History of The Reign of Philip The Second King of Spain History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain Part 5

He wrote, moreover, both to Charles and to Philip, recommending that the prince should not bring over with him a larger retinue of Spaniards than was necessary, and that the wives of his n.o.bles--for he seems to have regarded the s.e.x as the source of evil--should not accompany them.[85]

Above all, he urged Philip and his followers to lay aside the Castilian _hauteur_, and to subst.i.tute the conciliatory manners which might disarm the jealousy of the English.[86]

CHAPTER IV.

ENGLISH ALLIANCE.

Mary's Betrothal.--Joanna Regent of Castile.--Philip embarks for England.--His splendid Reception.--Marriage of Philip and Mary.--Royal Entertainments.--Philip's Influence.--The Catholic Church restored.--Philip's Departure.

1554, 1555.

In the month of March, 1554, Count Egmont arrived in England, on a second emba.s.sy, for the purpose of exchanging the ratifications of the marriage treaty. He came in the same state as before, and was received by the queen in the presence of her council. The ceremony was conducted with great solemnity. Mary, kneeling down, called G.o.d to witness, that, in contracting this marriage, she had been influenced by no motive of a carnal or worldly nature, but by the desire of securing the welfare and tranquillity of the kingdom. To her kingdom her faith had first been plighted; and she hoped that Heaven would give her strength to maintain inviolate the oath she had taken at her coronation.

This she said with so much grace, that the bystanders, says Renard,--who was one of them,--were all moved to tears. The ratifications were then exchanged, and the oaths taken, in presence of the host, by the representatives of Spain and England; when Mary, again kneeling, called on those present to unite with her in prayer to the Almighty, that he would enable her faithfully to keep the articles of the treaty, and would make her marriage a happy one.

Count Egmont then presented to the queen a diamond ring which the emperor had sent her. Mary, putting it on her finger, showed it to the company; "and a.s.suredly," exclaims the Spanish minister, "the jewel was a precious one, and well worthy of admiration." Egmont, before departing for Spain, inquired of Mary whether she would intrust him with any message to Prince Philip. The queen replied, that "he might tender to the prince her most affectionate regards, and a.s.sure him that she should be always ready to vie with him in such offices of kindness as became a loving and obedient wife." When asked if she would write to him, she answered, "Not till he had begun the correspondence."[87]

This lets us into the knowledge of a little fact, very significant. Up to this time Philip had neither written, nor so much as sent a single token of regard to his mistress. All this had been left to his father.

Charles had arranged the marriage, had wooed the bride, had won over her princ.i.p.al advisers,--in short, had done all the courts.h.i.+p. Indeed, the inclinations of Philip, it is said, had taken another direction, and he would have preferred the hand of his royal kinswoman, Mary of Portugal.[88] However this may be, it is not probable that he felt any great satisfaction in the prospect of being united to a woman who was eleven years older than himself, and whose personal charms, whatever they might once have been, had long since faded, under the effects of disease and a const.i.tutional melancholy. But he loved power; and whatever scruples he might have entertained on his own account were silenced before the wishes of his father.[89] "Like another Isaac,"

exclaims Sandoval, in admiration of his conduct, "he sacrificed himself on the altar of filial duty."[90] The same implicit deference which Philip showed his father in this delicate matter, he afterwards, under similar circ.u.mstances, received from his own son.

[Sidenote: MARY'S BETROTHAL.]

After the marriage articles had been ratified, Philip sent a present of a magnificent jewel to the English queen, by a Spanish n.o.ble of high rank, the Marquis de las Nayas.[91] The marquis, who crossed from Biscay with a squadron of four s.h.i.+ps, landed at Plymouth, and, as he journeyed towards London, was met by the young Lord Herbert, son of the earl of Pembroke, who conducted him, with an escort of four hundred mounted gentlemen, to his family seat in Wilts.h.i.+re. "And as they rode together to Wilton," says Lord Edmund Dudley, one of the party, "there were certain courses at the hare, which was so pleasant that the marquis much delighted in finding the course so readily appointed. As for the marquis's great cheer, as well that night at supper as otherwise at his breakfast the next day, surely it was so abundant, that it was not a little marvel to consider that so great a preparation could be made in so small a warning.... Surely it was not a little comfort to my heart to see all things so honorably used for the honor and service of the queen's majesty."[92]

