Philip of Spain

  Praise for Henry Kamen's

  P h i l i p

  O F S P A I N

  ‘formidably learned, impartial and just: a worthy achievement’

  – Economist

  ‘a valuable contribution … The arguments he puts forward will provoke reflection and debate’

  – J.H. Elliott, New York Review of Books

  ‘his book supersedes all [previous biographies] in respect of his presentation of Philip the man … This excellent book … is a fine achievement. Since it is well written, it can also be read for pleasure by the general reader’

  – Hugh Thomas, New York Times Book Review

  ‘Henry Kamen is perhaps the most challenging of historians of early modern Spain … [This book] has set a standard of scholarship that [will be] hard to match’

  – I.A.A. Thompson, Times Literary Supplement

  ‘a remarkable achievement … what a good read!’

  – Peter Gwyn, Daily Telegraph

  ‘although scores of authors will write about Philip II, few will marshall such an impressive range of new material’

  – Geoffrey Parker, The Times

  ‘masterly … a work of marvellous scholarship’ – Library Journal

  ‘a highly impressive work, sympathetic but not uncritical … a subtle and highly intelligent portrait’

  – John Adamson, Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Despite an abundance of specialised studies of his reign, there has been no full-length biography of Philip II. Henry Kamen's impeccable scholarship provides it.’ – Raymond Carr, Spectator

  I dont know if they think I'm made of iron or stone. The truth is, they need to see that I am mortal, like everyone else.

  Philip II, 29 Nov. 1578, Biblioteca Zabálburu, Madrid (142 f.9)

  Copyright © 1997 by Henry Kamen

  First published in paperback 1998

  All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publishers.

  Set in Palatino by Best-set Typesetter Ltd, Hong Kong Printed in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kamen, Henry Arthur Francis.

  Philip of Spain/Henry Kamen.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-0-300-07081-1 (cl.: alk. paper)

  ISBN 978-0-300-07800-8 (pb.)

  1. Philip II, King of Spain. 1527–1598. 2. Spain—History—Philip II. 1556–1598. 3. Spain—Kings and rulers—Biography. I. Title. DP178. K36 1997 946'.043'092—dc 21

  [B]

  96–52421

  CIP

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4

  Philip of Spain

  Contents

  List of Illustrations and Maps

  Preface

  The House of Hapsburg in the Sixteenth Century

  1 The Formative Years 1527–1544

  2 The Renaissance Prince 1545–1551

  3 Soldier and King 1551–1559

  4 The Cross and the Crescent 1559–1565

  5 Towards Total War 1566–1572

  6 Dropping the Pilot 1572–1580

  7 The World of Philip II

  8 The Statesman

  9 War in the West 1580–1586

  10 The Time of Thunder 1587–1593

  11 Last Years 1593–1598

  12 Epilogue

  List of Abbreviations

  Notes

  A Note on Sources

  Index

  Illustrations and Maps

  PLATES

  1. Titian, portrait of Isabel of Portugal. Prado, Madrid

  2. Titian, equestrian portrait of Charles V. Prado, Madrid

  3. Pompeo Leoni, bust of Philip. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

  4. A. Sánchez Coello, portrait of Isabella of Valois. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

  5. Antonis Mor, portrait of Anna of Austria. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

  6. Sonfonisba Anguisciola, portrait of the Infanta Catalina Michaela. Glasgow Museums: the Stirling Maxwell Collection, Pollok House

  7. A. Sánchez Coello, portrait of Don Carlos. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

  8. Letter from Philip to the duke of Savoy. British Library, London

  9. Fabrizio Castello and Niccolò Granello, The Battle of Saint Quentin, detail of a fresco in the Sala de las Batallas in the Escorial. Photo Mas

  10. H. Letter, Battle of Lepanto, contemporary imaginary view. National Maritime Museum, London

  11. Design for a tapestry of the Armada, sixteenth-century. National Maritime Museum, London

  12. William Key, portrait of the duke of Alba, 1568. Collection of the Duke of Alba, Madrid. Photo Mas

  13. Anonymous portrait of the princess of Eboli. Collection of the Marquess of Santillana, Madrid. Photo Mas

  14. Antonis Mor, portrait of Anton Perrenot de Granvelle, 1549. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

  15. Anonymous portrait of Antonio Pérez. Escorial. Photo Mas

  16. English school, The Milch Cow, c.1585. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

  17. The execution of counts Egmont and Hornes in 1568, contemporary print.

  18. Anonymous contemporary drawing of the building of the Escorial. Hatfield House, courtesy of The Marquess of Salisbury

  19. After Juan de Herrera, View of the Escorial. Escorial. Photo Mas

  20. Anton van den Wyngaerde, View of Valsaín. National Library, Vienna

  21. Contemporary print of Philip's palace in Lisbon.

  22. A Spanish official with his scribe in Peru. From Guamán Poma de Ayala's Chronicle, 1615. Royal Library, Copenhagen

  23. The silver mine at Potosí, late sixteenth-century manuscript. Hispanic Society of America, New York

  24. Men being paid to join the Indies fleet. Detail from a view of Cadiz from Civitates Orbis Terrarum.

  25. Design by Jehan Lhermite for a gout-sufferer's chair for Philip, from Le Passetemps, 1595. Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels. Photo Mas

