, he was allowed to resume his journey. He came up the Thames in a magnificent barge, with a large silver cross, the emblem of his legatine authority, displayed on the prow. The legate, on landing, was received by the king, the queen, and the whole court, with a reverential deference which argued well for the success of his mission.
He was the man, of all others, best qualified to execute it. To a natural kindness of temper he united an urbanity and a refinement of manners, derived from familiar intercourse with the most polished society of Europe, his royal descent entitled him to mix on terms of equality with persons of the highest rank, and made him feel as much at ease in the court as in the cloister. His long exile had opened to him an acquaintance with man as he is found in various climes, while, as a native-born Englishman, he perfectly understood the prejudices and peculiar temper of his own countrymen. "Cardinal Pole," says the Venetian minister, "is a man of unblemished nobility, and so strict in his integrity, that he grants nothing to the importunity of friends. He is so much beloved, both by prince and people, that he may well be styled the king where all is done by his authority."[119] An English cardinal was not of too frequent occurrence in the sacred college. That one should have been found at the present juncture, with personal qualities, moreover, so well suited to the delicate mission to England, was a coincidence so remarkable, that Philip and Mary might well be excused for discerning in it the finger of Providence.
On the seventeenth of the month, parliament, owing to the queen's indisposition, met at Whitehall; and Pole made that celebrated speech in which he recapitulated some of the leading events of his own life, and the persecutions he had endured for conscience' sake. He reviewed the changes in religion which had taken place in England, and implored his audience to abjure their spiritual errors, and to seek a reconciliation with the Catholic Church. He assured them of his plenary power to grant absolution for the past; and—what was no less important—to authorize the present proprietors to retain possession of the abbey lands which had been confiscated under King Henry. This last concession, which had been extorted with difficulty from the pope, reconciling, as it did, temporal with spiritual interests, seems to have dispelled whatever scruples yet lingered in the breasts of the legislature. There were few, probably, in that goodly company, whose zeal would have aspired to the crown of martyrdom.
The ensuing day, parliament, in obedience to the royal summons, again assembled at Whitehall. Philip took his seat on the left of Mary, under the same canopy, while Cardinal Pole sat at a greater distance on her right.[120]
The chancellor, Gardiner, then presented a petition in the name of the lords and commons, praying for reconciliation with the papal see. Absolution was solemnly pronounced by the legate, and the whole assembly received his benediction on their bended knees. England, purified from her heresy, was once more restored to the communion of the Roman Catholic Church.
Philip instantly despatched couriers, with the glad tidings, to Rome, Brussels, and other capitals of Christendom. Everywhere the event was celebrated with public rejoicings, as if it had been some great victory over the Saracens. As Philip's zeal for the faith was well known, and as the great change had taken place soon after his arrival in England, much of the credit of it was ascribed to him.[121] Thus, before ascending the throne of Spain, he had vindicated his claim to the title of Catholic, so much prized by the Spanish monarchs. He had won a triumph greater than that which his father had been able to win after years of war, over the Protestants of Germany; greater than any which had been won by the arms of Cortés or Pizarro in the New World. Their contest had been with the barbarian; the field of Philip's labors was one of the most potent and civilized countries of Europe.
The work of conversion was speedily followed by that of persecution. To what extent Philip's influence was exerted in this is not manifest. Indeed, from anything that appears, it would not be easy to decide whether his influence was employed to promote or to prevent it. One fact is certain, that, immediately after the first martyrs suffered at Smithfield, Alfonso de Castro, a Spanish friar, preached a sermon in which he bitterly inveighed against these proceedings. He denounced them as repugnant to the true spirit of Christianity, which was that of charity and forgiveness, and which enjoined its ministers not to take vengeance on the sinner, but to enlighten him as to his errors, and bring him to repentance.[122] This bold appeal had its effect, even in that season of excitement. For a few weeks the arm of persecution seemed to be palsied. But it was only for a few weeks. Toleration was not the virtue of the sixteenth century. The charitable doctrines of the good friar fell on hearts withered by fanaticism; and the spirit of intolerance soon rekindled the fires of Smithfield into a fiercer glow than before.
