So long as Prince Baltasar lived Philip resisted all pressure that he should take another wife. The spring and summer were spent in Aragon, in the now almost despairing attempt to win back his dominions from the French. Approaches for his own marriage were made by various interests, but always gently put aside with a reference to his hopes being now centred in his son, whom he kept at his side and instructed him in the business of government. With a wretched lack of material resources his attempts to recover Catalonia were fruitless. One defeat followed another with wearisome reiteration, and as disaster deepened Philip became more moody and devout; his one adviser and confidant being the nun of Agreda, and his one resource agonised prayer. When his boy fell ill in May 1646, at Pamplona in Navarre, on his way to the seat of war, Philip’s invocations to heaven for his safety were almost terrible in their intensity.^[233] The lad recovered; and when he arrived with his father at Saragossa in July, the imperial ambassadors were awaiting them to offer in marriage to the heir of Spain his first cousin, the Archduchess Mariana of Austria, the daughter of the Emperor.

Philip could look nowhere else for an alliance. France was his deadly enemy, though it was governed by his sister Anna as regent, and a further marriage experiment in that direction was out of the question at present, even if there had been an available French princess.^[234] The Emperor and Spain, on the other hand, had been—to Spain’s ruin—fighting shoulder to shoulder throughout the whole of the thirty years’ war, now dragging to its conclusion, and the treaty was promptly signed for the marriage of Baltasar, aged seventeen, with Mariana of Austria, three years younger. With regard to their betrothal, Philip wrote to the nun thus: ‘My sister, the Empress, having died, I consider it advisable to draw closer the ties between the Emperor and ourselves in this way, my principal aim being the exaltation of the faith; for it is certain that the more intimate the two branches of our house are, so much the firmer will religion stand throughout Christendom.’

Only two months later, early in October, the blow fell, and the prince died of smallpox. Whilst he lay ill the distracted father wrote frantically to his correspondent, crying for God’s mercy to save him from this last trial. But when the boy had died the King’s letters assumed a tone of dull despair. God had not heard his prayers, and he supposed it was for the best. He had done everything to dedicate this grief to God; but his heart was pierced, and he knew not whether he lived or dreamed. He was resigned, he said, but feared his constancy, and so on; each phrase revealing a heart that almost doubted the efficacy of prayer, and the goodness of the Almighty.^[235]

Thenceforward, for a time, his conduct changed. He had done his best and had not spared himself. He had prayed night and day, and had fashioned his life according to monastic counsels. But defeat, trouble, poverty and bereavement had fallen upon him in spite of all, and Philip, in the intervals of his poignant contrition, plunged into dissolute excesses that shocked and scandalised the devotees about him. Philip was forty-two, about the age when some of his forbears had developed that strain of mystic devotion that so nearly borders madness. He had no male heir, and only one tiny daughter of eight, and his troubles and excesses had prematurely aged him. All Spain demanded of him a man child to succeed to his greatness; and the remonstrances of the churchmen and the nuns at the scandal of his life were reinforced by the Emperor’s ambassadors, who urged that he should marry the girl-niece who had been betrothed to his dead son.

And so history repeated itself; and, as in the case of his grandfather, Philip II., the King accepted for his wife the Austrian princess who had been destined for his daughter-in-law. Of his many illegitimate children he had only legitimised one, Don Juan JosÉ of Austria, the son of the actress Maria Calderon. He was brilliant and handsome, and had won his father’s regard; but he could never be King of Spain; and Philip, with little enthusiasm, wedded an immature girl for the sake of giving an heir to his country, and for the maintenance of the solidarity of the house of Austria, which typified the old impossible claim of Spain to dictate the religion of the world. It was a disastrous resolve, which ensured the consummation of ruin to the country and the cause which it was intended to benefit.

Philip was straining every nerve against the French in Catalonia and Flanders; he was, to the extent of his ability, attacking the Portuguese on the eastern frontier; and his kingdom of Naples was in full revolt. The long war had exhausted him, as it had exhausted all Europe: he had, to his own destruction, fought the battles of religion in central Europe by the side of the Emperor for many years; and his new marriage was intended to fasten the Emperor to him in the cause of Spain. The powerlessness of marriage bonds to resist political forces was once more proved before Philip saw his bride. The Treaty of Westphalia (October 1648) was finally signed, and Spain, which had suffered most in the war, sacrificed most in the peace. The religious question in Germany was settled for good, and the dream of Charles v. was finally dissipated: the independence of Holland, the point which had dragged Spain down and kept her at war for nearly a hundred years, was recognised at last, out of sheer impotence for further struggle by Philip. Alsace went to France, and Pomerania to Sweden: the central European powers were satisfied: there was nothing more for the Emperor to fight for, and Spain was left face to face alone with her enemy France, and without the imperial co-operation for which Philip had paid so dear.

With ceremonies and pomp which would be tedious to relate the young princess left Vienna on the 13th November 1648, travelling slowly by coach with her brother, the King of Hungary, towards Trent, where the representatives of Philip were to take charge of the new Queen. Endless festivities were held at Trent and the Italian cities,^[236] and simultaneously in Madrid. Illuminated streets, bullfights, and palace-revels, which Philip attended with dull hopeless face and heavy heart, celebrated the announcement of the nuptials, coinciding in time with the rejoicings for the recovery of Naples by the diplomacy of young Don Juan of Austria, Philip’s son, in the winter of 1648. But it was well into the autumn (4th September) of 1649 before the bride and her Spanish household of one hundred and sixty nobles at length landed at Denia in the kingdom of Valencia.

At Navalcarnero, a small village some fifteen miles from Madrid, the great cavalcade arrived on the 6th October 1649; and there it was arranged that Philip should first meet his bride.^[237] For months he had been writing by every post to the nun, deploring and repenting his inability to resist the temptations of the flesh, and ascribing to his sins the wars, pestilence and misery that were scourging his beloved people. With such qualms of conscience as this it must have been welcome to him—weary voluptuary though he was—to enter into a licit union, which, at least, might rescue him from temptation. Disguised, he watched his bride enter Navalcarnero, and then went to lodge in another village before paying his formal visit to her a day afterwards. Mariana was just fifteen, a strong, passionate, full-blooded girl with a hard heart. On her way from Denia the mistress of the robes, the Countess of Medillin, had gravely remonstrated with her for laughing at the buffoons, who sought to amuse her, and had schooled her in the etiquette that forbade a Queen of Spain to walk in public. But Mariana made light of such prudery, and in the insolence of her gaiety and youth went her own way, laughing her fill at the comedy played before her at Navalcarnero, to while away the time until supper.

The King and Queen met for the first time in the little oratory where their marriage was to be confirmed by the Archbishop of Toledo, and then, after more comedies and bullfights, the royal pair proceeded to the Escorial, lit up for the occasion by 11,000 lights, to pass the first days of their honeymoon. From the Retiro on the 15th November Mariana made her state entry into Madrid. The capital surpassed itself in its signs of rejoicing, for Philip was extremely popular and his subjects yearned for an heir to the throne. We are told that the whole distance from the Retiro to the old palace, from one end of Madrid to the other, the way was spanned by arches of flowers, whilst monumental erections with devices of welcome were placed at each principal point.^[238] The Queen rode a snow-white palfrey; and as she smiled her frank gratified smile to the lieges they welcomed her for her rosy, painted cheeks and red pouting lips, knowing little the cold selfish heart that beat beneath the buxom bosom.

Philip was too busy for weeks in the delights of his honeymoon to write to his confidante the nun, presumably also because the sins he so deeply deplored, and so constantly repeated, did not tempt him during the first weeks of his married life. But when, on the 17th November, he found time to write, he expresses the utmost satisfaction at his bride. ‘I confess to you,’ he says, ‘that I know not how I can thank our Lord sufficiently for the mercy he has shown to me in giving me such a companion; for all the qualities I have hitherto recognised in my niece are great, and I find myself exceedingly content, and full of a desire to prove myself not ungrateful for so singular a mercy by changing my mode of life and submitting myself in all things to His will.’^[239] The nun in answer to this urged the King to live well in his new condition, ‘trying earnestly that the Queen shall have all your attention and regard, instead of your Majesty casting your eyes on other objects strange and curious.’ All Spain, the nun continues, is yearning for an heir, and her own prayers are ceaseless to that end.