  26. Pantoja de la Cruz, portrait of Philip in his last years. Escorial. Photo Mas

  MAPS

  Spain under Philip II

  Europe in the Age of Philip II

  The Residences of Philip II

  Preface

  Philip II refused to let his life be written during his lifetime. He thereby saved himself from adulators, whom he hated. But he left the field wide open to detractors. Since then he has consistently been given a bad press. Denigrated in his own day by political foes abroad, by Protestants everywhere, and even within Spain by enemies such as his former secretary Antonio Pérez, he acquired a sinister reputation that the passing of time only succeeded in blackening yet further.

  The image presented by both his defenders and detractors has barely changed over four centuries. On the whole, biographies by his defenders have been appallingly bad. The scholarship of his enemies has by contrast usually been excellent. The splendid research done by modern Belgian, Dutch and English-speaking historians has completely altered our knowledge of aspects of his policies, but barely touched Philip's personal image. ‘To historians he is an enigma’, the most eminent historian of our time, Fernand Braudel, was obliged to conclude.

  The American J. L. Motley penned in 1855 the classic portrait of Philip as the incarnation of evil: ‘mediocrity, pedant, reserved, suspicious, his mind was incredibly small … bigot, grossly licentious, cruel … a consummate tyrant’. Some Spanish contemporaries of Motley shared the same view. One of them affirmed (in 1889) that ‘the figure of Philip has always been a sombre page in our history �
�� Suspicious, cruel, vengeful … He committed authentic crimes with terrifying cold-bloodedness.’ In an influential Spanish study of 1948, notable for its attempt to be fair to Philip, Gregorio Marañón could still portray him as suspicious, weak, indecisive and an accomplice in murder.

  Through the centuries no historian dared to look closely into Philip the man. The only attempt at a purely biographical study was that by the Dane, Carl Bratli in 1912. Nearly all the multi-volume accounts (by Prescott, Merriman, and Forneron) are in reality political histories of the reign. The recent short life by Geoffrey Parker (1978) includes several personal details, but is also mainly a political survey and has significant differences of presentation from my own. Until now, in short, we have known very little about the thoughts, motives and preferences of the man who for half a century, during one of the most crucial epochs in history, governed the most extensive empire in the world.

  This is the first full-length and fully researched biography of the king ever written. It has been made possible by the use at every point of entirely new manuscript sources, many of them hitherto unknown. Previous ‘biographies’ have dedicated themselves largely to foreign politics; this study by contrast places special emphasis on the king and on his principal environment, Spain. At the same time due attention has been paid to the part played by America in forming his outlook. As in all biographies, a strictly chronological plan has been followed; and for the first time a reliable itinerary of the king's movements, both in Spain and abroad, has been given. I have attempted both to present a new vision of Philip on the basis of original documentation, and to understand his policies through his own perspective and words. Those who know the riches of the published material on, for example, art, religion and politics, will understand my disappointment that more on these and related themes could not have been integrated into the picture. A fuller treatment of such aspects would, quite apart from producing a very much larger book, have run the risk of losing sight of Philip himself. My primary purpose was to bring to life for non-specialist readers a king who till now has languished in the realm of uninformed mythology.

  On many key points the presentation here differs very radically from the traditional one. I have therefore felt it necessary to give a reasonable number of supporting references. Very occasionally, the notes point out where my conclusions differ from those of other scholars. Fuller discussion of these points would, again, have inflated the notes unduly.

  All the major studies of the king were written by non-Spaniards. This has inevitably contributed to his unfavourable image. The superb Belgian scholar Gachard, for example, was uniformly unsympathetic to Philip II. In Spanish, curiously enough, not a single researched biography has been produced since the seventeenth century. The voluminous compilation by Cabrera, who knew the king and also had access to original papers, is confused, derivative and otiose. A recent generation of Spanish scholars, notably Alfredo Alvar, Fernando Bouza, J. I. Fortea Pérez and Fernando Checa, has fortunately made very important contributions to our understanding of aspects of the king.

  Research for the book was financed principally by the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), Madrid. My special thanks are due to help from the research programmes of Dr Maria Teresa Ferrer and Dr Manuel Sánchez, of the Institució Milà i Fontanals (CSIC), Barcelona. I am grateful also for grants conceded by the Generalitat of Catalonia, and by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the kindness of very many archivists, in particular at the archive of Simancas, and at the Zabálburu Library in Madrid. I am specially indebted to Professor David Lagomarsino of Dartmouth College; Professor Friedrich Edelmayer of the University of Vienna; and Professor Francis Higman of the Institut d'Histoire de la Réformation, Geneva. Professor William Maltby of St Louis University and Professor Geoffrey Parker of Ohio State University generously looked over the text and saved me from several errors. No small part in the whole enterprise of creating Philip was played by my wife Eulàlia.