Yet men wondered at the source whence these strange doctrines had proceeded. The friar was Philip's confessor. It was argued that he would not have dared to speak thus boldly, had it not been by the command of Philip, or, at least, by his consent. That De Castro should have thus acted at the suggestion of his master is contradicted by the whole tenor of Philip's life. Hardly four years elapsed before he countenanced by his presence an auto da fé in Valladolid, where fourteen persons perished at the stake; and the burning of heretics in England could have done no greater violence to his feelings than the burning of heretics in Spain. If the friar did indeed act in obedience to Philip, we may well suspect that the latter was influenced less by motives of humanity than of policy; and that the disgust manifested{56} by the people at the spectacle of these executions may have led him to employ this expedient to relieve himself of any share in the odium which attached to them.[123]
What was the real amount of Philip's influence, in this or other matters, it is not possible to determine. It is clear that he was careful not to arouse the jealousy of the English by any parade of it.[124] One obvious channel of it lay in the queen, who seems to have doated on him with a fondness that one would hardly have thought a temper cold and repulsive, like that of Philip, capable of exciting. But he was young and good-looking. His manners had always been found to please the sex, even where he had not been so solicitous to please as he was in England. He was Mary's first and only love; for the emperor was too old to have touched aught but her vanity, and Courtenay was too frivolous to have excited any other than a temporary feeling. This devotion to Philip, according to some accounts, was ill requited by his gallantries. The Venetian ambassador says of him, that "he well deserved the tenderness of his wife, for he was the most loving and the best of husbands." But it seems probable that the Italian, in his estimate of the best of husbands, adopted the liberal standard of his own country.[125]
About the middle of November, parliament was advised that the queen was in a state of pregnancy. The intelligence was received with the joy usually manifested by loyal subjects on like occasions. The emperor seems to have been particularly pleased with this prospect of an heir, who, by the terms of the marriage treaty, would make a division of that great empire which it had been the object of its master's life to build up and consolidate under one sceptre. The commons, soon after, passed an act empowering Philip, in case it should go otherwise than well with the queen at the time of her confinement, to assume the regency, and take charge of the education of her child during its minority. The regency was to be limited by the provisions{57} of the marriage treaty. But the act may be deemed evidence that Philip had gained on the confidence of his new subjects.
The symptoms continued to be favorable; and, as the time approached for Mary's confinement, messengers were held in readiness to bear the tidings to the different courts. The loyal wishes of the people ran so far ahead of reality, that the rumor went abroad of the actual birth of a prince. Bells were rung, bonfires lighted; Te Deum was sung in some of the churches; and one of the preachers "took upon him to describe the proportions of the child, how fair, how beautiful and great a prince it was, as the like had not been seen!" "But for all this great labor," says the caustic chronicler, "for their yoong maister long looked for coming so surely into the world, in the end appeared neither yoong maister nor yoong maistress, that any man to this day can hear of."[126]
The queen's disorder proved to be a dropsy. But, notwithstanding the mortifying results of so many prognostics and preparations, and the ridicule which attached to it, Mary still cherished the illusion of one day giving an heir to the crown. Her husband did not share in this illusion; and, as he became convinced that she had no longer prospect of issue, he found less inducement to protract his residence in a country which, on many accounts, was most distasteful to him. Whatever show of deference might be paid to him, his haughty spirit could not be pleased by the subordinate part which he was compelled to play, in public, to the queen. The parliament had never so far acceded to Mary's wishes as to consent to his coronation as king of England. Whatever weight he may have had in the cabinet, it had not been such as to enable him to make the politics of England subservient to his own interests, or, what was the same thing, to those of his father. Parliament would not consent to swerve so far from the express provisions of the marriage treaty as to become a party in the emperor's contest with France.[127]
Nor could the restraint constantly imposed on Philip, by his desire to accommodate himself to the tastes and habits of the English, be otherwise than irksome to him. If he had been more successful in this than might have been expected, yet it was not possible to overcome the prejudices, the settled antipathy, with which the Spaniards were regarded by the great mass of the people, as was evident from the satirical shafts, which, from time to time, were launched by pamphleteers and ballad-makers, both against the king and his followers.
