History of Civilization in England, Vol. 2 of 3

By these and similar measures,1292 these unhappy people were at length goaded into rebellion; and in 1568 they took the desperate step of measuring their force against that of the whole Spanish monarchy. The result could hardly be doubted; but the Moriscoes maddened by their sufferings, and fighting for their all, protracted the contest till 1571, when the insurrection was finally put down.1293 By this unsuccessful effort, they were greatly reduced in numbers and in strength; and, during the remaining twenty-seven years of the reign of Philip II. we hear comparatively little of them. Notwithstanding an occasional outbreak, the old animosities were subsiding, and in the course of time would probably have disappeared. At all events, there was no pretence for violence on the part of the Spaniards, since it was absurd to suppose that the Moriscoes, weakened in every way, humbled, broken, and scattered through the kingdom, could, even if they desired it, effect any thing against the resources of the executive government.

But, after the death of Philip II., that movement began which I have just described, and which, contrary to the course of affairs in other nations, secured to the Spanish clergy in the seventeenth century, more power than they had possessed in the sixteenth. The consequences of this were immediately apparent. The clergy did not think that the steps taken by Philip II. against the Moriscoes were sufficiently decisive; and even during his lifetime they looked forward to a new reign, in which these Christians of doubtful sincerity should be either destroyed or driven from Spain.1294 While he was on the throne, the prudence of the government restrained in some degree the eagerness of the Church; and the king, following the advice of his ablest ministers, refused to adopt the measures to which he was urged, and to which his own disposition prompted him.1295 But, under his successor, the clergy, as we have already seen, gained fresh strength, and they soon felt themselves sufficiently powerful to begin another and final crusade against the miserable remains of the Moorish nation.1296

The Archbishop of Valencia was the first to take the field. In 1602, this eminent prelate presented a memorial to Philip III. against the Moriscoes; and finding that his views were cordially supported by the clergy, and not discouraged by the crown, he followed up the blow by another memorial having the same object.1297 The Archbishop, who spoke as one having authority, and who from his rank and position was a natural representative of the Spanish Church, assured the king that all the disasters which had befallen the monarchy, had been caused by the presence of these unbelievers, whom it was now necessary to root out, even as David had done to the Philistines, and Saul to the Amalekites.1298 He declared that the Armada, which Philip II. sent against England in 1588, had been destroyed, because God would not allow even that pious enterprise to succeed, while those who undertook it, left heretics undisturbed at home. For the same reason, the late expedition to Algiers had failed; it being evidently the will of Heaven that nothing should prosper while Spain was inhabited by apostates.1299 He, therefore, exhorted the king to exile all the Moriscoes, except some whom he might condemn to work in the galleys, and others who could become slaves, and labour in the mines of America.1300 This, he added, would make the reign of Philip glorious to all posterity, and would raise his fame far above that of his predecessors, who in this matter had neglected their obvious duty.1301

These remonstrances, besides being in accordance with the known views of the Spanish Church, were warmly supported by the personal influence of the Archbishop of Toledo, the primate of Spain. In only one respect did he differ from the views advocated by the Archbishop of Valencia. The Archbishop of Valencia thought that children under seven years of age need not share in the general banishment, but might, without danger to the faith, be separated from their parents, and kept in Spain. To this, the Archbishop of Toledo strongly objected. He was unwilling, he said, to run the risk of pure Christian blood being polluted by infidels; and he declared that sooner than leave one of these unbelievers to corrupt the land, he would have the whole of them, men, women, and children, at once put to the sword.1302

That they should all be slain, instead of being banished, was the desire of a powerful party in the Church, who thought that such signal punishment would work good by striking terror into the heretics of every nation. Bleda, the celebrated Dominican, one of the most influential men of his time, wished this to be done, and to be done thoroughly. He said, that, for the sake of example, every Morisco in Spain should have his throat cut, because it was impossible to tell which of them were Christians at heart, and it was enough to leave the matter to God, who knew his own, and who would reward in the next world those who were really Catholics.1303