Philip was full of good resolves. He would never go astray again; but, though he was as anxious for a son as his people were, he was in doubt yet as to his new wife’s having arrived at sufficient maturity to have children: ‘although others of her age, which is fifteen years, can do so. But it is easy for our Lord to remedy this, and I hope in His mercy that He will do it.’^[240] In the meanwhile, the depositary of all these hopes, Mariana, was diverting herself as best she could in girlish romps with her stepdaughter of ten, who seems to have been her constant companion. Philip, in writing of them, generally speaks of them as ‘the girls,’ and frequently mentions Mariana’s joy at shows and gaiety. Once more the Buen Retiro rang with light laughter. Comedies and masquerades were again the constant diversion of the Court, though pestilence was scourging the land, Catalonia and Portugal defied the arms of Spain, and the French in Flanders still held the armies of Philip at bay. Pleasure, the joy of living, absorbed the young Queen’s attention; and after the first few months of marriage, Philip usually refers to her somewhat wearily, and only with reference to her enjoyments or to his hopes of progeny. After one disappointment a child was born in July 1651, a girl, who was christened with the usual unrestrained splendour by the name of Maria Margaret.^[241] Again high hopes were entertained in due time, only to be disappointed, and Mariana fell into melancholy; for Philip had relapsed into his bad habits again, notwithstanding his vows and resolves, and the delay in the coming of a son increased his coldness towards his wife. A frenzied round of gaiety at the Buen Retiro did something to arouse the Queen out of her depression,^[242] but Philip had now but little pleasure in his old love for glittering shows; for the prayed for son came not, and war and pestilence still scourged Spain, as he firmly believed for his own personal backsliding.

The life of the palace had settled down to utter monotony. Philip, immersed in business; ‘with his pen always in his hand,’ as he says, had little time for frivolity. His demeanour in public was like that of a statue, and when he received ministers or deputations it was noticed that no muscle of his face moved but his lips. Every movement was settled beforehand; and it was possible to foretell a year in advance exactly where the Court would be on a given day, and what the King would be doing at a certain hour. Mariana lived in her own way, with little show of affection for her elderly husband, or for the people amongst whom she lived. She had fallen by this time (1657) into the stiff etiquette of the Spanish Court, and in the intervals of her hoydenish merriment she displayed a haughtiness as great as that of Philip himself without his underlying tenderness or his pathetic resignation. She was German in all her sympathies, and soon lost the love of Spaniards that had been gained by the freshness of her youth.^[243] Dressed in the tremendous triple-hooped farthingale; with her stiff, squarely arranged wig, and her full painted cheeks, she presented a sufficiently dignified appearance in public; but her flat, unamiable face, hard, weary eyes, and bulging jaw, gave her a look which repelled rather than attracted.

The outward prudery of her Court barely veiled a state of atrocious immorality amongst all classes. It was considered almost a reproach for any of the ladies, all widows or unmarried, who were attached to the palace service by hundreds, to have no extravagant gallant ready to ruin himself for her caprices; and, as a natural consequence, assassination was rife in the capital; and the news letters of the time are full of scandalous stories, in which nobles, ladies and actresses are concerned disgracefully. Corruption reigned more impudently than ever, and whilst ships were rotting on the beach, and unpaid soldiers were starving in the midst of war, vast sums were spent on foolish shows and revelry. Philip now had little pleasure in it all, going through it like a leaden automaton, only to torture himself with remorse afterwards, but withal, habit or mere weakness led him to allow such scandals as the imposition of a tax upon oil to pay for the new stage at the Buen Retiro, and the robbing of the shrine of the venerated Virgin of Atocha of a great silver chandelier for the illumination of the theatre.^[244]

In September 1654 it was announced that Mariana was again pregnant. ‘God grant that it may be so,’ wrote a courtier: ‘but if it is going to be a girl it is of no use to us. We do not want any of them. There are plenty of women already.’^[245] The King’s hopes rose that a son would at last be born to him, and Mariana insisted upon accompanying him everywhere; for in the intervals of her merrymaking she was a prey to deep melancholy, increased when a girl infant was born only to die a few days afterwards. The prognostications of astrologers and quacks decided in the summer of 1655 that the prayed for son was now really on the way; and as time went on unheard of preparations were made for the event. The Marquis of Heliche had twenty-two new comedies written ready for representation in the coming festivities, and large sums of money were spent in decorations beforehand. Mariana’s lightest caprice was law, and Philip hardly left her side. The old palace depressed her, and the Buen Retiro became her permanent abode; Don Juan of Austria sent from Flanders the most wonderful tapestries, and bed and bed furniture ever seen, with a vast bedstead of gilt bronze which cost a fortune; the bedroom furniture being a mass of seed pearl and gold embroidery upon satin. ‘There is no getting the Queen out of the Retiro, for she frets in the palace. She passes the mornings amongst her flowers, the days in feastings, and the nights in farces. All this goes on incessantly, and I do not know how so much pleasure does not pall upon her.’^[246] But again the prophets were wrong, for in December another epileptic girl child was born and died: ‘Saint Gaetano notwithstanding.’^[247]

Mariana fell gravely ill after this, and a slight stroke of paralysis, amongst other ailments, kept her for many weeks hovering between life and death. Philip did his best to raise her spirits, and when the Cortes petitioned him to have his elder daughter Maria Theresa acknowledged as heiress, he refused, in order not to distress his wife, who, he said, would be sure to have an heir directly. His letters to the nun show that he, at this period, was himself in the depths of black despair, overborne by his troubles; for Cromwell had seized Jamaica, and Spain was at war by sea and land with England and France together. Whilst Philip was gratifying his young wife by such entertainments as looking on from concealed boxes in a theatre crowded with women, whilst a hundred rats were surreptitiously let loose upon the floor;^[248] he was a prey to a morbid misery closely akin to madness, anticipating an early death, weeping for the utter ruin that enveloped him and Spain, and the absence of a male heir.

One of his strange whims at this time was to pass hours alone in the new jasper mausoleum at the Escorial, to which the bodies of his ancestors had just been transferred. He wrote after one of these visits in 1654:—‘I saw the corpse of the Emperor whose body, although he has been dead ninety-six years, is still perfect, and by this is seen how the Lord has repaid him for his efforts in favour of the faith whilst he lived. It helped me much: particularly as I contemplated the place where I am to lie, when God shall take me. I prayed Him not to let me forget what I saw there;’^[249] and shortly after this another contemporary records that the King passed two solitary hours on his knees on the bare stones of the mausoleum before his own last resting-place in prayer; and that when he came out his eyes were red and swollen with weeping.^[250]

Again, in August 1656, a girl child was born to Mariana only to die the same day, and then depression, utter and profound, fell upon Philip and his wife, for no ray of light came from any direction. There was no money for the most ordinary needs. The Indian treasures were regularly captured by the English, who closely invested Cadiz itself, whilst the French on the Flanders frontier and in Catalonia worked their will almost without impeachment, and the Portuguese defied their old sovereign. Philip was ready to make peace almost at any sacrifice, at least with the French; but the demands of Mazarin were as yet too humiliating for a power which had claimed for so long the predominance in Europe. At length, in the midst of the distress, hope dawned once more, and again the wiseacres predicted that this time the Queen would give birth to a son. Mariana’s every fancy was gratified.^[251] Water parties on the lake at the Retiro, endless farces, as usual, capricious bull feasts, and diversions of all sorts, kept up her spirits; and Don Juan sent another sumptuous bed and furniture more splendid than the previous gift. Whilst this waste was going on in one direction, taxes were being piled up in a way that made them unproductive, and such was the penury in the King’s palace that Philip himself, on the vigil of the Presentation of the Virgin (20th November 1657), had nothing to eat but eggs without fish, as his stewards had not a real of ready money to pay for anything (Barrionuevo). Exactly a week after the King was reduced to such straits, the child of his prayers arrived. An heir was born at last to the weary man of fifty-two, whose crown was crushing him.

