Philip II. of Spain 20

Philip II. of Spain 20

But here probably Philip’s personal responsibility ends. He was not wantonly and

fiercely cruel as Alba was. No consideration of any sort was allowed to

stand in the way of what he held to be his sacred task, but he did not

kill for the sake of killing. The flight of Orange’s mercenary Germans

at Heliger Lee, and the consequent collapse of his first attempt at

armed resistance, had been looked upon by most Flemings without any

outward sign of sympathy, and the unprovoked, horrible holocaust of

innocent citizens all over Flanders and Brabant which followed, must be

laid at the door of Alba alone, who intended thus to strike such terror

into the townsfolk as should effectually bridle them if Orange tried his

fortune again; so with the nobles dead or in exile, the townspeople

might be crushed without a show of resistance. As long as only their

national or religious liberty was at stake, the Flemings bent their

necks to the yoke, and Orange in his despairing attempt depended mainly

upon German mercenaries and French Calvinists. On July 14, 1570, Alba

the merciless could read from his gold-covered throne in Antwerp the

amnesty of forgiveness and peace to all the subjects of the king: but

when he ventured to lay hands on the wealth of the Netherlands, then the

blood of the burgesses rose, and those who meekly saw themselves

despoiled of their national rights stood up sturdily against the

depletion of their fat money-bags. The seizure of the treasure by

Elizabeth had been the last stroke to complete Alba’s penury. He had

been importuning plaintively for money almost since his arrival; his

troops had not been paid for two years, and were almost out of hand.

Money he must have, and, certainly without Philip’s consent, he took the

fatal step that at last aroused the slumbering people. The various

provincial assemblies were terrorised into voting a tax of one per cent

on all property, five per cent on sales of land, and, above all, ten per

cent on sales of all other property. Utrecht refused to accept the

impossible tax, and the tribunal of blood condemned the whole property

of the citizens to confiscation. A tax of ten per cent upon commodities

every time they changed hands was proved to be absurd. Alba’s most

faithful henchmen, and even his confessor, pointed this out to him, but

to no purpose. Business was suspended, factories closed. Their

proprietors were threatened with heavy fines if trade was not carried on

as usual. It was obviously impossible, but still the duke would not give

way.

 

Philip’s council were indignant at such a measure, and Alba wrote to

Madrid, “Let the tax be reduced as much as may be necessary, but the

king cannot have an idea of the obstacles I encounter here. Neither the

heads smitten off nor the privileges abolished have aroused so much

resistance as this.”

 

Nearly all the great bankers upon whom Philip had depended for loans

became insolvent, and appeals against the unwise tax reached Philip by

every post. He knew money must be obtained somehow, and hesitated to

condemn Alba unheard, but he ordered an inquiry to be made, and the

protests grew louder and deeper. Bishops, councillors, loyal servants of

the Spaniards, joined in condemnation. “Everybody turns against me,”

wrote the duke, and for once he was right.

 

The “beggars of the sea” seized Brille on April 1, 1572; all Holland and

Zeeland rose. Help and money came from England, and Alba saw himself

face to face with an enraged nation instead of downtrodden serfs. First

he crushed the south and then held the French Huguenots out of Brabant.

Mons was captured, Genlis’s Frenchmen massacred, and swift and

relentless as a thunderbolt swept Alba’s vengeance through the southern

provinces of Flanders. Submission the most abject, or slaughter was the

only alternative. But Holland and Zeeland were made of sterner stuff,

and the shambles of Naarden only made Haarlem the more obstinate. Then

followed that fell struggle which lasted until Alba’s confession of

failure. Cruelty could not crush the Dutchmen, for they were fighting

for their faith now as well as their money, and by the end of 1572

Philip had become tired of the useless slaughter. It was difficult for

him to revoke or interfere with his commander-in-chief in the midst of

such a war, but long before Alba’s final retirement from Flanders at the

end of 1573, the king showed his displeasure with his proceedings

unmistakably, and it well-nigh broke the old duke’s heart, hard as it

was. When at last Philip wrote that his successor, Requesens, was on his

way to replace him with an amnesty, these were the king’s words: “I am

quite aware that the rebels are perfidious. I understand all your

arguments in favour of a continuance of the system of severity, and I

agree that they are good; but I see that things have arrived at such an

extreme that we shall be obliged to adopt other measures.” Alba’s fall

had been decided upon long before, and Medina-Celi had actually been

sent to Flanders to replace him, but Philip had always hesitated to

withdraw him while he was actually in arms against the enemy. Thirty

years before his father had told him that Alba was the best soldier in

Spain, and Philip knew that he was so still. But how deeply Philip

disapproved of his wanton cruelty in time of peace will be seen by the

words already quoted above, and by his sudden degradation of the

powerful Cardinal Espinosa when the king discovered that he was being

deceived with regard to Alba’s proceedings (September 1572). The number

of victims and the reasons for the sacrifices were kept back by the

favourite, for Espinosa was for crushing the Dutchmen as he had crushed

the Moriscos. But there were others, like Antonio Perez, by Philip’s

side to open his eyes to Alba’s enormities, and one day in the council

the king turned upon the astounded Espinosa and told him roundly that he

lied. When Philip, usually so impassible, said such a thing it meant

disgrace and death, and Cardinal Espinosa promptly went home and died

the same night.