It was evident that the fate of the wretched remnant of a once splendid nation was now sealed. The religious scruples of Philip III. forbade him to struggle with the Church; and his minister Lerma would not risk his own authority by even the show of opposition. In 1609, he announced to the king, that the expulsion of the Moriscoes had become necessary. ‘The resolution,’ replied Philip, ‘is a great one; let it be executed.’1304 And executed it was, with unflinching barbarity. About one million of the most industrious inhabitants of Spain were hunted out like wild beasts, because the sincerity of their religious opinions was doubtful.1305 Many were slain, as they approached the coast; others were beaten and plundered; and the majority, in the most wretched plight, sailed for Africa. During the passage, the crew, in many of the ships, rose upon them, butchered the men, ravished the women, and threw the children into the sea. Those who escaped this fate, landed on the coast of Barbary, where they were attacked by the Bedouins, and many of them put to the sword. Others made their way into the desert, and perished from famine. Of the number of lives actually sacrificed, we have no authentic account; but it is said, on very good authority, that in one expedition, in which 140,000 were carried to Africa, upwards of 100,000 suffered death in its most frightful forms within a few months after their expulsion from Spain.1306

Now, for the first time, the Church was really triumphant.1307 For the first time, there was not a heretic to be seen between the Pyrenees and the Straits of Gibraltar. All were orthodox, and all were loyal. Every inhabitant of that great country obeyed the Church, and feared the king. And from this happy combination, it was believed that the prosperity and grandeur of Spain were sure to follow. The name of Philip III. was to be immortal, and posterity would never weary of admiring that heroic act by which the last remains of an infidel race were cast out from the land. Those who had even remotely participated in the glorious consummation, were to be rewarded by the choicest blessings. Themselves, and their families, were under the immediate protection of Heaven. The earth should bear more fruit, and the trees should clap their hands. Instead of the thorn should come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier, the myrtle. A new era was now inaugurated, in which Spain, purged of her heresy, was to be at ease, and men, living in safety, were to sleep under the shade of their own vineyards, sow their gardens in peace, and eat of the fruit of the trees they had planted.1308

These were the promises held out by the Church, and believed by the people. It is our business to inquire how far the expectations were fulfilled, and what the consequences were of an act which was instigated by the clergy, welcomed by the nation, and eagerly applauded by some of the greatest men of genius Spain has produced.1309

The effects upon the material prosperity of Spain may be stated in a few words. From nearly every part of the country, large bodies of industrious agriculturists and expert artificers were suddenly withdrawn. The best systems of husbandry then known, were practised by the Moriscoes, who tilled and irrigated with indefatigable labour.1310 The cultivation of rice, cotton, and sugar, and the manufacture of silk and paper, were almost confined to them.1311 By their expulsion, all this was destroyed at a blow, and most of it was destroyed for ever. For, the Spanish Christians considered such pursuits beneath their dignity. In their judgment, war and religion were the only two avocations worthy of being followed. To fight for the king, or to enter the Church was honourable; but everything else was mean and sordid.1312 When, therefore, the Moriscoes were thrust out of Spain, there was no one to fill their place; arts and manufactures either degenerated, or were entirely lost, and immense regions of arable land were left uncultivated. Some of the richest parts of Valencia and Granada were so neglected, that means were wanting to feed even the scanty population which remained there.1313 Whole districts were suddenly deserted, and down to the present day have never been repeopled. These solitudes gave refuge to smugglers and brigands, who succeeded the industrious inhabitants formerly occupying them; and it is said, that from the expulsion of the Moriscoes is to be dated the existence of those organized bands of robbers, which, after this period, became the scourge of Spain, and which no subsequent government has been able entirely to extirpate.1314

To these disastrous consequences, others were added, of a different, and, if possible, of a still more serious kind. The victory gained by the Church increased both her power and her reputation. During the rest of the seventeenth century, not only were the interests of the clergy deemed superior to the interests of laymen, but the interests of laymen were scarcely thought of. The greatest men, with hardly an exception, became ecclesiastics, and all temporal considerations, all views of earthly policy, were despised and set at nought. No one inquired; no one doubted; no one presumed to ask if all this was right. The minds of men succumbed and were prostrate. While every other country was advancing, Spain alone was receding. Every other country was making some addition to knowledge, creating some art, or enlarging some science. Spain, numbed into a death-like torpor, spellbound and entranced by the accursed superstition which preyed on her strength, presented to Europe a solitary instance of constant decay. For her, no hope remained; and, before the close of the seventeenth century, the only question was, by whose hands the blow should be struck, which would dismember that once mighty empire, whose shadow had covered the world, and whose vast remains were imposing even in their ruin.