Madrid as usual went crazy with turbulent rejoicing, whilst Mariana in the gravest danger battled for her life. Every bench and table in the palace, we are told, was broken, and no eating house or tavern in the town escaped sacking by the crowd of idle rogues who marched with music and singing, whilst they stripped decent people even of their garments to pay for their orgy.^[252] Later, there were the usual bull fights, masquerades, and the eternal comedies with new stage effects; and not a noble in Castile failed to go and congratulate the King. Astrologists were to the fore, as usual, foretelling by the stars that the newly born babe would grow up to be wise, prudent and brave, and would outlive all his brothers and sisters in a prosperous fortunate career. The proud father was full of gratitude to the Most High for the signal favour conferred upon him. ‘Help me, Sor Maria,’ he wrote to the nun, ‘to give thanks to Him; for I myself am unable to do so adequately: and pray Him to make me duly grateful, and give me strength henceforward to do His holy will. The new-born child is well, and I implore you take him under your protection, and pray to our Lord and His holy mother to keep him for their service, the exaltation of the faith and the good of these realms. And if this is not to be, then pray let him be taken from me before he comes to man’s estate.’^[253]

Philip, like his courtiers, went into rhapsodies of admiration of the beauty and perfection of the infant that had been born to him. So fair an angel surely never had been seen than this poor epileptic morsel of humanity from whom so pathetically much was expected. On the 6th December Philip rode in State on a great Neapolitan horse through the streets of Madrid, to give thanks to the Virgin of Atocha for the boon vouchsafed to him, and the capital began its round of official rejoicings. Fountains ran wine, music and dancing went on night and day, mummers in strange disguise promenaded the streets in procession, bullfights and the usual tiresome buffoonery testified that Madrid shared with the King his delight that an heir had been born to him.^[254] Philip himself was in high good humour, bandying jests with his favourite, Don Luis de Haro; and, at the brilliant ceremony of the christening of Prince Philip Prosper, a week later, which he witnessed hidden behind the closed jalousies of his pew, he was proudly pleased at the vigorous squalls of the infant. ‘Ah!’ he whispered to Haro, ‘that’s what I like to hear, there is something manly in that.’^[255] It was fortunate for Philip that he could not foresee that this babe for whom he had prayed so fervently would be snatched from him four years later, stricken by the calamity of its descent; and that the later child that would succeed him, the offspring of incest too, would end the line of the great Emperor in decrepit imbecility, matching sadly with the decadence of his country.

Whilst the continued and costly celebrations of the Queen’s tardy recovery after the birth of her sickly child were scandalising the thoughtful, national affairs were going from bad to worse.^[256] Don Luis de Haro, Philip’s prime minister, had started in January 1658 to relieve Badajoz, closely invested by the masculine Queen of Portugal, herself a Spaniard, and had been disgracefully routed by the despised Portuguese. This was a humiliation that proved to the world the complete impotence of Spain: but in June of the same year a more damaging blow still was dealt at the power that had held its head so high in the past. The battle of the Dunes, or Dunkirk, in which Don Juan, CondÉ and the Duke of York on the Spanish side were pitted against Turenne, aided by the troops of Cromwell, was a crushing defeat for Philip’s forces, and placed all Flanders at the mercy of the French. It was clear that Philip could fight no longer, for Spain had well nigh bled to death; and so great was the depopulation of Castile that a project was adopted—though not carried out for lack of money—to re-people the country with Irish and Dalmatian Catholics.

There were other circumstances that tended towards peace besides the exhaustion of Spain. The long years of war had told heavily upon the resources of France: the Catalans by this time had grown heartily tired of their French king Stork, and were yearning for the return of their Spanish king Log; and, above all, Mazarin had long cast covetous eyes on the Spanish succession, in the very probable case of Philip’s issue by his second wife failing. For years the Queen-regent, Anna of Austria, had been striving for peace with her brother, but circumstances and national pride had always defeated her. The efforts of the Emperor’s agents in Madrid, aided very powerfully by Mariana, had also been exerted to prevent a close agreement between France and Spain. In 1656 M. de Lionne had been sent secretly by Mazarin to Madrid, where he passed many months in close conference with Luis de Haro, endeavouring, but without success, to negotiate peace.

In one of their meetings Haro wore in his hat, as an ornament, a medal impressed with the portrait of the Infanta Maria Theresa, Philip’s daughter by his first wife. ‘If your King would give to my master for a wife the original of the portrait you wear,’ said Lionne, duly instructed by Mazarin, ‘peace would soon be made.’ Nothing more was said at the time, for, in the absence of a son, Philip dared not marry the heiress of Spain to his nephew Louis XIV., but when an heir was born to Mariana, the idea of a marriage between Maria Theresa and Louis XIV. at once became realisable. The Austrian interest still stood in the way; and Mariana, who was as purely an ambassador for her brother as his accredited diplomatic representative was, used all her efforts to frustrate the plan; and a marriage was actively advocated by her between the Infanta and Leopold, the heir of the empire. Philip for a long time allowed himself to incline to the Austrian connection that had already cost him so dear.

As soon as the French match looked promising, as a result of much secret intrigue between Mazarin and Haro, the Emperor offered to Philip a great army in Flanders to aid in expelling the French; and when Philip was hesitating between the persuasions of his wife Mariana, and her kinsmen on the one hand, and the pressure of poverty on the other, which made a continuance of the war difficult for him, Mazarin played a trump card which won the game. Louis was taken ostentatiously to Lyons to woo the Princess of Savoy; and, in fear of a coalition against Spain, Philip sent his minister Haro to negotiate peace with Mazarin personally on the banks of the Bidasoa. During all the autumn of 1659, on the historic Isle of Pheasants in the river, the keen diplomatists fought over details; and often their labours seemed hopeless, for the Spaniards were as proud as ever and the French as greedy. But the frail health of the puling babe, who alone stood between the Infanta and the Spanish succession, at length made Mazarin more yielding: the last great obstacle, the restoration of CondÉ’s forfeited estates, was overcome, and one of the most fateful treaties in history was settled.

It was still a bitter pill for Spain, for she lost much of her Flemish territory and the county of Roussillon; but, at least, she regained Catalonia, and, above all, secured peace with France. The Infanta was to marry Louis XIV., and the Spaniards insisted that she should renounce for ever her claim to the succession of her father’s crown, though Mazarin made the clause ineffective by stipulating that the renunciation should be conditional upon the entire payment of the dowry of 500,000 crowns, which, it was more than probable, Philip could never pay.^[257] In the meanwhile Mariana had borne another son, who died in his early infancy; and at the pompous embassy of the Duke de Grammont to Madrid, formally to ask for the hand of the Infanta, she took little pains to appear amiable to an embassy which she looked upon as bringing a defeat for her and her family.

A vivid picture of her and her husband at one of the great representations at the theatre of the old palace is given by a follower of Grammont, who wrote an account of the embassy.^[258] ‘The great saloon,’ he says, ‘was lit only by six great wax candles in gigantic stands of silver. On both sides of the saloon, facing each other, there are two boxes or tribunes with iron grilles. One of these was occupied by the Infantas and some of the courtiers, whilst the other was destined for the Marshal (Grammont). Two benches covered with Persian rugs ran along the sides facing each other, and upon these some twelve of the ladies of the court sat, whilst we Frenchmen stood behind them.... Then the Queen and the little Infanta entered, preceded by a lady holding a candle. When the King appeared he saluted the ladies, and took his seat in the box on the right hand of the Queen, whilst the little Infanta sat on her left. The King remained motionless during the whole of the play, and only once said a word to the Queen, although he occasionally cast his eyes round on every side. A dwarf was standing close by him. When the play was finished all the ladies rose and gathered in the middle, as canons do after service. They then joined hands, and made their courtesies, a ceremony that lasted seven or eight minutes; for each lady made her courtesy separately. In the meanwhile the King was standing, and he then bowed to the Queen, who in her turn bowed to the Infanta, after which they all joined hands and retired.’

