Project Gutenberg's The Year after the Armada, by Martin A. S. Hume
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Title: The Year after the Armada
Author: Martin A. S. Hume
Release Date: August 30, 2016 [EBook #52942]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YEAR AFTER THE ARMADA ***
Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: ROBERT DEVEREUX, SECOND EARL OF ESSEX. (_After a
contemporary portrait in the collection of the Earl of Verulam._)]
THE YEAR AFTER
THE ARMADA
AND OTHER HISTORICAL STUDIES
BY MARTIN A. S. HUME, F.R.HIST.S.
EDITOR OF THE CALENDAR OF SPANISH STATE
PAPERS OF ELIZABETH (PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE)
AUTHOR OF "THE COURTSHIPS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH," ETC.
[Illustration: Dieu et mon droit]
_SECOND EDITION_
"'There is no book so bad,' said the bachelor, 'but that
something good may be found in it.' 'There is no doubt of that,'
replied Don Quixote."--_Don Quixote_, pt. ii.
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1896
_All rights reserved._
To
MY MOTHER.
{vii}
[Illustration: Headpiece]
PREFACE.
Circumstances have led me to follow the course of modern history into
somewhat unfrequented channels, and in the pursuit of my main object it
is occasionally my good fortune to come across a piece of unused or
unfamiliar contemporary information--some faded manuscript or forgotten
newsletter--which seems to throw fresh light upon an important period
or an interesting personality of the past. It is true that in some
cases the matters recounted are not of any great historical
significance, but even then there is generally some quaint glimpse to
be caught of bygone manners or events which redeems the document from
worthlessness. From such treasure-trove as this, and from other
sources which have generally been overlooked or neglected by English
historians, the studies contained in the present book have been drawn;
and it is hoped that some fresh knowledge as well as amusement may be
gained from them.
{viii}
If the reader is only half as much interested in perusing as I have
been in writing them, I shall consider myself very fortunate.
Some of the studies have already appeared in Magazines, but the
principal portion of the book is now printed for the first time.
MARTIN A. S. HUME.
LONDON, _September_, 1896.
[Illustration: Tailpiece]
{ix}
[Illustration: Headpiece]
CONTENTS.
THE YEAR AFTER THE ARMADA
JULIAN ROMERO--SWASHBUCKLER
THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT
THE EVOLUTION OF THE SPANISH ARMADA
A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY
A PALACE IN THE STRAND
THE EXORCISM OF CHARLES THE BEWITCHED
A SPRIG OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA
THE JOURNAL OF RICHARD BERE
Index
{xi}
[Illustration: Headpiece]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE EARL OF ESSEX . . . _Frontispiece_
(_After a contemporary portrait in the collection
of the Earl of Verulam._)
PHILIP AND MARY
(_After the painting by Antonio Mor._)
QUEVEDO
(_After the portrait by Velasquez, at Apsley House._)
CHARLES II. OF SPAIN
(_After the portrait by Claudio Coello,
at the Madrid Musco._)
PHILIP IV. OF SPAIN
(_After the portrait by Velasquez, in the National Gallery._)
{3}
[Illustration: Headpiece]
THE YEAR AFTER THE ARMADA.
_THE COUNTER-ARMADA OF 1589_.[1]
On the night of Sunday, the 28th of July, 1588, the great Armada was
huddled, all demoralised and perplexed, in Calais roads. Only a week
before the proudest fleet that ever rode the seas laughed in derision
at the puny vessels that alone stood between it and victory over the
heretic Queen and her pirate countrymen, who for years had plundered
and insulted with impunity the most powerful sovereign in Europe.
Gilded prows and fluttering pennons, great towering hulls which seemed
to defy destruction, the fervid approbation of all Latin Christendom,
and the assurance of Divine protection, combined to produce in the men
of the Armada absolute confidence in an easy conquest. But six {4}
days of desultory fighting in the Channel had opened their eyes to
facts thitherto undreamed of. Handy ships, that could sail several
points closer to the wind than their unwieldy galleons, could harass
and distress them without coming to close quarters. At first they
shouted that the English were afraid of them, but as the sense of their
own impotence gradually grew upon them their spirits sank. Brave they
were, but, said they, of what use is bravery against foes who will not
fight with us hand to hand in the only way we wot of? And so from day
to day, whilst they straggled up the Channel, their boasting gave place
to dismay and disorganisation. They saw their ships were being sunk
and disabled one after the other, whilst the English vessels were
suffering little damage and had safe ports of refuge behind them. Thus
at the end of the week they found themselves with a dangerous shoally
coast to leeward, in an exposed roadstead surrounded by the reinforced
English fleet. They were ripe for panic, for their commander was a
fool and a craven in whom they had no confidence; and when the English
fireships drifted down upon them with the wind, flaring in the darkness
of the summer night, abject paralysing terror turned the huge fleet
into a hustling mob of ships, in which the sole thought was that of
flight. From that moment the Armada was beaten. The storms on the
northern and Irish coasts, the cold, the rotten food and putrid water,
pestilence and panic, added dramatic completeness to their
discomfiture; but superior ships, commanders, and seamanship had
practically defeated them when they slipped their cables and anchors
and crowded {5} through the narrow sea with the English fleet to
windward and sandbanks on their lee.
But the Armada had represented the labour, the thought, and the
sacrifice of years. Every nerve had been strained to render it
irresistible. Spain and the Indies had been squeezed to the last
doubloon, careful Sixtus V. had been cajoled into partnership in the
enterprise, and the Church throughout Christendom had emptied its
coffers to crush heresy for once and for ever. All along the coast of
Ireland from the Giant's Causeway to Dingle Bay the wreckage of the
splendid galleons was awash, and many of the best and bravest of
Spain's hidalgos, dead and mutilated, scattered the frowning shore; or,
alive, starved, naked, and plundered, were slowly done to death with
every circumstance of inhumanity by the Irish kerns or their English
conquerors. It could hardly be expected, therefore, that on the
receipt of the dreadful news Spain should calmly resign itself to
defeat. Such lessons as this are only slowly and gradually brought
home to the heart of a nation; and after Mendoza's lying stories of
victory had been contradicted, and the fell truth ran through Spain as
the battered, plague-stricken wrecks of what was left of the Armada
crept into Santander, the first heart-cry was for vengeance and a
re-vindication of the national honour.
Medina Sidonia was the scapegoat (perhaps not undeservedly, though
Parma should bear his share of blame), and as he went in state and
comfort through Spain to his home in the south, the very children and
old women in the streets jeered and spat upon him for the
chicken-hearted {6} coward who had disgraced their country in the eyes
of the world. Only the over-burdened recluse in the Escorial was
patient and resigned under the blow. He had, as he thought, done his
best for the cause of God; and if for some inscrutable reason all his
labour, his sacrifice, and his prayers were to be in vain, he could
only suffer dumbly and bend his head to the Divine decree. One after
the other the provinces and municipalities came to him with offers of
money to repair the disaster. In November the national Cortes secretly
sent him word, "that they would vote four or five millions of gold,
their sons and all they possess, so that he may chastise that woman,
and wipe out the stain which this year has fallen on the Spanish
nation."[2] But the Cortes and the Town Councils always tacked upon
their offers two conditions, born of their knowledge that peculation
and mismanagement were largely responsible for the disaster of the
Armada. "First that his Majesty will act in earnest; and secondly that
their own agents may have the spending of the money which they shall
vote, for in this way his Majesty will not be so robbed and all affairs
will go far better."[3] But the last condition was one that Philip
could never brook: the secret of his failure through life was that he
wished to do everybody's work himself and he was smothered in details.
Besides this there were difficulties, diplomatic and others, in the
way, of which the people at large were unaware. The star of Henry of
Navarre was rising, and all France was now alive to Philip's real
object in the invasion of England. Philip knew that in any repetition
of the attempt he would probably {7} not have to confront England
alone. So the cries for vengeance grew fainter, and national feeling
was gradually turned purposely in other directions.
But these cries had been loud enough to reach England. Exaggerated
rumours of the intention to renew the Armada were industriously sent
from all quarters by zealous spies and agents, and an uneasy feeling
grew that perhaps, after all, England had not finished her foe; for
Elizabeth's advisers had no means of exactly gauging the depth of
Philip's purse, and they knew the papal coffers were overflowing. It
is true that immediate danger was over. The hasty English levies had
been sent home again, bragging of the prowess they would have shown if
the hated Spaniard had dared to land, and the panic and fright had
given place to perfectly natural congratulations on the special
protection vouchsafed by the Almighty to the Virgin Queen and her
people. The heroics were over, and England was free, for the present
at all events, to don its work-a-day garb again.
But the easy victory had inflamed men's minds. There had been very
little fighting even on the fleet, and none at all on shore; and it is
not pleasant to be balked of a set-to when all is ready, and to turn
swords to bill-hooks without once fleshing them in an enemy's carcase.
So the idlers in England who were loath to go to work again, the
turbulent youngsters who were burning for an excuse to have a go at
somebody, and the lavish gentlemen who were thirsting for loot, began
on their side to talk about vengeance and retaliation. It mattered
little to them that for a long course of years England had been the {8}
aggressor, and that Philip had exhausted all diplomatic and
conciliatory means, including even secret murder, and the subornation
of treason, in England, to arrive at a peaceful _modus vivendi_. For
thirty years he had suffered, more or less patiently, robbery, insult,
and aggression in his own dominions at the hands of Elizabeth. The
commerce of his country was well-nigh swept from the sea by marauders
sallying from English ports or flying the English flag. His own towns,
both in the Spanish colonies and in old Spain, had been sacked and
burnt by English seamen without any declaration of war; and rebellion
in the ancient patrimony of his house had been, and was still, kept
alive by English money and English troops.
Englishmen, then as now, had the comfortable and highly commendable
faculty of believing their own side always to be in the right, and they
knew in this particular case that it was much more profitable to
plunder than to be plundered, to attack rather than defend.
Elizabeth's caution and dread of being forced into a costly national
war had over and over again caused her to discountenance this tendency
on the part of some of her advisers, though she was ready enough to
share the profits when her official orders were disregarded and her own
responsibility evaded. Only the year before the Armada she had
peremptorily ordered Drake, when he was ready to sail for Cadiz, not to
imperil peace by molesting any of the territories or subjects of his
Catholic Majesty. But when he came into Dartmouth, after "singeing the
King of Spain's beard," towing behind him the great galleon _San
Felipe_, with its 600,000 {9} ducats in money, the Queen smiled upon
him as if he had never disobeyed her. But for her positive orders of
recall indeed, Drake on this very voyage would have made the Armada
impossible by destroying, as he was able and ready to do, all the ships
preparing for it in Lisbon harbour.
Only just before the Armada, in June, 1588, the idea of diverting and
dividing Philip's forces by attacking him in his own country,
ostensibly in the interest of Dom Antonio, the Portuguese pretender,
was broached by Lord Admiral Howard in a letter to Walsingham, now in
the Record Office. The scheme assumed definite form soon after the
flight of the Armada, when, in September, Sir John Norris presented to
the Queen a complete plan for fitting out an expedition with this
object by means of a joint-stock company, which might be made both
patriotic and profitable at the same time. Such a proposal was one
eminently likely to suit the Queen, frugal and evasive of
responsibility as she was. Norris and his associates suggested that
the capital of the company should be £40,000 at least, out of which the
Queen was to subscribe £5,000, and to appoint a treasurer, who was to
supervise the expenditure of the whole. The Queen's contribution was
only to be spent by permission of this treasurer, and if the enterprise
fell through for want of subscribers she was to have her money returned
to her or the munitions of war which had been purchased with it. The
Queen, as was her wont, discreetly hesitated about it; and it was not
until addresses had been presented from Parliament begging her to adopt
some such action that she consented to take shares in the enterprise.
But her treasury was {10} well-nigh empty; and willing as she was that
anything should be done to weaken her enemy, her poverty and Tudor
frugality forbade her from undertaking to defray any very large portion
of the cost herself. So she answered her petitioners that although she
would sanction the enterprise and subscribe something to it, the main
cost must be borne by others.
The story of this ill-starred expedition is usually disposed of in a
few lines by English historians, although its success would have
completely changed the status of England on the Continent. What is
known of it hitherto is practically confined to the official documents
and letters in the Record Office, which have only become accessible of
late years, a few letters in the Bacon and Naunton Papers, and a
curious tract printed in Hackluyt and ascribed to Captain Anthony
Wingfield, minutely describing and apologising for the proceedings.
The account was written in the same year, 1589, as the expedition took
place; and the writer, whoever he was,[4] evidently witnessed the
events he relates. His {11} description is most graphic and
interesting, and presents the English view of the enterprise in its
best possible light, although all his explanations and palliations
cannot succeed in conjuring away the utter failure of the expedition,
or the bad conduct of the men who took part in it. The English
account, however, all indulgently unflattering as it is, is not the
only one extant. The publication of the latest volume of the Calendar
of Venetian State Papers puts us into possession of the version of the
affair current in the Spanish Court and conveyed to the King from his
officers in Portugal; and in addition to this I possess the transcript
of an unpublished contemporary manuscript which exists in the library
of Don Pascual de Gayangos at Madrid, written by a Castilian resident
in Lisbon at the time of the invasion, containing a detailed diary of
the event.[5] This manuscript, I believe, has never yet received the
attention it deserves from historians, but it is nevertheless valuable
as confirming in the main the English accounts, but relating the
incidents from an entirely different point of view. I have also
recently discovered in the Pombalina Library in Lisbon still another
contemporary manuscript diary of the English invasion, written by a
Portuguese gentleman in Lisbon who was present at the scenes he
describes, and whose standpoint is widely different from those of the
Castilian and the Englishman.[6] The Spaniard {12} is full of scorn
and contempt for the chicken-hearted Portuguese in Lisbon who, though
sympathising with the native pretender, slunk into hiding at his
approach; whilst the Portuguese diarist insists vehemently upon the
loyalty of the Portuguese nobles to Philip, and ascribes the
instability of the common people to their weakness and incredulity, to
their fear of the anger of Saint Antonio if they opposed his namesake
the pretender, to their desire to protect their wives and families, to
any other reason but the obvious one that high and low, rich and poor,
in the city were in a state of trembling panic from first to last,
utterly cowed and appalled by the few Spaniards whom they hated as much
as they feared.
In 1578, ten years before the Armada, the rash young King Sebastian of
Portugal had disappeared for ever from the ken of men on the Moorish
battlefield which had seen the opening and closing of his mad crusade.
For centuries afterwards the Portuguese peasants dreamt of his
triumphant return to lead to victory the hosts of Christendom. But he
came not, unless indeed one of the many claimants who long afterwards
assumed his name was indeed he; and in the meanwhile, when his uncle,
the childless Cardinal King Henry, died, Portugal wanted a monarch.
It had a large choice of descendants of Dom Manoel, grandfather of the
lost Sebastian, but the Magna Charta of the Portuguese, the laws of
Lamego (apocryphal as we now believe them to have been), were then
universally accepted, and strictly excluded {13} foreigners from the
throne; and all the claimants were aliens but two, the Duchess of
Braganza, daughter of the elder son of Dom Manoel, and doubtless the
rightful heiress; and Dom Antonio, a churchman, prior of Ocrato, the
questionably legitimate offspring of Manoel's second son.
When the Cardinal King died in 1580, Philip II., who for two years had
been intriguing, suborning, and threatening the leading Portuguese to
acknowledge his right to the succession, stretched out his hand to
grasp the coveted crown. Of the two native claimants one, the Duchess
of Braganza, was timid and unready; the other, Dom Antonio, was
ambitious, bold, and eager. Around him all that was patriotic grouped
itself. The poorer classes bitterly hated the foreigner, and
particularly the Spaniard, whose King was really the only other serious
claimant to the throne. The churchmen were devotedly attached to the
ecclesiastical claimant, the nobles were Portuguese before all, and
Antonio was acclaimed the national sovereign. But not for long; the
terrible Alba swept down upon Lisbon, as years before he had come down
upon the Netherlands, and crushed the life out of Portuguese
patriotism. There was no religious question to stiffen men's backs,
and no William of Orange to command them here. The Portuguese were
made of different stuff from the stubborn Dutchmen, and Alba rode
roughshod over them with but little resistance. Antonio was soon a
fugitive, hunted from town to town, holding out for weeks in one
fortress, only to be starved into another; proclaimed a bastard and a
rebel, with a great price set upon his head; and yet for eight long
months he wandered amongst the mountain {14} peasantry, as safe from
betrayal as was Charles Edward amongst the Scots Highlanders. At last
Antonio gave up the game and fled to France, and thence to England. He
came in July, 1581, and was immediately made much of by the Queen and
Leicester. In vain did Mendoza, Philip's ambassador, demand his
surrender as a rebel. The Queen said she had not quite made up her
mind to help him, but she had quite decided that she would not
surrender him to be killed. He was too valuable a card in her hand for
her to let him go, and she made the most of him. He was treated with
royal honours, and covert aid was given to him to strengthen the
Azores, which were faithful to him. He had taken the precaution to
bring away the crown jewels of Portugal with him, the spoils of the two
Indies, but he had no money. The greedy crew that surrounded the Queen
soon scented plunder, and money for warlike preparations, the purchase
of ships, and the like, was speedily forthcoming on security of
diamonds and pearls such as had rarely been seen in England. Elizabeth
and Leicester, in presents and by a quibble, managed to grab some of
the best; and most of those pledged to the London merchants ultimately
fell into the Queen's hands.[7] {15} Some were left with Walsingham for
safety, but when they were demanded Walsingham alleged that he was
personally responsible for some provisions Antonio had ordered, and
made difficulties about giving them up. So long as the money lasted
Antonio might spend it in England and leave his diamonds, but some
specious excuse was always invented to prevent any openly hostile
expedition to attack Philip leaving an English port under Antonio's
banner. The rascally Dr. Lopez, who was afterwards hanged at Tyburn
for attempting to poison the Queen, was Dom Antonio's go-between and
interpreter at Court, and he, greedy scamp as he was, made a good thing
out of it until the money began to run short, when, in his usual way,
he sold his knowledge to Philip, and attempted more than once to poison
the unhappy Pretender. Antonio, indeed, was surrounded by spies though
he knew it not,[8] but he found he was being frustrated, betrayed, and
defrauded in every way in England, and his precious jewels the
meanwhile were slipping away. So, in dudgeon with the greedy English,
he fled to France and took {16} such of his vessels as he could gain
possession of with him. Catharine de Medici, the Queen-mother, was,
for form's sake, a claimant to the Portuguese throne herself, but her
shadowy claim was soon abandoned when she had an opportunity of
cherishing such a thorn as Antonio promised to be in the side of her
powerful late son-in-law Philip. Antonio still had jewels, and whilst
they lasted he was treated with consideration and regal splendour in
that gay and dissolute Court. He certainly got more return for them
there than he got in England. Many were scattered in bribes amongst
the easy-going ladies and painted mignons of the Court, and most of the
rest went to pay for two costly naval expeditions fitted out in France
in the Queen-mother's name, to enable Antonio to hold the islands
faithful to him.[9] But Santa Cruz swooped down upon Terceira as Alba
had pounced upon Lisbon, and the merry-making crew of revellers was
soon disposed of. Then poor Antonio fell upon evil days. The
emissaries of Philip, false friends of Antonio, tried time after time
to put him out of the way by poison and the dagger, but he was ever on
the watch; and for help and safety, still sanguine and hopeful, drifted
from France to England and from England to France, {17} the plaything
in the game alternately of Elizabeth and Catharine, to be taken up or
cast aside as the interests of the players dictated.
Philip's open attempt to invade England in 1588 seemed once more to
offer him a chance of success, and his hopes rose again. One gem, and
one only, of all the rich store he brought from Portugal was left to
him; but that was the most precious of them all, the eighth greatest
diamond in the world, the chief ornament in the Russian imperial crown
to-day.[10] It was his last stake, and he decided to risk it on his
chance. It was pledged to Monsieur de Sancy, whose name it ever
afterwards bore, and with the money so raised Antonio started for
England to tempt Elizabeth to link his desperate cause with her hopes
of revenge upon Spain.
This was in the autumn of the Armada year, 1588, and, all unconscious
of his vile treachery to him, Antonio once more evoked Lopez's
influence at Court to gain the ear of the Queen and the support of his
close friend Walsingham. The venal Jew, who was for ever craving
rewards and favours, persuaded the Queen, no doubt for a weighty
consideration, to listen anew to the pretender's proposals.[11]
{18}
The adventurer-king was confident that if he could once set foot again
in his own country with an armed force the whole population would flock
to his standard, and he was ready to promise anything, and everything,
for the help he wanted. Already in 1582, when Catharine de Medici had
aided him to fit out the fleet under Strozzi at Bordeaux which was to
hold Terceira and restore Antonio to the throne, the desperate gamester
had promised her the great empire of Brazil as a reward for her help;
and now, if my Spanish diarist is to be believed, he offered to make
himself a mere vassal of Elizabeth if he were successful.
In the Record Office there is a bond by which Antonio undertakes, in
February, 1589, to reimburse to the adventurers all the cost of the
enterprise and the pay of the soldiers, but the Spanish manuscript
gives the substance of an agreement between Dom Antonio and the Queen
which promises much more than mere repayment. The diarist I quote
says:--
"The Queen, cautious and astute as she was, caught at the fine promises
that Dom Antonio held out and insisted that an agreement should be
entered into; which was done, in substance as set forth in the
following clauses. This agreement was brought, written in the English
language, by a certain Portuguese named Diego Rodriguez who {19} came
hither as treasurer to this expedition and passed over to the service
of our lord the King on the eleventh of June. The clauses, translated
into Castilian, say as follows:--
"First her Majesty the Queen of England undertakes to provide a fleet
of one hundred and twenty vessels and twenty thousand men--15,000
soldiers and 5,000 sailors--with captains for both services, to go and
restore Dom Antonio to the throne of Portugal.
"Dom Antonio undertakes that within eight days from the arrival of the
said fleet in Portugal the whole country will submit to him in
accordance with the letters he has received from the principal people
in the said kingdom.
"Item, That on arriving in Lisbon the city will be reduced at once
without any defence and all Castilians in it killed and destroyed, and,
for the friendship and aid thus shown him in recovering his kingdom, he
undertakes to fulfil the following things--namely:--
"First that within two months of his arrival in Lisbon he will hand to
her Majesty the Queen as an aid to the costs of the fleet five millions
in gold.
"Item, In testimony of the help she has given him he will pay every
year to the Queen for ever three hundred thousand ducats in gold,
placed and paid in London at his cost.
"Item, That the English should have full liberty to trade and travel in
Portugal and the Portuguese Indies and the Portuguese equal freedom in
England.
"Item, That if the Queen should not desire to fit out a fleet against
the King of Spain in England {20} she shall be at liberty to do so in
Lisbon and shall be helped in all that may be necessary.
"Item, That the castles of São Gian, Torre de Belem, Capariza, Oton,
São Felipe, Oporto, Coimbra and the other Portuguese fortresses shall
be perpetually occupied by English soldiers paid at the cost of Dom
Antonio.
"Item, That there shall be perpetual peace between her Majesty the
Queen and Dom Antonio and they shall mutually help each other on all
occasions without excuse of any sort.
"Item, That all the Bishoprics and Archbishoprics in Portugal shall be
filled by English Catholics and the Archbishopric of Lisbon shall be at
once filled by the appointment of Monsieur de la Torques (_sic_).
"Item, On arriving at Lisbon every infantry man shall receive twelve
months pay, and three extra, as a present from Dom Antonio and they
shall be allowed to sack the city for twelve days, on condition that no
man of any rank shall presume to harm any Portuguese or molest the
churches or houses wherein maidens are dwelling; and also that they pay
in money for whatever they may need in the country. Which agreement
her Majesty ordered to be duly executed under date of last day of
December 1588."[12]
The Spanish scribe waxes very indignant at this document, showing, as
he says it does, the sagacity of the Queen and the blind infatuation of
Dom Antonio, {21} "who gives up the substance for the shadow of
kingship, and is content to make the Portuguese subjects slaves so that
he shall be called King." But he is most shocked at the sacrifice to
this "pestilent sect" of the two instincts clearest to the Portuguese
heart, namely, devotion to their Church and their greed of gain; the
first of which, he says, will be destroyed by relationship with the
accursed heretics, and the second attacked by the substitution for "our
lord the king who does not spend a maravedi of Portuguese money, but
brings Castilian money into Portugal," of a King who has promised to
pay away more than the Portuguese can ever give him. "And besides," he
says, plaintively, "we Castilians and Portuguese are not so estranged
in blood of boundaries after all, for only a line divides us, and if it
be hard for the Portuguese to endure connection with their Castilian
kinsmen who bring riches into the country and take nothing from it how
much worse will it be to put up with a nation so greedy and insolent as
the English, separated from them by land and sea, and foreign to them
in customs, language, faith and laws?"
He ridicules the idea of five millions (of ducats) in gold being paid,
and says he supposes that a mistake of a nought has been made, which
probably was the case; but even then, he asks, where is such a sum as
500,000 ducats to come from, "let alone the 15 months' pay"? However
correct or otherwise in detail this agreement may be, it is certain
that some such terms were made, and it may be safely assumed that
Elizabeth, with her keen eye to the main chance, would take care to
make the best bargain she could out of the sanguine eagerness {22} of
Dom Antonio, who would be ready to promise "mounts and marvels" for
ready aid.[13] My Portuguese diarist also ridicules the impossible
terms promised by the Pretender, but adds the false finishing-touch,
evidently spread by the Castilians for the purpose of arousing the
indignation and resistance of the Portuguese, that the churches were to
be plundered and the Portuguese inhabitants of Lisbon despoiled.
It would appear strange at first sight that Elizabeth should have made
any proviso for the benefit of English Catholics whom she had sometimes
treated so unmercifully, but on other occasions she had favoured the
idea of English Catholic settlements being established across the seas
under her sway; and the great body of Catholic sympathisers resident in
England had not acted altogether unpatriotically in the hour of panic
and terror on the threat of invasion. It would, therefore, not have
been an impolitic move to earn their gratitude and further loyalty by
opening a new field for them outside of her own country but, in a
manner, under her control.
On the 23rd of February, 1589,[14] the Queen issued a warrant of her
instructions for the expedition, {23} appointing Sir John Morris[15]
and Sir Francis Drake to the chief command thereof, and in it lays down
precise rules for their guidance. She says that the objects of the
expedition are two: namely, first to distress the King of Spain's
ships, and second to get possession of some of the Azores, in order to
intercept treasure passing to and from the East and West Indies. Also
to assist the King Dom Antonio to recover the kingdom of Portugal, "_if
it shall be found the public voice in the kingdom be favourable to
him_."
On the same date authority was given to Norris and Drake to issue
warrants to the adventurers for their shares in the enterprise; and the
Queen herself undertook to repay them if the expedition were stopped at
her instance. Courtiers and swashbucklers touted their hardest for
subscriptions to this joint-stock warfare, and pressure was put upon
country gentlemen to subscribe liberally as a proof of their
patriotism--a pressure not to be disregarded in those doubtful
times.[16] The Queen's subscription ultimately reached £20,000,
besides seven ships of the Royal Navy. Promises of money and arms were
forthcoming in abundance, and flocks of idlers, high and low, offered
their valuable services. The scum of the towns, the sweepings of the
jails, were pressed for the voyage, and Pricket (or Wingfield), {24} in
his apology for the expedition, lays most of the blame of failure on
the kind of men they had, and complains bitterly of the justices and
mayors sending them "base disordered persons sent unto us as living at
home without rule." He says many idle young men, having seen their
fellows come back after a few months in the Netherlands full of their
brave deeds and tales of the wars, "thought to follow so good an
example and to spend like time amongst us," and finding soldiering a
harder trade than they had bargained for, were not likely to make good
troops.
The misfortunes of the enterprise began before it was fairly launched.
As may be supposed, promises of support, given under such circumstances
as those which I have described, were hardly likely to be strictly
kept, and the performance in this case fell far short. Pricket (or
Wingfield) bemoans this as follows: "For hath not the want of 8 out of
the 12 pieces of Artillerie which was promised unto the adventure lost
her Majestie the possession of the Groyne and many other places as
hereafter shall appeare whose defensible rampiers were greater than our
batterie (such as it was) could force and therefore were lost
unattempted. It was also resolved to send 600 English horse out of the
Low Countries whereof we had not one, notwithstanding the great charge
expended in their transportation hither.... Did wee not want seaven of
the thirteene old Companies we should have had from thence? foure of
the ten Dutch Companies and sixe of their men-of-warre for the sea from
the Hollanders? which I may justly say we wanted in that we might have
had so many good souldiers, {25} so many good shippes, and so many able
bodies more than we had.
"Did there not, upon the first thinking of the journey, divers gallant
courtiers put in their names for adventurers to the summe of £10,000,
who seeing it went not forward in good earnest, advised themselves
better and laid the want of so much money on the journey?"
But the expedition was got together somehow. Men were cajoled into the
belief that they were going on a great plundering excursion, and would
soon return home again loaded, as Wingfield says, with "Portogues" and
"Milrayes" which should make them independent for life. There were no
surgeons, no carriages for the hurt and sick, and from the first the
discipline was of the loosest. Provisions were said to be shipped for
two months, but in some of the ships the men declared they were starved
from the first day.
Even amongst contemporaries much difference of statement exists as to
the number of ships and men that composed the expedition, although this
difference is partly accounted for by a fact which will presently be
mentioned, and which has hitherto escaped notice. We should probably
not be far out when we put the number of soldiers who left Plymouth at
about 16,000 and the sailors at 2,500.[17] {26} Of the men-at-arms all
but the three or four thousand old soldiers, mostly from the Netherland
wars, were idle vagabonds whose first idea was loot and whose last was
fighting. In addition to these there were 1,200 gentlemen or more, the
flotsam and jetsam of the Court, younger sons of slender fortunes, and
gallants whose hearts were aflame to do good service to their country.
Seven[18] of the bravest of the Queen's ships, of three hundred tons
burden each, twenty other armed ships, and a large number of transports
and galleys of light draft, would have completed the fleet, but sixty
German smacks and sloops, which had been wintering in Holland on their
way to Spain, were pressed into the service and added to the number,
which finally reached nearly two hundred sail. The 1st of February was
the date originally fixed for starting, but when that date arrived
nothing was ready but the army of idlers, who wanted feeding, so that
when the fleet could have sailed it was found that most of the stores
had been consumed, and in some ships not a week's provision remained.
Money ran short, and Drake and Norris wrote, day after day, {27} during
all the month of March and first two weeks in April, heartrending
letters to the Council and to Walsingham. The provisions were run out,
they said; the enterprise must fall through if help be not sent at
once. They point out the dishonour and disgrace of such a lame ending,
and again and again beg for more provisions.
The innkeepers and victuallers of Canterbury, Southampton, Winchester,
Plymouth, and elsewhere wrote dunning letters to the Queen for money
due for stores supplied. The Dutch shipmasters commanding the flyboat
transports contributed by the States formally protested and refused to
put to sea with such insufficient provender as they had; and, just as
it looked as if the expedition would break down for good, there came
providentially into the harbour a Flemish ship with a cargo of dried
herrings, another with five hundred pipes of wine, and above all a
sloop loaded with barley. These provisions were promptly transferred
to the fleet to the dismay of the masters, who protested for many a day
afterwards, fruitlessly, against the confiscation of their cargoes.
The expedition was declared ready for sea, but then came tales of
contrary winds that kept them in and out of harbour for several days
more; and one day, whilst they were thus detained, the Queen's kinsman,
Knollys, comes post haste from London. Had anybody seen or heard
anything of the young Earl of Essex, the Queen's last new pet?
Curiously enough nobody had, although only the day before a party of
young gallants had dashed into Plymouth from London all dusty and
travel-stained, and had been received with open arms by the courtiers
and {28} officers on the fleet. Hot-blooded Essex, with all the
thoughtlessness of his twenty-two years, tired of sickly dallying with
an old lady and of squabbling with Raleigh, tired of his debts, his
duns and duties as prime favourite, had made up his mind to see some
fun, and had fled against the Queen's orders. No one had seen him of
course, but the _Swiftsure_, with Sir Roger Williams, the general
second in command of the army, mysteriously left the harbour as soon as
Knollys had told his tale. But a few hours later the Earl of
Huntingdon came with warrants of arrest and all manner of peremptory
papers, and Drake saw the matter was serious. Boats were sent scouring
after the _Swiftsure_, but could get no news of the missing earl. The
other ships stayed in Plymouth ten days longer for a fair wind, but the
_Swiftsure_ came back no more until the expedition was at an end.
Drake and Norris wrote nearly every day until they sailed disclaiming
any knowledge of Essex or his intention to join the force, and
expressing their deep sorrow; but the Queen did not believe them, and
from that time had nothing but hard words and sour looks for an
adventure that had robbed her of her favourite. At length, on the 13th
of April 1589, (O.S.), the expedition finally left Plymouth, but even
then it was only a feint in order that the men might be kept together
and not stray on shore and get out of hand. "The crosse windes held us
two daies after our going out, the Generalls being wearie thrust to sea
in the same wisely chosing rather to attend a change out there than to
lose it when it came by having their men on shoare."
Knocking about in the Channel in bad weather {29} was, however, not to
the taste of some of the ruffians who thought they were bound over
summer seas to a paradise of plunder; and three thousand men in
twenty-five ships, probably most of them owned by the recalcitrant
Dutchmen, deserted and were heard of no more--at least so far as the
expedition was concerned. This desertion to some extent explains the
divergence between the accounts given of the numbers of the expedition.
The rest of the fleet on the third day caught a fair wind and stretched
across the Bay of Biscay in fine spring weather. They were four days
before their eyes were gladdened by the sight of Cape Finisterra, but
in the week they had been at sea their provisions were running out.
Murmurs at the short commons were heard on all the ships, and it was
seen that the only way to keep the scratch crews from open mutiny was
to give them a chance of plunder.
So, instead of obeying the Queen's strict injunctions--for Drake was a
far better hand at commanding than obeying--and landing poor Dom
Antonio on the country he assured them was yearning for him, they bore
down upon Corunna, on the north-west coast of Spain. For months before
this, as the difficulties attending the fitting out of a new Armada
became more evident, terror-stricken rumours had pervaded Spain that
the dreaded Drake, who had now become a sort of supernatural bogey to
the Spanish people, was about to descend upon this or the other place
on the coast and wreak a terrible vengeance for the Armada. Early in
January even false news came to Madrid that an English fleet had
appeared outside Santander, and {30} at the end of the month the
Venetian ambassador in Madrid writes to his Doge that news had just
arrived from Lisbon that forty sail of English ships were out, divided
into squadrons of eight or ten ships each, and were doing much damage.
It was feared, he said, that they would all unite under Drake and make
an attempt first upon Portugal and then will go to the Azores, and
finally to the Indies. The fitting out in Spain of fifty ships to
protect the seas was hurried on; but, says the Venetian, "it is thought
that two months must elapse before they can be ready, and then one does
not see what they can do against such light ships as the enemy's."
Philip was dangerously ill and sick at heart. Fear reigned supreme in
his councils--fear that Drake the terrible would ravage the coasts
whilst Henry of Navarre crossed the Pyrenees. The Portuguese nobles
were known to be disaffected, and a rising in favour of Dom Antonio was
feared. Philip, with the energy of despair, did what he could, ill as
he was, immersed in mountains of papers dealing with trivial detail.
But he could do little. The Portuguese nobles who were at all doubtful
were ordered to come to Madrid, the Spanish grandees were enjoined to
raise and arm their followers and hold themselves in readiness to march
either towards the Pyrenees or to Lisbon. Then rumours came that the
Moorish King of Fez was to act in concert with the English, and seize
the Spanish possessions on the African coast opposite Gibraltar.
It will thus be seen in the distracted condition of affairs that Spain
was practically defenceless against a sudden descent on the coast, but
most {31} defenceless of all at the extremely remote north-west corner
of Spain, where Drake decided to land. The fear was mostly for
Portugal, where, we are told, "the population is so impatient of the
present rule that neither the severity of penalties, garrisons of
soldiers, nor the ability of governors have succeeded in quieting the
contumacious spirits. This causes a dread lest Drake who is acquainted
with those waters may furnish pretexts for fresh risings and they (the
Spaniards) wish to be ready to crush them."[19] The troops they
raised, says the Venetian ambassador, were inferior in quality of
horses and men: raw levies pressed unwillingly into the service, whilst
Portugal was in violent and open commotion awaiting the arrival of
Drake the deliverer.
But whilst all panic-stricken regards were directed upon Portugal,
Drake and his joint-stock Armada suddenly appeared where they were
least expected, before Corunna, and cast anchor; and the men, nothing
loath, were put on shore in a little bay within a mile of the town.
There was no one to stay their landing, and they had come nearly to the
gates before a hasty muster of townsfolk met them. These, all
unprepared and surprised as they were, soon retreated when they saw the
force that was coming against them, and shut themselves up behind the
gates and walls of the town. The place was weak and ill-garrisoned,
commanded by the Marquis de Cerralba, and could not hope to hold out
against a regular siege, but there were three galleons loaded with arms
in the harbour, which the new commander-in-chief in Madrid, Alba's son
Fernando, said would be a much greater loss than the town {32} itself.
The English slept the first night in the cottages and mills belonging
to a hamlet on the bank of one of the small streams discharging into
the bay, and out of gunshot of the walls. They were, however, quite
unmolested by the terrified townsfolk, although the galleon San Juan
and her consorts in the harbour kept up a fire upon them as they passed
to and fro.
The place indeed was utterly taken by surprise. The Cortes of Galicia
were in session at the time, the people peacefully pursuing their
ordinary avocations; the soldiers of the garrison were nearly all on
furlough, scattered over the province; "and, in short, every one was so
far from expecting an attack that they had no time to turn the useless
out of the town nor put their dearest possessions in safety." The wife
and daughter, indeed, of the Governor Cerralba at the first alarm fled
in their terror two leagues on foot, through the night, to a place of
safety, but after that none dared to move. The lower part of the town
fronting the harbour was protected on the land side only by weak walls,
and was unfit for protracted defence. The townspeople therefore agreed
that if the place were attacked on the water side it would be
untenable, and arranged that as soon as those in the higher town on the
hill should espy the English boats approaching they were to signal the
low town by a fire, so that the people below might make their escape to
the better defensible upper portion of the town. Some artillery was
landed by the English to stop the fire of the Spanish ships, and on the
morning of the second day the town was attacked simultaneously by 1,200
men in long boats and pinnaces under Captain Fenner and {33} Colonel
Huntly; and by Colonels Brett and Umpton on one side, and Captains
Richard Wingfield and Sampson on the other by escalade. The people in
the upper town, either from panic or oversight, neglected to give the
signal, and those below, thinking they had only to deal with an
escalade on their walls by Captain Wingfield, fought desperately until
they found two other forces had entered at other points, and then panic
seized them, and, as Pricket (or Wingfield) describes it, "The towne
was entered in three severall places; with an huge crie, the
inhabitants betooke them to the high towne which they might with less
perrill doo for that ours being strangers knew not the way to cut them
off. The rest that were not put to the sword in furie fled to the
rockes in the iland and hid themselves in chambers and sellers which
were everie day found out in great numbers." A perfect saturnalia
seems to have been thereupon indulged in by the English troops. Here
was the fruition of all their golden dreams--a flying, panic-stricken
foe, ample provisions to loot and to waste, and, above all, wine
without limit. "Some others (_i.e._, Spaniards) also found favour to
bee taken prisoners but the rest falling into the hands of the common
soldiers had their throates cut to the number of 500.... Everie seller
was found full of wine whereupon our men by inordinate drinking both
grewe senseless of the danger of the shot of the towne which hurt many
of them, being druncke, and took the first ground of their sickness,
for of such was our first and chiefest mortalitie."
Great stores of provisions were found in the lower town, and many were
also captured as they were {34} brought in by Spanish ships. These
provisions were alleged by the English to have been collected for the
purpose of a new attack on England, and it is quite probable that such
was the case, although the evidence on the point is insufficient. At
all events, the destruction of these stores is the only act which in
any sense justified the expedition sent out by the adventurers.[20]
The next few days were spent by the invaders in desultory attacks on
the upper town, burning a monastery and scouring the country round by
Colonel Huntly, who "brought home verie great store of cowes and sheep
to our great reliefe." A great crowd of country people, two thousand
strong, came down with a run one day, armed with rough weapons, to see
what manner of men were these who raided their cattle and burned their
poor huts, but a discharge of musketry killed eighteen of them and sent
the rest scampering away.[21] On "our side" we hear of an improvised
gabion battery being shaken down by the first fire, and Master Spenser,
the lieutenant of the ordnance, and many others killed by the enemy's
guns as they stood all exposed. But brave Sir Edward Norris held his
ground manfully {35} until his orders came to cease firing and retire.
Captain Goodwin makes a mistake of a signal and prematurely attacks the
upper town, getting shot through the mouth as a reward, and the "common
sort" drop off by drink, pestilence, and bullet plentifully enough, but
unrecorded. Norris and Drake sent home by Knollys flaming accounts of
their success, and still asked for more provisions from England and
more money; but Queen Bess was in a towering rage, and was not to be
appeased. She could not forget or forgive the loss of her favourite.
Raleigh and Blount were very well in their way, but she wanted Essex,
and suspected Drake and Norris of being parties to his escape. On the
4th of May (O.S.) she wrote to them a remarkable letter, showing that
she had tidings of Essex's being on board the _Swiftsure_, and
demanding dire vengeance on Sir Roger Williams, who helped to hide
him.[22]
{36}
After four days of fruitless pottering the troops were presumably sober
enough to attempt an attack upon the upper town, and the guns being
pointed against it, the general sent a drummer to summon it to
surrender before he opened fire. The summons was answered by a
musket-shot that laid the poor drummer low, but immediately afterwards
a pole was projected over the town wall, and from it there dangled a
man hanged by the neck. This was the man who had fired the dastard
shot. And then the Spaniards called a parley, and begged that the war
might be fair on both sides, as it certainly should be on theirs.
Considering that five hundred of their brethren had their throats cut
ruthlessly, after they had submitted, this was magnanimous at least;
"but as for surrendering the towne, they listened not greatly
thereunto."
So Norris banged away with his cannon for three days to make a breach
in the wall of the high town, and at the same time set men to work to
bore a mine in the rock beneath the gate, and at the end of the time,
all being in readiness, and his men, under the gallant brothers
Wingfield, with Philpot, Sampson, and York, waiting to storm the two
breaches, the mine turned out a dismal failure, and {37} nothing was
done. The next day they tried again, and this time with such success
that one half of the gate tower was blown up, and the other half left
tottering. On rushed the assailants. Some few got into the town, but
as the officers and their immediate followers set foot on the breach
and waved their men onward, down came the other half of the tower upon
them, and crushed them beneath the ruins. Two standards were lost, but
captured again, and scores of men were killed. In the dust and terror
the unpractised soldiery thought they were the victims of some
stratagem of the enemy and fled, leaving the officers and gentlemen
volunteers to extricate themselves as best they could. Poor Captain
Sydenham "was pitifully lost, who having three or foure great stones on
his lower parts was held so fast, as neither himself could stirre, nor
anie reasonable companie recover him. Notwithstanding the next day
being found to be alive there was 10 or 12 lost in attempting to
relieve him."
On the other side of the town the breach made in the walls by the
culverins was too small, and when brave Yorke had led his men to push
of pike with those who stood in the breach, the slope of rubbish on
which they mounted suddenly slipped down, and left them six feet below
the opening, and so they had to retreat too, through a narrow lane
exposed to the full fire of the enemy, and thus the attack failed at
both points.
In the meanwhile all Galicia was arming, and a prisoner brought in by
the cattle raiders gave news that the Count de Andrada, with 8,000 men,
was at Puente de Burgos, six miles off, which was {38} said to be only
the beginning of a great army being got together by the Count de
Altamira. On the next day, May 6th, it was determined to attack them,
and nine regiments of English marched out to the fray. The vanguard,
under Sir Edward Norris, was divided into three bodies under Captains
Middleton, Antony Wingfield, and Ethrington, respectively, and attacked
the enemy in the centre and both flanks simultaneously, routing them at
the first charge. They only stopped running when they came to a
fortified bridge over a creek of the sea, on the other side of which
was their entrenched camp. Sir Edward Norris, with Colonel Sidney, and
Captains Fulford, Hinder and others, always in front, fought hand to
hand over the bridge and into the trenches, under "an incredible volie
of shot for that the shot of their armie flanked upon both sides of the
bridge." But the earthworks were soon abandoned, and Sir Edward
Norris, in his very eagerness to be first, tumbled over his pike and
hurt his head grievously. The officers of the vanguard were nearly all
more or less hurt, but when the enemy had fled the usual amusement of
the "common sort" commenced. All round for miles the country was burnt
and spoiled, and the flying countrymen were slaughtered without mercy
or quarter. "So many as 2,000 men might kill in pursuit, so many fell
before us that day"; and after that was over and the men were
returning, hundreds of cowering peasants were found hidden in hedges
and vineyards, and their "throates" were cut. Two hundred poor
creatures took refuge in a "cloyster," which was burned and the men put
to the sword as they tried to escape. "You might {39} have scene the
countrie more than three miles of compasse on fyre," says the English
eye-witness, and he grows quite hysterical in his laudation of the
English valour; but the Spanish accounts tell how the Netherlands wars,
and the fears for Portugal and the French frontier, had denuded all
north-western Spain of soldiers, Count de Andrada's force only being a
hasty levy of undrilled and practically unarmed countrymen, who were
easily routed.
The next day the English began to ship their artillery and baggage and
made ready to depart, after again unsuccessfully trying to fire the
upper town. They managed indeed to burn down every house in the lower
town, and they set sail on May 9 (O.S.), 1589.
In the meanwhile utter dismay reigned at Madrid. What was left of the
fleet was acknowledged to be powerless for defence, and none knew for
certain where the blow was to fall. The accounts from Corunna were
intercepted by the Government, and were surmised to be worse than they
really were; but still the general opinion was not far out in supposing
that Drake could not do much permanent harm on the open places on the
coast, but would eventually attack either Lisbon or Cadiz. Fernando de
Toledo was appointed commander-in-chief, but soldiers could not be got
together.[23] Pietro de Medici was hastily ordered to raise 6,000
mercenaries in Italy; and Contarini writes from Madrid to the Doge: "It
is true that for want {40} of soldiers they have adopted a plan which
may prove more hurtful than helpful; they have enrolled Portuguese, and
so have armed the very people whom they have cause to fear, but perhaps
they think that as they have destroyed the leaders they have made
themselves safe."
Norris was almost as much dreaded as Drake himself, and his skill and
daring suggested to the terrified Court that he might intend to cut
through the neck of land upon which Corunna stands, and entirely
isolate the town, which he might then make into a great depot for an
English fleet. Philip, we are told, was in great anxiety, "not so much
on account of the loss he suffers as for the insult which he feels that
he has received in the fact that a woman, mistress of only half an
island, with the help of a corsair and a common soldier, should have
ventured on so arduous an enterprise, and dared to molest so powerful a
sovereign."
The bitterest blow of all to Philip was the knowledge that Spain's
impotence was now patent to the world, and that the mere presence of
Drake was sufficient to paralyse all resistance. When the English
force re-embarked at Corunna, says Contarini, they were not even
molested, so glad were the besieged to be rid of him at any cost.
"Whilst Drake was at Corunna he was so strongly entrenched that he
suffered no loss at all. If he had remained a few days longer the
place would have fallen for the reliefs were not as ready as was
rumoured. Drake occupied the place called the fishmarket. He knocked
down houses, seized cattle, killed soldiers, released officers on
ransom, and by pillage of the suburbs and the burning of monasteries
seemed to {41} care more for plunder than for glory."[24] As we have
seen, in fact, Drake's sole reason for going to Corunna at all against
his mistress' orders was to satisfy with loot the mutinous rabble on
board his ships, but of this the Spaniards were naturally ignorant.
The fleet sailed out of Corunna on the 9th of May, leaving smoking
ruins behind them for many miles around; but contrary winds drove the
ships back again and again. At last, on the 13th of May, the truant
_Swiftsure_ hove in sight, "to the great delight of us all," bringing
the Earl of Essex, Sir Roger Williams, Master Walter Devereux ("the
Earl's brother, a gentleman of wonderful great hope"), Sir Philip
Butler ("who hath always been most inward with him"), and Sir Edward
Wingfield.
However glad the men of lower rank may have been to see the dashing
young nobleman, Drake and Norris can hardly have been overjoyed. They
knew by this time that Elizabeth was in earnest about it, and that the
purse-strings would be drawn tighter, and the censure be stricter,
whilst her errant favourite was with the expedition; and some inkling
of this even reached the writer of the English account of the
expedition. "The Earle," he says, "having put himself into the journey
against the opinion of the world, and as it seemed, to the hazard of
his great fortune, though to the great advancement of his reputation
(for as the honourable carriage of himself towards all men doth make
him highlie esteemed at home, so did his exceeding forwardness in all
services make him to be wondered {42} at amongst us) who I say put off
... because he would avoide the importunity of messengers that were
daily sent for his return and some other causes more secret to himself."
The earl's first request was that he should always be allowed to lead
the vanguard of the army; "which was easilie granted unto him, being so
desirous to satisfie him in all things": and thenceforward to the end
of the expedition he marched at the head with Major-General Sir Roger
Williams, who seemed, by the way, "not one penny the worse" for her
Majesty's anathemas.
Early in the afternoon of May 16th (O.S.) the fleet cautiously
approached the town of Peniche, in Portugal. Drake had learnt on his
way that a great galleon from the Indies with a million crowns in gold
had taken refuge under the guns of the fortress, and doubtless hoped to
net so big a prize. But the Archduke Albert in Lisbon was also looking
anxiously for the gold, and sent his galleys, under Bazan, to bring the
galleon into the Tagus just before the arrival of the English at
Peniche. The town of Peniche was held by Gonsalves de Ateide with a
body of Portuguese who could not be trusted, and some Castilian
reinforcements sent to him under Pedro de Guzman; but the fortress was
commanded by a Captain Araujo, who was known to be secretly in favour
of Dom Antonio. Here it was determined to land the force, and Ateide
drew up his men at the landing-place before the fortress and opened
fire upon the ships as they entered the bay. On the other side of the
harbour, half a league off, the surf was running high, and a landing
there was looked {43} upon as impracticable, so that the shore was left
undefended. Suddenly, when least expected by the Spaniards, Norris
began to land his men on this side. Hot-headed Essex would not even
wait for his boat to reach land, but jumped into the beating surf
breast high with Sir Roger Williams and a band of gentlemen, and so
struggled ashore to protect the landing of the rest. By the time
Ateide and his 350 Castilians had reached the spot 2,000 English had
landed on the beach of Consolation as it was called. Some slight show
of resistance was made, and fifteen Spaniards fell at the push of the
English pike; but the Castilians were out-numbered and nearly
surrounded, and were forced to retire precipitately inland to a
neighbouring hamlet to await reinforcements from Torres Vedras. When
Norris had landed 12,000 or 13,000 men, with the loss of several
boatloads in the surf, but without further molestation from the
Spaniards, he summoned the Portuguese commandant of the fortress to
surrender. He replied that he refused to surrender to the English, but
would willingly do so to his lawful king, Dom Antonio. So the poor
pretender, "bigger of spirit than of body," landed with his son Manoel,
and his faithful bodyguard of a hundred Portuguese, to be received once
more on his own land as a sovereign. He found all things ready for
him: his canopy of state erected, plate for his table set out, and
kneeling subjects seeking for his smiles. He spoke smoothly and
fairly, we are told, to the country people, taking nothing from them,
but giving, or at least promising, much, and assuring them all of his
protection.
But if their new sovereign was chary of {44} oppressing them, no such
scruples afflicted their Castilian masters. My Portuguese diarist says
that the Spaniards retaliated for Araujo's treachery in surrendering
Peniche by stealing everything belonging to the Portuguese they could
lay their hands upon, and he cites one case in which they took the
large sum of two thousand crowns from one of the most influential
friends of the Spanish cause. "But," he says, apologetically, "in
confused times such as these soldiers _will_ act so."
Dom Antonio's bodyguard was armed with muskets and pikes from the
castle, and here the poor King kept his rough-and-ready Court for two
days. He was tenacious of his regal dignity, and had many a little
wrangle with the English about the scant ceremony with which they
treated him. But greater disappointments were yet in store for him.
The friars and peasants flocked in to salute their native king, but,
alas, Antonio hoped and looked in vain for the coming of the lords and
gentry from whom he expected so much. Wily Philip had been once more
too cunning for his enemy. At the first whisper of the expedition he
had banished to distant places in his own dominions every Portuguese
noble--seventy of them in all--who was not pledged hard and fast to the
Castilian cause. One of Antonio's false friends, too, had escaped at
Corunna, and had gone straight to Philip and divulged all the
pretender's plans and the names of his supporters still in Portugal who
were to help him into Lisbon. Their shrift, as may be supposed, was a
short one, and when Antonio came to his kingdom he found none but monks
and clowns to greet him. Such of the gentry as he approached were
usually too {45} panic-stricken to side with him, seeing the fate of
others of their class, and my Portuguese scoffs at the insolence of the
idea that Antonio and the English could hold Lisbon, even if they won
it against all the might of Spain, or of the common Portuguese rising
without the "fidalgos," and courting the ruin that would befall them if
the "heretics" got the upper hand without the fidalgos to restrain them.
But Antonio put a brave face on matters, and was all eagerness to push
on to his faithful capital of Lisbon, which he was confident awaited
him with open arms. His confidence to a certain extent seems to have
been shared by Norris, and here the second great mistake of the
expedition was made. The first vital error was the fruitless waste of
time at Corunna; the second was the resolution now arrived at by
Norris, entirely against Drake's judgment, to march from Peniche
overland forty-two miles to Lisbon. Drake, true to the sea and to the
tactics by which he had so often beaten the Spaniards, was in favour of
pushing on to Lisbon by sea, letting three or four fireships drift
about the castle of São Gian, which commanded the entrance to the
harbour, so that the smoke should spoil the aim of the guns, and then
make a dash for the city--and doubtless, thought Drake, for the
galleon, with its million gold crowns, lying in front of the India
house. Dom Antonio, whose one idea was to keep foot on the land where
he was king, sided with Norris. In vain Drake pointed out that they
had no baggage train or proper provisions for a march through an
enemy's country; that they had only one weak squadron {46} of cavalry,
of which the cattle was out of condition; that they had no fitting
field artillery; and that once inland they would lose the support and
protection of the fleet.
It was all of no avail; Dom Antonio and Norris had their way, and a
single company was left to garrison Peniche,[25] supported by six
ships, whilst the whole of the land forces were to march to Lisbon, and
Drake undertook to bring the rest of the fleet to Cascaes, at the mouth
of the river, when the weather would allow him to do so.
During the night after the landing, some cavalry under Captain Alarcon
had joined the Spaniards, and a force of Portuguese militia had also
been sent in by Don Luis Alencastro, but they soon deserted their
colours and left their officers to shift for themselves. The next
morning at four o'clock Captain Alarcon and a few of the Spanish
cavalry reconnoitred the position at Peniche, but found the enemy too
many for them, and could only scour back as hard as they could ride to
Luis Alencastro, the Grand-Commander of {47} the Order of Christ, who
was endeavouring to reorganise a body of Portuguese a few miles off, on
the road to Lisbon. But terrible tales of the strength of the English
had already spread; and when Alarcon and Guzman reached the
Grand-Commander they found his hasty levies in a panic at the story
that Drake had brought with him nine hundred great Irish dogs as fierce
as lions, and "capable of eating up a world of folks." So they flatly
refused to stir; and the Grand-Commander could do no more than hasten
back to Lisbon to inform the Cardinal-Archduke Albert of the state of
affairs, whilst Guzman, with the troops, fell back upon Torres-Vedras,
to hold if possible the road to Lisbon.
In the meanwhile the capital was in a state of intense excitement. The
native inhabitants, with a lively recollection of the sacking of the
city by Alba, flocked to the other side of the Tagus, notwithstanding
the strict orders of the Cardinal-Archduke to the contrary. Provisions
and munitions of war were hastily sent from Spain, and the Prior
Fernando de Toledo was already on the move, slowly bringing such troops
as he could muster for the relief of Lisbon, whilst the castles and
walls of the city were put into a state of defence. The Castilians,
few in number and intensely hated by the townsfolk, knew that in a
fight the brunt would fall upon them, and that the Portuguese, even
though they might not help the enemy, and this was by no means certain,
would not raise a finger to support the dominion of Philip. The
priests went from house to house, strong adherents of Dom Antonio
almost to a man, whispering that {48} the English were not, after all,
such bad people; that there were many Catholics amongst them who were
better Christians than the Castilians themselves, and, as the Spanish
diarist says, other things of the sort which will not bear repeating.
To the well-to-do they said that as soon as a native king was on the
throne their wealth would enormously increase, whilst the poor were
told that "fishing in troubled waters was profitable to the fisherman."
On the other hand, the Archduke, knowing the people with whom he had to
deal, established a veritable reign of terror, and sacrificed without
mercy--often without evidence--any person who was even suspected of
open sympathy with the invaders, although it was well known in Madrid
that the populace of Lisbon had tacitly agreed to open the gates to Dom
Antonio and to massacre the Spaniards on his approach. Some Portuguese
nobles had left the Archduke on the first landing of Dom Antonio, but,
finding that most of their order had been terrorised into quiescence,
returned to Lisbon and tendered their submission. They were at once
beheaded or imprisoned, and the rest became more slavish than ever in
their professions of attachment to the Archduke. Terrible stories were
spread at the same time of the "impious abominations" of the English
heretics, and the dreadful fate that awaited all Catholics if the
invader succeeded, until, as my Portuguese diarist says, "there was not
even a loafer on the quay who did not know that he would be cast out or
ruined if the English came." But it was all insufficient to make them
willing to {49} fight. The exodus still continued, and under cover of
night the people stole across the river by thousands, and a boat whose
usual freight was two ducats could not now be hired under fifty, whilst
a bullock-cart and bullocks which could be bought right out in normal
times for fifty ducats now charged sixty for a single journey to Aldea
Gallega, on the other side of the Tagus. The people of the provinces,
says my Portuguese diarist, oppressed the flying citizens more than the
English, until the scandal became so great that the Archduke had to
interfere and check their rapacity. Under some excuse or another every
Portuguese was anxious to get away and leave the fighting to be done by
some one else. The Portuguese diarist stoutly denies that his
countrymen were cowards or traitors, but always explains that the
common people _could not_ have risen without the lead of the native
nobles; and we have seen the methods by which they were terrorised and
made powerless. The Spaniard, on the other hand, makes no secret of
his contempt for the white-livered Lisbonenses, and uses much strong
language about them. My Portuguese diarist greatly resents this
feeling, and gives a little personal experience of his own to show how
harsh were the words used by the Castilians towards the craven
citizens. "On the morning," he says, "that the enemy fled I went up to
the castle to get some things of mine out of my boxes which I had left
there in the rooms of one of the officers, where I had determined to
await my fate if things came to the worst. As I was on my way down to
the palace again the rumour spread that the enemy was retreating,
whereupon some soldiers ascended {50} the watch tower to enjoy the
sight. I asked them when they returned if the good news were true that
the enemy was really flying, and one of them answered me roughly that
they who were flying were not the enemy but those who still stay in
Lisbon. To which I answered him not a word but God be with ye."
But by terrorism, energy, and promptness the Archduke at length got the
city into a state for defence both against the enemy from without and
the probable enemy within. The city water-tanks were locked and the
supply brought from outside, so as to save the precious liquid for the
coming siege. The resident Spaniards formed themselves into a
bodyguard of 150 men, "very smart and well armed," and, as in duty
bound, the Germans and Flemings offered two hundred harquebussiers in
good order, whilst many Portuguese "fidalgos" slept in the corridors of
the palace to protect the Archduke in the hour of need. Four colonels
were appointed to organise bands of the inhabitants for the defence of
the city, and Matias de Alburquerque, a famous sea-captain, took charge
of the twelve war galleys in the Tagus and armed thirty merchant ships
which were lying in the harbour. The defensive works round the city
were divided into sections and apportioned to the command of officers
of tried fidelity, whose names need not be recorded here, the river
front being mainly entrusted to Portuguese, who evidently considered
theirs the post of danger, as they had not the walls to protect them
along the quay side. The Castilians, however, made no secret of the
fact that they were placed there as no attack was expected from the
river. {51} The parts most strongly guarded, almost entirely by
Spaniards, were the quarters of St. Catalina, San Antonio, and San
Roque, facing the north and west, from which quarters the English were
expected to approach.
The English army, by all accounts twelve thousand strong, marched out
of Peniche on the 17th of May, with the Earl of Essex and Sir Roger
Williams leading; and Drake, accompanying them to the top of a hill at
some distance off, greeted each regiment as it passed him with kindly
words, and hopes of success, which he could hardly have anticipated.
Soon the English soldiery began to show their true metal. Strict
orders had been given that the property and persons of Dom Antonio's
faithful subjects were to be respected; but as soon as they got clear
of Peniche housebreaking and pillage became rife, and Norris had to
order his provost-marshal, Crisp, to hang a few of the malefactors
before he could obtain obedience.
The Archduke had sent three squadrons of Spanish horsemen to reinforce
Pedro de Guzman at Torres Vedras, block the road to Lisbon, and harass
the English. They went out to reconnoitre the enemy at various points
after he left Peniche, but they did not like the look of him, and fell
back again to Torres Vedras, whilst messengers were hourly sent to the
Archduke begging for more men, whom he could not send. At first it was
rumoured amongst the English that a stand would be made at a village
near Peniche, but when they arrived there the last Spanish horsemen
were just scampering out of it. The next day it was said {52} that
certainly a great stand would be made at Torres Vedras, and this
undoubtedly was the Archduke's intention; but even the almost
impregnable Torres Vedras was untenable with a few hundred horse and a
body of militia, who, if they fought at all, would fight on the other
side; and the Spanish forces, for fear of being cut off from their
base, hastily evacuated Torres Vedras and fell back gradually,
harassing the flanks of the enemy as much as they could and cutting off
stragglers.
And so the main body of Morris' force, with the Earl of Essex and Sir
Roger Williams always leading, moved rapidly and peacefully towards
Lisbon, whilst the panic in the capital grew greater as the English
came nearer. Peaceably--but hungry--for the land was bare, and the
English, we are told, "found our food dry and tasteless and hankered
after their own fat meats and birds, comparing our barrenness with the
abundance of their own land." There was little or no money in the
host, and nothing was to be taken from the Portuguese without payment.
There was in any case very little to take, for most of the people along
the road had fled or had been stripped clean by the Castilian soldiers
who had gone before. Drake's predictions of trouble in moving an army
without a baggage train began to come true, and at last starvation was
breeding open mutiny in the English host. Norris was then obliged to
tell Antonio that unless food were forthcoming more plentifully the
soldiers must be allowed to shift for themselves. The poor pretender
could only beseech his controller, Campello, to scour the country far
and wide for delicacies for the English, "who are naturally {53} dainty
and exquisite in their food"; but he could only pay in promises, and
the land was bare, so the invaders still marched a hungry host towards
the larders of Lisbon.
From day to day they were told that the Spaniards would certainly stand
and fight to-morrow, but they were continually disappointed, as indeed
was the stout-hearted Archduke in his palace, who received with dismay
the constant news that his forces were falling further and further back
towards the capital without fighting.
Whatever country people had remained on the road welcomed the invaders
with cries of "Viva el Rei Dom Antonio!" but the poor King still looked
in vain for the promised gentlemen. His desire to please his rustic
adherents was almost pathetic. He condescended, we are told, to caress
and embrace the "commonest little people"; and in order to make as
brave a show as possible before the English, picked out any countryman
who was decently fair-spoken to be paraded before them as some grand
gentleman in disguise. But however hopeful he might show himself, he
could not conceal the fact that not a dozen men-at-arms had joined him,
and his only chance now was that Lisbon itself should declare in his
favour. But the native citizens were distracted and divided. The
judges and magistrates had abandoned their posts, the shopkeepers had
deserted their stores, incendiary fires and pillage were of hourly
occurrence, and the Archduke alone kept his head. Even he was not free
from danger of attack, for more than one attempt was made to
assassinate some of his chief officers.
{54}
On one occasion a large number of men were caught deserting their posts
and escaping in a boat to the other side of the Tagus. When they were
brought to the Archduke for punishment he said if they were too
cowardly to fight in defence of their God and their fatherland they
were useless to him and could go. This he knew, that even the
Castilian women would mount the walls and fight with stones, if need
be, in such a cause. Albert required all his firmness and nerve, for
one sign of weakness from him and his handful of Spaniards, would have
given heart to the craven Portuguese within and without the walls, who
were thirsting for their blood.
Three-quarters of the Portuguese in Lisbon had fled or were in hiding,
and the rest were in Spanish pay or watched day and night by jealous
eyes. But watched as they were, and few in numbers, their hopes were
still high, and amongst themselves their speech grew bolder. They got
news daily from English prisoners and others of the approach of their
king, and plotted together how they would serve the hated Castilians
when the English deliverers came.
