If there is no way to avoid an engagement before I
arrive, I cannot enjoin you too strongly to inform me post haste.
PHILIP II ON THE EVE OF THE BATTLE OF SAINT QUENTIN
War marked Europe in the late 1540s. It was the first time that a major European war had been fought in Germany. On the one side was a Catholic emperor standing not only for the unity of Christendom but for universal Christian power and, on the other, the Protestant states articulating special particularism. Charles, now a widower and usually melancholy in time of peace, was happy to be in an army again: “There goes the happiest man in the world,” his brother Ferdinand’s ambassador Martín de Salinas had written in 1536 about Charles and the war in Provence. (It was Salinas who ensured that Ferdinand received so much information about the Indies.)
On June 26, 1546, the Farnese pope, Paul III, signed a treaty
agreeing to support Charles against the Protestants. But France and England on
June 6 had concluded a treaty at Guînes, in the Pas de Calais, then, of course,
an English possession, which freed them both from obligations to Charles. On
July 26, an army of Protestant princes reached the Danube and threatened to cut
off Charles, who, in his litter, marched to the river Inn, and on August 13,
joined with papal troops. Next day, the Protestant Schmalkaldic League formally
challenged him, sending him a herald in the traditional manner. Charles
assembled his army of thirty thousand infantry and five thousand cavalry. He
then amalgamated these forces with those of the Dutch count Egmont, who had
five thousand cavalry. The first battle was on August 31 at Ingolstadt, Charles
taking part at the head of his men, supported by Alba and Egmont. Through his
victory there, Charles won control of south Germany by the end of 1546. This
was the victory of Alba, then at his best as a commander.
At Christmas 1546, Charles was at Heilbronn in Württemberg.
He was then weary, having slept in forty different places since August. Next
spring, in April—supported by his brother, Ferdinand, with his son Maximilian,
and by the treacherous Maurice of Saxony—he defeated the elector John Frederick
of Saxony at Mühlberg, near Leipzig, on the Elbe. Charles commented “Vine, vi y
Dios conquistó.” John Frederick was not aware that Charles could cross the Elbe
at Mühlberg. Alba brought the elector as a prisoner to Charles, who treated him
scornfully. The Emperor then continued north to Wittenberg, the scene of
Luther’s first challenge, which John Frederick surrendered on June 4 to avoid a
siege. This marked Charles’s greatest triumph and enabled him to summon a diet
at Augsburg. The Battle of Mühlberg is known as the occasion for Titian’s
masterpiece; it is a unique example of a great victory inspiring a great
picture.
Early in 1548, Charles wrote to his son and regent, Philip,
who was then just twenty-one: “Seeing that human affairs are beset with doubt,
I can give you no general rules save to trust in God. You will show this by
defending the faith … I have come to the conclusion that a general
council [of the Church] is the only way ahead … Peace will depend not
so much on your actions as on those of others. It will be a difficult task for
you to preserve it, seeing that God has bestowed so many great kingdoms and
principalities on you … You know yourself how unreliable Pope Paul
III [Farnese] is in all his treaties, how, sadly, he lacks all [real] zeal for
Christendom, and how badly he has acted in this affair of the council [of the
Church] above all. Nevertheless, honour his position. He is old [he had been
born in 1468, so he was eighty]. Therefore, take careful heed to the
instructions which I have given my ambassador [the clever Diego Hurtado de
Mendoza] in case of a [papal] election … France has never kept faith
and has always sought to do me harm … Never yield to them so much as
an inch … Defend Milan with good artillery, Naples with a good fleet.
Remember that the French are always discouraged if they do not succeed
immediately in anything which they undertake. The Neapolitans, remember, are
much given to revolt. Let them be constantly reminded how the French once
sacked their city … You can never manage without Spanish troops in
Italy … To preserve peace, I have allowed my demands for our ancient
hereditary land, for the duchy of Burgundy, to lapse. But do not altogether
forget your rights there … And do not at any time be persuaded to
renounce Piedmont.”
