History of The Reign of Philip The Second King of Spain Volume The Third and Biographical & Critical Miscellanies

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Title: History of The Reign of Philip The Second King of Spain

Volume The Third and Biographical & Critical Miscellanies

Author: William H. Prescott

Release Date: November 3, 2010 [EBook #34203]

Language: English

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DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA

FROM THE ORIGINAL IN THE ROYAL MUSEUM AT MADRID.

London: George Routledge & Sons, Broadway, Ludgate Hill.

HISTORY OF THE REIGN

OF

PHILIP  THE  SECOND

KING OF SPAIN

VOLUME THE THIRD

AND

BIOGRAPHICAL & CRITICAL MISCELLANIES

BY

WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT

LONDON

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS

BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL

NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET

CONTENTS

OF

THE THIRD VOLUME.

HISTORY

OF

PHILIP THE SECOND.

BOOK V

CHAPTER I.

THE MOORS OF SPAIN.

Conquest of Spain by the Arabs.—Slow Recovery by the Spaniards.—Efforts to convert the Moslems.—Their Homes in the Alpujarras.—Their Treatment by the Government.—The Minister Espinosa.—Edict against the Moriscoes.—Their ineffectual Remonstrance.

1566, 1567.

It was in the beginning of the eighth century, in the year 711, that the Arabs, filled with the spirit of conquest which had been breathed into them by their warlike apostle, after traversing the southern shores of the Mediterranean, reached the borders of those straits that separate Africa from Europe. Here they paused for a moment, before carrying their banners into a strange and unknown quarter of the globe. It was but for a moment, however, when, with accumulated strength, they descended on the sunny fields of Andalusia, met the whole Gothic array on the banks of the Guadalete, and, after that fatal battle, in which King Roderick fell with the flower of his nobility, spread themselves, like an army of locusts, over every part of the Peninsula. Three years sufficed for the conquest of the country,—except that small corner in the north, where a remnant of the Goths contrived to maintain a savage independence, and where the rudeness of the soil held out to the Saracens no temptation to follow them.

It was much the same story that was repeated, more than three centuries later, by the Norman conquerors in England. The battle of Hastings was to that kingdom what the battle of the Guadalete was to Spain; though the Norman barons, as they rode over the prostrate land, dictated terms to the vanquished of a sterner character than those granted by the Saracens.

But whatever resemblance there may be in the general outlines of the two conquests, there is none in the results that followed. In England the Norman and the Saxon, sprung from a common stock, could not permanently be kept asunder by the barrier which at first was naturally interposed between the conqueror and the conquered; and in less, probably, than three centuries after the invasion, the two nations had imperceptibly melted into one; so that the Englishman of that day might trace the current that flowed through his veins to both a Norman and a Saxon origin.

It was far otherwise in Spain, where difference of race, of religion, of national tradition, of moral and physical organization, placed a gulf between the victors and the vanquished too wide to be overleaped. It is true, indeed, that very many of the natives, accepting the liberal terms offered by the Saracens, preferred remaining in the genial clime of the south to sharing the rude independence of their brethren in the Asturias, and that, in the course of time, intermarriages, to some extent, took place between them and their Moslem conquerors. To what extent cannot now be known. The intercourse was certainly far greater than that between our New-England ancestors and the Indian race which they found in possession of the soil,—that ill-fated race, which seems to have shrunk from the touch of civilization, and to have passed away before it like the leaves of the forest before the breath of winter. The union was probably not so intimate as that which existed between the old Spaniards and the semi-civilized tribes that occupied the plateau of Mexico, whose descendants, at this day, are to be there seen filling the highest places, both social and political, and whose especial boast it is to have sprung from the countrymen of Montezuma.

The very anxiety shown by the modern Spaniard to prove that only the sangre azul—blue blood—flows through his veins, uncontaminated by any Moorish or Jewish taint, may be thought to afford some evidence of the intimacy which once existed between his forefathers and the tribes of Eastern origin. However this may be, it is certain that no length of time ever served, in the eye of the Spaniard, to give the Moslem invader a title to the soil; and after the lapse of nearly eight centuries,—as long a period as that which has passed since the Norman conquest,—the Arabs were still looked upon as intruders, whom it was the sacred duty of the Spaniards to exterminate or to expel from the land.