These latter were even more impatient than their master of their stay in a country where they met with so many subjects of annoyance. If a Spaniard bought anything, complains one of the nation, he was sure to be charged an exorbitant price for it.[128] If he had a quarrel with an Englishman, says{58} another writer, he was to be tried by English law, and was very certain to come off the worst.[129] Whether right or wrong, the Spaniards could hardly fail to find abundant cause of irritation and disgust. The two nations were too dissimilar for either of them to comprehend the other. It was with no little satisfaction, therefore, that Philip's followers learned that their master had received a summons from his father to leave England, and join him in Flanders.
The cause of this sudden movement was one that filled the Castilians, as it did all Europe, with astonishment,—the proposed abdication of Charles the Fifth. It was one that might seem to admit of neither doubt nor delay on Philip's part. But Mary, distressed by the prospect of separation, prevailed on her husband to postpone his departure for several weeks. She yielded, at length, to the necessity of the case. Preparations were made for Philip's journey, and Mary, with a heavy heart, accompanied her royal consort down the Thames to Greenwich. Here they parted; and Philip, taking an affectionate farewell, and commending the queen and her concerns to the care of Cardinal Pole, took the road to Dover.
After a short detention there by contrary winds, he crossed over to Calais, and on the fourth of September made his entry into that strong place, the last remnant of all their continental acquisitions that still belonged to the English.
Philip was received by the authorities of the city with the honors due to his rank. He passed some days there receiving the respectful courtesies of the inhabitants, and, on his departure, rejoiced the hearts of the garrison by distributing among them a thousand crowns of gold. He resumed his journey, with his splendid train of Castilian and English nobles, among whom were the earls of Arundel, Pembroke, Huntington, and others of the highest station in the realm. On the road, he was met by a military escort sent by his father; and towards the latter part of September, 1555, Philip, with his gallant retinue, made his entry into the Flemish capital, where the emperor and his court were eagerly awaiting his arrival.[130]{59}
CHAPTER V.
WAR WITH THE POPE.
Empire of Philip.—Paul the Fourth.—Court of France.—League against Spain.—The Duke of Alva.—Preparations for War.—Victorious Campaign.
1555, 1556.
Soon after Philip's arrival in Brussels took place that memorable scene of the abdication of Charles the Fifth, which occupies the introductory pages of our narrative. By this event, Philip saw himself master of the most widely extended and powerful monarchy in Europe. He was king of Spain, comprehending under that name Castile, Aragon, and Granada, which, after surviving as independent states for centuries, had been first brought under one sceptre in the reign of his father, Charles the Fifth. He was king of Naples and Sicily, and duke of Milan, which important possessions enabled him to control, to a great extent, the nicely balanced scales of Italian politics. He was lord of Franche Comté, and of the Low Countries, comprehending the most flourishing and populous provinces in Christendom, whose people had made the greatest progress in commerce, husbandry, and the various mechanic arts. As titular king of England, he eventually obtained an influence, which, as we shall see, enabled him to direct the counsels of that country to his own purposes. In Africa he possessed the Cape de Verd Islands and the Canaries, as well as Tunis, Oran, and some other important places on the Barbary coast. He owned the Philippines and the Spice Islands in Asia. In America, besides his possessions in the West Indies, he was master of the rich empires of Mexico and Peru, and claimed a right to a boundless extent of country, that offered an inexhaustible field to the cupidity and enterprise of the Spanish adventurer. Thus the dominions of Philip stretched over every quarter of the globe. The flag of Castile was seen in the remotest latitudes,—on the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the far-off Indian seas,—passing from port to port, and uniting by commercial intercourse the widely scattered members of her vast colonial empire.
The Spanish army consisted of the most formidable infantry in Europe; veterans who had been formed under the eye of Charles the Fifth and of his generals, who had fought on the fields of Pavia and of Muhlberg, or who, in the New World, had climbed the Andes with Almagro and Pizarro, and helped these bold chiefs to overthrow the dynasty of the Incas. The navy of Spain and Flanders combined far exceeded that of any other power in the number and size of its vessels; and if its supremacy might be contested by England on the "narrow seas," it rode the undisputed mistress of the ocean. To supply the means for maintaining this costly establishment, as well as the general machinery of government, Philip had at his command the treasures of the New World; and if the incessant enterprises of his father had drained the exchequer, it was soon replenished by the silver streams that flowed in from the inexhaustible mines of Zacatecas and Potosí.