The rumour ran that the city would be surrendered to the invader on
Corpus Christi day, and not a Spaniard was to be left alive, and much
more to the same effect. But, alas! on one occasion when a few English
prisoners were being brought in a panic-cry arose that the invaders had
entered the city, and then each man fled to hiding to save his own skin
rather than to his post, and the few Spanish guards that remained had
to drag them out of cellars and lofts by main force, kicking {55} and
cuffing them for a set of cowards for not helping the defenders. The
Count de Fuentes, once on a false alarm, was sent out of the city with
every man who could be spared to Orlas, three leagues off on the road
to Cascaes, where it was expected the enemy would pass; but the English
went by Torres Vedras, and Fuentes had to hurry back into Lisbon again
the same day, to avoid being cut off and the gates being shut against
him.
On the 19th of May Norris and his troops marched into Torres Vedras,
where Dom Antonio was received with regal honours, and the oath of
allegiance taken to him. He was desirous of making a detour to
Santarem, through, as he said, a rich country favourable to him, but
Norris knew the danger of delay, and insisted upon pushing forward to
Lisbon.
Guzman and his Spanish horsemen had fallen back during the previous
night to Jara, nearer Lisbon, but he had left Captain Alarcon, with two
companies of horse, to hang on the skirts of the enemy. The next day
Captain Yorke, who commanded Norris' cavalry, determined to try their
metal, and sent a corporal with eight men who rode through forty of the
enemy, whilst Yorke himself, with forty English horse, put to
precipitous flight Alarcon's two hundred. On the following day, May
21st, the English, disappointed again of a fight, were lodged in the
village of Louvres, not far from Lisbon, which Guzman had hurriedly
evacuated after being very nearly surprised by Norris. The village was
small and the accommodation poor, so Drake's regiment, thinking to
better their quarters, went to sleep at a {56} little hamlet a mile
off. In the early dawn a cry was raised of "Viva el Rei Dom Antonio!"
which was the usual friendly salutation of the country folk. The young
English sentries fraternised with those who approached, and admitted
them into the sleeping-camp. It was an ambuscade, and many of the
English were slain, but the enemy was finally driven off by two
companies of Englishmen who were lodged near. The next day, at a
village near Lisbon, a large number were treacherously poisoned by the
bad water from a well, or, as some said, by the honey which they found
in the houses. This was three miles from Lisbon, at a place called
Alvelade, and at eleven o'clock at night Essex left the camp with Sir
Roger Williams and 1,000 men to lie in ambuscade near the town. When
they had approached almost to the walls a few of them began banging at
the gates and otherwise trying to alarm those within and provoke a
sally. But the device was too transparent, and a few men shot and a
sleepless night were the only result. When the English had arrived at
Alvelade, Count de Fuentes, with the main body of Spaniards, was at
Alcantara, a mile or so nearer Lisbon. Thither Albert hastily summoned
a council of war, and urged his officers at last to make a stand at
once before the English could co-operate with their friends within the
walls of Lisbon. Fuentes and the other Spanish commanders were of the
same opinion, but the Portuguese Colonel, Fernando de Castro, made a
speech pointing out that the English were short of stores, cut off from
their base, and weakened by sickness and short commons. "Let us," he
said, "fall back into the {57} city and conquer them by hunger and
delay. Behind our walls they will be powerless to injure us, whilst we
can draw abundant supplies from across the river, and they cannot
blockade us even by land with less than 40,000 men." This exactly
suited the other Portuguese, who were never comfortable unless they had
a good thick wall between themselves and their enemies. The opinion of
the Spaniards was overborne, and the defending force entered the gates
of Lisbon on Corpus Christi day, midst the ringing of bells and the
more or less sincere rejoicing of the populace. Lisbon feasted and
welcomed its defenders, whilst poor Dom Antonio, we are told, at
Alvelade just outside, had not a fowl or even a loaf of rye bread to
eat. "You may guess how he is hated by the Portuguese," says my
Portuguese diarist, "that he being so near his native Lisbon not even a
costermonger or a down dared to send him a meal, whilst we in the city
had plenty."
Most of the houses adjoining the walls had been blown up, but the
monastery of the Trinidade, down the hill towards the river, still
remained. The prior was understood to be in favour of Dom Antonio, as
were nearly all churchmen, and Ruy Diaz de Lobo, one of the few nobles
with Dom Antonio, undertook to negotiate with him to admit the English
to the city through the monastery garden. By the aid of two
sympathetic monks he obtained access to the prior. But the latter had
been gained over by the Spaniards, and a few hours afterwards the pale
heads of Ruy Diaz de Lobo and the two monks were grinning with
half-closed, lustreless eyes from the top of three poles on the great
quay, whilst Sir {58} Roger Williams and his men, when they approached
the monastery in expectation of a friendly reception, were received
with a shower of harquebuss balls, and fell back. The rest of the day,
now that the main body of English had come up, was spent in quartering
the men in the suburbs of the city, entrenched camps being formed,
protected by breastworks of wine-pipes filled with earth. Tired with
their six days' march and their labour in the trenches, Norris' little
army were glad to pass their first night before Lisbon in such peace as
the besieged would allow them.
If the enterprise was ever to succeed this was the moment. The English
were more numerous as regards men bearing arms, but they had come upon
their wild-goose chase against a fortified city without any battering
artillery or proper appliances for a siege, whilst the Spaniards were
behind strong walls, with unlimited sources of supply from the river
front across the Tagus. Norris, on the other hand, was short of
supplies, with fifteen miles of defensible country between him and
Cascaes, the point where the fleet was to await him. The advantage,
therefore, was clearly on the side of the besieged, but for the one
element of the disaffection of Lisbon itself from within, and in this
lay Dom Antonio's last chance. A letter written by Don Francisco
Odonte, adjutant-general in Lisbon, on the day following the arrival of
the English forces before the walls, gives a vivid description of the
state of affairs there at the time.[26]
"Dom Antonio," he says, "spent the night in the house of the Duke
d'Aveiro, and then early in the {59} morning completed the investment
of the city and continued his search for some secret gate by which he
might enter. But the garrison harassed him as much as they could. Don
Sancho Bravo and Captain Alarcon have been skirmishing all day outside
the city, and have sent in 25 or 30 English prisoners who have been
consigned to the galleys; and if they could only do the same by all
those who are really fighting us, whilst feigning to be our friends,
they might man more galleys than are to be found in all Christendom
this day, for those who have shown their colours during the last three
days, and that without a blush, are simply infinite, nor is there any
wonder that Dom Antonio has attempted this enterprise, owing to the
promises held out to him; for from the moment he disembarked, he has
been supplied with abundance of provisions,[27] whilst not a man has
offered us his services. All the aldermen of the city are against us
but two, the rest are all in hiding, and some even have supplied Dom
Antonio's troops, with as little shamefacedness as if they had come
from England with him. In this quarter of the city there is not a man
left. Some have fled across the river, some are hidden, some have
joined Dom Antonio. The troops under the four colonels publicly
declare they will not fight. Dom Antonio was certain the moment he
appeared the city would rise, and on this account we are in great alarm
and have passed a very bad night. God help us!"
But the English did not sleep tranquilly either. In the first hours of
the morning of the 25th of May {60} Don Garcia Bravo, with 500 Spanish
troops from Oporto, arrived in Lisbon. They were hungry, ragged, and
weary, but they were eager to meet the foe, and barely gave themselves
time to snatch a hurried meal before sallying from the gate of San
Anton and up the hill to the quarters of Colonel Brett in the farm of
Andres Soares. Another force at the same time came from the gate of
Santa Catalina and forced Brett's trenches from that side. The long
rows of windows of the monastery of San Roque on the hill were lined by
Spanish musketeers, who kept up a deadly fire on the English, whilst
two of the great guns of the castle were brought to bear upon one
exposed side of the invaders' camp. The attack was made before dawn,
and Brett had hardly time to muster his men in the darkness and
confusion, when a cannon-shot from the walls laid him low. Captain
Carsey and Captain Carr were mortally wounded, and 200 other officers
and men slain. The rest of the English forces were aroused, and came
to the rescue under Colonel Lane and Colonel Medkirk, and "put them to
a sodain fowle retreate, insomuch as the Earle of Essex had the chase
of them even to the gates of the High towne, wherein they left behind
them many of their best commanders." A body of Spanish horse, sallying
from the gates of San Anton to support their comrades, met the latter
in full retreat in a narrow lane, and unwillingly trampled them down;
thus adding to the confusion, which was completed by a flank charge
upon the struggling mass by Yorke's cavalry. The English chronicler
claims that the Spanish loss tripled ours, but my diarists say that
they had only twenty-five killed and forty wounded, and the {61}
Portuguese tries to account for the heavy loss of wounded by accusing
the English of using poisoned bullets. The next day the English tried
to get in through the monastery, but they found the city forewarned and
on the alert, although the monks had done their best for them. The day
after they bribed a Portuguese captain in charge of the wall at the
nearest point to the river to let them pass round at low tide, but the
spies told the Archduke, and the English found their ally replaced by a
Spaniard with a strong force, who sent them flying back again. And so
three days passed in constant skirmishes, whilst Norris was chafing and
helpless without. The fatal mistake he had made in leaving the fleet
was now apparent. The time, too, they had lost at Corunna was
irreparable. Fernando de Toledo was approaching with relief, and the
first dismay in Spain had now given way to desperate energy. The loss
of men in the English camp from sickness and wounds was terrible,
supplies and munitions were desperately short, there was no medical aid
or transport for the sick and disabled, whilst the Portuguese in
Lisbon, from whom everything had been hoped, still made no sign.
Dom Antonio still put a brave face on the matter, but his heart was
sinking. For the first two days he had lodged in the rear of the
English camp, outside Santa Catalina, but on the third, says my
Portuguese diarist, he began to fear for his safety, and, wearied of
low fare and the sound of musketry, sought refuge in the house of a
Portuguese gentleman on the road to Cascaes. But he was repulsed and
barely escaped capture, and thereafter could but cling desperately to
the English force. In vain he {62} looked now for the general rising
in his favour, for the promised nobles who never came, and hour by hour
the prospect darkened. The Earl of Essex, young, inexperienced,
hot-headed, was for assaulting all sorts of impossible places with pike
and musket, but Norris knew better, and sadly acknowledged to himself
that the expedition had failed.
Drake, with the fleet, had in the meanwhile reached Cascaes with
everything he could lay hands on in the form of prizes. He had cast
anchor on the very day twelvemonth that the great Armada had first
sailed out of Lisbon, and the townspeople of the capital were full of
portents which they saw in this coincidence. Every one in Lisbon by
this time feared that he would sail up the river and enter the harbour;
and such was the dread of his name that if he had done so he might have
turned the tide of victory. But his advice had been rejected, and he
would not venture under the guns of the forts with an under-manned
fleet and no soldiers. So he remained at Cascaes and left Norris to
get out of the hobble as best he could. When he arrived he found the
town almost abandoned, for the citizens had fled in terror at his very
name. My Portuguese says that Cardenas, the commander of the fortress,
"a great gentleman," was deceived by a monk (or, as he says, the devil
in disguise of one) into the belief that Lisbon had fallen, and he
accordingly gave up the fortress, and himself took to flight. The
Castilian and the Englishman tell the story somewhat differently, and
say that Cardenas was an adherent of Dom Antonio, and stipulated that a
show of compulsion should be used before he surrendered the fortress.
The {63} result in any case was the same to him, for the "great
gentleman's" head soon afterwards adorned one of the Archduke's poles
on the quay at Lisbon.
Drake had therefore established himself without difficulty at Cascaes,
and patiently awaited the result of the land attack on Lisbon.
If the English outside the walls of the capital were in a bad way, the
small force of steadfast Spaniards inside were not much better. They
knew that the Portuguese citizens around them were hourly watching for
an opportunity to cut their throats and let in the native pretender.
Panics of treason and treachery were of hourly occurrence, and on
several occasions only the coolness of the Cardinal-Archduke averted
disaster. Every day men of the best blood of Portugal, often taken
from the immediate surrounding of the Archduke, were seized for assumed
treason, the policy being to deprive the disaffected populace of native
leaders. To further terrorise the citizens, and prevent them from
plucking up heart to open the gates, a great review of all the Spanish
troops was held in an open space where the enemy could see as well as
the wavering townfolk. My Spanish diarist says, "With the sun flashing
on shining morions and the brave show of arms and men all were
convinced, friends and enemies alike that the success of our cause was
certain."
Boldness and firmness won the day. The next morning Norris called his
colonels together to seek their advice and consult with Dom Antonio.
He said that as the besieged stood firm and the populace made no move,
the English force must have artillery and munitions if they were to
succeed, and {64} asked their opinion as to whether he should wait for
Dom Antonio's forces, which came not, and meanwhile send a detachment
to Cascaes for munitions, or raise the siege altogether. Many were for
sending 3,000 men to Cascaes at once. They had given the enemy a good
drubbing, they said, and they would sally no more; but Norris had lost
hope in Portuguese promises, and was not quite so contemptuous of the
enemy as some of them, and he decided that he would wait only one day
more for Dom Antonio's levies. If 3,000 came in that night he would
send a like number of English to Cascaes for the munitions, otherwise
he would raise the siege and leave before daybreak. In vain Antonio
prayed for a few days' longer grace. In nine days all Portugal would
acclaim him. Lisbon was wavering already, and would turn the scale.
But all his prayers were in vain; and before dawn the English army was
mustered and ready for the march. Essex was disgusted at the turn
things had taken, and went up to the principal gate (he and Williams
being the last men to leave) and broke his lance against it, crying out
that if there was any within who would come out and have a bout with
him in honour of his mistress let him come, and he gave them all the
lie to their teeth. And then he turned away and followed the army, no
doubt much relieved in his mind.
During the day that Norris was awaiting the arrival of Dom Antonio's
troops the English had not left their trenches, and the defenders
feared that some deep design lay behind this. Were they mining, or was
Drake sending up some heavy {65} guns? they thought. So when the dawn
of the 27th of May showed that the main body of the English was already
on its way to Cascaes, Count de Fuentes still doubted whether it was
not all a feint to draw him out from the shelter of his walls, and
peremptorily refused permission to Count Villa Dorta to follow them up
and engage them. The way of the retreating force lay along the shore,
but to avoid the fire of the galleys which followed their movements
they chose the rough by-paths where possible. And so, all
undisciplined, sick, and starving, they wandered and struggled on as
best they could, four hundred at least of stragglers and sick being
killed or captured by Villa Dorta, who hung upon the rear,
notwithstanding his chief's prohibition. Later in the day Fuentes so
far conquered his suspicion as to lead his army out to Viera, half-way
to Cascaes, but he had barely sighted the enemy than some rumour or
suspicion reached him of an intended rising in Lisbon during his
absence, and he hurried back again to the city. My Portuguese diarist
ridicules the suggestion of such a danger as unworthy of any sensible
man; but the utter futility of the English and Portuguese proceedings
from the first was such as well might excuse Fuentes for thinking that
some deeper design must surely lay behind. The suspicion of the
Portuguese on the part of the Spaniards at this time is illustrated by
an anecdote given by the Portuguese diarist. Alvaro Souza, the captain
of Philip's Portuguese guard, with five companions, accompanied Sancho
Bravo, who took out a force to harry the English on their way to
Cascaes. Souza straggled and was captured by Spanish soldiers, {66}
who did not know him. They were near the castle of São Gian at the
mouth of Lisbon harbour and knowing that Pero Venegas, the commandant,
was a friend of his father, Souza sent a messenger to him begging him
to answer for his loyalty. Venegas declined to reply, and Souza was
lead off under arrest. On the way he met the famous Alvaro de Bazan
going to his galleys. He was a friend, and Souza appealed to him to
stand by him and his companions, "but he answered coldly that he knew
him not, nor was this a time to recognise any one." He had, he said,
recently answered for some Portuguese fidalgos in the palace, and a few
hours afterwards they were arrested for treason.
Fifteen weary miles over rough ground, and with Villa Dorta's troops
harassing their flank and rear, the English managed to cover during the
day, and at last, late in the evening, they marched into Cascaes.[28]
We may well imagine that the meeting between Drake and Norris was not
very cordial. The officers threw the whole blame for failure upon
Drake for not coming up the river to support them before Lisbon; the
sailors, on the other hand, saying that the march overland was against
Drake's advice, and that his ships, without men-at-arms to defend them
and work the guns, would have been at the mercy of the enemy. At all
events, it was {67} clear they had failed in two of the objects of the
voyage--namely, to burn the King of Spain's ships and restore Dom
Antonio; and one other only remained to be attempted, which was to take
the Azores.
I have already said that the raising of the siege of Lisbon took the
defenders by surprise. They fully believed it to be an attempt to draw
the Spanish troops out of the town in order that the citizens might
rise and massacre the few Spaniards left. So certain were they of this
that an unfortunate Portuguese noble--Count Redondo--who arrived that
day and went to pay his respects to the Archduke, was immediately
seized and beheaded _pour encourager les autres_. As soon as they saw
the English had really gone, Count de Fuentes with his six or seven
thousand men again made a reconnaissance almost to the English position
at Cascaes, and finding the invaders well entrenched, with the fleet
behind them, decided that it would be too risky to attack them, and
hastened back again to Lisbon. News of the nearness of the Spaniards
was brought in by some friars, of whom great numbers hung about Dom
Antonio's quarters, and Norris and Essex each promised the messengers a
hundred crowns if they found the enemy in the place reported, as they
were spoiling for a fight in the open before embarking. But Fuentes
had gone to Lisbon, and the friars lost their reward. Norris, however,
still eager, sent a page who spoke French, and a trumpeter, post-haste
to Lisbon, with a challenge to Fuentes and his army to come into the
open and fight. The opportunity was too good for Essex to miss, so he
too sent a cartel by the page {68} on his own account, giving every one
the lie in a general way and offering to fight anybody in single
combat. The messenger came back again without an answer, only that the
Spaniards had threatened to hang him for bringing such vapouring
insolence to them; but the Spaniard tells the story in another way,
less honourably for himself. He says, whilst the messengers were being
entertained "as if they were great gentlemen" at breakfast by some of
the captains who spoke French, the letters (which they had said could
only be opened by the Archduke's permission) were surreptitiously
steamed, read, and re-sealed, and handed back again as if unopened,
with the reply that his Highness would not allow them to be opened. So
Norris and Essex had their bravado for nothing, and went without their
fight.
In Lisbon the common people were as disturbed as ever, doubtless
feeling that their chance of freedom was slipping away from them, and
alarms were constantly raised that the English were returning. But
Spanish reinforcements were arriving now. The Duke of Braganza, head
of the Portuguese nobility, arrived in royal state with a great body of
retainers to help the Archduke, and all hope for Dom Antonio gradually
ebbed away.
The English commanders in Cascaes began now to think it high time to
put themselves right with the angry Queen, who continued to send
furious messages about their disobedience and about Essex and Sir Roger
Williams. On the 2nd of June they wrote from Cascaes a full account of
all that had happened in the best light they could devise, and saying
they knew not what to do unless {69} supplies came at once from
England. Everybody was terribly seasick, they said, and well-nigh
starving. Seeing that no more provisions could be expected, they
wrote, on the 5th of June, that they had decided to go to St. Michaels;
and then, for the first time, they confessed that Essex was with them.
They had met him, they said, to their great surprise, off Cape
Finisterra, but could not send him home before, as they could not spare
the _Swiftsure_; but still no word about Sir Roger Williams.[29]
If Drake could not or would not burn the Spanish fleet on this
occasion, he was always a splendid hand at plundering merchantmen, and
during the six days that his fleet lay before Cascaes he scoured the
sea for miles round in search of prizes, taking as many as forty German
hulks loaded with Spanish merchandise. Into these prizes the men from
the Dutch flyboats were transhipped, and the Dutch captains sent off
without being paid their freights, glad, no doubt, to get away from
such company on any terms.
In the meanwhile Lisbon was gradually settling down. People who had
been hiding in churches and cellars for the last ten days crept out,
nearly all under the impression that the Spaniards had all been
murdered, and that King Antonio had come to his own again. Dire was
their {70} disappointment when they found that they were not the only
people who had skulked in hiding, and that none of all the city had
dared to strike the blow that would have made Portugal free again. So
they patiently bent their neck to the yoke and cheered his Highness the
Archduke at the top of their voices as he went in state to the
cathedral to hear a solemn _Te Deum_ of victory.
The Spaniards did their best to follow up the enemy. The ships in the
Tagus were fitted out to watch Cascaes and follow the English fleet,
doing all the damage they could, and Don Pedro de Guzman was sent to
cut off the English garrison left at Peniche. They urged the horses,
says the Spanish diarist, until they were ready to drop, but arrived
too late to stop the embarkation, except of about 200 men, who were put
to death.
On the 8th of June the English fleet set sail, pursued and harassed by
the galleys from Lisbon in nearly a dead calm. Three of our ships were
taken or sunk and one burned, by her captain, Minshaw, after a
desperate resistance. A wind sprang up, however, and the Spanish
galleys were left behind; but soon the fleet got scattered, the men
died, and were thrown overboard by the hundred from scurvy, starvation,
and wounds; but, notwithstanding all, after sailing ostensibly for the
Azores, Drake turned back again and, picking up twenty-five of his
ships which had been separated from him, sailed up the bay and attacked
Vigo. He had only 2,000 men fit to fight: sickness and privation had
thinned them down to that, but with those few men, finding Vigo
deserted, the English burnt and wasted the town and all the villages
around. {71} "A verie pleasant rich valley but wee burnt it all,
houses and corne, so as the countrey was spoyled seven or eight miles
in length." Then they decided to drop down to the isle of Bayona, and
there put the pick of the men and stores on twenty of the best ships
for Drake to take to the Azores, whilst the rest returned to England.
But for some reason Drake broke the agreement and passed Bayona without
even calling, and the thirty ships that were awaiting him there were
left to their fate. Beset with tempest and pestilence, without a
commander, it was decided by those on board to make the best of their
way to England, in terrible distress as they were for provisions and
water. After ten days' voyage they arrived at Plymouth on the 2nd of
July, and found that Drake had already arrived there with the Queen's
ships, having abandoned his voyage to the Azores. Most of the
remaining ships had sought other ports in preference, in order to sell
their prizes without having to share the proceeds with others.
Such of the soldiers as came to Plymouth were sent grumbling home with
five shillings each for their wages and the arms they bore. The
English chronicler thinks that this was "verie good pay, considering
they were victualled all the time." Such, however, was not the opinion
of the unfortunate men themselves, who had not been allowed to loot as
much as they thought fit in Portugal. They said that if they had been
permitted to march as through an enemy's country, they would have come
back the richest army that ever returned to England. Not more than
5,000 of them ever came home; but their story was so dismal a one that
{72} all England rang with reprobation of the bad management and
parsimony that had brought the expedition to so inglorious a conclusion.
The first and third objects of the expedition--namely, the burning of
the Spanish fleet and the capture of St. Michaels--were never even
attempted, but the second object was very nearly being attained, and
the restoration of Dom Antonio, practically as a vassal of England,
might have been effected a dozen times over if the Portuguese in Lisbon
had not been an utterly terrified set of poltroons. On various
occasions, when Count de Fuentes and his troops were outside, a few
dozen daring men might have seized the gates and have turned the tide
in Antonio's favour. It was not to be, however, and the poor King
wandered a poverty-stricken fugitive yet for a few years before he
died, but his desperate struggle for sovereignty ended with the
ignominious failure of the English attempt to avenge a great national
injury by a joint-stock enterprise.
[1] For the sake of uniformity, throughout this narrative the dates are
given in the "old style," then used in England, ten days earlier than
the dates cited by the Spanish and Portuguese authorities.
[2] Venetian Calendar of State Papers.
[3] Ibid.
[4] In a subscription reprint of sixty copies of this tract published
in 1881 under the editorship of the Rev. Alexander Grosart, the
authorship appears to be ascribed, I know not on what grounds, to a
certain Robert Pricket who served probably as a gentleman volunteer and
follower of the Earl of Essex. He had seen previous service in the
Netherlands, and was the author of several poetical works, one being a
panegyric on the Earl of Essex. The tract is entitled "_A True Coppie
of a Discourse_, written by a gentleman employed in the late voiage of
Spaine and Portingale. Sent to his particular friend and by him
published for the better satisfaction of all such as having been
seduced by particular report have entered into conceipts tending to the
discredit of the enterprise and Actors of the same. At London.
Printed for Thomas Woodcock, dwelling in Paules Churchyard, at the sign
of the blacke Beare 1589."
[5] It is called "Relacion de lo subcedido del armada enemiga del reyno
de Inglaterra a este de Portugal con la retirada a su tierra, este año
de 1589." MS. Gayangos Library. Transcript in possession of the
author.
[6] "Memoria do successo da vinda dos Ingreses ao reino de Portugal."
Biblioteca National, Lisbon. Pombalina, 196, fol. 271. Transcribed by
the author.
[7] Mendoza, writing to Philip from London, August 8, 1582, gives one
instance of this amongst several. He says: "The Queen lent Dom Antonio
£3,000 when he was here, and I understand she peremptorily demands
payment of the sum, taking possession of the diamond which was pledged
here for a sum of £5,000 lent by merchants, who offer to relinquish
their claim to the Queen, if she will lend them £30,000 free of
interest for six years out of the bars brought by Drake, which they
will repay in five yearly instalments of £6,000 each. So far as I can
learn, this talk of the loan is a mere fiction and a cloak under which
the Queen may keep the diamond for the £8,000 on the ground that the
merchants advanced the £5,000 by her express order, without which they
would not have done so. This plan was invented by Cecil in order to
prevent Dom Antonio from getting his diamond back again."
This diamond is probably identical with the celebrated stone given by
Charles I. when Prince of Wales to the Count-Duke of Olivares,
favourite of Philip IV., when Charles and Buckingham went on their
foolish visit to Madrid. A contemporary account (Soto's MS. in the
Academy of History, Madrid) describes the diamond as being of the
purest water, weighing eight carats and called "the Portuguese," from
its having been one of the crown jewels of Portugal. It had a great
pearl pendent from it.
[8] See Calendar of Spanish State Papers of Elizabeth, vol. 3, for
particulars of them.
[9] The first of these, in 1582, commanded by Strozzi, consisted of 55
ships and 5,000 men. Terceira, which was held for Dom Antonio,
welcomed it at once, and in the midst of the rejoicings to celebrate
the event the Spanish fleet under Santa Cruz appeared and scattered the
French like chaff, Strozzi being killed, Antonio barely escaping, and
the fleet almost entirely destroyed. The second expedition in the
following year under Aymar de Chastes with 6,000 men was, curiously
enough, beaten by Santa Cruz in the same place and under exactly
similar circumstances ("Un pretendant portugais du xvi. siècle").
[10] It is a curious co-incidence that this gem was long afterwards
carried away from England by another fugitive King, James II., who sold
it, as Antonio had done, to provide for his needs. It had formerly
belonged to Charles the Bold of Burgundy, the great-grandfather of
Philip II.
[11] After the return of the expedition Lopez writes (July 12, 1589) to
Walsingham, deeply regretting that the Queen had been induced by his
advice to spend so much money to no purpose, and hinting that he had
intimated to Dom Antonio that he and his Portuguese were not wanted in
England. On the same day he himself craves for help in his need and
again asks for a thirty years' monopoly of the import of aniseed and
sumach into England. He was executed in 1592, and was in high favour
almost up to the day of his arrest. In the Mendoza Papers in the
National Archives in Paris, to which I have had access, are documents
proving that he made a regular trade of poisoning--or attempting to
poison, as he does not seem to have been very successful in the cases
recorded.
[12] It is certain from letters of Dom Antonio's friends in London, now
in the Archives Nationales (K 1567), that it was not until the end of
December that Antonio was confident that the fleet was really intended
to aid him.
[13] There is a rough memorandum in Burleigh's writing, September 20,
1588, in the Record Office, setting down the details of the proposed
expedition, in which he mentions that four thousand men are to be sent
for from Holland, as well as two thousand horsemen volunteers. At the
foot of the memorandum Burleigh sets down the "Articles of offers from
King Antonio.
"1. To attempt to burn ye shippes in Lysbon and Civill."
"2. To tak Lysbon."
"3. To tak the Hands."
[14] Calendar of State Papers (Domestic). Record Office.
[15] Norris had greatly distinguished himself in Ireland and the
Netherlands, notwithstanding Leicester's persistent attempts to ruin
him; and, from his conduct there and during this expedition, he would
appear to have been brave, but turbulent and of doubtful discretion.
[16] Philip was informed late in December by his spies in England that
Drake was to contribute 12,000 crowns, the Earl of Essex 10,000, Norris
8,000, and London Merchants 24,000, and that the Queen had advanced
£20,000.
[17] On the eve of departure Norris and Drake officially told the
Council that the total number of all sorts was 23,375. Captain Fenner,
Drake's vice-admiral, gives the number as 21,000 (Bacon Papers).
Captain Baillie, of the _Mary German_, in a letter to Lord Shrewsbury
says the landsmen alone were 20,000; whilst Drake himself, in one of
his many letters begging for supplies, says, "20,000 men cannot be kept
for a trifle."
Camden, the historian, speaks of 12,500 soldiers, and Speed, following
Pricket's tract, puts the number of landsmen at 11,000 and mariners at
2,500. There is a letter in the British Museum from one of the
Portuguese nobles (Count de Portalegre) to Philip II., in which the
army before Lisbon is spoken of as 12,000 men; and the Spanish diarist
whose MS. I have mentioned says 16,000 men-at-arms left England and
very few sailors. The terrible mortality from sickness, &c., and the
comparatively small number that came back made English writers of the
time anxious to minimise the disaster by underrating the numbers of the
expedition.
[18] English accounts usually say six, but I am inclined to believe the
Spanish account is correct, as Drake writes to the Council (Record
Office, Domestic Calendar), after the six ships had been appointed,
asking for a larger vessel, the Victory, "in respect of the King Dom
Antonio."
[19] Venetian Calendar.
[20] The Venetian ambassador at Madrid, in his account to the Doge of
the events at Corunna, says that Drake's booty from that place
consisted of "6,000 salted oxen, fifteen thousand jars of biscuit,
6,000 barrels of powder and 3,000 hogsheads of wine; all of it
provision for the Armada which went so unsuccessfully last year, or
else to furnish a new Armada according to the design which they
entertain. This plunder will prove of the greatest service to the
English ... and here the news has caused much chagrin; and it is hidden
or minimised as much as possible."
[21] It was said in Madrid that these two thousand peasants had only
six muskets amongst them.--_Venetian Calendar of State Papers_.
[22] "She dowteth not but they have thoroughly weighed the heinousness
of the offence lately committed by Sir Roger Williams in forsaking the
army with one of her principal ships. If they have not already
inflicted punishment of death upon him he is to be deprived of all
command and kept in safe custody at their perils. If the Earl of Essex
has joined the fleet they are to send him home instantly. If they do
not they shall truly answer for the same at their smart, for as we have
authority to rule so we look to be obeyed and these be no childish
actions."--_State Papers_ (_Domestic_), May 4, 1589.
The draft of this letter, deeply scored by the Queen's own hand, was
submitted to Walsingham by Windebanke, the Secretary of the Signet, and
the minister said that although the letter was as mild as could be
expected "under the circumstances," he much feared that any proceedings
against one so beloved as Sir Roger Williams would breed mutiny. And
so apparently thought the generals, for they took no notice of the
Queen's commands.
The Queen wrote another outspoken letter to the generals on the 20th of
May, in which she says they were perverting the object of their
expedition; which was to burn the King of Spain's navy and restore Dom
Antonio, and then proceed to the Azores. Corunna, she says, is of
little importance and the risk great, and she commands them to fulfil
her orders at once. Do not, she says, suffer yourselves to be
transported with an haviour of vainglory which will obfuscate the eyes
of your judgment.
Secretary Windebanke, writing to Heneage at the same time, says the
Queen is strangely set against the expedition, and is intensely
incensed at the fruitless attack on Corunna. "She thinks they went to
places for their own profit rather than for her service."--_State
Papers_ (_Domestic_).
[23] The bitter jest in Madrid at the time was that, whereas with the
Armada the year before there went an army with no commander, there was
now a commander with no army.
[24] Contarini to the Doge. Venetian Calendar of State Papers.
[25] A letter in the collection of the Marquis of Salisbury at Hatfield
curiously illustrates the not altogether happy relations that existed
between the English invaders and the pretender's friends. The letter
is dated the 27th of May, and is from General Norris to Captain George
(Burton?), whom he had left in charge at Peniche, complaining that "the
King is aggrieved that you do take upon you to give the word since he
hath appointed a Governor. And in truth it is not reason but the
Governor should have the pre-eminence and therefore henceforward fail
not to let him have that honour." This is a sample of the frequent
complaints that the English did not treat Antonio quite as a king
expected to be treated in his own realm. The fact was that Antonio had
been too long a suppliant and a fugitive dependent largely upon
Elizabeth's caprices for the English to regard him otherwise than as a
tool for their own ends.
[26] Venetian Calendar of State Papers.
[27] This is more likely to be true than the assertion of my Portuguese
that Antonio could get nothing to eat. The great body of the people
were unquestionably in his favour, but had no leaders and would not
fight.
[28] If the Earl of Essex was rash and headstrong, he was also
chivalrous. Pricket (or Wingfield) says: "Hee for money hired men to
carrie sick and hurt upon pikes (for want of waggons) and hee (whose
true virtue and nobilitie, as it dooth in all other his actions appear
so did it very much in this) threw his owne stuffe, I mean apparell and
necessaries from his owne carriages, and let them be left by the way,
to put hurt and sick men upon them in this march."
[29] Essex started for England on the 16th of June, two days after his
brother, on receipt of letters direct from the Queen, brought by a ship
with stores from England. Williams was very desirous of accompanying
him, but the generals refused to let him go, as they doubtless wished
him to have the benefit of the favourite's mollifying influence with
the Queen for some weeks before he arrived in England.
[Illustration: Elizabeth R]
{73}
_JULIAN ROMERO--SWASHBUCKLER._
{75}
[Illustration: headpiece]
_JULIAN ROMERO--SWASHBUCKLER._
In a slumberous street in old Madrid, called anciently the Calle de
Cantaranas, but now inappropriately named after Lope de Vega, there
stands a venerable convent of barefooted Trinitarian nuns. The
fortress-like red walls with the tiny grated windows looking upon the
street, the quaint, sad tranquillity which hangs around the place, are
only such as mark hundreds of other like retreats in Madrid and
elsewhere; and yet to this particular convent many reverent steps are
bent from all quarters of the earth, for here lie the bones of the
"maimed one of Lepanto," the author of "Don Quixote." He died only a
few yards away, in his house in the Calle de Leon, and was quietly laid
to rest in the convent, where one of his own daughters was a nun. The
very fact of his burial there was almost forgotten--was indeed for many
years disputed, until proved beyond possibility of doubt not long
since--and when the fury for destroying religious foundations seized
the rulers of Madrid after the revolution of 1868, the convent was
marked down for destruction {76} like so many others of its kind. And
destroyed it would have been but for the pious zeal of the good
"setenton," Mesonero Romanos, most beloved of Madrid antiquarians, who
woke up the Academy of History, and brought such pressure to bear upon
the Government as to save the sepulchre of Cervantes from profanation
for all future time, and thus enabled the great author, after he had
lain in his grave for two and a half centuries, to repay his debt to
the Trinitarian fathers who rescued him from his galling slavery in the
hands of the infidel. A stone tablet is now fixed in the wall of the
convent setting forth the fact of his sepulture there in 1616, and the
foundation of the community a few years previously by Doña Juana
Gaitan, daughter of General Julian Romero. The name of the latter
awakens no responsive echoes in Spanish minds. I have before me,
indeed, a recently published Spanish historical work which ascribes his
very existence to a wrong period. With the exception of a few
particulars of his later life given in a local history of Cuenca by
Father Muñoz, no Spanish writer has ever been at the trouble of tracing
what little may be known of his stirring career. And yet the man in
his day was the very prototype of those indomitable adventurers,
lusting for blood and gold, who, the sword in one hand and the cross in
the other, hunted down to death the Indians of one hemisphere and the
"heretics" of the other. Keen, cruel, Alba had no more ruthless
instrument for his fell work than "Captain Julian," upon whom and
Sancho de Avila the hatred of the persecuted Flemings was mainly
concentrated. In the course of my somewhat out-of-the-track studies I
have found the {77} name of Julian Romero constantly cropping up, and
so many personal traits of him have appeared, that by carefully piecing
them together a more complete account may be formed of the life and
character of this typical swashbuckler than of, perhaps, any of his
fellows. His life, too, offers some interest to Englishmen, for he
swaggered and ruffled in London many a time and oft, and was one of
those Spanish mercenaries who, in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward
VI., fought so bravely against the French and Scots and quelled by
their ferocity the risings of Kett in Norfolk and Arundell in the West
Country. Practically nothing whatever was known of the lives--hardly
indeed the existence--of the Spanish mercenaries in England until the
recent publication of the anonymous "Spanish Chronicle of Henry
VIII.,"[1] which I now attribute to Antonio de Guaras, a leading
Spanish merchant in London, whom I know to have been on close terms of
intimacy with the Spanish soldiers, and particularly with Julian
Romero, whose early adventures in England are evidently related at
first hand in the Chronicle.
Of all the turbulent soldiers of fortune who quarrelled, intrigued, and
triumphed in England, and whose adventures are so minutely told in the
Chronicle, only one was heard of in after life. The general, Sir Peter
Gamboa, was murdered with Captain Sir Alonso de Villa Sirga in St.
Sepulchre's churchyard, hard by Newgate, one wet winter's night in
1551, by Captain Guevara, who was incontinently hanged in Smithfield.
Sir {78} Pero Negro died of the sweating sickness in one of the crowded
lanes of old London city. Juan de Haro was killed by the English for
attempted desertion with his company to the French enemy before
Boulogne; others fell in the Flemish wars, and only the rash and
boastful "Captain Julian" lived to become Alba's trusted henchman, and
to hand his name down to the execration of generations of Flemings as
one of the prime movers of the "Spanish Fury" in Antwerp. So great was
the fame of his ferocity that the panic mongers, who were for ever
sending to Elizabeth and Cecil intelligence of the dreadful vengeance
which was to fall upon England at the hands of King Philip, could
invent nothing more terror-striking than their constantly repeated
dread that Julian Romero was to swoop down upon the coast and serve
English Protestants in the same way as he had treated those of the
Netherlands. He had, indeed, as will be shown in his own words at
various periods of his life--now for the first time brought
together--all the vices and virtues of his class and time. Vain and
boastful, bigoted and cruel, he was nevertheless true to his salt,
faithful, brave, and steadfast; of that stern, self-sacrificing stuff
by which alone empires may be won or despotism defended. He was born
at Huelamo, in the province of Cuenca, of very humble folk, for even
when he was in high command and on terms of close intimacy with nobles
and ministers, he was never given the nobiliary address of Don, which
was enjoyed by the most remote and out-at-elbows representative of the
hidalgo class. He was not much of a scholar either, for his signature
which exists at Simancas is the only part of his letters in {79} his
own hand, and is painfully traced in great bold straight lines, like a
row of halberds.
In the winter of 1534 every village in Spain resounded with the
drum-beat of the recruiters, who were seeking soldiers for the
Emperor's great expedition against the Moors, which was to start from
Barcelona in the spring. Spanish hearts were all aflame with wondrous
stories of fortune and adventure. The excitement, the freedom, the
idleness, and the possible gains of a soldier's life had seized upon
the imagination of Spanish youth; and the turbulent spirit of war-like
adventure in far countries was, for the next century at least, to be
the dominant note of the national character. Julian must have been a
mere boy, but he joined the standard, so he wrote forty years
afterwards, at Christmas, 1534, as a foot-soldier, and, with a pike on
his shoulder, started on his life of adventure. There was no one to
record the doings and sufferings of the humble man-at-arms in those
stirring days, and beyond the fact that he drifted from Spain to Tunis,
from Tunis to Italy, and thence to Flanders and France, always in the
midst of the fighting in the Emperor's wars, nothing is known for the
next ten years of Julian Romero's service. In the beginning of 1544
Henry VIII. had arranged to enter into alliance with the Emperor to
jointly attack the King of France, and the probability is that if they
had together marched upon Paris promptly, they would have had France at
their mercy. But other counsels prevailed, and, whilst Charles
operated in Picardy and French Flanders, Henry sent the Duke of Norfolk
and his brilliant son, Surrey, with an army of 15,000 men, {80} to
besiege Montreuil. The King's brother-in-law, Charles Brandon, Duke of
Suffolk, at the same time with a large force "sat down before"
Boulogne, and, on the 14th of July, great Harry himself landed at his
good town of Calais to take the supreme command of his army before
Boulogne. He was accompanied by a brilliant train of courtiers and
soldiers, and took with him as his chief military adviser a great
Spanish noble, Beltran de la Cueva, third Duke of Alburquerque, whose
important share in the reduction of the town has been almost entirely
ignored by English historians. Besides the 200 Spanish soldiers who
followed the Duke, there were already three Spanish captains in Henry's
service, each with a company of his countrymen, to the aggregate number
of about 260 men, all of them seasoned veterans in the Continental
wars; and these, together with the less experienced English levies,
succeeded in capturing the town of Boulogne on the 15th of September.
It appears that a breach had been made in the walls three weeks before,
and the Spaniards begged Henry to let them take the place by assault.
He told them that he would rather waste 10,000 pounds of powder than
that a single one of his Spaniards should be sacrificed, "whereupon
they blushed for mere shame." But as usual Henry had his own way, and
the town surrendered; "_the Frenchmen_," says Wriothesley, "_departing
out of the towne with as much goodes as they might carye, both men and
women, besyde that the waggons caryed; and the King his Majestie
entered the said towne the 18th September with greate tryumphe, and the
20th day a solempne procession was kept with Te Deum songe for the
Victory of the King his Majestie {81} and many fyers made in the citye
and in every part of the realme. The last day of September the King
his Majestie landed at Dover at midnight_." The reason for Henry's
hurried return was his desire to retain all the credit for his victory
without waiting for the probable reverse. Charles V. had come to terms
with the French, and when he had sent word to his English ally that he
was negotiating, Henry arrogantly said that the Emperor might make
peace if he pleased, but he, Henry, would suit himself in the matter.
But when he found the whole French army turned against him he hurriedly
raised the siege of Montreuil, put all his forces into Boulogne under
Lord Grey, and got back to England as fast as he could, whilst his
laurels were yet green. All through the next year the French siege of
Boulogne went on, the three companies of Spanish mercenaries, steady
old soldiers as they were, being the mainstay of the defence. They
complained bitterly of the raw Englishmen's habit of killing the
prisoners instead of holding them to ransom, and on one occasion were
near mutiny because their prisoners were murdered. "How now," said
Captain Salablanca to Lord Grey, "do you think we are in the King's
service for the wretched four ducats a month we earn? Not so my lord;
we serve with the hope of taking prisoners and getting ransom. Your
men have even now killed a gentleman of mine for whom I should have got
at least five or six thousand crowns ransom." Whatever their object
may have been in serving the schismatic king, Henry thought very highly
of them, and when in the year 1545 he was about to send Warwick to
attack the Scots, an opportunity {82} occurred for him to engage some
more, he gladly seized it. Charles V. had disbanded a large proportion
of his army after the peace of Crespi was concluded, and had embarked
them for Spain with orders that, under pain of death, they were to take
service with no other sovereign. A ship with 800 or 1,000 of these
disbanded soldiers on their way home anchored in the Downs, and the
warriors being, we are told, "already tired of the sea," they sent an
offer of their services to the King of England. The captain of the
vessel, however, would not wait for the answer to reach them, but on
his putting into Plymouth the whole of them landed and entered the
English service. They were promptly sent off to Warwick's army in
Scotland under an experienced old soldier of their number called Pedro
Gamboa, who was made colonel, with power to create his own captains.
Julian Romero landed with this force in some subordinate capacity, but
on his arrival in Scotland received his first English commission as
captain, from Gamboa. This was in the summer of 1545, and when the
winter came the troops were put into quarters, whilst Gamboa and his
newly fledged captains came to London to air their finery at Henry's
Court. The King made much of them, and in the early spring of 1546, a
temporary peace having been patched up with Scotland, ordered them to
take their companies to the French coast between Calais and Boulogne,
where the English were erecting a fort. Whilst Gamboa, Julian Romero,
and the other new captains, had been ruffling at Court, receiving
grants and attentions from the King, the three or four old Spanish
commanders with their companies, who had {83} been long in Henry's
service, had been enduring hard fare and rough service, and obtaining
but little loot at Boulogne; so that on the arrival in France of the
new men, straight from Court favour, a very bitter feeling was shown
towards them. One of the old captains, Cristobal Mora, deserted bodily
with his men to the enemy, and another one, Juan de Haro, was killed in
attempting to do so. It may therefore well be supposed that when peace
was made in June, 1546, and the compatriots met again on neutral
ground, there was a good deal of thumb-biting and recrimination. Mora
was flouted in the streets by his fellow-countrymen for having
disgraced the mercenary creed by deserting his paymaster before the
enemy; whilst he retorted by accusing Gamboa and his friends of
disobeying their natural sovereign the Emperor in taking service under
an excommunicated heretic. Events came to a head at last by the
deserting captain, Cristobal de Mora, sending a challenge from
Montreuil to Colonel Gamboa in Calais in July. Either for some reason
of disparity of age or rank between the two, or else out of mere
hot-headed combativeness on the part of Julian Romero, the latter
accepted the challenge for his chief, and has left upon record an
extremely minute description of the fight. Sir Henry Knyvett went off
to obtain the King of England's permission, which was gladly given, and
"a thousand broad angels sent to Julian to put himself in order
withal." The King of France ordered the erection of lists at
Montreuil, where the wage of battle should be decided, and when all was
ready Julian Romero, in the full pomp of war, started on his road from
Calais {84} to Montreuil, attended by a great company of English and
Spanish gentlemen to see the fun. The following is the account given
by Julian's friend.
"Well when they arrived in France and the day being come the seconds
and umpires saw that each one had equal arms. They were to fight on
horseback and each one had a sword, and both rapiers and daggers, and
their corselets were open at the back with great holes big enough for
two fists to go in on both pieces. This scheme was invented by the
French because Mora had one of the best and quickest horses in France,
and as they were not to fight with the lance, Mora thought, with the
fleetness of his horse, he would be able to wound Julian in the back
with his rapier, and so vanquish him.
"When the umpires had seen the arms were equal they gave the signal for
the trumpets to sound, and the opponents at once closed with one
another, and, at the first blows with the swords, Julian's sword fell
from his hands and he seized his rapier. Mora was not backward and
threw away his sword for his rapier; and, as he had such an active
horse, he went circling round Julian so as to wound him in the back.
But Julian was no sluggard, and when Mora saw he could not do this, he
decided to kill Julian's horse, which he did with a thrust in the
chest; and a few moments afterwards it fell to the ground. At that
moment Julian, thinking to do the same for Mora, attacked him with that
object; but Mora was too quick with his horse for Julian to wound it,
and the rapier fell from Julian's hand, almost at the moment that his
horse dropped {85} under him; and as he felt his horse was going to
fall he leapt quickly off his back and Mora had not time to ride him
down, thanks to the horse which was on the ground. Julian to escape
being ridden down, and finding himself armed only with his dagger, was
forced to shield himself behind his fallen horse, whilst Mora went
round and round and Julian dodged behind the horse. This went on for
more than three hours, and at last Mora cried out, 'Surrender, Julian!
I do not want to kill thee!' but Julian did not answer a word. There
was hardly an hour of daylight left, and Julian would be vanquished at
sunset. And, as he saw that Mora was strutting about waiting for the
sun to go down, Julian kept wide awake and, watching his opportunity,
dropped on one knee behind his prostrate horse and with his dagger cut
the straps of his spurs, which he threw away. Seeing his rapier not
far from him he made a dash to regain it, and succeeded before Mora
could ride him down.
"The gentleman who was acting as Julian's second, seeing how things
were going, was very downcast and wished he never had come and said to
the Spanish captains: 'Gentlemen, our man is losing.' Then said
Captain Cristobal Diaz, 'What, sir! the day is not yet done and I still
hope to God that Julian will come off the victor.' 'Do you not see,
sir,' said the other, 'that Mora is only flourishing about waiting for
sundown?' As they were chatting thus, they saw how Julian had snatched
up his rapier again, and how Mora was attacking him. Julian had just
time to deal a thrust at Mora's horse, which, feeling itself wounded
began to prance, and its rider, fearing that it would fall {86} with
him underneath it, determined to get a short distance away and
dismount. Julian, however, being on foot and light, without his spurs,
went running after him, and when he was trying to dismount, embraced
him in such a manner as to bring him to the ground, and with his dagger
cut the ties of his helmet. Mora then surrendered at once, and Julian
took his arm, and with the sword of his enemy in his hand, led him
three times round the field that all might see how he had surrendered."
For this not very chivalrous victory Julian was overwhelmed with
honours, the French king, we are told, casting a gold chain round his
neck worth more than 700 crowns, whilst the Dauphin gave him a surcoat
stamped with gold, worth more than the King's chain; and King Henry of
England, when the Spanish officers returned to England, extended
special favour to Julian Romero, upon whom he settled a life pension of
600 ducats, which was a larger sum than any of his fellows, except
Colonel Gamboa, who got a thousand. In any case it was only paid for a
few years.
If the behaviour of the combatants in the duel lacked the chivalry we
are apt to expect, still less magnanimous was the treatment of the
Spanish officers towards their companies. When the peace was concluded
and Julian's duel fought, orders came from England that the troops were
to be dismissed, and the mercenary captains were to repair to London.
The latter portion of this order was concealed from the soldiers, who
were told by Colonel Gamboa that, as they were all dismissed from the
English service, they would march together and offer their services
elsewhere. He {87} thereupon led them across the frontier into the
Emperor's Flemish dominions, and then with the captains gave the men
the slip, and left them to shift for themselves. The captains hung
about the Court in London all the summer and autumn (1546),
quarrelling, gaming, and swaggering, and Julian Romero, less refined
and more hot-headed than the rest, well nigh got into serious trouble.
His friend who tells the story, evidently at first hand, says that he
had been "showing off" very much more than his means or his pay would
warrant, and he had borrowed money to such an extent that he hardly
dared to walk out publicly. One of his pressing creditors was a
Milanese called Baptist Baron, who after much trouble managed to get
him arrested for a debt of 200 ducats. Julian was furious with rage at
the idea of being haled off to jail, and persuaded the catchpole who
had him in custody to take him to Colonel Gamboa's house, in hope that
he would pay the money.
"No sooner had he arrived there, than he launched into loud complaints
and began to say unreasonable things, amongst others, that anybody who
would serve heretics must be a great big knave; and he swore that he
would have no more of it, but would go with only a pike on his shoulder
and four ducats (a month) pay to serve elsewhere; and he said a good
many other things that had much better have been omitted, for certainly
no good came of them."
Gamboa made himself responsible for the money, but Julian's loose talk
about heretics was dangerous, and the colonel, whose subsequent
behaviour to the other captains shows him to have been a bad-hearted
{88} man, seems to have done nothing to shield his subordinate from the
consequences of his indiscretion. Gamboa was himself accused at first
of treason by the Privy Council, for allowing such talk in his house
without punishment. He declared that he was deaf, and did not hear
what Julian had said, "which," says the narrator (almost certainly the
"merchant" Guaras), "was the truth, as he was in his chamber at the
time." "The Council presently sent for Julian and rated him soundly,
to which Julian replied: 'Gentlemen, I have said nothing for which I
should be so maltreated.' 'Well,' they answered, 'you said this, that,
and the other, and there are witnesses who heard you.' But Julian
denied it, and they called a merchant who was present in the house of
the colonel and had heard everything that had passed. Before this
merchant went before the Council, Gamboa spoke to him and begged him to
accuse Julian as much as he could, so that they should take away his
pay from him; but the merchant, seeing the malice of Gamboa, said,
'Señor Gamboa, I am no mischief-maker to do harm where I can do good,'
and he would not speak to Gamboa any more. The lords then sent for the
merchant; all the captains as well as Julian being present, and, as the
merchant was going in, Gamboa said to him aloud, so that all should
hear, 'Señor, I beseech you to favour Julian as much as you can; for
good or evil to him depends upon what you say.' Good God! how artfully
Gamboa said that, when not three hours before he had begged him
earnestly to accuse him and get his income taken away. But Julian and
the other captains thought that Gamboa was favourable to him." The
"merchant's" evidence {89} does not seem to have palliated the case
against Julian, but that perhaps was because "they made him place his
hands upon the Gospels, and he swore to tell the truth." He said that
Julian was in a rage at being arrested, and shouted out some coarse
expressions about the King and Council not caring much for him, and
that he would rather serve elsewhere for four ducats than here for a
mint of money. "Then," said the lords, "didst thou not hear him say
that he would come with a pike on his shoulder to fight against such
heretics?" To which the merchant replied that the soldiers were making
so much noise that he did not hear well what was said. The end of the
matter was that, just as the Council were going to sentence Julian to
punishment and dismissal, Paget put in a good word for him, and got him
off with a severe wigging and a threat to punish him severely if he let
his tongue run too loosely again; "whereupon Julian made no answer but
made a very low bow, and then they told him to go, and if any one was
sorry he was not dismissed it was Gamboa."
A few weeks after this the trouble with Scotland broke out again, and
the captains were ordered to raise a fresh force of Spanish
men-at-arms. This was not easily done at short notice, and Julian and
his fellow Spanish officers frankly said that they could not get
together men who would do them credit in the time specified, and they
had no confidence in Burgundians and others who could be quickly
recruited. Gamboa, however, made no difficulty about it; but to the
great disgust of the Spaniards raised a regiment of Burgundians, whom
he led to Scotland to take part in the siege of {90} Haddington. On
Gamboa's coming south for the winter this regiment, under its ensign,
Perez, deserted _en masse_ to the enemy, for which desertion Perez was
hanged when the place was captured; but in the meanwhile the
circumstance still further widened the breach between Gamboa and the
other Spanish officers. The King died, at the beginning of the year
1547, and by the time Somerset was leaving London for his short and
triumphant campaign in Scotland, plenty of Spanish and Italian
mercenaries had joined the standards of our captains. They confessedly
turned the tide of victory to the English side at the battle of Pinkie
by a dashing flank charge under Gamboa, and a few days afterwards, at
the burning of Leith, they again greatly distinguished themselves.
Julian, of course, was in the thick of it, and his friend asserts that
he was made an English knight after Pinkie. I can find no confirmation
of this, although the English authorities show that after the burning
of Leith the Protector knighted, amongst others, on the 28th of
September, 1547. Sir Peter Gamboa, Pero Negro, Alonso de Villa Sirga,
and Cristobal Diaz.
Julian remained in Scotland during the campaigns of 1548-9, and took
part in the relief of Haddington; but Gamboa in the latter year was
dismissed in consequence of his unpopularity with the other Spaniards
and an accusation of peculation made against him. Of Julian Romero we
hear in all parts. He and Pero Negro were in charge at Droughty Ferry,
near Dundee, and a few of their men made a dash one day at a French
general who was strolling a short distance from his lines, and captured
him in the face of his own troops before he could be {91} rescued. The
French complained especially of Julian's and Pero Negro's celerity of
movement, by which they were able to give them the slip, encumbered as
the French were by the unscientific methods of their Scotch allies.[2]
Warwick had the help of a considerable body of Spaniards, and almost
certainly of Julian Romero, in his defeat of Kett's rebellion in the
autumn of 1549; certainly in the winter of that year when Warwick, with
the prestige of his victories upon him, thought he was strong enough to
strike a final blow at the Protector, Julian was one of the foreign
captains he took with him to overawe Somerset at his levee, and to
demand of him in their name rich rewards for their services in Scotland
and elsewhere. As soon as Warwick had got rid of Somerset he changed
his tone. England was no longer a fit place for Catholics. The King,
Edward VI., was known to be dying, and the next heiress was a papist
and half a Spaniard, against whom the Spanish officers could not be
trusted to fight in favour of Northumberland's Protestant _protegée_.
So they were dismissed, those that were left of them, and are
thenceforward swallowed up in the unfathomable abyss of the dead past;
all except Julian Romero, who was reserved for greater things.
There was no lack of demand for the services of such men, for the
Emperor, his natural sovereign, was at war with the French once more,
and less than two years after he left England we hear of Romero again.
Sir John Mason, writing to {92} the English Council on the 7th of July,
1554,[3] reports that Julian with five standards of Spaniards and
others was holding out against the French in the castle of Dinant. He
is, Sir John says, unlikely to be taken; but if he be, all the Liege
country must soon follow. A week afterwards Dr. Wotton writes to Queen
Mary[4] an account of the fall of Dinant, and says: "The town and
castle of Dinant have been taken, the former surrendered by composition
without loss of goods, the latter, wherein were some Spaniards with
Captain Julian, who formerly served in England, made a gallant
resistance, but at last held parliament and yielded, the soldiers
departing with their swords by their side."
The Spanish historian Sandoval blames Romero for his capture and the
loss of Dinant, which he attributes to his want of prudence in going
out to parley, "but rarely indeed do both valour and prudence reside in
one person, although this captain afterwards proved that he possessed
both qualities; for he became one of the most famous soldiers of our
time." Romero seems first to have attracted general public notice by
his bravery and dash at the great battle of St. Quintin in 1557, and in
the contemporary poem called "La Araucana" he is mentioned as one of
the most conspicuous heroes of the storming of the town, in command of
a regiment of Spaniards, Germans, and Walloons. For the ten years that
followed the peace of 1558 the centre of war was changed, and the
almost constant struggles between Philip II. and the Turks kept Italy
and Sicily full of Spanish soldiers. Romero {93} during most of the
time was quartered in the Milanese, whilst not before the enemy; and in
the meanwhile had been promoted to the rank of Maestre de Campo
(colonel), but in 1567 Philip took the fatal decision of grappling in a
duel to the death with a closer and more dangerous power than the
Turk--namely, that of Protestantism and national freedom in his own
Netherlands dominions. The humble remonstrance of the Flemish nobles
and Egmont's visit to Madrid had convinced the stealthy bigot that, if
he insisted upon ruling his Flemish dominions according to Spanish
methods, he could only do it by the ruthless power of the sword. His
kindly and popular sister, Margaret of Parma, Flemish to the heart as
she was, had already shown signs of sympathy with the demands of her
countrymen, and was an unfit instrument for Philip's new plans. There
was no one but hard-hearted old Alba who could be trusted to carry them
out to the bitter end with the needful cat-like cruelty. So early in
1567 the Spanish troops from Milan and Naples, the Italians from Savoy
and Parma, the veterans who for years had been fighting the infidel in
the Mediterranean, were set in motion to join the Duke of Alba. Julian
Romero was at the time in command of the regiment of Sicily stationed
in Milan under the fourth Duke of Alburquerque, the son of Henry VIII's
military dry-nurse at Boulogne; and he, like the rest of them, led his
men to Brussels. The Flemish nobles were lulled into a feeling of
false security. Kindly messages came from Philip in Madrid. He
himself would come and set all things right. Alba and his son
flattered the shallow Egmont, and {94} courted the distrustful Horn,
whose brother Montigny was kept at Madrid by specious excuses, and the
smiling mask was kept over Alba's grim face till all was ready.
Egmont had readily accepted that fateful invitation to dinner for the
9th of September, and even Horn had been persuaded to leave the
security of his own country for the same purpose, when late on the
night of the 8th a Spanish officer of apparently high rank came
secretly to his (Egmont's) house in disguise and significantly warned
him to escape at once, whilst there was yet time. To the last day of
her life the Countess of Egmont was confident that this officer was
Julian Romero;[5] but, whoever he was, Egmont neglected the warning and
went to the feast next day. Sancho de Avila posted troops in all the
streets leading to the house, to the wonder of the townsfolk, and on
the stairs of the Hotel itself were stationed 200 stalwart
harquebussiers under Colonel Julian Romero, who himself stood at the
door of the room in which the treacherous arrest was to be effected.[6]
At the given moment Sancho de Avila laid hands on Egmont, whilst Romero
stood by and overawed any attempt of the Flemings at resistance.
At 11 o'clock in the morning of the 6th of June of the following year,
the day that the Counts were to die, Julian it was who went to Egmont's
chamber to conduct him to the scaffold on the great square in Brussels.
He wished to tie {95} the Count's hands, but the noble refused to be
thus degraded. During Egmont's last few moments he turned in bitter
anguish to Julian Romero and asked him earnestly whether the sentence
was irrevocable, and whether a pardon might not, even now, be granted
to him. Romero appeared to think that the Count's courage was failing
him, and only answered by a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders and a
negative sign; whereupon Egmont gnashed his teeth in silent rage and
went to his death.[7]
Alba's severity for the moment paralysed all resistance on land, and
only those "sea beggars," who afterwards secured the independence of
the Netherlands, kept alive the tradition of Flemish patriotism. Some
of the Spanish troops could therefore be dispensed with, particularly
as Philip's treasury was empty of money to pay them, and many found
their way back to Spain again. Amongst these was Julian Romero, who
had married a wife of his own province a few years before (1565), and
yearned for a spell of family joys far from war's alarms. His time of
rest was but a short one. He was marked out now conspicuously as one
of the most unscrupulous of Alba's officers, who could be depended upon
in any emergency, and who was fanatically loyal to his sovereign and
the faith for which he was fighting. An instance of this is given by
Don Bernardino de Mendoza.[8] Certain soldiers under that officer were
in treaty to enter into the service of the King of France--not a very
great offence, one would think, in the eyes of Julian, who had himself
served the King of {96} England--and Alba, desirous of appearing
impartial, had decided that the three ringleaders should be tried by
their own comrades, appointing Julian as president of the tribunal. He
sentenced them all to be shot, and on the decision being submitted to
Alba, the latter made a long speech in praise of such severity, and
highly commended Romero for his inflexibility. Philip was
contemplating a job that called for such a man as this. He had been
driven to desperation by Elizabeth's protection of the rebel Flemish
privateers, and her seizure of his treasure, and had effusively
welcomed Thomas Stukeley when he arrived in Madrid in 1570 with
proposals for the invasion of Ireland and the raising of the country in
favour of Philip. This would, at all events, keep Elizabeth's hands
full, and Philip, being misled as to Stukeley's standing and influence,
treated him with great honour. He had a large pension granted to him
and a palace to reside in; he was made a Spanish knight, and Julian
Romero, amongst others, was invited to confer with him as to the plans
for the subjugation of Ireland. It was decided that Romero should take
command of the expedition, if it were sent, and English spies soon got
hold of the news and communicated it to the Queen. Philip was not long
in finding out that Stukeley was a mere windbag, and very coolly got
rid of him as soon as possible; but for many months after the Spanish
king had abandoned the idea, when indeed he was in such straits us
hardly to be able to hold his own, the dreaded name of Julian Romero
was in everybody's mouth as the coming avenger of Philip's grievances
against the English queen and her ministers.
{97}
One zealous spy named Reynolds Digby writes to Cecil from St. Jean de
Luz on December 28, 1570, telling him of "the subtle and devilish
practices against his country," and saying that the Duke of Medina Celi
and Julian Romero had already embarked "a great store of ordnance for
battery and field, great numbers of copper ovens, baskets, mattocks,
and other stores, with 100 mule loads of money, the object being to go
to Flanders, ship Alba and his army, and sail to Scotland for the
purpose of attacking it and seizing the King."[9] There was no truth
in it, but on the 25th of January, 1571, another spy named Hogan,
living in Madrid, wrote saying that Romero was going to Ireland with
6,000 soldiers.[10] Walsingham, in Paris, reports the same news as
being brought by French agents from Madrid, and the Spanish ambassador
in England, evidently believed it, although he pretended not to do so,
in his interviews with the English ministers.[11] Elizabeth herself
was much alarmed, and wrote to Walsingham,[12] telling him to see the
Spanish ambassador in Paris (Francés de Alava), and say "that she
cannot believe the news sent her that there is an intention of sending
Julian Romero or such like with a number of soldiers to Ireland to
follow some vain device of these rebels, and she much wonders that the
King should give credit to such a man as Stukeley, about whom no good
can be said." The haughty Don Frances ("the proudest man I ever {98}
met," says Walsingham) told him that he had never heard of Stukeley,
"and as for any attempts by Julian Romero to be done in Ireland, they
were no Spaniards who had that enterprise in hand"--which was quite
true, for Philip never intended to send a Spanish force, and indeed
when, years after, he did aid an expedition, he ordered that all the
commanders should be Italians.[13]
Philip wanted Romero for more important work than aiding Stukeley's
hairbrained schemes. Alba was now face to face with a people in arms
in Holland and Zeeland, under one of the greatest men of his age, the
Prince of Orange. Cruel severity had only goaded the Netherlanders to
desperation, and Alba, old and ill, felt that his method had failed.