In April 1660 Philip bade farewell to Mariana and set forth on this famous journey to the French frontier, to ratify the peace of the Pyrenees with his sister Anna of Austria, whom he had not seen since their early youth more than forty years before, and to give his daughter in marriage to the young King of France. Philip, for the sake of economy, had ordered that as small a train as possible should accompany him; but, withal, so enormous was his following and that of his nobles,^[259] with the huge stores of provisions and baggage, that his cavalcade covered over twenty miles of road. Slowly winding its way at the rate of only about six miles a day through the ruined land, greeted by the poor hollow-eyed peasants that were left with tearful joy, because it meant peace, the King’s procession at last arrived at the seat of so many royal pageants, the banks of the Bidasoa, early in June. Upon the tiny eyot in mid-river, the temporary palace that in the previous year had been the meeting-place of Haro and Mazarin, still remained intact; and here the sumptuous ceremony was performed that gave to Louis XIV. the custody of his future wife, Maria Theresa.^[260]

What all the courtiers wore, and how they looked, is described ad nauseam by French and Spanish spectators; but the greatest man in all the host, upon the Spanish side at least, was the King’s quartermaster, whose exquisite taste and knowledge directed the artistic details of the pageant, Diego de Silva Velazquez, whose garments may be described as a specimen of the rest. His dress was of dark material, entirely covered by close Milanese silver embroidery, and he wore around his neck the golilla that had replaced the ruff, at the instance of Philip many years before, to save the waste of starching.^[261] Upon his cloak was embroidered the great red floreated swordlike cross of Santiago, and at his side he wore a sword in a finely wrought silver scabbard; whilst around his neck there hung a heavy gold chain from which depended a small diamond scutcheon with the same cross enamelled in red upon it.^[262]

The restoration of the Stuarts in England soon after the ratification of the Treaty of the Pyrenees, made a peace easy of negotiation between their country and Spain, and by the beginning of 1661, Philip found himself for the first time in a reign of forty years at peace with all the powers outside the Peninsula.

But rebellious Portugal had still to be reconquered. Again disaster befell the Spaniards. Don Juan, the King’s son, was utterly routed at Amegial after some partial successes; for Mariana had been busily intriguing against him, and had caused the reinforcement and resources he asked for to be denied him.

Whilst Don Juan was struggling against the Portuguese and their English abettors with inadequate forces and ineffectual heroism, Philip was sinking deeper into the morbid devotional misery that afflicted in their decline so many of his race. His only son, Philip Prosper, after a life of four years of almost constant sickness, was snatched from him early in November 1661, as a younger boy had been a year previously. The bereaved father, who had watched over his son’s bed until the last, nearly lost heart at this heavy blow; and was so much overcome, as he confesses, as to be unable even to write for a time to his one refuge, the nun of Agreda. When he did so, the usual self-accusing cry of agony went up—‘I assure you,’ he wrote, ‘what troubles me most, much more even than my loss, is to see clearly that I have offended God, and that He sends all these sorrows as a punishment for my sins. I only wish I knew how to amend myself and comply entirely with His holy will. I am doing, and will do, all I can; for I would rather lose my life than fail to do it. Help me, as a good friend, with your prayers, to placate the righteous anger of God, and to implore our Lord, who has seen good to take away my son, to bless the delivery of the Queen, which is expected every day, and to keep her in perfect health and the child that is to be born, if it be for his good service, for otherwise I desire it not. The Queen has borne this last blow with much sorrow but christian resignation. I am not surprised at this, for she is an angel, Oh! Sor Maria: if I had only carried out your doctrines, perhaps I should not find myself in this state.’^[263]

A few days after this was written, Mariana once more bore a son, a weak, puling infant, that seemed threatened with an early death; but whose birth threw Spain into a whirlwind of rejoicing as extravagant as any that had gone before. But Philip was sunk too deep now into despondency, by witchcraft the people said, to be aroused much, even by the birth of a son; and, as the shadows fell around him, the power of Mariana grew. With her clever German Jesuit confessor and confidant, Father Everard Nithard, she soon managed to drag the unhappy King again into the vortex of imperial politics, that had already well-nigh wrecked Spain, by persuading him to maintain an army to aid Austria and Hungary against the incursions of the Turk. Mazarin had died soon after the peace of the Pyrenees, and the new advisers of Louis XIV. were already inciting him to retaliate for the Austrian rapprochement with Spain by fresh aggression upon Spanish Flanders. Don Juan, bitterly opposed to the new German interest in Spain, retired to his town of Consuegra in disgust and disgrace; the French and English governments assumed a tone of dictatorial haughtiness towards Spain unheard before; and Philip, in declining health and bitter disappointment, could look nowhere now for help and solace: for his minister Haro was dead, and the saintly nun of Agreda, his refuge for so many years, also went to her rest in the spring of 1665. There was no one now at Philip’s side but Mariana, already intriguing for uncontrolled power when her husband should die, and her German confessor Nithard, whose one aim was to use what was left of Spanish resources for the ends of Austria.

Others also were on the alert as to what would happen when Philip died, and Sir Richard Fanshawe was sent to Madrid by Charles II., partly to negotiate for the recognition of Portuguese independence; and also: ‘to employ his utmost skill and industry in penetrating and discovering under what model and form his Catholic Majesty designs to leave the government there, when it shall please God that he die, which, considering his great infirmity and weakness, may be presumed is already projected.’^[264] When Philip first received Fanshawe in June 1664, he was so weak and weary that he could only ask him to put his speech on paper,^[265] and thenceforward all Europe regarded the King as a dying man, whose work in the world was done.

As Philip sank lower in despondency, the importance of Mariana rose. Lady Fanshawe gives an account of her interview with the Queen on the 27th June 1664, at the Buen Retiro, which shows that Mariana was already regarded almost as the reigning sovereign: ‘I was received at the Buen Retiro by the guard, and afterwards, when I came up stairs, by the Marquesa de Hinojosa, the Queen’s Camarera Mayor, then in waiting. Through an infinite number of people I passed to the Queen’s presence, where her Majesty was seated at the upper end under a cloth of state upon three cushions, and on her left hand the Empress^[266] upon three more. The ladies were all standing. After making my last reverence to the Queen, her Majesty and the Empress, rising up and making me a little curtsey, sat down again; then I, by my interpreter, Sir Benjamin Wright, said those compliments that were due from me to her Majesty; to which her Majesty made me gracious and kind reply. Then I presented my children, whom her Majesty received with great grace and favour. Then her Majesty, speaking to me to sit, I sat down upon a cushion laid for me, above all the ladies who sat, but below the Camarera Mayor; no woman taking place (i.e. precedence) of her Excellency but princesses.... Thus, having passed half an hour in discourse, I took my leave of her Majesty and the Empress; making reverences to all the ladies in passing.’^[267] Some months afterwards Queen Mariana sent to the English lady many messages of regard and esteem, with a splendid diamond ornament worth £2,000, which Lady Fanshawe received with somewhat exaggerated professions of humility, and repeated her thanks to her in an interview soon after (8th April 1655).