Meanwhile, Philip was making his arrangements for leaving Spain, and providing a government for the country during his absence. It was decided by the emperor to intrust the regency to his daughter, the Princess Joanna. She was eight years younger than Philip. About eighteen months before, she had gone to Portugal as the bride of the heir of that kingdom. But the fair promise afforded by this union was blasted by the untimely death of her consort, which took place on the second of January, 1554. Three weeks afterwards, the unhappy widow gave birth to a son, the famous Don Sebastian, whose Quixotic adventures have given him a wider celebrity than is enjoyed by many a wiser sovereign. After the cruel calamity which had befallen her, it was not without an effort that Joanna resigned herself to her father's wishes, and consented to enter on the duties of public life. In July, she quitted Lisbon,--the scene of early joys, and of hopes for ever blighted,--and, amidst the regrets of the whole court, returned, under a princely escort, to Castile. She was received on the borders by the king, her brother, who conducted her to Valladolid. Here she was installed, with due solemnity, in her office of regent. A council of state was a.s.sociated with her in the government. It consisted of persons of the highest consideration, with the archbishop of Seville at their head. By this body Joanna was to be advised, and indeed to be guided in all matters of moment. Philip, on his departure, left his sister an ample letter of instructions as to the policy to be pursued by the administration, especially in affairs of religion.[93]

Joanna seems to have been a woman of discretion and virtue,--qualities which belonged to the females of her line. She was liberal in her benefactions to convents and colleges; and their cloistered inmates showed their grat.i.tude by the most lavish testimony to her deserts. She had one rather singular practice. She was in the habit of dropping her veil, when giving audience to foreign amba.s.sadors. To prevent all doubts as to her personal ident.i.ty, she began the audience by raising her veil, saying, "Am I not the princess?" She then again covered her face, and the conference was continued without her further exposing her features.

"It was not necessary," says her biographer, in an accommodating spirit, "to have the face uncovered in order to hear."[94] Perhaps Joanna considered this reserve as suited to the season of her mourning, intending it as a mark of respect to the memory of her deceased lord. In any other view, we might suspect that there entered into her const.i.tution a vein of the same madness which darkened so large a part of the life of her grandmother and namesake, Joanna of Castile.

Before leaving Valladolid, Philip formed a separate establishment for his son, Don Carlos, and placed his education under the care of a preceptor, Luis de Vives, a scholar not to be confounded with his namesake, the learned tutor of Mary of England. Having completed his arrangements, Philip set out for the place of his embarkation in the north. At Compostella he pa.s.sed some days, offering up his devotions to the tutelar saint of Spain, whose shrine, throughout the Middle Ages, had been the most popular resort of pilgrims from the western parts of Christendom.

While at Compostella, Philip subscribed the marriage treaty, which had been brought over from England by the earl of Bedford. He then proceeded to Corunna, where a fleet of more than a hundred sail was riding at anchor, in readiness to receive him. It was commanded by the admiral of Castile, and had on board, besides its complement of seamen, four thousand of the best troops of Spain. On the eleventh of July, Philip embarked, with his numerous retinue, in which, together with the Flemish Counts Egmont and Hoorne, were to be seen the dukes of Alva and Medina Cli, the prince of Eboli,--in short, the flower of the Castilian n.o.bility. They came attended by their wives and va.s.sals, minstrels and mummers, and a host of idle followers, to add to the splendor of the pageant and do honor to their royal master. Yet the Spanish amba.s.sador at London had expressly recommended to Philip that his courtiers should leave their ladies at home, and should come in as simple guise as possible, so as not to arouse the jealousy of the English.[95]

After a pleasant run of a few days, the Spanish squadron came in sight of the combined fleets of England and Flanders, under the command of the Lord Admiral Howard, who was cruising in the channel in order to meet the prince and convoy him to the English sh.o.r.e. The admiral seems to have been a blunt sort of man, who spoke his mind with more candor than courtesy. He greatly offended the Flemings by comparing their s.h.i.+ps to muscle-sh.e.l.ls.[96] He is even said to have fired a gun as he approached Philip's squadron, in order to compel it to lower its topsails in acknowledgment of the supremacy of the English in the "narrow seas." But this is probably the patriotic vaunt of an English writer, since it is scarcely possible that the haughty Spaniard of that day would have made such a concession, and still less so that the British commander would have been so discourteous as to exact it on this occasion.

On the nineteenth of July, the fleets came to anchor in the port of Southampton. A number of barges were soon seen pus.h.i.+ng off from the sh.o.r.e; one of which, protected by a rich awning and superbly lined with cloth of gold, was manned by sailors, whose dress of white and green intimated the royal livery. It was the queen's barge, intended for Philip; while the other boats, all gaily ornamented, received his n.o.bles and their retinues.