To indicate the different steps which mark the decline of Spain would be hardly possible, since even the Spaniards, who, when it was too late, were stung with shame, have abstained from writing what would only be the history of their own humiliation; so that there is no detailed account of the wretched reigns of Philip IV. and Charles II., which together comprise a period of nearly eighty years.1315 Some facts, however, I have been able to collect, and they are very significant. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the population of Madrid was estimated to be 400,000; at the beginning of the eighteenth century, less than 200,000.1316 Seville, one of the richest cities in Spain, possessed in the sixteenth century upwards of sixteen thousand looms, which gave employment to a hundred and thirty thousand persons.1317 By the reign of Philip V., these sixteen thousand looms had dwindled away to less than three hundred;1318 and, in a report which the Cortes made to Philip IV., in 1662, it is stated that the city contained only a quarter of its former number of inhabitants, and that even the vines and olives cultivated in its neighbourhood, and which comprised a considerable part of its wealth, were almost entirely neglected.1319 Toledo, in the middle of the sixteenth century, had upwards of fifty woollen manufactories; in 1665, it had only thirteen, almost the whole of the trade having been carried away by the Moriscoes, and established at Tunis.1320 Owing to the same cause, the art of manufacturing silk, for which Toledo was celebrated, was entirely lost, and nearly forty thousand persons, who depended on it, were deprived of their means of support.1321 Other branches of industry shared the same fate. In the sixteenth century, and early in the seventeenth, Spain enjoyed great repute for the manufacture of gloves, which were made in enormous quantities, and shipped to many parts, being particularly valued in England and France, and being also exported to the Indies. But Martinez de Mata, who wrote in the year 1655, assures us that at that time this source of wealth had disappeared; the manufacture of gloves having quite ceased, though formerly, he says, it had existed in every city in Spain.1322 In the once-flourishing province of Castile, every thing was going to ruin. Even Segovia lost its manufactures, and retained nothing but the memory of its former wealth.1323 The decay of Burgos was equally rapid; the trade of that famous city perished; and the deserted streets and empty houses formed such a picture of desolation, that a contemporary, struck by the havoc, emphatically declared that Burgos had lost every thing except its name.1324 In other districts, the results were equally fatal. The beautiful provinces of the south, richly endowed by nature, had formerly been so wealthy, that their contributions alone sufficed, in time of need, to replenish the imperial treasury; but they now deteriorated with such rapidity, that, by the year 1640, it was found hardly possible to impose a tax on them which would be productive.1325 During the latter half of the seventeenth century, matters became still worse, and the poverty and wretchedness of the people surpass all description. In the villages near Madrid, the inhabitants were literally famishing; and those farmers who had a stock of food refused to sell it, because, much as they needed money, they were apprehensive of seeing their families perish around them. The consequence was, that the capital was in danger of being starved; and ordinary threats producing no effect, it was found necessary, in 1664, that the President of Castile, with an armed force, and accompanied by the public executioner, should visit the adjacent villages, and compel the inhabitants to bring their supplies to the markets of Madrid.1326 All over Spain, the same destitution prevailed. That once rich and prosperous country was covered with a rabble of monks and clergy, whose insatiate rapacity absorbed the little wealth yet to be found. Hence it happened, that the government, though almost penniless, could obtain no supplies. The tax-gatherers, urged to make up the deficiency, adopted the most desperate expedients. They not only seized the beds and all the furniture, but they unroofed the houses, and sold the materials of the roof, for whatever they would fetch. The inhabitants were forced to fly; the fields were left uncultivated; vast multitudes died from want and exposure; entire villages were deserted; and in many of the towns, upwards of two-thirds of the houses were, by the end of the seventeenth century, utterly destroyed.1327

