Castilianism or the strengthening of the Spanish monarchy?

On 31 March 1621 Felipe III died in the Alcázar of Madrid, after a little more than twenty-two years of reign. His last days were ones of continual torment, not so much physical as psychological and moral, anguished to the point of delirium by the accounts he hoped God would ask of him regarding his performance as king, and, it was said, assuring him that if his life was prolonged he would rule very differently. In reality, he might simply have said that to make amends he would take it upon himself to rule.

Equestrian Portrait of the Count-Duke of Olivares (1636)

Equestrian Portrait of the Count-Duke of Olivares (1636)

Aboulic and not very bright, from the beginning of his reign, and in contrast to the personal and meticulous dedication of his father, Felipe II, to all political matters, he disengaged himself from the routines of government, which he left in the hands of someone no more gifted or experienced than himself, the Duke of Lerma, whose only merit was his friendship with the monarch (in fact, the discursive legitimisation of favourite ministers was to make profuse use of the lexicon of friendship). He thus opened up a model of state management that was not exclusive to the Spanish Monarchy and that was maintained during his reign and most of the following reign, that of the favourite or chief minister, an individual who emerged from court circles and who, through royal favour alone, without institutional backing to regulate his powers, exercised de facto power and channelled or interfered in the monarch’s relations with the regulated government bodies, especially the councils, while at the same time protecting him from criticism and censure. According to the propaganda of his enemies, in an image consolidated by historiography, Lerma had two basic principles as a ruler: to maintain the situation unchanged, avoiding novelties, and to enrich himself. In both, especially the second, he succeeded, so much so that he may well be considered one of the most venal characters in Spanish history.

The panegyrists of the reign emphasised that under Felipe III and his minister the Monarchy retained its territorial sovereignty intact, with the same extension inherited from Felipe II, and with it an intangible but vital value for the political criteria in force: “reputation”. This could not be attributed to the skill or success of either one or the other, but rather to a group of highly capable diplomats and military officers who, in their respective posts, made up for the lack of clear ideas and resolve of the favourite and the monarch himself. In contrast to the continuous warfare of the two preceding reigns, Felipe III’s reign was essentially peaceful, following the truces agreed in his early years with England and the Dutch rebels of the United Provinces. In essence, those peace agreements consisted of making a virtue out of necessity, because the truth was that the Monarchy’s treasury and human resources, which were substantially what Castile could provide, were exhausted and it would have been difficult to meet the demands of new campaigns. Far from outlining a programme of economic recovery that would restore the foundations of imperial power, Lerma’s deprivation acted in the opposite direction. Not because of his own depredations and thefts, or those of his clients, but because of the inexhaustible series of gifts and pensions that the king granted from one or other chapter of the revenues to nobles and ecclesiastics, not to mention payments to win over members of the political and social elite of rival countries or unstable allies.

Although important as a symptom and for social perception, these expenditures were not the main reason for the economic weakness of the Catholic Monarchy, which was due to multiple, complex and intertwined factors. One of these was the monetary policy which, from the early years of the reign, multiplied the minting of copper billion, without silver alloy, with the consequent instability due to their depreciation and the withdrawal of silver and gold coins from circulation. It also had the effect of accentuating the inflation which in the previous century had been caused by the influx of precious metals from America. The effects were particularly felt by those with fixed incomes and revenues. They led to fierce protests from the Cortes, and the measure was relentlessly censured, among others, by Juan de Mariana.

Another factor was the irregularity in the arrival of American remittances and, in general, the stagnation of trade with the Indies since the turn of the century. A third factor, not to extend the list, was the demographic crisis experienced in the Peninsula during much of the 17th century, especially in its first decades. As plagues and endemic diseases sank growth rates and even produced net population losses (one million inhabitants in the first half of the 17th century), the evocation of depopulated places or towns reduced to less than half the neighbourhood of a short time before was common among observers and arbitristas. The reasons, as more than one of those writers pointed out, lay not only in the natural movement of the population, the ratio between births and deaths, but also in the breakdown of the economic foundations of counties and towns. One of the procurators in the Cortes of 1621, Mateo de Lisón y Biedma, lord of a small place in Granada, summed up what was a widespread diagnosis: “Many places have been depopulated and lost […] the houses have collapsed, the estates lost, the lands uncultivated, the vassals […] wander along the roads […] moving from one place to another […] eating roots from the fields […]; others go to different kingdoms and provinces where taxes are not paid to Your Majesty…. M. the tributes…”.1 This was a capital aspect, because a growing tax burden had to be met by a smaller population, not because of its contraction but because of the many individuals who, by becoming ecclesiastics or through the purchase of titles and exemptions, escaped the common tax system or pechero.