All this vast empire, with its magnificent resources, was placed at the disposal of a single man. Philip ruled over it with an authority more absolute than that possessed by any European prince since the days of the Cæsars. The Netherlands, indeed, maintained a show of independence under the shadow of their ancient institutions. But they consented to supply the necessities of the crown by a tax larger than the revenues of America. Naples and Milan were ruled by Spanish viceroys. Viceroys, with delegated{60} powers scarcely less than those of their sovereign, presided over the American colonies, which received their laws from the parent country. In Spain itself, the authority of the nobles was gone. First assailed under Ferdinand and Isabella, it was completely broken down under Charles the Fifth. The liberties of the commons were crushed at the fatal battle of Villalar, in the beginning of that monarch's reign. Without nobles, without commons, the ancient cortes had faded into a mere legislative pageant, with hardly any other right than that of presenting petitions, and of occasionally raising an ineffectual note of remonstrance against abuses. It had lost the power to redress them. Thus all authority vested in the sovereign. His will was the law of the land. From his palace at Madrid he sent forth the edicts which became the law of Spain and of her remotest colonies. It may well be believed that foreign nations watched with interest the first movements of a prince who seemed to hold in his hands the destinies of Europe; and that they regarded with no little apprehension the growth of that colossal power which had already risen to a height that cast a shadow over every other monarchy.
From his position, Philip stood at the head of the Roman Catholic princes. He was in temporal matters what the pope was in spiritual. In the existing state of Christendom, he had the same interest as the pope in putting down that spirit of religious reform which had begun to show itself, in public or in private, in every corner of Europe. He was the natural ally of the pope. He understood this well, and would have acted on it. Yet, strange to say, his very first war, after his accession, was with the pope himself. It was a war not of Philip's seeking.
The papal throne was at that time filled by Paul the Fourth, one of those remarkable men, who, amidst the shadowy personages that have reigned in the Vatican, and been forgotten, have vindicated to themselves a permanent place in history. He was a Neapolitan by birth, of the noble family of the Caraffas. He was bred to the religious profession, and early attracted notice by his diligent application and the fruits he gathered from it. His memory was prodigious. He was not only deeply read in theological science, but skilled in various languages, ancient and modern, several of which he spoke with fluency. His rank, sustained by his scholarship, raised him speedily to high preferment in the Church. In 1513, when thirty-six years of age, he went as nuncio to England. In 1525, he resigned his benefices, and, with a small number of his noble friends, he instituted a new religious order, called the Theatins.[131] The object of the society was, to combine, to some extent, the contemplative habits of the monk with the more active duties of the secular clergy. The members visited the sick, buried the dead, and preached frequently in public, thus performing the most important functions of the priesthood.{61} For this last vocation, of public speaking, Caraffa was peculiarly qualified by a flow of natural eloquence, which, if it did not always convince, was sure to carry away the audience by its irresistible fervor.[132] The new order showed itself particularly zealous in enforcing reform in the Catholic clergy, and in stemming the tide of heresy which now threatened to inundate the Church. Caraffa and his associates were earnest to introduce the Inquisition. A life of asceticism and penance too often extinguishes sympathy with human suffering, and leads its votaries to regard the sharpest remedies as the most effectual for the cure of spiritual error.