This, then, was their mission. And it is interesting to see how faithfully they fulfilled it; and during the long period of the Middle Ages, when other nations were occupied with base feudal quarrels or border warfare, it is curious to observe the Spaniard intent on the one great object of reclaiming his country from the possession of the infidel. It was a work of time; and his progress, at first almost imperceptible, was to be measured by centuries. By the end of the ninth century it had reached as far as the Ebro and the Douro. By the middle of the eleventh, the victorious banner of the Cid had penetrated to the Tagus. The fortunes of Christian Spain trembled in the balance on the great day of Navas de Tolosa, which gave a permanent ascendancy to the Castilian arms; and by the middle of the thirteenth century the campaigns of James the First of Aragon, and of St. Ferdinand of Castile, stripping the Moslems of the other southern provinces, had reduced them to the petty kingdom of Granada. Yet on this narrow spot they still continued to maintain a national existence, and to bid defiance for more than two centuries longer to all the efforts of the Christians. The final triumph of the latter was reserved for the glorious reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was on the second of January, 1492, that, after a war which rivalled that of Troy in its duration, and surpassed it in the romantic character of its incidents, the august pair made their solemn entry into Granada; while the large silver cross which had served as their banner through the war, sparkling in the sunbeams on the red towers of the Alhambra, announced to the Christian world that the last rood of territory in the Peninsula had passed away for ever from the Moslem.

EFFORTS TO CONVERT THEM.

The peculiar nature of the war in which the Spaniard for eight centuries had thus been engaged, exercised an important influence on the national character. Generation after generation had passed their lives in one long uninterrupted crusade. It had something of the same effect on the character of the nation that the wars for the recovery of Palestine had on the Crusaders of the Middle Ages. Every man learned to regard himself as in an especial manner the soldier of Heaven,—for ever fighting the great battle of the Faith. With a mind exalted by this sublime conviction, what wonder that he should have been ever ready to discern the immediate interposition of Heaven in his behalf—that he should have seen again and again the patron saint of his country, charging on his milk-white steed at the head of his celestial chivalry, and restoring the wavering fortunes of the fight? In this exalted state of feeling, institutions that assumed elsewhere only a political or military aspect wore here the garb of religion. Thus the orders of chivalry, of which there were several in the Peninsula, were founded on the same principles as those of Palestine, where the members were pledged to perpetual war against the infidel.

As a consequence of these wars with the Moslems, the patriotic principle became identified with the religious. In the enemies of his country the Spaniard beheld also the enemies of God; and feelings of national hostility were still further embittered by those of religious hatred. In the palmy days of the Arabian empire, these feelings, it is true, were tempered by those of respect for an enemy who, in the various forms of civilization, surpassed not merely the Spaniards, but every nation in Christendom. Nor was this respect wholly abated under the princes who afterwards ruled with imperial sway over Granada, and who displayed, in their little courts, such a union of the courtesies of Christian chivalry with the magnificence of the East, as shed a ray of glory on the declining days of the Moslem empire in the Peninsula.

But as the Arabs, shorn of their ancient opulence and power, descended in the scale, the Spaniards became more arrogant. The feelings of aversion with which they had hitherto regarded their enemies, were now mingled with those of contempt. The latent fire of intolerance was fanned into a blaze by the breath of the fanatical clergy, who naturally possessed unbounded influence in a country where religious considerations entered so largely into the motives of action as they did in Spain. To crown the whole, the date of the fall of Granada coincided with that of the establishment of the Inquisition,—as if the hideous monster had waited the time when an inexhaustible supply of victims might be afforded for its insatiable maw.