In the midst of these calamities, the spirit and energy of Spain were extinguished. In every department, all power and life disappeared. The Spanish troops were defeated at Rocroy in 1643; and several writers ascribe to that battle the destruction of the military reputation of Spain.1328 This, however, was only one of many symptoms.1329 In 1656, it was proposed to fit out a small fleet; but the fisheries on the coast had so declined, that it was found impossible to procure sailors enough to man even the few ships which were required.1330 The charts which had been made, were either lost or neglected; and the ignorance of the Spanish pilots became so notorious, that no one was willing to trust them.1331 As to the military service, it is stated, in an account of Spain, late in the seventeenth century, that most of the troops had deserted their colours, and that the few who were faithful were clothed in rags, received no pay, and were dying of hunger.1332 Another account describes this once mighty kingdom as utterly unprotected; the frontier towns ungarrisoned; the fortifications dilapidated and crumbling away; the magazines without ammunition; the arsenals empty; the workshops unemployed; and even the art of building ships entirely lost.1333

While the country at large was thus languishing, as if it had been stricken by some mortal distemper, the most horrible scenes were occurring in the capital, under the eyes of the sovereign. The inhabitants of Madrid were starving; and the arbitrary measures which had been adopted to supply them with food, could only produce temporary relief. Many persons fell down in the streets exhausted, and died where they fell; others were seen in the public highway evidently dying, but no one had wherewithal to feed them. At length the people became desperate, and threw off all control. In 1680, not only the workmen of Madrid, but large numbers of the tradesmen, organized themselves into bands, broke open private houses, and robbed and murdered the inhabitants in the face of day.1334 During the remaining twenty years of the seventeenth century, the capital was in a state, not of insurrection, but of anarchy. Society was loosened, and seemed to be resolving itself into its elements. To use the emphatic language of a contemporary, liberty and restraint were equally unknown.1335 The ordinary functions of the executive government were suspended. The police of Madrid, unable to obtain the arrears of their pay, disbanded, and gave themselves up to rapine. Nor did there seem any means of remedying these evils. The exchequer was empty, and it was impossible to replenish it. Such was the poverty of the court, that money was wanting to pay the wages of the king's private servants, and to meet the daily expenses of his household.1336 In 1693, payment was suspended of every life-pension; and all officers and ministers of the crown were mulcted of one-third of their salaries.1337 Nothing, however, could arrest the mischief. Famine and poverty continued to increase;1338 and, in 1699, Stanhope, the British minister then residing in Madrid, writes, that never a day passed in which people were not killed in the streets scuffling for bread; that his own secretary had seen five women stifled to death by the crowd before a bakehouse; and that, to swell the catalogue of misery, upwards of twenty thousand additional beggars from the country had recently flocked into the capital.1339

If this state of things had continued for another generation, the wildest anarchy must have ensued, and the whole frame of society been broken up.1340 The only chance of saving Spain from a relapse into barbarism, was that it should fall, and fall quickly, under foreign dominion. Such a change was indispensable; and there was reason to fear that it might come in a form which would have been inexpressibly odious to the nation. For, late in the seventeenth century, Ceuta was besieged by the Mohammedans; and as the Spanish Government had neither troops nor ships, the greatest apprehensions were entertained respecting the fate of this important fortress; there being little doubt, that if it fell, Spain would be again overrun by the infidels, who, this time, at least, would have found little difficulty in dealing with a people weakened by suffering, half famished, and almost worn out.1341

Fortunately, in the year 1700, when affairs were at their worst, Charles II., the idiot king, died; and Spain fell into the hands of Philip V., the grandson of Louis XIV. This change from the Austrian dynasty to the Bourbon,1342 brought with it many other changes. Philip, who reigned from 1700 to 1746,1343 was a Frenchman, not only by birth and education, but also in feelings and habits.1344 Just before he entered Spain, Louis charged him never to forget that he was a native of France, the throne of which he might some day ascend.1345 After he became king, he neglected the Spaniards, despised their advice, and threw all the power he could command into the hands of his own countrymen.1346 The affairs of Spain were now administered by subjects of Louis XIV., whose ambassador at Madrid frequently performed the functions of prime minister.1347 What had once been the most powerful monarchy in the world, became little else than a province of France; all important matters being decided in Paris, from whence Philip himself received his instructions.1348