It was an emperor who wrote and one who did not forget his
more remote possessions. For he went on to advise Philip to keep a watch over
his fleet. It was his best defense against pirates in the Mediterranean, and it
would also keep the French from interfering in the Indies. Philip should
cultivate Portugal for the same reason: “Do not cease to keep yourself well
informed of the state of those distant lands, for the honour of God and the
care of justice. Combat the abuses which have risen in them.” Charles also
urged Philip to marry again soon, since he would need more children. (His first
wife, María, had died.) He suggested Elizabeth of Valois, daughter of the new
king Henry of France, or Jeanne d’Albret, daughter of King Henry of Navarre, who
was “very attractive and clever.”
“And as for the Indies, take care to keep a good watch to
see if the French want to send an armada there, dissimulating or otherwise, and
ensuring that the governors of those parts keep a good look out so that, when
it is necessary, they can resist the said French; … and you should
establish good intelligence with Portugal … And as for the division
of the Indians, about which there have been so many conflicting reports and
advice, we have even consulted Don Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New
Spain, so as to be properly informed.”
The princely recipient of this letter was, however, himself
now on the move. Though quite unconvinced of the need to travel as his father
had done, or in the same restless fashion, he had decided to visit his future
dominions in the north of Europe. On October 2, 1548, Philip left Valladolid,
ignoring the determined opposition of the cortes to such a journey. With him
there were the Duke of Alba, both his and his father’s chief military adviser;
Ruy Gómez da Silva, the future prince of Eboli, a Portuguese courtier who would
become in effect a chief minister; his longtime secretary, Gonzalo Pérez;
Honorat Juan, who had been his tutor in mathematics; the clever and original
Fray Constantino Ponce de la Fuente; and Juan Cristóbal Calvete de Estrella,
the Prince’s learned majordomo, who would write an account of the journey.
There were also the musician Luis Narváez and the blind composer Antonio de
Cabezón. Vicente Álvarez, the steward, would write an account. They were a
strange gathering: Alba represented the hereditary nobility, Silva the noblesse
de robe; Honorat Juan was a learned preceptor of the Prince from the Borgias’
town of Játiva; Ponce de la Fuente was Christophorus Fontanus, an Erasmian
preacher, a converso, and one who as a result would die in prison; and Calvete
was Philip’s teacher in Latin and Greek, who wrote a fine account of La Gasca’s
triumph over Gonzalo Pizarro.
The Prince’s court spent three nights at Montserrat; they
stayed at Barcelona with Estefanía de Requessens, widow of Juan de Zúñiga and a
foster mother to Philip, and subsequently went to Rosas, in the Ampurdán, where
on November 2, 1548, they boarded a vessel in a fleet of fifty-eight galleys
commanded by the unconquered Andrea Doria. Then they set off for Genoa,
stopping at Cadaqués, Collioure, Perpignan, Aigues-Mortes (where they waited
six days because of the wind), Hyères, Savona, and then Genoa itself (on
November 25), where Philip was put up by Doria in his palace for sixteen days.
At Savona, Columbus’s father’s town, the Regent was
introduced to the famous bankers Lomellini, Pallavicino, and Grillo—all of
whom, or their families, were to become important in the Indies. On December
19, Philip left Genoa for Milan, of which he was already the duke. He was there
nineteen days, a time filled with balls, theaters, tournaments, banquets, and
local tours, and there he met the painter Titian for the first time. He set off
for the Catholic Church’s congress at Trent, where he was welcomed by the
elector Maurice of Saxony (his father’s ally, though a Lutheran) and the
cardinals of Augsburg and Trent. The council of the Church had actually gone to
Bologna because of plague in Trent. Then, after five more days of celebrations,
Philip and his party set off for the Netherlands via Bolzano and Innsbruck.
This journey lasted six months. It was a serious education. It was the first
time he had visited his northern European dominions.