He was begging to be relieved from the conduct of the war, and the Duke
of Medina Celi was sent to replace him, with Julian Romero in command
of the reinforcements which accompanied him. Medina Celi himself never
took possession of his vice-royalty, for Alba was too jealous to give
it up, now that his health was somewhat better, and the fresh troops
sent enabled him to act more vigorously; but Julian Romero got to work
as soon as he set foot on shore. He had been partially disabled by a
severe wound in the leg, but landed his men at the Sluys and at once
joined Don Fadrique, Alba's son, before Mons; and on the 17th of July,
1572, only a few weeks after he landed, he led the first charge of the
battle in which Fadrique beat the French Huguenot force who were trying
to relieve Mons. Fadrique wrote to his father from the battlefield in
enthusiastic praise of Julian, whom {99} he coupled with the famous
Italian General Chapin Vitelli, who, although severely wounded, behaved
with great bravery. Unfortunately most of Genlis' troops that were
captured were murdered in cold blood afterwards, it is to be feared
with Julian Romero's full acquiescence, if nothing worse. He was now
an important personage since his sojourn at Philip's Court, and in a
letter to the King's secretary, Zayas, dated before Mons, August 23,
1572,[14] writes a full account of the state of affairs, in the wording
of which there are now and again signs that he was still a bluff
soldier.
"Holland," he says, "looks as ugly as ever, Friesland no better, and
Zeeland much worse, but I look upon it all as nothing by the side of
this Mons business, upon which I have set my heart. If we can only
stop up this hole in the frontier the rest is only so much air;
although we shall sweat if we are to camp before Mons all the winter,
for we shall have to fight on skates." Julian's fears were groundless.
The grim news of St. Bartholomew convinced the citizens of Mons that no
help could reach them from the French Protestants, and only a month
afterwards--the 22nd of September, 1572--Romero wrote a long account to
Zayas of the surrender of the devoted town, which "he says we were very
fortunate to get by surrender, for no troops but Spaniards could have
taken it, so strong is it, and of Spaniards we have very few."
Then, swift and relentless as a thunderbolt, came Alba's vengeance on
the southern provinces of Flanders, hopeless of succour now either from
Orange or the French. Every town was to {100} support a Spanish
garrison or be put to the sword, and of all the cruel instruments for
the work none were so much in tune with the mastermind as was Julian
Romero. The rebel garrisons of most of the little towns had fled,
there was but slight resistance, and Fadrique, on his march from
Zutphen to Amsterdam in November, summoned the town of Naarden to admit
the Spanish troops into the place. Some demur was made to this, but a
few days afterwards the principal men of the town were sent after
Fadrique, afraid of their own boldness, to discuss terms for
submission. They were refused an interview, and told that a force had
already been ordered to Naarden to compel compliance. The citizens,
panic-stricken at the news, sent a deputation to offer complete
unconditional submission, but before they could reach Fadrique's
headquarters at Bussem they met Julian Romero on his way to Naarden,
who told them that he had full authority to treat. Arrived at the
town, he demanded the keys, which were surrendered to him on his solemn
promise that the lives and properties of the townsfolk should be
respected. He gave (says Hoofd, the historian) his hand thrice as a
pledge of this, and no written pledge was exacted of him. From what we
know of Julian Romero's temper we can well imagine this. Romero and
his 600 harquebussiers entered the town and were hospitably received.
A great feast was spread to do them honour at Burgomaster Gerrit's
house. When the banquet was finished Romero collected his men in the
great square and summoned the citizens to a conference in the town
hall. The bell rang, and the citizens {101} came, all unsuspecting, to
hear the conditions imposed upon them; but when they were met, to the
number of about six hundred, in the hall, Romero gave a signal at the
door and his Spaniards fired a volley upon the closely packed crowd of
unarmed men. Thenceforward the little town was a shambles; men, women,
and children were all murdered amidst scenes of the most heartrending
atrocity, and even infants were made sport of, being cast by the
pikemen from spear to spear. The Burgomaster was roasted until he gave
up all his fortune as ransom, and was then hanged at his own door-post
in the presence of Romero and Don Fadrique, who had arrived the day
after the massacre. Motley, who takes his account from Hoofd, has not
added anything to the horror of the story, and it is confirmed by Alba
himself in a letter to the King, saying, "They cut the throats of them
all, soldiers and townspeople alike, without leaving a single soul
alive." Strada says that this massacre had an entirely opposite effect
to that expected. It aroused such fury and hate all over Flanders and
Holland as to double the difficulty of Alba's task. Strada makes as
light of it as possible, but even he says, "It really seems as if the
vengeance wrought exceeded the fault. All the inhabitants alike,
innocent and guilty, were killed, the houses burnt, the walls razed,
and it looked more like a crime than a punishment."[15]
But Holland and Zeeland were made of different stuff to South Flanders,
and the massacre of Naarden only caused Haarlem to be more obstinate in
its determination to hold out at any cost. Fadrique {102} and his army
were before it in the bitter winter of 1572, and it became necessary
for him to ensure an open passage between him and Utrecht, whence he
drew his supplies. This was interfered with by a rebel fort on the
outskirts of Haarlem, near the opposite bank of the Sparen to that upon
which the road lay. This fort was flanked on two sides by water--on
the one side, where the river was narrow, the defences were
impregnable; whilst on the other flank, where the stream opened out and
was considered impassable, the fort was otherwise undefended. Early in
December spies reported to Fadrique that at certain states of the tide
the broad water might be forded and the fort attacked by surprise on
its undefended side. His letter to his father detailing how this was
done is still at Simancas.[16] He says that at daybreak he sent Julian
Romero with 400 picked harquebussiers to attempt the task. Count Bossu
and other experienced soldiers had said that it was impossible, but
Romero insisted upon attempting it. The water reached above the knees
of the men, and the ice had to be broken at every step; the ford was
very narrow, and a false step precipitated the armed men into deep
water. The men in the fort discovered them and opened fire, and for a
full hour they thus skirmished in the frozen river, when they found
that a rebel force from the town, equal to their own, had crossed the
river on the ice higher up, and were attacking them from their own
bank, so that they were between two fires. Romero drew his men out of
the river, charged the new force and drove {103} them back over the ice
again. But in their flight they showed him the way across the ice as
well, and how by that road the undefended side of the fort might be
reached. With incredible dash he crossed after them and stormed the
fort on that side, carried it with pike and musket only, and, as
Fadrique tells the Duke, cut the throat of every man who did not escape
by flight. Fadrique is quite enthusiastic about Romero's share in the
affair. The "heretics," he says, showed surprising bravery, and the
fort was of enormous strength--"the best I ever saw." "I thought we
were fighting beasts, but I find we have to do with men." "Colonel
Julian has carried himself in this action as splendidly as he always
does and is as eager as ever to serve his Majesty. He marched for a
good league and half with the water over his knees, skirmishing with
the fort, before the Haarlem force came. Just think of it, your
Excellency; marching like this with such a leg as Julian's! I can
assure you that a better soldier than he for dash and enterprise never
came from our country. Pray thank him warmly for he richly deserves
it." Only a few days later Julian was once more to the fore. Lumay,
Count de la Mark, made an attempt to relieve Haarlem with a large
force, but was beaten by the Spaniards, "Julian with his regiment," we
are told by an anonymous eyewitness,[17] "leading the attack in front
of every one." Encouraged by this victory, the Spaniards a week
afterwards--the 20th of December, 1572--attempted to take the place by
storm, but were unsuccessful. Julian was standing on a trench
directing operations when a {104} musket-shot destroyed one of his
eyes, but even that did not put him _hors de combat_ for long, for he
writes to the Duke's secretary, Albernoz, on the 13th of the next month
(January, 1573) from Amsterdam: "I have been impatiently expecting
Illan's arrival, in order that I might go to the front, but if he comes
not I am determined I will wait no longer, but will set out to-morrow;
for I see that things are now going to begin in real earnest. I am
pretty well, but not so well as I want to be to serve Don Fadrique; but
I will do so with all my poor strength, standing or falling. He has
sent me word that I must go and lodge in his quarters or he will burn
mine down over my head. I will obey him in this as in all things, and
although I know full well I shall not lack for dainties there, I will
not spare you from sending me the other box of marmalade you promised
me, as the one you sent is half gone already."
For the next six months each step in the terrible siege of Haarlem is
related in the letters from Don Fadrique, Caspar de Robles, and Romero
himself. Wherever fighting was going on Colonel Julian was always in
the front rank, and we hear of him creeping forward from month to month
nearer to the devoted city as death and famine make it weaker.
Romero's own letter to Alba of the 25th of May, 1573,[18] gives the
best account I have read of the incidents of the siege from the Spanish
point of view, although neither that nor any other of the series I have
mentioned appears ever to have been utilised by historians. When at
last, in July, 1575, the famished heroes in the city surrendered,
Julian {105} Romero was deputed to accompany Count Bossu to the wood
where the submission was to be arranged, and himself to hold the town
gate that no soul should issue therefrom without due warrant. Of the
cruel massacre of the starving people which followed Julian Romero does
not boast, but it may be not uncharitably assumed that he played his
usual sympathetic part in it. Certain it is that no sooner was it over
than Colonel Julian, with an army of 4,000 men, commenced his fell
march over Holland. Mendoza[19] says: "Julian entered by the Dunes as
far as the Hague, taking Catwyk, Walkemburg, Wassenaer, Naeldwyk, St.
Geradique, Squelpewyk Noortwyk, Vlaerdingen, the fort of Mansendus,
where he cut the throats of St. Aldegonde and 600 men, Minister,
Gravesande, &c." And then he went towards Leyden, which was being
besieged by Valdes. Morgan, writing to Lord Burleigh from Delft[20] on
the 12th of November, 1575, represents the Dutch burghers as completely
cowed for the moment by Romero's ferocity. He says: "Julian with his
4,000 men is entrenched half-way between the Hague and Delft, cutting
off all communication between the latter place and Leyden."
But by this time Alba felt that cruelty had failed to crush Orange and
the Zeelanders, supported as they were by England and helped by the
German princes; and sated as even he was of blood, he determined to
give up the struggle and allow another policy to be tried. Romero was
tired of it too, and wished to retire with his chief. Alba {106}
himself wrote to the King from Brussels on the 15th of December,
1573.[21] "Colonel Julian Romero has served here in the way your
Majesty has been informed. He had returned here from Holland,
determined to go to Spain and beseech your Majesty to allow him to rest
at home, seeing that he has served for 40 years. When your Majesty's
letter for him had been handed to him and I had myself impressed upon
him how much he would be missed here at the present juncture, he
consented to send Captain Illan to Spain on his private affairs, whilst
he still remains in the service here. I pray your Majesty to take such
measures for rewarding Julian's many services as they deserve. I can
assure you that what he has done in this campaign alone places your
Majesty under a deep obligation to him. He is one of the most useful
men of his quality that I have ever known, and I shall warmly welcome
any mark of favour your Majesty may confer upon him."
Romero's own letter to the King to accompany this plainly tells how
much the hard old soldier yearned for rest. "I have been," he says,
"in your Majesty's service now in this guise for well-nigh forty years,
without leaving it for a single hour; my work in this campaign has
been, as your Majesty knows, extremely hard, and as I have lost the
full use of my legs, arms, and eyes, I besought the Duke to give me
leave to go home, which he did. When I went to Brussels to take leave
of him a letter was handed to me from your Majesty ordering me not to
leave these States. I obey your Majesty's orders, but the Duke and the
{107} Grand Commander (Requesens) have given me leave to send Captain
Illan to beg your Majesty personally to let me go and see my home
again. I need greatly to go, as is proved by my asking to do so now,
for otherwise I would not even go if I had leave."
Philip was the most ungenerous and ungrateful of employers, and for
reasons which presently will be stated it is doubtful whether Julian's
devotion was rewarded as Alba recommended that it should be,
notwithstanding a letter in the Record Office[22] from one of the many
false Englishmen then in Spanish Flanders, written to a Captain
Windebanke in Elizabeth's service. The writer was trying to get
Windebanke to play the traitor, and deplores that so good a captain
should be so scurvily rewarded by the Queen, whose penuriousness he
compares with Philip's (entirely imaginary) liberality. "Captain
Julian Romero," he says, "whom I knew a poor captain in Ireland, is now
worth £2,000, and has a pension of a thousand ducats." The writer was
probably false in his facts as he was in his patriotism, for I can find
no record of Julian's ever having been in Ireland, and only a few
months after the date of the letter we have his own word that he was
almost in indigence.
The new Viceroy, Requesens, was to try to do by conciliation what Alba
had failed to effect by severity. It was time to adopt a new policy,
for Southern Flanders was now nearly as disaffected as Holland, and
Zeeland was entirely in the hands of the Gueux. Its capital,
Middleburg, was held by Mondragon and his Spaniards, but {108} he was
closely beleaguered by the rebels and in the direst straits. Mondragon
was one of the best and bravest of the commanders on the Spanish side,
whose heroic relief of Tergoes still remains one of the brightest feats
of war ever performed, he had informed Requesens that, unless he were
relieved with food and stores, he should be forced to lay down his
sword and give up Middleburg to the despised "beggars of the sea"; so
the new Viceroy's first duty was to send aid to Middleburg and Ramua.
Two fleets were fitted out for the purpose in January, 1574, one
consisting of large ships under the famous Sancho de Avila was to go by
the main Scheldt and the Hundt, rather for the purpose of diverting the
rebel force than for any other action, whilst nine standards of
soldiers under Romero, and a great quantity of stores, were to go in a
fleet of seventy-two canal boats, barges, galliots, and crookstems,
through the narrow channels by way of Bergen-op-Zoom to the besieged
town. The naval commander was to have been De Beauvoir, with Glimes as
second in command. The former fell ill, and the Viceroy gave the chief
control to Romero, who protested that he was a soldier and not a
sailor, but at last consented to take the command.
The expedition began badly. Requesens came to the quay of Antwerp to
see it depart; Romero's flagship led the way, and as a salvo of honour
was fired, a gun on one of the boats burst, and the craft sank with all
hands. Then the leader looked behind and found several of his vessels
lagging. Antwerp itself was riddled with disaffection, and the Flemish
sailors had given him the slip, so the boats {109} had to be left
behind. Then Romero and his fleet dropped down the river and anchored
near Bergen, opposite Romerswald, to await another tide, Requesens, the
Viceroy, proceeding to the same place by road to witness the final
departure of the expedition from Bergen. At daybreak on the 21st the
rebel fleet, under Boisot, Admiral of Flanders, was seen to be
approaching them from the open water opposite. Romero's fleet was
surrounded by shallows and sand-banks, and largely manned by Flemish
sailors whose loyalty, to say the least of it, was doubtful, and de
Glimes, seeing the danger, begged his chief not to fight. Cardinal
Bentivoglio[23] says: "The Vice-Admiral would not have fought, knowing
the great disadvantage on his side. The enemy's ships were many more
in number, but Romero, either because his valour blinded his judgment,
or from his want of knowledge of maritime affairs, or perhaps because
the risk was forced upon him by Mondragon's urgent need, insisted upon
fighting." The disaster that followed is ascribed by Bentivoglio to
treachery of Romero's Flemish sailors, but, be that as it may, de
Glimes' ship first stranded, and others immediately followed, and, thus
helpless, were exposed to a galling musketry fire. Captain Osorio with
other ships went to the aid of de Glimes and immediately met with the
same fate. Greek fire was thrown into the Spanish vessels, and many of
them were burnt to the water's edge, the Viceroy the while standing on
the dyke helplessly witnessing the destruction of his force. When de
Glimes, the Vice-Admiral, had been killed, and his part of the fleet
destroyed, the rebels, acquainted {110} as they were with the intricate
passages, came alongside of Romero's flagship, grappling with it and
with its consorts. Boisot's decks towered high over the canal boats,
and the crews shot down from their superior position until nearly all
the Spaniards were killed, when at last a round shot crashed through
the timbers of the flagship, and Romero, fearing she was foundering,
jumped overboard on the land side with his few surviving comrades. He
came up spluttering and floundering within a few feet of the Viceroy,
who stood upon the bank. As he dragged himself up the dyke he blurted
out with a voice as vigorous as when he was giving the command to
charge, "I told your Excellency how it would be! You knew I was no
sailor but a foot soldier and nothing else. No more fleets for me; if
you gave me a hundred I should probably lose them all." Requesens gave
a graceful and generous answer, but the blow was a heavy one for the
Spanish power, for Middleburg and Ramua surrendered to the rebels, and
henceforward for ever Zeeland was lost to King Philip.[24] Seven
hundred of the Spanish force were killed, as was Boisot, the Flemish
admiral, and Romero's ship, with all his papers and instructions, fell
into the hands of the enemy.
Romero was sick at heart. Requesens' mild temporising looked to Alba's
iron lieutenant like lamentable weakness. There was only one way for
Julian to meet heresy and the assertion of independence, {111} and that
was by extermination. Philip apparently had sent him no rewards, or
even thanks, for his staying after Alba left, and had simply ignored
his prayer for leave to return home. This was nothing new, for the
King always treated his most faithful servants thus, but bluff Julian
probably did not know this at the time, and was bitterly disappointed.
After his defeat at Bergen he busied himself for some months in
planning fortifications and re-organising the forces, which Requesens
had found in a state of almost open mutiny for want of pay. By the end
of June his task was done, and affairs in South Flanders were looking
much more tranquil. No answer came from Madrid to Julian, who, sick
and mortified, counted the hours for the time when he might see his
home again. In June he wrote an interesting letter to the Viceroy,
which deserves to be repeated nearly in full. After recommending the
names of five officers for the future command of the forces he
says:[25] "I must now address you with my customary frankness and
clearness, and disabuse your mind, for once and for all, of the idea
that any offers or promises from his Majesty, or any one else, will
make me waver in my determination to return home next September.
Nothing but my own death shall stand in the way of this, so urgent is
my need to go; since my soul's health and the welfare of my wife and
children depend upon it, and the least of these reasons would be
sufficient to make me firm in my resolve. I have long wished to go but
have deferred it because my services here were so much required. I
very unwillingly consented to stay when the Duke of Alba {112} left;
with the sole object of being by your Excellency's side whilst you were
new to your position. I have been well repaid by the pleasure of
knowing you and would still serve you with all love and zeal, but the
moment now has arrived beyond which I cannot, and will not, stay. You
may judge whether I need go when I say that I have served his Majesty
40 years next Christmas without once resting from the wars and my duty.
I have lost in the service an arm, a leg, an eye, and an ear; and the
rest of my person is so seared with wounds that I suffer incessantly.
I have now just lost a dear son upon whom I built all my hopes--and
with good reason as the whole army will bear witness. You will judge
whether such troubles as these are not enough to break down my health
and spirits. Moreover I married nine years ago, thinking that I might
have some rest, but since then I have never been an entire year at
home. I have spent during my service nearly all the money I had with
my wife, and although I have a daughter at home, and one here of
marriageable age, I can do nothing to help them; except with the trifle
still left of my wife's money. I can, moreover, see plainly that this
is being exhausted by me at such a rate, that unless I can get home at
once, both my wife and myself will have to end our days in the
poor-house. You are so Christian a prince that I feel sure you will
not try to hinder my resolution, for, believe me, it is not for the
purpose of exalting or selling myself at a higher price that I urge it.
If when I have been home the King still thinks I may be useful, I will
try with all my heart, but it must be in some place where I may set up
my home and {113} have my wife by my side, for without her, all the
world shall not make me stir. I think I have already well deserved by
my sufferings and long service any favours his Majesty has conferred
upon me."
To this affecting and dignified letter the Viceroy replied saying that
he would no longer stand in the way. He had written four or five times
already to the King, urging him to fitly reward Julian's great
services, and had reason to believe that something would shortly be
done, but he had again written in the most pressing terms begging the
King not to neglect so good and true a servant. A day or two
afterwards Romero again wrote to the Viceroy another manly letter,
which shows how bitterly he felt the King's indifference to him. He
says: "With reference to your Excellency's kindness in begging his
Majesty to reward me, I am constrained to beseech that no further great
effort should be made. I will endeavour to pass the few years left to
me as decently as I can, and if I cannot have everything I desire I am
already as reconciled to leave it all as one who has the candle in his
hand. God is my witness that I have never served the King for lucre;
no, that has never been my target! True it is that I am cut to the
heart to see his Majesty extend his favours to others, who were
suckling at the breast when I was already a veteran, whilst he forgets
me, but this I lay to my ill luck and to God's will that I should
remain a poor man. But naked I was born; I have lived honourably and I
care for naught else. Pray therefore, trouble yourself no further on
my account. I trust before my departure hence God will settle the
affairs of {114} these States. At this season of the year there is
little stirring, and if when I have been home and set my house in
order, your Excellency should remain in your present straits; I pledge
my word as a Christian to come and serve again with all my strength.
If I were a batchelor and as hale as I used to be, you should see what
I would do. Worcum, June 27, 1574."
If Romero's desire of seeing his home again was fulfilled, as it
probably was, his visit must have been of short duration, for in
October of the next year he was commanding thirty standards of troops
before Zerusee, and endeavoured to capture an island near Dortrecht,
but was beaten by the Prince of Orange himself with the loss of 800
men.[26]
Early in the following year things had reached an acute stage.
Requesens was dead, and Don Juan of Austria, his successor, had not
arrived. The mercenaries in the Spanish service, unpaid and chafing at
inaction, were in open mutiny, and were plundering and maltreating
friends and foes indifferently to indemnify themselves. The Council of
State, mostly Flemish and Walloon nobles, were profoundly divided, and
already were doing their best to hold their own against the savage
Spanish soldiery. Brussels was held by Walloon troops in the interests
of the Council of State, the Spanish troops in the neighbourhood being
under the command of Romero. By the middle of March the Council were
obliged to meet and devise some means of pacifying the mutineers by
raising money to pay them, "without which many strange seditions must
happen." {115} They agreed with Romero to pay certain soldiers forty
crowns each, to satisfy them until the arrival of the new Governor, and
then sent him to parley with the mutineers. Strada says they would not
listen to him, but in any case most of his men fraternised with and
joined them. On his return to Brussels he was again sent by the
Council against the rebel Spaniards who had gone towards Maestricht.
English agents in Flanders[27] report that he had arranged a plot to be
carried out in his absence. He had left 200 of his men in Brussels,
and the plan was for Count Barlemont, one of the Council, to deliver
the keys of the city to them, in order that the mutineers, and probably
Romero with them, should enter the city and sack it. The plot was
discovered, and Barlemont deprived of the keys, and after Romero had
fruitlessly been to Maestricht, he found on his return to Brussels the
citizens in a frenzy of rage against the Spaniards in consequence of
the massacres at Alost and elsewhere by the mutineers. The infuriated
Flemings tore to pieces a servant of Jerome Rodas, the leading Spanish
councillor, and the latter, with Romero and Vargas, had to fly for
their lives to the stronghold in the palace. Henceforward the Flemish
Council and the Spaniards were completely estranged. The Council
proclaimed the mutineers rebels against the King, whilst Rodas assumed
to be Philip's sole representative.
Philip was in deep distress at the news.[28] Romero was to be warmly
thanked, the Council must {116} disband their forces, money would be
sent, Don Juan would soon arrive, and all would be settled. In the
meantime, however, the forces of the Council were attacking the
mutineers at Ghent, Maestricht, Alost, and elsewhere, and the Spanish
commanders, Sancho de Avila, Romero, Vargas, &c., whilst ostensibly
condemning them, were constrained daily to side more with their
fellow-countrymen. Romero at last escaped from Brussels and fortified
himself at Lierre, where a considerable force gradually joined him.
The Council sent word that they would attack him if he did not submit
to their authority, but when they attempted to do so his force, with
that of Vargas, routed the States troops. The massacre which followed
is explained by Mendoza by the fact that the Spaniards were hot-headed
youngsters, which they were not, but he is evidently ashamed of it. A
large number of spectators, students from Louvain and others, had come
out to see the fight. They were all slaughtered, as were soldiers and
civilians, armed and unarmed, men and women, without quarter and
without mercy, up to the very gates of Louvain. Thenceforward all hope
of restraint was lost. The Spanish soldiery were so many bloodthirsty
wild beasts, making no distinction between Flemish friends or foes, and
it was war to the knife on both sides. Romero's headquarters were
still at Lierre, although he kept up a close connection with the
mutineers at Alost, and his men seem to have outdistanced others in
their savagery, no attempt to moderate which appears to have been made
by their chief. Savage Rodas himself got frightened in October, and
wrote to the King that the Spanish soldiers were pillaging on {117} all
sides, and if some remedy were not sent soon from Spain, all would go
to perdition.[29]
Wherever Romero had a chance of fighting the States forces he did so,
and Mendoza gives particulars of many brilliant skirmishes in which the
Spaniards were successful, but which usually ended in an indiscriminate
massacre of Flemings. Sancho de Avila in the Antwerp citadel the while
was keeping up a close communication with the mutineers at Alost,
Ghent, and other places, whilst the citizens were collecting such
forces of Walloons and German mercenaries as they could. Sancho at
last was informed that unless he ceased to send aid to Alost he himself
would be held as a rebel to the King. This was a signal that he must
either submit to the dictation of the despised Flemish Council or
fight, and he chose the latter alternative. He sent out messengers on
all sides for the Spaniards to concentrate in Antwerp, and soon Romero
started out from Lierre with all his men. On his way he met the main
body of malcontents from Alost and greeted them with effusion. Vargas
with his men joined them also, and on the 4th of November they all
entered the citadel of Antwerp together. The townsmen and their troops
had already begun to run up earthworks to defend themselves against the
bloodthirsty marauders who had made a shambles of Alost, Maestricht,
and wherever else they had gained the upper hand. The rich booty of
Antwerp, and the thirst for blood, they knew would launch the greedy
hawks from the citadel upon the panting quarry {118} below, and they
determined to sell their lives and property dearly. Hungry and tired
as the Alost men were on their arrival at daybreak, no meal would they
consume until, as they said, they could break their fast in Antwerp.
Slaking their thirst and firing their brains only with wine, by eleven
o'clock before noon they were ready for the struggle. Then with solemn
prayer and blessing of banners as a preparation for their fell work,
they swept down in three bodies to the town to the aggregate number of
about 6,000 men. The scene that followed has often been described, and
need not be repeated here. In a few hours the richest city in
Christendom was a ravished corpse of its former self. Romero, with his
stalwarts of Spaniards and Almains, entered the city by the St.
George's gate and swept along the street of St. Michael, driving weak
young Egmont before him into a church at the end, where the Count was
taken.
Everywhere the Walloons turned and fled before the Spaniards. The
brave Champigny, Granvelle's brother, did his best heroically; the
townsmen, unused to arms, made what resistance they could, but the
States troops were worse than useless, and butchery was the only order
of the day. In the great square every house was occupied by Sancho de
Avila's men, who kept up a fusilade upon the frightened crowds of
unarmed people huddled together in the doorways. Soon the curling
smoke showed that the rich stores of merchandise, the noble palaces of
the merchant princes, and the lowly cottages of the artisans were alike
doomed to wanton destruction. The Spaniards, drunk with blood, blind
with rage, spared neither {119} age, sex, nor faith; and with one great
gust of fury swept like a blight over the doomed city. When the
blood-lust was partly sated, it was found that 6,000 unarmed people at
least had been slaughtered, and 6,000,000 ducats worth of property
stolen, with as much again burnt. The States infantry had all fled or
been killed. The Catholic Flemish nobles were scattered and lost, and
the Spaniards had Antwerp beneath their talons. Strada says that the
massacre and plunder were as much the work of the Walloons and Germans
as of the Spaniards, and bears testimony to the efforts of the Spanish
leaders to restrain the fury of their men, mentioning Sancho de Avila,
Mondragon, and others as having exerted their influence to that end,
but markedly omits the name of Romero. Rodas, writing to the King a
day after the fight, says the town was sacked against orders, and that
Avila, Romero, and Vargas, used great diligence to stop plunder. "They
deserve," he says, "well of his Majesty for the services they have
rendered in this great victory." Dr. Wilson, who certainly was not
prejudiced in favour of the Spaniards, says, on the other hand, in a
letter to Walsingham of the 13th of November,[30] that he fears the
Spaniards much less than the English refugees, "who are said to have
done the greatest murders and most horrible above all others, and all
Englishmen are hated for their sake."
Flemings of every faith were welded together now against the wreckers
of their homes, and even those nobles who, through all the evil past
had stood by Spain, the Perennots, the Croys, the Montmorencis, the
Zweveghems, were at one with {120} the Protestants of the North. Don
Juan found himself, when he arrived, in face of a united people glowing
with indignation, and determined to prevent the destruction of its
liberties, strong enough now to force terms upon him. The first demand
of the Flemings was that all Spaniards should withdraw from Flanders,
and the second that Rodas, Avila, and Romero should lose their heads
for their share in the massacres. To the first demand the Prince was
forced to accede, with the second he fenced diplomatically; and soon
Romero was on the march at the head of his men going from Flanders to
Italy with the curses of all Flemings following him.
Don Juan could not brook for long the dictation and exactions of the
Council, he took the bit between his teeth, seized the citadel of
Namur, defied them all to do their worst, and made up his mind to fight
it out in spite of the King's orders. Then the veteran forces, by
which Alba had crushed the Low Countries, the bloodthirsty savages who
had ravished them before, were once more recalled from Italy, late in
1577. Romero was designated for the chief command of an army of 6,000
men who were to act subsequently under Alexander Farnese in Flanders.
He was starting on his march from Cremona at the head of his force,
when the war-worn old soldier, without a moment's warning, fell from
his horse, dead. He breathed his last as he had lived, full-armed and
harnessed for the fray, surrounded by the fierce soldiery he had led so
often. Strada says his death caused the deepest grief, as he was
looked upon as the mainstay of the new attempt to dominate the
Flemings. Another {121} contemporary historian, Cabrera de Cordova,
wrote of him, "his loss caused profound sorrow by reason of the urgent
need for his valour and experience, which had enabled him to rise from
a common soldier to be a general, whilst his prowess and knowledge of
war well deserved, the last promotion to the rank in which he died,
namely, that of commander-in-chief of great enterprises."
For some years even after his death his name was used to threaten
England with, and the presence of another younger Captain Julian with
the Spanish auxiliaries to the Irish rebellion of 1579-80 gave rise to
many trembling rumours that the terrible Romero himself was there.
But he is forgotten now, even in his own country; the cause he fought
for, the supremacy of Catholicism, has been beaten everywhere but in
Spain, where stern intolerance, and indifference to personal suffering
still linger as things to be proud of. It has seemed to me, however,
that the devotion, the valour, and the self-sacrifice of the rough
soldier who rose to be "commander-in-chief of great enterprises,"
dimmed though they be by cruel ferocity, might well be rescued in this
gentler age from the oblivion in which they lay so long.
[1] "Chronicle of Henry VIII.," edited by Martin A. S. Hume. London,
1889.
[2] Jean de Beaugé, "Histoire de la guerre d'Ecosse," 1548-9. Maitland
Club.
[3] Calendar of State Papers (Foreign).
[4] Ibid.
[5] Motley.
[6] "Documentos ineditos para la historia de España," vol. lxxv.
[7] Motley.
[8] "Comentarios de las Guerras de los paises bajos." Mendoza.
[9] Calendar of State Papers (Foreign).
[10] Ibid.
[11] Calendar of State Papers (Elizabeth), Spanish, vol. ii.
[12] Calendar of State Papers (Foreign).
[13] Calendar of State Papers (Elizabeth), Spanish, vol. ii.
[14] "Simancas Documentos ineditos," vol. lxxv.
[15] Strada, "De Bello Belgico."
[16] "Documentos ineditos," vol. lxxv.
[17] "Documentos ineditos," vol. lxxv.
[18] "Documentos ineditos," vol. lxxv.
[19] "Comentario de las Guerras de los paises bajos."
[20] Calendar of State Papers (Foreign).
[21] "Documentos ineditos," vol. lxxv.
[22] Calendar of State Papers (Foreign).
[23] "Guerra di Fiandra."
[24] The account of this disaster is taken from three contemporary
accounts--Mendoza's "Comentarios de la Guerra de los paises bajos";
Strada's "De Bello Belgico," and Bentivoglio's "Guerra di Fiandra."
[25] "Documentos ineditos," vol. lxxv.
[26] Calendar of State Papers (Foreign).
[27] Herll to Burleigh, Rogers to Walsingham, and Harise to Burleigh.
Calendar of State Papers (Foreign).
[28] Philip to Rodas. Calendar of State Papers (Foreign).
[29] Rodas to Philip (intercepted). Calendar of State Papers (Foreign).
[30] State Papers (Domestic).
[Illustration: tailpiece]
{123}
_THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT._
[Illustration: PHILIP AND MARY
(_After the painting by Antonio Mor._)]
{125}
[Illustration: Headpiece]
_THE COMING OF PHILIP THE PRUDENT._[1]
It is somewhat curious that English historians, in
describing an event fraught with such tremendous
possibilities to Christianity as the coming of the
Spanish prince to wed Mary of England, should
have entirely overlooked a source of information
which was more likely than any other to abound in
interesting and trustworthy details of the voyage--I
mean the contemporary narratives of Spaniards
who accompanied Philip hither. So far as regards
the splendid pageantry that marked the new
consort's entrance into London the English records
themselves leave nothing to be desired. Darnley's
tutor, John Elder, in his letter to his pupil's uncle,
the Bishop of Caithness,[2] descends to the minutest
particulars, and is amply confirmed by the anonymous
Chronicle of Queen Mary in the Harleian
manuscripts, whence John Stow derived his
{126}
information; by Edward Underhyll, "the hot-gospeller";[3]
and the letters of the French ambassador, Antoine de
Noailles.[4] The gorgeous ceremonies that attended
the marriage in Winchester Cathedral are also
sufficiently described by these and other authorities, as
well as in the official account of the English heralds
of the time, copied from the Book of Precedents of
Ralph Brooke, York herald, and printed in Leland's
"Collectanea," edit. 1774, and by the Camden
Society, 1849;[5] but the accounts given by English
historians of Philip's voyage and reception at
Southampton appear to rest entirely upon a
narrative of the Venetian, Baoardo, published in
Venice in 1558, four years after the event, and
the letters of Noailles to the King of France.
Miss Strickland and the late Mr. Froude, both
of whom draw upon Baoardo to a large extent
for their local colour, quote him as an eyewitness
of the scenes he describes. Whether he was so
or not I do not know, although I have been
unable to discover any evidence of his presence,
but in any case the bitter animus against Philip
shown in his narrative is so clear that it is unfair to
accept his statements without ample confirmation.
Such confirmation seems to have been sought,
{127}
by Mr. Froude at all events, in the letters of
the French ambassador, and from this material,
coupled with the fact that certain prudent measures
of precaution were suggested by Simon Renard,
the Emperor's ambassador, in his letters to his
master, the historian paints his highly coloured
picture of Philip as a sulky, seasick craven
trembling at his very shadow, in momentary
fear of poison, consummating a sacrifice from
which his soul revolts. To justify this view
Professor Froude depended mainly upon Noailles.
It must, however, be remembered, first, that the
French ambassador was not in a position to know
the exact details of Philip's voyage and reception;
secondly, that he was the last person in the world to
give a fair account of them; thirdly, that the
historian has gone beyond his authority, even such as
it was; and fourthly, that several witnesses of the
events described, whose evidence has hitherto been
ignored, entirely fail to confirm the view taken by
Mr. Froude from Noailles and Baoardo.
Throughout the whole negotiations that had
preceded the arrangement of the marriage Noailles
had been absurdly ill-informed and wide of the
mark.[6] His letters to the King of France and
the Constable teem with predictions and
assertions which subsequent events proved to be quite
wrong, and it is easy to see that for months
{128}
previous to the marriage he was entirely hoodwinked,
and out of touch with trustworthy sources
of information. In a letter to the French adviser
of Mary of Lorraine in Scotland, M. d'Oysel,
dated 29th of March, 1554, for instance, he
speaks of the Earl of Bedford's departure for
Spain as an accomplished fact, and has no doubt
that he had already sailed from Plymouth to fetch
the Prince. On May 18th, after ringing the
changes upon this for nearly two months, he tells
the King that the rumour runs that Bedford is to go
shortly to Spain, but that the Prince will not come
until the winter, whereas Philip had already left
Valladolid at the time on his way to England. On
the 31st of March Noailles is quite persuaded that
Wyatt's life will be spared, and less than a fortnight
later he describes his execution. On the 29th of
March, again, he says that the Bishop of Norwich,
the Queen's ambassador to the Emperor, had been
summoned to perform the marriage, and was to be
created Archbishop of York for the purpose.
Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, really performed
the ceremony. Noailles again is quite sure that
other Wyatts will arise, and that 50,000 men will be
in arms to receive the Prince, and in April, after
writing for weeks of the preparations for the arrival
of Philip on the south coast and marriage at
Winchester, he believes it all to be a feint and that the
Prince will suddenly appear and be married in London.
On the 29th of the same month he is strongly
of opinion that Sir James Crofts will be executed
on the following Monday, whereas that distinguished
old soldier lived and fought and sold himself for many
years afterwards. Hardly a letter, indeed, from
{129}
Noailles at this period fails to show that the man,
having been completely outwitted by Renard's
keen diplomacy, was entirely at sea, and badly
served by his informers.
But I go beyond this. Philip had anchored in
Southampton Water on the afternoon of the 19th
of July, 1554, and landed on that of the 20th.
On the night of the 20th, after the Prince had
landed, Noailles learnt in London, by an imperial
messenger, for the first time of his arrival, and
communicated the news to the King of France
immediately by letter; and on the 23rd he writes:--
"J'ai envoyé ung des miens á Hamptonne et a
Winchestre et despescheray demain encores ung
aultre pour estre mieulx par mesme informé de tout
ce qui se fera tant a la terre que sur la mer
... affin de tenir advertye vostre majeste."
It is clear, therefore, that Noailles had no
trustworthy person to give an exact account of the
reception of the Prince until the arrival of the latter
at Winchester; and the description in his letters of
Philip's voyage and doings at Southampton was
merely current gossip dressed up to suit the palate
of the writer and his master.[7] How much impartiality
could be expected from Noailles under the
{130}
circumstances may well be imagined. He had been
thoroughly outmanoeuvred, and French diplomacy
had received a greater blow than it had sustained
for many years in seeing England drift apparently
for good into the arms of Spain. His country was
at the very moment engaged in a long and costly
war with the Emperor, and he himself had just been
detected and exposed for the second time in his
attempts to suborn and support rebellion in England,
and was in high dudgeon at being pointedly excluded
from participation in the marriage festivities. What
wonder, then, that after slandering the Queen for
months past he should do as much as possible to
darken the shadows of the picture of Philip sent
for the delectation of Philip's enemy? It were
expecting too much to suppose that the outwitted
diplomatist and supple courtier would do otherwise.
Ill-natured, however, as are Noailles' references
to Philip, even they do not, in my opinion, warrant
the distorted picture inferentially derived from them.
To instance a small matter of which much is made
by Froude--namely, the vivid scene of the
sea-sick Prince gulping down beer on the night of his
arrival at Southampton, to please the English
spectators at his public repast--Noailles says not a word
about Philip's being ill or seasick, nor do any other
chroniclers of the time, that I am aware of. The
only foundation for the story seems to be a remark
contained in a letter from the Earl of Bedford and
Lord Fitzwalter from Santiago (Calendar of State
Papers, Foreign) to the effect that, "as the Prince
suffers much at sea, it will be well to make preparations
for him to land at Plymouth, or other port on
the south coast if necessary."
{131}
The voyage was a beautifully calm one, and
the Prince had remained on board the _Espiritu
Santo_, at anchor in Southampton Water, for
twenty hours at least before he landed; and,
instead of the dramatic scene at his public supper
described by Froude, his repast was a private
one; and according even to Noailles, who is alone
responsible for the story, _after supper_, in the
presence chamber, Philip told his Spanish courtiers
that in future they must forget the customs
of their country and live like Englishmen, and
"when, according to the English fashion, a quantity
of wine, beer, and ale was brought in silver flagons,
he took some beer and drank it"--a very simple
and appropriate compliment to his new country; but
even Noailles tells the story without a hint of the
loathing of unwilling sacrifice with which Froude
invested the perfectly natural scene.
Having thus far spoken of the authorities upon
which English historians have hitherto based their
descriptions of the coming of Philip the Prudent,
and pointed out a few of what I venture to think
their obvious shortcomings, I will mention some
other contemporary narratives which may well, it is
true, sin just as much on the score of partiality, but
at any rate afford a view of the events recorded
that has hitherto been almost entirely
ignored--namely, the view taken by those Spaniards who
accompanied their Prince in his voyage to England
in quest of his eager but elderly bride.[8]
{132}
Amongst the five hundred courtiers and servants,
besides soldiers, who accompanied Philip to England,
several would naturally be able and disposed
to put upon record, for transmission to their friends
in Spain, full narratives of the great events they
witnessed--events, be it said, which had deeply
stirred the public imagination of Spaniards, who had
been taught to believe that the marriage of their
prince in England would mean not only the mastery
of their country over France, but the restoration of
all Christendom to the true faith. These letters, in
a period when newspapers were not, would
frequently be printed and circulated by enterprising
booksellers, and no doubt many of such newsletters,
both in print and manuscript, are still hidden
in bundles and volumes of miscellaneous papers in
the public and private libraries in the Peninsula.
One curious manuscript letter, written from
Winchester by Juan de Barahona to Antonio de
Barahona, was found in the library of the Escorial fifty
years ago, and published in the first volume of the
"Documentos ineditos para la Historia de España"
in 1842. The manuscript had belonged to the
contemporary chronicler Florian de Ocampo, and gives
an extremely full account of the voyage, reception,
and marriage, abounding in curious details of the
life, dress, and manners of the time. In referring
to this narrative in the following pages I shall
distinguish it as narrative No. 1.
{133}
Many years later there was discovered in the
Biblioteca Nacional a record which, to Spaniards at
least, was much more valuable and interesting. It
was a printed tract entitled "Summary and
Veracious Relation of the Happy Voyage made by
the Unconquered Prince of the Spains, Don Felipe,
to England, and his Reception in Vinchester, where
he was married, with his Departure for London;
in which are contained the great and marvellous
things that happened at that time. Dedicated to
the Most Illustrious Lady Donna Luisa Enriquez
de Giron, Countess of Benavente, by Andres
Muñoz, Servant to his Serene Highness the Infante
Don Carlos. Imprinted in Caragoca, in the house
of Esteban de Najera, 1554, at the cost of Miguel
de Çapila, bookseller." The author was a lackey
to the unhappy Don Carlos, then a child, and his
own personal observation is confined to the elaborate
preparations for Philip's voyage made in the
city of Valladolid and the journey of the little prince
to Benavente, in Castile, to take leave of his father.
What he saw and heard he relates with a trivial
minuteness of detail, particularly as to the persons
who were to accompany Philip and the clothes they
took with them, which to an ordinary reader would
be tedious in the extreme. But although his own
share in the voyage ended at Benavente, whence
Don Carlos returned to Valladolid, Muñoz
apparently made arrangements with some member of
the suite--no doubt of similar rank to himself--to
send him particulars from England, and his account
is therefore carried down to the departure of Philip
and Mary for London after their marriage. This
is by far the fullest account known, especially as to
{134}
the events prior to Philip's embarkation; but the
writer's position naturally caused him to dwell
mainly upon the sartorial aspect of things which
came under his observation, and he describes the
splendour and pageantry rather as a spectator than
as an actor. I shall call Muñoz's narrative No. 2.
About the same time as the discovery of Muñoz's
letter three other letters, which in my opinion are
even more valuable, because of the position of the
supposed author, were found in the Escorial library.
The first is a printed tract in the form of a diary and
is entitled "Transcript of a Letter sent from
England to this City of Seville, in which is given a
Relation of the Events of the Voyage of our Lord
the Prince Don Philip, from his Embarkation in
the Coruña, a Port of Spain, to his Marriage to the
Serene Queen of England. 1554." The book
bears the well-known device, although not the
name, of the celebrated Sevillian printer Andres de
Burgos. In the same library was found a manuscript
letter taking up the narrative where the
last-mentioned tract ended--namely, after the marriage
at Winchester at the end of July--and carrying it
to August 19th, when the Court was at Richmond.
No printed copy of this continuation is known to
exist, but it is almost certainly written by the same
hand, and contains many remarks and opinions
which would probably have been suppressed if the
letter had been published. A continuation of this,
again, was also found in the Escorial, written
apparently by the same person, bringing the narrative
down to October 2nd, and is dated from London,
where the King and Queen then were. These three
letters, which I shall distinguish by the numbers 3,
{135}
4, and 5, were published, together with Muñoz's
narrative (No. 2), by the Society of Bibliophilists of
Madrid in 1877, under the editorship of Don
Pascual de Gayangos.
In inquiring into the probable authorship of these
three extremely valuable and interesting letters
Señor de Gayangos gives good reason for supposing
that they were written by a young courtier
named Pedro Enriquez, one of Philip's stewards.
He is known to have had a perfect mania for
writing relations of what he saw and heard, and has
been called the Spanish Tacitus.[9] He was a
brother of the Marquis of Villanueva and a relative
both of the Duke and Duchess of Alba, of whose
movements he gives a very minute account in the
above letters. He also identifies himself as a
steward of the King in one of his complaints of the
exclusive service of Philip by Englishmen, and is
known to have been one of the very few Spanish
noblemen who remained with Philip in London.
His style, moreover, is peculiar, and I have had a
former opportunity of commenting upon it in
connection with a rapid and industrious piece of
historical transcription of his, executed in the
following year in Ghent;[10] and I have no doubt
that Don Pedro Enriquez was the author of the
three letters I am speaking of. Few people could
have had better opportunities of observation than
he. He accompanied Philip everywhere; his rank
and his relationship to the all-powerful Alba brought
him within the inner circle of the Court, and the
{136}
feelings he expresses are those of the nobles who
surrounded the King and not the gossip of the
servants' hall or a valet's list of his master's finery.
With these four letters the Society for Bibliophilists
printed another by a different author, addressed
from London at the end of December, 1554, giving
a very full account of the reception of Cardinal Pole;
but as this does not touch the subject in hand I
omit any further reference to it.
In the British Museum there is a small tract in
Italian, apparently printed in Milan in 1554, called
"The Departure of the Serene Prince with the
Spanish Fleet, and his Arrival in England, with the
Order observed by the Queen in his Highness's
Reception, and the most Happy Wedding; with the
Names of the English, Spanish, and other Lords
and Gentlemen who were present, and the Liveries,
Festivities, and other Things done at the Wedding." It
is signed "Giovanni Paulo Car," and the writer
was a servant of the Marquis of Pescara. A
paraphrase or adaptation of the letter also exists in the
Museum, and appears to have been published in
Rome in the same year, but it is not signed, and
contains many additional particulars. The contents
of these two tracts, again, appear to have been
blended into a narrative published in the following
year, probably in Rome, in which the person to
whom the letter is addressed is described as the
"illustrious Signor Francesco Taverna Cracanz,"
and although it is not signed by Car it evidently is
by him, as he speaks of the Marquis of Pescara all
through the narrative as his master. I propose in
referring to this narrative to call it No. 6. We have
thus a mass of contemporary evidence from persons
{137}
who were certainly attached to Philip's suite, by the
aid of which and the authorities already known a
more minute and trustworthy account than any
hitherto presented of the events in question may be
constructed.
Renard had first broached the subject of the
marriage to Mary in August, 1553, and all the
attempts of Noailles to inspire fear and hatred of
the match in the breasts of the Queen and her
people had only made her more determined to carry
out the wishes of her heart, and, as she no doubt
herself thought, to enhance the happiness and
prosperity of her people. Egmont and his glittering
train had been snowballed by the London 'prentices
when he came formally to offer Philip's hand to the
Queen in January, 1554. A whirlwind of passion
and panic had passed over southern England at the
thought of a Spanish consort ruling in the land, and
at about the time that gallant Wyatt and his
dwindling troop of "draggle-tayles" were wearily
toiling up Fleet Street, only to find that the Queen's
courage and their leader's irresolution had wrecked
their enterprise, a dusty courier clattered into
Valladolid with the premature news that Lord Privy
Seal, the Earl of Bedford, and another English lord
had started for Spain with the contract that was to
make Philip king of England. His Highness was
hunting at umbrageous Aranjuez, a hundred miles
off, and the messenger, just alighting to kiss the
hand of poor lame little Prince Carlos, went
scouring over the tawny plains again, bearing his
pregnant tidings.
The courting had all been done by the Emperor
through clever Renard; and the Prince, dutiful
{138}
son as he was, bent to his father's will without
even knowing the terms of the bargain by which
he was to be bound for life. The conditions
imposed by the patriotism of Mary and her Council
were hard for the most powerful monarch on earth
to brook for his son. Philip's power was so fenced
round by limitations and safeguards that it was plain
to see the English nobles meant his sceptre to be a
shadowy one, and the sombre, sensitive pride of the
Prince was wounded to the quick at the light esteem
in which they seemed to hold him; but, as Sandoval
says, "he, like a second Isaac, was ready to sacrifice
himself to his father's will and the good of the
Church." And he did so gracefully and with
dignity. No sooner had the courier delivered his
message at Aranjuez than Philip set off on his
return to Valladolid with his gaudy escort of horsemen
in their red and yellow doublets. In hot haste
the old Castilian capital put on its holiday garb to
celebrate the event; the great square, standing
much as it stands to-day, was bravely adorned, and
costly hangings covered all one side of it where the
Prince sat to see the jousts, tourneys, cane-play, and
fireworks, and where he sat, alas! the next time he
saw Valladolid, on his return five years afterwards, to
watch unmoved the hellish fireworks of the great
_auto de fé_.
The wedding rejoicings had hardly begun when
they were changed to mourning by the news of the
death of Don Juan of Portugal, the husband of
Philip's sister Juana; and the narrator, Muñoz,
breaks off in the midst of his rapture over the
splendour of Valladolid's joy to relate the pompous
grandeur of its sorrow--how between the screen
{139}
and the altar of St. Paul's there were 3,000
candles of white and yellow wax, and how all the
solemnity of previous exequies paled before these.
In the meantime Philip had sent one of his stewards,
Don Gutierre Lopede Padilla, to receive the English
envoys at Laredo. After waiting there for a month
with the Prince's guard to pay them due honour,
he found that the news sent had been premature,
and that the marriage treaty had not yet even been
ratified, and was not, indeed, until Egmont's second
visit to England in March. So Padilla found his
way back again to Valladolid by the end of March,
and they decided to take the matter in more leisurely
fashion in future. But in a few weeks came news
from the Emperor himself that the contract was
ratified, and then the Marquis de las Navas was
ordered to take the Prince's first present to his
bride. We are told that the Marquis fitted
himself out for his mission regardless of cost, and his
splendour appears to have been equalled by the
princely gifts of which he was the bearer, and
the noble hospitality extended to him in England.[11] Philip's
offering to Mary consisted of "a great table
diamond, mounted as a rose in a superb gold setting,
valued at 50,000 ducats; a collar or necklace of 18
brilliants, exquisitely worked and set with dainty
grace, valued at 32,000 ducats; a great diamond
with a fine large pearl pendant from it (this was
Mary's favourite jewel, and may be seen on her
breast in most portraits). They were (says narrative
No. 2) the most lovely pair of gems ever seen in the
world, and were worth 25,000 ducats. Then comes
{140}
a list of pearls, diamonds, emeralds, and rubies of
inestimable value, and other presents without number
for the Queen and her ladies. Eighty fine horses
and fifty hackneys were sent on to Corunna to await
the Prince's coming, and all Castile and Aragon, not
to speak of Leon, were alive with artificers of the
gorgeous garb and trappings to fit out the proud
nobles who were to follow their Prince, each, with
true Spanish ostentation, bent upon outstripping the
others in the richness and splendour of themselves
and their train.[12] Muñoz, in narrative No. 2, gives
a list of the clothes made for each of the principal
grandees, which it would be tedious and unnecessary
to repeat here.
The Prince, great as he was, was only first among
his peers, and if he could be magnificent so could
his train, and Alba and Medina-Celi, Egmont and
Aguilar, Pescara and Feria vied with their master
in their finery. Each great noble--and there were
twenty of them--took his train of servants in new
liveries, and the Prince had a Spanish guard of
100 gentlemen in red and yellow, 100 Germans
in the same uniform, but with silk facings, "as
their custom is to go bravely dressed," 100
archers on horseback, and 300 servants in the
same gaudy colours of Aragon. All this splendid
apparatus was a comparatively new thing for
Spaniards at the time; the homely, unceremonious
relations between sovereign and people
had only been put aside for the pompous etiquette
{141}
of the house of Burgundy, on the coming of Philip's
grandfather from Flanders with his Spanish bride to
take up the sceptre dropped by the dead hand of
Isabel the Catholic, and the gold of the Indies had
since that time poured into Spain and spread a thirst
for showy pomp even amongst the frank, honest,
homely gentlemen who had formed a majority of
the Spanish hidalgo class. The changed taste,
however, was new enough still to attract the attention
of the crowd who had not yet become accustomed
to so much splendour.
All these elaborate preparations being completed,
Philip, with nearly 1,000 horsemen, glittering and
flashing in the pitiless Castilian sun, left Valladolid
on the 14th of May--not for England yet, but
far down on the Portuguese frontier, at Alcantara,
to meet his widowed sister, who had been forced to
come out of her bitter grief to govern her father's
kingdom during Philip's absence. He accompanied
her five days on her journey to Valladolid, and then
turning aside to take a last leave of his mad
grandmother, Juana la Loca, bent his course towards
Benavente, on the high road to Santiago, arriving
there on the 3rd of June, covered with dust of travel,
but gracious, as he could be, to those who had
entertained his boy Carlos, who had preceded him.
Next day there was a grand bull-fight in the plaza,
which Philip and Carlos saw from Pero Hernandez's
flower-decked house. The return of the Princes to
Count Benavente's castle was not quite so dignified as
it might have been, as one bull was so "devilish"
that it refused to be killed, and held the plaza
victoriously against all comers until the next
morning, whereupon Philip and his son had to slip out
{142}
by Pero Hernandez's back door and reach the
castle by a roundabout way. The day after there
was a hunt and a tourney, and then after supper
the Princes mounted on a high scaffold, richly
dight, to see "a procession of beautiful and strange
inventions." Torches blazed all round them, and
each device was led by one of the neighbouring
squires with twenty pikemen and drummers and
fifers, each detachment in a separate livery.
Elephants manufactured out of horses and pasteboard,
castles with savages inside, a green tabernacle
with a lovely maiden borne by savages, a
model of a ship dressed with English and Spanish
flags, and, strangest of all, a girl in a coffin
complaining of Cupid, who came behind on horseback.
When the device reached the middle of the plaza
the god of love was suddenly hoisted on high by a
rope round his middle, and let off fireworks, to the
delectation of the crowd. As a relief to this foolery
the great Lope de Rueda then represented "a sacred
play with comic interludes," which, no doubt, was
better worth seeing than the "conceits and fireworks"
that pleased the narrator so much. The next day,
after bidding good-bye to the son who was afterwards
to hate him so bitterly, the Prince started in the cool
of the summer night on his way to the sea.
At Astorga a splendid reception had been prepared
for him, but he could not stay, and pushed on
with all possible speed, news having reached him
that the Earl of Bedford and Lord Fitzwalter were
already awaiting him at Santiago. There he arrived
on the vigil of St. John, the 23rd of June, and there
as usual golden keys were offered by kneeling
citizens; silks and satins, velvets and brocades
{143}
flaunted in the sun, and in the upper window of
a house on the line of route sat the two English
lords, their mantles before their faces, watching
the progress of their future king to worship at the
shrine of the Spanish patron saint, St. James. The
next morning Philip sent a party of his highest nobles
to bring Bedford and Fitzwalter to him, and "being
advised of their coming, his Highness came out of
his chamber into a great hall, strangely hung with
rich tapestries, and on the lords half-kneeling and
doffing their bonnets the Prince received them
graciously, with his hat in his hand. The principal
ambassador (_i.e._, Bedford), a grandee and a good
Christian, produced the marriage contract, the
conditions of which his Highness accepted before all
present. As the contents were only known to the
Prince and his Council, we were unable to learn them.
The English nobles then kissed hands in turn, and
as they went out one said to the other in his own
tongue, 'Oh! God be praised for sending us so
good a king as this.' The remark was made so
quietly that it would not have been noticed, only that
a Spanish gentleman who understood their language
stood close to them and happened to hear it."
The envoys had some reason to be pleased with
their Queen's future consort, for after accompanying
him to the cathedral the next day Bedford received
as a gift what is described as being one of the finest
pieces of gold ever seen, of exquisite and elaborate
workmanship, chased with grotesque figures, and
standing a yard and a half high, of solid gold.
The narrator (No. 2) says that 6,000 ducats' worth
of gold was employed in the making of it, and
the handiwork cost more than 1,000. The twenty
{144}
English gentlemen who accompanied the envoys all
received splendid gifts, although their appearance
was already sufficiently rich with their "thick gold
chains and great copiousness of buttons," which last
characteristic of English fashion at the time seems
to have attracted most of the Spanish observers.
Four days were spent in rest and rejoicing at
Santiago, and then a three days' ride brought
them to Corunna, where there were more rejoicings.
Kneeling aldermen at the gate presented golden
keys as usual; a marvellous canopy was held over
the Prince's head; triumphal arches spanned the
way; and the local poet had contrived to evolve
the following couplet, which was held aloft by five
nymphs--
"No basta fuerza ni maña
Contra el principe de España,
which may be rendered--
"Force and cunning both in vain
Strive against the Prince of Spain."
The narrator (No. 2) airs his historical knowledge
in describing an allegorical group containing a figure
of Hercules, whom he speaks of as having been "a
King of Spain before Christ, and having built many
great edifices in the country, such as the Pillars of
Hercules at Cadiz and the tower at the entrance
to the port of Corunna, where there is a marvellous
mirror showing ships that are far off at sea."
With all pomp, and with a naked sword of justice
borne before him by his master of the horse, the
Prince was conducted to the shore to see the gallant
{145}
fleet riding at anchor awaiting him. Drawn up on
the beach were 600 Guipuzcoan sea warriors armed
with lances, and as the fleet and castle thundered
out their salutations the townsfolk, we are told,
feared their dwellings would all be shaken down,
and "for an hour and a half neither heaven nor
earth was visible." Thence the Prince went round
by the castle to the little dock, where forty Biscay
fisher boats were ready with their glistening cargoes
of fine fish to cast at the feet of their beloved Philip.
The English ambassadors begged as a favour that
the new consort would make the voyage in one of
the British ships that had brought them over, but
this was not considered prudent by Philip's cautious
councillors, and as a compromise the English envoys
were allowed to choose from amongst all the Spanish
ships the one that was to convey the Prince. Their
choice fell upon a fine merchant vessel commanded
by the bravest and best of those bold Biscay mariners
who are the pride of Spain, Martin de Bertondona,
and the next morning Philip and his Court went to
inspect it. A splendid sight it must have been with
its towering carved and gilded poop and forecastle.
It was hung, we are told, from stem to stern with
fine scarlet cloth, and aloft on every available spot
were coloured silk pennons. The forecastle was
hung with crimson brocade painted with golden
flames. A royal standard, thirty yards long, of
crimson damask, with the Prince's arms painted
on it, hung from the mainmast, and a similar flag
from the mizzenmast. The foremast had ten pointed
silk flags painted with the royal arms, and there
were thirty other similar flags on the stays and
shrouds. Three hundred sailors in red uniforms
{146}
formed the crew, and we are assured that the
effect of the ship was that of a lovely flower-garden,
as well it might be, and the cost of the
decorations was 10,000 ducats. The English ships
were then inspected and admired, and the ship that
had carried the Marquis de las Navas over to
England with the jewels was visited, and its
captain related how the good Queen was anxious
for her consort's arrival, and how she had ordered
1,000 gentlemen to await him with as many horses,
as she thought no horses would be brought from
Spain. All next day is spent in hunting, and the
favourite, Ruy Gomez, preceding his master on his
return into the town, is saluted by the fleet instead
of the Prince by mistake, much to the latter's
amusement. The next day heralds announced that every
one was to be examined by the Prince's alcalde before
embarking, and that no woman was to go without
her husband. Muñoz says that 12,000 soldiers were
shipped in the hundred ships (some of which
carried 300 bronze pieces) and thirty sloops that
formed the fleet, but this seems to be an
exaggeration, as narrative No. 6 gives 6,000 soldiers
and as many sailors as going in the main squadron
that convoyed Philip (consisting of about 100 sail);
and Noailles, who would minimise it as much as
possible, says 4,000. Don Luis de Carvajal
remained behind with about thirty sail to take the
troops that had not arrived (Noailles says 2,000) and
bring up the rear.
On the 12th of July Philip and his Court embarked
in a sumptuous galley of twenty-four oars, manned
by sailors in scarlet and gold, with plumed hats of
scarlet silk, and, amidst music, singing, and daring
{147}
gymnastic feats of the mariners, went on board
Martin de Bertondona's ship the _Espiritu Santo_.
The next day, Friday, at three in the afternoon
they set sail, the dense crowd on shore crying to
God to send the travellers a safe voyage, and in the
same breath hurling defiance to the French. There
was a slight swell and wind until next day at dinner,
when the weather fell dead calm, "which looked as
if it might last a month," but raised the spirits of
those who were depressed by "marine vomitings." The
next day a delightful fair breeze sprang up, and
on a smooth sea the splendid fleet ran across the
bay, sighting Ushant on Sunday. On Wednesday
a Flemish fleet of eighteen galleons, which was
cruising in the Channel, hove in sight, and
convoyed them past the Needles with some ships of
the English navy, and into Southampton Water,
where on Thursday, the 19th of July, at four o'clock,
the combined fleet anchored amid the royal salute
from the English and Flemish fleets of thirty
sail that were assembled to receive them. The
English and Flemish sailors had not got on
particularly well together during the time the
two fleets had awaited the arrival of Philip.
Renard had complained to the Emperor that
the Flemish sailors were hustled and insulted
whenever they set foot on shore, and Howard,
the lord admiral, had mocked at their ships
and called them cockle shells;[13] but I can
find no contemporary authority for the extremely
unlikely story of the English admiral having thrown
a shot across the bows of the Prince's fleet to compel
it to salute the English flag.
{148}
Philip, however, was determined to gain over the
jealous hearts of his new subjects by his courtesy and
graciousness. Renard's recommendations and the
Emperor's instructions had been very definite on the
point, and every account, Spanish, English, and
Italian, with the sole exception of Baoardo's, quoted
by Froude, agrees that the Prince's demeanour was
kindly, courteous, and frank. Damula, the Venetian
ambassador to the Emperor, writes to the Doge,[14]
saying that on disembarking the Prince treated
everybody with great graciousness and affability, without
any pomp or royal ceremony, mixing with people as
a comrade; and Cabrera, speaking of his arrival, says:
"Some of the English were inclined to be sulky,
but the King won them over with his prudence and
affability, and with gifts and favours, together with
his family courtesy." (Our narrative No. 6 specially
mentions the Prince's _cortesia e gentilezsa di parlore._[15])
As soon as the anchors were down the English
and Flemish admirals went on board the _Espiritu
Santo_ to salute the Prince, and the Marquis de las
Navas put off from Southampton with the six young
{149}
noblemen who were to be the new King's lords-in-waiting.
The Prince dined and slept on board, and
the next day there came off to him the Emperor's
ambassador, the Marquis de las Navas, Figueroa
("the ancient ambassador with the long white
beard"), Pescara, and the Earls of Arundel, Derby,
Shrewsbury, and Pembroke (?). Noailles was probably
wrong as regards the last-named nobleman, as
the Spanish narratives agree that he arrived at
Southampton from the Queen next day, with a splendid
escort for the new sovereign. He was also wrong
in asserting that the King was invested with the
Garter on board his vessel, for it appears to have
been given to him in the barge before he stepped
on shore by Arundel, probably assisted by Sir John
Williams--Lord Williams of Thame[16]--to whom
one of our narratives says the Prince gave the wand
of chamberlain, whilst the other narratives say the
office was conferred on "the man who brought him
the Garter." The future consort received these high
personages on board the _Espiritu Santo_ cap in
hand, and after presenting them to his principal
courtiers went on board the splendid barge awaiting
him, accompanied by the English nobles and by
Alba, Feria, Ruy Gomez and four chamberlains,
Olivares, Pedro de Cordoba, Gutierre Lopez de
Padilla, Diego de Acevedo, Egmont, Horn, and
Bergues. No sign was made to the rest of the
fleet, and the mass of courtiers only obtained leave
to land after the royal party had approached the
shore. No soldier or man-at-arms, however, was
{150}
to land, on pain of death, for not only had Philip
learnt from Renard the agony of distrust of the
Spanish arms felt by the English people, but he
had received news of his father's reverse in the
Netherlands and urgent orders to send him all
the troops and money he had or could obtain.
The Spanish fleet were not even allowed to enter
the port of Southampton, but after some delay, and
great discontent of the Spaniards at what they
considered such churlish treatment, were sent to
Portsmouth to revictual for their voyage to Flanders.
