Page images
PDF
EPUB

Montemolin to the Counts of Ureña and Puebla-to cancel the alum agreement entered into with the Pope, and to sell to the merchants at the highest prices; to beg of the towns and villages the profits of the censuses during the last ten years; to stop payment to the creditors who should be indemnified by means of new assignations (consignaciones) with high interests; to work and improve the mines of Guadalcanal. Already the law had prohibited both laics and clergy, under punishment of death and loss of their property, under punishment of the sequestration of their ecclesiastical and temporal revenues and banishment from the kingdom, from sending of money to Rome, either in coins or schedules, under any pretext whatever.

The king, far from finding fault with these and other taxes, was eager to have them established and gather them without any delay or consideration; advising that those should be obliged to pay larger sums who were not willing to pay them. And among other items which he added to the proposed list of new taxes, one was to take possession of the half of the revenues of the Spanish church, granted to his father, for a certain time, by the Pope Julius the Third to meet the expenses of the war against the German Protestants. The bull of this concession had been afterwards annulled by the Pope; but in a council of divines and canonists assembled by Philip, it was decided that the Pope could not annul the bull after it had been confirmed by the kingdom, and therefore, they declared that the king had the right of receiving the said half of the ecclesiastical property. Philip adhered to their opinion, and acted accordingly.

The greatest severity was employed in the exactions of the loans, and commissioners were despatched

to the provinces to compromise with the landowners, nobles, and prelates. Don Diego de Acebedo, sent in this capacity to Aragon, Valencia, and Catalonia, had orders to exact from the Archbishop of Saragossa, not only the 60,000 ducats recommended by the Council of Finances, but 100,000, according to the wishes expressed by His Majesty. And, as he refused to pay more than 20,000 ducats, and the rumour circulated of his intending to send his money to Navarre, order was immediately given to the Duke of Albuquerque to detain the bearer and to lay an embargo on it. All the other persons required to contribute in that extraordinary way to the support of the burdens of the State, excused themselves the best they could, and the largest number only gave the third or fourth part of the sum asked for. The Archbishop of Toledo offered 50,000 ducats for six consecutive years, and moreover the surplusage of the silver and fabrics of the churches, stopping short all the commenced works; this sum was estimated paltry, considering the enormous income of the metropolitan diocese, of which a scrupulous valuation was ordered.

Not only did they resort to the expedient of legitimizing for money the children of the clergy, but granted them at a moderate price patents of nobility. That did not realize the calculated pecuniary result, because they well knew how to obtain by other means, and at less cost, the same favour. "Concerning the legitimations of the children of the clergy," wrote the Princess Gobernadora to her brother the king," although such legitimation had been proposed and published generally, adding a patent of nobility, whether their fathers were or not noblemen, up to the present, none has bought them; it is believed that there are not many among

them who have the means of buying them, and those who possess them, are not in want of other means and remedies to which they resort; thus, although they have been told they should be able to obtain them at moderate prices, and the chief persons of the locality have been charged with this commission in the villages and towns of the kingdom, to render the transactions easier and more convenient, there is little hope of any profit."

According to Don Luis Cabrera, the faithful chronicler and servant of Philip the Second, and his son Philip the Third, and of all the contemporary writers the one who gives the clearest insight into the life of his countrymen at the time, "In the diocese of Calahorra there were the prodigious number of 18,000 clergymen, for the most part, wanting in respectability of any sort.'

There were offered to the mercers and merchants, in payment of what was taken from them, the most enormous interests and annuities at the rate of 20,000 per 1,000; in spite of all those measures and the taxes, with which towns and individuals of all classes were burdened, the results were very far from satisfactory, not covering the expenses incurred.

And the galeones arrived, as before, with the gold of the Indies and in considerable quantities. According to the data left by the chief auditor of the Council of the Indies, His Majesty received annually from those colonies more than 1,200,000 ducats.

All the Cortes assembled during the reign of Philip the Second, constantly declared red one of the causes of the national impoverishment to be, the accumulation of landed property in the hands of the clergy, and they always advised that an end should be put, or restrictions placed, on the rights of mortmain.

To take possession of the silver and gold which came from the Indies for the merchants and private gentlemen; to sell patents of nobility, jurisdictions, and offices; the cuartas of the churches; the commons, and the towns and villages of the Crown; to impose forced loans on prelates, magnates, and landowners, which were collected violently and inconsiderately; to stop payment to the creditors, and even legitimize by money the children of the clergythese were the first economic depositions or acts proposed by the Council of Finances and approved by the monarch. As every year diminished the national income, at the same time that the expenses of the royal household and the warlike expenditure increased, the council and the king resorted to extraordinary taxes, to the sale of vassals, to the apportionment of Indians, to loans at enormous and ruinous interest. Some sumptuary laws, some provisions restrictive of commerce, some pragmaticas concerning dresses, was all that the Council of Finances could hit upon to improve the economic situation, and the procuradores or deputies, holding identical ideas on the subject, thought to have done something by passing resolutions which prohibited the grandees and nobles from gilding their house furniture, wearing embroidery and braids on their dresses, and putting on their tables more than four dishes and two desserts of fruit.