By the terms of the treaty of capitulation, the people of Granada were allowed to remain in possession of their religion and to exercise its rights; and it was especially stipulated that no inducements or menaces should be held out to effect their conversion to Christianity.[1] For a few years the conquerors respected these provisions. Under the good Talavera, the first archbishop of Granada, no attempt was made to convert the Moslems, except by the legitimate means of preaching to the people and of expounding to them the truths of revelation. Under such a course of instruction the work of proselytism, though steadily, went on too slowly to satisfy the impatience of some of the clergy. Among others, that extraordinary man, Cardinal Ximenes, archbishop of Toledo, was eager to try his own hand in the labour of conversion. Having received the royal assent, he set about the affair with characteristic ardour, and with as little scruple as to the means to be employed as the most zealous propagandist could have desired. When reasoning and expostulation failed, he did not hesitate to resort to bribes, and, if need were, to force. Under these combined influences the work of proselytism went on apace. Thousands were added daily to the Christian fold; and the more orthodox Mussulmans trembled, at the prospect of a general defection of their countrymen. Exasperated by the unscrupulous measures of the prelate, and the gross violation they involved of the treaty, they broke out into an insurrection, which soon extended along the mountain ranges in the neighbourhood of Granada.

Ferdinand and Isabella, alarmed at the consequences, were filled with indignation at the high-handed conduct of Ximenes. But he replied, that the state of things was precisely that which was most to be desired. By placing themselves in an attitude of rebellion, the Moors had renounced all the advantages secured by the treaty, and had, moreover, incurred the penalties of death and confiscation of property! It would be an act of grace in the sovereigns to overlook their offence, and grant an amnesty for the past, on condition that every Moor should at once receive baptism or leave the country.[2] This precious piece of casuistry, hardly surpassed by anything in ecclesiastical annals, found favour in the eyes of the sovereigns, who, after the insurrection had been quelled, lost no time in proposing the terms suggested by their minister as the only terms of reconciliation open to the Moors. And, as but few of that unhappy people were prepared to renounce their country and their worldly prospects for the sake of their faith, the result was, that in a very short space of time, with but comparatively few exceptions, every Moslem in the dominions of Castile consented to abjure his own faith and receive that of his enemies.[3]

A similar course of proceeding was attended with similar results in Valencia and other dominions of the crown of Aragon, in the earlier part of Charles the Fifth's reign; and before that young monarch had been ten years upon the throne, the whole Moorish population—Moriscoes, as they were henceforth to be called—were brought within the pale of Christianity,—or, to speak more correctly, within that of the Inquisition.[4]

Such conversions, it may well be believed, had taken too little root in the heart to bear fruit. It was not long before the agents of the Holy Office detected, under the parade of outward conformity, as rank a growth of infidelity as had existed before the conquest. The blame might in part, indeed, be fairly imputed to the lukewarmness of the Christian labourers employed in the work of conversion. To render this more effectual, the government had caused churches to be built in the principal towns and villages occupied by the Moriscoes, and sent missionaries among them to wean them from their errors and unfold the great truths of revelation. But an act of divine grace could alone work an instantaneous change in the convictions of a nation. The difficulties of the preachers were increased by their imperfect acquaintance with the language of their hearers; and they had still further to overcome the feelings of jealousy and aversion with which the Spaniard was naturally regarded by the Mussulman. Discouraged by these obstacles, the missionary became indifferent to the results. Instead of appealing to the understanding, or touching the heart, of his hearer, he was willing to accept his conformity to outward ceremony as the evidence of his conversion. Even in his own performance of the sacred rites, the ecclesiastic showed a careless indifference, that proved his heart was little in the work; and he scattered the purifying waters of baptism in so heedless a way over the multitude, that it was not uncommon for a Morisco to assert that none of the consecrated drops had fallen upon him.[5]

THEIR HOMES IN THE ALPUJARRAS.