After the presentation of the chain and badge of
the Garter Philip stepped on English soil, and the
first to greet him was Sir Anthony Browne, who
announced in a Latin speech that the Queen had
chosen him for her consort's master of the horse,
by whom her Majesty had sent him the beautiful
white charger housed in crimson velvet and gold
that was champing the bit hard by. The Prince
thanked his new grand equerry, but said he would
walk to the house prepared for him; but Browne
and the lords of the household told him this was
unusual, and the former "took him up in his arms
and put him on the saddle," and then kissing the
stirrups walked bare-headed by the side of his
master. All the English and Spanish courtiers
preceded them, and amidst apparent rejoicing they
slowly passed through the curious crowd to the
Church of the Holy Rood. The Prince must have
looked an impressive figure with his dapper, erect
bearing, his yellow beard and close-cropped yellow
head, dressed as he was in black velvet and silver,
his massive gold chains and priceless gems glittering
in his velvet bonnet and at his neck and wrists.
{151}
Browne was no unworthy pendant to his prince.
He was dressed in a suit of black velvet entirely
covered with gold embroidery and a surcoat of the
same with long hanging sleeves.[17] When the Prince
had returned thanks for his safe voyage he was
conducted to the lodgings prepared for him, which we
are told were beautifully adorned, particularly two
rooms, a bedroom and presence chamber hung with
gold-worked damask with the name of King Henry
on it; but none of our narrators say anything about
Baoardo's story of the dismay caused by the words
_Fidei defensor_ on the hangings. All the English
archers and the guard and porters about the Prince
wore the flaming colours of Aragon, and the Spanish
attendants and courtiers looked on with jealous rage
at the attendance on him of English servants. The
dinner and supper were private, but the meals were
ostentatious, ceremonious, and too abundant for the
Spanish taste. On Saturday, the next day, the
same programme was gone through: to Mass in
the same order as before, the Spanish courtiers
being obliged to leave before the service was over,
in order to banish the idea that they were in official
attendance on the Prince, who came out surrounded
by Englishmen only. It rained so hard that his
Highness, who had no hat or cape, had to borrow
them of an Englishman near him, although the
church was just opposite his lodging.
Southampton is described in glowing terms. It
is said to be a beautiful port with 300 houses, which
were filled to their utmost capacity by the courtiers
{152}
and the 400 Spanish servants who landed the day
after the Prince. The Queen at Winchester had
learnt post-haste of the landing of her future
husband, and an active interchange of messengers were
soon scouring backwards and forwards through the
pitiless rain of the next three days. Early on
Saturday morning the Earl of Pembroke arrived from the
Queen with an escort for the Prince of 200 gentlemen
dressed in black velvet with gold chains and medals,
and 300 others in scarlet cloth with velvet facings,
all splendidly mounted. Then Egmont posts off to
kiss the Queen's hand, and meets Gardiner coming
to Philip with a costly diamond ring from her
Majesty. The next day twelve beautiful hackneys
come from the bride to her affianced husband, and
after that the well-beloved Ruy Gomez is dispatched
with a ring to thank her, and this interchange of
courtesy and compliment is thus kept up until all
things are arranged for the journey to Winchester.
Before Philip left Southampton, however, better
news came from Flanders. The French had not
followed up their victory at Marienberg, and the
Imperialists could breathe again. The 600 jennets
that came from Spain were therefore disembarked
and remained in England, as well as Philip's own
horses, "which," says Pedro Enriquez (No. 3), "the
master of the horse took to his own stable; not a
bad beginning to try and keep them altogether in
the long run." On Sunday, the day before he left
Southampton, Philip dined in public for the only
time there. He was served with great ceremony
by the English, but Alba, although he took no
wand of office in his hand, insisted on handing his
master the napkin, and the Spanish courtiers looked
{153}
on with ill-disguised contempt at what they
considered the clumsy service of their successors. The
courtier who wrote narrative No. 3 bursts out at this
point with his complaint: "My lady Doña Maria de
Mendoza was quite right when she said we should
be no more good. We are all quite vagabonds now
and of no use to any one. We had far better go
and serve the Emperor in the war. They make us
pay twenty times the value of everything we buy." The
next morning in the pouring rain the royal
cavalcade set out for Winchester, 3,000 strong. The
nobles and gentry had been flocking in for days
with their retainers in new liveries; Pembroke's
escort, with 200 halberdiers of the guard and as
many light-horse archers, dressed much as are the
beefeaters of to-day, guarded the Prince's person,
the Spanish guard, to their chagrin, being still on
board the ships. On the road 600 more gentlemen,
dressed in black velvet with gold chains, met his
Highness, and when nearing Winchester six of
the Queen's pages, beautifully dressed in crimson
brocade with gold sashes, with as many superb
steeds, were encountered, who told his Highness
the Queen had sent the horses to him as a present.
But not a word anywhere of Baoardo's sensational
story, embellished by Froude, of the breathless
messenger from the Queen, the terror-stricken
Prince, and the gloomy resolve to consummate his
sacrifice even if he got wet in doing it.
Philip was surrounded by the English nobles
Winchester, Arundel, Derby, Worcester, Bedford,
Rutland, Pembroke, Surrey, Clinton, Cobham,
Willoughby, Darcy, Maltravers, Talbot, Strange,
Fitzwalter, and North, and by about fifteen Spanish
{154}
grandees, whose names will have less interest for
English readers. He was dressed, when he started,
in a black velvet surcoat adorned with diamonds,
leather boots, and trunks and doublet of white satin
embroidered with gold; but this delicate finery had
to be covered by a red felt cloak to protect it from
the rain. Notwithstanding this it was too wet for
him to enter Winchester without a change, so he
stayed at a "hospital that had been a monastery
one mile from the city," and there donned a black
velvet surcoat covered with gold bugles and a suit
of white velvet trimmed in the same way, and thus
he entered, passing the usual red-clothed kneeling
aldermen with gold keys on cushions, and then to
the grand cathedral, which impressed the Spaniards
with wonder, and above all to find that "Mass was
as solemnly sung there as at Toledo."
A little crowd of mitred bishops stood at the great
west door, crosses raised and censers swinging, and
in solemn procession to the high altar, under a velvet
canopy, they led the man whom they looked upon as
God's chosen instrument to permanently restore their
faith in England. Then, after admiring the cathedral,
Philip and his Court went to the dean's house,
which had been prepared for his reception, in order
to allay the maiden scruples of the Queen with
regard to his sleeping under the same roof with her
at the bishop's palace before the solemnisation of
the marriage. After Philip had supped, and
presumably was thinking more of going to bed than
anything else, the Lord Chamberlain[18] and the Lord
Steward[19] came to him, it being ten o'clock at night,
{155}
and said the Queen was waiting for him in her
closet, and wished him to visit her secretly with
very few followers. He at once put on another
gorgeous suit, consisting of a French surcoat
embroidered in silver and gold, and a doublet and
trunks of white kid embroidered in gold, "and very
gallant he looked," says Muñoz's informant (No. 2).
The party traversed a narrow lane between the two
gardens, and on reaching a door in the wall the
Lord Steward told the Prince he could take with
him such courtiers as he chose. Philip did not
seem disposed to run any risks, and construed the
invitation in a liberal spirit, taking into the garden
Alba, Medina-Celi, Pescara, Feria, Aguilar, Chinchon,
Horn, Egmont, Lopez-Acevedo, Mendoza,
Carillo, and others. They found themselves in a
beautiful garden with rippling fountains and arbours,
which reminded them, they say, of the books of
chivalry. Indeed, nothing is more curious than the
grave seriousness with which all the Spanish
narrators refer to England as the land of Amadis and
of Arthur and his knights, and their attempts to
identify localities and characteristics of England
with the descriptions they have read of the land of
romance, which they firmly believe to be England
and not Brittany.
The Prince and his party entered by a little back
door, and ascended a narrow, winding staircase to
the Queen's closet. She was in a "long narrow
room or corridor where they divert themselves,"
surrounded by four or five aged nobles and as many
old ladies, the Bishop of Winchester being also with
her, and the whole party, we are told, was marvellously
richly dressed, the Queen herself wearing a
{156}
black velvet gown cut high in the English style
without any trimming, a petticoat of frosted silver,
a wimple of black velvet trimmed with gold, and a
girdle and collar of wonderful gems. She was
walking up and down when the Prince entered, and
as soon as she saw him went quickly towards him
and kissed her hand before taking his. In return
he kissed her on the mouth "in the English
fashion," and she led him by the hand to a chair
placed by the side of her own under a canopy.
The Queen spoke in French and her future husband
in Spanish, and they thus made themselves
well understood. Whilst they were in animated
converse the Lord Admiral (Lord William Howard),
"who is a great talker and very jocose," risked
some rather highly flavoured jokes, which the free
manners of the time apparently permitted. The
two lovers sat under their brocade canopy chatting
for a long time; but this probably seemed somewhat
slow to the bridegroom, who, after asking the
Queen to give her hand for all his Spaniards to kiss,
as they loved her well, begged to be allowed to see
her ladies, who were in another room. The Queen
went with him, and as the ladies approached two by
two he kissed them all "in his way" with his
plumed cap in his hand, "so as not to break the
custom of the country, which is a very good
one." Whether the Queen thought it good on this
occasion is not clear; but when her lover wanted to
leave directly the extensive osculation was over she
would not let him go, but carried him off for another
long talk with her. "No wonder," says the narrator
(No. 2), "she is so glad to get him and to see
what a gallant swain he is." When he had to leave
{157}
her she playfully taught him to say "Good-night,"
and he made this the excuse for going to the ladies
again to say it to them; but when he reached them
he had forgotten the outlandish words, and had to
come back to the Queen to ask her, "whereat she
was much pleased," but probably less so when he
found it necessary to go back once more to the
ladies to salute them with "God ni hit," Car, the
Marquis of Pescara's servant (narrator No. 6), in
describing this interview says that the Queen's
governess told the Prince she thanked God
for letting her live to see the day, but asked
his pardon for not having reared a more beautiful
bride for him. According to one of the Italian
variants of the same narrative the Queen is
still less complimentary to herself, and in reply
to Philip's thanks to her after the marriage says
it is she who is grateful to him for taking an old
and ugly wife[20] (_brutta e vecchia_). The courtier's
narrative (No. 4) speaks of the Queen in somewhat
less unfavourable terms and says: "Although she
is not at all handsome, being of short stature and
rather thin than fat, she has a very clear red and
white complexion. She has no eyebrows, is a
perfect saint, but dresses very badly."
This narrator is very critical about the ladies'
dresses and is quite shocked at some of the English
fashions. He says:--
"They wear farthingales of coloured cloth without
silk; the gowns they wear over them are of
{158}
damask, satin, or velvet of various colours, but very
badly made. Some of them have velvet shoes
slashed like men's, and some wear leather. Their
stockings are black, and they show their legs even
up to the knees, at least when they are travelling,
as their skirts are so short. They really look quite
indelicate when they are seated or riding. They
are not at all handsome, nor do they dance gracefully,
as all their dancing only consists of ambling
and trotting. Not a single Spanish gentleman is in
love with any of them[21] ... and they are not
women for whom the Spaniards need put themselves
out of the way in entertaining or spending
money on them, which is a good thing for the
Spaniards."
When the same narrator reaches London he
speaks with somewhat more experience, but his
opinion is not much modified. He says, when
speaking of the vast numbers of ladies that served
the Queen:--
"Those I have seen in the palace have not struck
me as being handsome; indeed, they are downright
ugly. I do not know how this is, because outside I
have seen some very beautiful and attractive women.
In this country women do not often wear clogs and
wraps, as they do in Spain, but go about the city
and even travel in their bodices. Some of them
walk in London with veils and masks before their
faces, which makes them look like nuns, who do not
wish to be known. Women here wear their skirts
{159}
very short, and their black stockings are trim and
tightly gartered; the shoes are neat, but are slashed
like men's, which does not look well to Spanish eyes."
Philip, we are told, slept late next morning, and
as soon as he was up the Queen's tailor brought him
two superb dresses, one made of very rich brocade
profusely embroidered with gold bugles and pearls,
with splendid diamonds for buttons, and the other
of crimson brocade. His Highness went to Mass
in a purple velvet surcoat with silver fringe and
white satin doublet, and then after his private dinner
went in great state to see the Queen. She received
him in the great hall of the palace, with the courtiers
ranged on a raised platform on each side. The
great officers of state preceded her, and she was
followed by fifty ladies splendidly dressed in purple
velvet, "but none of them pretty," and having met
her consort in the middle of the hall she led him to
the daïs, where he stood in sweet converse with her
for some time. But fickle Philip "went, as usual,
to talk to the ladies, and we, about twelve of us,
kissed the Queen's hand." "We" also seem to
have been talking to the ladies before that, but do
not appear to have got on very well, as "we could
hardly understand each other." Then Philip went
to Vespers and the Queen to her chapel, and after
supper they met again, and Figueroa privately read
the Emperor's abdication, which made Philip king
of Naples, and all the ambassadors, except Noailles,
paid homage to the new sovereign, who received
them bareheaded.[22]
{160}
The wedding ceremony next day is fully described
by the English authorities already mentioned, and
the narratives before us, although extremely minute
in detail, do not vary much from the accepted
accounts. The ancient cathedral was all aflame
with splendid colour, and the world has rarely seen
so gorgeous and so rich a company as was there
assembled. All the pomp that regal expenditure
could buy in an age of ostentation was there. All
the impressive solemnity that the Roman Church
could give to its ceremonies was lavished upon this.
The Queen, we are told, blazed with jewels to such
an extent that the eye was blinded as it looked upon
her; her dress was of black velvet flashing with
gems, and a splendid mantle of cloth of gold fell
from her shoulders; but through the Mass that
followed the marriage service she never took her
eyes off the crucifix upon which they were devoutly
fixed. Her fifty ladies were dressed in cloth of gold
and silver, and "looked more like celestial angels
than mortal creatures." Philip matched his bride
in splendour. He too wore a mantle of cloth of
gold embroidered with precious stones, and the rest
of his dress was the white satin suit the Queen had
sent him the day before, and he too was a blaze of
jewels. The Earl of Derby, who preceded the
Queen with a sword of state, appears to have
greatly impressed the imaginations of the Spaniards,
as several references are made to his power and
splendour. He is spoken of as the "king of
Mongara (Man), who wears a leaden crown," and it is
easy to see that much of the interest in him is
caused by the supposed identification of his
kingdom with scenes of the romances of chivalry.
{161}
After the ceremony the King and the Queen
walked through an immense crowd to the palace
side by side, and entered the great hall,[23] which the
narrator (No. 2) calls the "hall of Poncia," for the
wedding banquet. A high table, eight yards long,
was placed on a daïs, and at it sat the King and
Queen, the latter being on the right and in a finer
chair than her husband. Gardiner sat at the end of
the high table, and on the floor were four other
tables, where the nobles, to the number of 158,
partook of the feast. Before the King and Queen
stood Lords Pembroke and Strange with the sword
and staff of state, and all the courtly ceremony of
saluting the dishes as they are brought in, and
doffing bonnets to the throne, even in the absence
of the Queen, is set forth with admiring iteration by
the form-loving Spaniards. Their jealous eyes, too,
do not fail to notice that the Queen takes precedence
in everything. Not only has she the best chair, but
she eats from gold plate, whilst her consort eats
from silver. This, they say, is no doubt because he
is not yet a crowned king, and it will be altered
later. All the tables are served with silver, except
some large dishes; and great sideboards of plate
stand at each end of the hall. The buffet behind
the high table had over a hundred great pieces of
gold and silver plate, with a "great gilt clock half
as high as a man," and a fountain of precious marble
with a gold rim. There were four services of meat
and fish, each service consisting of thirty dishes,[24]
{162}
and minstrels played during the feast, whilst the
solid splendour and pompous ceremony appear to
have impressed all the Spaniards with wonder not
unmixed with envy. It is, indeed, here that the
jealousy of the courtier narrator (Nos. 3, 4, and
5) first bursts out. The only Spaniard who was
allowed to serve the King was Don Iñigo de
Mendoza, son of the Duke of Infantado, who was
cup-bearer, and four yeomen of the mouth, who helped;
but "as for any of the Prince's own stewards doing
anything, such a thing was never thought of, and
not one of us took a wand in our hands, nor does it
seem likely we ever shall, neither the controller nor
any one else, and they had better turn us all out as
vagabonds." The Earl of Arundel presented the
ewer with water for the King's hands, and the
Marquis of Winchester the napkin. The ewer, we are
{163}
told (narrative No. 6), contained "not water, but
white wine, as is the custom here."
Then, after the Queen had pledged all her guests
in a cup of wine, and a herald had proclaimed the
titles of Philip as King of England, France, Naples,
and Jerusalem, Prince of Spain, and Count of
Flanders, the royal party retired to another
chamber, with the English and Spanish nobles, where
the time passed in pleasant converse, the Spaniards
talking with the English ladies, "although we had
great trouble to make out their meaning, except of
those who spoke Latin, so we have all resolved not
to give them any presents of gloves until we can
understand them. The gentlemen who speak the
language are mostly very glad to find that the
Spaniards cannot do so."
When all was ready the ball began, but as the
English ladies only danced in their own fashion and
the Spanish courtiers in theirs, the latter were rather
left out in the cold, until the King and Queen danced
a measure together in the German style, which was
known to both. After dancing until nightfall,
supper was served with the same ceremony as
dinner, and then more talk and gallant compliment,
and so to bed.
The next day the King only was visible, and
dined alone in public, and on the succeeding day
the same; but on the third day (Saturday) the
Queen heard Mass in her private pew and received
the Duchess of Alba, who had arrived from Southampton
after the marriage. The reception of this
proud dame was ceremonious enough for anything;
but from the bitter complaints of her kinsman, who
probably wrote three of the letters before us, it is
{164}
clear that she, in common with the rest of the
Spanish nobles, was deeply dissatisfied with her
position in this country, so different from what they
expected. The Duchess was conducted to the
palace by the Earls of Kildare and Pembroke and
all the Court, and when she entered the presence
the Queen came almost to the door to meet her.
The Duchess knelt, and the Queen, failing to raise
her, courtesied almost as low and kissed her on the
mouth, "which she usually does only to certain
ladies of her own family." She led the Duchess to
the daïs and seated herself on the floor, inviting her
guest to do likewise, but the latter begged her
Majesty to sit on the chair before she (the Duchess)
would sit on the floor. The Queen refused to do so,
and sent for two stools, upon one of which she sat,
whereupon the Duchess, instead of accepting the
other, sat beside it on the floor. The Queen then
left her stool and took her place on the floor also,
and finally, after much friendly wrangling, both
ladies settled on their respective stools side by
side. The Queen understood Spanish, but spoke in
French, and the Marquis de las Navas interpreted
to the Duchess, who only understood Spanish.
When the Earl of Derby was presented to the
Duchess, he greatly shocked her by offering to kiss
her on the mouth, according to the universal
English fashion, and she drew back to avoid the
salute, but not quite in time, although she assured
the Spaniards that the earl had only managed to
kiss her cheek.
But the chagrin of the proud, dissatisfied
Spaniards was growing deeper as they saw their
hopes of domination in England disappear. The
{165}
men-at-arms and bodyguard, cooped up in their
ships at Portsmouth and Southampton, forbidden
to land under pain of death, were becoming restive;
the courtiers and their followers, scoffed at and
insulted in the streets, and waylaid and robbed if
they ventured into the country, were forced to put
up with everything silently, by order of the King;
but they could relieve their minds by writing to
their friends in Spain an account of their sorrows.
Writing from Winchester, narrator No. 2 says:--
"After all this weary voyage, these people wish to
subject us to a certain extent to their laws, because
it is a new thing for them to have Spaniards in their
country, and they want to feel safe. The Spaniards
here are not comfortable, nor are they so well off
as in Castile. Some even say they would rather
be in the worst stubble-field in the kingdom of
Toledo than in the groves of Amadis."
The courtier who wrote No. 3 is even more
emphatic. He says:--
"Great rogues infest the roads and have robbed
some of our people, amongst others the chamberlain
of Don Juan de Pacheco, from whom they took
400 crowns and all his plate and jewelry. Not a
trace has been found of them, nor of the four or five
boxes missing from the King's lodgings, although
the Council is sending out on all sides. The friars
have had to be lodged in the college for safety and
bitterly repent having come."
But dissatisfied as the Spaniards were, there was
still sufficient novelty in their surroundings during
their stay at Winchester in the last days of July to
keep them amused. The wonderful round table of
King Arthur in the castle, where the twelve peers
{166}
are still enchanted, and their names written round
in the places where they sat, claims the wondering
attention of the visitors. The curious beer made
with barley and a herb, instead of wheat, as in
Flanders, is discussed; and the strange habit the
ladies, and even some gentlemen, have of putting
sugar in their wine, and the never-ending dancing
going on amongst the ladies of the palace excite
remark. On the last day of July most of the English
lords and squires had gone home for the present;
the Spaniards were distributed about Winchester
and Southampton; the admiral of Spain was under
orders to take a part of the fleet back again; and
the bulk of the Spanish troops were only awaiting a
fair wind to take them to Flanders, and the King
and Queen, with a small suite, set out for Basing,
the Lord Treasurer's[25] house, fifteen miles off.
Most of the accounts before us end at this point
but the two interesting letters to which I have given
the numbers 4 and 5, written respectively from
Richmond and London, show clearly the gradual
exacerbation of the dislike between the Spanish and
English as time went on, in spite of the diplomatic
attempts to connect Philip's name at every
opportunity with acts of clemency and moderation.
On the 19th of August, which is the date of the
letter from Richmond, the royal honeymoon seems
yet not entirely to have waned:--
"Their Majesties are the happiest couple in the
world, and are more in love with each other than I
can say here. He never leaves her, and on the
{167}
road is always by her side, lifting her into the
saddle and helping her to dismount. He dines
with her publicly sometimes, and they go to Mass
together on feast days."
This letter from Richmond gives the following
curious account of the lavish scale on which the
royal establishment was maintained:--
"All the rejoicings here consist only of eating
and drinking, as they understand nothing else. The
Queen spends 300,000 ducats (a year?) in food, and
all the thirteen councillors and the Court favourites
live in the palace, besides the lord steward, the lord
chamberlain, the chancellor, and our people, with
their servants. The ladies also have private rooms
in the palace, with all their servants, and the
Queen's guard of 200 men are also lodged there.
Each of the lords has a separate cook in the
Queen's kitchens, and as there are eighteen different
kitchens such is the hurly burly that they are a
perfect hell. Although the palaces are so large that
the smallest of the four we have seen is infinitely
larger, and certainly better, than the Alcazar of
Madrid, they are still hardly large enough to hold
the people who live in them. The ordinary (daily?)
consumption of the palace is 100 sheep (which are
very large and fat), twelve large oxen, eighteen
calves, besides game, poultry, venison, wild boar,
and a great number of rabbits. Of beer there is no
end, and they drink as much as would fill the river
at Valladolid."
The writer is very indignant at the scant courtesy
paid to his great kinsfolk the Albas, and at the fact
that they have had to put up with lodgings that are
considered below their dignity even in the villages.
{168}
"It is not enough," he says, "to deprive them of
their office, but they must needs give them bad
quarters as well.... These English are the most
ungrateful people in the world, and hate the
Spaniards worse than the devil, as they readily
show, for they rob us in the town itself, and not
a soul dares to venture two miles on the road
without being robbed. There is no justice for us. We
are ordered by the King to avoid dispute and put
up with everything whilst we are here, enduring all
their attacks in silence. They therefore despise us
and treat us badly. We have complained to
Bibriesca and the ambassador, but they say it is for
his Majesty's sake that we must bear everything
patiently."
It was no wonder that under such circumstances
these proud hidalgos begged to be allowed to join
the Emperor in Flanders for the war. Medina-Celi
was the first to revolt at his treatment, and no
sooner had he obtained leave to go than eighty
other gentlemen followed him with their suites, and
so by the middle of August the only Spanish nobles
in attendance on Philip were Alba, Feria, Olivares,
Pedro de Cordoba, Diego de Cordoba, and three
gentlemen, amongst whom was Pedro Enriquez, the
supposed author of the letters. The insults upon
the Spaniards personally were bad enough; but
what was more galling even was the disappointment
they felt at the political effect of the match. Instead
of a submissive people, ready to bow the neck at
once to the new king and his followers, they found
a country where even the native sovereign's power
was strictly circumscribed, and where the foreigner's
only hope of domination was by force of arms; and
{169}
this they saw in the present case was impossible.
Enriquez, if he be the author, says: "The marriage
will indeed have been a failure if the Queen have no
children. They told us in Castile that if his
Highness became king of England we should be masters
of France; but quite the contrary has turned out
to be the fact, for the French are stronger than ever
and are doing as they like in Flanders.... Kings
here have as little power as if they were vassals,
and the people who really govern are the councillors;
they are not only lords of the land, but lords of the
kings as well. They are all peers, some of them
raised up by the Church revenues they have taken
and others by their patrimonial estates, and they
are feared much more than the sovereign. They
publicly say they will not let the King go until they
and the Queen think fit, as this country is quite big
enough for any one king."
Great preparations were made for the entrance
of the Queen and her consort into London. The
signs of vengeance had been cleared away, and the
city was as bright and gay as paint and gilding
could make it. The "galluses," from which dangled
the fifty dead bodies of the London trainbandsmen
who had deserted to Wyatt at Rochester Bridge,
were cleared away from the doors of the houses in
which their families lived, and the grinning skulls
of the higher offenders were taken from the gates
and from London Bridge; but London, for all its
seeming welcome and for all its real loyalty to the
Queen herself, was more deeply resentful of the
Spanish intrusion than any city in the realm, and
the few Spaniards who still remained with Philip
repaid with interest the detestation of the Londoners
{170}
towards them. "We enter London (narrative
No. 4) on Saturday next, but, considering their
treatment of the Spaniards already there, we ought
to stay away. Not only will they give them no
lodgings,[26] but they affront them on every opportunity,
as if they were barbarians, maltreating them and
robbing them in the taverns to their hearts' content.
The friars brought by his Majesty had better not have
come, for these English are so godless and treat them
so vilely that they dare not appear in the streets."
Only a few days before this letter was written from
Richmond (August 19th) two Spanish noblemen of
the highest rank, Don Pedro and Don Antonio de
Cordoba, ventured to walk in the streets of London
in their habits as knights of Santiago, with the great
crimson cross embroidered on their breasts, as they
are worn in Spain to this day, and this attracting
the derisive attention of the irrepressible London
street boy of the period, the two gentlemen were
soon surrounded by a hooting crowd, who wanted
to know what they meant by wearing so outlandish
an ornament, and tried to strip the offending coats
from their backs. The affair nearly ended in bloodshed,
and the Spaniards had to fly for their lives.
The very few Spanish ladies who came with Philip
were as resentful as their spouses, and we are told
that "Donna Hieronima de Navarra and Donna
Francisca de Cordoba have decided not to wait
upon the Queen, as there is no one to speak to them
at Court, these English ladies being so badly
behaved; and the Duchess of Alba will not go to Court
again, as she had been so discourteously treated."
{171}
With all this grumbling, however, the country
itself extorted the admiration of the visitors; the
books of chivalry, we are told, have only stated half
the truth. The palaces, rich and splendid with the
unhallowed spoils of the monasteries; the flowery
vales, gushing fountains, enchanted woods, and
lovely houses far exceed even the descriptions in
Amadis; but there are "few Orianas and many
Mavilias amongst the ladies," and the romancers
have said nothing about the strange, uncouth beings
who inhabit the enchanting land. "Who ever saw
elsewhere a woman on horseback alone, and even
riding their steeds well, and as much at home on
their backs as if they were experienced horsemen?" And
after confessing the beauty of the country
itself, the narrator concludes that the disadvantages
of it outweigh the advantages, and wishes to God
that he had never seen the place or the sea that led
to it. And things got worse as time went on. The
Londoners themselves were in an exaggerated
panic, that explains their hard treatment of their
guests. The author of the "Chronicle of Queen
Mary," who lived in the Tower of London, and
faithfully set down from day to day the news he heard,
reflects the terror inspired by the presence of Philip's
suite in the capital. We have seen that at the
utmost the number of Spaniards of all ranks who
landed from the fleet did not exceed 500, of whom
four-fifths had left for Flanders and Spain before
the King entered London, and yet the diarist, writing
about this time, says, "At this tyme ther was so
many Spanyerdes in London that a man shoulde
haue mett in the stretes for one Inglisheman above
iiij Spanyerdes to the great discomfort of the
{172}
Inglishe nation.... The halles taken up for
Spanyerdes.' And, again, as showing how
complete was the panic, fomented, no doubt, by
Noailles and the Protestants, there is an entry
in the "Chronicle of Queen Mary" of September
8th, as follows: "A talke of XII. thowsand
Spanyerdes coming more into this realm, they said
the fetch the crowne." It is not surprising, with
such a feeling as this current in the city, that the
courtier's next letter, written from London on
October 2nd, should be more despondent than ever.
They were all ill and home-sick; some had almost
died, and the country did not agree with them.
"God save us and give us health, and bring us
safely home again. The country is a good one,
but the people are surely the worst in the world. I
verily believe if it were not for the constant prayers
and processions for us in Spain we should all have
been murdered long ago. There are slashings and
quarrels every day between Englishmen and
Spaniards, and only just now there was a fight in
the palace itself, where several were killed on both
sides. Three Englishmen and a Spaniard were
hanged for brawling last week. Every day there
is some trouble ... God help us, for these
barbarous, heretical people make no account of soul
and conscience; disobey God, disregard the saints,
and think nothing of the Pope, who they say is
only a man like themselves, and can have no direct
dominion over them. The only Pope they recognise
is their sovereign."
The futility of the marriage, from a national
point of view, rankled in the breasts of the
disappointed courtiers as much as did their personal
{173}
discomfort. They felt that the trouble they had
undergone, and the humble pie they had eaten, had
added nothing to the power of their country or their
sovereign, and their prevailing idea was how soonest
and best to wash their hands of an ungrateful and
profitless business in which all their sacrifices had
been in vain.
"We Spaniards," says the narrator, "move
about amongst all these Englishmen like so many
fools, for they are such barbarians that they cannot
understand us, nor we them. They will not crown
the King nor recognise him as their sovereign, and
say that he only came to help govern the kingdom
and beget children, and can go back to Spain as soon
as the Queen has a son. Pray God it may be soon,
for he (Philip) will be glad enough, I am sure, and
our joy will be boundless to be away from a land
peopled by such barbarous folk. The King has
forgiven the Queen 2,250,000 ducats she owed him,
and has distributed 30,000 ducats a year in pensions
to these lords of the Council, to keep them in a good
humour. All this money is taken out of Spain. A
pretty penny this voyage and marriage have cost
us, and yet these people are of no use to us after all."
Bitter disappointment is the note struck all through.
The English lords who had been so heavily bribed
were ready enough to take all they could get; but
they were as patriotic as they were greedy, and did
not sell their country's interests for their pensions.
Renard for once had made a mistake. He was
ready to assent to any conditions the English liked
to propose on paper, trusting to the personal
influence of Philip on his queen after the marriage
{174}
was effected. But he forgot that the Queen herself
was a mere puppet in the hands of her nobles, as
the narrator I have quoted soon discovered, and,
whatever ascendency the young bridegroom might
obtain over his half-Spanish bride; her councillors,
from the stern Gardiner downwards, were Englishmen
before everything, to whom the over-weening
power of the Emperor had been held up as a terror
since their childhood. And so the whole splendid
plot failed, and the magnificent nuptials had hardly
been forgotten before Philip, recognising that his
sacrifices had been in vain, and that he could never
rule in England, made the best of an unfortunate
speculation, and with all gravity, courtesy, and
dignity left Mary to die of a broken heart, alone,
disappointed, and forsaken.
[1] _The English Historical Review_, April, 1892.
[2] This curious and rare tract was reprinted by the Camden
Society, 1849, and is the groundwork of Foxe's and
Hollingshed's accounts of the events related therein.
[3] Edward Underhyll was one of the gentlemen pensioners,
and his quaint narrative of the accession of Mary and the
subsequent events, now amongst the Harleian manuscripts,
was largely used by Strype and others.
[4] Ambassades de Noailles. Leyden, 1763.
[5] To these may be added the slight but interesting narrative
existing in manuscript at Lotivain, and printed by Tytler
in his "Edward VI and Mary," and the letters of the
Venetian ambassador in Flanders to the Doge and Senate, for
which see Calendar of State Papers (Venetian) of the date in
question.
[6] He was equally at sea at the beginning of Mary's reign,
when he vigorously aided Northumberland's conspiracy to
place Lady Jane Grey on the throne, and repeatedly told his
master that Mary's cause was an absolutely hopeless one. On
the ignominious collapse of Dudley, Noailles excused his own
want of prescience by saying that nothing but a direct miracle
from heaven could have brought about such a change.
[7] I am of course aware that the ambassador had previously
sent his brother François de Noailles to request the Queen
to stand godmother to his newly born son, but François only
arrived at Winchester from London on the day the Queen
received news of the arrival of the Prince off the Isle of
Wight, which could not have been earlier than the 19th,
and was back in London again in time for the child to be
christened, with the Countess of Surrey as the Queen's proxy,
on the 22nd, which would certainly leave him no time to
go to Southampton to witness the landing. See "Ambassudes
de Noailles," iii. 282.
[8] Mr. Prescott is the only historian writing in the English
language who refers to Spanish accounts at all, and his
reference is confined to a single mention of Cabrera's bald and
stolid history and one or two quotations from Sepulveda, who
appears to have derived what little information he gives from
one of the narratives now before me. Simon Renard's letters
to the Emperor in the Granvelle papers are naturally also
referred to by most historians of the period in question, but,
important as they are from many points of view, they only
give a purely official and diplomatic account, and are Flemish
and imperial rather than Spanish and personal in their interest.
[9] Cabrera, "Relaciones," and Nicolas Antonio, "Biblioteca
Nova."
[10] "Chronicle of King Henry VIII. of England." London:
Bell and Sons. 1889.
[11] See letter from Lord Edmund Dudley to the Council,
quoted in Tytler, "Edward VI. and Mary."
[12] This was in despite of Renard's recommendation to
Philip: "Seulement sera requis que les Espaignolez qui
suyvront vostre Alteze comportent les façons de faire des
Angloys et soient modestes, confians que vostre Alteze les
aicarassera par son humanité costumiere."
[13] Renard to the Emperor, quoted in Tytler, "Edward
VI. and Mary."
[14] July, Calendar of State Papers, Venetian.
[15] Soriano, the Venetian ambassador in Madrid, says that
the gentle courtesy he adopted in England was continued
after his return to Spain, and that, whilst maintaining his
natural gravity and dignity, his kindness and graciousness
were remarkable to all persons. Michaeli, the Venetian
ambassador in London, who had sided with Noailles in his
opposition to the match, is emphatic in his testimony of
Philip's affability whilst in England, and says that his
conduct towards his wife was enough to make any woman love
him, "for in truth no one else in the world could have been
a better or more loving husband." These and many other
similar contemporary assurances prove that Philip acted all
through the business like an honest, high-minded gentleman.
[16] He died in 1559, and a magnificent alabaster monument,
with the recumbent figures of himself and his wife, exists in
fine preservation in the chancel of Thame church, of which
he was a liberal benefactor.
[17] Probably the dress in which he is represented in the
magnificent painting of him belonging to the Marquis of
Exeter at Burghley (No. 236, Tudor Exhibition).
[18] Sir John Gage.
[19] The Earl of Arundel.
[20] In the narrative signed by Car (British Museum) the
Queen is described in this interview as "chatting gaily, and
although she is a little elderly
she displays the grace befitting
a queen."
[21] Don Pedro Enriquez was wrong here. One of the
greatest of the Spanish nobles, Count de Feria, had fallen
madly in love with Jane Dormer, one of the Queen's maids
of honour, and soon afterwards privately married her.
[22] Baoardo, quoted by Mr. Froude, says "he raised his hat
to nobody," but these narratives often mention his being
uncovered.
[23] Narrator No. 6 says, "The hall, which is beautifully
hung with cloth of gold and silk, measures forty of my paces
long and twenty wide."
[24] Underhyll (Harleian Manuscript, 425, f. 97) gives a very
quaint account of his share in this banquet. "On the
maryage daye the kynge and queue dyned in the halle in the
bushop's palice sittynge under the cloth of estate and none
eles att that table. The nobillitie satte att the syde tables.
Wee (_i.e._, the gentlemen pensioners) weare the cheffe
sarueters to cary the meate and the yearle of Sussex ower
captayne was the shewer. The seconde course att the
maryage off a kynge is gevyne unto the bearers; I meane
the meate butt nott the dishes for they were off golde. It
was my chaunce to carye a greate pastie of a redde dere in a
great charger uery delicately baked; which for the weyght
thereoff dyuers refused; the wyche pastie I sentt unto
London to my wyffe and her brother who cherede therewith
many off ther trends. I wyll not take uppon me to
wryte the maner of the maryage, off the feaste nor of the
daunssyngs of the Spanyards thatt day who weare greatly
owte off countenaunce specyally King Phelip dauncynge
when they dide see me lorde Braye, Mr. Carowe and others
so farre excede them; but wyll leve it unto the learned as it
behovithe hym to be thatt shall wryte a story off so greate a
tryoumffe." The Louvian Chronicle (Tytler) says:--"The
dinner lasted till six in the evening, after which there was
store of music, and before nine all had retired."
[25] This was the Marquis of Winchester, not, as Señor
Gayangos supposes, Sir Edward Peckham, who was Treasurer
of the Mint.
[26] The Spaniards had to be quartered in the halls of the
City guilds.
[Illustration: Signature: Marye the queene]
{175}
_THE EVOLUTION OF THE SPANISH ARMADA._
{177}
[Illustration: Headpiece]
_THE EVOLUTION OF THE SPANISH ARMADA._
Perhaps no character in history has been more misjudged and
misrepresented than Philip II. For three centuries it has pleased
English writers particularly, to portray him as a murderous ogre,
grimly and silently plotting the enslavement of England for thirty
years before the great catastrophe which reduced his vast empire to the
rank of a harmless second-rate power. As a matter of fact he was a
laborious, narrow-minded, morbidly conscientious man, patient,
distrustful, and timid; a sincere lover of peace and a nater of all
sorts of innovations. He was born to a position for which he was
unfitted, and was forced by circumstances stronger than himself to
embark upon gigantic warlike enterprises which he disliked and deplored.
For ages it had been considered vital in the interests both of England
and Spain that a close alliance should exist between the two countries,
in order to counterbalance the immemorial connection between Scotland
and France; and that the Flemish dominions of the house of Burgundy
should under no circumstances be allowed to fall under the sway {178}
of the French. It is easy to understand that with France paramount
over the North Sea ports and in Scotland, England would never have been
safe for a moment; whilst the principal continental seat of English
foreign trade would have been at the mercy of England's secular foe.
At the same time all central Europe would have been cut off from its
Atlantic seaboard, whilst the principal maritime powers, Spain and
Portugal, would have been excluded from all ports north of Biscay,
except on the sufferance of their jealous rival. This was the
tradition to which Philip had been born; inheriting as he did the
dominions both of Spain and the house of Burgundy, and almost at any
cost he was forced, as his forefathers had been, to cling to the
connection between his country and England. Henry VIII. had known full
well that he might strain the cord very tightly without breaking it
when he flew into the face of all Christendom, and contemptuously cast
aside for an ignoble passion the aunt of the Emperor, a daughter of the
proudest royal house in Europe. Charles V. dared not, and did not,
break with England in consequence; for Henry had taken care to draw
close to Scotland and France, and the very hint of such a combination
was sufficient to render the Emperor all amiability.
For a time it looked as if the alliance had been rendered proof against
all attack by the marriage of Philip and Mary, and it is highly
probable that it would have been so if Renard's plan to marry Elizabeth
to the Duke of Savoy had been carried out; but here again circumstances
were too strong for persons. The marriage would have been useless
unless Elizabeth were first legitimised, and Mary {179} could not
legitimise her without bastardising herself, which she obstinately
refused to do, notwithstanding all the entreaties of Philip and his
friends. But Philip ostentatiously favoured his young sister-in-law,
in the hope that when she came to the throne he might have some claim
upon her gratitude, and induce her to maintain the friendship which was
so necessary for his interests. It was no question of Catholic or
Protestant yet. He would have supported her--as indeed he did--however
firm a Protestant she might be; for the next Catholic heir to the
crown, Mary Stuart, was practically a Frenchwoman, married to the heir
of the French throne, and with her as Queen of England and France,
Spain and the house of Burgundy would have been ruined.
Elizabeth knew as well as any one how vital it was for Philip to be
friendly with England; and during a long course of years she traded
unscrupulously upon her knowledge that she might assail, insult,
plunder, and make more or less veiled war upon him, and yet that he
dared not openly break with her whilst France was greedily eyeing his
Flemish harbours. From the first moment that Elizabeth's reform policy
became evident it was seen by Spanish statesmen that either the
government of England must be changed, so as to bring it back to the
old cordial alliance, or else Spain must seek new combinations of
powers, in order to redress the balance. For the first alternative to
be successful promptness was necessary, and the government of the Queen
changed whilst the country was yet unsettled and divided. Feria wrote
from London to Philip only a day or two after Mary's death that {180}
the country must be dealt with sword in hand rather than by cajolery,
unless it were to be allowed to slip through their hands; and
thenceforward for years all of Philip's agents, one after the other,
pressed upon their master the necessity of using force, either by
aiding the Catholics to revolt or by a direct attack on England.
Angry, almost contemptuous, references to the King's hesitancy and
timidity are constantly occurring in the letters of the various Spanish
ambassadors in England, but beyond occasional money aid to the English
Catholics nothing could be obtained from the King.
Of all things slow-minded, unwarlike Philip desired peace, almost at
any price, and he saw, as his advisers did not, the dangers that
surrounded him. Marriage designs, cajolery, and other peaceful methods
having failed to bind Elizabeth to him, he attempted to form a new
combination. He married the French king's daughter as his third wife;
and doubtless even thus early had evolved in his mind the idea of a
league of the Catholic powers as a counterbalance to Elizabeth's
friendship with Denmark, Sweden, and the German Protestant princes. He
knew that overt assistance from him to the English Catholics to depose
the Queen and stifle Protestantism would increase the enmity of the
allied Protestants of the Continent, and perhaps let loose the storm of
which the mutterings were already audible in Flanders. So, in answer
to Feria's advice and Bishop Quadra's arguments in favour of force, he
insisted upon a policy of soft words, pacification, and palliation; and
again and again told his ambassadors, "You _must_ keep principally in
view by all ways and means to avoid a rupture ... the importance of
which is so {181} great that I cannot be satisfied without repeating it
so many times."
But if he thus deprecated open warfare he was at all times, after Mary
Stuart's French husband was dead, ready enough to subsidise plots to
assassinate or depose Elizabeth; and large sums were sent to England
for that purpose. In vain his agents continued to tell him how useless
it was to expect that the English Catholics would pull the chestnuts
out of the fire for him, unless they were assured of his armed support.
But this assurance he would not give. A marriage of his son Carlos
with the widowed Mary Stuart, simultaneously with a Catholic rising in
England, was an expedient after his own heart, but even here his
timidity was so great that he would run no risk of firing a shot in
favour of a project in which he would have been the principal gainer.
He writes (June 15, 1563) to Bishop Quadra: "With regard to the
adherents that the Scots will have in England, and the increase of
their number if necessary, you will not interfere in any way further
than you have done, but let them do it all themselves, and gain what
friends and sympathy they can for their opinions amongst the Catholics
and those upon whom they depend. _I say this because if anything
should be discovered they should be the persons to be blamed and no one
in connection with us._" He was told plainly that the negotiations
could not be carried on in this way, which pledged everybody but
himself, but it was all useless: his instructions were firm and
undeviating: under no circumstances was he to be drawn into war with
England.
In 1564 the English Protestants were almost {182} openly sympathising
with the growing discontent in the Netherlands, and flocks of refugees
from Holland were daily crossing to England. Spanish ships were being
pillaged on every sea by English privateers, and a war of tariffs and
commercial prohibitions was being carried on between England and
Spanish Flanders; and Philip's advisers told him that an open war with
England would not injure him so much as his present inactivity was
doing. But withal when he sent a smooth-tongued ambassador, Diego de
Guzman, to mollify the English, his secret instructions were that he
was to tell Elizabeth that "his orders were to endeavour to please her
in all things, _as in effect we wish you to do, using every possible
effort to that end; and striving to preserve her friendship towards us
and our mutual alliance._"
In August, 1568, Philip sent a new ambassador to England, Gerau de
Spes. Relations at the time were extremely strained between the two
countries, owing to the expulsion of the English ambassador from Spain
for some offence against the Catholic religion; and Alba's cruelty in
the Netherlands had aroused a bitter feeling in England against Spain,
which was increased by the plots which were known to be in progress
between the Guises and Alba in favour of Mary Stuart. And yet Philip's
orders to his new ambassador were, "that he was to serve and gratify
Elizabeth on every possible occasion, _as in fact I wish you to do,
trying to keep her on good terms, and assuring her from me that I will
always return her friendship as a good neighbour and brother._"
When Elizabeth a few months afterwards seized Philip's treasure-ships,
which had been driven to take refuge in English ports to escape from
the {183} privateers, he pursued the same peaceful policy. Fiery de
Spes was all for war and retaliation, but beyond seizing English
shipping in Spanish and Flemish harbours, Philip would not go. He was
driven for money and sorely beset on all sides, his commerce well-nigh
swept from the seas, his credit diminished, and his rebellious subjects
in Flanders blockading his own coasts against him. Mary Stuart was
urging him to action, his own ministers were assuring him ceaselessly
that the only way to check English aggression was to "set the fire to
Elizabeth's own doors by raising troubles in England or Ireland if he
was not prepared to go to war." But in the face of all provocation, in
the face of Alba's assurance that his prestige was being ruined by his
tame submission, he could only say after long delay (December 16, 1569)
that if Elizabeth's hardness of heart continued he should really have
to consider what could be done. "We here think that the best course
will be to encourage with money and secret favour the Catholics of the
North, and to help those in Ireland to take up arms against the
heretics and deliver the crown to the Queen of Scotland, to whom it
belongs by succession." And the only outcome of it all was the futile
aid to the plots of Norfolk and Ridolfi.
It was the same again twelve years later when Drake's appalling
atrocities on the South American coasts had aroused the fury of all
Spain; and England was enriched by the plunder of sacred shrines and
peaceful merchantmen. English troops were in arms against him in
Flanders, and public money had been flowing over to the aid of the
rebels with the thinnest possible disguise, but still {184} Philip
clung obstinately to the English alliance, hoping against hope that at
last Elizabeth would become friendly with him. The most he would do,
as before, was to help the Irish Catholics in their revolt, in order to
hamper the English queen and prevent her from injuring him further.
Certainly in all these years he had never entertained for a moment the
idea of the subjugation of England; he only sought either by removing
Elizabeth or by diverting her attention to troubles at home to draw her
country back again to the old alliance and friendship.
Up to this period (1580) the principal reason, beyond Philip's natural
love of peace, which had caused him to follow his long-suffering policy
was the fear of finding himself opposed both to England and France.
Catharine de Medici was as facile as Elizabeth herself, and could
generally, when it suited her, patch up a reconciliation between
Huguenots and Catholics and unite them, for a short time at least,
under a national banner. But in January, 1580, an event happened which
for the first time seemed to hold out hopes that he might be able to
revenge himself upon Elizabeth without the fear of France before his
eyes. Archbishop Beaton, Mary Stuart's ambassador in Paris, secretly
told Philip's ambassador there that he _and the Duke of Guise_ had
prevailed upon the Queen of Scots to place herself, her son, and her
realm entirely in the hands and under the protection of the King of
Spain, and would send James VI. to Spain to be brought up and married
there to Philip's pleasure. This meant the detachment of the Guises
from the French interest, and Vargas, the Spanish ambassador, at once
saw its importance. He sent off a special {185} courier to Philip,
urging him now to action: "Such is the state of things there," he says,
"that if even so much as a cat moved the whole edifice would crumble
down in three days. If your Majesty had England and Scotland attached
to you, directly or indirectly, you might consider the States of
Flanders conquered, and ... you could lay down the law for the whole
world."
Guise's adhesion to Spain made all the difference, and Philip welcomed
the idea of deporting James Stuart to Spain as a preliminary measure.
Mary herself was in high hopes, and Beaton said she was determined to
leave her prison only as Queen of England. Her adherents, he asserted,
were so numerous in the country, that if they rose the matter would be
easy without assistance, "but with the aid of your Majesty it would
soon be over." The plan was shelved for a time in consequence of the
death of Vargas; and James' deportation became unnecessary on the fall
of Protestant Morton, and the accession to power of D'Aubigny, Earl of
Lennox, who had already sent Fernihurst to Spain to assure Philip of
his devotion; but in April of the following year Mary Stuart opened
negotiations with Tassis, the new Spanish ambassador in Paris.
"Affairs," she assured him, through Beaton, "were never better disposed
in Scotland, than now to return to their ancient condition, so that
English affairs could be dealt with subsequently." The King, her son,
she said, was quite determined to return to the Catholic religion, and
inclined to an open rupture with the Queen of England.
Philip, however, wished to be quite sure that {186} James was really to
be a Catholic before helping him to the succession of the English
crown. Father Persons and five or six Jesuits were busy in Scotland
with Spanish money plotting for the restoration of the Catholic
religion, and the young King himself told them, "that though for
certain reasons it was advisable for him to appear publicly in favour
of the French, he in his heart would rather be Spanish." Even thus
early James' duplicity was the subject of wonder to those who
surrounded him; and in January, 1582, Mary wrote rather doubtfully
about his religion to Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in England. "The
poor child," she said, "was so surrounded by heretics that she had only
been able to obtain the assurance that he would listen to the priests
she sent him." But she assures the Spaniard that she will bind herself
and her son exclusively to Philip in future, and begs that the Scottish
courtiers should be bribed in his interest. The Catholic revival in
Scotland was being vigorously worked by the Jesuits and the nobles, and
it soon became evident to them also that James was too slippery to be
depended upon. So they sent Father Holt to London in February with
some important proposals. The rank and file of the Jesuits had no idea
that their Catholic propaganda in Scotland had been contrived and paid
for by Spain with a political object, and Holt was astounded when the
person to whom he was directed in London took him to Mendoza. His
message was that the Scottish nobles had decided, as a last resource,
if James continued obstinate, to depose him, and either convey him
abroad or hold him a prisoner until {187} his mother arrived in
Scotland. They besought the guidance of the King of Spain in the
matter, and begged that 2,000 foreign troops might be sent to them to
carry out their plans. This message was repeated in a softened form to
Mary Stuart in her English prison, and Mendoza urged his master to send
the troops requested, "with the support of whom the Scots might
encounter Elizabeth, and the whole of the English north country would
be disturbed, the Catholics there being in a majority; and the
opportunity would be taken for the Catholics in the other parts of the
country to rise, when they knew they had on their side the forces of a
more powerful prince than the King of Scotland."
Philip was on the Portuguese frontier at the time, and affairs in
Madrid were being managed by the aged Cardinal de Granvelle, who sent
to the King notes and recommendations on all letters received.
He warmly seconded Mendoza's recommendations that the troops requested
by the Scots nobles should be sent, and says: "The affair is so
important both for the sake of religion, and to bridle England, that no
other can equal it; _because by keeping the Queen of England busy we
shall be ensured against her helping Alençon or daring to obstruct us
in any other way._" Somewhat later Granvelle repeats the same note.
Speaking of the fear of the Scots nobles that the landing of a large
foreign force might threaten their liberties, he says: "This is not
what his Majesty wants, nor do I approve of it, but that we should
loyally help the King of Scots and his mother to maintain their rights;
and by promoting armed disturbance keep the Queen of England and the
French busy, at a comparatively {188} small cost to ourselves, and so
enable us to settle our own affairs better. If it had no other result
than this it would suffice, but very much more when we consider that it
may lead to the re-establishment of the Catholic religion in those
parts. It is very advantageous that the matter should be taken in hand
by the Duke of Guise, as it will ensure us from French obstruction.
_Since we cannot hope to hold the island for ourselves, Guise will not
try to hand it over to the King of France to the detriment of his near
kinswoman._" He also speaks of the probability of Elizabeth's coming
to terms with Spain on being secured to the throne during her life, and
the re-establishment of the old alliance between the two countries.
Thus far, then, the aims of Spain were legitimate and honest under the
circumstances; and Philip had no avowed intention, or thought, of the
conquest of England for himself. We shall see how he was gradually
forced by circumstances and the jealousy between the English and
Scottish Catholics to adopt a different attitude.
So long as Mary and Mendoza kept the direction of the conspiracy in
their own hands all was done wisely and prudently, but as soon as
Lennox and the Jesuits had a hand in it a complete muddle was the
result. Tassis, the Spanish Ambassador in France, and Guise had been
quite outside the new proposition of the Scots nobles, but in March,
1582, Lennox wrote a foolish letter to Tassis, which he sent by
Creighton to Paris, laying bare the plan and giving his adhesion to it,
but making all manner of inflated and exaggerated demands.
Creighton had promised him, he said, 15,000 {189} foreign troops, of
which he was to have command, and he asked in addition for a vast sum
of money and a personal guarantee against loss of fortune in any event.
Creighton also went to Guise and brought him into the business, and
Jesuit emissaries were to go to Rome and Madrid to crave aid from the
Pope and Philip. Mary and Mendoza were furious at the ineptitude of
Lennox and the priests, and Mary particularly that her name should be
used by them as being the head of the conspiracy. Creighton had no
authority whatever to promise 15,000 men, and the idea that Lennox was
to have command was absurd from a Spanish point of view. Philip was
alarmed too at the large number of persons who were now concerned in
the affair, and directed that no further steps should be taken. The
inclusion of Guise in the project soon produced its result. He wanted
naturally to take a large and prominent part, and travelled to Paris to
meet Tassis secretly at Beaton's house. He was full of far-reaching,
ill-digested plans; but his main desire evidently was to prevent
Spanish troops from being sent to Scotland, for fear, he said, of the
jealousy of the French. His idea was that a large mixed force should
be sent from Italy under the papal flag, whilst he made a descent with
Frenchmen on the coast of Sussex. But all these fine plans were soon
frozen under the cold criticism of Philip and de Granvelle. Philip, it
is true, did not yet think of conquering England for himself, but Mary
and James must owe the English crown to him alone, and be bound to
restore the close alliance between England and Spain, or the change
would be of no use to him: and this could hardly {190} be hoped for if
there were too many French and Italian troops concerned in the
business, or if Guise had the main direction of the enterprise.
Sir Francis Englefield was in Madrid as Philip's adviser on English
affairs, and both he and the numerous English Catholic refugees in
France, Flanders, and Spain soon made it clear that their national
distrust and enmity of the French was as keen as ever, whilst they
looked sourly upon any project which should make the Frenchified Scots
paramount over England. This feeling they were careful to urge upon
the Spaniards upon every occasion, and it is not surprising that Philip
at last came to believe their assurances that all England would welcome
a Catholic restoration if it came from their old friends the Spaniards,
and not from their old enemies the French.
From that time a change was apparent in Philip's policy. When he heard
of the Raid of Ruthven and the flight of Lennox he saw that English
Protestant intrigue had conquered, and that the Scottish-Catholic
enterprise was at an end for a time. Guise was to be flattered and
conciliated, but it is clear that henceforward Philip wished to confine
his (Guise's) attention to France. He was told how dangerous it would
be for him to leave France with his enemies, the Huguenots, in
possession, and was emphatically assured of Spanish support in his own
ambitious plans at home.
Guise was flattered, but he could hardly be expected to look upon
Scottish affairs from Philip's point of view. So he got one of his
adherents, young de Maineville, sent to Scotland to revive the idea of
the landing of foreign troops there. {191} Beaton, who was thoroughly
French, was just as anxious to keep the matter afoot in Paris, but
Philip had lost faith in the enterprise, and only kept up an appearance
of negotiation in order to maintain his hold upon the Guises and
prevent them from undertaking anything except under his patronage. De
Maineville soon got on intimate terms with James, but the Protestant
lords were holding him at the time, and Guise was informed by his agent
that the time was not now propitious for a Catholic descent upon
Scotland.
Guise thereupon came to the Spaniards in May, 1583, with a fresh plan.
He had decided, he said, to begin with the English Catholics.
Elizabeth was first to be murdered and the country raised, whilst he
landed on the coast, but Philip and the Pope must provide 100,000
crowns to pay for it. His plans, as usual, however, were vague and
incomplete, and the English Catholics, as well as Philip, looked coldly
upon them. Father Allen and the English exiles were in deadly earnest,
"and thought all this talk and intricacy were mere buckler-play."
Mendoza in Paris reports to Philip that "they suspected a tendency on
the part of the Scots to claim a controlling influence in the new
empire, and as the Scots are naturally inclined to the French, they
would rather the affair were carried through with but few Spaniards,
whilst the English hate this idea, as their country is the principal
one ... and they think it should not lose its predominance."
The English Catholics had a plan of their own which they urged upon
Philip. The English North Country was to be raised simultaneously with
the {192} landing of a Spanish force in Yorkshire, accompanied by the
Earl of Westmoreland, Lord Dacre, and other nobles, with Allen as
Nuncio and Bishop of Durham, and some of the extreme Catholic party,
even in Scotland, distrusting the French, favoured some such plan as
this under purely Spanish auspices.
Guise appears finally to have adopted a combination of this plan and
his own. The Spanish forces were to land at Fouldrey,
Dalton-in-Furness, Lancashire, whilst the English North Country was to
be raised, and the Catholic Scots on the border were to co-operate with
the Spaniards. Guise at the same time was to land in the south of
England with about 5,000 men. James VI., who had thrown himself into
Falkland and had assumed the reins of government, was in complete
accord with Guise about it, but the latter, as usual, was for pushing
matters on far too rapidly to please Philip. He (Guise) took upon
himself to send a priest named Melino to the Pope to ask him to furnish
some funds for the expedition and to explain the whole of the
particulars, and this deeply offended the King of Spain, who had no
idea of having matters arranged over his head by such a bungler as
Guise. The latter also sent Charles Paget in disguise to England in
August, 1583, to inquire as to the amount of support he might expect
when he landed on the south coast, and when Philip in due course saw
the instructions taken by Paget, it became clear to him that he must
somehow eliminate Guise from the project. On the margin of the
instructions Philip scribbled sarcastic remarks as to the futility of
Guise's projecting a landing and sending full {193} particulars of his
plans to the Pope _before_ he had ascertained what support he could
depend upon when he _did_ land. What opened Philip's eyes more than
anything else was that the English "were to be assured on the faith and
honour of Guise that the enterprise is being undertaken with no other
object or intention than to re-establish the Catholic religion in
England and to place the Queen of Scotland peacefully on the throne of
England, which rightly belongs to her. When this is effected the
foreigners will immediately retire from the country, and if any one
attempts to frustrate this intention _Guise promises that he and his
forces will join the people of the country to compel the foreigners to
withdraw._"
Well might Philip underline this and scatter notes of exclamation
around it, for it marked the parting of the ways, and showed that Guise
was more anxious for his family aggrandisement and personal ambition in
placing his kin upon the English throne than to serve the interests of
Spain by securing a close union between the two countries to the
exclusion of France, which was Philip's main object.
Guise was therefore told that he must not be precipitate, and the
matter was kept in suspense; but from that moment Philip decided to
undertake the matter alone. Allen and the English Catholics had never
ceased to urge upon him that his troops should be landed first in
England, and not in Scotland; and this now obviously suited Philip
best, as he was growing more and more doubtful about James' religious
sincerity. Another fact must have also influenced him greatly in the
same direction. His great admiral, Santa Cruz, had just brilliantly
{194} routed the French mercenary fleet in the service of the
Portuguese pretender at the Azores, and in the flush of victory had
written to Philip begging to be allowed to direct his conquering fleet
against England. "Do not miss the opportunity, sire," he wrote, "and
believe me I have the will to make you king of that country and others
besides." The grand old sailor made light of the difficulties, and
besought the King to let him go and conquer England in the name of God
and Spain. But Philip was not ready for that yet, and the idea was
only now being forced by events into his slow mind that perhaps he
might be obliged, after all, to claim England for his own, since the
English Catholics were for ever saying they wanted no French or
Scotsmen; and not a single English pretender was otherwise than
Protestant. So Santa Cruz was told that the King would consider the
matter, and in the meanwhile provide for eventualities by ordering
large supplies of biscuits, and by gradually sending men to Flanders.
At the same time he wrote to his ambassador in Paris, telling him in
confidence that he intended in due time to invade England from
Flanders, but no one was to learn this until the preparations had
advanced too far to be concealed; "and even then they (the French) must
be told in such terms as may not make them suspect an intention of
excluding the French from the enterprise."
But what is of more importance still, Philip gave directions in the
same letter to Tassis in November, 1583, that his own claim to the
English crown as a descendant of Edward III. should be cautiously
broached. If England was to remain in close {195} alliance with Spain,
it is difficult to see what other course Philip could have taken.
James as a successor to his mother was now out of the question, so far
as Spanish interests were concerned, for he was playing false all
round. No sooner did the Scots Catholics gain the upper hand than he
intrigued with Elizabeth and the Protestants for their overthrow, and
immediately the English and Protestant faction became paramount he
wrote beseeching letters for aid to Guise and the Pope. All this, of
course, Philip knew, for he knew everything, and although he intended
to put Mary Stuart on the throne, from this time he was determined that
her son should not succeed her.
The discovery of the Throgmorton plot and Guise's wild plans in
connection therewith threw the whole project into the background for a
time, and confirmed stealthy Philip in the idea that in future he must
manage matters himself. When Tassis, his ambassador in Paris, was
withdrawn from his post, in the spring of 1584, he wrote an important
memorandum to his master setting forth at length the arguments on both
sides for and against a landing in England or Scotland, by which it is
clear that the English and Scottish Catholic factions in France were
now bitterly at issue on the subject. As the English plan had gained
ground, James had once more considered it advisable to feign a desire
to become a Catholic; and Guise had again urged the adoption of the
plan of a landing in Scotland, with the invasion of England over the
Scots border, James himself being the figurehead. Tassis says that
such is the jealousy of the Scots in England that if an army crossed
the Border the {196} English Catholics themselves might resist it.
"The English," he says, "would not like to be dominated by Scotsmen,
and if the crown of Scotland is to be joined to theirs, they still wish
to be cocks-of-the-walk, as their kingdom is the larger and more
important one. On the other hand the Scots may be unduly inflated with
the opposite idea, so that imperfections may exist on both sides." As
Mary Stuart had drawn closer to Spain she had grown distrustful of
Beaton and Tassis, whom she considered too much wedded to French ideas;
but withal Tassis in this document very emphatically leans to the
English view, which he knew was that now held by his master. The full
plan for a great armada was evidently slowly germinating in Philip's
mind, but the vast expense had first to be provided for. When Guise's
envoy, Melino, had gone on his meddling mission to the Pope his
Holiness had offered to subsidise the expedition to a moderate amount,
and in answer to the second appeal from James VI. himself he had said
that he would stand by his previous promise. But this did not suit
Philip, and he let the Pope know promptly that he was willing to
undertake the great task for the glory of God and the advance of the
Church, but that the Pope must subscribe very largely indeed, "and must
find ways and means through his holy zeal to do much more than has yet
been imagined." He was also warned that Guise ought not to be allowed
to leave France, where he might serve the Catholic cause so much more
effectively than elsewhere. And so Guise and the Scotsmen are pushed
further and further into the background, Philip's aim being evidently
to raise civil {197} commotion in France, which was always easy enough
to do, and so to paralyse Henry III. and the Huguenots from helping
Elizabeth, whilst Guise would be powerless to promote the interest in
England of his kinsman James.
When it became apparent that the Pope was to have a large share in the
business the intrigue was transferred from Paris to Rome. Sixtus
himself was wise, frugal, and moderate, and had no great desire to
serve Philip's political aims, but only to signalise his own
pontificate by the restoration of England to the Church; but he was
surrounded by cardinals who represented the different interests.
Medici, D'Este, Gonzaga, Rusticucci, Santorio, and others represented
the French view, which was in favour of an arrangement with Elizabeth
and James, and desired to exclude Spanish influence from England.