As, at the same time, the wars and expensive expeditions went on as before, and the eagerness for conquering kingdoms or preserving those which, far from producing anything, were so many drains direct and indirect of Spanish wealth continued, and the gold of America, together with the young agriculturists were sent out of the kingdom to pay and feed the Spanish armies in Flanders, the Low Coun

tries, France and Italy, and as, on the other side, the administrative dispositions enacted were so nonsensical, every year misery and poverty increased; then it was decided not to recognize the titles and rights of the creditors of the State, to reduce arbitrarily their due interest under pretext of its being ruinous and exorbitant, to reform and modify their titles according to a fixed type of reduction, and to apply retroactive laws to all the agreements entered into 15 years before; a sort of national bankruptcy which frightened and irritated the foreign lenders, and put an end to the financial credit of the Spanish Government.

No wonder that towards the middle of his reign, Philip complained of the disorder in the finances, and was saddened with the idea of the future prepared for him, when at the age of forty-eight, he said, "que no veia un dia de que podria vivir el otro." And to the recommendations

of the Cortes of not selling more towns, villages, jurisdictions, patents of nobility, public offices, he answered with his urgent necessities; and when he could not extort any more from the exhausted people, assembled again the clergy and grandees, and demanded, not as a person who asks or solicits a favour, but as a master, forced loans in gold or products; and when all was exhausted, entreated resources in foreign lands at any price and interest.

Uselessly did the Cortes from the beginning loudly object to these sales of towns, commons, and jurisdictions, and to the increase of public offices, which demoralized and pauperized the country at the same time. The Cortes proposed the repression of luxury and the prohibition of exporting the gold and silver, in coin or in bar.

The prohibition of the exports of gold and silver increased the workmen's salaries, and that na

turally increased the price of the products, which rendered dearer the most indispensable articles. The national opinion pronounced itself against the exports of manufactures, even to the colonies, and the Cortes passed on the subject the most strange resolutions. "We see," said the Cortes of Valladolid in 1548, "that the price of the cloths, silks, cordovans, and other articles of the manufactories of this kingdom, necessary to its inhabitants, is constantly increasing. We also know that the dearness comes from their exports to the Indies.

It is notorious and undeniable that there are to be found in America plenty of wools superior to the wools of Spain; why then do not the Americans manufacture their cloth ? Silk is to be found in many provinces of America; why do they not manufacture velvet and satin? Are there not in the New World sufficient hides for their own use or consumption, and even for that of this kingdom? We pray your Majesty to forbid the export of these articles to America."

Restrictions and trammels of all sorts hindered and obstructed the improvement of national and foreign commerce. The high import and export duties on almost all articles, those on sales, purchases, and exchanges in constant increase, those which burdened the merchandizes imported into Castille by sea and by land, known by the name of the diezmo de mar, and many other harassing taxes, combined with other causes to extinguish the industries of the country.

Throughout Spain the old feudal prejudice against the mechanical professions was stronger, perhaps, than anywhere else. The natural fondness of the Spaniards for a certain finery and magnificence, and their indisposition to work, impelled them to exert themselves not to remain in the humble class of artizans, manufacturers, or commoners, and to sacrifice their pecuniary interests to acquire the patent of nobility, the sale of which, with its titles and privileges, was facilitated by the absurd and erroneous system of selling them publicly, which found so much favour with Philip the Second. Also the circumstances and recollections of seeing, and having seen, the professions of artizans, manufacturers, and mercers, principally exercised by Jews, Moors and Arabs, moved the people, who boasted of their old uncontaminated Christianity, to look at them with unmerited contempt, and as disgraceful to them and their families. And then the Holy Tribunal was always inclined to look most suspiciously at all those who, anyhow, brought to their memory the Jews and Mahometans of the pre-inquisitorial era.