The total and final defeat of the Spaniards on the Portuguese frontier, in June 1665, made the recovery of the lost kingdom hopeless, and broke Philip’s heart. He had written in the spring to the dying nun, saying that he desired no more health or life than was meet for God’s service, and was ready to go when he was called. The call came in September 1665. His chronic malady had been aggravated to such an extent by anxiety and worry, that by the middle of the month his physicians confessed themselves powerless. Then was enacted one of those ghastly farces common at the time in Spain. It was whispered in the palace that the King was bewitched, and the Inquisitor-General called a conference of ecclesiastics to consider the means for exorcising the evil spirits that held the sovereign in bondage. Philip himself gave permission for the Inquisitor to act as might be judged best; and one day the royal confessor, Friar Martinez, accompanied by the Inquisitor-General, approached the sickbed and demanded of the King a certain little wallet of relics and charms which he always wore suspended upon his breast. After examining these carefully the wallet was returned to the King, and from some clue therein contained, search elsewhere led to the discovery of an ancient black-letter book of magic, and certain prints of the King’s portrait transfixed by pins. All these things were solemnly burnt after a service of exorcism by the Inquisitor-General at the chapel of Atocha; and then, to assist the cure, the group of churchmen administered to the King, who was suffering from several mortal diseases, of which gall-stones caused the immediate danger, an elaborate confection of pounded mallow-leaves with drugs and sugar.

This treatment aggravated the ill, and in two or three days the King appeared to be in articulo mortis, after what was described as a fit of apoplexy. The whole Court fell into momentary confusion, and the death-chamber was already deserted when the King revived and altered several of his testamentary dispositions, one clause of which now appointed Mariana regent during the minority of her son. The will, by Philip’s orders, was then locked into a leather purse with other important state papers, and the key, by the dying man’s orders, was delivered to his wife. That afternoon, after taking the sacrament, Philip bade a tearful farewell to Mariana, and blessed his two children. He then took an affectionate leave of the Duke of Medina de las Torres and other nobles, beseeching them with irrepressible tears to work harmoniously together, and help the widow and the poor child to whom his heavy heritage was passing.

Philip struggled through the night in agony, and the next day the image of the Virgin of Atocha was carried past the windows of the palace to be deposited in the royal Convent of Barefoots hard by, whilst the dead bodies of St. Diego and St. Isidro were brought to the royal chapel for veneration;^[268] and every church and convent in Madrid resounded with rogations and processions for the health of the King. Around the bed of the dying monarch evil passions already raged; for the Court was divided thus early into two factions, one in favour of Mariana and the other looking to Don Juan. The Duke of Medina de las Torres, the principal minister, retired from the palace as soon as he had taken leave; and an unseemly wrangle, almost a fight, took place over the deathbed between rival friars, as to whether the viaticum might be administered or not, until they had to be bundled out of the room by the Marquis of Aytona.

No sooner was this scene over than Count Castrillo entered the chamber and announced that Don Juan had come and was waiting to see his father. Philip knew, and bitter the knowledge was, that his wife and son would be in open strife from the day the breath left his body; but that Don Juan should return from exile unbidden, and dared to disobey his King, whilst yet he lived, aroused one more spark of sovereign indignation in the moribund man. ‘Tell him,’ he said, ‘to return whence he came until he be bidden. I will see him not; for this is no time for me to do other than to die.’ At early dawn on Friday, 17th September, poor Philip the Great breathed his last. ‘And curious it is,’ said a contemporary courtier, ‘that in the chamber of his Majesty when he died, there was no one but the Marquis of Aytona and two servants to weep for the death of their King and master. In all the rest of the court not one soul shed a tear for him. A terrible lesson is this for all humankind; that a monarch who had granted such great favours and raised so many to honour, had no sigh breathed for him when he died.’^[269]

The same night the dead body of the King was dressed in a handsome suit of brown velvet, embroidered and trimmed with silver, with the great red sword-cross of Santiago worked upon the breast, preparatory to the pompous lying-in-state in the same gilded hall of the old palace at Madrid, where the comedies the King had loved were so often played before him. At the same time in an adjoining room the Councils of Castile and State gathered to hear the will read by the secretary, Blasco de Loyola, which made Mariana Queen-Regent of Spain, with the assistance of a special council of regency, consisting of the great dignitaries of the State, failing two of whom the Queen might appoint two substitutes, an eventuality which partially occurred within a few hours of Philip’s death by the decease of the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, Moscoso. Don Juan, who was commended to the widow in the will, waited to hear no more than the elevation of Mariana to the regency, and then took horse with all speed and hurried back to the safe seclusion of his fief of OcaÑa. A few days afterwards, the sumptuous lying-in-state being concluded, the body of ‘Philip the Great’ was carried in a vast procession to the Escorial, to rest for ever in the jasper niche before which he had so often prayed and wept.^[270]

Mariana, at the age of thirty-one, was now ruler of Spain for her son Charles II., aged four, and she lost no time in showing her tendencies when left to herself. The root of most of the calamities that affected Spain were the traditions that bound it to the imperial house. All that the country needed, even now, was rest, peace and freedom from foreign complications in which Spaniards had no real concern. But Mariana was Austrian to her finger tips; and ever since Philip’s health began to fail she had been working for the predominance of her kindred and weakening the bonds of friendship with France, knit by the marriage of Maria Theresa with Louis XIV.

There was already a large party of nobles who, seeing the national need for peace, looked with distrust upon a policy which would still waste Spanish resources in fighting the battles of the empire in mid-Europe: and when to the vacancy in the Council of Regency and the Inquisitor-Generalship, caused by the death of Cardinal Moscoso a few hours after the King, Mariana appointed her Austrian confessor, Father Nithard, Spanish pride flared out and protest became general. Nithard was doubtless a worthy priest, though of no great ability, but if he had been a genius the same detestation of him would have prevailed, for he was a foreigner, and it was guessed at once that between him and the Austrian Queen Spain would be sacrificed as it had been in the past to objects that were not primarily Spanish. Observers abroad saw it too, and although the French envoy who went to condole with Mariana on Philip’s death assured her of the desire of Louis to be friendly with her, the first acts of her regency gave to the French King a pretext for asserting his wife’s right to the inheritance of Flanders, as her dowry had not been paid, and her renunciation was asserted to be invalid.

In May 1667 Louis invaded Flanders with 50,000 men, faced only by a small disaffected and unpaid force under the Spanish viceroy, the result being that the French overran the country and captured many principal cities. Don Juan was summoned in a hurry from his exile to the Council of State in Madrid, and he and his sworn enemy Mariana divided between them the sympathies of the capital and the country. Pasquins and satires passed from hand to hand on the Liars’ Parade and in the Calle Mayor, mostly attacking Nithard and the Queen, who were blamed for the war; and the relations between Don Juan and Mariana grew more strained every day.

It was also evident now that Spain was powerless to coerce Portugal any longer, and in February the humiliating treaty was signed—mainly by the influence of Fanshawe^[271] and Sandwich—in February 1668, recognising the independence of the sister Iberian nation. Louis XIV. carried on his attacks in Flanders with vigour, and rejected all overtures of peace except on terms which aroused Spaniards to indignation. The Spanish Franche ComtÉ was occupied by the French in February 1668; and then, but only by a supreme effort, a fresh army of nine thousand men was collected in Spain to defend her territories. The Austrian friendship was of little use to Spain, as usual, and Castile had once more to fight her own battle. In these circumstances of national peril the influence of Mariana and Nithard on the Council of Regency procured an order for Don Juan to take command of the army and lead it to Flanders against the French, and with an ill grace the royal bastard left Madrid on Palm Sunday, 1668, for his rendezvous at Corunna, where the treasure ships from Cadiz and his troops were to join him. Don Juan saw in this move an intention of getting him away from the centre of government, and the impression was strengthened by the almost simultaneous exile or arrest, on various trivial pretexts, of some of those who were known to sympathise with him, one of whom, Malladas, was strangled in prison by Mariana’s orders.

All through the spring Don Juan lagged at Corunna, excusing himself from embarking on various grounds, ill-health being the principal; until, at length, thanks to the intervention of England and Holland, Louis was brought to sign terms of peace with Spain at Aix la Chapelle, in May 1668, that left him in possession of the Flemish territories he had conquered. But still Mariana and Nithard were determined that Don Juan should go and take possession of his government in Flanders, and sent him a peremptory order to embark. This he refused to do, and a decree of the Queen in August directed him to retire to Consuegra, and not approach within sixty miles of Madrid. He had many friends and adherents, especially in Aragon, and his discontent extended to them. Those in Madrid began to clamour that Mariana and Nithard were keeping the little King in the background away from his people, and alienating those who might serve the monarchy best.