The truth is, that Spain, broken and prostrate, was unable to supply ability of any kind; and if the government of the country was to be carried on, it was absolutely necessary that foreigners should be called in.1349 Even in 1682, that is, eighteen years before the accession of Philip V., there was not to be found a single native well acquainted with the art of war; so that Charles II. was obliged to intrust the military defence of the Spanish Netherlands to De Grana, the Austrian ambassador at Madrid.1350 When, therefore, the War of the Succession broke out, in 1702, even the Spaniards themselves desired that their troops should be commanded by a foreigner.1351 In 1704, the extraordinary spectacle was exhibited of the Duke of Berwick, an Englishman, leading Spanish soldiers against the enemy, and being in fact generalissimo of the Spanish army.1352 The King of Spain, dissatisfied with his proceedings, determined to remove him; but, instead of filling his place with a native, he applied to Louis XIV. for another general; and this important post was confided to Marshal Tessé, a Frenchman.1353 A little later, Berwick was again summoned to Madrid, and ordered to put himself at the head of the Spanish troops, and defend Estremadura and Castile.1354 This he effected with complete success; and, in the battle of Almansa, which he fought in 1707, he overthrew the invaders, ruined the party of the pretender Charles,1355 and secured the seat of Philip on the throne.1356 As the war, however, still continued, Philip, in 1710, wrote to Paris for another general, and requested that the Duke de Vendôme might be sent to him.1357 This able commander, on his arrival, infused new vigour into the Spanish counsels, and utterly defeated the allies;1358 so that the war by which the independence of Spain was established, owed its success to the ability of foreigners, and to the fact that the campaigns were planned and conducted, not by natives, but by French and English generals.

In the same way, the finances were, by the end of the seventeenth century, in such deplorable confusion, that Portocarrero, who at the accession of Philip V. was the nominal minister of Spain, expressed a desire that they should be administered by some one sent from Paris, who could restore them.1359 He felt that no one in Spain was equal to the task, and he was by no means singular in this opinion. In 1701, Louville wrote to Torcy, that if a financier did not soon arrive from France, there would shortly be no finances to administer.1360 The choice fell upon Orry, who reached Madrid in the summer of 1701.1361 He found everything in the most miserable condition; and the incompetence of the Spaniards was so obvious, that he was soon forced to undertake the management, not only of the finances, but also of the war-department. To save appearances, Canalez became the ostensible minister at war; but he, being completely ignorant of affairs, merely performed the drudgery of that office, the real duties of which were fulfilled by Orry himself.1362

This dominion of the French continued, without interruption, until the second marriage of Philip V., in 1714, and the death of Louis XIV., in 1715, both of which events weakened their influence, and for a time almost destroyed it. The authority, however, which they lost, was transferred, not to Spaniards, but to other foreigners. Between 1714 and 1726, the two most powerful and conspicuous men in Spain were Alberoni, an Italian, and Ripperda, a Dutchman. Ripperda was dismissed in 1726;1363 and after his fall, the affairs of Spain were controlled by Konigseg, who was a German, and who, indeed, was the Austrian ambassador residing at Madrid.1364 Even Grimaldo, who held office before and after the dismissal of Ripperda, was a disciple of the French school, and had been brought up under Orry.1365 All this was not the result of accident, nor is it to be ascribed to the caprice of the court. In Spain, the national spirit had so died away, that none but foreigners, or men imbued with foreign ideas, were equal to the duties of government. To the evidence already quoted on this point, I will add two other testimonies. Noailles, a very fair judge, and by no means prejudiced against the Spaniards, emphatically stated, in 1710, that, notwithstanding their loyalty, they were incapable of ruling, inasmuch as they were ignorant both of war and of politics.1366 In 1711, Bonnac mentions that a resolution had been formed to place no Spaniard at the head of affairs, because those hitherto employed had proved to be either unfortunate or unfaithful.1367