By February 13, 1549, the princely party was in Munich, with
its clean streets and small houses; there was much hunting, and many dinners
and picnics. Then at Augsburg they visited the all-important Fuggers. At Ulm,
there was a joust on the Danube. At Vaihingen, they were greeted by Prince
Albert of Hohenzollern, who escorted them to Heidelberg, a Catholic enclave in
a Protestant valley, where the Prince had four days of hunting, picnicking,
dancing, and drinking. Then the expedition went on to Speyer, Luxembourg,
Namur, and finally Brussels, where the Prince was greeted by his aunt, the
Regent María. There followed a formal reunion with the emperor Charles at the
royal palace.
Charles—though, as usual in those days, ill—held many
celebrations, balls, hunting parties, and tournaments in honor of Philip. The
Spanish Prince met all the grandees of the Low Countries, such as the Prince of
Orange and Count Egmont, both fatally associated with him later in life. On
July 12, Charles and his son went on a tour of the Netherlands, which lasted
till the end of October. There was a formal swearing in of Philip as the heir
to the throne, and also a celebration at the beautiful palace of Binche,
between Charleroi and Mons, at the end of August 1549. At Binche, Philip saw
The Descent from the Cross by Rogier van der Weyden, which he had copied by
Michel Coxcie and which he bought many years later. Probably he bought other
Flemish paintings at this time, including several by Bosch and the popular
landscapist Joachim Patinir.
Queen Mary of Hungary had in 1540 held a carnival to honor
the Spanish conquest of Peru. But there was now a new chivalric feast in 1549
at Binche, with performances based on the novel Amadís de Gaula, characterized
by a storming of magic castles and liberation of prisoners. At a later stage in
the “chivalrous entertainment,” knight after knight failed to defeat a certain
“knight of the black eagle,” and they were imprisoned in a “dark castle” till a
new, unknown gentleman, who called himself Beltenbrós (the name adopted by
Amadís during his amorous penance), defeated his adversary and, by drawing
forth an enchanted sword from a stone, revealed that he was the knight for whom
this adventure was reserved. This unknown, of course, turned out to be Philip.
In September, there were organized for Philip two celebratory
processions entering cities: first Antwerp, then Rotterdam.
Next year, 1550, with Philip still in the Netherlands, there
were further celebrations. Thus there was a carnival in February at Brussels.
Three famous Spanish preachers covered themselves with glory by pronouncing
sermons. This was the last night that Philip spent in Brussels: “That night His
Highness did not go to bed. He stayed in the main square conversing with the
ladies as they sat at their windows. A few gentlemen, young and even some old,
accompanied him. The talk was of love, stories were told, there were tears,
sighs, laughter, jests. There was dancing in the moonlight to the sound of
orchestras which played all night.” These were happy days, which were never to
recur for Philip in the Low Countries.
An expedition including Charles as well as Philip then went
by boat to Louvain, Aachen, Cologne, and Bonn, on the Rhine, though stopping at
night on land. They went, too, to Mainz, Worms, Speyer, and Augsburg. In the
last named, the imperial Diet met in July 1550. Here or nearby in southern
Germany, Philip spent a year. There he commissioned Titian’s famous Poesie, as
well as a portrait of himself by the same Italian master.
There was discussion, too, at Augsburg about the future inheritance
of Philip. Charles hoped to leave his son everything, in a last fling of his
desire to maintain a Habsburg union, a single constitution, a single
confession, and a single ruler. But his patient brother, Ferdinand, the king of
the Romans, wanted the imperial throne. Ferdinand’s son Maximilian came from
Spain, where he was co-regent, to argue his case. Ferdinand and Charles
disputed in public. Eventually, in March 1551, a formal agreement (drafted by
the adroit Granvelle) between Charles and Ferdinand arranged that, after the
former’s death, the latter would be emperor, while Philip would be elected King
of the Romans and be emperor after Ferdinand. He would make a similar
arrangement in Spain for his cousin Maximilian. Thus European power would remain
in the hands of the Habsburgs, though it was not quite evident which line it
would be.