Sanzio watched Guise's interests, whilst the Secretary of State
Caraffa, Sirleto, Como, Allen, and the Spanish ambassador, Olivares,
craftily forwarded Philip's wishes, the Pope himself being carefully
kept in the dark as to the ultimate object in view. The cause of
religion was invoked all through as being Philip's only motive;
inconvenient points were left indefinite, with the certainty that
Caraffa would interpret them favourably to Spanish designs; and by the
most extraordinary cajolery the Pope was induced to promise a million
gold crowns to the enterprise. He was not brought to this without much
haggling and misgiving on his part, and was very cautiously treated
with regard to Philip's intention to claim the English crown. "His
Holiness," writes Olivares, "is quite convinced that your Majesty is
not thinking of the crown of England {198} for yourself, and told
Cardinal D'Este so. I did not say anything to the contrary. He is
very far from thinking your Majesty has any such views, and when the
matter is broached to him he will be much surprised. However deeply he
is pledged to abide by your Majesty's opinion, I quite expect he will
raise some difficulty." Philip's constant orders were that the Pope
should be plied with arguments as to the inadvisibility of the heretic
James being allowed to succeed, and the need for choosing some good
Catholic to succeed Mary. The person that Philip had decided to make
sovereign of England was his favourite daughter, Isabel Clara Eugenia,
but this was not to be mentioned to the Pope. "But if at any time the
Pope moved by his zeal should talk about any other successor, you will
remind him, before he gets wedded to his new idea, that he is pledged
to agree to my choice in the matter."
In the meanwhile Allen, Persons, and the other English Catholics, were
ceaseless in their steady propagation of the idea of Philip's own right
to the crown, in consequence of the heresy of James, and the same view
was forced upon Mary Stuart by Mendoza and her English confidants in
Paris, all of whom were pensioners of Spain. At length Mary was
convinced, and wrote to Mendoza at the end of June, 1586, saying she
had disinherited her son in favour of Philip.
The full plan of the Armada had now assumed definite form. The King
was in possession of Santa Cruz's marvellously complete estimate of
cost and requirements of all sorts--a perfect monument of technical
knowledge and forethought; the {199} Pope was pledged to find about a
third of the necessary funds, and to leave Philip a free hand with
regard to the English succession and the time for the carrying out of
the enterprise; whilst Philip's position with regard to his claim to
the English crown was regularised by Mary's will in his favour.
Guise, Beaton, and the Scots had thus been routed all along the line,
but it was not to be supposed that they would accept their defeat
without a struggle. Their next move was within an ace of being
successful, and nearly changed the whole plan of the Armada. In July,
1586, Guise wrote to Mendoza that a plan he had long been concocting
had at last been brought to a head, and Beaton was commissioned to tell
Mendoza what the scheme was. A Scottish gentleman named Robert Bruce
had been sent to France with three blank sheets, signed respectively by
Lords Huntly, Morton, and Claude Hamilton, which Guise was to fill up
over the signatures with letters to Philip, appealing to him to aid the
Scots Catholics. They asked for 6,000 foreign troops for one year and
150,000 crowns to equip their own men, and in return promised to
restore Catholicism, release James and his mother, compel the former to
become a Catholic, and, most tempting of all, to deliver to Philip one
or two good ports near the English Border to be used against the Queen
of England. Bruce went to Madrid to lay the Scots' appeal before the
King, but when he arrived the failure of the Babington plot and the
collapse of the Catholic party in England was known to Philip, and he
had lost hope of effecting the "enterprise" except with {200}
overwhelming forces of his own. He did not wish, moreover, for Guise's
interference, and was coolly sympathetic and no more. And yet, in the
face of Santa Cruz's advice that he should secure some ports of refuge
for the Armada in the North Sea, the offer of the Scots lords to give
him two good Scotch harbours was one not to be lightly refused, so
whilst he sent Bruce back with vague promises, he instructed Parma and
Mendoza to report fully on the scheme. Parma was cold and
irresponsive. He would give no decided opinion until he knew what
Philip's intentions were. He was apparently jealous that he was not
taken fully into his uncle's confidence, and perhaps angry that his
son's claims to the English crown, which were better than those of
Philip and his daughter, were being ignored. But Mendoza, an old
soldier, the last pupil of Alba, as he called himself, was indignant at
Parma's doubts, and wrote to Philip an extremely able paper strongly
advising the invasion of England through Scotland, instead of risking
everything in a vast fleet, to which one disaster would cripple Spain
for ever. In prophetic words he foretold the possibility of the very
catastrophe which subsequently happened, and prayed Philip, ere it was
too late, to close with the Scots lords' offer. But Philip and Parma
were slow and wanted all sorts of assurances; so Bruce was kept in
France and Flanders for many months, whilst his principals lost hope
and heart. At last, when they were on the point of going over to the
Protestant side, on a promise of toleration for their religion, Bruce
was tardily sent back with 10,000 crowns to freight a number of small
boats at Leith to send over to Dunkirk for {201} Parma's troops, and
the 150,000 crowns demanded by the lords were promised when they rose.
During all this time the juggle in Rome was going on. Gradually Sixtus
was familiarised with the idea that Philip could not go to war for the
sake of putting heretic James on the throne; then Allen took care that
he saw the genealogical tree showing Philip's claim, and at last, in
the summer of 1587, it was cautiously hinted to him that, though Philip
would not add England to his dominions, he might perhaps appoint his
daughter to the throne. Sanzio, Mendovi and the French cardinals were
straining every nerve to persuade the Pope that the King of Scots might
be converted, and the Capuchin monk Bishop of Dunblane, amongst others,
went to Scotland for the purpose of forwarding this view.
The result of Bruce's appeal at Madrid was concealed from Guise, but of
course he learnt it indirectly, and was greatly indignant at his
exclusion from a project of which he was the originator. It was really
no secret, however, for in July, 1587, Father Creighton, sent by Guise,
arrived in Rome full of it; he, like other Scotsmen, being in favour of
James' conversion and his acceptance by Spain as King of England. But
Allen, Persons, and the rest of them, soon silenced Creighton, with
threats, cajolery, and money.
When Catharine de Medici got wind of the business she seems to have
thought it a good opportunity for getting rid of Guise and checkmating
Philip at the same time, and urged him (Guise) to go himself to aid his
kinsman James to the crown, in which case she would largely subsidise
him; and Guise himself was so incensed at the way {202} Philip had
treated him that he threatened to divulge the whole of Bruce's plot to
James, and very probably did so. Elizabeth, too, sent young Gary to
warn James of what was going on, so that when Bruce arrived in Scotland
the King was fully prepared for him; and although he appeared to
acquiesce in the hint from Bruce that the Spaniards would aid him to
avenge his mother, he was now surrounded by ministers favourable to the
Protestant interest, who saw that James had more to hope for from
Elizabeth than from Philip, and the matter was deferred indefinitely.
It was late in autumn when Bruce arrived in Scotland, too late in the
season to freight ships, and he suggested that in the following summer
ships for the transport of Parma's 6,000 men to Leith should be
freighted in Flanders. This was impossible--in fact, the long delay
whilst Philip and Parma were hesitating had ruined the project, which
was now public and consequently impracticable, though Bruce and the
Scottish lords continued to clamour for Spanish men and money until the
Armada appeared. And so again Philip's want of promptness lost this
chance, which might have saved the Armada.
By this time, late in the year 1587, the final plan of the Armada had
been settled. Parma had received his full instructions from Philip
some months before; all Spain and Catholic Christendom were ringing
with preparations for the fray, and the great fleet--or what Drake had
left intact of it on his summer trip to Cadiz--was mustering at Lisbon
under gallant old Santa Cruz, who was already dying broken-hearted at
the neglect of his wise precautions, at the confusion, waste, and
ineptitude which foreboded the crowning disaster.
{203}
With the subsequent mishaps and catastrophe this study is not
concerned. My object has been to show how circumstances drove Philip
to adopt the course he did, both with regard to the invasion itself and
his claim to the English crown; and to demonstrate that the ostensible
prime object of the Armada, the conversion of England to Catholicism,
although undoubtedly desired by Philip, was mainly used as a means to
his real end--namely, a close political alliance with England, without
which Spain was inevitably doomed to the impotence which eventually
fell upon her.
[Illustration: Tailpiece]
{205}
_A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY._
{207}
[Illustration: Headpiece]
_A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY._
(A HISTORY OF THE SUMPTUARY LAWS IN SPAIN.)
It is a curious reflection that whilst all the serious acts and
surroundings of civilised life have been rendered amenable to the law,
whilst the very instincts inherent in the nature of mankind have been
dominated and regulated by authority, utter failure has attended the
persistent efforts of rulers to cope with the trivial follies of
fashion, or to limit the vanity and extravagance of personal adornment.
For long ages men, and particularly women, have insisted upon making
themselves absurd and uncomfortable, at great cost and in an infinite
variety of ways, in obedience to dictates or impulses springing from
nobody knows where, and have only consented to forego each succeeding
caprice when the taste for it has worn itself out and has given place
to another, perhaps still more preposterous than its predecessor.
It has been from no fault of the rulers that they have {208} been
beaten in their fight with fashion, for they have tried their hardest
for centuries. Our Plantagenet and Tudor sovereigns made many attempts
to regulate the dress and adornment of their subjects, but the motive
which mainly prompted them was the desire to differentiate the classes
and prevent the humbler citizens from emulating, in appearance at
least, their social superiors. In a state of society which depended
upon the subjection of the majority by the privileged classes, this
motive was perfectly reasonable; as was also the alternative one of
protecting a particular national industry, which, in Tudor times
especially, often furnished a reason for the imposition of sumptuary
enactments; but both of these motives, from their very nature, were
necessarily more or less ephemeral and artificial, because, on the one
hand, the continual social development, the growing wealth of the
traders and the emancipation of the labourers made the classes
interdependent; and, on the other, the extended seaboard of England and
the maritime enterprise of the inhabitants made the protection of a
particular industry by prohibiting foreign competition impossible for
any great length of time. The attempted interference, therefore, of
English sovereigns with the dress of their lieges was intermittent and
spasmodic, and was, at a comparatively early period, admitted to be
useless.
Such, however, from various reasons was not the case in Spain. There
the fight against finery was kept up persistently for nearly six
centuries, and hardly a decade passed during that time without one or
more petty and ridiculous attempts being made to interfere with the
dress, food, {209} personal habits, and surroundings of the people.
The ostensible motives were usually different from those which operated
in England. The separation of the classes has never been so complete
in Spain as elsewhere in Europe, owing to the fact that from a very
early period in the history of the country all Christians were banded
together and dependent upon one another for protection against the
common enemy, the infidel. Manual industry, moreover, was never a
strong point with Spanish Christians, and the main reason for the
various attempts to exclude foreign goods was the dread that Spanish
gold would be sent out to pay for them. Nothing is more striking,
indeed, than the absolutely murderous effect upon Spanish industry
exerted by most of the paternal attempts at interference with trade,
but political economy was even more of a dead letter amongst that
nation of warriors than with our own ancestors. The earliest object of
the great mass of sumptuary laws in Spain was to restrict the dreaded
taste for luxury and splendour which was felt to be a characteristic of
the hated Moor, who had been conquered bit by bit by people who were
content to live roughly, feed frugally, and dress plainly. But with
victory came wealth, with peace came intermixture, and the subtle,
refined, Oriental blood, with its love of pomp and brilliancy,
gradually permeated the rough Gothic-Iberians, until its manifestations
alarmed rulers whose power still largely depended upon the
self-sacrificing frugality and hardy endurance of their subjects. Thus
it was that the attempt was made to keep people frugal and homely
whilst they were growing rich, and the tendency continued during all
the centuries that the struggle against Spanish luxury {210} went on,
although during the last three centuries of the period the original
motive had disappeared, and the usual excuse for the interference of
the King with the dress of his subjects was the desire to prevent them
from spending so much money upon themselves, in order that they might
spend more upon him.
But, whatever the motives may have been, the fight against extravagance
was carried on as persistently as fruitlessly until quite recent times,
and there exists a mass of information with regard to the dress and
manners of the people in the Spanish sumptuary enactments unequalled
elsewhere. The decrees usually took the form of a representation from
the Cortes to the sovereign, setting forth in a preamble the particular
abuses to be remedied, and then proposing a remedy which the sovereign
usually confirmed by what was called his "pragmatic sanction," and the
decree was then proclaimed and had the force of law. A large number of
these decrees or "pragmatics" of the highest interest will be found in
the British Museum manuscripts (MSS. Add. 9933 and 9934), and many more
are set forth in Sempere's "Historia de las leyes suntuarias" (Madrid,
1788), whilst the familiar and festive traditions of old Madrid teem
with quaint stories of ingenious evasions and jovial defiance of the
laws under the very noses of the sable-clad Acaldes and Alguaciles,
whose grave and solemn duty it was to clip lovelocks and measure frills
and furbelows.
The first vicious extravagance which seizes upon a hardy, simple people
who find themselves safe after a period of struggle is naturally that
of {211} gluttony; and the earliest sumptuary decrees of the Castilian
kings were directed against this particular excess.
In point of date the first decree extant in Spain of a sumptuary
character was that issued by Don Jaime (El Conquistador) of Aragon in
1234. He was extremely devout and ascetic himself, and was shocked at
the growing extravagance of his subjects, who having in his remote
mountain kingdom finally expelled the Moors, turned their attention to
tourneys, shows, and mimic warfare, at which great sums were spent both
in feasting and adornment. The Jews too, who at the time nearly
monopolised Spanish trade, encouraged the growing taste for the fine
stuffs and precious ornaments, from the sale of which they derived so
large a profit. So in 1234 Don Jaime decreed from his capital of
Zaragoza that no subject of his should sit down to a meal of more than
one dish of stewed, and one of roast meat, unless it were dried and
salted. As much game as they pleased might be eaten, on condition that
it had been hunted by the eater, but otherwise only one dish of game
might be served. No jongleur or minstrel might eat with ladies and
gentlemen, and no striped or bordered stuffs were to be worn. Gold and
silver, as well as tinsel, were prohibited, and ermine and other furs
were only to be used as a trimming to hoods and hanging sleeves. Jaime
since his childhood had been trying to crush the rising power of his
feudal nobles, and had already embarked on that long career of conquest
by which he subdued the Moorish kingdoms of Majorca and Valencia, so
that, although he himself was now safe in his mountain realm from
invasion, his decree was as much prompted by his {212} dread of the
softening effect of luxury upon his subjects as by his own rough,
simple tastes.
His kinsman of Castile was in worse case, for his dominions were more
open to the Moor. Saint Ferdinand conquered the splendid Moorish city
of Seville in 1248, where he died four years later, leaving his son,
Alonso the Wise, to succeed him as King of Castile. Oriental luxury
surrounded the frugal Castilians on all hands. The wealth of plundered
cities, the spoils of Moslem palaces were to be had for the grasping,
so that it was natural that extravagance in attire and eating should
soon threaten to soften the Christian conquerors dwelling in the midst
of the gentler, vanquished Moor. Alonso the Wise, in 1256, therefore
issued in Seville his first great sumptuary enactment. By it no
saddles were allowed to be covered or trimmed with plush. No gold or
silver tinsel was to adorn them, excepting as a border of three inches
wide, the saddle itself being of uncovered leather. Gold and silver
might be used on caps, girdles, quilted doublets, saddle-cloths or
table-covers, but not for draping shields or cuirasses. No jingling
bells were to be used as trimmings, except on the saddle-cloths at the
cane-throwing tourneys, but even then no device was to be embroidered
on the cloths. Bosses upon the shields were not to be allowed, but the
latter might be adorned with a painted or gilded-copper device. No
milled cloth was to be worn, nor were the garments to be cut and pinked
in fanciful shapes, or trimmed with ribbons or silk cords; the penalty
for infringing any of these regulations being the loss of one or both
thumbs by the offender, which of {213} course meant his disgrace and
ruin in the career of arms. Women were allowed a little more latitude,
but not much. They might wear ermine and otter fur to any extent, but
they were forbidden to adorn their girdles with beads or seed-pearls,
or to border their kirtles or wimples with gold or silver thread, or to
wear them of any other colour than white.
With regard to eating, Alonso the Wise held similar notions to those of
his neighbour Don Jaime, and ordered that his lieges should not have
upon their tables more than two dishes of meat and one of bought game,
and on fast days not more than two kinds of fish. As if recognising
the difficulty of enforcing this, the King solemnly undertook to comply
with his own regulations. Great extravagance had arisen in wedding
feasts, which were said (as in Oriental countries they do to-day) to
often ruin the contracting families, and Alonso made strict rules to
limit the excess in this direction. No presents of breeches were to be
given, and the entire cost of a wedding outfit was not to exceed 60
maravedis, whilst not more than five men and as many women might be
invited to the wedding banquet by each of the contracting parties. The
money spent upon marriage rejoicings, indeed, had become so great that
Alonso made this reform a great point in his decree, and provided
against evasion by strictly limiting the time during which the feast
might continue and wedding presents be given. Moors were said to be
dressing like Christians, and this was rigidly forbidden. They were to
wear no red or green clothes, and no white or gold shoes, and their
hair was to be parted plainly in the middle of the head, {214} with no
topknot, whilst they were enjoined to wear their full beard, which made
the distinction between them and the shaven-chinned Christians the more
marked. The penalties imposed for disobeying this decree of 1256 were
savage in the extreme, varying from loss of a thumb and a fine for the
first offence, to death for the third; but savage as they were, they
can hardly have been effectual, except perhaps in Seville, for only two
years later, in 1258, Alonso came out with a perfect code of conduct
for his subjects, far too minute to even summarise here, but of which
some specimens may be given, as they served as a model for subsequent
decrees for many years afterwards. Alonso had apparently got tired of
his self-denying ordinance and says the King may eat and dress as he
pleases, but agrees to limit his daily table expenditure to 150
maravedis a day, which in spending power would represent about £40 at
the present time at least. But he orders his "ricoshomes," ruling men,
to eat more sparingly and to spend less money. None of the members of
the royal household, squires, scribes, falconers, or porters, except
the head of each department, were allowed to wear white fur or
trimmings, or to use gilt or plated saddles or spurs. They were
forbidden to indulge in breeches of scarlet cloth, gilt shoes, and hats
of gold or silver tissue. Priests, it appears, had been reducing the
size of their tonsures and ruffling in fine colours, so as to be
undistinguishable from laymen, and they are sternly ordered to have
their tonsures the full size of their heads, gird themselves with a
rope, and eschew red, green, and pink garments. The old regulations
about eating were {215} repeated with the addition of one plate of meat
for supper, and the prohibition of fish on meat days. No man, however
rich, was to buy more than four suits of clothes in a year, and no
ermine, silk, gold or silver tissue, no slashes, trimmings, or pinked
cloth might be worn by men. Two fur mantles in a year, and one
rain-cape in two years was the limit of extravagance allowed to a man
in this direction; and the King alone was to wear a red rain-cape.
Lawn and silk for outer garments were confined to royalty, but the
"ricoshomes" might employ them as linings. No crystal or silver
buttons were to be allowed, nor was shaving or other signs of mourning
permitted, except to vassals who had lost their overlord and to widows.
Jews and Moors are cruelly treated in this decree, and their offences
and those of the poorer classes are to be punished by torture or death,
whilst those of the "ricoshomes" are left to the King's discretion.
Ermine, vair, and otter furs would appear to have been amongst the
principal articles of luxury, as the wearing of them is very strictly
regulated, and white furs seem to come next in estimation after them.
For ninety years these laws of Alonso the Wise were repeated and
reimposed with slight variations, but apparently ineffectually; since
in 1348 the Cortes of Alcalá made a presentment to Alonso XI. of
Castile bewailing the luxury and extravagance of the age, and proposing
a new code of sumptuary rules, which in due course the King confirmed.
These rules are very interesting because they demonstrate the great
strides which had been made in luxury, refinement, and civilisation
since the issue of the decrees {216} of Alonso the Wise nearly a
century before. No gold ornaments, no ermine or grebe-neck trimmings,
no seed-pearl embroidery, gold or silver buttons or wire, and no
enamels were to be worn except by nobles. No gold tissue or silk was
allowed except for linings, and no man below the rank of a knight might
wear vair fur or gilt shoes. Even the princes of the blood were
strictly limited in their dress, and were ordered to use tapestry cloth
or silk, but without gold or trimming of any sort. The Spartan wedding
regulations of Alonso the Wise had now become obsolete with the advance
of wealth, but the new rules, although wider, were to be enforced with
equal or greater severity. No gentleman was to give his bride within
four months after marriage more than three suits of clothes, one of
which might be of gold tissue, and one embroidered with seed-pearls to
the value of 4,000 maravedis, an enormous sum when we consider that
ninety years before 150 maravedis were the limit of the monarch's daily
expenditure, and that at this date, 1348, the value of a sheep was only
eight maravedis. The bride's trousseau is regulated down to the
smallest details, and the penalty for exceeding them is the loss of
one-quarter of his land by the too-generous gentleman who does so. The
decree sets forth that some women are wearing trains, "which are both
costly and useless," but in future they are to be confined to those
ladies who are travelling in a litter--a privilege limited to nobles.
All other women are to wear pelisses without trains, just reaching the
ground, "or at least not to drag more than two inches upon it." Ladies
who broke this rule were to be fined 500 maravedis. Great stress is
again laid upon the limitation {217} of extravagance in wedding feasts,
and burials, but the cost still allowed shows to what an excess luxury
had been carried. The bride's wedding clothes might cost 4,000
maravedis and the groom's outfit 2,000; and thirty-two people were now
allowed at the wedding feast. Much more latitude was permitted in the
use of seed-pearls, gold, and silver, to people above the rank of
knights, but the principal point to be noted in these decrees of Alonso
XI. is the incidence of the penalty. In the decrees of Alonso the
Wise, as has been shown, the most savage penalties were imposed upon
the poorer classes, whilst the punishment of the nobles was left to the
King's discretion. But much more even justice is dealt out by Alonso
XI. The nobles who break the law are to lose one-quarter of their
land, the knights one-third, the citizens 500 maravedis, whilst the
poorer classes for slight offences against the sumptuary rules are
condemned to lose the offending garment and its cost in money.
But whatever the penalty might be, extravagance, checked in one
direction, broke out in another, and Peter the Cruel, the son of
Alfonso XI., only a few years after the date of the decree just
mentioned, issued a complete sumptuary code in which the punishments
were positively ferocious. Fines, scourging, mutilation, and
banishment for first and second offences, and death for the third, were
imposed for the smallest infraction. Peter was particularly hard on
priests, who were said to be swaggering about with women, tricked out
in gay finery, and they were ordered in future to be sober and frugal,
wearing no ornaments of any kind, and only sad-coloured garb. Workmen,
too, were to {218} labour from sunrise to sunset for a fixed wage on
pain of punishment as severe as those imposed by our own labour laws.
The King, moreover, fixed stringently the cost which was to be incurred
by cities and towns in entertaining him when he visited them. The
dietary scale appears a pretty generous one from the point of view of
to-day, consisting as it does of 45 sheep at 8 maravedis each, 22 dozen
of dry fish at 12 maravedis a dozen, 90 maravedis worth of fresh fish,
with pork, grain, wine, &c.; the total value of the feast being limited
to 1,850 maravedis. Villages and nobles were not to spend more than
800 maravedis on a similar occasion.
In 1384 Peter the Cruel's nephew, John I. of Castile, was well beaten
by the Portuguese at the battle of Aljubarrota, and marked his sorrow
by issuing a decree prohibiting the use in any form of dress of silk,
gold, silver, seed-pearls, precious stones, or ornaments of any kind,
and everybody was ordered to don a simple mourning garb. When, four
years after this, John of Gaunt's daughter Catharine came to marry the
heir to the crown of Castile, she brought something else with her
besides the wide, pointed coif which Spanish widows wore for the next
three hundred years. Part of her dower consisted of great herds of
merino sheep, which crossed and thrived so well in Spain that the
coarse duffel, which had been the only native cloth, gave place in a
few years to beautiful fine woollen textures which could vie with those
of England and Flanders.
Intercourse between nations, the growth of wealth, the spread of
learning, and the advance of civilisation were moving with giant
strides. The soft arts of peace were practised with greater success
than ever, now {219} that the Moslem and the Christian were fast
merging into one people in Seville and Toledo, and the refinement of
the one was strengthened by the energy of the other. Beautiful stuffs,
stiff with gold and gems, gauzy silk, soft cloths, and fine linens, had
no longer to be brought from the Moors or the kingdoms across the sea.
Seville, Toledo, and Cordova could produce everything that the most
luxurious extravagance could desire, and the sumptuary laws for a time
were forgotten.
In 1452 the Cortes of Palenzuela presented a petition to John II.
asking that the stringent sumptuary code of Alonso XI. should be
re-enforced. The King, in reply, admitted that the law was a dead
letter, and that the extravagance in dress was greater than ever. He
says that gold tissue and silks are now ordinary wear, and that gold
trimmings and marten-fur linings are used even by people of low estate.
"Actually working women," he says, "now wear clothes that are only fit
for fine ladies; and people of all ranks sell everything they possess
in order to adorn their persons." Still the remedy proposed to him of
a revival of the stern code of a hundred years before he saw was an
impossible one, and the matter was held in suspense. He died soon
afterwards, and his feeble successor, Henry IV., was equally powerless
to stem the rising tide of industry and wealth with their natural
consequences.
In 1469, during the interregnum which followed the deposition of Henry,
the Master of Santiago issued a proclamation deploring the growing
extravagance of the age, and enjoining more moderation. Amongst other
similar things it says, {220} "Such is the pomp and vanity now general,
even amongst labourers and poor people in their dress and that of their
wives, that in appearance they seek to vie with persons of rank,
whereby they not only squander their own estates but bring great
poverty and want to all classes." But it was useless: and luxury went
unchecked until Ferdinand and Isabel the Catholic were firmly seated on
the twin throne of a united Spain and the last Moslem stronghold had
fallen. Then, in 1495, a "pragmatic" was issued which superseded all
previous obsolete sumptuary codes and established a new one, which
formed the model for similar decrees for the next two centuries.
Probably a more economically unwise decree under the circumstances was
never penned. All other previous pragmatics had forbidden the wearing
of extravagant apparel, and this did the same, especially severely as
regarded the precious metals; but it did more than this. It absolutely
forbade the introduction and sale of every sort of gold and silver
tissue, and rendered criminal the exercise in Spain of the industry of
embroidering or weaving gold, silver, and every other metal. The
Christianised populations of the south of Spain were greatly excelling
already in this industry. Their gold embroideries on velvet were in
great demand for church vestments and royal trappings all over Europe.
The taste for chivalrous splendour was not confined to Spain, and the
beautiful half-Oriental tissues of Andalusia were eagerly sought for in
every Court; gold was just beginning to find its way direct to Spain
from the new-found Indies, and if the industry had remained
untrammelled there was no reason why the country should not have
provided the world {221} with textile splendours to its own great
advantage. The ingenious, industrious people--for they were
industrious until the strangling of their handicrafts made them
idle--did their best to avert ruin. In 1498, only three years
afterwards, the Cortes made a presentment to the Queen saying that
things were worse than ever. It was true that gold brocade was no
longer made and the wicked waste of the precious metal was thus
avoided, but all sorts of strange devices and novelties were being
introduced in the manufacture of silks, whereby the people were tempted
to squander their money on useless finery. The Spanish silk factories
were then the finest in Europe, and great quantities of raw silk were
raised in the south-east of the Peninsula: and yet a "pragmatic" was
issued the next year, 1499, stringently forbidding the manufacture,
sale, or use of silk, except for lining. It was a staggering blow to a
flourishing industry, and in order to prevent total ruin a decree was
given that no raw silk from abroad was to be introduced into the
country, and only Spanish-grown silk used. But this was not enough,
and some of the silk-making provinces, reduced to desperation,
petitioned for the relaxation of the law. Their prayer was granted, as
if in irony, to the extent of allowing them to wear silk against the
law. But they did not want to wear silk, but to make it for other
people to wear, and their industry languished, never entirely to
recover.
By the time Isabel the Catholic had died the Spanish silk industry was
nearly at an end, and the skittish young Bearnaise princess, Germaine
de Foix, who succeeded her as old Fernando's wife, came too late to do
it much good. It is true she snapped {222} her slender fingers and
threw up her pretty chin at the straitlaced sumptuary laws, and
surrounded herself with silks and velvets, gold brocade and gems,
wherever she went; but unfortunately they mostly came from the looms
and workshops of Southern France, and gave no work to Spanish hands.
Money, of course, had to be sent out of Spain to pay for the finery,
and in 1515 the Cortes of Burgos complained of this to Jane the Mad,
Isabel's nominal successor, who thereupon issued a decree entirely
forbidding brocades and gold or silver embroidery and trimmings to be
worn at all, and strictly limiting the wearing of silk in any form to
people of rank.
But Jane's power was the merest shadow; Spain was in the throes of a
great struggle for its democratic institutions, which it lost, and no
notice was taken of poor Crazy Jane's decree. If she understood it she
probably had as little sympathy with it as her young stepmother, for
she had lived for years with her handsome husband Philip as head of the
most pompous and splendid Court in Europe, in busy Flanders, surrounded
by all the traditional magnificence of the house of Burgundy, and her
young son, the coming Emperor Chares V., Fleming as he was by birth and
instinct, was even less likely than she to revert willingly to the
simple, democratic, and patriarchal traditions of the Spanish Court.
He came to his new country with a whole host of Burgundian, Flemish,
and German nobles, whose taste for finery had never been checked; and
whatever decrees Charles might issue for the dress of his people, he
and his Court were the first to {223} disregard the letter and spirit
of his precepts. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that they
were not obeyed for long together by any one else. The initiative,
moreover, did not come from the King or his courtiers, but from the
Cortes of Castile, who were naturally swayed entirely by Spanish ideas,
of which Charles had at this time, boy as he was, but little knowledge
or sympathy. This was so clearly recognised that when he was about to
leave Corunna in 1520 to assume the imperial crown, the Cortes held
there petitioned him at least to order that the sumptuary laws with
regard to silks, brocades, gold embroideries, and gold and silver lace,
should be strictly enforced during his absence from Spain, since they
saw that, with such a Court as his, they would not be enforced in his
presence. But the example of the Court had struck too deeply, and the
fury for splendour had now really taken hold of the Spaniards, who in
their ages of struggle had been so simple and homely.
In the pragmatic of 1537 it is said that during the Emperor's absence
the use of brocades, silks, and precious embroideries had increased
more than ever, and they are absolutely prohibited, and the rigid law
of 1498 again repeated. The preamble of the decree of 1537 says that
this law against gold embroidery was generally evaded by making the
gold lace and devices separately and then stitching them on to the
cloth, which cost much more even than embroidery would have done; and
the making of such adornments was consequently prohibited altogether.
Only nine years afterwards, in 1548, the Cortes of Valladolid made a
presentment to the Emperor saying that things {224} were worse than
ever, and the cost of clothes had been increased instead of decreased
by the ingenuity of tailors, who had taken to the plan of cutting out
the most elaborate patterns of coloured cloth with fine scissors and
sewing them on to the cloth garments, almost covering the latter with
delicate lace-like snippet work of applied cloth. In face of this
abuse the Cortes prayed the Emperor to forbid the use of any and every
sort of trimming, lace, or adornment on the garments, both of men and
women, which might give an excuse for the wicked tailors to charge
extravagant prices. Charles V. thought this too sweeping, but in 1552
he issued a "pragmatic" prohibiting the applied snippet work, and also
the use or manufacture of gold and silver lace and ornaments, the
wearing and making of velvets, silks, and satins being also rigidly
limited. Spain, flooded with the precious metals from the Indies,
richer perhaps in actual bullion than ever a country was before or
since, with home-grown silk in abundance, and the most deft and
tasteful weavers in the civilised world, was therefore obliged to
import its manufactured gold and fine stuffs from abroad, whilst its
own humbler citizens languished amidst the wealth they were not allowed
to earn. No decrees could prevent rich people from squandering their
money on dress, least of all when the Emperor and his Court were in a
constant blaze of magnificence.
Philip II., who in his later years usually wore black velvet trimmed
with jet or bugles, with the simple chain of the Golden Fleece about
his neck, was in his youth as splendid as his father; and the
preparations for his voyage to England to marry Mary {225} Tudor in
1554 included the making of more solid magnificence in the way of dress
than probably was ever made for one event in modern history. His son's
valet[1] was of a literary turn of mind, and has left us a precise
description of the dresses and trappings made for Philip and his army
of courtiers--the flower of Spain--in which the language of
extravagance is exhausted. Horse furniture, bed-hangings, canopies,
quilts, and upholstery, as well as dress, were all of satin or velvet
covered with gold embroidery and seed-pearls. There were twenty great
nobles, Spaniards, Flemings, and Italians, each with scores of
followers, all dressed in silks and satins with gold chains. Philip's
German bodyguard, even, of 100 troopers, wore facings of silk on the
gaudy red and yellow uniform of Aragon, and the common sailors of the
fleet had crimson silk caps with white plumes. Some few amongst
Philip's numerous suits may be mentioned as an example of the dresses
then in vogue, although many of his nobles appear to have fully
rivalled him in splendour. For some years, as has been shown,
gold-embroidered dresses had been strictly prohibited; and Muñoz, in
his description of the sartorial wonders prepared for the wedding,
mentions the revival of gold embroidery as a novelty. Prince Philip
had one suit consisting of surcoat, doublet, trunk-hose, and jacket of
crimson velvet covered with little lozenges formed of twisted gold
chains, the interstices being filled with a running sprig of silver
braid, the leaves formed of silver filigree. The surcoat was lined
with silver cloth of satin, embroidered in the same way. Another
surcoat was of grey satin covered with alternate stripes {226} of
applied gold chains and silver bugles. It was lined with stamped cloth
of silver, and the doublet, trunks, and jacket were of white satin
ornamented in the same way. Another "pretty suit," we are told,
consisted of a French surcoat of black velvet embroidered all over with
gold and silver bugles, the trunks and jacket being of crimson velvet,
and the doublet of crimson satin with the same embroidery. One of his
dresses consisted entirely of white silk velvet covered with a costly
embroidery of gold filigree; and another had a surcoat of black velvet
with a border of gold bugles and heavy twisted silver cords, the
garment itself being almost hidden under a closely embroidered running
sprig in gold, the leaves being filled in with silver filigree, and in
the spaces between the sprigs were slashes of white satin. With this
gorgeous coat went a suit of white velvet and gold. Precious stones
were worn at the neck and wrists, and gold chains and gems were looped
around the hat. Heavy gold chains rested on the shoulders, and arms
and housings flashed with riches inestimable, the spoils of the two
Indies.
This will give some faint idea of the fashions of a time when the
rulers were fruitlessly trying to repress extravagance in dress amongst
their subjects. Most of this finery was prepared in the city of
Valladolid, whence Philip left on his journey, and it is not entirely
surprising that in the following year 1555, the Cortes of Castile,
sitting in that place, boldly presented a petition asking that the
sumptuary laws should be done away with altogether. They say that they
are entirely a dead letter, and are consequently a scandal, as well as
{227} being useless and vexatious. Their petition was not granted, for
Philip and his father still thought that all the growing wealth of the
country should come to them, instead of being used for decking the
undistinguished persons of private citizens.
There had been no finer flax than that of Galicia, and no better linens
than those made from it, but the trade had been crippled by the
sumptuary restrictions, and the business had already fallen into the
hands of Flemings and Frenchmen, who got paid for their stuffs with
Spanish gold. The wool industry was still more cruelly treated.
Thanks to the merino stock, the manufactory of fine cloths, serges, and
friezes had been very prosperous, and Spain could, and did, export
these textiles largely; but in 1552 the export of such goods was
strictly prohibited, and even wool in the fleece might not be sent out
of the country except on condition that for every twelve sacks exported
two pieces of foreign cloth and one bale of foreign linen should be
introduced to prevent the export of gold.
The silk growers of Valencia and elsewhere had been ruined, but the
looms remained, and the weavers attempted to obtain raw silk from Italy
and France. The introduction of raw silk was thereupon forbidden, and
most of the weavers went the way of the growers, to idleness and ruin,
or across the seas to the Indies. The Cortes of 1555 saw the evil that
was being done and, as usual, made a presentment on the subject. They
pointed out the paralysis of Spanish industry and the large sums of
coin sent out of the country to pay for French and Flemish linens, and
ascribed the evil to its secondary and not its primary reason. They
{228} say flax-growing is neglected and decayed, and suggest that
public lands, where suitable, should be cultivated, and every landowner
forced to plant a certain proportion of flax on his estate. It was
useless and absurd, of course, as the sumptuary laws limiting the
making or wearing of lawns and fine linens had killed the industry, and
the coarse linens were still spun and woven at home; so nothing came of
it.
But the acme of absurdity and political perverseness was reached in the
Cortes of 1552, which presented a petition begging that the export of
manufactured goods of all sorts to the new Spanish empire in America
should be strictly prohibited. They say that the people there are
getting their money so easily and becoming so rapidly rich, that they
buy such great quantities of Spanish goods as to raise the prices in
the Peninsula, "_whereby we who work here cannot live._"
The Cortes of 1560 reported that the nation was fast being ruined by
extravagance in dress, and begged that a "pragmatic" should be issued
forbidding every sort of ornament or tissue in which metal entered, and
strictly limiting the trimming of garments to a plain piping round the
edge. This pragmatic was duly granted, but during the next few years a
considerable change was seen. Philip had married the beautiful young
French Princess Elizabeth of Valois, who had been brought up with Mary
Stuart in that light-hearted court that Brantome described so well.
She had no patience with the rigid puritanism and peddling interference
of stern authority with beauty's armoury, and French fashions for
ladies became general. A "pragmatic" {229} was published in 1563,
ostensibly re-enforcing that of 1537 (which, as has been shown,
prohibited the use of gold lace or embroidery in any form), but really
relaxing the regulations greatly, for the benefit of the ladies. They
might in future wear sleeves of point lace in gold or silver, gold or
silver gauze, or silk shot with gold, and their jackets might be made
of similar stuffs, whilst they might deck their coifs, wimples,
stomachers, and under-linen with as much gold as they pleased. Gold,
silver, or crystal buttons could now be worn, but not on the skirt, and
only on the head, bosom, bodice, and sleeves; whilst the hat might be
trimmed with gold gimp. Some concessions were made to their spouses as
well, for they were permitted to clothe their nether limbs in silk
hose, and their trunks might be slashed and trimmed with silk, and,
generally speaking, the wearing of silk was greatly extended.
Contemporary writers are full of the great extravagance in dress which
followed this period. Moncada says that it was not uncommon for a
man's dress to cost 300 ducats a suit, whilst the abuse of precious
stones, both by men and women, was carried to a ridiculous excess.
Contemporary portraits show that things were bad enough in this respect
in England at the time, but they were much worse in Spain.
Only one year after the proclamation of the pragmatic just mentioned,
namely, in December, 1564, another elaborate decree was issued, on the
pretext that the previous one had left several points in doubt, and the
authorities had consequently been lax in enforcing it. The decree of
1563 had said that {230} one year's grace was to be given for garments
already made, and this concession had served as a loophole for the
evading the regulations altogether. The authorities are therefore
ordered strictly to enforce the decree; but the opportunity is taken of
elucidating doubtful points and still further modifying the severity of
the orders. It is now explained that the prohibition of gold, silver,
and silk stitching, gimp, or trimming of any sort on the garments,
referred only to applied trimmings, and was not meant to include the
weaving of gold or silk threads or stripes in the textures, or even the
sewing of stripes of silk or leather on to the garment, which stripes
might be bordered by a piping and held by two rows of ornamental
backstitch on each side, provided that no other sort of adornment is
used. Silk gimp even may be applied on garments for indoor wear,
whilst silk frogs may be sewn on to overcoats and travelling cloaks.
Fringes were also allowed on horse furniture and harness now, and
swordbelts and baldricks might be worn as rich as the taste and
extravagance of the owners cared to make them. Some doubt is said to
exist as to the legality of stuffing the trunk-hose with baize to
extend them, and whether the slashes might be lined with baize for the
same purpose, and these practices are strictly forbidden, "nor may
piping be inserted like farthingales, nor may threads, nor wires, nor
gummed silk be employed to extend the trunks unduly, as we are informed
has fraudulently been done." The previous pragmatic had imposed the
same penalties for infraction of the decree by people in their own
houses as in public, which appears to have caused much vexation by the
{231} invasion of domiciles by inferior officers, on pretext of
searching for forbidden garments, and the right of search was now
abolished.
An attempt to shame ladies into obeying the law was made for the first
time, of many, in these pragmatics of 1563-4 by giving to women of bad
character the right to deck themselves in prohibited finery in their
own houses. But Madrid was already commencing upon the downward career
which made it for more than a century the most dissolute place in
Europe, and women of rank even were proud of their effrontery, so that
no attempts to induce them to obey the law by appeals to their modesty
ever succeeded. The brazen-faced impudence of the Madrileñas, which so
shocked foreigners in the seventeenth century, still remains as a
cherished tradition of the fast-disappearing race of _majas_ and
_manolas_ of Lavapies and other low neighbourhoods of the capital, and
is encouraged in them as a national trait by their social betters.
In 1568 Philip lost both his beautiful young wife and his only son.
Defeat and disappointment met him on all sides, and his gloom, deepened
by fanaticism, became heavier as the years rolled on. Henceforward he
and his Court dressed in black, and the fashions of his people followed
him, to the extent of relinquishing almost entirely the use of gold
tissues and embroidery on their garments. But poor as was the King's
exchequer, and in despite of Drake and the buccaneers, gold still
poured into Spain from the Indies, and luxury, if checked in one
direction, was certain to break out in another. Coaches had been
brought {232} by Charles from Flanders when he came to Spain, and by
the end of the sixteenth century a perfect rage for coaches had seized
upon the people of the capital--a form of extravagance which for the
next century at least was carried to a ridiculous excess, and even now
remains the principal foible of the Madrileños. The new taste was
supposed to threaten the art of horsemanship and the breed of horses;
so for some years pragmatics were issued ordering that no coach or
wheeled litter or chariot was to be drawn by less than four horses. To
encourage men to ride on horseback, doctors, lawyers, and licentiates
of universities were authorised in 1584 to use long housings to their
steeds, and whilst mules were still to be housed with plain harness,
horses might be decked with velvet saddles, gold and silver fringes,
gimp and nails, and made as smart as possible, in order to encourage
their use.
In 1593 Camillo Borghese was sent to Madrid by the Pope, and has left
behind him for our enlightenment a minute account of the fashions of
his day,[2] by which we may see the effects that had been produced by
the "pragmatics" we have described. "The dress of this country," he
says, "is as follows. The men wear long breeches, with a surcoat and
hat, or else a cloak and cap, as it would be a great breach of decorum
with them to wear a hat and cloak together. This costume would
certainly be very pretty if the breeches were not cut so long as to be
disproportionate. Some men have taken to wearing hose in the Seville
style, which they call {233} galligaskins, and with these it is proper
to wear a cloak and hat instead of a cap. The ladies, like the men,
usually dress in black, and have a veil round their faces like nuns,
their heads being enveloped by their mantillas in such a way that their
faces are hardly visible. Indeed if it were not for the pragmatic
issued by the King on the subject they would still cover their faces
completely, as they used to do a few years ago. When they do not wear
these veils over their faces, they have on collars with enormous ruff
pleats. They are naturally dark-skinned, but the use of paints is so
common that they all look fair, and though small in stature their high
pattens make them look tall, so that it may be truly said that all
Spanish ladies turn themselves from little and dusky to big and bright.
The main street of Madrid would be fine if it were not unutterably
filthy and almost impassable on foot, and the better class of ladies
are always in carriages or litters, whilst the humbler ones ride on
donkey-back or pick their way through the mire. They (the ladies) are
naturally impudent, presumptuous, and off-handed, and even in the
street go up and talk with men whom they do not know, looking upon it
as a kind of heresy to be introduced properly. They admit all sorts of
men to their conversation and are not a bit scandalised at the most
improper proposals being made to them.
"The gentlemen now rarely ride on horseback but often go in carriages.
They are preceded in the streets by a group of pages and a couple of
servants they call lacqueys, the pragmatic not allowing them more,
although the grandees may be {234} attended by four. The pragmatics
only allow saddle cloths to be worn from October to March, but for the
rest of the year velvet saddles may be used. The one pastime of these
people is to drive up and down the Calle Mayor (High Street) from
midday to midnight."
The good churchman was much shocked at the effrontery of the people and
their filthy habits, but this branch of the subject is foreign to the
present article. Rough magnificence, side by side with boorish
rusticity, seems to have been the characteristic of the Spain of Philip
II. In the same year that Borghese wrote, a very severe pragmatic had
been issued prohibiting the use of silver ornaments on household
furniture, which, it says, had reached a pitch of extravagance which
could no longer be endured. Decrees were issued in 1586, 1590, and
1594, which are interesting as showing that the inevitable extravagance
of dress had now turned into the direction of the starched ruff. "No
man," says the last-named pragmatic, "may wear either at his neck or
wrists on any sort of ruff or frill, fixed or loose, any trimming,
fringe ravelling, or netting, starch, rice, gums, rods, wires, gold or
silver threads, or any 'alchemy' or anything else to extend or support
them, but only a plain Holland or linen ruff with one or two little
pleats, on pain of forfeiture of shirt and ruff and a fine of 50
ducats." Great resistance was offered to this, and it was found,
somehow or other, whether by "alchemy" or what not, the "lettuce-frill"
ruffs still stood stiffly from the neck, and the Council of State
gravely considered the matter, with the result that the decree of 1594
insists upon the law being {235} enforced, the ruffs to be as
described, and not more than three inches wide from the band to the
hem, the colour to be pure white. The penalties for infraction were
tremendous--for a first offence, 20,000 maravedis fine, for the second,
40,000, and for the third, 80,000 and a year's banishment.
This was not by any means the only sumptuary law promulgated in this
year of 1594; a much relaxed code of dress was issued with regard to
gold and fancy silk textures, of which the universal use of unadorned
black for so many years had greatly decreased the manufacture in Spain.
Women were now allowed to wear fine cloth or silk jackets, and cover
the seams thereof with gold or silver braid or scrolls, whilst their
dresses and mantles might be trimmed as profusely as they pleased with
the same ornaments. Doublets, jackets, and waistcoats were now allowed
to be of quilted silk, satin, or taffety; whilst the trunk hose of the
men might be slashed, and double-stitched at the edge of the slashings.
The said breeches, moreover, might be stiffened by a single thickness
of baize and all the fine stuffs used for gentlemen's garments could
now, for the first time for many years, be stamped with patterns. New
and more severe measures were adopted at the same time to keep up the
breed of horses, which animals were thought to be almost in danger of
extinction, as horsemanship was less than ever indulged in, and mules
were preferred for drawing the coaches.
In the same year, 1594, a curious pragmatic was proclaimed dealing with
the extravagant abuse of honorific titles. It commences in the King's
name by saying that, although it is unnecessary to {236} make rules for
himself or his family, he will begin at the top for regularity's sake.
The King must be addressed in writing simply as "Sir" at the head of
the letter, which must end with "God guard the Catholic person of your
Majesty," at the bottom. The heir to the crown was to be addressed in
the same way, but with "Highness" substituted for "Majesty," the
Princes of the blood being given the style of Highness, but "his
Highness" alone standing for the heir to the crown. The rest of the
Princes were to be addressed on the outside of a letter, "To his
Highness the Infante Don So-and-so." The titles "Excellency" and
"Illustrious Sir," which had become very general forms of courtesy,
were forbidden, and "Most Reverend Sir" was only to be applied to
Cardinals and the Primate of Spain, the Archbishop of Toledo. The
highest grandees, bishops, and members of the Council of State were in
future to be addressed by the inferior title of "Señoria," or Lordship,
whilst, out of courtesy and at the option of the person speaking or
writing, the same title could be given alone to Marquises, Counts,
Presidents of Councils, and Grand Commanders. All letters of every
kind were ordered to begin at the top with a cross, and then to state
the business without any address or name, ending with "God guard your
lordship"--or other title--and the date, place, and signature of the
writer. Absolutely no further compliment was to be permitted, no
matter what the relationship or rank of the parties. As a further
attempt to enforce simplicity, the same pragmatic provides that in
future, on pain of a fine of 10,000 maravedis, no coronet may surmount
any coat of arms, except {237} such as are borne by Dukes, Marquises,
and Counts.
The proclamation of this pragmatic caused a dreadful fluttering of the
dovecotes of the Calle Mayor. "Liars' parade" (the raised terrace
before the church of St. Philip), the favourite lounge of the gilded
youth, rose in revolt, the cadets of the Cordobas, the Mendozas, the
Maquedas, the Leivas, the Manriques, and the rest of them, who had been
called "Excellencies" and "Lordships" from their cradles, turned like
the worm at last. Dress without gold they might, but they, the sons of
Dukes, to be addressed with no more ceremony than dustmen--perish the
thought! that they would not stand. So they and the rest of the
rufflers, led captains, kept poets, bullies, and blacklegs, swept down
the Calle Mayor carrying the grave Alcalde and all before them. Shops
were shut, water was boiled to throw out upon the base "Corchetes," who
dared to call such gallants plain "Mister," and the gloomy recluse in
the Alcazar at the end of the street himself heard the row. When he
was told the cause of it, he only remarked, so the chronicles say:
"Bah! what does it matter to me what they are called? Let them be
Lordships, or what they will, so long as they serve me well." And the
pragmatic thus died on the day it was born, for no attempt was ever
made to enforce it, and "Señorias" in the Calle Mayor remained as
plentiful as blackberries in an English hedgerow.
The isolation of Philip II. in his gloomy old age, together with the
relaxation of the enactments already mentioned against the use of gold
and silver tissues, had allowed luxury in dress {238} practically to go
unchecked during the last years of the sixteenth century, and when the
King died, in 1598, he left Spain, and particularly the capital, in a
perfect frenzy of prodigality. The most brazen dissoluteness
accompanied the blindest religious fanaticism; the exchequer was
bankrupt, the fields untilled, the aforetime busy workshops of the
south silent and abandoned, the people starving or flocking across the
seas in search of the easily won gold that was ruining them; and when
the coveted gold came to the few who survived the pursuit, it was
lavished in insensate waste on the adornment of their outer
persons--for they always fed frugally in that lean land--and most of
the wealth left the country as fast as it entered it, the idleness it
engendered being its net result to the country that won it.
For the next hundred years the same process went on. The monarch of
Spain and the Indies was reduced to beg his subjects in the name of
charity to provide food for himself and his family, whilst the mines of
Peru and Mexico were sending millions. The splendour of the polished
Court of Philip IV. was only rivalled by that of his nephew, the Grand
Monarque, but it was soaked to the core in sloth and squalor, whilst
the humbler people found the purchasing power of gold grow less and
less as the metal poured in and the workers, dazzled by wealth so
lightly won, ceased to produce commodities for consumption. Philip
III. was a narrow bigot without his father's industry or intellect, but
he was well-meaning and sorely beset, and was unequal to the propping
up of the great empire into which his father's narrow and halting
policy had {239} introduced the dry rot. The regulation of dress,
however, and the repression of profane extravagance was just the task
which appealed to his tastes and sympathies, and he set about it as
soon as he mounted the throne.
His pragmatic of 1600 was a new departure in many things and was the
pattern of all similar enactments for the next hundred years. It is
very minute, but a few of its provisions are worth preserving, as they
throw much light on the tastes of the time. The King in his preamble
sets forth that he is informed that the sumptuary pragmatics are quite
disregarded, and seeing that the great excess and extravagance in dress
constitutes a national scandal which must be moderated, he has
conferred with his wisest councillors and has decided to issue a new
pragmatic which shall supersede all previous ones.
To begin with, the following sweeping order is given: No one of
whatever rank, except the King and his children, shall wear any sort of
brocade or cloth of gold or silver, or stuff shot with gold or silver,
or silk in which metal is woven. No cord, gimp, ornamental stitching
or quilting, either of silk or metal, is to be permitted, excepting on
religious vestments and uniforms, and no precious stones or pearls are
to be worn on housings or accoutrements in any shape. There is an
absolute prohibition of the employment of lute-string, twist, ruchings,
flat braid, cording, chainlets, crewels, cross-stitching,
through-stitching, tangle trimming, puffs, and any sort of bead or
steel trimmings; and the following dress is alone prescribed: The cape
or other over-garment may be {240} of any sort of silk with stripes, on
each edge of which may be an ornamental stitching. Surcoats and
ropillas (a sort of half-tight over-jacket with double sleeves, the
outer ones hanging loose from the shoulder) may be also of silk and
trimmed in the same way, and, if desired, a piping of another sort of
silk, but not the same, may be put between the stripes. The inside of
the capes may have similar stripes of silk, satin, or taffety, but not
velvet. Shoulder capes may be made of velvet, and the hoods of
riding-cloaks or rain-capes may be lined with the same. Silk gimp and
frogs may be sewn on to duffel cloaks, &c. The trunks may be worn of
any kind of silk, and each slashing may be edged with a velvet or silk
piping and an "eyelash" border. If the slashing is a wide one this
edging may be worn on both sides of it, but if otherwise only on one
side. The slashings may be lined with taffety. Silk gimp or braid of
any sort may be worn on the trunks excepting lutestrings or crewels.
Galligaskins may also be made of silk, but with no trimming but a row
of gimp on each side and at the opening. Dressing-gowns for women and
men may be of any material or fashion, so long as gold or silver is not
used. Doublets, ropillas, or trunks made of satin may be ornamented by
silk stitching of any colour, but on no account may the stuff be
pinked, ravelled, or fringed. The rules generally apply to women as
well as men, but the former are allowed to wear jackets of light cloth
of gold or silver, which may be trimmed with a braid of the same over
the seams, and the whole jacket may be covered with "whirligigs" or
scrolls of gold or silver, so long as there is no working in the stuff
{241} itself. The frills and flounces of these garments may also be
ornamented in the same fashion. Hats, belts, baldricks, &c., were all
treated in the same way; gold or silver gimp, braid, and lace were
allowed to be sewn on, but not embroidered or woven in, the texture.
A rather curious point in this decree of 1600 is the distinction in it
of different classes of citizens. Thus women of known evil life were
allowed to wear what they liked inside the houses, but were to conform
to the law in the streets; pages might dress in silk jackets, coats,
trunks, and caps, but their capes were to be of cloth or frieze; no
lackeys were to have silken clothes or velvet scabbards, but they were
allowed to wear taffety caps. The punishments for the breaking the
orders seem severe but unequal. Offending wearers were to lose the
peccant garment and pay a sum equal to its value for pious uses, but
tradesmen who made or sold the goods were to be condemned to four
years' exile and a fine of twenty maravedis for a first offence, double
the punishment for a second, and the pillory and ten years' exile from
Spain for a third. All this sounds very severe, but there were plenty
of ways out of it. For instance, garments already made might be worn
for four years by men and six by women, although they were not in
accordance with the law. This pragmatic was proclaimed with the usual
ceremony by one of the Alcaldes de Casa y Corte with the sound of drum
and trumpet in the High Street of Madrid on the 8th of June, 1600. The
month must have been a busy one for the dignified officials in
question; for during the first fortnight of it decrees regulating
almost every conceivable subject were issued. The {242} rigid and
unpopular decree about courtesy titles was superseded, and nearly
everybody of position might now be called Señoria. No gold or silver
in any form was to be used in furniture or household decoration, "as
the King is shocked at the waste of the estates of his subjects in such
superfluities, and considers it high time that the money were employed
in useful and necessary things." Velvet or silk might be employed in
upholstery, but no gold or silver except a gold fringe on the edges.
The same rule applied to the lining of carriages and litters, but no
silk was to be used on the outside of vehicles.
The regulation of jewellery was just as minute and severe, and to judge
from that which was in future to be allowed, the excess in this respect
must have been very great, since after pages of prohibitions with
regard to the fashions of jewellery, and the limitation of enamels and
precious stones, men were still allowed to wear as many rings as they
liked, chains and girdles of gold pieces, sets of cameos mounted in
gold, and strings of pearls in their caps. The use of silver plate is
also much limited, but still side-saddles might be made of silver, if
plain, and the harness and horse-cloths covered with the same metal.
Here, again, the same loophole for evasion was given; for all things
already made were exempt if registered within six months.
Attempts were made at the same time, as on many subsequent occasions,
to suppress the ostentatious promenading up and down the Calle Mayor,
which grew more scandalous as the years went on, until it reached its
apogee in the reign {243} of Philip IV., and for which the taste has
never yet quite died out. No women of loose life were to promenade in
coaches, nor might coaches be hired for the purpose on pain of
confiscation. No person but a grandee might have more than two torches
carried before him under penalty of one hundred ducats fine, and if any
person hired a lackey by the day, or for less than a month, he was to
be put in the pillory and exiled for four years. The reasons for these
regulations will be well understood by those who have studied the
characteristic picaresque novels of the period, and have smiled at the
amusing subterfuges adopted by impecunious scamps to pass themselves
off as noble hidalgos, the better to prey upon their fellow-creatures.
Amongst other things Philip III. in his youthful zeal tried to deal
with the vexed subject of ruffs. He made no attempt to stand against
starch any longer--indeed, to judge from his portraits, no one ever
wore such stiff or extensive ruffs as he did himself, but he sternly
draws the line at trimming. There must be no lace edges or ravellings;
they must be pure white, with two little pleats only, and not more than
4½ inches wide, half as wide again as had been allowed by his father.
For the next few years pragmatics positively rained in Madrid,
altering, restricting, relaxing this or the other detail of the various
decrees; but all to no purpose apparently, for in 1611 Philip came out
with another long proclamation, saying that the extravagant abuse of
dress being worse than ever, he has consulted discreet experts and has
decided to alter the rules. The use of gold and silver thread {244}
and foil, and of coloured silks, is more restricted than ever, the only
exceptions being for church vestments and the dresses of officers
actually engaged in war. In other respects, however, the trimmings
allowed appear to be exceedingly elaborate, and in the pragmatic of
1611 about a dozen different specimen trimmings of trunks alone are
described with all the finnicking minuteness of a modern Court
dressmaker's bill; the sum total of it all being that the employment of
silk, velvet, and other fine stuffs, stamped and plain, was now almost
unrestricted, whilst bullion was more severely forbidden than before,
except for ladies' jackets and a few of their trimmings.
Another desperate attempt was made in the same year to restrict the
unprofitable idling in the streets with carriages and an order was
issued that no new coaches were to be made without a license from the
President of the Council, and no man was to ride in a coach without
leave, "as the King is informed that gentlemen are forgetting how to
ride." Women also are to refrain from covering up their heads and
faces, in order that they may be seen and recognised, and they may only
be accompanied by their husbands, fathers, sons, or grandfathers. The
girls of a family may ride in a coach without the mistress of it, and
the owners of coaches may be accompanied by a friend, but with this
exception no coach is to go out without its owner, and may not be lent,
exchanged, or sold without special license.
Ruffs had now apparently become general with all classes, as a
pragmatic was issued in 1611, saying that, notwithstanding the former
prohibition of the {245} use of long-lawn and muslin for ruffs, frills,
and collars, poor people would insist upon wearing them, and they
consequently might now be made of those cheaper materials as well as of
fine linen.
In March, 1621, Philip III. died, leaving luxury and extravagance in
his capital more rampant than ever, and Philip IV., a mere boy, at once
set to work to grapple the evil with as much confidence as if he were
the first to attempt it. If economy had ever been needed it was so
now, for the public treasury was empty, the people ruined with
oppressive taxation, ecclesiastical extortion and official peculation,
and the country was rapidly becoming depopulated. A curious pamphlet
is still in existence which contains a series of exhortations addressed
to the King in the year of his accession by a noble member of the
Cortes of Castile, setting forth the various evils from which the
country was suffering, and proposing remedies for them.[3] There is
much plain speaking and boldness on many matters therein, and, amongst
others, on the eternal question of sumptuary extravagance. The
representation on this subject has so direct a bearing upon what has
already been said as to the inoperativeness of the pragmatics, that
some of it is worth transcribing.
"Your subjects spend and waste great sums in their abuse of costly garb
with so many varieties of trimmings that the making costs more than the
garments themselves, and as soon as they are made there is a change of
fashion and the money has to be spent over again. When they marry, the
{246} vast wealth they squander on dress alone ruins them, and they are
in debt for the rest of their lives; and although this expenditure may
be voluntary, it has become, so to speak, obligatory, and such is the
excess that the wife of an artisan nowadays needs as much finery as a
lady, even though she and her husband have to get the money for it by
dishonest means, to the offence of God. Many weddings, indeed, are
prevented by the excessive cost and the vassals are therefore unable to
serve your Majesty as they ought. They are unable to pay their debts,
the costs incurred in the recovery of which still further reduce their
fortunes.... As for collars also, the disorder in their use is very
great, for a single one of linen, with its making and ravelling, will
cost over 200 reals, and six reals every time it is goffered, which at
the end of the year doubles the cost of them and much money is thus
wasted. Besides this, many strong young men are employed in goffering
them, who might be better employed in work necessary for the
commonwealth or in tilling the soil. The servants, too, have to be
paid higher wages in respect of the money they have to spend in
collars, which consumes most of what they earn, and a great quantity of
wheat is wasted in starch, which is wanted for food. In addition to
this, the fine linens to make these collars are brought from abroad,
and money has to be sent out of the country to pay for them. With
respect to coaches, great evil is caused and offence given to God,
seeing the disquiet they bring to the women who own them, as they never
stay at home but leave their children and servants to run riot with the
bad example of the mistress being always {247} abroad. The
praiseworthy and necessary art of horsemanship too is dying out, and
those who ought to be mounted crowd, six or eight of them together in a
carriage, talking to wenches rather than learning how to ride. It must
be evident how different gentlemen must grow up who have all their
lives been rolling about in coaches instead of riding, besides which
the breed of horses is deteriorating and money is being squandered by
the keeping of coaches often by people of moderate means who can ill
afford it but who are over-persuaded by their wives, who say that
because So-and-so, who is no better off than they, have a coach they
must have one as well, and so the bad example spreads."
Don Mateo proposed some very drastic remedies, and, whether in
consequence of this or not, the King and his favourite, the masterful
Count-Duke of Olivares, put their heads together during the first few
weeks of the reign, and came out with tremendous series of pragmatics
repeating the most stringent provisions of the decree of 1611 with
regard to the use of gold or silver, either in dress, furniture,
saddlery, or upholstery. No trimmings were to be allowed of any sort,
and no silk capes, cloaks, or overalls were to be worn, cloth, frieze,
and duffel being substituted in those garments. Above all Don Mateo's
suggestion about the ruffs was adopted. No person was permitted, on
pain of the pillory and exile, to pleat or goffer linen in any shape.
Starch was placed in the _index expurgatoris_ again, and ruffs were to
be for ever suppressed in favour of the large, square, flat Walloon
collar, which fell over the shoulders and breast like a bib.
The expenses of the palace were cut down to {248} a minimum, and Philip
himself, the most prodigal and lavish of men in after years, went on
short commons. Amongst other efforts at economy made by him one
originated a fashion which became deeply rooted in the Spanish
character, and which the Italian minister of another Philip--the
Frenchman--a hundred years afterwards, said had a large share in making
Spaniards the leisurely and dignified people they were. The wide,
falling Walloon collar, with little or no stiffening,--as will be seen
in portraits of the time--was apt to wrinkle round the neck and very
soon became dirty; so an ingenious tailor in the Calle Mayor submitted
to the young King and his brother Carlos a new device, consisting of a
high square collar of cardboard covered with light-coloured silk inside
and with the same stuff as the doublet outside. By means of heated
rollers and shellac the cardboard was permanently moulded into a
graceful curve which bent outwards at the height of the chin.[4]
Philip was pleased with the novelty and ordered some of the new
"golillas," as they were called, for himself and his brother. The
tailor, in high glee, went to his shop to make them, but alas! heated
rollers turned with handles and smoking pots of shellac were suspicious
things in those days, and the spies of the Council promptly haled the
tailor and his uncanny instruments before the President, who sagely
decided that there was some devilish witchcraft behind it all; and if
not--well, the accursed {249} things he was making were lined with
light blue silk in violation of the pragmatic, so he must be punished
anyhow. A bonfire was made of the poor man's stock before his door and
he was put under lock and key; but when Olivares heard of it he was
furious. He and the Duke of Infantado sent for the President and rated
him soundly as a meddling old fool for burning the King's new collars.
The President declared his ignorance that they were for the King, but
pointed out how outrageous they were in shape, and how they sinned
against the pragmatic; but he was soon silenced by the Count-Duke, who
told him they were the best and most economical things ever invented,
as they did away with the need for constant washing of collars, and
would last ten years without further expense or trouble.
The golilla "caught on" with high and low. It is true that heads had
to be carried stiffly and turned slowly, but Spanish heads were
intended so to be used and no complaint was made. No more pragmatics
against ruffs, moreover, were ever needed again, and the costly,
cumbrous fashion went out for good. This was in 1623, the same year as
Charles Stuart went on his hairbrained trip to Madrid, and during his
stay all the pragmatics were suspended, in order that he might see how
splendid the Madrileños could be if left to themselves. They did their
best to sustain their reputation and the poverty-stricken country was
again plunged into the maddest vortex of prodigality that even
dissolute Madrid had ever seen, and flaunting Buckingham himself was
outshone in brilliancy and lavishness by the nobles of Philip's Court.
The strict law of Charles V. limiting the {250} wearing of jewellery
and precious stones had been re-imposed, but the list of gems
displayed, given, and received as presents during Charles' visit, and
the sumptuous dresses worn, has been left on record, down to the
smallest detail, by one of the King's attendants;[5] and shows an
inconceivable lavishness which naturally would, and did, make it
difficult to revert in Madrid to the severe orders of the pragmatics
again.
