Philip II. of Spain 31

Philip II. of Spain 31

There were no adequate forces in Spain to resist an attack,

and if the English expedition had not been entirely mismanaged from the

first, there is but little doubt that Philip’s rule in Portugal might

easily have been ended. Want of money, shortness of provisions, and

utter indiscipline of the men on the English fleet, contributed the

germs of failure to the enterprise, and the waste of ten days in burning

and sacking the lower town at Corunna, where the sickness and laxity

caused by the drunkenness of the men practically disabled the English

force, gave the stout-hearted Archduke Albert in Lisbon time to organise

the defence and dominate the Portuguese by terror. In the meanwhile,

too, Philip’s council in Madrid conquered their first paralysis of

dismay, and took such hasty measures as were possible to repel the

invasion. The fatal insistence also of Norris and Don Antonio to leave

Drake and his fleet at Peniche whilst they marched overland to besiege

Lisbon, placed the crown of disaster on the attempt. For Antonio had

overrated his support. Only priests and a few peasants joined his

standard. Lisbon was completely dominated by the archduke, and no

Portuguese dared to raise a head, for fear of losing it. So when Norris

and his 12,000 Englishmen appeared outside Lisbon (May 21, 1589),

without siege-train or battering guns, they found the gates fast closed

against them, and after a week of fruitless bloodshed they had sadly to

retrace their steps again and join Drake’s fleet at the mouth of the

river. Of 18,000 men that sailed out of Plymouth only about 6000 ever

returned, and Don Antonio’s chance of reigning again in Portugal had

gone for ever.

 

In August 1589 Mendoza wrote from Paris in jubilant strains. The king

(Henry III.) had been besieging the capital with 40,000 men, and it

could have held out no longer. Mayenne had lost heart, the

much-prayed-for Spanish troops to help them came not. Despair reigned

in the League, when suddenly the last of the Valois, Henry III., in his

turn, fell under the dagger of the fanatic monk Jacques Clement. “It was

the hand of God,” said Mendoza, “that has done this for His greater

glory, and for the advantage of His religion.” Philip, however, never

loved the idea of the killing of kings, and was not so enthusiastic

about this as was his ambassador. He was no hero; and if fanatics began

killing anointed monarchs there was no telling where such an example

would stop.

 

The event, moreover, added much to his present perplexity. If Guise had

lived, and Henry of Navarre had been amenable to reason, the realm of

France might have been divided between Guise, Navarre, the Infanta, the

Duke of Savoy, and Philip; but the Huguenot king had assumed the

sovereignty of the whole country as soon as Henry III. fell, and had

already shown that he was a soldier and diplomatist of the highest

order, whom no cajolery would induce to surrender any portion of his

birthright. And yet it was a matter of life and death to Philip that

France should not become a heretic power, and he was obliged to tackle

the monster with what strength he had left.

 

The first impulse of the governing council of the League in Paris on the

news of the death of the king was to elect Philip sovereign of France,

but the idea of the Guises had always been to obtain all or part of the

realm for themselves, and consequently Mayenne procured the proclamation

in Paris of Henry of Navarre’s uncle, Cardinal de Bourbon, as Charles X.

He was understood to be only a stop-gap, for he was old, foolish, and

childless, and the problem of the fate of France was still held in

suspense. But they could never even catch their king, for his nephew

Henry seized him before the Leaguers could reach him, and he never let

him go again. It is certain that by this time Philip had slowly made up

his mind that, as he mainly would have to fight and destroy

Protestantism in France, he alone should enjoy the reward. If the affair

could have been settled cheaply and without fighting, the Lorraines, the

Savoys, the Bourbons, and his own House might have divided the spoil;

but if his arms and money had to win the reward, it must be his, and his

alone. It was the most disastrous resolution he could have taken in his

own interest, for it enabled Henry of Navarre to assume the position of

the patriot withstanding foreign aggression; and gradually drew to him

crowds of Frenchmen, who otherwise would have stood aloof. After the

king’s death Henry IV. abandoned the siege of Paris and rapidly moved to

Normandy, where Elizabeth’s subsidies and the aid from his own Rochelle

might reach him. Then he began that brilliant series of victories over

Mayenne that commenced at Arques. Through a country already rallying to

his national banner, he marched to Paris again. He struck terror into

the Leaguers and Spanish inside, who were intriguing for the crown of

France, which the great Bourbon was winning by his sword; and, after

harrying St. Germains, he again marched on to attack Mayenne’s main army

at Dreux. The Spanish Leaguers from Flanders were commanded by Egmont,

the son of the man whom Alba had killed. His cavalry at first charged

Henry’s infantry and broke it. Then the king himself, with his white

plume for a guide, led his 2000 horsemen like a whirlwind against the

Leaguers. Nothing could stand before them. The German mercenaries

dropped their arms and fled, the Lorrainers and Egmont’s Walloons were

swept away by the irresistible avalanche, and the battle of Ivry was won

(March 14, 1590). Then without a pause Paris found itself again

encircled with the victorious troops of the Béarnais. The sufferings of

the rebel city and the events of the struggle cannot be recounted here.