In July of this same year, Charles wrote to both the young
Maximilian and his wife, María, in their capacities as regents of Spain, about
the most important matter on his mind: “The fleet which goes for the gold and
silver of Peru will set off, we don’t know when but we do know that any delay
at all is very damaging … The people of the Council of Finance write
about their problems and costs and what they have to provide this year, taking
into account that, in addition to the 200,000 ducats which we permit ourselves
to take from the gold and silver of Peru, another 500,000 will be needed for
the settling of various other liabilities.”
Another letter of this same time dealt with the idea of
contracting with the great admiral of Spain Álvaro de Bazan to guard the
merchant fleets sent to the New World.
Charles was again talking of gold from the Indies before the
end of the year: Thus, on December 30, 1550, he wrote from Augsburg, “La Gasca
had brought 200,000 ducats from Peru, of which we will avail ourselves this
year. There will be 85,000 ducats which will be remitted and have to be
balanced against the fact that costs will amount to 91,716 ducats and another
60,000 ducats which, with interest, will add up to 84,200 ducats and the last
slice of 20,000 ducats which, with interest, will make 20,800 ducats which
altogether would mean that, from the gold and silver of Peru, we would make
either 376,000 or 403,570 ducats.” Charles’s interest in money was as eternal
as his incapacity with dealing with it.
In fact, between 1551 and 1555, the Spanish Crown imported
from the Indies more than three and a half million pesos and private people
imported more than 6 million. Charles, the mirror of chivalry and the inheritor
of the great Burgundian traditions, spent hours puzzling over these figures and
sums.
On May 25, 1551, Philip at last left Augsburg for Spain,
traveling back via Mantua (where La Gasca explained to him in detail what had
befallen him in Peru, with its 346 rich encomenderos and about eight thousand
colonists). Philip went on to Barcelona, where he arrived on July 12 and as
usual stayed with the widow Estefanía de Requessens. He left Barcelona only on
July 31 and set off for Saragossa, Tudela, Soria, and Valladolid, his
birthplace and de facto capital, which he reached on September 1. No Spanish
king had spent so much time abroad, no Spanish monarch would ever know so much
of the way of living in other countries, no ruler of Spain was so well prepared
to be an international emperor.
On June 23, 1551, the emperor Charles sent general instructions
to Philip for the government of the Indies. These included: “That you examine
all the offices which become free in the Indies in a spirit of justice,
alongside the president and council of that enterprise, except for those in the
Casa de la Contratación, the Viceroyalties, the presidents of the audiencias
and the office of fundidor and inspector of forges, as well as the other
principal governors I would reserve for myself … All the other
dignities and benefits should be guaranteed by the Prince.” These declarations
read like statements in the Emperor’s will.
In July, Charles wrote more optimistically from Augsburg:
“By letter from Seville on the 12th last, I have gathered that the fleet of the
Indies has arrived in Sanlúcar with the galleons coming from all parts [that
is, Peru, New Spain, the other Indies, and the islands], and everything on
board has been unloaded.”
Philip wrote back on November 24, 1551: “And inasmuch as we
are talking of the Indies, they say that the latest reports which have been sent
are satisfactory and that, from the treasure brought from Peru by the bishop of
Palencia [La Gasca], there remains to be taken to Barcelona only 130,000
ducats. And in respect of the other amount from the Indies, that is from Tierra
Firme [Venezuela and Colombia], New Spain and Honduras, they say that only
80,765 ducats have yet to be delivered.” The letter went into much detail as to
how the money from the Indies should be spent. In December, Philip wrote again,
from Madrid: “What would be really sensible would be to establish a fleet to
guard the coast of Andalusia, from cape Saint Vincent to the straits of
Gibraltar, to ensure the safety of the vessels which go to and come from the
Indies which is now the main route of the merchants in Seville and Andalusia
and where damage can be done by the French. And this fleet could be paid for by
a grant which Your Majesty could make and be financed by a tax which could be
levied on all merchandise coming from the Indies.”
