I have already said elsewhere that in his eighteenth or twentieth year, Philip was—and would be for many years—congenial, fond of the ladies, elegant, and beloved of his people. Ah, our good, mistreated Spanish people, who always considered their kings to be the most just and magnanimous on earth, even when their power was on the decline; even though the reign of the previous king, Philip the Third, had been brief, but with time enough to be calamitous left in the hands of an incompetent and venal favorite; and even though our young monarch, a consummate horseman, if lethargic and incapable in affairs of government, was at the mercy of the accomplishments and disasters—and there were many more of the latter—of the Conde, and later Duque, de Olivares.
The Spanish people—or at least what is left of them— have changed a great deal since then. Their pride and admiration for their king was followed by scorn; enthusiasm by acerbic criticism; dreams of greatness by deep depression and general pessimism.
I well remember'—and I believe this happened during the festival of the bulls honoring the Prince of Wales, or perhaps a later one—that one of the beasts was so fierce that it could not be hamstrung or slowed. No one—not even the Spanish, Burgundian, and German guards ornamenting the plaza—dared go near it. Then, from the balcony of the Casa de la Panaderia, our good King Philip, calm as you please, asked one of the guards for his harquebus. Without losing a whit of royal composure or making any grandiose gestures, he casually took the gun, went down to the plaza, threw his cape over his shoulder, confidently requested his hat, and aimed so true that lifting the weapon, firing it, and dropping the bull were all one and the same motion.
The public exploded in applause and cheers, and for months the feat was celebrated in both prose and verse. Calderon, Hurtado de Mendoza, Alarcon, Velez de Guevara, Rojas, Saavedra Fajardo, and Don Francisco de Quevedo himself—everyone at court capable of dipping a quill into an inkwell—invoked the Muses to immortalize the act and adulate the monarch, comparing him now with Jupiter sending down his bolt of lightning, now with Theseus slaying the bull at Marathon. I remember that Don Francisco's sonnet began with a clever wordplay, in which he combined the continent of Europe and the mythic figure of Europa.
And the great Lope, addressing his lines to the charging bull eliminated by the royal hand, wrote:
This even though at that point in his life, Lope did not need to fawn on anyone. I tell these things that Your Mercies may see what Spain is, and what we Spaniards are like, how our good and gentle people have always been abused, and how easy, because of our generous impulses, it is to win us over, and push us to the brink of the abyss out of meanness or incompetence, when we have always deserved better. Had Philip IV commanded the glorious
How different from that other Philip IV, the widower with dead, weak, or degenerate sons, whom I myself would have to escort—along with his retinue—more than thirty years later across a deserted Spain devastated by wars, hunger, and misery, tepidly cheered by the few miserable peasants with energy enough to gather along the roadside. Bereaved, aged, head bowed, traveling to the border at the Bidassoa River to undergo the humiliation of delivering his daughter in marriage to a French king, and in so doing, sign the death certificate of that unhappy Spain he had led to disaster, squandering the gold and silver from America in vain frivolities, in enriching officials, clergy, nobles, and corrupt favorites, and in filling the battlefields of Europe with the graves of courageous men.
But it is not my wish to skip over years or events. The time I am writing about was still many years from such a dismal future, and Madrid still the capital of the Spains and the world. Those days, like the weeks that followed, and the months the engagement between our Infanta Maria and the Prince of Wales lasted, both town and court spent in entertainments of every nature. The most beautiful ladies and most genteel caballeros outdid themselves to fete the royal family and their illustrious guest during
The strictest rules of etiquette and decorum between the courting pair were, naturally, respected; they were never alone for a moment, always—to the despair of the impetuous young swain—watched over by a swarm of major-domos and duennas. Indifferent to the quiet diplomatic tussles unleashed in the chancelleries—for or against the union—the nobility and the common people of Madrid tried to outdo each other in their homage to the heir to the English throne, and to the compatriots joining him at court. Tittle-tattle flew on street corners and in drawing rooms: the infanta was learning the English tongue, and Charles himself was studying Catholic doctrine with theologians, with the goal of embracing the true faith. Nothing was further from reality in regard to the latter, as would be proved later. But at the moment, and in such a climate of goodwill, whispers about the charm, consideration, and good looks of the young heir merely added to his popularity.
This reputation would later serve to offset the caprices and insolence of Buckingham, who, as he gained more confidence—he had just been named a duke by his king, James—and as both he and Charles came to realize that the negotiations for the marriage would be arduous and long, was revealing all the earmarks of a spoiled, bad- mannered, arrogant young man. Something that serious Spanish hidalgos found difficult to tolerate, especially in regard to three matters that were sacred at the time: protocol, religion, and women. Buckingham's uncouth behavior reached such an extreme that, on more than one occasion, only the hospitality and good breeding of our caballeros prevented their slapping the Englishman across the face with a glove in answer to some insolence or other, which would have led to settling the question with seconds and swords, at dawn, in El Prado park or at the Puerta de la Vega. As for the Conde de Olivares, his relationship with Buckingham went from bad to worse after the first days of obligatory political courtesy, and in the long run, after the engagement was dissolved, there were unfortunate consequences for Spanish interests.
Now that years have gone by, I wonder whether it would not have been better had Diego Alatriste skewered the Englishman that famous night, despite his scruples and no matter how noble the accursed heretic had showed himself to be. But who could have known? At any rate, our friend Buckingham would get his comeuppance in his
