Philip II. of Spain 18

Philip II. of Spain 18

He complained constantly to Philip and Espinosa of the

slackness and want of authority of the Governor Mondejar, and at last

the king decided to send to Andalucia a considerable force under his

brother, Don Juan of Austria, to restore order. The young prince, who

had been born in 1547, was one of the handsomest and most gifted men of

his time. He had shared the studies of his unfortunate nephew, Don

Carlos, and of his cousin, Alexander Farnese, and from the time of the

emperor’s death had been treated as a prince of the blood. He had

already distinguished himself in the naval campaign against the Barbary

corsairs in 1567, and now his royal brother sent him once more against

the infidel. He entered Granada in April 1569. He was to do nothing

without first communicating with the king, and was strictly enjoined not

to expose himself to danger or to take any personal part in the mountain

warfare, which was to be left to the Marquis de los Velez. The reasons

probably why Don Juan had been chosen for the command were his youth,

which would, it might be thought, render him amenable to guidance from

Madrid, and the fact that he had from his childhood been indoctrinated

in the diplomatic principles of Ruy Gomez’s party, to which Secretary

Antonio Perez also belonged. But he was a youth of high courage and

great ability, who could ill brook strict control, and he chafed at

being kept in the city of Granada away from the fighting. Philip again

and again directed him to do as he was told and stay where he was. The

task confided to him was a pitiful one. Orders came from Madrid that

every Morisco in Granada was to be sent to Castile. On the day of St.

John 1569, writes the English spy Hogan, “Don Juan gathered together

13,000 Moriscos of Granada, and took 2000 for the king’s galleys, and

hanged some; a great number were sent to labour in the king’s works and

fortifications, and the rest, with their wives and children, kept as

slaves.” Despair fell upon the poor people, innocent mostly of all

participation in the mountain rising, at being dragged from their

beautiful homes and smiling native land to be sent in slavery to arid

Castile; but Deza and Espinosa were pitiless, and their advice alone was

heard in Madrid. The Marquis of Mondejar, the hereditary governor of

Granada, could not brook such ruinous folly to the city he loved, and

left in disgust.

 

Things in the meanwhile were going badly for the Spaniards in the

mountains. The king, Aben Humeya, gained a victory at Seron, and the

main body of Spaniards, under the Marquis de los Velez, got out of hand,

provisions and pay were short, and the men deserted in shoals, until at

last Los Velez was left only with the veteran regiment of Naples. Then

Philip and the churchmen saw that they must let Don Juan have his way

and give him active command, whilst the king himself, to be nearer, came

to Cordova.

 

But Aben Humeya’s power was slipping away. Dissensions had broken out in

his own family. He had exercised his royal authority with as much

harshness and arrogance as if it had been founded on a rock instead of

on the desert sand, and soon a revolution of his people broke out. The

young king, already sunk in lascivious indulgence, was strangled in his

bed, and his cousin, Ben Abó, was proclaimed King of Granada.

 

The juncture was a favourable one for Don Juan, and he lost no time.

With marvellous activity he collected the Spanish forces again around

the Naples regiment; he brought men from all parts of Spain, and by the

end of January 1570 he was besieging the fortress of Galera with 13,000

soldiers. For a month the siege lasted, and hardly a day passed without

some act of daring heroism on one side or the other. At last by February

16 the place was taken by assault, and the defenders to the number of

3000 killed. Massacre, pillage, and lust again threw the Spanish troops

into a state of demoralisation, and a few days later, in attempting to

recover Seron, an uncontrollable panic seized them, and the seasoned

warriors fled like hares before an insignificant gang of Moors, with a

loss of 600 men. All discipline and order were thrown to the winds;

desertion, anarchy, and murder were all that could be got from Don

Juan’s army, now a mere blood-thirsty rabble.

 

The Moorish king would fain make terms, and Don Juan was in favour of

entertaining his approaches. Philip was at his wits’ end with two wars

on his hands, both the result of his blind, rigid policy; his treasury,

as usual, was well-nigh exhausted. Elizabeth of England had recently

seized all the ready money he could borrow for the payment of Alba’s

army, and the Turk was busy in the Mediterranean, with the more or less

overt encouragement of Catharine de Medici. But though Don Juan begged

for clemency for the submissive Moors, the fanatics Deza and Espinosa

would have none of it, and Philip’s zeal was aroused again in the name

of religion to strike and spare not for the interests of “God and your

Majesty.”

 

Deza and one of his officials of the Inquisition managed to bribe a Moor

to betray and kill the king, Ben Abó. The body of the dead king was

brought into Granada, and Deza, churchman though he was, struck off the

head and had it nailed to the gate of what was once the Moorish quarter,

with a threat of death to the citizen who should dare to touch it.