Charles II. was now aged seven, and so degenerate and weak a child was he, that he had been up to this period, and continued for some years afterwards, entirely in the hands of women, and treated as an infant in arms. He was dwarfish and puny, with one leg shorter than the other, his gait during the whole of his life being uncertain and staggering. His face was of extraordinary length and ghastly white, the lower jaw being so prodigiously underhung that it was impossible for him to bite or masticate food, or to speak distinctly. His hair was lank and yellow, and his eyes a vague watery blue. This poor creature with his mother at his side, in obedience to the clamour of Don Juan’s friends, was first brought out in public for his subjects to see at a series of visits to the convents and churches of Madrid in the summer of 1668.^[272] Just as the King and Mariana were about to start from the palace at Madrid on one of these excursions, in October 1668, an officer came in great agitation to the door of the Queen’s apartment and prayed for audience. He was told that the coach awaited their Majesties, and the Queen could not see him then, but would receive him when she returned. He begged in the meanwhile to be allowed to stay in a place of safety in the palace. This request made his visit seem important enough for Mariana to be informed of it: and she ordered him to be introduced at once. When he entered he threw himself upon his knees and besought that he might speak with her alone; and for a half hour he was closeted with the Queen.

The story he had to tell was of a widespread conspiracy of Don Juan and his friends against the Regency, and without delay the net was cast that swept into prison one of Don Juan’s principal agents in Madrid, PatiÑo, and all his household. In a day or two a force of soldiers was despatched to Consuegra to arrest Don Juan himself, but found the bird flown. Behind him he had left a document addressed to the Queen, violently denouncing Nithard as a tyrant and a murderer, whilst protesting his own loyalty to his father’s son. Madrid began again to murmur at the persecution of a Spanish prince in Spain by a foreign Jesuit, and though a brisk interchange of manifestoes and recriminatory pamphlets was carried on, the great mass of the people were unquestionably on the side of Don Juan against the German Queen and her Jesuit favourite.

The Prince fled to Barcelona, where Nithard was especially hated and the Madrid government always unpopular, and there nobles and people received Don Juan with enthusiasm. Messages of support came to him from all parts of Spain, and French money and sympathy powerfully aided his propaganda, so that by the end of the year 1668 affairs looked dangerous for Mariana and her confessor. The Queen and her Camarilla took fright and tried conciliation, but Don Juan knew that he had the whip hand, and in a letter written in November to Mariana peremptorily demanded the dismissal of Nithard within fifteen days. Mariana’s friends on the Council of Regency voted for the impeachment of Don Juan for high treason; and for a time vigorous measures against him were like to be taken. But the Council of Castile, the supreme judicial authority, through its most influential member, warned the Queen that in a controversy between the King’s brother and a foreign Jesuit Spaniards must necessarily be on the side of the former, and the Queen must be cautious or she would alienate the country from her. Mariana thereupon wrote softly to Don Juan inviting him to approach Madrid that a conference of conciliation might be held. But the prince would not trust Nithard, who, he said, had planned his murder, and he declined to risk coming to the capital except in his own time and way.

Early in February 1669, Don Juan, with a fine bodyguard of two hundred horse, rode out of Barcelona, and through Catalonia and Aragon towards Madrid. Mariana had sent strict orders throughout the country that no honours were to be paid to him, but his journey in spite of her was a triumphal progress, and as he entered Saragossa in state the whole populace received him with shouts of: ‘Long live Don Juan of Austria, and Death to the Jesuit Nithard.’ A regiment of infantry was added by Aragon to the Prince’s force, and on the 24th February Mariana and her friend in the palace of Madrid were horrified to learn that Don Juan was at the gates of the capital with an armed body stronger than any at their prompt disposal. Whilst they made such hasty preparations as they could to resist, all Madrid was in open jubilation at the approach of their favourite prince. Don Juan’s force grew from hour to hour, and with it grew his haughtiness towards the ruling authority. Mariana, in alarm, tried every means. The Nuncio endeavoured to soften Don Juan’s heart; the higher nobles in the Queen’s household wrote to him deprecating violence; and, finally, the Queen herself wrote a letter of kindly welcome. But to all blandishments Don Juan stood firm: Father Nithard must go for good, and at once; whilst the Council of Castile also demanded the Jesuit’s expulsion.

On the morning of 25th February, whilst Mariana was still in bed, the courtyards of the palace filled with gentlemen and officials in groups, who openly declared for Don Juan and the expulsion of Nithard. The Dukes of Infantado and Pastrana sought an interview with the Queen, for the purpose of informing her of the general resolution, but were refused admittance into her bedchamber. They then charged her secretary, Loyola, to inform her, that unless she instantly signed a decree expelling Nithard they themselves would take measures against him, as Madrid was in a turmoil and order imperilled. Mariana with tears of rage swore that she would not be coerced; and Nithard himself refused to stir. A hasty meeting of the Council of Regency assembled in the forenoon, which Nithard abstained from attending only upon the entreaty of the Nuncio, where a decree of expulsion was drafted in the mildest form possible, and laid before the Queen for signature as soon as she had dined.

Mariana was at the end of her tether. The Court, the populace, and the soldiery were all against her favourite, and she was forced to sign the decree. But, though she did it, she never forgave Don Juan for the humiliation, and thenceforward it was war to the knife between them. Cardinal Nithard, with rich grants and gifts from the Queen, was with difficulty saved from the cursing multitude that surrounded his coach as he slunk out of the capital; and Don Juan, triumphant, begged for permission to come and salute the Queen in thanks for his expulsion. This, haughty Mariana coldly refused to allow, and Don Juan retorted by demanding a thorough reform in the administration of the government, a re-adjustment of taxation and many other innovations which he alleged that Nithard alone had prevented. The Spanish nobles, however, were no lovers of reform, and Don Juan’s drastic demands were regarded askance by many. A long acrimonious correspondence was carried on by the Queen at Madrid and Don Juan at Guadalajara, in the course of which some financial amendments were promised by the former: but in the meantime Mariana’s friends were raising an armed force as a bodyguard for her and her son, which afterwards became famous as the Chambergo regiment, because the uniform was copied from those worn by the troops of Marshal Schomberg. The formation of this standing force was bitterly resented by the citizens of Madrid, and aroused new sympathy for Don Juan. At length a semi-reconciliation was effected by the appointment of Don Juan as Viceroy of Aragon in June 1669; and for several years thereafter the Prince was piling up funds from his rich offices to strike a more effectual blow when the time should come.

The extreme debility of the boy King, who in 1670 was thought to be moribund, was already dividing the courtiers, and indeed all Spain and Europe, into two camps. If Charles II. died without issue, as seemed probable, his elder sister Maria Theresa, wife of Louis XIV., would be his natural successor, but for the act of renunciation signed at the time of her marriage; an act which from the first the French had minimised and disputed, and Philip himself had characterised as an ‘old wife’s tale.’ It was evident that Louis XIV., daily growing in power and ambition, had no intention of allowing the renunciation to stand in the way of his wife’s claims if her brother died childless; and all of Mariana’s enemies in Spain, and they were many, were ready to stand by the claims of the elder Infanta Maria Teresa, daughter of the beloved Isabel of Bourbon, if the succession fell into dispute.

On the other hand, Mariana, naturally championed the cause of her own daughter, the Infanta Margaret, married to the Emperor Leopold, and upheld the validity of Maria Theresa’s formal renunciation of the succession on her marriage. The Austrian connection had brought nothing but trouble to Spain, and the brilliant progress of France, even though it was to the detriment of their country, had gained many Spanish admirers of the modern spirit that pervaded the methods of Louis XIV. Mariana, therefore, to most Spaniards, represented, with her pronounced Austrian leanings, an attempt to tie the country to the bad old times, as well as to pass over the legitimate rights of the elder Infanta for the benefit of her own less popular daughter the Empress Margaret.