  CSIC,

  Barcelona

  Note to the 2nd edition

  For this edition identified slips have been corrected. The fine research that continues to be done on the reign of Philip II, notably on aspects (such as finance and the economy) not dealt with here, will certainly modify some of the conclusions in my book, which is a biographical essay rather than a survey of the entire reign. New studies are about to be published by Geoffrey Parker on imperial policy, and by Manuel Fernández Alvarez on the whole reign, while my own Spanish Inquisition (1998) looks in more detail at cultural aspects.

  Some reviewers have questioned a line on the final page asserting that Philip ‘cannot be held responsible for more than a small part’ of what happened during his reign. The comment, which I combined with a similar phrase from Fernand Braudel, was a gesture to the problems raised by the role of the ruler in history. At what stage does a policy mistake become a moral crime? Historians, guided hopefully by the available documentary evidence, will continue to disagree on the verdict.

  Spain under Philip II

  Europe in the Age of Philip II

  The House of Habsburg in the Sixteenth Century

  1

  The Formative Years 1527–1544

  I cannot find words to express the need and straits in which these realms find themselves1

  In July 1522 the Emperor Charles V returned to his Spanish dominions. Over two years previously he had sailed from them, just as revolution was breaking out in the major cities of Castile. His journey abroad took him to the lands over which he ruled in northern Europe. In Germany he was formally elected Holy Roman Emperor of the German nation. During the sessions of the Imperial Diet in Germany he paid due attention to the scandal caused by the preachings of the monk Martin Luther. His absence did not prevent him following closely the course of events in Spain. He was gratified to learn of the defeat of the rebels, the Comuneros, at the battle of Villalar in April 1521. On his return, the royal council under his direction decreed a further number of exemplary executions, but Charles soon declared that ‘enough blood has been shed’2 and on 1 November 1522 in a solemn ceremony in the town square of Valladolid, he issued a general pardon to the rebels. It opened the way to a reconciliation between the king and his alienated subjects.

  Over the next few months the king did his best to correct the errors that had thrown the beginning of his reign into turbulence. Born in Ghent, in the Netherlands, in 1500, endowed with the square face and low-hung jaw typical of his Habsburg family, he was an accomplished soldier and a proficient scholar. But it took him time to acquire political experience. He succeeded to the crowns of Spain in 1516, and arrived in the peninsula in 1517. In Castile he at first ruled jointly with his mother, the crazed queen Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was a purely nominal collaboration, for she was already in retirement. During his first weeks as ruler, Charles was criticised for being insensitive to the interests of his new subjects. He soon made up for his mistakes. From 1522 he prudently made concessions to all the major demands that had inspired the revolt of the Comuneros. They had complained about his absence. He now stayed for seven years, the longest of his sojourns in the peninsula. High up on the list was their demand that the king marry, by implication within the realm. He was young, the most eligible bachelor in western Europe (and already father, by a Flemish girl, of a daughter, Margaret). The Castilian deputies to the Cortes (or parliament) of 1525 hoped that he might marry his cousin Isabel, sister of the king of Portugal. Charles was virtually pledged to marry the daughter of Henry VIII of England, Mary. But by 1525 he had drifted from the idea of an alliance with England and accepted the link with Portugal. The marriage took place at Seville on 10 March 1526. It was a political union, but Charles fell in love with his beautiful wife, three years younger than he. When the heat invaded Seville they escaped to spend the honeymoon in the Moorish splendour of the Alhambra at Granada. In December the couple, and the whole court with them, moved back to Castile. It was there,
in one of the palaces of Valladolid, that a son was born to Isabel in the afternoon of 21 May 1527.

  She was thirteen hours in labour, but Charles stayed by her side throughout. The proud father was ‘so overjoyed and delighted by his son’,3 that he spent his time doing nothing but arranging celebrations and festivities. The infant was not baptised until six weeks later, by the archbishop of Toledo in the monastery of St Pablo in Valladolid. His godparents were the Constable of Castile (who bore him in his arms), the duke of Béjar, and Charles's elder sister Eleanor, queen of France. The emperor laid on ‘tourneys and ventures like those described in Amadis, but far more daring and accomplished than those in the book, so that neither before nor since had such celebrations been held’.

  The happiness of the occasion was clouded by serious political problems. Just over a year before, Charles had released from captivity in Madrid the king of France, Francis I, captured at the battle of Pavia in northern Italy in 1525. Although Francis was to keep his promise, made in captivity, to marry Eleanor, he almost immediately on his release refused to honour the main political concessions he had made. Francis's ally, pope Clement, took heart at these events and challenged the emperor's forces based in Milan. In reply the emperor's army, strengthened by German mercenaries, moved south and on 6 May 1527 attacked and sacked the city of Rome. The outrage to the capital of western Christendom shocked all Europe. The news reached Charles in Valladolid in mid-June, and dampened the festive atmosphere. The emperor's attention had of necessity to be diverted to these serious events, and his departure soon became unavoidable. Pressure of affairs of state meant that in the coming years he was fated to play little part in the rearing of his infant son.