Philip’s far-off share in them alone concerns us for the moment. It is

said by those who were near Philip at the time, that the news of

Mayenne’s rout at Ivry was not entirely displeasing to him. It had been

evident to the Spaniards for some time that Mayenne would take the first

opportunity of causing himself to be proclaimed king in Paris. Mendoza

and Moreo, the Spanish agents in Paris, were already sounding notes of

alarm about him in their letters to the king, and Philip must have

known, now he had lost Ivry, that, come what might, Mayenne’s chance had

gone. It had become certain that, if Henry IV. was to be beaten at all,

it must be by an experienced warrior like Alexander Farnese with great

national forces, that France indeed must be conquered before Philip

could be called its king. The alternative, however, seemed to be a

Protestant rival nation on his frontier, and an entire alteration of the

balance of Europe, in which he would be left isolated and impotent; and

he must fight to the death to prevent that. Farnese had lost much of his

popularity since the Armada, and he fretted at the fact. He knew that

doubts wore whispered to his uncle, not only of his loyalty, but even of

his orthodoxy; and, although Philip expressed himself as being quite

satisfied with his explanations about the Armada, Farnese feared that

his constant ill-health foreboded death by poison. He was weary, too,

with the petty war of treachery, surprises, and skirmishes which still

continued between him and the Dutchmen under William the Silent’s son,

Maurice. It was like new life to him when at last he got the stirring

news from Philip that he was to conquer France for the Church and for

the House of Spain. But for the Salic law, the Infanta would undoubtedly

have been the heiress to the crown, and Philip made light of the Salic

law, and boldly asserted his daughter’s right. Farnese was, above all

things, a prudent commander, and insisted upon having sufficient

resources for the business he had to do, and his persistence on this

point again raised rumours against him. Philip’s principal agent in

France, Moreo, did not hesitate to say that he was a traitor, who was

plotting for his own ends; and the Spanish nobles about Farnese’s

person, seeing which way the tide was running, joined in the sneers at

his slowness. But he would not move, leaving Flanders unprotected, and

risking his fame and life, by crossing the frontier with an inadequate

force. His insistence at length gained his point, and large remittances

were sent to him from Madrid, with which he could organise a good force

of 13,000 men; and by August 23 he joined Mayenne at Meaux and marched

to attack Henry’s besieging army before Paris. Some provisions were

passed into the famished city, the siege was partly raised, and soon the

tactical skill of Farnese began to tell upon Henry’s army, which was

melting away with discouragement. He once more abandoned the siege, and

the League army entered Paris on September 18, 1590. But then began the

feeling that eventually led even the Parisians to welcome Henry.

Farnese made no pretence to respect Mayenne’s authority, and the

Frenchmen who had looked upon the Spanish forces as their allies found

now to their dismay that they were their masters. Mayenne himself was

inclined to be sulky and rebellious, and it was necessary for Farnese to

teach him and Paris that they were powerless without Spanish troops; so

he and his force once more marched towards the Flemish frontier, and

Paris was again invested. Philip’s fanatic councillors insisted that

Farnese had abandoned the task because of his want of sympathy, and the

king grew colder still towards his nephew, and somewhat changed his

plans. It must now have been evident to him that the French nation would

not willingly accept him or his daughter as sovereign, and he reverted

to his former idea of dismemberment. The Infanta really had a good claim

to the duchy of Brittany, which had never formed part of the French

realm, and was excepted from the action of the Salic law. The Duke of

Mercœur, whose wife was also descended from the House of Brittany,

had been holding the province for the League, and was hard pressed. He

begged for aid from Philip, who sent him a force of 5000 men under Don

Juan del Aguila, whilst the Duke of Savoy, Philip’s son-in-law, had

entered Marseilles with his army, Toulouse was garrisoned by 4000

Spaniards, and all Provence and Dauphiné was falling under the

Savoy-Spanish yoke. The Spaniards in Brittany were not long in showing

their teeth. They seized and fortified Blavet and other ports against

Mercœur himself, and this brought Elizabeth on the scene with 3000

English troops. She could never have the Spaniards in ports opposite her

shores, she said. And so practically all over France little wars were

being waged. The country, utterly desolated and exhausted, yearned for

peace and firm government before all things, and gradually came to the

conclusion that they were more likely to obtain them from their own

countryman, Henry, than from the Spanish king and his hangers-on. At the

same time Philip’s treasury had become more and more depleted and his

credit quite ruined with the bankers. He was, moreover, himself old and

weary with never-ending labour at small details, and decided to strike a

supreme blow once more to end heresy in France before he gave up the

struggle in despair. Farnese therefore, to his annoyance this time (for

he was obliged to leave Maurice of Nassau in undisturbed possession of

Holland), received fresh orders from the king in September 1591 once

more to cross the frontier and end the fight.

 

He found the leaders of the League all at discord one with the other and

with the Spaniards. Mayenne’s vanity and greed had disgusted every one,

and it soon became apparent to Farnese that no aid towards Spanish aims

could be gained from him. He had, indeed, selfishly done his best only a

few months before to impede the solution which might have drawn a

majority of Frenchmen to the side of the League and the Spaniards,

namely, the marriage of the Infanta with the young Duke of Guise. Henry

IV. was besieging Rouen with an army of 20,000 men, nearly all mercenary

Germans and English, and although his energy somewhat delayed Parma’s

advance, when the latter reached Rouen he found Mayenne disinclined to

accept the assistance of the Spaniards, such was his growing jealousy