 

There was to be no mercy to the vanquished, said the churchmen, and

Philip obeyed them, in spite of Don Juan’s protests against their

interference with the clemency of a magnanimous victor. Death or

slavery were the only alternatives, and no mercy was shown. From the

fair plains they and theirs had tilled for eight centuries, from the

frowning Alpujarras, which their tireless industry had forced to yield a

grudging harvest; from the white cities, which had kept alive the

culture of the east when the barbarians had trampled down the

civilisation of the west, all those who bore the taint of Moorish blood

were cast. Bound in gangs by heavy gyves, they were driven through the

winter snow into the inhospitable north. Don Juan, soldier though he

was, was pierced with pity at the sight. “They went,” he wrote to Ruy

Gomez, “with the greatest sorrow in the world, for at the time they

left, the rain, snow, and wind were so heavy that the daughter will be

forced to leave the mother, the husband the wife, and the widow her baby

by the wayside. It cannot be denied that it is the saddest sight

imaginable to see the depopulation of a whole kingdom. But, sir, that is

what has been done!”

 

By the end of November 1570 Andalucia was cleared of the Moriscos, and

at the same time cleared of its industry, its prosperity, and its

enlightenment. The fanatic churchmen had had their foolish way, and

Philip went back to his desk, certain in his narrow soul that he had

served the cause of God and the welfare of his country.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XI

 

Philip and England--Elizabeth seizes his treasure--Spanish plots

against her--Philip and the northern rebellion--The excommunication

of Elizabeth--Ridolfi’s plot--Philip’s hesitancy--Prohibition of

English trade with Spain--Its futility--Alba’s retirement from

Flanders--Philip’s responsibility for Alba’s proceedings--The tenth

penny--Philip’s disapproval--Orange’s approaches to the French.

 

 

The persistent plotting of Cardinal Lorraine and the Monlucs to bring

about a union of Spain, France, and the pope, with the object of

fighting Protestantism and placing Mary Stuart on the throne of a

Catholic united kingdom, had failed. Catharine de Medici hated Mary

Stuart and the Guises, and Philip had no wish, if even he had the power,

to fight England for the purpose of making Mary’s French uncles

paramount. Religion apart, it was better for Philip’s policy that

England should remain Protestant than that this should happen, always

provided that he could keep Elizabeth friendly, and either frighten or

cajole her into a position of neutrality towards his rebellious

Protestant subjects in the Netherlands. He could no longer attempt to

dictate to her, as he had sought to do at the beginning of her reign,

but only strove now to gain her goodwill; and both parties were fully

cognisant of their changed position towards each other.

 

It was only ten years since Elizabeth’s accession, and even in this

short period Philip’s perverse and inelastic policy had reduced him to a

position of comparative impotence. But with his views, it was hopeless

to expect that he should learn wisdom from events. Reverses and

disappointments usually make men consider whether the course they are

pursuing is a wise one. No such doubt could assail Philip. He was in

union with God to do His work, for the success of which it was necessary

for Philip to have absolute power; and any reverses which occurred were

sent by the Almighty for some good purpose of His own, not to prevent

ultimate success, but to make it the more glorious when it came.

 

With such ideas as these, Philip was proof against adversity; it was

impossible to defeat or degrade him. The considerations which rule the

conduct of other men had no influence over him; he was above human laws,

and, no doubt, thought that he was above human frailty. Subornation,

treachery, and secret murder, odious and reprehensible in others, were

praiseworthy in him, for was he not working with and for Providence for

divine ends, before which all mundane and moral considerations must give

way?

 

His haughty dismissal of the English ambassador in the spring of 1568 on

religious grounds had been bitterly resented by Elizabeth,

notwithstanding the palliative influence of Philip’s ambassador, Guzman

de Silva. This, and rumours that Cardinal Lorraine had at last succeeded

in obtaining armed help for Mary Stuart against Murray, caused Elizabeth

to repeat her bold and previously successful action. Fresh

encouragement was sent to Condé and the Huguenots. Protestantism in the

Netherlands, under the iron heel of Alba, was accorded a more hearty

sympathy than ever, and expeditions of Flemish refugees were now allowed

almost openly to fit out in English ports to go over and help their

compatriots. Events fought on Elizabeth’s side, and threw Mary Stuart

into her grasp, from which she never escaped. The captive queen

clamoured for Philip’s help, but Philip had no help to give yet beyond

procrastinating generalities. Elizabeth and her ministers were well

served by spies, and were quite cognisant of Philip’s impotence for harm

at present, so far as open hostility was concerned. All they feared was

that he might seek to attain his end by secret plotting, and this was

eventually the course he adopted. For the time, however,--in the autumn

of 1568--he was sincerely desirous of keeping on good terms with

Elizabeth, and instructed his new ambassador, Gerau de Spes, to use

every effort to that end. Late in November 1568 the violence and

indiscretion of De Spes, who began plotting with the English Catholic

party in favour of Mary Stuart as soon as he arrived, had brought

matters to a much less peaceful complexion between Philip and Elizabeth.

This was from no fault of Philip, and was against the tenor of his

instructions. Cardinal Chatillon was in England, arousing sympathy and