The representations of the clergy at length drew the attention of the government. It was decided that the best mode of effecting the conversion of the Moslems was by breaking up those associations which connected them with the past,—by compelling them, in short, to renounce their ancient usages, their national dress, and even their language. An extraordinary edict to that effect, designed for Granada, was accordingly published by Charles in the summer of 1526; and all who did not conform to it were to be arraigned before the Inquisition. The law was at once met, as might have been expected, by remonstrances from the men of most consideration among the Moriscoes, who, to give efficacy to their petition, promised the round sum of eighty thousand gold ducats to the emperor in case their prayers should be granted. Charles, who in his early days did not always allow considerations of religion to supersede those of a worldly policy, lent a favourable ear to the petitioners; and the monstrous edict, notwithstanding some efforts to the contrary, was never suffered to go into operation during his reign.[6]

Such was the state of things on the accession of Philip the Second. Granada, Malaga, and the other principal cities of the south, were filled with a mingled population of Spaniards and Moriscoes, the latter of whom,—including many persons of wealth and consideration,—under the influence of a more intimate contact with the Christians, gave evidence, from time to time, of conversion to the faith of their conquerors. But by far the larger part of the Moorish population was scattered over the mountain-range of the Alpujarras, south-east of Granada, and among the bold sierras that stretch along the southern shores of Spain. Here, amidst those frosty peaks, rising to the height of near twelve thousand feet above the level of the sea, and readily descried, from their great elevation, by the distant voyager on the Mediterranean, was many a green, sequestered valley, on which the Moorish peasant had exhausted that elaborate culture which, in the palmy days of his nation, was unrivalled in any part of Europe.[7] His patient toil had constructed terraces from the rocky soil, and, planting them with vines, had clothed the bald sides of the sierra with a delicious verdure. With the like industry he had contrived a network of canals along the valleys and lower levels, which, fed by the streams from the mountains, nourished the land with perpetual moisture. The different elevations afforded so many different latitudes for agricultural production; and the fig, the pomegranate, and the orange grew almost side by side with the hemp of the north and the grain of more temperate climates. The lower slopes of the sierra afforded extensive pastures for flocks of merino sheep;[8] and the mulberry-tree was raised in great abundance for the manufacture of silk, which formed an important article of export from the kingdom of Granada.

Thus, gathered in their little hamlets among the mountains, the people of the Alpujarras maintained the same sort of rugged independence which belonged to the ancient Goth when he had taken shelter from the Saracen invader in the fastnesses of the Asturias. Here the Moriscoes, formed into communities which preserved their national associations, still cherished the traditions of their fathers, and perpetuated those usages and domestic institutions that kept alive the memory of ancient days. It was from the Alpujarras that, in former times, the kings of Granada had drawn the brave soldiery who enabled them for so many years to bid defiance to their enemies. The trade of war was now at an end. But the hardy life of the mountaineer gave robustness to his frame, and saved him from the effeminacy and sloth which corrupted the inhabitants of the capital. Secluded among his native hills, he cherished those sentiments of independence which ill suited a conquered race; and, in default of a country which he could call his own, he had that strong attachment to the soil which is akin to patriotism, and which is most powerful among the inhabitants of a mountain region.

The products of the husbandman furnished the staples of a gainful commerce with the nations on the Mediterranean, and especially with the kindred people on the Barbary shores. The treaty of Granada secured certain commercial advantages to the Moors, beyond what were enjoyed by the Spaniards.[9] This, it may be well believed, was looked upon with no friendly eye by the latter, who had some ground, moreover, for distrusting the policy of an intercourse between the Moslems of Spain and those of Africa, bound together as they were by so many ties—above all, by a common hatred of the Christians. With the feelings of political distrust were mingled those of cupidity and envy, as the Spaniard saw the fairest provinces of the south still in the hands of the accursed race of Ishmael, while he was condemned to earn a scanty subsistence from the comparatively ungenial soil of the north.

In this state of things, with the two races not merely dissimilar, but essentially hostile to one another, it will readily be understood how difficult it must have been to devise any system of legislation by which they could be brought to act in harmony as members of the same political body. That the endeavours of the Spanish government were not crowned with success would hardly surprise us, even had its measures been more uniformly wise and considerate.

THEIR TREATMENT BY THE GOVERNMENT.