[Sidenote: PHILIP'S SPLENDID RECEPTION.]

The Spanish prince was welcomed, on landing, by a goodly company of English lords, a.s.sembled to pay him their obeisance. The earl of Arundel presented him, in the queen's name, with the splendid insignia of the order of the Garter.[97] Philip's dress, as usual, was of plain black velvet, with a berret cap, ornamented, after the fas.h.i.+on of the time, with gold chains. By Mary's orders, a spirited Andalusian jennet had been provided for him, which the prince instantly mounted. He was a good rider, and pleased the people by his courteous bearing, and the graceful manner in which he managed his horse.

The royal procession then moved forward to the ancient church of the Holy Rood, where ma.s.s was said, and thanks were offered up for their prosperous voyage. Philip, after this, repaired to the quarters a.s.signed to him during his stay in the town. They were sumptuously fitted up, and the walls of the princ.i.p.al apartment hung with arras, commemorating the doings of that royal polemic, Henry the Eighth. Among other inscriptions in honor of him might be seen one proclaiming him "Head of the Church,"

and "Defender of the Faith;"--words which, as they were probably in Latin, could not have been lost on the Spaniards.[98]

The news of Philip's landing was received in London with every demonstration of joy. Guns were fired, bells were rung, processions were made to the churches, bonfires were lighted in all the princ.i.p.al streets, tables were spread in the squares laden with good cheer, and wine and ale flowed freely as water for all comers.[99] In short, the city gave itself up to a general jubilee, as if it were celebrating some victorious monarch returned to his dominions, and not the man whose name had lately been the object of such general execration. Mary gave instant orders that the n.o.bles of her court should hold themselves in readiness to accompany her to Winchester, where she was to receive the prince; and on the twenty-first of July she made her entry, in great state, into that capital, and established her residence in the episcopal palace.

During the few days that Philip stayed at Southampton, he rode constantly abroad, and showed himself frequently to the people. The information he had received, before his voyage, of the state of public feeling, had suggested to him some natural apprehensions for his safety.

He seems to have resolved, from the first, therefore, to adopt such a condescending, and indeed affable demeanor, as would disarm the jealousy of the English, and if possible conciliate their good-will. In this he appears to have been very successful, although some of the more haughty of the aristocracy did take exception at his neglecting to raise his cap to them. That he should have imposed the degree of restraint which he seems to have done on the indulgence of his natural disposition, is good proof of the strength of his apprehensions.[100]

The favor which Philip showed the English gave umbrage to his own n.o.bles. They were still more disgusted by the rigid interpretation of one of the marriage articles, by which some hundreds of their attendants were prohibited, as foreigners, from landing, or, after landing, were compelled to reembark, and return to Spain.[101] Whenever Philip went abroad he was accompanied by Englishmen. He was served by Englishmen at his meals. He breakfasted and dined in public, a thing but little to his taste. He drank healths, after the manner of the English, and encouraged his Spanish followers to imitate his example, as he quaffed the strong ale of the country.[102]

On the twenty-third of the month, the earl of Pembroke arrived, with a brilliant company of two hundred mounted gentlemen, to escort the prince to Winchester. He was attended, moreover, by a body of English archers, whose tunics of yellow cloth, striped with bars of red velvet, displayed the gaudy-colored livery of the house of Aragon. The day was unpropitious. The rain fell heavily, in such torrents as might have cooled the enthusiasm of a more ardent lover than Philip. But he was too gallant a cavalier to be daunted by the elements. The distance, not great in itself, was to be travelled on horseback,--the usual mode of conveyance at a time when roads were scarcely practicable for carriages.

Philip and his retinue had not proceeded far, when they were encountered by a cavalier, riding at full speed, and bringing with him a ring which Mary had sent her lover, with the request that he would not expose himself to the weather, but postpone his departure to the following day.

The prince, not understanding the messenger, who spoke in English, and suspecting that it was intended by Mary to warn him of some danger in his path, instantly drew up by the road-side, and took counsel with Alva and Egmont as to what was to be done. One of the courtiers, who perceived his embarra.s.sment, rode up and acquainted the prince with the real purport of the message. Relieved of his alarm, Philip no longer hesitated, but, with his red felt cloak wrapped closely about him and a broad beaver slouched over his eyes, manfully pushed forward, in spite of the tempest.