Portrait of the Count-Duke of Olivares by Velazquez (1624)

Portrait of the Count-Duke of Olivares by Velazquez (1624)

In the Hispanic Monarchy, as in other contemporary states, the fiscal inequalities did not only reach the different legal status of individuals in a society of the estates, but also their different territories, with different fiscal obligations between them. The burden borne by Castilian taxpayers was unparalleled in any other territory of the Spanish kingdoms, where conditions were much more benign. Even within the Crown of Castile, the Basque Provinces had a particular tax regime that amounted to an almost universal exception, not charging the basic tax of the Castilian Treasury, the alcabala, or the millionaire’s tax levied on products of general consumption (wine, oil, etc.). In fact, under Felipe III, the foral prerogatives were corroborated, for example with the decree of June 1610 that conferred noble status (and consequently exemption from tax obligations and military benefits) on all the natives of Guipúzcoa.

No territory of the Monarchy, in Flanders, Portugal or, to a lesser extent, in Italy, contributed significantly to the expenses that could be considered common or general. Except for small amounts, usually from the king’s own revenues or royalties, the money collected in each place was used up in its administration, and resources often had to come from Castile for its defence. The same situation occurred in the kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon. Whether in Valencia, Aragon proper, Majorca or the Catalan Principality, the kings had little more than the right to a fifth of the taxes on trade, which were collected by cities or private individuals, and even that was not collected in most cases. The subsidies that were occasionally, and after some wrangling, granted by the respective Cortes were extraordinary contributions and were offset by other exemptions and benefits, so that they did nothing to remedy the structural flaw in the revenue system. The local oligarchies responded to any attempt by the Crown to recover old rights, impose new taxes or request subsidies with fierce resistance, articulated, discursively and politically, by invoking the customary rules and privileges of the territory.

There was, of course, awareness of this state of affairs in the years leading up to the succession. This was highlighted by a consultation of the Council of Castile in February 1619, undoubtedly one of the most interesting documents of the reign of the third Felipe. It is a programme of economic, fiscal and social reforms, the work of Diego del Corral y Arellano, which pointed out the imbalance in the tax burden that impoverished Castile: “the other kingdoms and provinces of this monarchy should help with some relief so that all the weight and burden would not fall on a subject so weak and so lacking in substance”. Fernández de Navarrete gave an elaborate exegesis of this opinion in a series of speeches published under the title Conservación de monarquías, an illustrative text on a certain state of opinion at the advent of the new king. He criticised the burden that fell on Castile (although not so much estimating the advantages it enjoyed) and argued that it was unusual that, unlike in any other known case, “the head” of an empire should be impoverished rather than enriched. Castile, he said, while it should be “the most privileged in the contribution of taxes and tribute, is the most privileged and the one that contributes most to the defence and protection of all the rest of the monarchy”. He concluded that “it does not seem reasonable that the head should be attenuated and weakened while the other members, who are very populous, look at the burdens it pays”2.

The Relief of Constance by Vicente Carducho (1634)

The Relief of Constance by Vicente Carducho (1634)

Fernández Navarrete’s book was first and partially published in 1621, coinciding with the accession to the throne of Felipe IV. Of the changes resulting from that event, the most important was the entry into the privanza with the new monarch of Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares. The scion of a secondary branch of the powerful lineage of the Guzmans, he had been born in Rome thirty-four years earlier, his father being ambassador to the King of Spain and later viceroy of Naples and Sicily, so that from childhood he was familiar with the atmosphere of high politics. He was groomed for a career in the church, but the death of his brother, who was heir to the house, made him heir to the title and directed him to the court, where he became a gentleman to the future Felipe IV. He gained his confidence in the shadow of his uncle, Baltasar de Zúñiga, the heir’s hofmeister. The latter, an immature and voluptuous adolescent, found in Olivares the person to whom he could entrust the government of affairs he was neither passionate about nor fully acquainted with, keeping him as favourite until 1643, so that he was responsible for the important decisions and actions of those years plagued by international and domestic complications. The enemies he made for himself spread the image of an Olivares driven only by an unbridled lust for power, despotic, inept and crafty, a portrait that does not do justice to his complex personality, his gifts or his aims. Rather than the satisfaction of selfish or self-serving interests, or at least to a similar extent, he was driven by a genuine reformist purpose, a will to “reform” shared by other personalities of the political elite, with simple philosophical foundations, but which were more than mere corrective measures.

Portrait of Philip IV, King of Spain, by Rubens (1628)

Portrait of Philip IV, King of Spain, by Rubens (1628)

It was a cliché of Baroque philosophy of history, albeit with medieval and ancient roots, the idea of declinatio imperii (and the conceptually close one of traslatio imperii). The latter argued, as a constant in world history, the succession of a declining imperial power by a newly emerging one. The theory of declinatio argued that, like living things, every imperial power was necessarily bound to decline after having experienced phases of rise and fullness. The difficulties of the Spanish Monarchy, its “decline”, would confirm the inexorable nature of this dynamic and how little could be done to correct it. Alongside this fatalism, there was also the possibility that Providence would safeguard its continuity and increase, for which it would be necessary to correct what might have caused the divine displeasure, for example, rampant immorality.