The government caused the Alpujarras to be divided into districts, and placed under the control of magistrates, who, with their families, resided in the places assigned as the seats of their jurisdiction. There seem to have been few other Christians who dwelt among the Moorish settlements in the sierra, except, indeed, the priests who had charge of the spiritual concerns of the natives. As the conversion of these latter was the leading object of the government, they caused churches to be erected in all the towns and hamlets; and the curates were instructed to use every effort to enlighten the minds of their flocks, and to see that they were punctual in attendance on the rites and ceremonies of the Church. But it was soon too evident that attention to forms and ceremonies was the only approach made to the conversion of the heathen; and that below this icy crust of conformity the waters of infidelity lay as dark and deep as ever. The result, no doubt, was to be partly charged on the clergy themselves, many of whom grew languid in the execution of a task which seemed to them to be hopeless.[10] And what task, in truth, could be more hopeless than that of persuading a whole nation at once to renounce their long-established convictions, to abjure the faith of their fathers, associated in their minds with many a glorious recollection, and to embrace the faith of the very men whom they regarded with unmeasured hatred? It would be an act of humiliation not to be expected even in a conquered race.

In accomplishing a work so much to be desired, the Spaniards, if they cannot be acquitted of the charge of persecution, must be allowed not to have urged persecution to anything like the extent which they had done in the case of the Protestant Reformers. Whether from policy or from some natural regard to the helplessness of these benighted heathen, the bloodhounds of the Inquisition were not as yet allowed to run down their game at will; and, if they did terrify the natives by displaying their formidable fangs, the time had not yet come when they were to slip the leash and spring upon their miserable victims. It is true there were some exceptions to this more discreet policy. The Holy Office had its agents abroad, who kept watch upon the Moriscoes; and occasionally the more flagrant offenders were delivered up to its tender mercies.[11] But a more frequent source of annoyance arose from the teasing ordinances from time to time issued by the government, which could have answered no other purpose than to irritate the temper and sharpen the animosity of the Moriscoes. If the government had failed in the important work of conversion, it was the more incumbent on it, by every show of confidence and kindness, to conciliate the good-will of the conquered people, and enable them to live in harmony with their conquerors, as members of the same community. Such was not the policy of Philip, any more than it had been that of his predecessors.

During the earlier years of his reign, the king's attention was too closely occupied with foreign affairs to leave him much leisure for those of the Moriscoes. It was certain, however, that they would not long escape the notice of a prince who regarded uniformity of faith as the corner-stone of his government. The first important act of legislation bearing on these people was in 1560, when the Cortes of Castile presented a remonstrance to the throne against the use of negro slaves by the Moriscoes, who were sure to instruct them in their Mahometan tenets, and thus to multiply the number of infidels in the land.[12] A royal pragmatic was accordingly passed, interdicting the use of African slaves by the Moslems of Granada. The prohibition caused the greatest annoyance; for the wealthier classes were in the habit of employing these slaves for domestic purposes, while in the country they were extensively used for agricultural labour.

In 1563 another ordinance was published, reviving a law which had fallen into disuse, and which prohibited the Moriscoes from having any arms in their possession, but such as were duly licensed by the captain-general and were stamped with his escutcheon.[13] The office of captain-general of Granada was filled at this time by Don Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza, count of Tendilla, who soon after, on his father's death, succeeded to the title of marquis of Mondejar. The important post which he held had been hereditary in his family ever since the conquest of Granada. The present nobleman was a worthy scion of the illustrious house from which he sprung.[14] His manners were blunt, and not such as win popularity; but he was a man of integrity, with a nice sense of humour and a humane heart,—the last of not too common occurrence in the iron days of chivalry. Though bred a soldier, he was inclined to peace. His life had been passed much among the Moriscoes, so that he perfectly understood their humours; and, as he was a person of prudence and moderation, it is not improbable, had affairs been left to his direction, that the country would have escaped many of those troubles which afterwards befell it.

It was singular, considering the character of Mendoza, that he should have recommended so ill-advised a measure as that relating to the arms of the Moriscoes. The ordinance excited a general indignation in Granada. The people were offended by the distrust which such a law implied of their loyalty. They felt it an indignity to be obliged to sue for permission to do what they considered it was theirs of right to do. Those of higher condition disdained to wear weapons displaying the heraldic bearings