As he advanced, his retinue received continual accessions from the neighboring gentry and yeomanry, until it amounted to some thousands before he reached Winchester. It was late in the afternoon when the cavalcade, soiled with travel and thoroughly drenched with rain, arrived before the gates of the city. The mayor and aldermen, dressed in their robes of scarlet, came to welcome the prince, and, presenting the keys of the city, conducted him to his quarters.

That evening Philip had his first interview with Mary. It was private, and he was taken to her residence by the chancellor, Gardiner, bishop of Winchester. The royal pair pa.s.sed an hour or more together; and, as Mary spoke the Castilian fluently, the interview must have been spared much of the embarra.s.sment that would otherwise have attended it.[103]

[Sidenote: MARRIAGE OF PHILIP AND MARY.]

On the following day the parties met in public. Philip was attended by the princ.i.p.al persons of his suite, of both s.e.xes; and as the procession, making a goodly show, pa.s.sed through the streets on foot, the minstrelsy played before them till they reached the royal residence.

The reception-room was the great hall of the palace. Mary, stepping forward to receive her betrothed, saluted him with a loving kiss before all the company. She then conducted him to a sort of throne, where she took her seat by his side, under a stately canopy. They remained there for an hour or more, conversing together, while their courtiers had leisure to become acquainted with one another, and to find ample food, doubtless, for future criticism, in the peculiarities of national costume and manners. Notwithstanding the Spanish blood in Mary's veins, the higher circles of Spain and England had personally almost as little intercourse with one another at that period, as England and j.a.pan have at the present.

The ensuing day, the festival of St. James, the patron saint of Spain, was the one appointed for the marriage. Philip exchanged his usual simple dress for the bridal vestments provided for him by his mistress.

They were of spotless white, as the reporter is careful to inform us, satin and cloth of gold, thickly powdered with pearls and precious stones. Round his neck he wore the superb collar of the Golden Fleece, the famous Burgundian order; while the brilliant riband below his knee served as the badge of the no less ill.u.s.trious order of the Garter. He went on foot to the cathedral, attended by all his n.o.bles, vying with one another in the ostentatious splendor of their retinues.

Half an hour elapsed before Philip was joined by the queen at the entrance of the cathedral. Mary was surrounded by the lords and ladies of her court. Her dress, of white satin and cloth of gold, like his own, was studded and fringed with diamonds of inestimable price, some of them, doubtless, the gift of Philip, which he had sent to her by the hands of the prince of Eboli, soon after his landing. Her bright-red slippers, and her mantle of black velvet, formed a contrast to the rest of her apparel, and, for a bridal costume, would hardly suit the taste of the present day. The royal party then moved up the nave of the cathedral, and were received in the choir by the bishop of Winchester, supported by the great prelates of the English Church. The greatest of all, Cranmer, the primate of all England, who should have performed the ceremony, was absent,--in disgrace and a prisoner.

Philip and Mary took their seats under a royal canopy, with an altar between them. The queen was surrounded by the ladies of her court; whose beauty, says an Italian writer, acquired additional l.u.s.tre by contrast with the shadowy complexions of the south.[104] The aisles and s.p.a.cious galleries were crowded with spectators of every degree, drawn together from the most distant quarters to witness the ceremony.

The silence was broken by Figueroa, one of the imperial council, who read aloud an instrument of the emperor, Charles the Fifth. It stated that this marriage had been of his own seeking; and he was desirous that his beloved son should enter into it in a manner suitable to his own expectations and the dignity of his ill.u.s.trious consort. He therefore resigned to him his entire right and sovereignty over the kingdom of Naples and the duchy of Milan. The rank of the parties would thus be equal, and Mary, instead of giving her hand to a subject, would wed a sovereign like herself.

Some embarra.s.sment occurred as to the person who should give the queen away,--a part of the ceremony not provided for. After a brief conference, it was removed by the marquis of Winchester and the earls of Pembroke and Derby, who took it on themselves to give her away in the name of the whole realm; at which the mult.i.tude raised a shout that made the old walls of the cathedral ring again. The marriage service was then concluded by the bishop of Winchester. Philip and Mary resumed their seats, and ma.s.s was performed, when the bridegroom, rising, gave his consort the "kiss of peace," according to the custom of the time. The whole ceremony occupied nearly four hours. At the close of it Philip, taking Mary by the hand, led her from the church. The royal couple were followed by the long train of prelates and n.o.bles, and were preceded by the earls of Pembroke and Derby, each bearing aloft a naked sword, the symbol of sovereignty. The effect of the spectacle was heightened by the various costumes of the two nations,--the richly-tinted and picturesque dresses of the Spaniards, and the solid magnificence of the English and Flemings, mingling together in gay confusion. The glittering procession moved slowly on, to the blithe sounds of festal music, while the air was rent with the loyal acclamations of the populace, delighted, as usual, with the splendor of the pageant.