The naval fleet of ships named to protect the merchant ships
was always exposed to illegal or even corrupt practice. Thus as much as a
quarter of the galleons were carrying goods that overweighed them. The captains
of these ships argued that they were rendering their vessels unfit for fighting.
But these critics were told that so long as the gundecks were free, a cargo in
the hold made the ships steadier. The curious part of this story was that the
captains carried their illegal cargoes above decks, where they could easily be
seen. Captains sometimes made 100,000 pesos from this illegal freight and more
from the sale of offices on their ships to merchants.
In early 1552, Philip was at Madrid, and La Gasca, the
victor of Peru, who was becoming an imperial adviser of the first rank, was
with the princess María at Linz negotiating for Ferdinand with Prince Maurice
of Saxony. Charles’s brother, Ferdinand, continued to show concern for the
Indies, putting many questions to La Gasca, who received as a present from
Ferdinand eight plates richly worked; and Gasca bought a triptych to give to
the church of El Barco de Ávila, very close to his birthplace.
Charles, despite his triumph at Mühlberg, did not escape
further difficulties—on the contrary. He passed the winter of 1551–52 at
Innsbruck, the great city associated with his grandfather Maximilian. In the
spring of 1552, he heard that the Protestant Princes, outraged by the Emperor’s
treatment of their colleagues, would receive the backing of the new king Henry
of France, who, with Maurice of Saxony, was ready to fall on the fortresses of
Metz, Toul, and Verdun. Charles was on the point of becoming a prisoner. On
March 3, 1552, Charles sent a chamberlain, Joachim de Rye, Sieur de Balançon,
with instructions to his brother, begging him to try to persuade the Princes to
seek peace because the Turkish peril was surely far more grave. But Maurice of
Saxony (now known in imperial circles as the “kinglet”) nevertheless sent his
army against Charles, and on May 23 entered Innsbruck. Charles and what there
was of the court only escaped by fleeing south across the Brenner Pass into
Italy in driving rain. La Gasca, the Peruvian veteran, was, remarkably, with
his master in this crisis.
Charles was now at war with France on every front, and in
April, Metz was seized by the constable of France, the brilliant and powerful
friend of the late King Francis I, Anne de Montmorency. Metz was a city proud
of being a Free Imperial City but it was free within the Holy Roman Empire just
as if it were a state. Francis, duke of Guise (Le Balafré) as governor
ruthlessly pulled down the suburbs and even moved the body of King Louis the
Pious from Saint Arnulf’s, outside the walls, to the cathedral of
Saint-Etienne, within the city. Only in the autumn did troops come from Spain,
which enabled the Emperor in person to besiege Guise in Metz; but the duke was
a brilliant defender in a siege, and Charles failed to recapture the place.
Philip wanted to help his father. He wrote in May from
Madrid: “I have no information about the news that Peru has sent to Panama and
Nombre de Dios over 335,000 pesos.” He wrote again in June, saying that he was
anxious to ensure that the Spaniards who came back from the Spice Islands would
be well received: “Let them be good informers about the state of those
islands.” Then in July, the Casa de la Contratación reported that the treasure
brought back by La Gasca amounted to 1,906,082 escudos. Of these, 600,000 would
be sent to Germany, 400,000 to the Low Countries, 200,000 to Parma, and only
200,000 to Castile, while 100,000 would be a loan to the pope.
Given the increased reliance of the Spanish Crown on its
income from the Indies, the Casa de la Contratación now received new rules of
conduct, following the similar reorganization that we have seen of the Council
of the Indies. The headquarters would still be in Seville, but there would be a
daily Mass and fixed hours of work. Functionaries who did not attend would be
fined. They would have to live in the Casa and take an oath on introduction.
The discussions in the afternoons would deal with licenses to go to the Indies.
Votes would be by a simple majority. Grave disputes would be referred to the
Council of the Indies. Sections 27 to 30 of the new rules forbade officials to
receive gifts for any services or to do anything commercial in the Indies.