The tendency of the time, however, was against barbaric splendour, and
gradually the taste for gold and silver tissues and embroideries in
civil costume was modifying itself, but new extravagancies sprang up as
old ones languished. Philip's sister Anna had married Louis XIII. of
France in 1615 with great pomp, and all the Spanish Court had assembled
on the historic ford of the Bidasoa which marked the French frontier.
They brought back some new fashions with them, caught from the
Parisians. Since Charles V., for good reasons, was obliged to have his
curls cropped at Barcelona, Spaniards of all classes had worn the hair
short, and parted as it is in England at present. The French wore it
longer and the Spaniards now followed their lead. But not all at once.
They first adopted the mode of having two ugly locks like long, limp
Newgate-knockers, called "guedejas," hanging before the ears, the back
of the head being cropped and the top surmounted by a twist or curl
called a "copete." In the early portraits of Philip IV. this style of
headdress may be seen.
{251}
Another fashion brought from France was much more objectionable, but
took a stronger hold in Spain than elsewhere. Round hoop-skirts or
farthingales had been common in most parts of Europe for over fifty
years before, but the new refinement, called a "guarda-infante," was a
very large, farthingale flattened back and front so as to stick out
inordinately at the sides, particularly at the hips. The jaunty
Madrileñas added to it a new feature, which made it worse than ever,
namely, a metal section or facing to the bottom hoop which resounded
against a similar plate on the heels of their clogs, or clanked upon
the ground, so that a musical clickety-click accompanied them wherever
they went; even as it did that aged equestrienne of Banbury famed in
English nursery lore. As the bold wenches minced along they prided
themselves upon the eccentric or rhythmical effects they produced.
They would be neither shamed, coerced, nor persuaded to abandon the
foolish caprice until they tired of it themselves, but Don Philip did
his best by pragmatics to suppress it. In 1639 the famous fulmination
against female extravagance in dress was issued, part of which ran as
follows:
"His Majesty orders that no woman, whatever her quality, shall wear a
guarda-infante; which is a costly, superfluous, painful, ugly,
disproportionate, lascivious, indecent article of dress, giving rise to
sin on the part of the wearers and on that of men for their sakes. The
only exception to this rule shall be public prostitutes.
"No skirts shall consist of more than eight yards of silk or a
proportionate quantity of other stuff, nor shall they measure more than
four yards round; the {252} same rule shall apply to polonaises,
over-skirts, hen-coop skirts and petticoats.
"No woman wearing shoes shall have a bottom hoop, farthingale, or
anything else in the skirt for the purpose of making a noise, and
bottom hoops or farthingales shall not be worn except with pattens at
least five inches high.
"No woman shall wear low-cut bodices except women of known evil life.
Any person guilty of infraction of this pragmatic shall lose the
offending article of dress and pay a fine of 20,000 maravedis for the
first offence, and for the second double that amount, with exile from
the Court."
The unfortunate dressmakers who made the garments were to be much more
severely punished than the fair wearers, and four years' penal
servitude was their sentence for a second offence.
The offended Madrileñas did not put up tamely with such tyranny, and,
led by three frisky damsels, the daughters of a famous judge, they came
out the day after the pragmatic was proclaimed, swaggering and jingling
up and down the Prado in the widest guarda-infantes, the most
outrageous farthingales, and the noisiest of hoops; and dared the
scandalised alguaciles to touch them, since they could hardly arrest
all the rank and beauty of the Court; and the fair ones practically had
their own way, for Philip only issued a grave and sorrowful
remonstrance against the indelicacy and expense of their constantly
changing caprices, and begging them to conform to their duty. But they
pleased themselves as usual, although it is said that their three fair
ringleaders did no go quite scot-free, as their father the judge,
scandalised that his own daughters {253} should be the first to break
the law, condemned them to dress in nun's garb of the coarsest frieze.
Nothing daunted, the recalcitrant "Gilimonas,"[6] as they were called,
managed, with nods and winks and frisking skirts, to look more
deliciously provocative than ever in their penitential garb, and their
pastors and masters were glad enough to get them back again into their
clicking farthingales to avoid the scandal.
Nor were the gallants of the other sex more submissive about their
lovelocks. An order was proclaimed at the same time, saying, "His
Majesty orders that no man shall wear a topknot, or lovelock before the
ears, or any curls upon his head--and barbers who dress the hair in
this fashion shall be fined 200 maravedis and be imprisoned for 10
days." Men who wore the offending curls were to be excluded from Court
and all public offices. "Liars' Parade" was as much upset about this
as about titles, and made a desperate attempt to resist. It was in the
very heyday of poetry in Spain--Calderon, Lope de Vega, Quevedo, and a
host of others were for ever firing off poetical squibs and satires at
the foibles of the age, the "Liars' Parade" being the central exchange
for the "good things" of poets, big and little, from the monarch
downwards. A cloud of barbed poetical arrows from scores of poetical
bows were consequently shot at the royal decree against topknots and
guedejas; and ridicule and satire were poured out unsparingly upon
those who were responsible for it. But to be shut out from the
presence of king and ministers, to have the public service closed
against them, was {254} too hard to be borne by the noble swaggerers
and kept poets of the Calle Mayor, so they gave way and took to the
long, lank, straight hair all round, which Philip himself wore for the
rest of his life, though others, particularly away from the Court,
still clung to the guedejas and short backhair.
When Philip IV. had been gathered to his fathers in the jasper vault of
the Escorial, and his sickly son had married a French princess, Spain
began to conform its fashions to those which ruled in the Court of the
Roi-soleil, but somehow the three-cornered plumed hat, so general in
France and England, never became popular in Spain. The large
flap-brimmed hat with feathers still lingered when the Queen Regent
Mariana, during her rivalry with her bold step-son, Don Juan José of
Austria, raised a regiment of Swiss and German mercenaries. These
soldiers wore a very broad-brimmed hat, flat all round, and slightly
turned up at the edge, much like the wideawakes of to-day. This hat
caught the fancy of the Spaniards, who dubbed it "Chambergo," a Spanish
variant of "Schomberg," after whom the regiment was called, and this
hat has to this day never lost its hold upon the Spanish populace,
although they had to raise a revolution to keep it, as will be related
presently.
A very absurd craze at the end of the seventeenth century, which
official remonstrance was powerless to put down, was the universal
wearing of great horn-rimmed spectacles, such as may be seen in the
portrait of Quevedo, facing page 256; men and women of fashion insisted
upon wearing these ugly appendages, whether they needed them or not,
and {255} literary fashion though it was in a literary age, much sport
was given to the poetasters in attacking it.
By the time Charles the Bewitched had grown up, French fashion ruled in
Madrid, with the sole exceptions of the golilla (somewhat changed in
shape to suit the long backhair) and the round-brimmed hat, which
resisted all attempts to displace them; but the old vice of
extravagance still continued in spite of changed fashions, and in 1674
a pragmatic was issued deploring again the costly excess in dress, the
abuse of adornment of equipages, and the idle luxury of the time. The
severe decrees of Philip IV. are re-enacted, and a code of permissible
dress laid down, in which velvets, silks, satins, taffeties, of all
colours, stamped and plain, are allowed, but foreign textures are to be
equal in weight and fineness to Spanish goods.
The pragmatics now, however, had altered their tone. They were
exhortatory rather than comminatory during the last years of the House
of Austria. A change came with the advent of the first Bourbon Philip
V. The Spaniards were sensitive, and resented the inferiority implied
by the adoption by the Court and society of the French fashions, high
heels, wide-skirted coats, full-bottomed wigs, and the rest; so the
mass of the people clung to their cropped back-hair, their
broad-brimmed hats, long cloaks, and above all their stately stiffened
"golillas." Philip was too wise to run atilt against the golilla at
first, and indeed adopted it himself, as may be seen in his portrait as
a youth in the Louvre. But he wrote an anonymous pamphlet against it,
and lost no opportunity of pointing out its unfitness for working
people and soldiers. Alberoni, with his caustic {256} Italian wit, was
for ever sneering at it, so that when Philip abandoned it and took to a
collar and white lace cravat public opinion was prepared for the change
and the golilla fell, after a reign of a hundred years.
When Philip was firm upon his throne after his long struggle, he issued
a pragmatic, in 1723, once more trying to stem the tide of
extravagance, precisely as if it had never been tried and failed
before. No gold or silver either in texture or trimming was to be
worn. No gold, glass, pearl, or steel buttons were to be allowed. No
precious stones, real or false, might be used in trimming or
fastenings, there were to be no foreign ornaments, and sham gems and
jewellery were strictly prohibited. No silk might be worn but such as
was of Spanish manufacture. Servants were to be clothed in plain cloth
and woollen stockings, and no person but a grandee was allowed to keep
more than two lackeys; and no silk was to be used on harness or the
outside of coaches. No person might drive more than four horses in the
capital, and no lawyer, notary, or tradesman was permitted to keep a
coach. Doctors and priests alone might ride a pacing mule, all other
men were bidden to mount horses only. Artisans and workmen were to
dress exclusively in baize, serge, or frieze; their cuffs alone might
be of silk. The pains and penalties in this great pragmatic were many
and severe, but the decree aimed at doing too much. So many fine and
delicate doubtful points arose with regard to its provisions, that for
years after fresh proclamations were constantly being made to elucidate
this pragmatic of 1723; and through the many loopholes offenders
escaped, and the act became a dead letter.
[Illustration: FRANCISCO DE QUEVEDO VILLEGAS _from the collection of
his Grace the Duke of Wellington._]
{257}
Indeed, sumptuary laws were already growing out of date, even in Spain;
the courtiers copied the latest fashions from Paris, and the common
people, more out of patriotism and mute resentment than anything else,
made their cloaks longer and longer and their hats wider and wider.
The long ends of the cloaks had to be put out of the way somehow, so
they were thrown across the face to the opposite shoulder, and, what
with the broadbrim over the brow and the cloak over the mouth, none of
the face was seen but the eyes.
Spain during the greater part of the eighteenth century had the
ill-fortune to be governed by foreign ministers, mostly Italians, and
one after the other they tried to cut stubborn Spain to the same
pattern as the rest of the world. The more they tried the more sulky
and determined became the people, and it resolved itself into a
national article of faith to resist all change; things Spanish being
better than things elsewhere. When Philip's younger son, Charles III.,
came from Naples to rule them he brought with him his Neapolitan
ministers. Grimaldi said that the Spaniards all looked like
conspirators slinking about in the darkness with their covered faces.
An attempt was made to light the streets with oil-lamps, but the people
resented such a foolish foreign fad, and smashed the lamps as fast as
they were put up. The offenders could not be identified with their
covered faces and slouch hats, so the King was persuaded by the Marquis
of Squillaci (Esquilache, as the Spaniards called him) to issue a new
pragmatic. Its tone was more one of sorrow than of anger. The King
was shocked for foreigners to see such a boorish fashion in his {258}
capital, and had determined that in future no long cloaks or
round-brimmed hats were to be worn. Either a short cape or a skirted
coat was allowed, and men might wear either their own hair or a wig,
but they must cover it with a three-cornered hat and not a Chambergo,
and the face must not be hidden in any way.
This order was proclaimed on the 4th of March, 1766, and police were
posted in the principal places with shears to curtail cloaks and lop
hat-brims. It happened that a man pursued by alguaciles for wearing
the forbidden garments took refuge in the precincts of the church of
the Trinity, where he was followed by the officers and beaten, in
defiance of sanctuary. An infuriated crowd collected and overpowered
the authorities, who were dismayed at the feeling evinced, and withdrew
their men. For the next few days men all over Madrid ostentatiously
flaunted their cloaks and broad-brims before the barracks and police
posts, and there is no doubt that the feeling was taken advantage by
politicians for their own ends to goad the people to fury against the
Italian ministers. Matters came to a head on the 23rd of March, when a
soldier attempted to seize a man with his face covered. A crowd, ready
for mischief, collected immediately, and the authorities were
overpowered. The mob swept up the Calle de Leon across the Calle de
Alcalá to Squillaci's house (the famous "house with the seven
chimneys") which they wrecked, although the minister had fled. With
broad-brimmed hats on the top of poles they scoured the streets, making
all men they met uncock their hats. Overpowering all resistance, they
assembled {259} before the palace. The guards used force in vain, and
that night the capital was in the hands of the mob. The gaols were
opened, houses wrecked, foreigners assailed and killed, the King's
Walloon Guard especially being singled out for vengeance. Squillaci
and Grimaldi had fled, and the Spanish ministers, either out of
timidity or sympathy, practically sided with the rioters. The rising
spread rapidly to the provinces, old grievances were raked up again,
and a dangerous revolution was in progress, when the King surrendered
unconditionally. People were to wear what they pleased, food and oil
were to be reduced in price, and the Italian ministers were smuggled
away, never to return.
That practically ended the fight for sumptuary control. Finery was
triumphant in the long struggle, and the strong arm of authority was
obliged to confess itself powerless to dictate on the question of
personal adornment. Half-hearted attempts were made after this to
interfere in sumptuary matters by Spanish sovereigns, but the effects
of their decrees were hardly felt outside their own households. In
1780, for instance, a pragmatic as severe in form as ever was issued,
minutely regulating the wearing of mourning and prohibiting mourning
coaches, but little notice was taken of it after the first few weeks;
and later still a curious mild little decree was issued by Charles IV.
limiting the number of dishes which, according to custom, many
officials were entitled to receive daily from the royal kitchens. It
is a long drop from Alfonso the Wise to the silly dodderer who handed
over his kingdom to Napoleon because his son had offended him; but the
same feeling, almost the {260} same phraseology, pervades the first
pragmatic we have quoted and the last. Both deplore the lavishness and
luxury of the people, and exhort them to correct the excess and
superfluity which characterises their tables; and in both of them the
King promises that he himself will rigidly conform to his own decree
and reform the extravagance of his private repasts.
Custom, taste, and perhaps necessity, have done what five hundred years
of "pragmatics" failed to do. The Spaniards are the most sober and
frugal-feeding nation in Europe, and certainly do not exceed in the
matter of gaudy or ostentatious raiment. The only traits left to them
perhaps by the extravagant old fashions we have described, are their
consuming love for driving about the streets in a fine carriage,
however much they may stint in all else; and the grave stiff-necked
dignity which a century of the golilla left behind it.
[1] Andres Muñoz' MSS., National Library, Madrid.
[2] "L'Espagne au 16me et 17me siècles," par Morel Fatio. Paris, 1878.
[3] "Discursos y apuntamientos de Don Mateo de Lison y Biedma."
Secretly printed in 1622.
[4] As first invented, the golilla opened in front, as shown in the
portrait of Quevedo, facing page 256, but later, when the hair was worn
long, it was made square in front and was fastened behind, as shown in
the portrait of Charles the Bewitched.
[5] Manuscript of Don Diego de Soto y Aguilar in the Royal Academy of
History in Madrid, transcript in the author's possession.
[6] Their father's name was Gil Imon de la Mota.
[Illustration: Tailpiece]
{261}
_A PALACE IN THE STRAND._
{263}
[Illustration: Headpiece]
_A PALACE IN THE STRAND._[1]
Probably not one person out of a thousand of those who hurry along the
busiest part of the Strand notices even the existence of a closed iron
gate by the side of a public-house opposite the Vaudeville Theatre. If
you peer through the grating you will only see a dark, narrow court,
now blocked up by the building operations connected with the Hotel
Cecil, and you will have no difficulty in coming to the conclusion that
this avenue, which has been gradually going down in the world for the
last two centuries, is destined before very long to be blotted out
altogether. For this was an important thoroughfare once, called Ivy
Lane, one of the three public roadways by which access was obtained
from the Strand to the river and the boats, the other two being Milford
Lane and Strand Lane, the entrance to which latter still exists, a mere
passage between two shops opposite Catherine Street. Down the centre
of Ivy Lane ran a brook, over which the roadway of the Strand was
carried by a bridge called Ivy Bridge. This lane, which separates the
liberty of the Duchy of Lancaster from the city of {264} Westminster,
ran sloping down to the river between the garden walls of two of the
great Strand palaces which, erected, as they all were at first, by
bishops, were subsequently grabbed by kings and courtiers for their own
use. To the east stood, on the Savoy demesne, the house of the Bishop
of Carlisle, which was granted to the Elizabethan Earl of Bedford, and
subsequently came into the possession, by exchange, of Robert Cecil,
afterwards the first Earl of Salisbury, second son of the great
Burleigh, whose own house stood nearly opposite, on the site of Exeter
Hall; and on the west, covering all the space now occupied by the
Adelphi as far as Coutts' bank, there rose the ancient mansion which
for centuries was the town palace of the prince-bishops of Durham,
known to history as Durham Place.
In the lawless times, when these mansions were first founded, it would
have been dangerous for any but ecclesiastics to have resided outside
of the protection afforded by the City boundaries, and so it came about
that all the way from the Temple to Whitehall, along the banks of the
silent highway, which then was the principal thoroughfare of London,
there ran a string of bishops' palaces and religious foundations.
Their outhouses and stable gates opened on to the rough country road we
still call the Strand--a road which even in the time of Mary, we are
told, was filthy and unseemly, and remained so, indeed, until the great
nobles made these palaces their homes. Many books have been written
about the Aldelphi and its site, and Durham Place, which was by far the
most important of the Strand palaces until the Protector built Somerset
House, has come in for its own full share of notice, but the writers
{265} upon the subject have copied each other with slavish fidelity,
errors and all. The same set of facts and assumptions has invariably
done duty in all descriptions of Durham Place. I wish in the present
article to break new ground, and relate some hitherto unnoticed
episodes in its history.
Stow has not much to tell of Durham Place, except of the great festival
of 1540, when the future rivals, Dudley and Seymour, with Poynings,
Carew, Kingston, and Richard Cromwell, challenged all Europe to a
tourney, and held open house with regal lavishness for a week at Durham
Place, lent to them for the purpose by the King, who rewarded each of
them, moreover, with an income for ever of a hundred marks a year and a
house out of the plunder of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. The
State Papers now and again give us a ray of side-light on the history
of Durham Place. We know how Somerset granted it to Elizabeth for her
life after he had beheaded his brother, who there had coined the
doubloons with which he thought to bribe his way to the throne. We
know on Somerset's fall how jealous Northumberland gave to the Princess
the great unfinished palace of the dead Protector, and took for his own
town house Durham Place, in which, although it was nominally hers, she
had never lived. We know something, but not much, of the fastuous
splendour of Dudley's life during the three years he lived here, of
Jane Grey's ill-starred wedding in the house, of the plotting of her
father-in-law, verily a lath painted like a sword, and the weaker
time-servers around him, to perpetuate their rule and confirm them in
their ill-gotten gains, of the pitiably crumbling down of the {266}
house of cards when the supreme moment came; and how Northumberland
went forth from the Tower to the scaffold, never to see Durham Place
again, hoping in his craven soul, till the axe fell, that his abject
recantation would purchase his worthless life.
The Egerton Papers (Camden Society) tell us somewhat in detail of the
arbitrary expulsion of Raleigh from Durham Place, where, by the grace
of his mistress, he had lived happily and splendidly for nearly twenty
years. These facts and some others in the subsequent history of the
house are recited by every writer who has touched upon the subject, and
I have no desire to repeat at length incidents which are already well
known. One error into which most writers have fallen has been to jump
at the conclusion that whenever recorded history is silent on the
subject of Durham Place, the house reverted to the possession of the
See of Durham. Such does not appear to me to have been the case. It
is usually asserted that Henry VIII. first took possession of the house
by forcing the Bishop, Cuthbert Tunstal, to exchange his palace for
some other property. This is founded on Stow's statement that Cold
Harbour, in Thames Street, was granted to the Bishop because of "his
house near Charing Cross being taken into the King's hands, Cuthbert
Tunstal was lodged in this Cold Harbour." It is certain, however, that
Katherine of Aragon lived here during her widowhood, before Henry VIII.
came to the throne, as many of her letters to her father in Spain are
in existence dated from this house, ranging over several years prior to
her marriage with Henry in 1509. On the {267} very year of Mary's
death Cuthbert Tunstal wrote a letter[2] to Cardinal Pole thanking him
for obtaining for him the _reversion_ of the house;[2] and it is
usually assumed from this that he actually entered into possession of
it. But he did not; and it is the story of Durham Place during this
time, namely, the last years of Mary and the first few years of
Elizabeth, that I wish to tell.
The historians of the house generally make short work of the matter by
saying, "When Elizabeth came to the throne Tunstal was again driven
from this house, and about 1583 Elizabeth granted it to its greatest
tenant, the glorious Raleigh."[3] In all probability Tunstal only
lived in the house a short time if at all. He was appointed to the See
in 1530, and in 1540, as we know by Stow's description of the
already-mentioned festival, Durham Place was a royal house, and so it
remained until 1603, when Lord Salisbury used Toby Matthew, Bishop of
Durham, as his catspaw to claim it, in order that he might filch the
best part of it--the Strand frontage--for himself, which he did to his
own great profit. In any case, it is certain that Tunstal never got
the house back again from Mary or Cardinal Pole, whatever promises may
have been made to him.
Of the few Spanish nobles of high rank who stayed with Philip II.
during the whole of his residence in England after his marriage with
Queen Mary, one was Gomez Suarez de Figueroa, Count de Feria, a prime
favourite and close friend of Philip. This nobleman had fallen deeply
in love with Miss Jane Dormer, one of Mary's maids of {268} honour, and
married her, and although the secret of the union had been well kept,
circumstances made it necessary to openly avow it before the King and
his suite left London for Flanders in September, 1555. Feria was again
in London with the King in March, 1557, for a few months, but in
January, 1558, he came back in another capacity. The war was going
badly for Philip and England. The French had taken Calais, and Guines
was on the point of falling; if the contest was to be carried on at all
more money and more men must be squeezed out of unwilling England, or
otherwise peace must be made, with England for a scapegoat. Philip
could not come himself, so he sent his haughty, overbearing favourite
Feria as his ambassador to bully and bribe the English courtiers and
coerce the sorely beset Queen. He came with a large train of servants
and with great magnificence; his English wife, a country knight's
daughter only as she was, as proud as himself; and he was granted the
use of Durham Place, furnished from the Queen's own house, as other
great ambassadors had been granted it before him. Egmont had been
lodged there with his splendid train in January, 1554, when he had come
to offer Philip's hand to Mary. Chatillon, the French ambassador, too,
had been given the use of the house during his short embassy in 1550,
so that there was nothing extraordinary in the granting of the house to
Feria. Only that former ambassadors had stayed for a few weeks,
whereas Feria and his successor remained in possession for five years
and a half, and made of Durham Place a trysting-place for treason
during the most of that time.
{269}
Whilst Elizabeth was striving against terrible odds with all her subtle
statecraft to lay the foundation of a united nation on the broken
elements of civil and religious discord, her task was hourly rendered
more difficult by the plots hatched in her own house at Durham Place.
All the disaffected and discontented found a welcome there; emissaries
from Shan O'Neil flitted backwards and forwards at night by the river
gate. Stukeley whispered here his willingness to desert with the
Queen's ships to the King of Spain, and here Hawkins himself humbly
begged to be bought. Lady Sidney, Robert Dudley's sister, Dudley
himself, Arundel, Lumley, Montague, and Winchester found in the secret
rooms at Durham Place open but discreet ears to listen to their plans
for preventing the establishment of Protestantism in England, and for
bringing the country again under the sway of the Pope. Madcap Arthur
Pole appealed first to Durham Place when he wanted aid for his silly
plot in favour of Mary Stuart, and long-headed Lethington came at dead
of night by the silent river on a similar but far more serious errand.
The publication of the correspondence of the Spanish ambassadors in
England during the reign of Elizabeth (Rolls Series) adds many
interesting pages to the history of Durham Place, and renders the
memories of the house more important than ever to the students of the
Reformation period in England.
Feria arrived in London and took up his residence at Durham Place on
the 26th of January, 1558, having, as he says, lingered on the way in
order not to bring the unwelcome news of the surrender of Guines by the
English, which news {270} had crossed the Channel with him. In
addition to Durham Place, where he and his household were lodged, he
had the same privileges as to an apartment in the Queen's palace as
those which appertained to an English Privy Councillor--privileges
which he tried hard to have confirmed to him by the new Queen when Mary
died, in order, as he says, that he might keep his foot in the place
and spy out what was going on. But Elizabeth and Cecil knew full well
what his object was, and were quite shocked at the idea of the
representative of a possible suitor for her hand sleeping under the
same roof as the maiden Queen, so Feria had to depend upon his paid
agents in the palace, and even in the Council itself, to bring him news
to Durham Place of what was going on.
With the evidence now before us we can form an approximate idea of the
appearance of Durham Place at the time. The Strand was a rough,
unpaved road, with a fringe of shops and taverns on the northern side,
whilst on the south side were the back walls and outer courts of the
riverine mansions. The principal land gateway of Durham Place stood
exactly opposite the spot now occupied by the Adelphi Theatre. The
English custodian or porter, who was in the pay of the Queen, had his
dwelling just inside the gate, where he could spy those who went in and
out on the land side. On each side of the gate in the outer courtyard
were stables and outhouses, and in and around the gateway in the street
were benches where idlers and hangers-on sat and lounged through the
day gossiping, in various tongues, and boasting of the prowess of their
respective countrymen. On {271} the other side of the street, nearly
opposite, was a tavern called the "Chequers,"[4] which drove a roaring
trade with the men-at-arms, Court-danglers, and serving-men who were
constantly passing to and from Whitehall and St. James'. Opposite the
gateway, across the large outer courtyard, was the door of the great
hall, generally standing open for the neighbours to pass through[5] it
to the inner or smaller courtyard, in which stood a water conduit fed
by a "spring of fairwater in Covent Garden."[6] Beyond this inner
courtyard stood the house itself at the bottom of the slope on the bank
of the river at the spot now occupied by the arches that support
Adelphi Terrace. It was a castellated structure, with its water-gate
placed in the middle of the curtain between two turrets, and leading
not, as usually was the case, through a garden, but straight from the
steps into the house itself by an enclosed pent-house doorway. The
domestic offices, and probably the chapel, were on the ground floor,
but the principal dwelling-rooms were all upstairs and in the turrets.
Aubrey, in his letters (vol. iii. 573), thus speaks of Raleigh's
occupancy of one of these turrets: "Durham House was a noble palace.
After he came to his greatness, he lived there or in some apartment of
it. I well remember his study, which was on a little turret that
looked into and over the {272} Thames, and had a prospect which is as
pleasant as any in the world."
The water-gate of the house was not the only approach to the river, as
there was a space with trees on each side of the house, with a dwarf
wall fronting the water, and a descent on one side by which the
neighbours were allowed to get water from the stream for washing and
similar purposes. It will thus be seen that the only really private
part was the house itself between the inner courtyard and the river;
the great hall and both courtyards being practically open to the public
under the supervision of the custodian at the outer gate, who was
responsible only to the Queen, and was a constant source of friction
with the foreign occupants of the house.
Feria stayed at Durham Place until August, 1558, taking an active part
in the distracted Councils of the Queen; and then, having found that
Mary's hopes of an heir were again fallacious, and having bullied and
frightened the Queen and Council into raising all the money they could
beg or borrow for Philip's service, he went back to Flanders, leaving
his English wife in London, with a Flemish and a Spanish ambassador of
lower rank than himself to represent his master. But when Mary was
known to be dying, he posted back again to be on the spot when the
great change took place, and Durham Place was avoided like a
plague-spot thenceforward for many days by the courtiers and
time-servers who wished to stand well with the new Queen.
The proud Spaniard repaid distrust by bitter resentment, and soon found
that his arrogance made him unfit instrument for cajolery. So he sent
for a softer spoken diplomatist to act as his "tender," {273} and the
wily, silken Bishop of Aquila became his guest at Durham Place. Feria
could not for long brook the need of paying supple court to the people
over whom he had ridden roughshod, and an excuse was soon found by
which he might be withdrawn without an open confession of his
unfitness, and in May, 1559, he left Durham Place for good, leaving his
English Countess and the Bishop of Aquila in possession.
At Dover he met Baron Ravenstein, who was coming from the Emperor to
offer the hand of the Archduke Charles to Elizabeth, and as such a
match would only have subserved Spanish interests if it had been
effected by the aid of Spanish diplomacy, Feria asked the German to
become his guest at Durham Place, which he did, and was made much of by
the Countess and the Bishop. But he wore out his welcome very soon,
particularly with the latter, a portion of whose apartments he
occupied, and the Bishop sneers at him for his constant attendance at
Mass. "He is quite a good fellow," he says, "but surely this must be
the first negotiation he ever conducted in his life." The Countess
soon came to high words with the new Queen, and in a month or so left
Durham Place in a dudgeon to join her husband in Flanders,
thenceforward to see England no more. With her went, in addition to
her escort, Don Juan de Ayala, her grandmother, Lady Dormer, and that
Mistress Susan Clarencis who was Queen Mary's most devoted attendant.
From that time, namely, July, 1559, the Bishop was temporary master of
Durham Place by favour of the Queen, against whom he never ceased to
intrigue as far as he dared.
{274}
We have already glanced at the structure of the house itself; it may be
now interesting to give some account of the household of the Bishop,
which may probably be considered a typical one. First there was a
chaplain at three crowns a month and his board, a chief secretary at
twelve crowns a month, a chamberlain, two or three
gentlemen-in-waiting, a groom-of-the-chambers, and six pages--all
without any fixed wage, but who lived on promises, perquisites, and
what they could pick up, eating, however, at the Bishop's expense, and
mostly clothed by him. Then there were two couriers at three shillings
a month, which they rarely got; a cook, a buyer, a butler, and a
pantryman, at a crown a month each; two cantineers, two "lacqueys," two
Irish grooms, and two washerwomen at nominal wages of from three to
five shillings a month when they could get them, which was very
uncertain. Small as the wages seem to us, the expense of the
establishment was very great, as these people and a host of friends and
hangers-on were fed roughly but abundantly at the Bishop's cost, the
humbler sort eating in the great hall and the gentlemen of the
household in the upper chambers.
The Bishop had hardly been in possession of the house for a year when
Challoner, the English Ambassador in Spain, warned Cecil that the
"crafty old fox" was getting to know too much about what went on at
Court, and that some decent excuse should be sought for turning him out
from so advantageous a coign of vantage as Durham Place, with its
water-gate and its close proximity to the palace, whence spies and
courtiers might come and go secretly, as we now know they did, at all
hours for {275} the information of the King of Spain's Ambassador. We
may be sure that the hint was not lost on Cecil, but the Bishop was
cunning, and to turn him out without good ostensible cause would have
been too risky at a time when Philip's future action was still
uncertain. So the Queen's porter in charge of the house was told to
take careful note of those who went in and out by the Strand gate, and
particularly those who attended Mass in the Ambassador's chapel. But
still the weak point in the position was the water-gate, the key of
which always remained in the possession of the Bishop or his
major-domo. Various stratagems were resorted to by the English porter
to obtain possession of it, but in vain, and more decided measures had
at last to be taken. The Bishop's confidential secretary, an Italian
named Borghese, was bribed by Cecil to tell all he knew of his master's
practices, and great promises of high position and a rich marriage in
England were held out to him as a further reward for his treachery.
This made him arrogant and boastful, and led to a slashing match with
the Bishop's Italian gentleman-in-waiting, whom Borghese nearly killed.
He boasted that he had friends at Court, snapped his fingers at the
officers of the law and at the Bishop's cajolery and threats, made a
clean breast of it to Cecil, and things began to look bad for his late
master. Dr. Wotton, a member of the Privy Council, went to Durham
Place, and gravely formulated a series of complaints founded on the
secretary's information. Most of these complaints were trivial, being
to the effect that the Bishop had said and written various depreciatory
things against the Queen: but one {276} accusation was serious, namely,
than Shan O'Neil had taken the Sacrament at Durham Place, which was
true, although the ecclesiastical diplomatist solemnly denied it.
The Bishop was nearly beside himself with rage and chagrin, and begged
plaintively to be relieved from his irksome post among heretics such as
these. But all in vain. It did not suit the Queen and Cecil for the
moment to perpetrate the last indignity of turning him out of the
house, but after this they kept a closer watch upon him than ever and
bode their time. They had not to wait long. There were four French
hostages in London, held in pledge for the due fulfilment of the Treaty
of Château Cambresis, and very troublesome guests they were.
The most turbulent of them was a certain Nantouillet, Provost of Paris,
a fanatical Catholic and partisan of the Guises. He had for some
reason or another conceived a grudge against a mercenary captain called
Masino, who was in the pay of the Vidame de Chartres, a Huguenot
nobleman. So, in the manner of the times, he sought to have him
killed, and, seeking for an instrument, he came across a young lad of
bad character called Andrea, who was a servant of a lute player at
Court, Alfonso the Bolognese. To this lad the Provost gave a dagger
and a coat of mail, and promised a reward of a hundred crowns if he
killed Masino. Andrea left his musical master and hung about the
Strand door of Durham Place for several days at the beginning of
January, 1563. At meal times he went into the great hall as others did
and ate his fill, and then lounged outside on the benches again.
{277}
At last, in the dusk of the afternoon of the 3rd of January, 1563,
Captain Masino came swaggering up the Strand on his way to Whitehall,
and Andrea fired at him point blank, at a foot distance, with a
harquebuss. But the captain's swagger saved his life, for the bullet
passed between his left arm and his body, making a hole through his
swinging cape and burning his doublet, and then glanced off into a shop
on the other side of the way, "and came near killing an honest
Englishman therein." Out came the swashbuckler's long rapier, and off
ran the assassin into the outer courtyard of Durham Place, shrieking
for mercy, followed by the captain and the English neighbours. The
Bishop's household in the great courtyard seized their arms, and
slammed the doors in the faces of the pursuers, whilst the terrified
assassin fled through the great hall, through the inner courtyard and
pell-mell up the stair leading to the Bishop's apartment.
Quite by chance, of course, the Provost of Paris happened to be playing
at cards with the Bishop and the French Ambassador, whilst Luis de Paz
and other friends looked on. The banging of the crowd at the closed
door of the great hall, the terror-stricken cries of the criminal, and
the tramping of the servants on the stair, brought out the Bishop and
his friends to ask indignantly the cause of the uproar. Andrea on his
knees at the door begged for protection and mercy. Captain Masino had
beaten him, he said, some days ago, and he had fired a shot at him and
missed him, so no harm was done, but still the captain wanted to kill
him. Calming the clamour, the Bishop asked whether the shot had been
fired inside or outside of Durham {278} Place. "At the gate!" they
said, and the boy had only entered when pursued, to save his life.
"Then," said the Bishop to Bernabe Mata, his majordomo, "turn him out
by the water-gate." By mere chance again a boat was in waiting, hired
by the Provost of Paris, who slipped outside himself to see the
assassin safely off, gave him ten crowns, and whilst the crowd still
battered and stormed at the door of the great hall, Andrea was carried
to Gravesend as fast as strong oars could propel him. But he was
captured next day, and under torture told the whole story. The Provost
himself was closely imprisoned in Alderman Chester's house, whence he
carried on for weeks an interesting correspondence with his friends
outside, written with onion juice on the inside lining of the breeches
of a servant.
This attempted murder was the opportunity for which Cecil had long been
waiting. Strong hints about treachery founded on the secretary's
information, galling interference with attendance at Mass, flouts and
insults, had been more or less patiently borne by the Bishop at his
master's behest, but harbouring a criminal was an infraction of the
ordinary law of the land, and if it could be brought home to the
Ambassador the Queen would have a good excuse for taking her house away
from a tenant who put it to so bad a use. The news was not long
travelling from the Strand to Whitehall; Cobham and a posse of the
Queen's guard came straight to Durham Place, and in the name of the law
demanded the surrender of the criminal. They were told he was not
there, but had left by the water-gate, and, this reply being
unsatisfactory, they came back again directly with the Queen's command
{279} that the keys of the water-gate, as well as those of the Strand
entrance, should be given up to the English custodian, in order that he
might render an account of all those who went in and out. The Bishop
writes to Philip:--
"This custodian is a very great heretic, who for three years past has
been in this house with no other duty than to spy out those who come to
see me, for the purpose of accusing me. I have put up with it for all
this time, although at great inconvenience to myself, so as to avoid
having disputes with them on a matter of this description. When the
Marshal made this demand, however, I answered him that for twenty years
the Ambassadors here had been allowed to reside in the royal houses,
nearly all those sent by your Majesty and the Emperor having done so,
and they had invariably been accustomed to hold the keys of the houses
wherein they lived. I said that it was not right that an innovation
should be made in my case after my four years' residence here,
especially on so slight a pretext as this matter, in which I was not at
all to blame, and considering that this is the first case of the sort
that has happened since I have been here, it cannot be said that my
house is an habitual refuge for criminals. I would, however, go and
give the Queen an account of the matter, which I endeavoured to do."
But the Queen would not see him either that day or the next. She was
too busy she said; and on the following day, which was Twelfth Day,
just as people were coming to Mass, some locksmiths came in a boat to
the water-gate and put a new lock on, notwithstanding the protest of
the Bishop's {280} household, and the keys of all the gates were now
held by the Queen's officers. The Bishop was in a towering rage, and
said, that as the Queen imprisoned him in his own house, and made a
goal of it, he demanded the keys back, or else that she should find him
another residence where he might be free. A long account of the solemn
conference between the Bishop and the Council is given in the Calendar
of State Papers (Foreign), the 7th of January, 1563, and the Bishop's
version is now published in the Spanish State Papers of Elizabeth, vol.
i. According to both accounts, the Bishop got decidedly the worst of
it. Cecil was the spokesman, and, instead of taking up a defensive
position about the keys, he turned the tables by piling up all the
complaints which his spies had accumulated for the last two years, and
the poor Bishop found himself the accused rather than the injured
party. The escape of the criminal by the water-gate was made the most
of--such a thing in law-abiding England had never been heard of
before--but after all this was a bagatelle to the other charges.
The neighbours had complained over and over again, Cecil said, of the
quarrels and fights of the Bishop's dependants, and had asked for his
removal from the house. There had been a squabble, one of many,
between the English porter and the Bishop's scullions about the water,
which, after serving the conduit in the inner courtyard, ran down to
the basement kitchen of the house itself. The Bishop's servants kept
their tap running in the kitchen out of malice, in order to deprive the
upper conduit of water, and when the English porter complained, they
shut the door of the great hall, so {281} that neither he nor the
neighbours could get to the conduit at all. Then the porter said he
would cut the pipe and stop their supply, and at this threat they went
to his house with weapons in their hands and said they would kill him
if he did so; and he was the Queen's servant! But, worst of all, Cecil
accused the Bishop of plotting with Shan O'Neil and Arthur Pole, and
said that since the house had been in the Bishop's occupation it had
become sadly dilapidated and damaged as regarded the lead, glass doors,
and so on, and that the Queen had decided to put it into proper repair
and find another fitting residence for him. The Bishop retorted by
denying all the charges, and saying that as the house was low-lying and
damp and he was old and ailing, he would be glad to leave it. But soft
spoken as he was to the Council, he was burning with rage, and wrote to
Granvelle in a very different tone.
It was some months yet, however, before he moved from Durham Place, and
during that time the Queen's Marshal again descended upon the house one
morning of a Catholic feast-day, and haled all those who were attending
Mass to the Marshalsea. The guard had, it appears, concealed
themselves betimes in the porter's house, and Cecil had given them
orders that if any resistance whatever was offered they were to attack
the house in force and capture all the inmates at any cost. But at
last the poor old Bishop, heart-broken at having to suffer so much
indignity, was got rid of and lodged elsewhere. Deeply in debt and
penniless, he went in the summer of 1563 to Langley, Bucks, where he
died in August, some say of poison, some of plague, and some of grief.
Then Durham Place, {282} refurbished and repaired, again became a royal
guest-house.
On the 16th of July, 1565, the Queen lent Durham Place to Sir Ambrose
Cave, one of her Privy Council, for the celebration of his daughter's
wedding with the son of Sir Francis Knollys, the Vice-Chamberlain, and
the new Spanish Ambassador, Canon Guzman de Silva, was invited to the
supper in the evening, at which the Queen had promised to be present.
By mutual consent it had been arranged that the French and Spanish
Ambassadors should never meet at Court, or where the vexed question of
precedence might arise; but the two diplomatists, wily Churchmen both,
were for ever on the look out for a chance of scoring off each other.
No doubt Ambrose Cave thought he had cleverly evaded the difficulty by
asking the French Ambassador to the more important meal, namely, the
eleven o'clock dinner, and the Spanish Ambassador to the supper in the
evening, at which the Queen was to be present. But when De Foix learnt
at the hospitable feast at Durham Place that the Queen was coming
later, he announced his intention of staying to supper as well. If
Guzman did not like it, he said, he might stay away, and poor Cave,
foreseeing an unseemly squabble in the Queen's presence, rushed off in
despair to the Spanish Ambassador to beg of him not to come. But this
was too much for the Toledan pride of the Canon, and he told Cave that
he had not sought an invitation to the feast, but since it had been
given and accepted he was not going to stay away for the French
Ambassador or any one else. As for precedence, his master was the
greatest King on earth, {283} and if the worst came to the worst he
would fight out the question. In vain Cave protested that the Queen
would not come if there was to be any quarrelling, and he would be
ruined at Court. He could not, he said, get rid of the Frenchman, who
flatly refused to go, and he could hardly throw him out of the window.
Guzman said if there was much ado about it he would throw him out of
window himself, and sent off Cave in a huff. Then Guzman hurried to
Whitehall in order to catch the Queen before she started for Durham
Place. He waited for some time, he says, in the privy garden by which
she would have to pass to her barge; and after she had vainly attempted
to smooth matters over, and said she herself must refrain from going if
there was to be any disturbance, she pretended to fly into a rage at
Cave's management of the affair, and sent Cecil and Throgmorton off to
Durham Place to get rid of the French Ambassador somehow. What
arguments they used Guzman neither knew nor cared, but when he arrived
with the Queen the rival Ambassador was gone, and he was the principal
guest next to the sovereign. "The Queen stayed through the
entertainment, and the Emperor's Ambassador and I supped with her in
company with the bride and some of the principal ladies and the
gentlemen who came with the Emperor's Ambassador. After supper there
was a ball, a tourney, and two masques, and the feast ended at
half-past one in the morning."
In September, 1565, Durham Place received a royal guest in the person
of Cecilia, Princess of Sweden, Margravine of Baden, who came
principally to spy how the land lay with regard to the {284}
oft-repeated suit for Elizabeth's hand made by her brother Eric XIV.
The English queen, as was her wont, made much of her at first; but she,
too, wore out her welcome during the months she stayed, for, as we have
seen, the housekeeping of great folk in those days was far from
economical, and when the Swedish princess ran short of money and wanted
pecuniary help, as she soon did, frugal Elizabeth's friendship began to
cool, and it ended in the poor Princess having to pledge even her
clothes to satisfy her more pressing creditors before they would let
her go; and her husband, a ruling prince, was put into gaol at
Rochester by the irate tradesmen who had trusted his wife. But all
this was at the end of her visit; the beginning was certainly brilliant
and auspicious.
The Princess arrived at Dover in the Queen's ships, and was there
received by Lord Cobham and his wife, the Mistress of the Robes, and a
knot of courtiers sent by the Queen from Windsor. They rode as usual
through Kent to Gravesend, where the Queen's barges awaited them, and
the Queen's cousin, Lord Hunsdon, and six pages in royal livery
received the Princess, who was thus carried up the river with all pomp
and circumstance to the water-gate of Durham Place. Her dress on the
occasion attracted attention in London by its strangeness. She was
attired, we are told, in a long black velvet robe, with a mantle of
cloth of silver and black, and on her fair hair she wore a golden
crown. At the top of the water-stairs at Durham Place she was received
by the Countess of Sussex, Lady Bacon, and Cecil, and installed in the
house with all honour. A day or two afterwards the Queen came {285}
from Windsor to visit her. "She received her Majesty at the door,
where she embraced her warmly, and both went up to her apartments.
After the Queen had passed some time with her in great enjoyment she
returned home, and the next night, the 15th, the Princess was delivered
of a son." In due time the young Prince of Baden was christened with
great pomp, and Durham Place was a scene of festivity on that and many
other occasions whilst the Swedish Princess resided there. We have
rather a full account of one of Queen Elizabeth's visits to the
Princess at Durham Place, as Guzman, the Spanish Ambassador, happened
to be at Whitehall when her Majesty was starting, and, at her
invitation, accompanied her thither in her barge. He says he was with
her alone for some time in the cabin of the barge, until, probably, her
Majesty becoming tired of a _tête-à-tête_ with an elderly clergyman,
called her new pet Heneage to her, and began to whisper and flirt with
him. The Princess awaited the Queen at the water-gate as usual, and
led her to the principal apartments upstairs, although neither royal
lady would consent to be seated until a stool was brought for Guzman,
who relates the incident. The Queen came by water, and returned in a
coach by way of the Strand. When she was seated in the carriage with
Lady Cobham, her maiden Majesty could not resist the opportunity
afforded by the condition of her companion to make rather a risky joke
to the Ambassador, who, ecclesiastic though he was, retorted fully in
the same vein, and carefully repeated the conversation in a letter to
his royal master the next day.
{286}
For the next few years Durham Place gave shelter to many courtiers,
ambassadors, and honoured guests of the Queen, and was occasionally
lent, as we have seen, for parties and merrymakings, its large size and
easy access by land and water making it peculiarly appropriate for such
uses. But the elder Earl of Essex, Walter Devereux, made a somewhat
longer stay in some of its apartments. It was here, probably enough in
the turret-rooms which were Raleigh's favourite abiding-place, that
Essex planned that expedition to Ireland with which his name was
destined for all time to be linked. From here he started in August,
1573, and, with the exception of one flying visit in 1575, never saw
Durham Place again.
In 1583 the Queen granted the house to Raleigh. It was in a
dilapidated condition, and he spent, as he says, £2,000 in repairing
it; certain it is that during twenty years that Raleigh lived there
Durham Place reached its apogee of splendour. The Strand had greatly
altered for the better since the time when Feria lived at Durham Place.
The Bishop of Carlisle's house, on the other side of Ivy Lane, had
disappeared, and Robert Cecil had built a splendid house for himself on
its site. His father and elder brother, too, across the Strand had
another palace, and between them they had paved and made up the roadway
for a considerable distance before their properties. But slowly, too,
the Strand was becoming a great fashionable thoroughfare, and
long-headed Robert Cecil knew well that as shops grew up along its line
the street frontage would increase in value. So he cast covetous eyes
across his own boundary at Ivy Lane on to the great {287} ramshackle
congeries of stables and outhouses which fronted the Strand at Durham
Place. As long as his mistress lived he dared not disturb Raleigh, but
no sooner had the great Queen passed away than Raleigh was turned out
with every circumstance of harshness and insult, and Lord Salisbury got
his street frontage, upon which he built Britain's Burse, which was to
be a rival to the Royal Exchange.
Thenceforward Durham Place went down in the world. A sort of square,
with entrance by what is now called Durham Street, was built on a
portion of the garden and great courtyard, but the hall and mansion
themselves were left intact, and the latter was still used for the
lodging of ambassadors and others, and the Bishops of Durham appear to
have had lodgings in what formerly was their own palace. Lord Keeper
Coventry lived, or at all events wrote, his letters here, and Lord
Keeper Finch died at Durham Place in 1640. Lord Pembroke bought the
whole site soon after, intending to build himself a house there, but
although the plans were made the project fell through. The
Commonwealth soldiers were quartered in the house for nearly two years,
and Lord Pembroke had to find himself a house elsewhere, for which the
Parliament voted him £200.
The Strand front became more and more valuable, and by and by another
exchange was built on the rest of the frontage, whilst the property in
the rear continued to get more squalid as the time went on. In the
middle of the last century the exchanges were pulled down and a fine
row of shops built on the site, whilst projects for {288} dealing with
the space still occupied by the old palace were busying many men's
minds. At last came the brothers Adam and made a clean sweep of it
all, back and front, and built the Adelphi as we see it to-day. The
wide expanse of mud which at low tide formerly spread from the walls of
the old palace is now replaced by the waving trees of a public garden.
Great railway stations, gigantic hotels, towering masses of "flats" and
"mansion" rear their high heads all round the site of old Durham Place.
The wealth and power have passed from the hands of the few to the hands
of the many, and instead of one man living in squalid splendour in the
comfortless palace surrounded by hosts of unproductive hinds, hundreds
live in comfort, usefulness, and self-respect upon the spot. There is
probably more money spent in a week by working people in the garish
music-hall that occupies the Strand front than would have sufficed to
keep Durham Place in full swing for a year during the time of its
greatest grandeur.
[1] _The Fortnightly Review_, September, 1893.
[2] Calendar of State Papers, 1547-1580, p. 105.
[3] "The Adelphi and its Site," by H. B. Wheatley, F.S.A.
[4] It was afterwards called the "Queen's Head," and here Old Parr
lodged when he came to London.
[5] In the next century, when the Strand front was built over, the
parishioners wanted this hall for a church for St. Martin's parish, the
hall, they said, being only used as a passage.
[6] A century later the water of this spring was found to be foul, and,
as its source had been forgotten, an examination was made. The spring
was rediscovered under a cellar of a house in Covent Garden.
[Illustration: Tailpiece]
{289}
_THE EXORCISM OF CHARLES THE BEWITCHED._
[Illustration: CHARLES II. OF SPAIN, "The Bewitched."
(_From a painting by Claudio Coelle._)]
{291}
[Illustration: Headpiece]
_THE EXORCISM OF CHARLES THE BEWITCHED._[1]
The pallid little milksop in black velvet, with his
lank, tow-coloured hair and his great underhung
chin, who will simper for ever on the canvas of
Carreño, had grown to be a man--a poor feeble
anæmic old man of thirty-seven,[2] the last of his
race, to whom fastings and feastings, the ceremonies
of the Church, and the nostrums of the empirics had
been equally powerless in providing a successor
for the crumbling empire of his fathers. The
{292}
strong spirits upon whom he had leant in his youth
and early manhood had passed away. His imperious
mother, who reigned so long and unworthily
in his name, had died of cancer only a year or two
ago. His virile brother, Don Juan José of Austria,
in whom the worn-out blood of the imperial race had
been quickened by the brighter but baser blood of
his actress mother, had been poisoned. His beloved
first wife, the beautiful Marie Louise of Orleans,
had faded away in the sepulchral gloom of that
dreary Court, and his new German wife, Marie Anne
of Neuberg, with her imperious violence, frightened
him out of what little wit he had left by her
advocacy of new ideas. For new ideas to that poor
brain were the inventions of the very Devil himself.
He had been drilled for years into the knowledge
that the claims of his French kinsmen to his
inheritance were just; and, though for years past all
the diplomatists of Europe had been plotting and
planning for one or the other claimant with varying
success, all that poor Charles the Bewitched himself
wanted was to be left alone in peace whilst he lived,
and that one of his French cousins should succeed
him when he died. There was not much chance
of either wish being fulfilled from the time that
England and the Austrian faction juggled Marie
Anne of Neuberg into the palace as Charles' second
wife. She made short work of all the courtiers and
ministers who favoured the French succession--they
had one after the other either to come round
to her side or go. Most of the best of them--not
that any of them were very good--sulked in their
own provinces awaiting events, whilst others still
plotted in the capital.
{293}
In the meantime the Queen and her camarilla
were all-powerful. After various weak and futile
explosions, the smashing of crockery and breaking
of furniture and the like, the poor King, for the
sake of peace, let her have her own way, and
ostensibly favoured the claims of the Austrian
Archduke to his inheritance. But like most
semi-idiots he could not relax his grasp on an
idea of which he had once become possessed, and
though he was surrounded day and night by the
Queen's creatures, and was content that they should
have their way whilst he was well, he no sooner
fell into one of his periodical fits of deadly sickness
than, with all the terror and dread of death, and
constant fear of poison and witchcraft upon him,
he yearned for the presence of those who had been
with him in earlier and happier days, before the
German Queen and her base blood-suckers had
come to disturb his tranquillity.
The story of the strange and obscure Court
intrigue which resulted in the gaining by the
French faction of the upper hand in the palace
during the critical time preceding Charles's death,
has often and variously been told, mostly with
an ignorant or wilful distortion of events.
M. Morel-Fatio has shown how Victor Hugo has
deliberately falsified the character of the Queen
Marie Anne of Neuberg, in order that he might
make use of the local colour furnished by the
Countess d'Aulnoy's letters written from Spain
fifteen years before the period represented by the
dramatist;[3] and many other writers, French and
{294}
English, who have been attracted by the romantic
elements of the witchcraft story, have surrounded
it with a cloud of fictitious persons and incidents
which makes it difficult now to distinguish between
history and romance. Every writer on the subject,
so far as I know, moreover, has stopped short at
the story of the exorcism itself, whereas it really
developed into a great struggle of many years'
duration between the Grand Inquisitor on the
one hand and the Council of Inquisitors on
the other, in which, curiously enough, the latter
body championed the cause of legal process as
against the arbitrary power assumed by its own chief.
There is in the British Museum[4] a full
manuscript account from day to day of the whole
transaction from beginning to end, written at the
time by one of the clerks or secretaries in the
Inquisition, who, although he avows himself a
partisan of the French faction and of the King's
confessor, Froilan Diaz, around whom all the storm
raged, declares that he has set down the unvarnished
truth of the whole complicated business, in order
that people may know after his death what really
happened, and how much they "owe to his Sacred
Majesty Philip V. for preserving the privileges of
the holy tribunal of the Inquisition, or, what is
the same, our holy faith." By the aid of this
set of documents, and another set in the Museum
(part of which has been published in Spanish),
{295}
the story, which is well worth preserving, may
be reconstructed, and the hitherto unrelated
particulars of the actual exorcism rescued from
oblivion.
The most powerful person at Court next to the
Queen was Father Matilla, the King's confessor,
whose hand was everywhere, and who said on
one occasion that he would much rather make
bishops than be one. Then came the other members
of the Queen's camarilla, an obscure country
lawyer who had been created Count Adanero, and
Minister of Finance and the Indies, who provided
the crew with money to their hearts' content, and
squandered and muddled away the national
resources, whilst all Spain was groaning under
impossible imposts; Madame Berlips, a German
woman who had an extraordinary influence over
the Queen, and an insatiable greed; two Italian
monks, and a mutilated musician of the Royal
Chapel. There were two great nobles also who,
after several periods of disgrace and hesitation,
had at last thrown themselves on to the Queen's
side--the Admiral of Castile and Count Oropesa, the
ostensibly responsible ministers; but these
practically only carried out the designs of the Queen's
camarilla, and were content with the appearance
and profits of power without its exercise. The
populace, as may be imagined, were in deadly
opposition to the Queen and her foreign
surroundings, and were strongly in favour of one of
the younger French princes whom they might adopt
and make a Spaniard of, as they never could hope
to do with a German archduke, and thus, as they
thought, avoid the threatened partition of their
{296}
country.[5] This was the position of things in March,
1698, when the King, who had partly recovered
from his previous attack eighteen months before,
was again taken ill.[6] He was dragged out by the
Queen to totter and stagger in religious processions,
was made to go through the ceremonial forms of
his position, nodding and babbling incoherently to
ministers and ambassadors whom he was obliged
to receive, and at last, weary and sick to death,
haunted by an unquiet conscience and with the
appalling fear of hourly poison, he sent word by
a trusty messenger to the wise, crafty old minister
of his mother, Cardinal Portocarrero, who had been
banished from the Court by the Queen, that he
wished to see him.
The Cardinal needed no two invitations, but
posted off to the palace. He had still plenty of
{297}
friends of various ranks, notwithstanding the
Queen, and amongst them was Count de Benavente,
the Gentleman of the Bedchamber. By him he
was conducted at night to the King's bed-side,
after the Queen had retired, and heard the
heart-broken recital of the monarch's troubles. The
King told him he was ill and unhappy and in
trouble about his soul's health. He was conscious
of a struggle going on within him between his
knowledge of the right thing to do and his incapacity to
do it, and this left him no peace or happiness. The
people who surrounded him were distasteful to him,
his confessor, Matilla, gave him no real consolation,
and he ascribed much of his own illness and misery
to the bad management and ceaseless worry he
had to endure from those who had the direction
of affairs. The King unburdened himself to
the Cardinal in his lisping, mumbling fashion,
his utterance broken with sobs and tears, but
sufficiently plainly for Portocarrero to see that if
he and his friends acted boldly, swiftly, and secretly
they might again become predominant and dispose
of the splendid inheritance of Spain and the Indies.
He said some consoling, soothing words to the
King, and promised him that steps should be
taken to insure him tranquillity, and then he took
his leave. The interview took place in the ancient
Alcazar, which stood on the site of the present
royal palace in Madrid, for poor Carlos had no
spirits for the new Buen Retiro Palace, where his
father had been so gay and splendid. It was nearly
eleven o'clock at night, but as soon as the Cardinal
got back to his own house he summoned his friends
to a private conference. They were all of them
{298}
courtiers in disgrace with the Queen, and most of
them extremely popular with the mob in Madrid.
There was Count Monterey, mild and temporising,
with his hesitating speech and his irritating "hems
and hahs"; there was the Marquis of Leganes,
a hot-headed soldier, rash and pugnacious; Don
Francisco Ronquillo, ambitious, intriguing, and
bold, who, with his brother, was the idol of the
"chulos" of the capital; Don Juan Antonio Urraca,
honest, uncouth, and boorish; and, above all, quiet,
wise, and prudent Don Sebastian de Cotes, a close
friend of the Cardinal's. First, Monterey was
invited to give his opinion as to what should be done,
but he dwelt mainly upon the danger to them all
presented from the King's infirmity of purpose;
and how one minister after the other who had for
a moment succeeded in persuading him to make
a stand, had been disgraced and banished the
moment the Queen got access to her husband and
twisted him round her finger, as she could. He
had no desire to take risks, apparently, and could
recommend nothing but that the Cardinal Archbishop
should keep his footing in the palace, and
gradually work upon the King's mind. Leganes
scoffed at such timid counsels; where the disease
was so violent as this a strong remedy must be
adopted. This should be the immediate banishment,
and, if necessary, the imprisonment of the
Admiral of Castile, the principal minister. He
(Leganes) had plenty of arms at home, and had
hundreds of men in Madrid who would serve him,
with experienced officers to command them, and
could soon make short work of the Admiral and
his train of poets and buffoons. Ronquillo went
{299}
further still. He said that was all very well, but
at the same time they must seize the Queen and
shut her up at the Huelgas de Burgos. Monterey
called him a fool, and said such an act would be
the death of the King and would ruin them all
before he could alter his will; and the two nobles
rushed at each other to fight out the question on the
spot before the Archbishop himself. When they
were separated the Cardinal no doubt thought it
was time to do something practical, and asked his
friend Cotes his opinion. Cotes was prosy enough,
but practical. He said of course Portocarrero could
easily get the King to sign any decree he liked, but
the Queen could more easily still get him to revoke
it; and, although it would be well to strike at the
Queen herself, he did not know who would dare
to do it. But after all she could only influence
him by mundane means; the confessor, Matilla,
whom the King hated and feared, and flouted only
yesterday, must be got rid of, and the Queen would
lose her principal instrument. This was approved
of, but no one could suggest a fitting successor
except Ronquillo--who, of course, had a nominee
of his own!--who was promptly vetoed. Each of
the others doubtless had one too, but thought best
to press his claims privately. So it was left to
the Archbishop to choose a new successor and
gain the King's consent to his appointment. The
choice fell upon a certain Froilan Diaz, professor of
theology at the University of Alcalá. One of his
recommendations was that he was near enough to
the capital to be brought thither quickly, before the
affair got wind, and no sooner did the Ronquillos
learn that Cotes had recommended him to the
{300}
Archbishop than they sent a mounted messenger
post-haste to Alcalá to inform Father Froilan of
his coming greatness, and claim for themselves
the credit of his appointment.
A few days afterwards, in the afternoon, the King
lay in bed languidly listening to the music which was
being played in the outer chamber, with which his
own room communicated by an open door. The
outer room, as usual, was crowded with courtiers, and
in the deep recess of a window stood the confessor,
Matilla, chatting with a friend, alert and watchful
of all that passed. Suddenly Count de Benavente
entered with a stout, fresh-coloured ecclesiastic,
quiet and modest of mien and unknown to all.
They walked across the presence chamber without
announcement, and entered the King's chamber,
shutting the door behind them. Matilla's face grew
longer and his eyes wider as he saw this, and he
knew instinctively that his day was over. Turning
to his friend, he said, "Good-bye; this is beginning
where it ought to have left off," and with that he
left the palace, and went with the conviction of
disaster to his monastery of the Rosario. They
had all known for some days that something had
been brewing. Spies had dogged every footstep
of the Archbishop and those who attended the
midnight meeting at his house, but they had left
out of account the King's own Gentleman of the
Bedchamber, Count de Benavente, who had arranged
the whole affair. It is true that when the Queen
had, as usual, entered the King's bedroom that day,
at eleven o'clock, to see him dine, he had told her
in a whisper, unable to retain his secret, that he
had changed his confessor. She, astounded and
{301}
disconcerted at the news, pretended to approve
of the change--anything, she said, to give
tranquillity to her dear Carlos. But when she could
leave, she flew with all speed to her room,
summoned the Admiral and the camarilla, and told
them they were undone. Panic reigned supreme,
the general idea being that Matilla himself had
betrayed them. In any case they saw that he was
past praying for, so they threw him overboard, and
decided to try to save themselves, and see if, in
time, they could not buy over the new confessor.
The only man of them who kept his head was
a great ecclesiastic, a brother of the Admiral of
Aragon, and of a member of the Council of the
Inquisition, one Folch de Cardona, Commissary-General
of the Order of San Francisco, who was
subsequently to play an important part in the
tragi-comedy. When Matilla learnt that the Queen and
her friends had known of the change an hour or two
before it happened he broke down. "Oh, for that
hour!" he exclaimed; "in it I would have set it all
right." Divested of all his offices, dismissed from
his inquisitorship, with a pension of 2,000 ducats,
he died within a week of poison or a broken heart,
and he disappears from the scene.
In his place stands Froilan Diaz, a simple-minded
tool of the courtiers who had appointed
him. He did not look very terrible, even to the
panic-stricken Queen and her friends, and they
decided to make the best of him, and try to
confine the changes to the confessorship.
Henceforward Froilan Diaz was a man to be courted
and flattered. Honours and wealth were lavished
on him, and for a year no great change was
{302}
made in the palace or outside; but under the
surface intrigue was busy, both at the King's
bedside and in the haunts of the Madrid mob. At
the end of a year the latter element made short
work of the ministers and the Queen's gang and
drove the lot of them out, to be replaced by Arias,
the Ronquillos, and the French party; but with
this revolt the present study has nothing to do.
The King's extreme decrepitude for a young man
had several years before given rise to rumours
amongst the vulgar that he was bewitched, and the
assertion had been made the subject of grave
consideration by the Grand Inquisitor of the time, who
reported that he could find no evidence to act upon.
At the time of the first serious illness of the King,
in 1697, he had of his own action sent to the new
Grand Inquisitor a terrible and austere Dominican
monk called Rocaberti, and had confessed to him
his conviction that his illness was not natural but
the result of some maleficent charm, and besought
him earnestly to have an exhaustive inquiry made.
The Inquisitor told him that he would, if he pleased,
have inquiry made, but saw no possible result could
come of it, unless the King could point out some
person whom he suspected or some plausible
evidence to go upon. And so the matter remained
until some weeks after Father Froilan had become
confessor. As may be supposed, Froilan Diaz's
elevation had reminded all his old friends of his
existence, and, amongst others, an old fellow-student
visited him, with whom he fell into talk about past
days and former acquaintances. "And how is
Father Argüelles getting on?" said the confessor.
"Ah, poor fellow!" was the reply; "he is confessor
{303}
at a convent at Cangas, terribly ill, but in no-wise
cast down, for the Devil himself has assured him in
person that God is preserving him for a great work
yet that shall resound through the world." The
King's confessor pricked up his ears at this, and
wanted further particulars. It appeared, according
to the friend, that Argüelles had had much trouble
with two nuns of his convent, who were possessed,
and in the course of his exorcisms had become quite
on intimate terms with his Satanic Majesty. Froilan
thought this was too important to be neglected, so
he consulted the Grand Inquisitor, the Dominican
Rocaberti. The grim monk did not, apparently,
much like the business, but consented to a letter
being written to the Bishop of Oviedo, the superior
of Argüelles, asking him to question his subordinate
as to the truth of the assertion that the King was
suffering from diabolical charms. The Bishop,
determined that he would not be made the channel
for such nonsense, wrote a sensible answer back,
saying that he did not believe in the witchcraft
story. All that ailed the King was a weakness of the
heart and a too ready acquiescence in the Queen's
wishes, so he would have nothing to do with it.