In the great hall of the episcopal palace, a sumptuous banquet was prepared for the whole company. At one end of the apartment was a dais, on which, under a superb canopy, a table was set for the king and queen; and a third seat was added for Bishop Gardiner, the only one of the great lords who was admitted to the distinction of dining with royalty.

Below the dais, the tables were set on either side through the whole length of the hall, for the English and Spanish n.o.bles, all arranged--a perilous point of etiquette--with due regard to their relative rank. The royal table was covered with dishes of gold. A s.p.a.cious beaufet, rising to the height of eight stages, or shelves, and filled with a profusion of gold and silver vessels, somewhat ostentatiously displayed the magnificence of the prelate, or of his sovereign. Yet this ostentation was rather Spanish than English; and was one of the forms in which the Castilian grandee loved to display his opulence.[105]

At the bottom of the hall was an orchestra, occupied by a band of excellent performers, who enlivened the repast by their music. But the most interesting part of the show was that of the Winchester boys, some of whom were permitted to enter the presence, and recite in Latin their epithalamiums in honor of the royal nuptials, for which they received a handsome guerdon from the queen.

[Sidenote: ROYAL ENTERTAINMENTS.]

After the banquet came the ball, at which, if we are to take an old English authority, "the Spaniards were greatly out of countenance when they saw the English so far excel them."[106] This seems somewhat strange, considering that dancing is, and always has been, the national pastime of Spain. Dancing is to the Spaniard what music is to the Italian,--the very condition of his social existence.[107] It did not continue late on the present occasion, and, at the temperate hour of nine, the bridal festivities closed for the evening.[108]

Philip and Mary pa.s.sed a few days in this merry way of life, at Winchester, whence they removed, with their court, to Windsor. Here a chapter of the order of the Garter was held, for the purpose of installing King Philip. The herald, on this occasion, ventured to take down the arms of England, and subst.i.tute those of Spain, in honor of the new sovereign,--an act of deference which roused the indignation of the English lords, who straightway compelled the functionary to restore the national escutcheon to its proper place.[109]

On the twenty-eighth of August, Philip and Mary made their public entry into London. They rode in on horseback, pa.s.sing through the borough of Southwark, across London Bridge. Every preparation was made by the loyal citizens to give them a suitable reception. The columns of the buildings were festooned with flowers, triumphal arches spanned the streets, the walls were hung with pictures or emblazoned with legends in commemoration of the ill.u.s.trious pair, and a genealogy was traced for Philip, setting forth his descent from John of Gaunt,--making him out, in short, as much of an Englishman as possible.

Among the paintings was one in which Henry the Eighth was seen holding in his hand a Bible. This device gave great scandal to the chancellor, Gardiner, who called the painter sundry hard names, rating him roundly for putting into King Harry's hand the sacred volume, which should rather have been given to his daughter, Queen Mary, for her zeal to restore the primitive wors.h.i.+p of the Church. The unlucky artist lost no time in repairing his error by brus.h.i.+ng out the offending volume, and did it so effectually, that he brushed out the royal fingers with it, leaving the old monarch's mutilated stump held up, like some poor mendicant's, to excite the compa.s.sion of the spectators.[110]

But the sight which, more than all these pageants, gave joy to the hearts of the Londoners, was an immense quant.i.ty of bullion, which Philip caused to be paraded through the city on its way to the Tower, where it was deposited in the royal treasury. The quant.i.ty was said to be so great, that, on one occasion, the chests containing it filled twenty carts. On another, two wagons were so heavily laden with the precious metal as to require to be drawn by nearly a hundred horses.[111] The good people, who had looked to the coming of the Spaniards as that of a swarm of locusts which was to consume their substance, were greatly pleased to see their exhausted coffers so well replenished from the American mines.

From London the royal pair proceeded to the shady solitudes of Hampton Court, and Philip, weary of the mummeries in which he had been compelled to take part, availed himself of the indisposition of his wife to indulge in that retirement and repose which were more congenial to his taste. This way of life in his pleasant retreat, however, does not appear to have been so well suited to the taste of his English subjects.