Sections 121 to 126 listed those people forbidden to go to the Indies—Moors,
new Christians (conversos), and descendants of those punished by the
Inquisition—and also merchandise that was similarly prohibited, which would
include “profane books and stories, books whose contents are untruthful,” with
the only books permitted being those that dealt with Christianity and virtue.
There was a specific decree repeating the banning of the import of romances
into the New World; it was still thought that Indians might doubt the
scriptures if they realized that these books were fictional. But this law had
little effect.
Scientific books were not banned, but the Council of the
Indies wanted strict censorship of both historical and geographical works
dealing with the Indies. Sections 144 to the end of the rules of conduct dealt
with how ships should sail to the Indies. Two-thirds of the water that was
carried should be in well-prepared casks. The rest could go in clay pots or
vats or pitchers, which were less good than casks since they sometimes broke
and water was wasted.
These rules were signed in August 1552 by Philip and then
were widely distributed to colonial officials, a copy being placed on every
ship.
On October 7, 1552, Philip wrote to his father from Monzón,
where he was attending the cortes of Aragon, to say that, in respect of paying
the expenses that he had previously listed, “the principal recourse for those
necessities is the Indies.”
We find Charles replying, from Metz, no less, “Insofar as
the perpetuity of the encomiendas is concerned, we think that this is not the
time to treat of that … All the same, we think that we have done well
by arranging a contract with Hernán Ochoa for the sale of 23,000 African slaves
for the Indies.”
On November 12, 1553, Philip wrote again to the emperor
Charles that every year more corsairs sailed out of France intending to sack
Spanish imperial ports. In the previous July, they had destroyed La Palma, in
the Canaries. Yet, had it not been for the sums that now regularly reached
Castile from the Indies, Spain would probably have had to abandon northern
Europe.
In Spain, Hernando Pizarro, the eloquent victor of Cuzco,
seemed a reproach to all. He had been condemned for the illegal execution of
Almagro. He was first ordered to be sent to a prison colony in North Africa.
That sentence was commuted and Hernando found himself confined in a fortress in
Madrid. Finally, he was sent in June 1543 to the Castillo de la Mota, just outside
Medina del Campo, city of imagination (Bernal Díaz del Castillo) and of fantasy
(Amadís de Gaula). Hernando reached there in June 1543, and he remained there
till May 1561. He lived comfortably, but confined all the same. At first, he
lived with Isabel Mercado of Medina del Campo. Then in 1552, he married his
niece, the daughter of his brother Francisco Pizarro, Francisca, who was then
aged seventeen. The idea of such a marriage to Francisca had occurred at one
time to Gonzalo Pizarro.
Hernando, once married to such a very rich girl as his
niece, devoted his time to centralizing the management of his family’s estates
in Peru, part of which had been managed by royal officials after the final
defeat of Gonzalo. When eventually Hernando and Francisca left La Mota, free,
in 1561, they went to live at La Zarza. That village outside Trujillo had
always belonged to the Pizarro family, of which Hernando was now the head. They
embarked there on “a strategy of reconstruction of their finances” and built a
new palace in the main square of Trujillo (which still survives). They lived in
the shadow of the coat of arms granted to Francisco Pizarro. They had also
inherited Francisco’s marquessate, which, from 1576, was named as “of the
Conquest.” Hernando died two years later, a survivor of extraordinary deeds
into what seemed a calmer age. Francisca lived until 1598, having married again
to Pedro Arias Portocarrero, son of the count of Puñonrostro.
Hernando’s fortune was large. In about 1550, it was almost
as big as that of the family of Cortés—32,000 pesos a year, in comparison with
the family of Cortés’s 36,800. Nor does this figure for Hernando’s income
include the product of his mercantile adventures and mines. In the end,
Hernando gained control of most of the estate (including the Porco mines) that
the Pizarro brothers had acquired during the conquest.