The measures against the Moriscos, the wars which they caused and their expatriation from the Anda lusian countries, began also to deprive the Exchequer of the taxes paid by those manufacturing, mercantile, and agricultural populations. The want of roads and intercourse paralyzed the interior traffic and commerce, and the depredations of Moors, English, and Dutch, rendered difficult, if not impossible the exterior; while restrictive ordinances and exorbitant taxes and duties, created and encouraged smuggling. In 1567 the taxes of Castille reached already to double the sum of what they were at the beginning of the reign of Philip, every year diminishing the wealth, and the wealth-producing power of the country. In 1575, the king reduced, by his own authority, to 4 per cent., the rate of interest of 7 at which he had contracted many loans after 1560. In 1589, he burdened the most indispensable articles of life for a civilized community

with duties which increased by 1,100,000 ducats yearly, the revenues of the exchequer; the following year he managed to obtain from the Grandees, the gratuitous gift of three and a half millions. Nevertheless, he forced his creditors to a new loan of eight millions, threatening them with a farther reduction. In 1598, the last year of his reign, he called at every door asking for gratuitous gifts.

At Naples the king could increase the taxes ad libitum, by his own authority, without any check, so that, little by little, the subjects of his most important Italian kingdom found themselves reduced to the last extremity under burdens, amounting to the quintuple of those paid in former years. There, as in the last period of the Roman Empire, the towns were declared answerable for the collection of taxes, one of which amounting to eight ducats, was claimed from all persons, even the most destitute. Sicily never consented to pay more than 250,000 ducats yearly. The taxes of the Milanese population were successively increased until they reached the sum of 1,200,000 scudi per annum, applied to paying the troops garrisoning the country. The immense resources of Flanders and the Low Countries were absorbed by the expenses incurred in combating the various revolts and insurrections against the government of Madrid. From 1569 to 1572, 25,000,000 were sent from Spain, notwithstanding the forced loan of 2,000,000 extorted by the threats of Alva.

The widely extended dominions inherited from his father, had been marvellously magnified by Philip's captains and diplomatists. With more reason than any other monarch on earth, he could boast of the sun never setting within the borders of his vast empire. And to uphold everywhere the supremacy of the

1877.]

Philip the Second.

Church of the monk, in his eyes, synonymous with the supremacy of the Spanish crown, was the aim and end of his policy during the fortythree years of his reign.

It was in 1580 that Spain reached the zenith of her glory. At that moment all had been carefully prepared to take possession of Portugal. Philip's plans were crowned with success, and Spanish sway extended, with the only exception of the Araucanian territory, throughout the whole length and breadth of southern and central American mainland. On the other side of the Pyrenees, the realization of the ambitious designs of his Catholic Majesty seemed to promise equal success. The extinction of the line of Valois opened up cheering prospects to his inordinate love of power. He had put forward his claims as collateral heir to the throne of France, and Catherine of Medicis was there ready to back the pretensions of any enemy to the Bourbon family. The Pope, moreover, had thought proper to make a donation of Ireland to Philip, and the Irish people were better disposed to abide this time by the Pontifical decision, than they had proved to be some centuries before, when another Roman Bishop invested an English Prince with the sovereignty of the western island.

And this was not all. The enterprising Portuguese had already found their way into the most important places of the Asiatic and South-eastern African seaboards. The doors of those eastern islands and continents were of course open to the monarch who ruled supreme at Lisbon, and had thoroughly defeated at Lepanto the most formidable Asiatic warriors. Northern Africa, distant but a few miles from the Spanish shores, could be easily reached, and after the overwhelming catastrophe inflicted on the Turks, it was not a difficult task to

subdue their African dependencies
and their natural allies, the neigh-
bouring Mahommetan countries-
those pestilent hotbeds of Mediter-
ranean pirates. Besides, Spanish or
Portuguese seamen had already
taken notice of another new conti-
nent-Terra Australis incognita.

The only war of his long reign which had not originated in the religious intolerance of the king was that of Portugal, and the annexation of that kingdom and its colonies formed the most important acquisitions of Philip. Don Sebastian died in the fields of Alcazarquivir, in 1578. There perished the whole army with the flower of the Portuguese hidalgos, and the kingdom remained comparatively defenceless, without captains and soldiers, and the most illustrious representatives of the old nobility. An inquisitor, archbishop, cardinal, occupied the vacant throne. Notwithstanding his old age, and that according to the canons of his Church he was incapacitated from marrying, he sent to Rome for the dispensation required. The Pope would willingly have granted it in order to thwart the plans of the monk of the Escorial, if his ambassador at the court of Rome had not most cleverly prevented it.

The vast monarchy was composed of empires, kingdoms, dukedoms, earldoms, and lordships, so dissimilar in many respects, that of most of them it may be said that they only had in common the person of the king at the head of their administration. Different by their history, interests, and laws; possessing life and existence of their own; far from constituting a common nationality, they were an aggregate of States bitterly jealous of each other, and inclined to deal in many ways more liberally with the neighbouring countries, than with those in their immediate neighbourhood under the sway of the Spanish

« PreviousContinue »