Then Froilan sent direct to Argüelles, who
himself was afraid of the business unless he was
secured from harm, and refused to put any questions
to the Devil unless he had the warrant of the Grand
Inquisitor. A letter was therefore written by the
latter on June 18, 1698, ordering him to write the
names of the King and Queen on a sheet of
paper, and, without uttering them, to place the
paper on his breast, summon the Devil, and ask
him whether the persons whose names were so
{304}
written were suffering from witchcraft. Froilan
sent the letter in a long one of his own to his old
friend Argüelles with an elaborate cipher and other
devices for secrecy in subsequent communications.
No names henceforward were to be written.
The vicar, Argüelles, replied, expressing no
surprise at so strange a request, but said the Devil had
previously told him that he was reserved for great
things, but had not given particulars, only that he
should receive an order from a superior. Then he
tells the result obtained by his first effort. He says
he placed the hands of the possessed nun upon the
altar, and by the power of his incantations
commanded the Devil to answer the question put to him.
The Devil was not at all shy, but "swore by God
Almighty that it was the truth that the King was
bewitched," "et hoc ad destruendam materiam
generationis in Rege et eum incapacem ponendum ad
regnum administrandum." He said the charm had
been administered by moonlight when the King was
fourteen years of age.
So far the Devil. Then the vicar, as an expert,
gives some advice of his own. He says the
King should be given half a pint of oil to drink,
fasting, with the benediction, and the ceremony
of exorcism which the Church prescribes.[7] He
{305}
must not eat anything for some time afterwards,
and everything he eats and drinks must
be blessed. The case is a very bad one, he
says, and a miracle will be performed. If the
King can bear it he should be given, in addition,
the charm prescribed by the Church, but not
otherwise.
He gives the not improbable opinion that as the
King will vomit dreadfully he must be held in the
arms of the "master," by which name it was agreed
that the Grand Inquisitor should be referred to in
the correspondence. But he says not an hour is
to be lost, and the master himself must administer
the draught.
But this remedy was too strong, and Froilan
and the Inquisitor, or the friend and the master,
as they are called henceforward, write to say
that, although they are much obliged to the Devil
and the vicar, such a draught as that
recommended would certainly kill the King, and they
beg the exorciser to ask the Devil again for a more
practical and a safer remedy. "How much and in
what form is the Church charm to be given; at what
hour; on what parts of the body?" And so
on--queer questions indeed to be addressed by two
pillars of the Church to the Devil. But this is not
all. They draw up a series of questions that would
do honour to a cross-examining barrister. "What
is the proof of witchcraft? In what way does
it act so as to make the King do things contrary
to his own will? How are the organs affected
cleansed by the charm? What compact was made
with the Devil when the witchery was effected?
Was it administered internally, or externally?
{306}
Who administered it? Has it been repeated? Is
the Queen included in its operation?" And other
questions of a similar sort. The vicar is rather
shocked at their inquisitiveness, and refuses to put
such questions. How can he ask the Devil anything
that the Church does not deal with in its
exorcising ceremonies?
Another letter is sent asking him to consult the
Devil as to whether it will be well to take the King
to Toledo, to which the vicar replies somewhat
evasively, reproaching his associates. What is the
good, he says, of all their professed desire to heal
the King whilst they refuse to carry out the
directions sent them? A change of place is useless if
he takes the malady with him, and until they follow
out the instructions already given it is no good for
him to consult the Devil again. "Besides," he
says, getting into dangerously deep water for a
country vicar, "how can you expect the King to
be well? Justice is not done, the churches are
starved, hospitals are despoiled and closed, and
souls are allowed to suffer in purgatory because
money is begrudged for Masses, and above all, the
King does not administer justice after swearing
on the cross that he would do so. The Divine
message has already been delivered to you. I have
told you all it is fitting for you to know and how to
cure the patient, and you do nothing but ask a lot
more questions. I tell ye, then, that you will find no
excuse for this at the supreme judgment, and the
death of the King will be laid at your door, since
you could cure him and will not." This was almost
too bold to be borne, and the Inquisitor's secretary
writes back in grave condemnation. He again
{307}
insists upon the questions being put to the Devil.
"You are presumptuous to dare to suppose that you
know better than the friend and the master, and
that you can command in this way whilst refusing to
obey. You want to get out of it now by attributing
the King's illness to other causes. The 'friend
and the master' are deeply offended, and if you do
not do as you are commanded all will be frustrated,
and we distressed to feel that, just as God had
begun to open the door of knowledge to us, all is
spoilt by your presumption and obstinacy."
After a good deal more of mutual recrimination
the vicar gave way, and on September 9, 1698,
he wrote that he had sworn the Devil on the holy
sacrament, and he had declared that the charm had
been administered to the King in a cup of chocolate
on April 3, 1673. "I asked," he writes, "what the
charm was made of, and he said three parts of a
dead man." "What parts?" "Brain to take away
his will, intestines to spoil his health, and kidney to
ruin his virility." "Can we burn any sign to restore
him?" "No, by the God that made you and me." "Was
it a man or a woman who administered the
charm?" "A woman; and she has already been
judged." "Why did she do it?" "In order to
reign." "When?" "In the day of Don Juan of
Austria, whom she killed with a similar charm, only
stronger."
This of course was directed against the late
Queen-mother--a dangerous line to take, considering
that the Cardinal Archbishop Portocarrero,
whose creature Froilan was, had been her friend
and minister. Lucifer continued, that the remedies
were those that the Church prescribed. First,
{308}
drinking of blessed oil fasting; secondly, anointing
the whole body with the oil; next, strong purges
and absolute isolation of the King even from the
sight of the Queen. Then the Devil got sulky,
said he was tired and knew no more, and refused to
say another word. The adoption of such a course
as that prescribed, with a man who was dying
already of exhaustion would have been murder;
and of course the associates again hesitated, writing
to the vicar directing him to inquire of the Devil
if any witchery has been practised since the first,
and why the King cannot do right when he wishes
to, instead of being, as he complains, impelled to act
wrongly against his will. It seems impossible that
this can be the result of the original charm,
particularly as the person who gave it is dead. Has
anything been given since? "Yes," says the Devil,
"in 1694, only four years ago, on September 24th,
a similar charm was given in food and left no
outward sign," and this the Devil swears by God and
the Holy Trinity. Then Lucifer, tired of answering
questions, apparently gives a bit of advice. He
says they are thwarting Providence by their delay,
and if they do not hurry up the King will be past help.
But again the friend and the master want more
information, and on October 22nd write to say that
it is of the highest importance that they should know
the name and residence of the witch; who ordered
her to act, and why. This the Devil absolutely refuses
to answer; but as his past proceedings proved him
to be a demon somewhat infirm of purpose, they do
not seem to have been at all discouraged, but a
week or so afterwards return to the charge with a
{309}
perfect catechism, which they order the vicar to
put to his diabolical interlocutor. "Who was the
witch? What was her name, condition, and
residence? Who ordered the charm, and why? Who
got the corpse and prepared the conjuration? Who
handed the chocolate to the King? Had the witch
any children?" And so on at great length. The
answer came from the vicar on October 7th, in
which the Devil seems to have made quite a clean
breast of it. The Queen-mother, he said, had
ordered the first charm; the first witch was a woman
named Casilda, married, with two sons, who lived
away from her. The go-between was Valenzuela
(the Queen-mother's favourite), and the witch had
no accomplice but the Devil. She sought the
corpse and prepared the charm, and handed it to
Valenzuela. The second charm, in 1694, was
administered by one who wishes for the _fleur-de-lis_ in
Spain; one who is a great adulator of the King,
but hates him bitterly. The Devil could not
mention names, he said, but they knew the person
well. This witch was a famous one named Maria,
living in the Calle Mayor; but he could not give
the number of the house or her surname.
The Grand Inquisitor's secretary wrote in answer
to this, thanking him, but regretting that his
information was so limited. The street mentioned as
the residence of the first witch, namely, the Calle de
Herreros, did not exist in Madrid, and the friend
and the master beg the vicar to ask his friend the
Devil for more information as to the houses and
husbands of both witches, "as to seek a Maria in
the High Street of Madrid was like looking for a
needle in a haystack." They want also the name
{310}
of the person who ordered the second charm, and
the secretary ends his letter with an astounding
invocation of the Devil's aid. He is conjured in
the names of God, of His holy Mother, and of
St. Simeon of Jerusalem, the King's patron saint, to
intercede with God, "who, the lessons tell us, is
a relative," to aid in the King's recovery. No reply
appears to have been received to this letter, but it
was soon followed by another, saying that the friend
and the master have administered the charm
recommended by the Devil, and the King is better; but
they urgently beg for further aid from the same
quarter, and more charms if possible. This letter
was written on November 5, 1698, and produced
two replies from the vicar, who said that he had
been conjuring all the afternoon fruitlessly, and at
last the Devil burst out in a rage, "Go away! don't
bother me." In fact, it is quite clear at this point
that the vicar, having got himself into a perfect net
of confusion and contradiction, was getting very
frightened indeed; and his next letter said the
Devil was sulky, and would only reply to all his
conjurations that he, the Devil, had been telling
him a lot of lies and would say no more. All
would be known by and by, but not yet. The
vicar added to this a remark to the effect that
all the King's doctors were false and disloyal,
and should be dismissed; the doctor to be
appointed in their place was to be chosen more for
his attachment to the old Church than for his
medical science, and, in the meanwhile, the King's
abode and garments were to be changed and the
exorcisms continued.
The vicar was thereupon again gravely rebuked
{311}
for daring to say that the King's physicians are
disloyal, but they, the friend and the master, will
refrain from employing them. A further letter of
November 26th urges the vicar not to stand any
more of the Devil's nonsense. Tell him he _must_
give the names and addresses, as the friend and the
master are put to great trouble seeking them, and
he is exhorted to be diligent in completing the good
work he has begun, as the King is much better for
the exorcisms administered to him. The doctors
were, of course, nominees of the new dominant
French party, and the friend and master did not
like their loyalty to be called into question; but the
vicar was firm, so they were changed, and the poor
King was taken on his journey to Toledo and
Alcalá. He certainly had got much better, and
Stanhope ascribes his improvement to the plasters
of his new Aragonese doctor, or "rather," he says,
"what I believe has done more is that he has of
late drunk two or three glasses of pure wine at
every meal, whereas he has never taken anything
before in all his life but water boiled with a little
cinnamon."
As soon as the King was well enough, the
intrigue that had been brewing since the new
confessor had got a footing was completed, and the
third claimant to the succession, the young Prince
of Bavaria, was solemnly adopted as heir to the
crown. This, of course, offended most of the great
Powers of Europe, but it had the effect of
reconciling with each other the Spanish courtiers who had
espoused either the French or the Austrian cause,
and for a few months, until the new heir died, the
Court quarrels were patched up. Still the inquiries
{312}
of the Devil went on, and the vicar stumbled and
blundered deeper into the mire. He tried to
correct his mistake about the street where the first
witch lived by saying that the street called Herreros
was now the Cerrajeros, and the surname of the
witch was Perez, the commonest name in Spain.
The secretary wrote to say that the friend and the
master could not make head or tail of it all, and
begged the Devil to be more explicit--first he said
the witch was alive, and then dead. The King
was much better.
By this time, the beginning of the year 1699,
the vicar evidently thought that, as he had so far
come out of the affair with flying colours, he
ought to be brought to the capital and placed on
the main road of promotion, instead of being kept
in a remote village: and he wrote that the Devil
had declared that the whole truth could only be
divulged in the church of the Virgin of Atocha
in Madrid, and that as he, vicar, had begun it, so
he must conduct the affair to the end. A week
or two later he wrote, again pressing to be allowed
to carry on the rest of the conjuration at the Atocha,
in order, as he says, to reanimate the devotion
to the image, which he thought was cooling. He
gives the name of the second witch as Maria Diez,
another extremely common name, and then falls ill,
sulks, and refuses to invoke the Devil again except
at the Atocha. Still his correspondents continue to
press him for fresh signs and information, without
result except to produce fresh demands that he should
be brought to Madrid. The confederates, however,
deemed this too dangerous, and the correspondence
with Argüelles closes in the month of May, 1699.
{313}
About this time the Queen's suspicions were
aroused by a hint dropped by the King, and
she at once set spies around those who had
access to the monarch's room, particularly Froilan
Diaz. She soon learnt something of what was
going on, and, as the chronicler says, "roared
from very rage." She called her friends together,
and in a tearing passion told them what she had
discovered, demanding immediate vengeance on
the King's confessor. Some of her friends,
particularly Folch de Cardona, were cooler-headed than
she was, and pointed out that as the Grand Inquisitor
was mixed up in the business, it would be imprudent
to take any steps until it was seen how far the holy
tribunal itself was implicated, and that in any case
the Queen's vengeance should be wreaked on
Froilan by the action of the Inquisition if possible,
so that she might avoid the unpopularity of
appearing in the matter herself.
The next day Folch de Cardona sounded his
inquisitor brother, and found that the Council of
the Holy Office knew nothing of what was going
on, and when the Inquisitor was informed and asked
whether the tribunal would consider Froilan guilty if
the facts were proved, he cautiously answered his
brother that he would not venture of himself to
decide, but personally he considered so much hobnobbing
with the Devil both delicate and dangerous. In
June the Grand Inquisitor Rocaberti died suddenly,
probably of poison, and left Froilan to face the matter
alone; and a few days afterwards a report was sent
from Germany, having been transmitted to the
Emperor by the Bishop of Vienna, containing a
declaration, said to have been made by the Devil to
{314}
an exorciser in the church of St. Sophia, to the
effect that Charles II. was bewitched by a certain
woman called Isabel living in the Calle de Silva,
in Madrid, and that if search were made the
instruments of her incantations would be found
beneath the threshold of her house. The Queen
thought to prove that this was another of Froilan's
tricks, and had the whole matter discussed by the
Inquisition, who, however, could find nothing to
connect him with it, but proceeded to excavate the
spot indicated in the Calle de Silva, and there found
sundry dolls and figures dressed in uniforms, which
dolls were borne in solemn procession and burnt
with all the ceremonies of the Church at the end of
July. All this was of course conveyed to the King
by Froilan, and it, together with the positive
assurance that he was bewitched given to him by a
German exorciser named Mauro Tenda, who had
been secretly summoned to Spain, threw the poor
creature into such an agony of terror that his state
became more and more pitiable.
In September a mad woman in a state of frenzy
presented herself at the palace and demanded
audience. She was refused admittance, and
thereupon began to scream and struggle in a way that
attracted the attention of the King, who told his
attendants to admit her. She burst in foaming
and shrieking with a crucifix in her hand, cursing
and blaspheming at the poor trembling King,
and she had to be borne out again on the
shoulders of the guards, the King nearly dying of
fright on the spot. The maniac was followed,
and it was found that she lived with two other
demoniacs, one of whom was under the impression
{315}
that they were keeping the King subject in
their room. This nonsense was also conveyed to
the monarch, who was now thoroughly persuaded
that he was under the influence of sorcery, and he
ordered that all three of the women should be
exorcised by the German monk. This was done,
Froilan standing by and dictating the questions that
were to be asked of the Devil by the exorciser.
Unfortunately for the confessor, the questions he
asked were rather leading ones, in which his desire
to injure the Queen was evident. "Who was it,"
he asked, "that had caused the King's malady?" The
answer given was that it was a beautiful
woman. "Was it the Queen?" was next
demanded, to which the reply was somewhat
confusing, as it was merely the name of an unknown
man, "Don Juan Palia." "Is he a relative of the
Queen? What countryman is he?" received no
reply; but when the Devil was asked in what form
the charm had been administered he said, "In
snuff." "Any of it left?" "Yes, in the desk." "What
queen was it that caused the malady?" was
again asked. "The dead one," said the Devil.
"Is there any other charm?" "Yes." "Who
gave it?" "Maria de la Presentacion." "Who
ordered it?" "Don Antonio de la Paz." "When
was it given?" No answer. "Of what was it
made?" "Of a dog's bone." "Why did you send
the woman to frighten the King?" No answer.
Other questions and answers were given of the
same sort, the latter mentioning at random the
names of unknown people, and in some cases
libelling the Queen and the ministers--all of it
obviously the babble of a mad woman. Secret
{316}
though the exorcism was, the Queen had a full
report of it, and was of course furious with rage at
the open attempt to cast upon her the blame of the
witchcraft.
The first step towards her revenge was to get
a new Grand Inquisitor in her interest, and
she pressed the King to appoint her friend Folch
de Cardona. He refused, no doubt prompted by
his confessor Froilan, and, notwithstanding the
Queen's passionate protests, appointed a second son
of one of the noblest houses in Spain, Cardinal
Cordoba, to whom the King unburdened himself
completely, and Froilan told the whole story of the
exorcism from beginning to end. From these
confabulations a most extraordinary resolution was
arrived at. Probably the Queen herself was too
high game to fly at, so the new Grand Inquisitor
and his friends decided that the Devil and the
Admiral of Castile, the late Prime Minister, were
at the bottom of all the King's trouble, and they
ordered the Admiral with his papers to be secretly
seized and imprisoned by the Inquisition of Granada,
whilst all his household were incarcerated in another
prison. They had no doubt, they said, that he
would confess all, even if his papers did not
incriminate him. No action, however, could be taken until
the new Grand Inquisitor's appointment was ratified
by the Pope; but on the very day the bull of
ratification arrived the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor died
of poison, and the Queen once again urged her
nominee for the place, but without success as before.
She then cast about for an ambitious man who was
unobjectionable to her opponents, but who might
nevertheless be bought over by her. She found
{317}
him in the person of Mendoza, Bishop of Segovia,
to whom she promised her support and a cardinal's
hat if he would serve her. He was appointed
Grand Inquisitor, and the Queen had now the
whip-hand of her enemy, the confessor. First the
German monk was netted, and under torture by
the Inquisition made a clean breast of his exorcism
in the Calle del Olmo, when Froilan was present.
Then a monk of the Atocha, who had been sent by
the Provincial to investigate the strange doings of
Friar Argüelles at Cangas, produced the letters
from the "friend and the master," and told the
story of the conjurations. This was quite enough
evidence to ruin Froilan, and he was apprehended.
He refused to answer any questions, as all he had
done had been by the King's own orders, and as
the confessor of his Majesty his mouth was closed.
He was at once dismissed from his offices, and the
Grand Inquisitor appealed to the King to allow all
privileges to be waived, and his confessor punished.
Poor Charles the Bewitched was dying in good
earnest now, and could only mumble out that they
might do justice. But Froilan had powerful friends
both at Court and in the Council of the Inquisition,
and before the blow fell he retired, ostensibly to his
monastery, but thence fled to the coast, and so to
Rome. But he was not safe even there, for the
Grand Inquisitor had him seized for heresy by the
Papal officers and brought back to Spain. Then
came the long struggle between the Inquisition and
its head. First, Froilan's case was submitted to the
theological committee of the Holy Office, who
unanimously absolved him. On June 23, 1700, he was
fully acquitted by the General Council of the
{318}
Inquisition, the Grand Inquisitor alone voting for
his secret imprisonment without further trial.
At the next meeting of the full Council, to the
intense surprise of the members, a decree for the
secret imprisonment of Froilan was placed before
them for signature. They unanimously refused to
sign it, and came to high words--almost blows--with
their chief, who threatened them all with dire
consequences for their obstinacy, and, to show that
he was in earnest, there and then sent five of them
down to their dungeons on his own responsibility.
This was too high-handed even for the meekest of
the Inquisitors, and the Council broke up in confusion.
The Council of Castile, the supreme advisers of the
Crown, appealed at once to the King against the
imprisonment of the Inquisitors; but the King was
helpless now, for the Queen and a new confessor
were at his bedside, bound to stand by the Grand
Inquisitor through thick and thin. They got the
dying King to sign a decree appointing new
Inquisitors enough to swamp the votes of those
left, but lo and behold! they turned against their
own creator at the very first meeting, and refused
to endorse the Grand Inquisitor's action, either as
to the imprisonment of Froilan or that of the
Inquisitors. The strong man who led the revolt
was Lorenzo Folch de Cardona, the brother of the
Queen's old friend, now Bishop of Valencia, and
it was decided that he must be silenced somehow.
They offered him a bishopric, which he refused.
They threatened him with prison and banishment,
and he told them that they dared not touch him;
and he was right, for all Madrid was looking on.
Then the Inquisitor-General sent the case to be
{319}
judged by a provincial council of the Inquisition at
Murcia, which was subservient to him, but the
General Council at Madrid told them they would
be acting illegally if they decided against the
verdict already given by the Committee of
Theologians and the General Council, and even they did
not dare to find Froilan guilty. In the meanwhile,
guilty or not guilty, the poor man was kept a close
prisoner in a dark cell of a monastery of the
Dominican Order, to which he belonged.
In November, 1700, the King died, and the Grand
Inquisitor was one of the regents, making himself
remarkable for his splendour and ostentation during
the short period of uncertainty after the King's
death. But the arrival of the French King, Philip
V., put an end to the Queen's hopes, and the Grand
Inquisitor was sent off in disgrace to his diocese.
As soon as his back was turned the General
Council of the Inquisition, with Folch de Cardona
in the chair, demanded of Prior of the Atocha
by what right he still kept Froilan in prison. His
answer was that he did so on the warrant of the
Grand Inquisitor. An appeal was made to the
King, but the fortune of war kept Philip for ever
on the move, and for years no decision was given.
In the meanwhile the Pope espoused the cause of
the Inquisitor-General, and protested against his
deprivation. The King appointed a new Inquisitor-General,
and the Pope vetoed the appointment. Then
the Pope sent special power to the old Grand Inquisitor
to sentence Froilan to whatever punishment he
liked without more ado, and the Council of the
Inquisition and Folch de Cardona protested to the King
against the attempt of the Pope to override the
{320}
law of Spain; and at last Philip V. put his foot
down once for all--dismissed the Inquisitor-General,
reappointed the old Council, and authorised them
to release Froilan in the King's name. They found
him, after five years' close confinement, nearly blind
in the dungeons of the monastery of the Atochu,
and brought him out in triumph to be appointed
Bishop of Avila. In vain the Pope protested and
the dismissed Grand Inquisitor fumed. Philip the
Magnanimous was a very different monarch from
Charles the Bewitched. The black bigotry of the
House of Austria was gone, and thenceforward,
though the Holy Office existed in the land for a
century longer, the arbitrary power of the Inquisition
to override the law of the land was gone with it.
[1] _The Gentleman's Magazine_, November, 1893.
[2] Stanhope, the English minister in Madrid, writes to the
Duke of Shrewsbury, September, 1696: "They cut off his
hair in this sickness, which the decay of nature had almost
done before, all his crown being bald. He has a ravenous
stomach, and swallows all he eats whole, for his nether jaw
stands out so much that his two rows of teeth cannot meet,
so that a gizzard or a liver of a hen passes down whole, and
his weak stomach not being able to digest it he void it in
the same manner."
[3] "L'Histoire dans Ruy Blas" in "Études sur l'Espagne,"
by A. Morel-Fatio, Paris.
[4] Add. MS. 10241, British Museum. See also "Proceso
criminal fulminado contra el Rmo. P.M. Fray Froylan Diax,
de la sagrada religion de predicadores, Confesor del Rey
N.S.D. Carlos II.: Madrid, 1787."
[5] Stanhope to his son, March 14, 1698: "Our Court is in great
disorder: the grandees all dog and cat, Turk and Moor. The
King is in a languishing condition, so weak and spent as to his
principles of life that there is only hope of preserving him for a
few weeks.... The general inclination is altogether French
to the succession, their aversion to the Queen having set them
against all her countrymen, and if the French King will
content himself that one of his younger grandchildren be King
of Spain, he will find no opposition either from grandees or
common people. The King is not in a condition to give
audience, speaking very little and that not much to the
purpose. The terms in which they express it to me is that he
is _embelecado_, _atolondrado_, _and dementado_. He fancies the
devils are very busy in tempting him."
[6] "The King is so very weak he can scarcely lift his hand to
his head to feed himself, and so extremely melancholy that
neither his buffoons, dwarfs, nor puppet shows, all of which
show their abilities before him, can in the least divert him
from fancying everything that is said or done to be a temptation
of the Devil, and never thinking himself safe with out his
confessor and two friars by his side, whom he makes lie in
his chamber every night" (Stanhope to the Earl of Portland.
March 14, 1698).
[7] How fit the King was to undergo such a regime as this
may be judged by Stanhope's letter to his son, dated Madrid,
June 15, 1698: "Our gazettes here tells us every week that
his Catholic Majesty is in perfect health, and it is the general
answer to all inquiries. It is true that he is abroad every day
but _hærct lateri lethalis arundo_; his ankles and knees swell
again, his eyes bag, the lids red as scarlet, and the rest of his
face a greenish yellow. His tongue is _trabada_, as they
express it; that is, he has such a fumbling in his speech, those
near him hardly understand him, at which he sometimes
grows angry, asks if they all be deaf."
[Illustration: Tailpiece]
{321}
A SPRIG OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA.
[Illustration: PHILIP IV. OF SPAIN. (_After the painting by
Velasquez._)
{323}
[Illustration: Headpiece]
_A SPRIG OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA._[1]
No dead and gone human visage looms so clearly through the mist of ages
as that strange lymphatic face of Philip IV., which the genius of
Velazquez delighted to portray from youth to age. The smooth-faced
stripling in hunting dress, with his fair pink and white complexion,
his lank yellow hair, and his great mumbling Austrian mouth, shows more
plainly on canvas than he could have done whilst alive how weak of will
and how potent of passion he was, how easily he would be led by the
overbearing Count-Duke of Olivares to sacrifice all else for splendid
shows and sensuous indulgence; how his vanity would be flattered by
poets, painters, and players, whilst the world-wide empire of his
fathers was crumbling to nothingness {324} beneath his sway, and his
vassals were being robbed of their last maravedi to pay for the frenzy
of waste and prodigality with which Charles Stuart was entertained or a
royal wedding celebrated. Thenceforward, through his fastuous prime,
stately and splendid in his black satin and gold, to the time when, old
and disappointed, with forty years of disastrous domination, the rheumy
eyes drawn and haggard, but the head still erect, haughty and
unapproachable in its reserve, the great painter tells the King's story
better than any pen could write it. There is something not unlovable
in the shy, weak, poetic face, and one can pity the lad with such a
countenance who found himself the greatest king on earth at the age of
sixteen, surrounded by fawning flatterers and greedy bloodsuckers who
plunged him into a vortex of dissipation before his father's body was
cold in the marble sarcophagus at the Escurial. The old man's face,
too, cold and repellent as it is, shocking as are the ravages that time
and self-indulgence have stamped upon it, has yet in it an almost
plaintive despair that explains those terrible broken-hearted letters
in which the King, icy and undemonstrative as he was, poured out his
agony and sorrow undisguised for years to the only person in the wide
world he trusted, the nun Maria de Agreda.
His long reign, which saw the ruin of the Spanish power, witnessed also
the most splendid epoch of Spanish art and literature, the golden age
of the Spanish stage, and a wasteful prodigality of magnificence in the
Court such as, with the exception of that displayed by Philip's
son-in-law, the Roi-soleil, the world has never seen {325} equalled.
The Elizabethan age in England may have approached it in literary
strength, although even that cannot show such a galaxy as Lope de Vega,
Calderon, Velazquez, Murillo, Tirso de Molina, Moreto, Quevedo,
Guevara, Montalvan, and their host of imitators. The history of the
reign has never yet been adequately or even fairly written. Isolated
portions and detached incidents or personalities have been dealt with,
and stray fragments now and again bring vivid pictures of the sumptuous
Court before us. Spanish writers, of late years particularly, are fond
of dwelling with microscopic minuteness on the incidents and adventures
of the time that happened at particular spots in the capital; but the
topographical-historical style, first introduced by Mesonero Romanes,
and now so popular, pleasant reading as it is, does not attempt to do
more than amuse by presenting romantic and detached pictures of a
bygone age, and all that can be claimed by the writers is that
materials are gradually being collected and brought to light by them
from contemporary sources which will be invaluable to the future
serious historian of the reign.
The British Museum contains many hundreds of unpublished manuscripts
bearing upon the subject--copies of official documents, letters, and
"relations" from Philip's Court, petitions and statements of grievance
addressed to the King, and vast collections of miscellaneous papers in
Spanish, Portuguese, and French, most of which have not yet been
consulted for historical purposes. Amongst a great mass of rather dry
official documents of the period, most of them copies, I recently {326}
came across a small, compact group of papers, all originals, telling a
curious, plaintive little story, nakedly enough, it is true, but not
without a pathos of its own. There is nothing historically important
in it, or in the fact that it discloses probably for the first time
since it happened, but a quaint side-light is thrown by some of the
documents on the way in which Court intrigue was conducted, and also,
curiously enough, on the opinion of the highest authorities of those
times as to the best way of bringing up a child, by which it will be
seen that, allowing for difference of climate and national habits, no
great change has taken place in this respect in the two centuries and a
half that have passed since the papers were penned.
Philip had succeeded to the throne on the death of his father in March,
1621. He was only sixteen, and Olivares at once plunged him into such
distractions as the then most dissolute capital in Europe could afford.
By a strange coincidence the paper in the Museum (Egerton MSS., 329)
which precedes the group of which I wish to speak is a lengthy and
solemn letter, dated only a few weeks after the young King's accession,
addressed to the Count-Duke by the Archbishop of Granada, remonstrating
with the all-powerful favourite for taking the boy-king out in the
street at night. "People," he says, "are gossiping about it all over
Madrid, and things are being said which add little to the sovereign's
credit or dignity." Madrid even now is fond of scandal, but in the
beginning of the seventeenth century, isolated from the world as was
the capital of the Spains, its one absorbing pursuit from morn till
night was tittle-tattle, and the long {327} raised walk by the side
wall of the church of St. Philip, fronting the Onate palace in the
Calle Mayor, was a recognised exchange for the scandal-mongers. The
Archbishop says, in his bold and outspoken letter, that not only have
these people begun to whisper things that were better unsaid, but the
example shown by the King and his minister in scouring the streets in
search of adventure is a bad one for the people at large, and he
reminds Olivares of the anxiety of the late King on this very account,
and his dread that his heir was already before his death being inducted
into dissipation. The answer to the bold prelate's remonstrance is
just such as might be expected from the insolent favourite. He tells
him in effect that he is an impertinent meddler, and ought to be
ashamed, with his rank, and at his age, to trouble him with the vulgar
gossip of the street. The King, he tells him, is sixteen and he
(Olivares) is thirty-four, and it is not to be expected that they are
to be kept in darkness as to what is done in the world. It is good
that the King should see all phases of life, bad as well as good. He
(Olivares) never trusts the King with any one else; and the favourite
finishes his answer by a scarcely veiled threat that if the Archbishop
does not mind his own business worse may befall him. No doubt the
prelate took the warning, for Olivares was not scrupulous, and had a
short and secret way with those who incurred his displeasure.
The small group of original papers coming after this begins with a
memorandum unsigned, but evidently written by Olivares to the King some
nine years subsequently, namely, early in the {328} summer of 1630. It
says that it is high time that measures should be taken at once to put
a boy, whose name is not given, out of the way, as he is now four years
old, and it is of great importance that he should be concealed, and all
communication broken off between him and the people with whom he has
been. The writer goes on to say that he has considered deeply how this
is to be done, and that there are objections to be found in every
solution that presents itself, but he thinks on the whole the best way
will be to entrust him secretly to the care of a gentleman of his
acquaintance named Don Juan Isassi Ydiaquez, who lives at Salamanca.
He is a person of education, has travelled all over Europe, and could
bring the lad up as his own. It will be necessary to see this
gentleman first, and the writer proposes to summon him to Court without
telling him the reason, so that "Your Majesty" may see him and then
decide for the best. Across this document is written in Philip's
uncertain, poetic hand: "It appears very necessary that something
should be done in this matter and I approve of what you suggest.--P."
Presumably Ydiaquez was sent for and approved of, as the next document
in the series is of a much more formal character, being a notarial deed
drawn up by the Secretary of State, Geronimo de Villanueva as
prothonotary of the kingdom, who was, with the exception of Olivares,
the principal confidant of Philip's intrigues.[2] This deed, dated
{329} June 1, 1631, recites that his Excellency Don Caspar de Guzman,
Count of Olivares, Duke of San Lucar, Grand Councillor of the Indies,
Councillor of State, and Master of the Horse, delivers {330} a boy
named Francisco Fernando, aged over four years to Don Juan Isassi
Ydiaquez, this boy being the person referred to but not named in his
Majesty's warrant, under his sign manual, addressed to Don Juan Isassi,
and countersigned and delivered to him by the Secretary of State. The
deed directs that Don Juan is to bring up the boy and educate him in
conformity with the instructions to be given to him by the Count-Duke,
by his Majesty's orders, and Don Juan himself undertakes in the deed to
deliver up the person of the said Don Francisco Fernando when required,
and to obey implicitly in all things the directions of the Count-Duke
with regard to him. He promises to bring him up and rear him as he is
ordered to do in the royal warrant. The deed is signed by the
Count-Duke, {331} Isassi, the King's secretary Carnero, and two
servants, and is attested in notarial form by Villanueva, as
prothonotary of the kingdom.
Then comes the King's warrant, under Philip's own sign manual, in the
fine old Spanish form:--
"The King--Don Juan Isassi Ydiaquez. The Count-Duke will deliver to
you a boy in whose education and virtuous bringing up you will serve me
well and with absolute secrecy, following therein all the orders given
to you by the Count-Duke. I, the King."
It is clear that this Don Francisco Fernando was no ordinary babe of
four to require the personal attention of all these high and mighty
gentlemen in sending him to school. Philip had one child by his wife
at this time, the chubby youngster Don Baltasar, who for all time will
prance on his stout bay cob on the canvas of Velazquez, and only the
year previous, in 1629, there had been born to the King, by the
beautiful actress, Maria Calderon, the idol of the Spanish stage, a boy
who in the fulness of time was to become that second great Don John of
Austria, the last virile man of his race; but Don Francisco Fernando
was the first-born, and apparently his mother was of far superior
social rank to the jaunty "Calderona," so that he was no doubt, baby as
he was, destined for great things. The instructions given by the
Count-Duke to Don Juan Isassi with regard to the care of his charge are
minute to the last degree, and reflect in every line the great
importance that is attached to the identification of the child. The
long document begins by saying that the boy delivered to Don Juan is
the illegitimate son of the King by the {332} daughter of a gentleman,
and was born in the house of his grandparents, between eleven and
twelve at night, on May 15, 1626. Don Francisco Eraso, Count of
Humanes, took the midwife, and was present at the birth; conveying the
infant as soon as it was born to the house of Don Baltasar de Alamos y
Barrientos, Councillor of the Treasury, where a nurse was awaiting him,
and the child had there remained until its delivery to Don Juan. After
impressing upon Don Juan the need for the most exquisite care to be
taken of the child's life and health, and arranging for the nurses and
doctor who have had the care of him to accompany him to Salamanca for
the first few months of the change, the Count-Duke instructs Don Juan
to seek a good doctor to be kept at hand permanently, who is not to be
told who the boy is unless his services are required, and in the
meanwhile is to receive a good salary. "His Majesty," says Olivares,
"has confided this care to me, and I depend upon you to carry out the
task."
First of all the child was to be well taught in religion and morality;
secondly, on no account was he to learn who he was, and if his
attendants have already told him incautiously he is to be allowed to
forget it, and "neither by word nor behaviour is he to be made to think
that he is not an ordinary person;" thirdly, he is to be taught polite
learning and languages, particularly Italian and French, to dance,
fence, and play tennis, and, when he is a little older, to ride. He is
to be treated familiarly and without ceremony, and, "in short, to be
educated and brought up with the virtues and nobleness of royalty, and
the study, modesty, {333} knowledge, and temperance of a private
person." Don Juan is to send a weekly report to the Count-Duke through
his secretary Carreras, but to take care that this is done with the
utmost secrecy, and on no account is the child to be shown to any one
without a written order. As secrecy is of the first importance 500
(ducats) a month only are ordered to be paid, besides the doctor's
fees, and Don Juan is to devise some means for the secret payment of
this sum. A coach is to be secretly got ready to meet the Count-Duke
and the child on the night and at the place which may be appointed for
the delivery; and then, after another urgent injunction of secrecy and
care of the child's religious instruction, and a fervent prayer that
God will give to the little one "all the happiness, spiritual and
temporal, which He will see is necessary and good for the realm," the
proud favourite signs himself simply Caspar de Guzman.
The hidalgo of Salamanca appears to have been quite overwhelmed at the
honour done him by the charge of so important a person, and his
ceremonious and verbose letter of thanks to the Count-Duke needed
hardly to be prefaced by the prayer that his patron will not attribute
his laconic speech to the proverbial taciturnity of his countrymen, but
rather to his confusion at the greatness of the honour done him by his
Majesty, for which words are inadequate to express his gratitude. His
only thanks can be his faithful fulfilment of orders. He begs that the
doctor who has had the care of the little one may be sent to Salamanca
with him in order to consult with Don Juan's doctor, and ascertain
whether he is fit to undertake so important a charge, and if {334} not
he will approach cautiously a doctor in Vitoria, named Trevino, of whom
he hears good accounts. The woman who accompanies the child shall stay
with him some short time, although the good hidalgo is evidently rather
doubtful of this arrangement, as he adds that if she should find the
horizon of their dull country life too confined for her after Madrid,
or begins to kick against the discipline, other arrangements will have
to be made. All care shall be taken to prevent the boy from learning
who he is, and if it should get wind efforts shall be made to silence
it, but the task will be a difficult one. The child shall be so
reared, please God, that he shall not become abject or servile (which
is most important to a royal personage), or licentious and headstrong;
and the good hidalgo thereupon breaks out into a mild pedantic little
joke by quoting a Latin proverb, to the effect that, to attain so great
an object as this, one must be prepared to eat salt and acrid food,
which, he says, will be easy for him to do, "as we all live on salt
bacon and hung beef in my province." This does not sound very
promising, nor does his description of the water they have to drink,
which he says is bad to drink raw, particularly in the summer, and
needs cinnamon or other spice to correct it. The doctor, he says, will
advise whether they had better boil it with mastic or some other drug.
The correspondence shall be sent weekly through "my nephew, Don Alonso
Ibarra Isassi, the eldest of the lads I took to Madrid with me. He is
a good, prudent, and modest lad, and a correspondence between us as
uncle and nephew will arouse no suspicion." As for the 500 ducats a
month payment, the {335} good hidalgo says his cheeks burn with shame
as he writes or even thinks about them; "but if your Excellency should
deign to order them to be paid to me they might be sent without
attracting notice through the treasury at Vitoria or Burgos."
So the little child is sent to Salamanca, and with him goes the
ponderously learned Dr. Cristobal Nuñez, who wraps up the simplest
facts in the most complicated and pedantic technical phraseology, and,
what is far more troublesome for the present purpose, writes a
shockingly bad hand. His first document is a microscopic report of the
constitution and temperament of the child, and the simple history of
his baby ailments. The description is most curious; and, if any doubt
existed as to his paternity, every trait indicates the character and
appearance of a son of the sovereign race of Austria. "He is," says
the learned doctor, "of melancholic, choleric temperament, wilful and
passionate, but playful when he is pleased, and respectful to those he
thinks his superiors. He is of sound constitution, being the offspring
of young and healthy parents; possesses superior intelligence for his
age; a wonderful memory, which gives great hope if he be well trained.
He is slow of speech, and expresses himself with great difficulty,
stuttering and lisping; and is so backward on his feet that he has only
just learnt to walk. His person is so perfect and beautiful, that the
mind of a sculptor never imagined anything better; he has a lovely,
fair, red and white complexion, and full grey eyes. He is grave and
thoughtful--not dull or sad, but full of childish humour; quick to
laugh and quick to cry. He is," says the doctor, "high of spirit,
courageous, and {336} pugnacious, impatient of contradiction; and, if
his speech be not at once understood, he flies into such ungovernable
rage as to make it dangerous to thwart him, and he should rather be
coaxed to obedience than forced."
Like all his forbears, he is described as a great eater, and very fond
of sweets; and it is not surprising to learn that he has all his short
life suffered from over-eating and indigestion, and for long past has
had quartan ague. The drastic remedies of the times were endured by
the child, the doctor says, "without weeping, as if he knew they were
for his good"; but the learned medico confesses that all his own
prescriptions had done the babe less good than what he describes as an
old wife's remedy of anointing the stomach and spine with ointment and
saffron.
The child's usual mode of life is carefully described. Between eight
and nine in the morning he had a fowl's liver and a little loaf, or
else some bread or cake sopped in broth, or bread and jam and a cup of
water. At twelve o'clock broth with sippets of bread or half of the
breast of a fowl, or sometimes some forcemeat balls, as he likes a
change, and demands it. When he gets tired of this he may have a
little loin of mutton or the leg of a fowl. He is also very fond of a
piece of bacon between two slices of bread, and of quince marmalade,
jams, and sweets. At five o'clock he "packs his wallet," as the doctor
calls it, by a meal of bread and jam, and a cup of water. He is put to
bed at nine o'clock, and sleeps with his nurse. The learned Don
Cristobal then enters into a most verbose disquisition as to the
fitness of the locality chosen for {337} the temperament of the child,
and arrives at the conclusion that the choice has been a wise one,
although the roundabout method of argument founded on wise talk about
blood and humours and vapours and the like seems rather beside the mark
to a modern reader. The sum of it all is, however, that Don Juan de
Isassi's house stands healthily, if somewhat bleakly, on high ground
about three bow-shots from the town, and joining the great convent of
the Suceso, the house itself being a good one, surrounded by its own
grounds.
Thus far the doctor has only spoken of the constitution and past
management of his late charge; but the next document, which bears the
same date as the preceding one (June 18, 1630), lays down an elaborate
plan for the future rearing of the child. He recommends that he should
be allowed to play after his early supper, and not be sent to sleep
before nine at night, unless he feels sleepy. He is to be woke at
eight, if he is not already awake, and is to be given his light
breakfast of a fowl's liver and cake, a rasher of bacon and bread and
broth, or a roasted egg. At eleven or twelve he is to dine on
forcemeat balls, made of two parts chicken, one part mutton, and one
part bacon, with a little pie or broth with sippets. Sometimes,
instead of force-meat balls, he may have the leg of a fowl, which, if
he likes it, will be enough for him, with a little bread soaked in
broth, or he may have a mouthful of mutton with chicken broth. It will
be well, says the courtly doctor, that the gentleman himself should be
consulted occasionally as to whether he preferred the fowl or the
sausages, or roast or boiled food. He is to sleep about an hour and a
half after dinner, {338} and play in the afternoon; but great care must
be taken to keep him out of the sun, and his early supper may be as
heretofore, only somewhat later; a biscuit or two with jam, a small
egg, such as the fowls of the province lay, or sippets in broth. A
curious and somewhat elaborate little dish is recommended for
occasional breakfast or supper. "Take," says the doctor, "a half-dozen
almonds or melon seeds, and press the juice from them, which mix with a
little barley-cream and some good broth. This must be boiled, and
sugar and sponge-cake worked into it until it is a smooth paste, which
may be served with half a beaten egg over it, and will make a nice
light supper." It will be good to excite the appetite by variety, and
as the child gets older he may sometimes be given coarser food, and
trout or other fresh fish. He must drink fresh spring water boiled
with viper-grass, or mixed with cinnamon, according to the weather. He
is always to have some fruit for dessert, unless it disagrees with him;
but much care must be taken to guard him from excess; and he is to be
specially sparing in drinking. Full common-sense directions are given
with regard to his dress, and if he needs medicine his food must be
reduced by one half, and a decoction of mallow and camomile, honey and
oil administered. Red Alexandria honey is also recommended, quinces,
oil of wormwood, and a variety of other remedies for simple ailments.
There is yet another document from the doctor giving some further
rules, apparently in answer to special questions. In it he again
learnedly describes the child's constitution, his weak stomach and
aptness to catch cold, inherited from his parents, his {339} tendency
to hydrocephalus, and his almost continuous series of ailments since he
was born, which, says the medico, would have killed him but for his
strong constitution. From seven years old he was to eat fish and other
Lenten fare, and at twelve years must be taught to fast. Above all, he
is not to be brought up delicately or coddled, but encouraged to run
and romp. Great care must be taken that he is not exposed to the cold,
but he must be well wrapped up even in summer. Drugs are to be given
sparingly, if at all: mallow, camomile, sweet almonds, black sugar or
honey if wanted; but he is not to be constantly dosed with red honey
and other things as children usually are, and if he is really ill he is
not to be lowered or bled much; by which it will be seen that Dr.
Cristobal Nuñez, pedantic as he was, differed somewhat from the usual
type of sangrados of the time. All this was between the 1st and 18th
of June, 1630, and it is to be supposed that the poor babe of the house
of Austria lived his little life in and around the "Casa Solariega" of
the Salamancan hidalgo for the next few years, although no record
remains of it here.
The next document of the series is a letter, elated nearly four years
afterwards, March 17, 1634, from the Secretary of State, Geronimo
Villanueva, to Don Juan Isassi Ydiaquez, saying that his Majesty had
received with the deepest grief the news of the death of Don Francisco
Fernando, who showed such bright promise for his tender years, and his
Majesty highly appreciates all the care that has been taken of his
education. The body is to be brought with the utmost secrecy in a
coach to the royal monastery of {340} St. Lorenzo (the Escurial), where
it is to be buried, and advice is to be sent by confidential special
messenger to Madrid when the corpse should arrive, in order that one of
the King's stewards may be there to receive it. All the other
arrangements for the burial are made. The four years had apparently
not been unprofitable ones to the hidalgo, as the next time his name
appears he is a knight of Santiago and lord of the town of Ameyo, as
well as of the castles of Isassi and Orbea. The date of the document
is April 15, 1634, and again it is a notarial deed attested by the
prothonotary of the kingdom, Don Geronimo Villanueva, setting forth
that Don Juan Isassi Ydiaquez delivered the body of Don Francisco
Fernando, son of his Catholic Majesty Philip IV., whom God had taken to
himself, to the Marquis of Torres, the Bishop of Avila, and other
nobles appointed by the King to receive it. The delivery was made in
the porch of the cathedral, and we are told that the corpse was dressed
in a red gown, bordered with gold, and lay in a coffin of black velvet.
The coffin, which had been borne by Don Juan Isassi and his servant to
the porch, was thence carried to the great hall of the monastery by
certain of the King's gentlemen-in-waiting, and after the religious
ceremonies had been performed, was taken to the vault by the monks of
the Order and laid to rest. And so ended a little life which, like
that of his half-brother Baltasar, if it had been spared, might have
stayed the decay of the Spanish branch of the House of Austria. It is
true that Don John of Austria survived, and for a short time snatched
his poor brother, Charles the Bewitched, from the clutches of {341} his
foolish mother and her low-born favourite, Valenzuela, but who knows
whether the strong, masterful spirit of the baby of four whom it was
dangerous to thwart might not, if he had grown to manhood, have done
more than his younger brother to keep the reins of power when once he
grasped them. Poor trembling, white-faced Charles the Bewitched, with
his leaden eyes and monstrous projecting jaw, a senile dodderer at
thirty, wanted a strong, masterful spirit like this to hold him up and
shield him from the vultures that fought over the carcase before the
poor creature was dead.
But it was not to be, and the forgotten babe of the sovereign house was
put with so many other princely corpses in that horrible "rotting place
of princes," off the black marble stair of the regal pantheon of the
Escurial, where, not so very many years ago, I saw a ghastly heap of
princely and semi-princely skulls and leg-bones gathered up as they had
fallen from the rotting coffins to the floor. There, all
undistinguished from the others, probably enough rests still, his very
name never published, and his short existence hardly known till now,
Don Francis Ferdinand of Austria, one of the last male members of the
Spanish branch of the sovereign house, which in four generations
descended from the highest pinnacle of human greatness to contempt,
disgrace, decrepitude and decay.
[1] _The Gentleman's Magazine_, September, 1892.
[2] He was with difficulty rescued from the direst vengeance of the
Inquisition a few years afterwards in consequence of his too ready
co-operation in the King's amorous tendencies. Don Geronimo was patron
of the convent of San Placido, next door to his own house in the Calle
de la Madera in Madrid, and had inflamed the King's mind with stories
of a very beautiful nun who was an inmate of the convent. Philip and
his favourite, the Count-Duke, insisted upon seeing this paragon of
loveliness, and Don Geronimo, exerting his authority as patron,
procured them entrance in disguise to the parlour, where, as was to be
expected, his Catholic Majesty fell violently in love with the
beautiful nun. The interviews in the parlour were constant but, with
the grating between the King and his flame, unsatisfactory, and, by
dint of bribes and threats, Don Geronimo managed to break a passage
from the cellars of his own house into the vaults of the convent, by
means of which, notwithstanding the prayers, the entreaties, and
appeals of the abbess, the King was introduced into the cell of the
unfortunate nun of whom he was enamoured. He found her laid out as if
she were a corpse, surrounded with lighted tapers, with a great
crucifix by her side, but not even this availed, and the sacrilegious
amours continued so long that the news reached the ever-open ears of
the Holy Office. The Grand Inquisitor, a Dominican friar called
Antonio de Sotomayor, Archbishop of Damascus, privately took the King
to task, and obtained a promise that the offence should cease. Don
Geronimo was seized by the officers of the Inquisition (August 30,
1644), and taken to Toledo, where he was accused of sacrilege and other
heinous crimes against the faith. The evidence was full and
conclusive, and Don Geronimo's life was trembling in the balance, when
the Count-Duke boldly went to the Grand Inquisitor one night with two
signed royal decrees in his hands, one giving the Archbishop 12,000
ducats a year for life on condition of his resignation of the Grand
Inquisitorship, and the other depriving him of all his temporalities,
and banishing him for ever from all the dominions of his Catholic
Majesty. The Grand Inquisitor naturally chose the former, and resigned
next morning. Pressure was put on Pope Urban VIII. by the Spanish
Ambassador, and very shortly an order arrived from Rome that the whole
of the documents and evidence in the case were to be sealed up and sent
in a box by a messenger of the Holy Office to his Holiness himself for
decision. The messenger chosen was one of the Inquisition notaries
called Alfonso Paredes. The Count-Duke, under various pretexts,
delayed this man's departure for some weeks, and in the meanwhile had
good portraits of him painted and sent by special messengers to all the
ports in Italy where he was likely to land, and orders were sent to the
Spanish agents to capture him at all risks. On the night of his
arrival at Genoa, by the connivance of the authorities, he was seized,
gagged, and carried off to Naples, where he was imprisoned for the rest
of his life, condemned to perpetual silence on pain of instant death.
The box of papers that he bore was sent privately to the King, who,
with Olivares, burnt the contents without even opening the packet. The
new Grand Inquisitor, who was a creature of the Queen, a Benedictine
monk named Diego de Arce, was not to be entirely balked, and although
no evidence now existed, he had the prothonotary Don Geronimo
Villanueva brought from his prison in Toledo, where he had languished
for two years, and placed before the tribunal of the Inquisition. He
was stripped of his arms, accoutrements, insignia of rank and outer
clothing, and sat upon a plain low wooden stool, and then, without any
evidence being given or statement of specific offence, was condemned
for irreligion, sacrilege, superstition, and other enormities, and, by
the mercy of the Holy Office, was absolved from all this on condition
that he fasted every Friday for a year, never again entered the
convent, and gave 2,000 ducats to the poor through the monks of Atocha.
{343}
_THE JOURNAL OF RICHARD BERE._
{345}
[Illustration: Headpiece]
_THE JOURNAL OF RICHARD BERE._[1]
In the course of a recent search amongst the Sloane MSS. at the British
Museum for a document of an entirely different character I chanced upon
a manuscript which, so far as I have been able to discover, has never
yet been described in print or received the attention it appears to
deserve. It is a long, narrow book like an account book, in the Sloane
binding, containing 244 pages of cramped and crowded little writing in
faded ink on rough paper, recording the daily--almost hourly--movements
of a man for eleven years, from the 1st of January, 1692-3, to the
middle of April, 1704. It is written in Spanish--Englishman's Spanish,
full of solecisms and English idioms, but fair and fluent Castilian for
all that, and the diarist, thinking no doubt his secrets were safe in a
language comparatively little known at the time, has set down for his
own satisfaction alone, and often in words that no amount of editing
would render fit for publication, the daily life of one of the
dissolute men about town, who roistered and ruffled in the
coffee-houses and taverns of London at the end of the seventeenth
century. Few men could hope to possess the keen {346} observation and
diverting style of Samuel Pepys, or the sober judgment and foresight of
stately John Evelyn, and this last contemporary diarist of theirs
certainly cannot lay claim to any such qualities. He rarely records an
impression or an opinion, and as a rule confines himself to a bald
statement of his own movements and the people he meets day by day; but
still, even such as it is, the diary is full of quaint and curious
suggestions of the intimate life of a London widely different from
ours. The familiar names of the streets, nay, the very signs of the
taverns, are the same now as then, but in every line of the fading
brown ink may be gathered hints of the vast chasm that separates the
busy crowded life of to-day from the loitering deliberation with which
these beaux in swords and high-piled periwigs sauntered through their
tavern-haunting existence. It strikes the imagination, too, to think
that the man who thus sets down so coarsely and frankly the acts of his
life must have listened, with however little appreciation, to the
luminous talk of wondrous John Dryden at Will's coffee-house, most
certainly knew the rising Mr. Addison, and probably met Matthew Prior
at his old home at the "Rummer" tavern, which the diarist frequented.
There is nothing in the manuscript directly to identify the writer, and
probably the indirect clues furnished by references to his relatives
have never before been followed up to prove exactly who the author was.
The task has not been an easy one, and has started me on more than one
false scent ending in a check, but at last I stumbled on evidence that
not only absolutely identified the {347} diarist, but also explained
many obscure passages in the manuscript.
From the first page to the last the writer refers to Danes Court, near
Deal, as the home of his brother, and he himself passes the intervals
of his dissolute life in London in visits to his Kentish kinsman. Now
Danes Court had been for centuries in the possession of the ancient
family of Fogge, and I at once concluded that the writer of my diary
was a younger member of the house. Indeed, encouraged therein by
Hasted, the great authority on Kentish history, I went so far as to
establish to my own entire satisfaction that the diarist was a certain
Captain Christopher Fogge, R.N., who died in 1708, and was buried in
Rochester Cathedral, and I was confirmed in this belief by the fact
that the wind and weather of each day is carefully recorded as in a
sailor's log-book. But somehow it did not fit in. Constant reference
is made to a brother Francis, and no amount of patient investigation in
county genealogies and baptismal certificates could unearth any one
named Francis Fogge. So I had to hark back and try another clue.
Brother Francis was evidently a clergyman and a graduate of King's
College, Cambridge, and towards the end of the diary the author visits
him at the village of Prescot, near Liverpool.
Sure enough the rich living of Prescot was in the gift of King's
College, Cambridge, and further inquiry soon showed that a certain
Francis Bere, M.A., was rector from 1700 until his death in 1722. This
of itself was not much, but it led to further clues which proved the
monumental Hasted {348} ("History of Kent") to be hopelessly wrong
about the Fogge pedigree and the ownership of Danes Court at the time,
and the whole question was settled more completely than I could have
hoped by the discovery, in the "Transactions of the Kent Archæological
Society for 1863," of a copy of the copious memoranda in the old family
Bible, written by the stout cavalier, Richard Fogge, and his son John,
with the notes attached thereto by Warren, the Kentish antiquary in
1711, in which the family history is made clear. This was good as far
as it went, and proved the surname and parentage of the author of the
diary, but did not identify him personally. Certain references in the
manuscript, however, sent me searching amongst the Treasury Papers in
the Record Office, and there I found a set of papers written in the
same cramped, finnicking hand as the diary, which set my mind at rest,
and proved beyond doubt or question who was the methodical rake that
indiscreetly confided the secret of his "goings on" to the incomplete
oblivion of the Spanish tongue.
The writer of the diary was one Richard Bere, whose father was rector
of Ickenham, near Uxbridge, and who was born at Cowley, near there, on
the 28th of August, 1653. His sister Elizabeth had married in 1679
John Fogge, who subsequently succeeded to the Danes Court Estate, and,
on the fly-leaf of the Fogge family Bible referred to, John Fogge, who
was evidently proud of the connection, sets forth that his wife's
grandfather had been "Receiver General of ye Low Countries; her uncles,
one of them was in a noble imploy in ye C Clarke's office, ye other
being {349} one of ye clarkes of ye signet to King Charles II., a man
acquainted with all Xtian languages. Ye other now alive is rector of
Bendropp in Gloucestershire, who has an Estate. Her mother was one of
ye family of Bland, of London, eminent merchants at Home and Abroad."
Richard Bere was born only a year after his sister, so that the
statement as to her relatives will hold good for him also. He had been
Collector of Customs at Carlisle, but apparently had allowed his
Jacobite leanings to be too evident, and had been dismissed from his
office a short time before he began the diary, leaving his accounts at
Carlisle still unbalanced and in arrear. How he learnt Spanish I do
not know, but he had evidently been in Spain before his appointment to
Carlisle, probably in the navy, or in some way connected with shipping,
as, in addition to the careful noting of the wind and weather all
through the diary, he shows great interest in the naval events of his
time. His uncle's remarkable proficiency in "all Xtian tongues" may
also perhaps partly explain his own knowledge of the Spanish language.
His family in old times had been a wealthy and powerful one, seated at
Gravesend, Dartford, and Greenhithe in Kent, but had lost its county
importance long before the date of the diary. The widow of one of his
uncles, however, still lived at Gravesend at the time he wrote, and one
of his father's sisters, who had married a man named Childs, also lived
in the neighbourhood, and on her husband's death went to live with her
niece at Danes Court.
The diary commences on the 1st of January, 1692-3, when Bere was living
at Mr. Downe's in {350} London, but the detailed entries begin on the
9th of the month, when he went by tilboat from Billingsgate to
Gravesend. Here, after visiting his aunt Bere and his kinsman Childs
at Northfleet, he slept at the inn, and started the next morning in a
coach to Canterbury. The next day he continued his journey to Danes
Court on a hired mare, and then after a few days rest, "without seeing
anybody," begins a round of visits and carouses with the neighbouring
gentry. All the squires and their families for miles round march
through the pages of the diary. Mr. Paramour, of Stratenborough; Mr.
Boys, of Betshanger, "my uncle Boys," who was probably Christopher
Boys, of Updowne, uncle by marriage to John Fogge; "my uncle Pewry,"
who was rector of Knowlton, but whose relationship with the diarist is
not clearly discoverable; Mr. Burville, rector of the Fogge Church of
Tilmanston, and a host of other neighbours come and go, dine and drink,
often staying the night, and in a day or two entertain John Fogge and
his brother-in-law in return. The latter records the fact, but
unfortunately does no more, and little is gathered of the manner of
their lives at this period of the diary, except that they did a
prodigious deal of visiting and dining at each others' houses. One of
the most constant visitors to Danes Court is the aged Lady Monins, of
Waldershare Park, the widow of the last baronet of the name, and
Richard Bere appears to be as often her guest at Waldershare. The
round of dining and visiting is broken in upon by a visit on horseback
with brother John Fogge to the assizes at Maidstone, where the latter
has a lawsuit which he loses, and Richard returns to {351} Danes Court
alone, leaving his defeated brother at Canterbury. On the 12th of
April the diarist records that he first saw the swallows, and on the
20th, as instancing the uneventful life in this remote part of the
country, it is considered worth while to register the fact that "whilst
I was digging in the garden with Carlton a man passed on horseback." A
few days afterwards neighbour Carlton's daughter is married, and then
"my nephew Richard was first sent to school at Sandwich, Timothy Thomas
being master." Richard, the heir of Danes Court, was about twelve
years old at the time, and, as we shall see later on, turned out badly
and completed the ruin of the fine old family, of which he was the last
male representative in the direct line. Timothy Thomas, who was a
distinguished scholar and M.A. of Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge, was
headmaster of the Sandwich Free School and brother to the rector of St.
Paul and St. Mary, Sandwich. He seems to have been always ready for a
carouse at the hostelry of the "Three Kings" at Sandwich or elsewhere
with the father or uncle of his pupil.
On the 28th of April "the fleet entered the Downs, the wind blowing a
gale at the time. A ship called the _Windsor_ was lost. I went to
Deal to see the ships, and saw five ensigns." Small details of
ablutions--rare enough they seem nowadays--bed-warming, and quaint
remedies for trifling ailments sound queerly enough to us coming
faintly across the gloom of two centuries, but in the midst of the
chronicles of this small beer of visits paid and received, of the
stomach-ache, and so on, brother John receives a writ, and we feel that
we are witnesses of the process by which all this feasting {352} and
revelry is completing the ruin of the ancient family that once owned
broad lands and far manors all over Kent, which founded hospitals and
colleges, and was closely allied to the regal Plantagenets, but whose
possessions had even now shrunken to one poor mansion house of Danes
Court and the few farms around it. John Fogge's father, Richard, whose
pompous Latin epitaph is still in Tilmanston Church, written by his
eldest son, Edward, and scoffed at in the family Bible by the
degenerate John, had been true to the King's side during the civil war.
His near neighbour, Sir John Boys of Betshanger, had hunted and harried
the cavalier and sacked his house after the mad Kentish rising in 1648,
and had frightened his favourite child to death, and for the whole of
the Commonwealth period poor Richard had been plundered and well-nigh
ruined. His sons Edward and John had been captured at sea by the
Dutch, and Christopher had been taken prisoner by the Turks, and all
three had had to be bought off with ransom. Stout old Richard Fogge
therefore had left Danes Court sadly embarrassed at his death in 1680.
His eldest son, Edward, died soon after, and John Fogge, the
brother-in-law of our diarist, was rapidly continuing the ruin at the
date of the diary. By the 30th of May Richard Bere had had enough of
Danes Court, and started to Canterbury "with my brother's horse and
servant, and so to Northfleet, where I visited my kinsman Childs." He
mounted his horse at five o'clock in the morning and arrived at
Northfleet at five in the evening, staying on the way only a short time
at Canterbury to rest and drink with friend Best, at whose house he
always alights when {353} he passes through the ancient city. The
distance by road is a good fifty-five miles, so Richard no doubt
thought he had earned his night's rest at Uncle Childs' before
starting, as he did next day, by tilboat to London. The first thing he
did when he arrived was to "drink with Higgs" and send for Benson to
meet him at Phillips' mug-house. Benson appears to have been a humble
friend or foster-brother, as Bere calls Benson's father "my father
Benson," who went on all his errands, pawned his valuables, and faced
his creditors. When Benson came they started out together and took a
room, where they both slept, "at the sign of the 'Crown,' an inn in
Holborne," and the record thereafter for some time consists mainly of
such entries as "Dined with Sindry at the 'Crown,' and drank with him
all the afternoon and evening at Phillips'. Slept at Mrs. Ward's;"
"Dined with Dr. Stockton, Haddock, and Simpson at the 'Pindar of
Wakefield';" "Dined at the sign of the 'Castle,' a tavern in Wood
Street, with many friends from the North; drank there all the
afternoon, and all night drinking with usual friends at Phillips',"
only that these daily entries usually wind up with the record of a
debauch which need not be described, but which Richard does not
hesitate to set down in such cold blood as his orgy has left him.
He appears to have had as a friend one Westmacott, who was a prison
official, and a standing amusement was apparently to go and see the
prisoners, who sometimes fall foul of Westmacott and his friend and
abuse them. Richard also has a quaint way of drawing a miniature
gallows in {354} the margin of his manuscript on the days that he
records the execution of malefactors. On the 15th of June, for
instance, after giving his usual list of friends and taverns, he
writes: "Seven men hanged to-day; fine and warm. Drinking at Phillips'
at night; Westmacott there again." A day or two afterwards the
bailiffs walk in during his dinner at the tavern and hale his boon
companion, Pearce, off to jail; but Richard thinks little of it, for he
goes off to drink straightway with Colonel Legge, and then passes a
merry evening with Dr. Stockton and Mr. Rolfe at the sign of the
"Ship," near Charing Cross.
On the 29th of June "a new sword-belt, some woollen hose, and a rosette
for my hat," were bought; and soon after he leaves his lodgings at Mrs.
Ward's, and thenceforward seems to sleep in taverns or inns for some
time, very often winding up the entries in the diary by confessing that
he was "drunk" or "very drunk."
On the 18th of July, 1693, he visits "the house of the Princess of
Denmark with Mr. Wooton," and thence goes to see a fashionable friend
of his called Captain Orfeur, who had a fine house at Spring Gardens,
where he meets his brother, and they all make a night of it at the
"Ship." By the beginning of August it is not surprising that he is
ill, and decides to visit his brother Francis in the country. On the
3rd he takes horse to Biggleswade and thence to Oundle, "where I met my
brother and Mr. Rosewell" (he was a fellow of "King's," and apparently
a great friend of Francis Bere's). "Dined at Caldwell's, and slept at
the sign of the 'Dog.'"