The Queen-Mother, well aware of the strong party against her, and that her prime enemy, Don Juan, was only awaiting his time to strike at her, employed all the resources she could scrape together in providing for her own defence against her domestic opponents, leaving the frontier fortresses divested of troops and means for repelling attack from France; whilst, on the other hand, she provoked Louis by sending a Spanish contingent to co-operate with the Emperor’s troops in aiding the Dutch in their war with France; and, later, in 1673, she formed a regular alliance with the Emperor and Holland against Louis XIV. Nothing could have been more imprudent than this in the circumstances, for Spain was in a worse condition of exhaustion than ever, and the hope of beating France by force had long ago proved fallacious. The ancient appanage of Burgundy, the Franche ComtÉ, promptly passed for ever from the dominion of Spain to that of France; and whilst the fighting in Flanders and the Catalan frontier was progressing in 1674, a new trouble assailed Mariana’s government. The island of Sicily revolted, and invited the French to assume the sovereignty, an invitation that was promptly accepted. Thirty-seven years before, when he was a mere stripling, Don Juan had recovered Naples for Spain in similar circumstances; and Mariana, almost in despair, could only beseech her enemy to leave his government at Saragossa, and take command of the Spanish-Dutch forces to attack the French in Sicily. But Don Juan, knowing her desire to get him out of the way, was determined not to allow himself to be sent far from the centre of affairs, and refused to accept the position.

His reasons were well founded, for events were passing in Mariana’s palace that rendered her more unpopular than ever; and, by the will of Philip IV., her regency would come to an end when her son attained his fifteenth year late in the next year 1675. It had been hoped that with the banishment of Nithard and the absence from the capital of Don Juan, the factions that divided the Court would have held their peace during the few years the regency lasted; and possibly this would have been the case if the Queen had been prudent. Her unwise favour to Nithard had already made her extremely unpopular, for foreign Queens in Spain were always suspect; but she had learned nothing from her favourite’s ignominious expulsion; and soon a confidant, less worthy far than Nithard, had completely captured the good graces of the Queen. This was a young gentleman of no fortune named Fernando de Valenzuela. He was one of those facile, plausible, Andaluces, a native of Ronda, who had figured so brilliantly in the Court of Philip IV. and Mariana, where the accomplishment of deftly turning amorous verse, improvising a dramatic interlude, or contriving a stinging epigram, opened a way to fortune. He had been a member of the household of the Duke of Infantado, and upon the death of the latter, had attached himself to Father Nithard, who needed the aid of such men.

Valenzuela was not only keen and clever, but extremely handsome, in the black-eyed Moorish style of beauty, for which the people of Ronda are famous, and he soon managed to gain the full confidence of both Nithard and the Queen, whom he served as a go-between and messenger, a function which he continued after the Jesuit had been expelled. He had married the Queen’s favourite half-German maid, and had been appointed a royal equerry; both of which circumstances gave a pretext for his continual presence in the palace; and at the time of the agitation against Nithard, and afterwards, he had been extremely useful in conveying to the Queen all the comments that could be picked up by sharp ears in the Calle Mayor and Liars’ Parade (the peristyle of the Church of St. Philip). It was noticed that those who spoke incautiously of the Queen in public were promptly denounced and brought to trouble, and the gossips soon pitched upon Valenzuela as the spy, calling him in consequence by the nickname, by which he was generally known, of the ‘fairy of the palace.’ The man was bold, ambitious, and unscrupulous, and soon more than occupied the place left vacant by Nithard.

Jealous nobles and courtiers looked with indignation at the rapid rise of a mere provincial adventurer to the highest places in the State. Not only was a marquisate and high commands and offices conferred upon him, but at a time when Spain was in the midst of a great international war that ended in the remodelling of the map of Europe at her expense, this favourite, without special aptitude or experience, was appointed by Mariana her universal minister for all affairs; and Valenzuela was the most powerful man in Spain. He manfully did his best though unsuccessfully, for he was cordially detested, to win popularity in an impossible position, by multiplying in Madrid the feasts and diversions its inhabitants loved, by writing comedies himself, full of wit and malice, for gratis representation in the theatres, by re-building public edifices, and generally beautifying the capital. He was surrounded, moreover, by a great crowd of parasites, mostly nobodies, like himself, who sang his praises for the plunder he could pour upon them.

But his rise was too rapid, and his origin too obscure to be easily forgiven, and a perfect deluge of satires, verses, pamphlets and flying sheets, full of gross libels upon him and the Queen, came from the secret presses and circulated throughout Spain. The general opinion was that he was the Queen’s lover as well as her minister; but Madrid was always a hotbed of scandal, and, although this may well have been true, it must be regarded as non-proven. As a specimen of the view taken of the connection by contemporaries the following description of a broad-sheet, found one morning posted on the walls of the palace, may be given. A portrait of the Queen is represented with her hand pointing to her heart, with the printed legend, ‘This is given;’ whilst Valenzuela is portrayed standing close by her side, pointing to the insignias and emblems of his many high offices, and saying, ‘These are sold.’ The favourite himself seems to have been anxious to strengthen the rumour that assigned to him the amorous affection of the widowed Queen, for at two of the Court festivals, of which he promoted many, he bore as his devices, ‘I alone have licence,’ and ‘To me alone is it allowed.’^[273]

The unrestrained favour extended by the Queen to such an upstart as this gave hosts of new adherents to Don Juan; and such of them as had access to the young King, now rapidly approaching his legal majority, took care to paint the wretched condition of the country in the blackest colours, and to ascribe the trouble to the Queen’s bad minister. The boy, though nearly fifteen, was still a child; backward and, at best, almost an idiot. He could hardly read or write, for the weakness of his wits and the degeneracy of his physique had caused his education to be entirely neglected, and he was, even in his mature age, grossly ignorant of the simplest facts. But, like his father, he was gentle, kind and good-hearted, and his compassion was easily aroused by the sad stories told him of the sufferings of his people, especially when they came from the lips of his father confessor, Montenegro, and his trusted tutor Ramos del Manzano.

They, and the great nobles who prompted them, understood that the moment had come for action when, in the late autumn of 1675, Mariana and Valenzuela ordered Don Juan to sail in Ruyter’s fleet to Sicily and eject the French; and what to them was just as important, leave them with no rivals near them when the King came of age. Charles was persuaded by his confessor, and without the knowledge of his mother, to sign a letter recalling his half-brother to Madrid; and with this in his hand Don Juan could refuse, as he did, to sail for Sicily. On the morning of 6th November 1675, the day that Charles reached his fifteenth year and the regency ended, Madrid was astir early to see the shows that were to celebrate the new reign, though the country, in its utter exhaustion and misery, was in no spirit to rejoice now.

To the surprise of most was seen a royal travelling carriage rapidly approach the Buen Retiro palace, and the escort that surrounded it proclaimed that the occupant of the coach was no other than Don Juan. All was prepared for the coup d’etat. The prince hurried, unknown to Mariana, to the young King’s apartment, and kneeling, kissed the boy’s hand; whilst a decree, already drafted, was presented to the King, appointing his half-brother the universal minister of the crown. Mariana had passed the night at the palace a mile away, but the coming of her enemy to the Buen Retiro had been announced to her before he alighted. Without losing a moment she flew to the Retiro and reached her son’s room just as the decree that would have ruined her was about to be signed. She was an imperious woman, and had been Queen-Regent of Spain for over ten years: her control of her feeble son had been supreme whilst she was with him, and her angry orders that the room should be cleared might not be gainsaid. Left alone with her son, she led him to a private room and, with tears and indignant reproaches, reduced the poor lad to a condition of abject submission to her will.