 

After that Alba’s disgrace was inevitable, even if it had not been in

principle already decided upon. The evidence, therefore, seems to prove

that Philip did not consider Alba’s cruelty necessary or politic for the

ends he had in view, which, be it repeated, were ultimately political

and not religious.

 

Requesens’ new policy at first was eminently successful in drawing away

the Walloons and Catholic Flemings from the side of Orange, and by the

late autumn of 1575 the position of the Protestants had become critical.

Money was running short, the mercenaries were unpaid, and Elizabeth

would not be forced by any persuasion from the position which she had

taken up of helping Orange with money and men, but never pledging

herself so deeply that she could not recede and become friendly with

Philip if it suited her. She had, indeed, managed to get the whole of

the cards in her hand, and could secure his friendship at any time

without cost to herself. But this non-committal policy did not suit

Orange in his present straits, and he began to make approaches to the

French Huguenots. Elizabeth was perfectly willing that he should get

their aid, as in the long-run they too had mainly to depend upon her;

but she changed her tone directly when she learnt that the King of

France and his mother where to be parties to the arrangement. Anything

that should mean a French national domination of Flanders she would

never allow. Better, far better, that Philip and the Spaniards should

stay there for ever, than that the French flag should wave over Antwerp.

So an English envoy, Henry Cobham, was sent to Madrid in August 1575,

with all sorts of loving messages, to open Philip’s eyes to Orange’s

intrigues with the French court. Philip received Cobham coldly, and

referred him to Alba for his answer, which was to the effect that the

king was as willing to be friendly as Elizabeth, and would receive a

resident English ambassador, on condition that he made no claim to

exercise the reformed religion. Not a word about Orange and the French.

Whatever the Huguenots might do, he knew full well that he had only to

hold out his hand to the Guises and the Catholic party, and Catharine

and her son would be paralysed for harm against him.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XII

 

Philip’s fourth marriage--The killing of Montigny--Anne of

Austria--Philip’s domestic life--His industry--The Escorial--His

patronage of art--His character--Renewed war with the Turks--Don

Juan commands the Spanish force--The victory of Lepanto--Don Juan’s

great projects--Antonio Perez.

 

 

Philip was left a widower for the third time in 1568, at the age of

forty-two, with two children, both girls, by his beloved third wife.

With such an empire as his, and with his views of his mission, it was

most undesirable that he should be succeeded by a female, and especially

one of French extraction, and he had already recognised this by causing

some of his young Austrian nephews to be brought up in Spain under his

influence. The emperor, however, largely dependent as he was upon the

Lutheran princes, could not look quite unmoved at Alba’s barbarities in

the ancient patrimony of his House, and became uncomfortably pressing

upon the matter at the commencement of Alba’s rule. Philip resented his

interference, but thought well to disarm him for the future by marrying

the Archduchess Anne, the emperor’s daughter, whom her father had so

persistently put forward as a bride for the unfortunate Carlos. The

preliminaries were easily arranged. Philip was more than double the

bride’s age, and was her uncle, but that mattered nothing. The pope’s

dispensation was obtained, and in August 1570 the new consort travelled

in state through Flanders to take ship for Spain. The fleet which was to

escort the queen was a powerful one, and threw Elizabeth of England into

a fever of alarm until it had safely passed. On her way through Antwerp

the new queen was appealed to by the sorrowing mother of Horn and

Montigny. Her eldest son had fallen on the scaffold, but her second was

alive, a prisoner in the castle of Segovia. He had been smiled upon by

Philip until Alba’s blow had fallen upon his brother and the rest of the

Flemish nobles, and had then suddenly been imprisoned. He was innocent

of all offence, said his mother, a loyal subject, and a good Catholic,

and she prayed the queen earnestly to plead for her son. Anne arrived at

Santander on October 12, 1570, and slowly progressed through Spain to

Segovia for the wedding. For two years the tribunal of blood in Flanders

had been trying the Flemish nobles for treason _in absentia_. Bergues

had died in semi-arrest, and faithful Renard, the victim of Granvelle’s

hate, had also died mysteriously a week after his imprisonment. But

Montigny--Florence de Montmorenci--still remained in seclusion in the

strong castle of Segovia. Philip was always a stickler for the

fulfilment of legal forms, and awaited the result of the trial in

Flanders with ill-disguised impatience. At last the decision came, the

finding being that which might have been foreseen. Montigny was

condemned for treason in defending the action of the Flemish nobles

before the king’s secretary. The judgment was submitted to the

council--Ruy Gomez, Espinosa, and the rest of the camarilla--who advised

that Montigny should be poisoned slowly. But no, the king would have

none of that. The law prescribed death by strangulation for the crime,

and the law must be carried out. A public execution was out of the