{355}
He stays at the "Dog" at Oundle for some days, still ill, and visits
Northampton, where he is struck with the curious church, town-hall,
prison, and courts of justice, and slept at the "George." From there
he rides to the "Angel" at Wellingboro', and so home to London by
Dunstable, where he stays at the "Saracen's Head," Watford,
Rickmansworth, and Uxbridge, where he puts up at the "Swan." Being now
well again, he recommences the old round of the "Horns," the "Red Cow,"
the "Mermaid," the "Crown," and so on, usually winding up with a
roaring carouse at Phillips', and occasionally relieved by trips to
Islington-wells to walk in the fields with friend Stourton, who lives
near there, and who later on becomes his inseparable companion. To
illustrate the methodical character of this roistering blade, it is
curious to note that, as he could not well carry his cumbrous diary
with him on his journey to Oundle, he has made his daily entries on a
small loose leaf and has afterwards carefully transcribed them in the
book, the loose leaf, however, being also bound up with the rest. On
the reverse side, in English, Richard has copied the following couplet
of Lord Thomond's, which seems to have struck him:--
"Whatever Traveller doth wicked ways intend,
The Devill entertains him at his journey's end,"
and to this he adds several little remedies which some travelling
companion seems to have told him on the road. He scrupulously records
the fact that the day is his birthday on each succeeding 28th of
August, and the occasion appears to be an excuse {356} for a burst of
deeper drinking than ever, but on this first birthday mentioned in the
diary, 1693, he is evidently getting hard up. He lodges with a man
named Nelson, who ceaselessly duns him for his rent, and we soon learn
that the faithful Benson has pawned his two rings for eighteen
shillings. On the 27th of September his friend Dr. Stockton tells him
"that Mr. Addison told him that I lost my place because I was against
the Government, and was foolish enough to talk about it, which," says
indignant Richard, "is a lie."
It sounds curious nowadays to read that he and his friends, Westmacott
and others, sometimes walk out in the fields to shoot with bows and
arrows, and usually return thence to the "Hole-in-the-Wall" to pass the
evening.
As a specimen of the entries at this period, I transcribe that for the
30th of September, 1693, at least so much of it as can well be
published. "With Metham and Stourton to the City, and dined at the
'Ship' in Birchin Lane. Vickers there, and we went together to the
Exchange and met Mr. Howard; with him to the 'Fountain,' Mr. Coxum
there. At five o'clock went to Sir James Edwards', and drank there two
flasks of wine. Then to the 'King's Head,' where I left them and went
to Mr. Pearce's house and received ten pounds. Found Stourton very
drunk. Went and paid Jackson and Squires. Slept at Pearce's--drunk
myself." With the ten pounds received from Mr. Pearce Richard seems to
have set about renewing his wardrobe, and duly records the days upon
which his various new garments are worn. On the 26th of October
"Aspin, the tailor, brought my new {357} white breeches in the morning,
and we went out to drink at the 'Bull's Head' in Mart Lane." On the
second of November he recites the names of six taverns at which he
drank during the day, namely, the "Bull's Head," the "Red Cow," the
"Ship," the "Horns," the "Cheshire Cheese," and the "Crown," and on the
7th of the same month a dreadful thing happens to him. The constables
walk off his dulcinea, Miss Nichols, to jail, and Richard is left to
seek such consolation as he can find at the "Chequers," the "Three
Cranes," and the "Sugar Loaf." The next day he seeks out his friend
Westmacott at the "King's Head," and is taken to the prison to see the
incarcerated fair one. Whilst there he "meets the man who has done the
mischief." But he winds up at the "Sugar Loaf" in Whitefriars, and
Phillips' mug-house, and is carried home thence in a coach too much
overcome by his grief and potations to walk. On the 14th, after
several more visits to the prison, he bewails that he can do nothing
for Nichols, and on visiting a Mrs. Hill, that kind matron tells him
that his great friend, Dr. Stockton, had told her that "I had
squandered all I had over a worthless wench, and thought now to live at
the expense of my friends," but the entry, unfortunately, winds up with
the words: "Borrowed two pounds of Simons on my watch."
After this Richard thinks that quiet Danes Court might suit him for a
time, and starts the next day, the 15th of November, as before to
Gravesend by the tilboat, and, after a duty visit to his relatives,
stays two nights at the sign of the "Flushing," and dines there merrily
with "a {358} clergyman named Sell and another good fellow from the
North." The same companions and others go with him in the coach to
Canterbury, where he stays at the "Fleece," gets gloriously drunk, and
is cheated out of half-a-crown, and lies in bed until mid-day next
morning, his niece, Jane Fogge, who lived with the Bests at Canterbury,
coming to visit him before he was up. In the afternoon he continues
his road more soberly to Danes Court on a hired horse, and the old
round of visiting and feasting begins afresh. On the first of December
he meets Parson Burville, of Tilmanston, and drinks Canary wine till he
is drunk. On the 12th Captain Christopher Fogge meets his brother John
at a friend's house and they quarrel; Uncle Childs dies, the cat is
drowned in the well, three East Indiamen captains dine at Danes Court,
Ruggles' wife is confined, and the daily small events of a remote
village happen and are recorded much as they might happen to-day.
Uncle Boys had a kinsman, presumably a brother, Captain Boys, R.N., who
was Constable of Walmer Castle, where he lived. and Richard and his
friends often go there to dine and visit the ships in the Downs. On
the 26th of February, 1694, they all go to dinner on board the
_Cornwall_, and "they gave us a salute of seven guns." They all went
back to the castle to sleep, and John Fogge made a bargain with his
weak-witted younger brother William about Danes Court, presumably with
regard to his reversionary interest or charge upon the property. But
whatever it was it did not matter much, for William Fogge died soon
after. On the 25th of March, after going to Betsanger church and to
the rectory to see Thomas {359} Boys, "Ruggles threw a poor boy out of
the cart and seriously injured him," and on the next day a curt entry
says: "The poor lad died at nine o'clock this morning, and was buried
in the evening," but not a word about any enquiry or the punishment of
the offending Ruggles.
But after five months Richard sighs again for the taverns of Fleet
Street, and on the 4th of April, 1694, returns to London by the usual
road by Canterbury and Gravesend, and again haunts the taverns and
night-houses of the metropolis. He tries hard to borrow money from his
friends, and is evidently getting anxious about his Customs accounts
left in arrear at Carlisle. He is a pretty constant visitor to
Whitehall about a certain petition of his, which petition, although he
often mentions it in his diary, he of course does not describe or
explain in a document written for his own eye alone. I have, however,
been fortunate enough to find the actual document itself in the
Treasury Papers at the Record Office, with all the voluminous reports
and consultations founded upon it during the seven years it lingered in
the Government offices. It appears that in August, 1689, the Earl of
Shrewsbury, Secretary of State, had addressed a letter (the original of
which is attached to Richard Bere's petition) to the Mayor or Collector
of Customs of Carlisle, directing them to provide for the maintenance
of certain "papist Irish soldier prisoners" who were to be kept in the
castle there. The mayor refused to find the money, and Richard Bere,
as Collector of Customs, had to do so, expecting to be reimbursed out
of the Secret Service Fund, as provided by the Secretary of State. The
prisoners {360} were kept at Carlisle until December, 1690, and Richard
spent £74 4s. on their maintenance. He was soon after suddenly
dismissed from his post, and was unable to balance his accounts for
want of this money, and shortly before beginning the diary had
presented his petition to the Lords of the Treasury for the
reimbursement of the sum, or at least that it should be handed to the
Receiver-General of Customs on his account. But whilst the petition
was lying in the pigeon-holes in one office, another office was only
conscious that Richard was behindhand in his accounts, and on the 11th
of May, 1694, there is an entry as follows in the diary: "Alone to dine
at the 'Spotted Bull.' Then to Phillips', where one Petitt told me
about the tolls of Carlisle, and said that the bailiffs from Appleby
had a warrant to arrest me." Richard did not wait long for the
bailiffs, and in less than a week had signed and sealed a bond,
apparently for borrowed money to settle his toll accounts, bought a
horse and a Bible, had gone to Westminster Hall "about his brother's
affairs," and started off for Carlisle. He rode through Oundle, where
the Rev. Francis Bere appeared still to be living, and so by Stamford,
Grantham, Newark, Doncaster, Ferrybridge, and Appleby to Carlisle. Two
days before he arrived at the city some choice spirits came out to meet
him, and a host of friends received him with open arms after his ten
days' ride. He dines fourteen times with Dick Jackson, drinks often
and deeply with the Mayor of Carlisle, collects money owing to him,
buys a fine new periwig of Ned Haines, and a new sword, settles up his
accounts of tolls, and begs a holiday for the schoolboys, {361} whom he
treats all round, and winds up in a burst of jubilation by receiving a
present of two kegs of brandy from his friend Bell, which had not paid
much to the King probably, and of which, no doubt, the late Collector
and his jovial companions gave a very good account. And then, after a
six weeks' stay at Carlisle, he wends his way back to London again by
the same road, his horse falling lame at Stamford, and the rider having
to post from Grantham to Ware, and thence to London by coach. He
alights at the "Bell," in Bishopsgate Street, where Benson soon seeks
him with fresh clothes and a sedan chair, and takes him to his old
quarter of London again.
But poor Richard's prosperity is of short duration. The borrowed money
soon comes to an end, with the able and constant assistance of a
certain Catherine Wilson, who has now supplanted the vanished Nichols,
and by the beginning of September, 1694, Benson is taking one article
after the other to the pawnshop, and bringing back sums which Richard
regards as very unsatisfactory in amount. On the 6th of that month he
attends what must have been rather a curious marriage at the church of
St. George's, Bloomsbury, where one of Catherine Wilson's companions,
named Early, was married "to a young man named James Carlile, between
nine and ten in the morning." The whole of the party adjourn to the
fields, and at one o'clock return to drink at the "Feathers" in
Holborn, "but the knavish constables disturbed us and we went to
Whitefriars; at two I went to seek Benson, but he could only bring me
5s. on my pistols." With this sum Richard finds his way back to
Whitefriars, where {362} he remained drinking till evening with the
"newly married pair, Catherine Wilson, a gentleman and his wife, and a
marine." He then attends a coffee-house, and winds up with a carouse
at the "Rising Sun." The unfortunate bridegroom soon disappears from
the diary, but the "bride" takes part in the drinking bouts for some
time to come. By the middle of October Richard has apparently come to
the end of his tether, and, after borrowing a halfcrown on his knives,
quarrels with and separates for a time from Catherine Wilson; but
brother Francis and sister Fogge are appealed to for money, and when it
arrives Catherine is to the fore again. A great scheme is hatched
about this time with a Captain Sales and Mr. Butler, apparently
relating to the tobacco duties, and the Commissioners of Customs and
other officials are being constantly petitioned and visited. Sometimes
the tobacco business is considered hopeful, and sometimes the contrary,
but on the 7th of January, 1695, it looks very bright when the Lords of
the Treasury and the Commissioners of Customs sitting together at
Whitehall receive Richard and his two friends, who lay the case before
them, but "Mr. Culliford spoke against us," and nothing was decided, so
the trio and others who joined them go to the "Rummer" tavern at
Charing Cross, and drink confusion to Mr. Culliford. A day or two days
after this "a knave came to betray me to the bailiffs," and poor
Richard and his friend Sales seek the shady retreat of a tavern in
Fulwood's Rents. For the next few days he dodges the bailiffs from
tavern to tavern, and sleeps at Bell Court, Whitefriars, and elsewhere.
The "knavish" bailiffs even follow friend {363} Sales in the hope of
tracking Richard. On the 14th of January the faithful Benson brings
his clothes to the new lodging in Whitefriars, and Richard ventures out
"to the 'Anchor' in Coleman Street, about the business of Andrew Lloyd
and the widow. Then the 'St. John the Baptist's Head' in Milk Street,
where I found Butler meeting the citizens about the tobacco business."
A few days after, the business of "Andrew Lloyd and the widow" is
settled somehow at the "Mermaid" in Ram Alley, and on the 26th Benson
pawns all Richard's silver for £5 7s., and Richard slips out of
Whitefriars at night, sleeps at the "Star," and escapes to the quiet of
Danes Court, where the bailiffs cease from troubling and the
spendthrift is at rest.
On the 2nd of February, 1695, scapegrace little nephew Dick Fogge comes
home with a story that the small-pox had appeared at the school at
Sandwich, "but it is all a lie," and the youngster is led back
ignominiously the next day by his father and Tim Thomas the
schoolmaster, and when John Fogge returns to Danes Court he brings news
that the French are capturing English boats in the Channel. Richard is
still uneasy in his mind, for on the 15th of February he dreams that
the bailiffs have caught him at last, and soon afterwards begins
seriously to put his Customs accounts in order. Then early in April he
starts for London again, but as soon as he was on board the tilboat at
Gravesend he caught sight of a bailiff ashore seeking him. It takes
four hours to reach London, and the city is in a turmoil, for during
the night "the mob knocked down a house in Holborn." He takes a room
at {364} the "Green Dragon" for a day or two, and the next night the
mob burn down two houses in the Coal Yard, Drury Lane. A false friend
named Fowler accompanies him in his search for lodgings, which he
eventually takes at the house of a cheese-monger named Tilley in Fetter
Lane, and also goes with him to the Custom House "about my accounts,"
and then on the 13th of April, after carousing with him half the day,
"the hound betrayed me to the bailiffs," and poor Richard is caught at
last. He is at once haled off to a spunging-house, called the "King's
Head," in Wood Street, and the first thing the prisoner does is, of
course, to send for Benson, who comes with Sales and other friends, and
they have a jovial dinner of veal with the keeper. The next day Benson
brings some money, and Richard holds a perfect levee of friends. Some
of them go off to soften the creditors, in which they fail, and other
to apply for a writ of _habeas corpus_. A good deal of dining goes on
at the spunging-house, but on the 16th the carouse is cut short by the
removal of Richard to the Fleet. He has a good deal of liberty,
however, for he still occasionally haunts the taverns in Fleet Street,
probably within the "rules" of the prison or under the ward of a
keeper. Brother Francis is appealed to daily by letter, and pending
his reply all the old boon companions come in and out of the prison,
dine there, drink there, and get drunk in the vaults, Benson and
Catherine Wilson coming every day with clothes, books, and comfort. At
the end of the month of May the parson brother, Francis, arrives, and
after a month of negotiation at the Custom House and the law courts,
and much drinking and dining as {365} usual, a bond is signed and
sealed at the "Three Tuns" tavern, "Sales standing my friend," and
Richard Bere is free again.
But imprudent Richard, after a sharp fit of the gout, soon falls into
his old habits again, and on the 6th of September confesses that he got
into a row at the "Dog" Tavern in Drury Lane "about drinking the Prince
of Wales' health," an indiscreet thing enough considering that his
Custom House accounts were still unsettled, and his own petition to the
Treasury unanswered. On the 1st of July, whilst he and his friend
Sales are dining at the "Crown," the constables walk Sales off to
prison, "and then go to the 'Globe' Tavern and arrest his landlady, and
Andrew Lloyd the author." And so the diary goes on; his accounts still
unpaid, but Richard full of the tobacco business, with petitions to the
King and interviews with Treasury officials. Then there is some great
Irish wool scheme, which necessitates much dancing attendance on the
Duke of Ormond, but does not seem to result in much. His boon
companions evidently do not think much of his chance of recovering
anything from the Treasury, for "they made me promise B. Skynner a new
wig if ever I received my £74 4s. on the King's order."
However much Richard may drink, he is frugal enough in his eating, for
from this period to the end of the diary he constantly records that for
days together he has eaten nothing but a little bread and cheese, and
the "one poor halfpennyworth of bread to all this intolerable amount of
sack" is as applicable to Richard Bere as it was to the fat knight.
And he needs to be sparing in his expenditure, for {366} he is poor
enough just now, notwithstanding his drinkings with the Duke of
Richmond's steward, with Stourton at the "Rose" in Pall Mall, and his
visits to Lord James Howard in Oxenden Street, for he is reduced to
pawning his new lace ruffles for six shillings, and Benson could borrow
nothing on his new wig, for which he had just paid (or not paid)
thirty-five shillings to Rolfe, the barber. But Benson pawns his linen
for ten shillings and brother Francis sends funds, so after borrowing
nine shillings and sixpence on "my Bezoar stone," and going to the
Temple to receive "my pension" Richard starts on the 1st of September,
1696, by hoy for Sandwich. The voyage is long and tedious, the weather
being bad, but after a day and a night at sea they drop anchor, and
Richard solaces himself with punch and good fellowship at the "Three
Kings" at Sandwich.
On his arrival at Danes Court "John gives me a bad account of my nephew
Richard, who went back to school to-day." But John certainly does not
set his son a good example, for he soon breaks out himself, and on the
21st of October, "after dining with my aunt," threatens to cut his
wife's throat. For months after this the diary constantly records that
"John came home raving drunk"; "John from Sandwich to-day, very
violent"; "John mad drunk all day"; "to Tilmaston Church twice, John
there reiving drunk," and so on. On Christmas Day, 1696, Richard, who
as befits a parson's son, is all through an indefatigable church-goer,
takes the Sacrament at Tilmanston Church, as he generally does on
special days, John through all the Christmastide remaining drunk as
usual. On {367} the 18th of January, 1697, he gives his wife a black
eye, and the next day it is Richard's turn, and he goes on a great
drinking bout with Captain Whiston, and "got drunk and lost my white
mare," whereupon the immaculate "John is very angry with me." On the
10th of February nephew Richard runs away from school again, and gets
soundly whipped by his father, who remains drunk all the month. On the
15th of March tidings comes to Danes Court that the master has been
lodged in Dover jail, and his wife and her brother start off next
morning to find him. He has escaped somehow, and gets back to Danes
Court mad drunk just as his household are returning from afternoon
service at Tilmanston Church. This goes on all March, and on the 26th
John borrows money from an attorney named Lynch, and seals a bond at
Danes Court conveying all his goods to the lender as security, "being
rabid drunk at the time." A few days afterwards "the bailiffs nearly
took John, but he escaped by the quickness of his mare." Echoes of
more important events occasionally reach Danes Court. On the 6th of
April, 1697, news comes that the French have taken Jamaica, and that
they have captured a merchant fleet and convoys off Bilbao. Soon after
we hear of "French pirates infesting the Downs, and they had taken two
of our ships," but the domestic troubles of the old Kentish manor house
occupy most of the diary at this period; incorrigible young Richard
runs away from school again and cannot be found for days; with some
difficulty drunken John's accounts with Hill and Dilnot, of Sandwich,
are arranged, but on the 24th of April he is lodged in jail at
Canterbury on {368} another suit, and is only released by more
borrowing from Lynch, and at once goes back to his drunken career
again. An entry on the 29th of April, 1697, gives another inkling of
Richard's Jacobite leanings. "Walking to Eythorne I met Petitt the
parson and Captain March. We drank together and went to Walker's,
where a Mr. Kelly defended the bad opinion that it was lawful for
people to rise against the King if he violated his coronation oath."
All through May John Fogge continued drunk, and one day falling foul of
his brother-in-law, calls him a scurvy knave, and threatens to kick him
out of his house. So Richard, having worn out his welcome at Danes
Court, starts for town again, taking with him nephew Dick, who has just
run away from school once more for the last time.
He lodges henceforward at Stokes' in Short's Gardens, and pays ten
shillings a month for his room. Every morning two or three taverns are
visited with Stourton, Churchill, and others, where unfortunately they
are sometimes imprudent enough to drink deep to the health of King
James. Metheglin and mum are occasional drinks, but brandy the most
usual, and black puddings seem a favourite dish for dinner. On the
19th of October, 1697, peace is proclaimed with France, and on the 16th
of the following month the King enters the City in state, and on the
2nd of December the peace rejoicings were crowned by a great display of
fire-works, and a banquet given by the Earl of Romney to the King.
Richard's petition after five years' waiting is favourably reported
upon by the {369} Commissioners of Customs, and during all the winter
he haunts Whitehall and the ante-room of Lord Coningsby to get the
recommendation carried out by the Treasury. But one obstacle after the
other is raised, the papers are sent backwards and forwards, and it is
fully two years longer before Richard at last receives his money. On
the 2nd of December, 1697, he records the consecration of St. Paul's,
and on the 15th of February, 1698, he attends his first service in the
Cathedral, "from thence to the Temple Church, and so to the 'Trumpet,'
where I supped on black puddings and cheese. Home at eight, when my
landlady besought me to pay the rent." On the 18th of April he sees
Prince George, and on the 16th of May visits the ship _Providence_ from
New England, and thence to the "Dolphin" tavern until three in the
morning. On the 9th of June, apparently fired by the example of some
of the wits he meets in the coffee-houses of Covent Garden, or in his
favourite promenade at Gray's Inn Gardens, he records the fact that he
wrote some satirical verses. The next day a fine new suit of clothes
comes home, and he dons them with great pride. But alas! a sad thing
happens. Drinking at the "Sun" with his friends, some of the latter
"threw some beer over my fine garments," much to Richard's disgust.
The quaint little gallowses on the margin are pretty frequent now, and
the names of the wretches who are hanged are often given. On the 29th
of June, 1698, Richard visits the Duke of Norfolk at St. James's House
with his friends Stourton and Orfeur. "Thence to St. James's Park, to
see a race between youths, where I met Churchill."
{370} Richard becomes certainly more respectable as he gets older, and
beyond a slight flirtation with his landlady, Mrs. Stokes, of Short's
Gardens, we hear little of his gallantries henceforward. He is
certainly more prosperous, too, in some mysterious way, owing to a
voyage he makes, apparently in an official capacity, from Gosport to
Flanders, for which a sum of ninety-five guineas is handed to him. He
says nothing of his adventures in Flanders, where, however, he only
lands at Ostend for a few days from his ship the _Good Hope_. The
voyage, however, is evidently an important one for him, as he has
spoken of it on and off for many months, and takes a special journey to
Cambridge to see brother Francis before setting out. On the 19th of
October, 1698, he anchors in Dover Roads on his return, and goes thence
to Danes Court, where he stays over Christmas, and returns to London in
January, 1699. His friend Churchill has now taken the Treasury matter
in hand, and after many months of hope deferred Richard Bere gets his
£74 4s. at last in October. But Churchill wanted paying, and on the
morrow of the payment "Churchill came to me drunk, and quarrelled with
me because I would not give him the money he wanted." I suspect the
money was all spent long ago, for Richard has often enough gone into
the City to borrow five or ten pounds "on the King's order." He is
very methodical about money matters, too, for all his apparent
improvidence. He has a boon companion named Henry Johnson, who during
the autumn and winter of 1699 drank mainly at his expense. Every penny
thus spent is noted against the date in the diary, and a neat account
of the whole. {371} headed "Expenditure on account of Henry Johnson,"
is bound up with the diary. From this it appears that Johnson consumed
over seven pounds' worth of brandy at various taverns with Richard in
about five months. On the 27th of January, 1700, Richard again visits
the Duke of Norfolk; but it is rather a falling off to be told that he
goes straight from the Duke's to eat black puddings at Smith's. In
July of the same year he goes to see a witch called Anna Wilkes, a
prisoner in the Marshalsea, and the same day he learns in the Tilt Yard
that his boon companion Stourton is made Deputy-Governor of Windsor.
On the 30th of July the young Duke of Gloucester dies, and one day next
week Richard, after drinking punch with Mr. Van Dyk, tries to see the
body of the young prince at the lying-in-state, but fails. His brother
Francis is in town about the firstfruits and fees of his new fat living
of Prescot, and Richard is his surety for £48 1s. 5d. to the King, and
when Francis has got comfortably settled in his new rectory in July,
1701, Richard takes the ship _Providence_ for Liverpool to visit him.
They take a fortnight to get there; and when he arrives a gentleman
comes on board and announces that brother Francis has married his (the
gentleman's) sister, whereupon Richard is much surprised, and promptly
borrows some money from his new connection. There are high jinks at
Prescot, and Richard is in his element. He dines and carouses with
everybody, from his brother's glebe-tenants to the Earl of Derby at
Knowsley, gets drunk constantly, breaks his nose, loses his horse and
money, quarrels in his cups with a good many of his friends, {372}
toasts King James III., and enjoys himself greatly. It is to be noted
that his brother's curate generally shaved him during his stay. On the
13th of June 1702, King William's death is recorded, and soon after the
diarist returns to London by road, taking up his quarters at Stokes',
Short's Gardens, again. In the autumn he goes to Danes Court, where
John Fogge is still usually drunk; and in October of that year a most
important thing happens to Richard Bere. On the 23rd of that month he
visits the aged Lady Monins at Waldershare, the next mansion to Danes
Court. His sister, Mrs. Fogge, is with him; and staying with Lady
Monins is a certain Lucy Boys, presumably a daughter of Captain Boys,
the Constable of Walmer Castle. After dinner Richard, who was then
forty-nine years of age, whispered soft words of love to this young
lady, and the next day he records the fact that he sent her a tender
love letter. The maiden, nothing loath, sends him an answer next day,
and a few days afterwards comes herself to visit Mrs. Fogge at Danes
Court. Of course Richard improves the occasion, and, as he says,
"makes love again." For the next week a lively interchange of notes
takes place between Danes Court and Waldershare; and on the 8th of
November Lucy Boys thinks it time to go home to Walmer Castle. It is
not quite in the direct road, but she called to say good-bye to Mrs.
Fogge at Danes Court, and, of course, Mr. Richard Bere thought well to
go in the coach with her to Walmer. "We pledged," he says, "to marry
each other, and solemnly promised to marry no one else." On the 16th
of December he again goes to Waldershare, and they again renew their
pledge, and Lady Monins {373} promised all her influence with her
grandson-in-law, the great Earl Poulet, to forward Richard's fortunes.
Early in January, 1703, Richard speeds to London with a letter from
Lucy Boys to Lord Poulet in his pocket. The peer welcomes him warmly,
promises him great things at the Treasury and elsewhere, and loving
letters still speed backward and forward between London and Walmer.
Richard is constant at Lord Poulet's levees, and at last, on the 25th
of March, 1703, Richard is introduced to the all-powerful Lord
Godolphin, who promises him a good office, upon strength of which he
"borrows another £5 of Gawler."
But Richard complains of lameness on the very day that he saw
Godolphin, and the next entry in the diary is carefully traced with a
trembling hand at the bottom of the page nearly three months
afterwards. Richard had fallen ill of gout, fever, and rheumatism, and
had not left the room for ten weeks, "attended by Mr. Sheppery of Drury
Lane, my surgeon Mr. Williams, and my housekeeper Mrs. Cockman." In
July he was well enough to go to Danes Court, and on the 11th of August
visited Waldershare with his sister. There, walking in the grotto, he
again pledged his troth to Lucy Boys. On the 2nd of September Lucy
Boys came to dine at Danes Court, and the vows were repeated. On this
occasion Miss Boys showed her sincerity by handing to Richard "95
guineas, one pistole, and six shillings in silver," presumably for
investment or expenditure on fitting up a home. Soon afterwards Lord
Poulet came and took his wife's grandmother away on a visit to Hinton,
where she died in six weeks. Richard {374} Bere returns to London a
happy man, but in a few weeks his lady love herself comes on a visit to
Lord Poulet, and then, on the 20th of November, a great change comes
over the tone of the entries. "The strumpet Boys came to London. I
saw her at Lord Poulet's and gave her five guineas, besides five
guineas I gave her on the 26th to go to the Exchange, five guineas more
I paid on her account at Mr. Stow's, and another ten pounds on account
of the slut." Another entry on the 30th is still more disheartening.
"I went to see the slut Boys at Lord Poulet's, and the baggage denied
ever having promised to marry me at all, and now she has gone and
married a stuttering parson called Woodward." Then Lord Poulet said he
had never promised to do anything for him, and "treated me vilely," and
the whole romance was ended.
At this time there are two entries in English as follows: "November 27,
1703. From 12 o'clock in ye morning till 7 was ye most violent storm
of wind y|t| ever was known in England, and ye damage done at land and
sea not to be estimated."
"On ye 15th, 16th, and 17th of January, 1703-4, was a very violent
storm, which forced back ye fleet bound to Lisbon w|th| ye Archduke
Charles, under Rooke, separating them, and did a great deale of damage."
In March, 1704, Richard is evidently making great preparations for
another sea voyage. He often visits Bear Quay, and is much in the
City. Trunks and new clothes seem to be brought now without much
difficulty, and Benson's services are not apparently so needful for
raising the wind. Richard's friend, old Mrs. Feltham, who keeps a
{375} shop in the Exchange, invites him to come and see her and
drink-mum, in order to ask him about making her son purser. Richard
seems also to have quite a friendly correspondence with the "stuttering
parson Woodward," and one is tempted to believe that Lord Poulet may
after all have done something for the jilted lover. Richard's
circumstances must be a good deal changed, for he can afford to leave
twenty guineas with T. Bell to keep for him when he departs for Danes
Court, after a merry dinner at the "Blue Posts" in the Haymarket (which
he quaintly translates as "los Postes ceruleos en la Feria de feno")
with Churchill and others. On the 23rd of March, 1704, he starts for
Danes Court, and there the usual life of visiting and feasting is
recommenced. On the 11th of April, 1704, there is an entry to the
effect that he went to visit Lady Barret, and wrote to Mr. Woodward,
and then the curtain drops and all is darkness, which swallows up
Richard Bere and all his friends for ever. Where he went and what
became of him I have been unable to discover, and the transient gleam
thrown across his trivial history by his own folly, in writing down his
most secret actions in a language known to many, will in all
probability be the only light ever thrown upon his life. John Fogge
died soon after, but his widow, Richard Bere's sister, lived at Danes
Court in straitened circumstances for many years after. Warren, the
antiquary, writing in 1711 (Fausett MS. Kent Archæological Society),
deplores that the once fine estate was reduced even then to about fifty
pounds a year only, and says that it was uncertain whether any male
heir was living--thus soon had scapegrace nephew Dick drifted away
{376} from his friends. Warren says that he had been last heard of at
Lisbon some years before, but on his mother's death he turned up a
common sailor, sold Danes Court to the Harveys in 1724, married a
certain Elizabeth Rickasie, a sister of St. Bartholomew's Hospital at
Sandwich, and died on board the fleet at Gibraltar in 1740, leaving,
says Hasted, an only daughter, married to a poor shepherd named Cock,
and living in a lowly hovel near the manor house of which her ancestors
had for centuries been masters.
[1] _The Gentleman's Magazine_, November, 1891.
[Illustration: Tailpiece]
{377}
INDEX.
A.
Acevedo, Diego de, 149, 155.
Adanero, Count de, 295.
Addison, Mr., 346, 350.
Adelphi, the, 264, 288.
Aguilar, Marquis de, 140, 155.
Alarcon, Captain, 46, 55, 59.
Alba, Duchess of, her reception by Queen Mary, 163-4, 167, 170.
Alba, Duke of, in Portugal, 13.
Alba, Duke of, 76; sent to crush the Netherlands, 93; his seizure
of Egmont, 94; his failure, 98; renewed severity, 99-104; his
praise of Romero, 106; retires from the Netherlands, 106-7.
Alba, Duke of, 140, 149, 153, 155.
Alba, Duke of, urges Philip II. to action against England, 183.
Alberoni, Cardinal, 255.
Albert, Archduke, in command at Lisbon, 42, 48, 50-1, 53, 56, 63, 67.
Alburquerque, 3rd Duke of, with Henry VIII. before Boulogne, 80.
Alburquerque, 4th Duke of, 93.
Alburquerque, Matias de, commands the galleys in the Tagus, 50.
Alencastro, Luis, Don, Grand Master of the Order of Christ, 46.
Aljubarrota, Portuguese victory over Castile, 218.
Allen, Father, 191, 193, 197, 198, 201.
Alonso the Wise of Castile, his decree against extravagance in
attire and food, 212-13.
Alonso XI. of Castile, decrees against extravagance, 213.
Altamira, Count de, raises an army to relieve Corunna, 38.
Alvaro, Souza, Portuguese captain, 65-6.
Alvelade, near Lisbon, 56-7.
Andrada, Count de, attempts to relieve Corunna, 37, 39.
Antonio, Dom, the Portuguese Pretender, 13; flies to England,
14; his treatment by Elizabeth, 14; flies to France, 15-16;
attacks the Azores, 16; again appeals to Elizabeth, 17; his
concessions to Elizabeth, 18-23; accompanies the expedition,
29; lands at Peniche, 43-5; arrives at Torres Vedras, 55;
at the gates of Lisbon, 56-9, 64, 67; leaves with the English, 64,
68; returns to England, 71-2.
Antwerp, sack of, in the Spanish Fury, 117-20.
Araujo, Captain, surrenders Peniche, 42.
Argüelles, Father, an exorciser, 303; his communications with
the devil, 304, _passim_.
Armada, defeat of, 3-5; cause of its defeat, 3-4; the disaster to
foretold by Mendoza, 200.
Arundel, Earl of, 149, 153, 154, 155, 162.
Arundel, Earl of, at Durham Place, 269.
Arundell's rising suppressed by the aid of Spanish mercenaries, 77.
Astorga, Philip II. at, 142.
Austria, decline of the house of, in Spain, 340-1.
Authorities with regard to the wedding of Philip and Mary, 125-7,
131-6.
Azores, attacks upon, in the interest of Dom Antonio, 14-16;
to be attacked by the English expedition, 22, 71;
plan abandoned, 71, 72.
B.
Bacon, Lady, 284.
Baden, Margrave of, imprisoned for debt at Rochester, 284.
Baoardo, the Venetian, his account of the marriage of Philip and
Mary, 126-7.
Barlemont, Count, to betray Brussels, 115.
Basing House, Philip and Mary at, 166.
Bazan, Alvaro de, 66.
Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow, his plans against Elizabeth,
184 _passim_.
Beauvoir, de, 108.
Bedford's, Earl of, visit to Spain to ratify the marriage contract,
128, 137, 142-3; Philip's gift to, 143-4; chooses the ship to
carry Philip to England, 145; in England, 153.
Bedford, Earl of, his house in the Strand, 264.
Benavente, Philip II. at, 141-2.
Benavente, Count de, entertains Philip II., 141.
Benavente, Count de, Chamberlain to Charles II., 297, 300.
Bere, Francis, Rev., rector of Prescot, 347, 360, 371.
Bere, Richard, his parentage, 348; his adventures, 348 _passim_.
Bergues, Marquis of, 149.
Berlips, Madame, 295.
Bertondona, Martin de, Spanish naval commander, 145.
Bossu, Count, 102, 105.
Boulogne besieged by the English, 79-81.
Boys, Captain, R.N., Constable of Walmer Castle, 358.
Boys, Christopher, of Updowne, 350.
Boys, Mr., of Betshanger, 350.
Boys, Lucy, her love passages with Richard Bere, 372-5.
Boys, Sir John, of Betshanger, 352.
Braganza, Duke of, 68.
Brazil, offered to Catharine de Medici in return for aid to Dom
Antonio, 18.
Brett, Colonel, at Corunna, 33; killed at Lisbon, 60.
Britain's Burse, Strand, 287.
Browne, Sir Anthony, master of the horse to King Philip, 151.
Bruce, Robert, envoy of the Scottish Catholics to Philip II.,
199-202.
Butler, Sir Philip, a friend of Essex, 41.
Burleigh, Lord, his house in the Strand, 264.
Burville, Mr., Rector of Tilmanston, 350, 358.
C.
Cadiz, Drake's attack upon, 8.
Calais, the Armada in, 3.
Calderon, 253.
Caraffa, Cardinal, 197.
Cardenas, surrenders Cascaes to Drake, 62; beheaded by the
Spaniards, 63.
Carew, at Durham Place, 265.
Carillo, 155.
Carlisle House, Strand, 264, 286.
Carlos, Don (son of Philip II.), 137, 141.
Carr, Captain, killed at Lisbon, 60.
Carsey, Captain, killed at Lisbon, 60.
Cary, Robert, sent by Elizabeth to warn James of the Catholic plot,
202.
Cascaes at the mouth of the Tagus, Drake at, 62-3, 64, 66, 68.
Castile, Admiral of, Prime Minister of Spain, 295-8.
Castro, Fernando de, 56.
Catharine de Medici, aids Dom Antonio, 16, 18.
Catharine of Lancaster, bride of the Prince of Castile, 218.
Cave, Sir Ambrose, gives a wedding feast at Durham Place, 282-3.
Cecil, Robert, first Earl of Salisbury, his house in the Strand,
264; obtains Strand frontage of Durham Place, 267, 286-7.
Cecilia of Sweden, Margravine of Baden, at Durham Place, 283-4.
Cerralba, Marquis of, defends Corunna, 31.
Cervantes' burial-place, 75-6.
Challoner, Sir Thomas, English ambassador in Spain, 274.
Chambergo bat, 254.
Chapin-Vitelli, at Mons, 99.
Charles V., Emperor, his decrees against extravagance in dress, 223-4.
Charles II. of Spain (the Bewitched), his appearance, 291, 296;
his distress, 297; the exorcism, 303 _passim_; death, 319.
Charles II. of Spain, his sumptuary decrees, 255.
Charles III. of Spain, his sumptuary decrees, 257-9.
Charles IV. of Spain, his sumptuary decrees, 259-60.
Charles Stuart's visit to Madrid, 249-50.
Chartres, Vidame de, 276.
Chatillon, French ambassador, at Durham Place, 268.
Chinchon, Count de, 155.
Churchill (1697), 368-9, 370.
Coaches, abuse in the use of, 231-2, 242-3, 244, 256.
Cobham, Lord, 153, 284.
Cobham, Lady, 284-5
Como, Cardinal, 197.
Copetes (topknots), decree against, 253.
Cordoba, Don Antonio de, mobbed in London, 170.
Cordoba, Cardinal, Inquisitor-General (Charles II.), 316;
poisoned, 316.
Cordoba, Pedro de, Chamberlain of Philip II., 149; mobbed in
London, 170.
Corunna, English attack upon, 31-40, 45.
Corunna, Philip II. at, 144; the Spanish fleet at, 145-6; Philip
II., departure from, to marry Mary, 147.
Cotes, Sebastian de, a conspirator against the Queen Marie Anne
of Neuberg, 298,
Coventry, Lord Keeper, at Durham Place, 287.
Clanking farthingales, 251, 252.
Clarencis, Mistress Susan, 273.
Clinton, Lord, 153.
Cloth manufactory in Spain, 218, 224, 227.
Creighton the Jesuit, his action in the plot against England, 188,
189, 201.
Crisp, Provost-Marshal, 51.
Cromwell, Richard, at Durham Place, 265.
D.
Danes Court, Tilmanston, Kent, 347 _passim_.
Darcy, Lord, 153.
D'Aubigny, Duke of Lennox, joins in the plot against England,
185, 188, 190.
Derby, Earl of, 149, 153, 160, 164.
Derby, Earl of (1700), 371.
D'Este, Cardinal, 197.
Devereux, Walter (Essex's brother), 41.
Diaz, Cristobal, a Spanish captain in the English service, 85, 90.
Diaz, Froilan, the new confessor of Charles II., 299; his
participation in the exorcism, 303 _passim_; confesses, 316;
arrested and escapes, 317; re-captured and imprisoned by the
Inquisitor-General, 318-19; released and made Bishop of Avila, 320.
Diaz de Lobo, Ruy, beheaded in Lisbon, 57.
Dormer, Jane, Countess of Feria, 158; at Durham Place 268, 273.
Drake, Sir Francis, commands the expedition against Portugal, 9,
23, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 35, 39-43, 45-6, 62-3, 64, 66, 69, 71.
Dryden, John, 346.
Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland, 82, 91, 265-6.
Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester, at Durham Place, 269.
Dumblain, Bishop of, 201.
Durham Place, description of, in
Tudor times, 270-2.
E.
Ecclesiastical palaces in the Strand, 264.
Egmont's visit to Madrid, 93; his arrest and execution, 94-5.
Egmont, Count, at Durham Place, 268.
Egmont's visit to London to ratify Philip and Mary's marriage
contract, 137, 139; with Philip, 140, 149, 155.
Elder, John, his account of Philip and Mary's entrance into
London, 125.
Elizabeth's attitude towards Spain, 179-80.
Elizabeth of Valois, Queen of Spain, 228, 231.
Englefield, Sir Francis, English adviser of Philip II., 190.
English Catholic feeling against the Scots, 190-1, 195-6, 198.
English Catholics favour a purely Spanish attack on England, 192, 193.
English aggression against Spain, 8, 182-3.
English fashions, Spanish opinion of, 157-8, 165-7, 171.
English feeling after the Armada, 7-8.
English feeling against Philip's marriage with Mary, 137, 169-74.
English food, abundance of, 167.
English ladies, Spanish opinion of, 157-8, 166.
Enriquez, Pedro, his account of the marriage of Philip and
Mary, 134-5 _passim_.
Essex, Earl of (Walter Devereux), at Durham Place, 286.
Essex, Robert, Earl of, flight from Court to join the Portuguese
expedition, 27; embarks on the _Swiftsure_ and escapes, 28-9; the
Queen's rage thereat, 28, 35; joins the expedition at sea, 41;
lands at Peniche, 43; leads the vanguard, 51-2; at Lisbon, 56,
60, 64; his humanity, 66; sends a challenge to the Spaniards, 67-8.
Ethrington, Captain, at Puente de Burgos, 38.
Expedition against Portugal: authorities hitherto known
respecting it, 10; new authorities now quoted, 10, 11, 12; its
constitution as a joint-stock enterprise, 9, 18, 22-8; its
strength, 24-6; difficulties, 24-8; finally sails, 29; attacks
Corunna, 31-40; alarm in Spain, 30-3, 39-40; the sacking of
Corunna, 33-5; arrival at Peniche, 43-7, 51; attack on Lisbon,
60-6; withdrawal, 63-8; sails from Cascaes, 70; return to
England, 71; reasons for its failure, 72.
F.
Fadrique de Toledo, 98, 100, 101, 103-4.
Fashion in hair-dressing, 250, 253-4.
Fashion of dress in Spain in time of Philip II., 230-4; in the
time of Philip III., 238-9; in the time of Philip IV., 247-54.
Female extravagance in dress, Philip IV.'s fulmination against,
251-3.
Fenner, Captain, with the English at Corunna, 32.
Ferdinand and Isabel, their decrees against gold and silver
tissues, 220; limiting the use of silk, 221.
Fernando de Toledo, prior, commands the Spanish army to
relieve Lisbon, 30, 39, 61.
Fernihurst (Gray, Laird of), 185.
Feria, Count de, 140, 149, 155; marries Jane Dormer, 158;
urges Philip to attack England, 180; at Durham Place, 267-8,
269, 272, 273.
Feria, Countess de. _See_ Dormer.
Figueroa, Spanish special envoy, 149.
Finch, Lord Keeper, at Durham Place, 287.
Fitzwalter, Lord, accompanies Bedford to Spain, 137, 142, 143;
in England, 153.
Fogge family of Danes Court, 347 _passim_.
Fogge, Captain Christopher, 347.
Fogge, Edward, 352.
Fogge, John, of Danes Court, 348, 352, 366-7, 368, 372, 375.
Fogge, Richard, Cavalier, 348, 352.
Fogge, Richard, heir of Danes Court, 351, 363, 366, 367, 375-6.
Folch de Cardona, Antonio, a member of the Queen's party,
301, 313, 316, 318.
Folch de Cardona, Lorenzo, Member of the Council of the
Inquisition, 301, 313, 318-19.
Fouldrey, Dalton-in-Furness, proposed place of landing for the
Spanish invasion, 192.
Francisco Fernando, the illegitimate son of Philip IV., 328-41.
French ambassador de Foix at Durham Place, 282.
French fashions, revolt against, in Spain, 255.
Froude's account of the marriage of Philip and Mary, 126, 130,
131 _passim_.
Fuentes, Count de, commands the Spaniards in Lisbon, 55-6, 65,
67, 72.
Fulford, Captain, at Puente de Burgos, 38.
G.
Gafas (horn spectacles), 254.
Gage, Sir John, 154.
Gamboa, Sir Peter, a Spanish captain, murdered in London,
77; enters the English service, 82-3; pensioned by Henry
VIII., 86; his treachery to Romero, 88-9; his brilliant
charge at Pinkie, 90.
Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, 155, 161, 174.
Garter, the investure of Philip with, 149, 150.
Genlis' troops massacred at Mons, 99.
Germaine de Foix, Queen of Aragon, 221.
Gilimonas, the, leaders of the ladies' revolt against the
sumptuary decrees, 252-3.
Glimes, de, Flemish captain in the Spanish service, killed, 109.
Godolphin, Lord, 373.
Golilla, invention of the, 248, 249, 255, 260.
Gomez, Ruy, Philip II.'s favourite, 146, 149.
Gonsalves de Ateide, commands the Spaniards at Peniche, 42-3.
Gonzaga, Cardinal, 197.
Goodwin, Captain, wounded at Corunna, 35.
Granada, Archbishop of, protests against Olivares leading Philip
IV. into dissipation, 326-7.
Granvelle, Cardinal de, his attitude towards the plot against
England, 187, 189.
Grey, Lady Jane, married at Durham Place, 265.
Grey, Lord, in command at Boulogne, 81.
Guaras, Antonio de, 77, 88.
Guarda-Infante (flattened farthingales), decrees against, 251-3.
Guedejas (side locks), 250; decrees against, 253-4.
Guevara, Captain, hanged for murder at Smithfield, 77.
Guise, Duke of, his plans against England, 184 _passim_.
Gutierre, Lope de Padilla, sent to receive the English envoys,
139, 149.
Guzman, Captain, at Torres Vedras, 47, 51, 55, 70.
Guzman, Diego de, Spanish ambassador in England, 182; at
Durham House, 282, 285.
H.
Haarlem, siege of, 102-4.
Haddington, siege of, 90.
Hamilton, Lord Claude, appeals to Philip II., 199.
Haro, Juan de, a Spanish captain in the English service, 78, 82.
Hawkins, John, at Durham Place, 269.
Heneage, Sir Thomas, 285.
Henry, King-Cardinal of Portugal, 12, 13.
Henry IV. of Castile, 219.
Henry VIII. attacks Boulogne, 79-81; his death, 90.
Hinder, Captain, at Puente de Burgos, 38.
Holt, Father, the Jesuit, his action in the plot against England, 186.
Horn, Count, with Philip II. in England, 149, 155; his arrest
and execution, 94-5.
Hostages, French, in England, 276.
Household of an ambassador at Durham Place, 274.
Howard, Lord Admiral, with Philip and Mary, 155; proposes an
expedition to Portugal, 9.
Howard, Lord James (1696), 366.
Hugo's, Victor, distortion of history, 294.
Huntingdon, Earl of, sent by the Queen to seek Essex, 28.
Huntly, Colonel, at Corunna, 33-4.
Huntly, Earl of, appeals to Philip II., 199.
Hunsdon, Lord, 284.
I.
Infantado, Duke of, 249.
Ireland, the Armada on the coast of, 5.
Isassi Ydiaquez, Juan de, takes charge of the child of Philip
IV. (Francisco Fernando), 328 _passim_.
Ivy Lane, Strand, 263, 286.
J.
Jaime I. of Aragon, his enactment against extravagance, 211.
James VI. of Scotland, plan to carry him to Spain, 185; his
duplicity, 186; his religion, 186, 192, 193-5, 197, 201.
Jara, near Lisbon, 55.
Jewels brought to England by Dom Antonio, 14-17.
John I. of Castile, his sumptuary decrees, 218.
John II. of Castile, 219.
Juana la Loca, Queen, 141; her sumptuary decree, 222.
Juan, Don, of Austria, 114, 120; seizes Namur, 120.
Juan Jos20160806500003farjeon, Don, of Austria, 254, 292, 307, 340.
Juan of Portugal, Philip's brother-in-law, death of, 138.
Julian, Captain. _See_ Romero.
K.
Katharine of Aragon at Durham Place, 266.
Kett's rising, suppressed by the aid of Spanish mercenaries, 77.
Kildare, Earl of, 164.
Kingston, at Durham Place, 265.
Knollys, Francis, sent by the Queen to seek for Essex, 27.
L.
Lane, Colonel, at Lisbon, 60.
Leganes, Marquis de, a conspirator against the Queen Marie Anne
of Neuberg, 298.
Leicester, Earl of, and Dom Antonio's jewels, 14. _See also_
Dudley, Robert.
Lethington (William Maitland, Laird of), at Durham Place, 269.
Linen, manufacture of, in Spain, 227.
Lisbon, English attack on, 45-6; Spanish force fall back, 47;
terror in the city, 47-50, 54-5; attempts to betray the city, 57-8;
night attack on the English, 60-61; withdrawal of the
English, 63-66; distrust of the Spaniards, 65.
Lloyd, Andrew, "the author," 363, 365.
Lope de Vega, 253.
Lopez, Dr. Ruy, 15, 17.
Louvres, near Lisbon, 55.
Lumay, Count de la Mark, 103.
Lumley, Lord, at Durham Place, 269.
M.
Madrid in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 231-44,
242-3, 251-5.
Maineville, de, sent by Guise to Scotland, 190-1.
Margaret of Parma, 93.
Mariana, Queen Regent of Spain, 254, 292, 307.
Marie Anne of Neuberg, Queen of Spain, 292, 295, 300, 301;
discovers the exorcism, 313-16.
Marie Louise of Orleans, Queen of Spain, 292.
Marriage of Philip and Mary, feeling against it in England, 137,
167-74; hard conditions imposed by the English, 138; great
preparations in Spain, 140-1; voyage of Philip, 147-53; his
first interview with Mary, 154-7; the ceremony at Winchester, 160;
the banquet, 161-3; after the marriage, 164-74.
Mary, Queen, her first present to Philip, 139; at Winchester,
152; her presents to Philip, 152-3; her first interview with
Philip, 154-7; her appearance, 156-7; her splendour at the
marriage ceremony, 160; at the banquet, 161-3; her reception
of the Duchess of Alba, 164.
Mary Stuart, proposal to marry her to Don Carlos, 181; her
adhesion to Spain, 184-5, 188-9, 196, 198.
Mason, Sir John, 91.
Massino, Captain, attempt to murder him in the Strand, 276, 277.
Master of Santiago, Regent of Castile, his denunciation of
extravagance in attire, 220.
Matilla, confessor to Charles II. of Spain, 295; his fall and
death, 300-1.
Matthew, Toby, Bishop of Durham, at Durham Place, 267.
Medici, Cardinal de, 197.
Medici, Pietro de, ordered to raise mercenaries for the Spanish
service, 39.
Medina Celi, Duke of, 140, 155; sent to replace Alba in the
Netherlands, 98.
Medina Sidonia, Duke of, his return to Spain from the Armada, 5.
Medkirk, Colonel, at Lisbon, 60.
Melino, Guise's envoy to the Pope, 192, 196.
Mendovi, Cardinal, 201.
Mendoza, Bishop of Segovia, Inquisitor-General (Charles II.),
317; contest with the Inquisition, 318-19; dismissed, 319.
Mendoza, Bernardino de, Spanish ambassador in England and
France, 14, 105, 186-9, 198-99, 200.
Mendoza, Iñigo de, 155, 162.
Merino sheep introduced into Spain by Catharine of Lancaster, 218.
Middleburg besieged by the Gueux, 107; Romero's attempt
to relieve, 107-10.
Middleton, Captain, at Puente de Burgos, 38.
Milford Lane, Strand, 263.
Mondragon, Spanish commander in Middleburg, 107-8, 119.
Monins, Lady, of Waldeshare, 350, 372-3.
Montague, Viscount (Browne), at Durham Place, 269.
Monterey, Count, conspirator against the Queen Marie Anne
of Neuberg, 298.
Montigny, at Madrid, 94.
Montreuil, besieged by the English, 79, 80, 81; Romero's
duel at, 83-6.
Mora, Cristobal, deserts from the English service, 82; challenges
Gamboa, 83; his duel with Romero, 83-6.
Moors, sumptuary rules for, 213.
Morton, Earl of, 185.
Morton, Earl of (the younger), appeals to Philip II., 199.
Murder attempted from Durham Place, 276-7; escape of the
criminal by the water-gate, 278.
N.
Naarden, the massacre at, 100-1.
Nantouillet, Provost of Paris, a hostage in England, 276, 278.
Navas, Marquis de, sent to England with Philip's first present
to Mary, 139, 146, 148, 164.
Negro, Sir Pero, a Spanish captain in England, 78, 90.
Noailles, de, French ambassador, his account of the marriage of
Philip and Mary, 128-31; his efforts against the match, 130, 137.
Norfolk, Duke of, besieges Montreuil, (1544) 79-80.
Norfolk, Duke of (1698), 369, 371.
Norris, Sir Edward, at Corunna, 34; wounded, 38.
Norris, Sir John, commands the land forces of the expedition
against Portugal, 9, 23, 25, 26, 35-6, 41-3, 45-6, 51, 55,
58, 62; withdrawn from Lisbon, 64-6; arrival at Cascaes, 66.
North, Lord, 153.
Northumberland, Duke of, makes use of the Spaniards to overawe
Somerset, 91; dismisses them, 91. _See also_ Dudley.
Nuñez, Cristobal, Dr., his orders for the rearing of a child
(Francisco Fernando), 335-9.
O.
Odonte, Francisco de, letter from Lisbon, 58-9.
Olivares, Chamberlain of Philip II., 149.
Olivares (the Count-Duke), Minister of Philip IV., 247, 249, 326-7;
his orders for the rearing of Philip's child, 330-3.
Olivares, Count de, Spanish ambassador in Rome, 197.
O'Neil, Shan, at Durham Place, 269, 276, 281.
Orange, Prince of, 98, 105, 114.
Orfeur, Captain (1698), 354, 369.
Oropesa, Count de, Spanish Minister, 295.
Osorio, Captain, 109.
Oviedo, Bishop of, refuses to participate in the exorcism, 303.
P.
Pacheco, Don Juan, 165.
Paget, Charles, Guise's envoy to England, 192.
Paramour, Mr., of Stratenborough, 350.
Parma, Duke of, his share in the defeat of the Armada, 5; his
negotiation with the Scotch Catholics, 200.
Pembroke, Earl of, 152-3, 161, 164; buys Durham Place (1640), 287.
Penalties for infraction of the sumptuary laws, 214, 216-17,
218, 241, 247, 256.
Peniche, the English at, 43-7, 51.
Perez, Ensign, deserts to the Scots, 90.
Persons, Father Robert, the Jesuit, his action in the plot against
England, 186, 198, 201.
Pescara, Marquis de, 140, 149, 155.
Peter the Cruel of Castile, his sumptuary decrees, 217-18.
Pewry, rector of Knowlton, 350.
Philip II. accepts the match with Mary at his father's bidding,
138-9; his journey to Valladolid, 138; splendour of his outfit,
140; his reception of the English envoys, 142-3; splendid
departure from Corunna, 144-7; voyage and arrival in England,
147-9; his gracious manner, 148; at Southampton, 149-52;
journey and arrival at Winchester, 152-4; his first interview
with the Queen, 154-7; his splendour at the wedding, 160;
at the marriage banquet, 161-3; his attention to Mary, 166;
his departure from England, 174.
Philip II., his reception of the news of the disaster of the
Armada, 6; his action on the news of the English expedition, 30, 44.
Philip II. and the Flemish nobles, 93-4.
Philip II. and the Portuguese succession, 13.
Philip II., his character, 177.
Philip II., his attitude towards England, 8-9, 178-83, 184, 188,
190-5, 197-8, 202.
Philip II., his splendour in apparel, 225-6; his sumptuary
decrees, 228, 229, 230, 234-5.
Philip III., his sumptuary decrees, 238-44.
Philip IV., his appearance and character, 323; Spain under his
rule, 234-5; his youthful dissipation, 326-7; adventure in the
convent of San Placido, 328.
Philip IV., decrees against extravagances in apparel, 247-54.
Philip V. of Spain, his sumptuary decrees, 255-6.
Pole, Arthur, at Durham Place, 269, 281.
Pole, Cardinal, 267.
Portocarrero, Cardinal, forwards the intrigue against the Queen
Marie Anne of Neuberg, 297 _passim_.
Portuguese succession, claimants to, 12, 13, 14.
Portuguese feeling towards the English expedition, 43, 47-50, 53-5.
Poulet, Earl (1700), 373-5.
Poynings, at Durham Place, 265.
Prior, Matthew, 346.
Puente de Burgos, fight at, 38.
Q.
Quadra, Bishop, urges Philip to make war on England, 180.
Quadra (Bishop of Aquila, Spanish ambassador) at Durham Place,
273; complaints of his conduct, 275; facilitates the escape of a
criminal, 277-8; Cecil's attempt to dislodge him, 278-9; his
defence of his conduct, 280-1; expelled from Durham Place, 281.
Quevedo, 253.
R.
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 28, 35; at Durham Place, 266, 267, 271, 286.
Ravenstein, Austrian envoy, at Durham Place, 273.
Redondo, Count de, beheaded in Lisbon, 67.
Relations between England and Spain. _See_ Spain.
Renard and the marriage of Philip and Mary, 137, 148; his plan to
marry Elizabeth to the Duke of Savoy, 178.
Requesens, Grand Commander, Alba's successor in the Netherlands,
107-10, 111, 114.
Richmond, Philip and Mary at, 166.
Riots in Madrid against the sumptuary decrees, 237, 252, 257-9.
Rivalry between Spanish and French ambassadors, 282-3.
Robles, Gaspar de, his account of the siege of Haarlem, 104.
Rocaberti, Inquisitor-General (Charles II.), 302; his share in
the exorcism, 303 _passim_; death, 313.
Rodas, Jerome, Spanish member of the Flemish Council, 115,
119; his head demanded by the Flemings, 120.
Rome, intrigues in, respecting the invasion of England, 197-201.
Romero, Julian, his origin, 78-9: enters the English service, 82;
sent to Scotland, 82; at Calais, 83; accepts Mora's challenge to
Gamboa, 83; the duel, 83-6; rewarded by the kings of France
and England, 86; in London, 87; arrested for debt, 87-8;
accused of treason, 88-9; at Pinkie and Leith, 90; dismissed
the English service, 91; surrenders Dinant to the French,
92; bravery at St. Quintin, 92; in Italy, 93; sent to Flanders,
93; aids in the arrest of Egmont, 94-5; his severity,
95-6; returns to Spain, 95-6; rumoured intention of attacking
England, 97; again sent to Flanders, 98; at Mons, 98-9;
his account of affairs in the Netherlands, 99; his cruelty at
Naarden, 100-1; his behaviour at Haarlem, 102-4; his march
of vengeance through Holland, 105; begs for leave to return
home, 106, 111; his unsuccessful attempt to relieve Middleburg,
107-10; his letter to Requesens, 112-13; again in the Netherlands,
114; sent by the Flemish Council to pacify the mutinous
Spaniards, 115; his share in the "Spanish Fury," 116-20; his
head demanded by the Flemings, 120; marches out of Flanders, 120;
to return from Italy in command, 120; dies on the way, 120.
Romney, Earl of (1697), 368.
Ronquillo, Francisco, a conspirator against the Queen Marie Anne
of Neuberg, 298, 302.
Ruffs, decrees against, 243-5.
Rusticucci, Cardinal, 197.
Ruthven, Raid of, 190.
Rutland, Earl of, 153.
S.
Saint Ferdinand, King, in Seville, 212.
Salablanca, a Spanish captain at Boulogne, 81.
Sampson, Captain, at Corunna, 33.
San Anton, gate of, Lisbon, 60.
Sancho de Avila, Spanish commander in Flanders, 76; at Egmont's
arrest, 94; in the Spanish fury, 116-20; his head demanded
by the Flemings, 120.
Sancho Bravo, Spanish officer in Lisbon, 59-60, 65.
_San Felipe_, galleon captured by Drake, 8-9.
San Roque, monastery, Lisbon, 60.
Santa Cruz defeats Strozzi at the Azores, 16, 18; offers to invade
England, 194, 200, 202.
Santa Catalina, gate of, Lisbon, 60.
Santander, arrival of the Armada in, 5.
Santiago, Philip's reception at, 142-3.
Santorio, Cardinal, 197.
Sanzio, Cardinal, 197, 201.
Savoy, the, Strand, 264.
Scottish Catholics appeal to Philip, 186-9, 199; proposal to invade
England in the interest of Spain, 199-200.
Sebastian, King of Portugal, 12.
Seymour, at Durham Place, 265; grants Durham Place to Elizabeth,
265. _See also_ Somerset.
Shrewsbury, Earl of (1689), 359.
Sidney, Colonel, at Puente de Burgos, 38.
Sidney, Lady, at Durham Place, 269.
Silk manufactory in Spain, 220-1, 224, 227.
Sirleto, Cardinal, 197.
Sixtus V., Pope, subsidises the Armada, 5; joins in the plot
against England, 196-203.
Somerset, Protector, 90-1.
Sotomayor, Inquisitor-General, rebukes Philip IV. for his
sacreligious amour, 329.
Southampton, the landing of Philip II. at, 149.
Spain, relations with England, 177 _passim_.
Spaniards, their discontent at their position in England with Philip
II., 153, 161, 164-7, 168, 169, 170, 171-4.
Spanish accounts of the coming of Philip to England, 132-7.
Spanish extravagance in dress, 223-4, 229, 245, 249.
Spanish Fury, the, 115-20.
Spanish mercenaries in the English service, 77-8; at Boulogne,
80-4; fresh bodies recruited, 82; sent to Scotland, 82-3; at
Boulogne and Calais, 83-4; sent to Scotland, 89-90.
Spanish nation clamours for revenge for the defeat of the
Armada, 6-7.
Spanish troops in Flanders mutiny for pay, 114-15; plot to seize
Brussels, 115; massacres at Alost, &c., 115-16; the Spanish
Fury, 117-20; marched out of Flanders, 120.
Spanish succession, intrigues respecting, 292-4.
Spencer, Master of the Ordnance at Corunna, 34.
Spes, Guerau de, Spanish ambassador, 182.
Squillaci, Marquis de (Esquilache), his attempt to suppress the
Chambergo and cloak, 257-9.
Stanhope, his letters from Spain about Charles the Bewitched,
291, 296, 304.
Stourton, Deputy-Governor of Windsor (1700), 368-9, 371.
Strand, the, in Tudor times, 264, 270-1.
Strand Lane, 263.
Strange, Lord, 153, 161.
Stukeley, Thomas, his proposed invasion of Ireland, 96-7; at
Durham Place, 269.
Suffolk, Duke of (Brandon), 80.
Sumptuary enactments in England, 208.
Sumptuary enactments in Spain, 208 _passim_.
Surrey, Earl of, 153.
Sussex, Countess of, 284.
_Swiftsure_, the, sails surreptitiously with Essex on board, 28,
35, 41.
Sydenham, Captain, sad death of, at Corunna, 37.
T.
Talbot, Lord, 153.
Tassis, J. B., Spanish ambassador in France, 185, 188, 194-5.
Taverns in London (1693), 353-5, 356-7, 360
Thomas, Timothy, M.A., headmaster of Sandwich School, 351.
Throgmorton's plot, discovery of, 195.
Titles, decree of Philip II. against, 236-7, 242.
Torres Vedras, on the road to Lisbon, 51-2.
Trains, decree against, 216.
Treason against Elizabeth at Durham Place, 269, 273.
Tunstal, Bishop of Durham, at Durham Place, 266-7.
U.
Umpton, Colonel, at Corunna, 33.
Underhyll, Edward, the hot-gospeller, at Queen Mary's wedding,
126, 161-2.
Urraca, Juan Antonio, a conspirator against the Queen Marie
Anne of Neuberg, 298.
V.
Valenzuela, favourite of Mariana, Queen Regent of Spain, 309.
Valladolid, rejoicing and mourning at, 138; Philip's departure
from, 141.
Van Dyk, Mr. (1700), 371.
Vargas, Alonso de, Spanish commander in Flanders, 115-16, 117.
Vigo burnt by the English, 70.
Vina Dorta, Count de, pursues the English, 65-6.
Villanueva Geronimo, Minister of Philip IV., 328; punished by
the Inquisition for sacrilege, 329, 339.
Villa Sirga, Sir Alonso, a Spanish captain murdered in London,
77, 90.
W.
Waldershare Park, 350, 372-3.
Walloon collars, 247-8.
Walsingham, Secretary, 9, 15, 35, 97.
Wedding feasts, decrees against extravagance at, 213, 216.
William III., death of, 372.
Williams, Sir Roger, aids Essex to escape, 28, 35, 41; takes
part in the attack on Lisbon, 42, 51-2, 56-8, 64, 68.
Williams of Thame, Sir John, 149.
Willoughby, Lord, 153.
Winchester, Marquis of, 153, 162; at Durham Place, 269.
Windebank, Captain, 107.
Wingfield's account of the Portuguese expedition, 10 _passim_.
Wingfield, Anthony, at Puente de Burgos, 38.
Wingfield, Sir Edward, 41.
Wingfield, Captain Richard, 33.
Woodward, Parson (1700), 375.
Worcester, Earl of, 153.
Wotton, Dr., 92.
Wyatt's rebellion, 128, 137.
Y.
Yorke, Colonel, at Corunna, 37; at Lisbon, 55, 60.
Z.
Zeeland lost to Spain, 110.
[Illustration: Tailpiece]
UNWIN BROTHERS, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.
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