From this austere way of life Caraffa was called, in 1536, to a situation which engaged him more directly in worldly concerns. He was made cardinal by Paul the Third. He had, as far back as the time of Ferdinand the Catholic, been one of the royal council of Naples. The family of Caraffa, however, was of the Angevine party, and regarded the house of Aragon in the light of usurpers. The cardinal had been educated in this political creed, and, even after his elevation to his new dignity, he strongly urged Paul the Third to assert the claims of the holy see to the sovereignty of Naples. This conduct, which came to the ears of Charles the Fifth, so displeased that monarch that he dismissed Caraffa from the council. Afterwards, when the cardinal was named by the pope, his unfailing patron, to the archbishopric of Naples, Charles resisted the nomination, and opposed all the obstacles in his power to the collection of the episcopal revenues. These indignities sank deep into the cardinal's mind, naturally tenacious of affronts; and what, at first, had been only a political animosity, was now sharpened into personal hatred of the most implacable character.[133]
Such was the state of feeling when, on the death of Marcellus the Second, in 1555, Cardinal Caraffa was raised to the papal throne. His election, as was natural, greatly disgusted the emperor, and caused astonishment throughout Europe; for he had not the conciliatory manners which win the favor and the suffrages of mankind. But the Catholic Church stood itself in need of a reformer, to enable it to resist the encroaching spirit of Protestantism. This was well understood not only by the highest, but by the humblest ecclesiastics; and in Caraffa they saw the man whose qualities precisely fitted him to effect such a reform. He was, moreover, at the time of his election, in his eightieth year; and age and infirmity have always proved powerful arguments with the sacred college, as affording the numerous competitors the best guaranties for a speedy vacancy. Yet it has more than once happened that the fortunate candidate, who has owed his election mainly to his infirmities, has been miraculously restored by the touch of the tiara.
Paul the Fourth—for such was the name assumed by the new pope, in gratitude to the memory of his patron—adopted a way of life, on his accession, for which his brethren of the college were not at all prepared. The austerity and self-denial of earlier days formed a strong contrast to the pomp of his present establishment and the profuse luxury of his table. When asked how he would be served, "How but as a great prince?" he answered. He usually passed three hours at his dinner, which consisted of numerous courses of the most refined and epicurean dishes. No one dined with him, though one or more of the cardinals were usually present, with whom he freely conversed; and as he accompanied his meals with large draughts of the thick, black wine of Naples, it no doubt gave additional animation to his discourse.[134] At such{62} times, his favorite theme was the Spaniards, whom he denounced as the scum of the earth, a race accursed of God, heretics and schismatics, the spawn of Jews and of Moors. He bewailed the humiliation of Italy, galled by the yoke of a nation so abject. But the day had come, he would thunder out, when Charles and Philip were to be called to a reckoning for their ill-gotten possessions, and be driven from the land![135]
Yet Paul did not waste all his hours in this idle vaporing, nor in the pleasures of the table. He showed the same activity as ever in the labors of the closet, and in attention to business. He was irregular in his hours, sometimes prolonging his studies through the greater part of the night, and at others rising long before the dawn. When thus engaged, it would not have been well for any one of his household to venture into his presence, without a summons.
Paul seemed to be always in a state of nervous tension. "He is all nerve," the Venetian minister, Navagero, writes of him; "and when he walks, it is with a free, elastic step, as if he hardly touched the ground."[136] His natural arrogance, was greatly increased by his elevation to the first dignity in Christendom. He had always entertained the highest ideas of the authority of the sacerdotal office; and now that he was in the chair of St. Peter, he seemed to have entire confidence in his own infallibility. He looked on the princes of Europe, not so much as his sons—the language of the Church—as his servants, bound to do his bidding. Paul's way of thinking would have better suited the twelfth century than the sixteenth. He came into the world at least three centuries too late. In all his acts he relied solely on himself. He was impatient of counsel from any one, and woe to the man who ventured to oppose any remonstrance, still more any impediment to the execution of his plans. He had no misgivings as to the wisdom of these plans. An idea that had once taken possession of his mind lay there, to borrow a cant phrase of the day, like "a fixed fact,"—not to be disturbed by argument or persuasion. We occasionally meet with such characters, in which strength of will and unconquerable energy in action pass for genius with the world. They, in fact, serve as the best substitute for genius, by the ascendancy which such qualities secure their possessors over ordinary minds. Yet there were ways of approaching the pontiff, for those who understood his character, and who, by condescending to flatter his humors, could turn them to their own account. Such was the policy pursued by some of Paul's kindred, who, cheered by his patronage, now came forth from their obscurity to glitter in the rays of the meridian sun.{63}