The president of the Council of Castile had already told her, that as Don Juan had come by the King’s warrant, the same authority alone could send him back, and Charles was induced to sign a decree commanding the prince to return forthwith to his government in Aragon and remain there till further orders. Now was the time when boldness on the part of Don Juan would have won the day; for the nobles, court and people, were mostly on his side against Valenzuela and the Queen, whose means did not allow them to bribe everybody. But Don Juan was as vain and empty as he was ambitious and failed to rise to the occasion. The sacrosanct character of the King of Castile, moreover, was still a strong tradition, and Don Juan, who knew his fellow-countrymen well, dared not aim at ruling instead of the King, but through the King. So that night Don Juan and his supporters met in conclave, and weakly decided to obey the King’s new command without protest, instead of making another attempt to override Mariana’s influence upon her son; and the prince returned to Aragon overwhelmed with confusion and disappointment.^[274]

The triumph of Mariana was complete, and she took no pains to conceal her joy when she attended that night in state the theatre of the Buen Retiro, in celebration of the King’s coming of age. In a few days all those who had had a hand in the futile conspiracy were on their way to exile; and, to keep up appearances, Valenzuela himself was given the rich post of Admiral of the Andalucian coast, with another rich marquisate, as an excuse for his absence from the capital during the first few weeks of the King’s majority. He was soon back again, collecting new honours from the feeble King at the instance of Mariana, and to the indignation of the other nobles. The great post of Master of the Horse, usually held by one of the first magnates of Spain, was given to Valenzuela; and when the jealous grandees remonstrated he was made a grandee of Spain of the first class to match his new dignity. All this, and the fact that Don Juan had been deprived of his viceroyalty, though banished from Court, may testify to Mariana’s determination and boldness, but says little for her prudence; for all Spain, high and low, was against her, and Valenzuela was a weak reed to depend upon in the face of so powerful an opposition.

In the meanwhile the conspiracy against Mariana grew in strength. Don Juan amongst his faithful Aragonese could plot with impunity, whilst the nobles in Madrid were working incessantly to the same ends, namely, the banishment of Mariana and the impeachment and punishment of Valenzuela. In February 1676 all the principal grandees signed a mutual pledge to stand together until these objects were attained; and as, in virtue of their position, they had unrestrained access to the King, who was now nominally his own master, the result of their efforts was soon seen.

The object lesson to which they could point was a very plain one. Spanish troops were still pouring out their blood upon the battlefields of Europe without benefit to Spain: the distress in the capital itself was appalling; even the King’s household sometimes being without food, or means of obtaining it. On every side ruin had overwhelmed the people. Industry had been crushed by taxation, whole districts were depopulated and derelict, and neither life nor property was safe from the bandits who defied the law in town and country.^[275] Spain had almost, though not quite, reached its nadir of decadence: and, though the distress was really the result of long-standing causes described in the earlier pages of this book, the boy monarch was made to believe that it all arose from the mis-government of his mother and Valenzuela; and that Don Juan could remedy all the ills and make Spain strong and happy again.

The noble conspirators took care, this time, to neglect no precautions that might ensure success, and obtained (27th December 1676) from the King an order to which Mariana was obliged to consent, for Don Juan to return to Madrid; whilst on various pretexts they kept the Queen as much as possible from influencing her son. Valenzuela was, of course, informed of what was going on, and, recognising that the coalition was strong enough to crush him, had suddenly fled into hiding a few days previously. The night of the 14th January 1677, after the King had retired to his bedchamber in the palace of Madrid, and Mariana doubtless thought that all was safe until the next morning, Charles, accompanied by a single gentleman-in-waiting, escaped by arrangement with the conspirators, down backstairs and through servants doorways, from the old palace to the Buen Retiro, where the nobles and courtiers were assembled. Long before dawn a decree reached Mariana in her bedroom in the palace, ordering her not to leave her apartments without the written permission of the King. Her rage and indignation knew no bounds, and for the rest of the night letters alternately denouncing the undutifulness, and appealing to the affection of her son, showered thick and fast from the Queen in the old Alcazar to the sixteen year old boy with the long white face, who was trying to play the King in the pleasance of the Buen Retiro. None of her letters softened him, if ever they reached him, which is doubtful, and all the next day the antechambers at the Retiro were crowded with courtiers, applauding the King’s stroke of State, whilst in the Alcazar on the cliff the Queen-Mother found herself neglected by flatterers, a prisoner in the palace where she had reigned so long.

The next day news came that Don Juan, with a great armed escort and household, had arrived at Hita, thirty-five miles from the capital; and there the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo and a crowd of grandees met him with a message from the King, asking him to dismiss his armed men and come to Court for the purpose of taking the direction of affairs. But Don Juan had his conditions to make first, and he refused to enter the capital until Mariana had left it, Valenzuela made a prisoner, and the hated Chambergo regiment disbanded. He had his way in all things, and the same night, with rage in her heart, Mariana rode out of the capital for her banishment at Toledo; the Chambergos were hurried away for shipment to Sicily; and then came the question where was Valenzuela. Reluctantly, and bit by bit, it was drawn from the King that he himself had contrived the flight of his mother’s favourite, and knew where he was hidden amongst the friars of the palace-monastery of the Escorial.

From his windows overlooking the bleak Sierra of Guadarrama the fugitive favourite gazed in the gathering dusk of the 17th January 1677 in fancied security; when, to his dismay, a large body of cavalry trotted into the courtyard and dominated the palace. Amongst them the alarmed Valenzuela descried his enemy the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and a group of other grandees. Flying for refuge within the consecrated precincts, he besought the prior to save him; and when the doors of the monastery had been closed the prior greeted the troops and nobles in the courtyard and demanded their pleasure. ‘We want nothing,’ they replied, ‘but that you will deliver to us the traitor Valenzuela.’ ‘Have you an order from his Majesty?’ asked the prior. ‘Only a verbal one,’ replied Don Antonio de Toledo, son of the Duke of Alba, who took the lead. ‘In that case,’ replied the monk, supported by a murmur of approval from his brethren behind, ‘we will not surrender him, except to main force; for we shelter him by written warrant of the King.’ Threats and insults failed to move the monks, and an attempt at arrangement was at last made by means of an interview in the church between Valenzuela himself and the Duke of Medina Sidonia and Toledo. Owing mainly to the violence of the latter the interview had no result; and, as the prior saw that the soldiery were preparing to force the sanctuary, Valenzuela was hidden in a secret room contrived for such eventualities where he might defy discovery. The enraged nobles and soldiery, balked of their prey, ransacked the enormous place, room by room, for three days, overturning altars, insulting and violating the privacy of the monks, and committing sacrilege undreamt of in Spain for centuries, for which they were smartly punished afterwards by the ecclesiastical authority.^[276]

At length, on the night of 21st January, Valenzuela took fright at some voices near, and foolishly let himself down by his twisted sheets from the window of his safe retreat; and, though one sentry let him go, and the monks made desperate attempts to keep him hidden, he was captured on the 22nd January and carried with every circumstance of ignominy to close confinement in Don Juan’s fortress of Consuegra; then after terrible sufferings and stripped of all his honours and possessions, he was imprisoned in Manila, and afterwards taken to Mexico to die; whilst his unfortunate wife, treated with atrocious brutality by Toledo, was reduced to beg from door to door for charity, until her troubles drove her mad.^[277] No sooner was Valenzuela safe behind the bars at Consuegra than Don Juan of Austria entered Madrid in state on the 23rd January, acclaimed by the populace as the saviour of Spain, and welcomed by the King as the heaven-sent minister who was to make his reign brilliant and successful. Don Juan’s vengeance knew no limit, as his soul knew no generosity. Whatever may have been Mariana’s faults as a Queen of Spain, or her errors as a diplomatist, the ignominy to which she was now subjected by order of her son, at the instance of Don Juan, shows the lack of generosity of the latter and the miserable weakness of the former. Mariana’s turn was to come again by and bye, but with her banishment to Toledo her life as ruling Queen of Spain came to an end. She lived nearly twenty years afterwards, but her vicissitudes during that time may be told more fittingly in connection with the lives of her two successors, the wives of her afflicted son.