Olivares was also clearly influenced by the neo-Senekism and Tacitism inspired by Justus Lipsius, an ethic of duty, austerity and observance, as well as by Álamos Barrientos’ inferences from the reading of Tacitus in order to determine technical guidelines (“certain doctrines”) applicable to the political situation. From one or other perspective, in addition to purely pragmatic ones, the new reign saw the emergence of various reform initiatives aimed at curbing the “decline”. As soon as the new reign began, a Reformation Board was set up, made up of Castilian councillors who had served the previous monarch. It did nothing and soon died out. In the Cortes of Castile, which met in the second half of 1621, voices were heard, such as that of Mateo Lisón y Biedma, calling for remedies in the same matters as those submitted to the Junta, but claiming an active role for the Cortes itself in their application, something unacceptable to the institutions and men of government.

Under the effective influence of Olivares, a “Junta Grande de Reformación” was set up in the summer of 1622 with individuals from the different councils, including a procurator from the Cortes. In addition to tax reforms, its proposals included changes in social practices relating to luxury spending and a reduction in the number of civil servants, as well as a plan to pay for a large military force in towns and cities. To circumvent the intervention of the Cortes, the project was sent directly to the councils of the large cities and to several nobles. Both, in the end members of the same oligarchy that was under threat, made their rejection clear. The plans for reform had to be reiterated at the Cortes, which opened between 1623 and 1629 and before which the Monarchy’s dire financial straits were laid out. The haggling of the procurators led to formal consideration of the legal possibility of collecting contributions without their acceptance, something that broke a basic pillar of the Castilian political architecture. That is why it was ruled out, but the mere fact of its study is eloquent about what ideas were contemplated in the governmental circle.

The surrender of Breda, by Velazquez (1634)

The surrender of Breda, by Velazquez (1634)

This background would have influenced the projects developed by Olivares in his opinion or “secret instruction”3 of late 1624, an essential document for understanding his political vision. Conceived for the king’s very private knowledge, it argued that royal authority had been diminished after the previous reign, and then addressed the core issue of the composite nature of the Monarchy and the dysfunctionalities it produced. Stressing the common condition in the Spanish kingdoms of the same original legitimacy, all of them being sovereign by inheritance (the exception being Navarre), he deplored the court’s suspicion of non-Castilian subjects, and the exclusivism that in practice almost completely excluded them from important posts and honours. This, together with the physical remoteness of the king, who rarely visited other kingdoms, would explain the discontent of his natives and the recourse to their prerogatives, which conditioned the exercise of royal authority to the point of almost distorting the monarchical political form itself. It was therefore vital for the monarch to make himself “King of Spain”, not just “of Portugal, Aragon, Valencia and the Count of Barcelona”, and to try to “reduce these kingdoms of which Spain is composed to the style and laws of Castile without any difference”, which would make him the most powerful sovereign in the world. The means could be either “benefits and softness”, a long-term policy of integration between the elites of the different kingdoms, or, more directly, an act of force justified by some act of rebellion, which could even be induced to serve as a pretext.

El Conde-Duque de Olivares by Velázquez (1638)

El Conde-Duque de Olivares by Velázquez (1638)

The Castilianisation advocated by Olivares did not respond to any sense of identity, to a Castilian imperialism based on any patriotic ardour (in fact, he confessed that he was no friend of such sentiments). It was a reflection of the political logic of the development of the absolute monarchy. The modern state underwent a process of transformation which, with circumstantial differences, followed the same pattern in the main monarchies of modern Europe. The initial dual form, with the coexistence of prince and state representation (Courts, Parliament, States General), in which the monarchical element of the binomial found limits in the other to the exercise of sovereignty, evolved into a monist form. In this form, the prince, through the annulment of prerogatives and exceptions from the old medieval political structures, would assert himself as sovereign power without too many effective institutional limits. This is what became known as absolute monarchies. The monarch thus embodied full sovereignty, neutralising the restrictions and conditions that might have been imposed by the nobility and the cities or territories, and partially homogenising the fiscal and governmental regimes.

The process underwent a similar evolution in France, with Richelieu, and in Spain in the reign of Felipe IV, which, despite resistance such as the Fronde or the Catalan rebellion, would eventually  . In England, under Charles I and around the same time, the process led, after a civil war, to the triumph of Parliament and a form of limited monarchy. Olivares’ policy can therefore be understood in this context: his aim was to endow the monarch with a power free from the constraints of noble and foral privileges, so that he could make his royalties and powers similar in the different territories of the Monarchy, obtaining similar benefits in all of them for the support of his political enterprises. If Castile was a reference point for this, it was due, above all, to the fact that in that kingdom, from the beginning of the 16th century, the institutional counterweight to royal power was minimal. To reduce the other Hispanic kingdoms to the “style and laws of Castile” was essentially not so much to Castilianise them culturally and socially as to adapt them institutionally so that the monarch could act in them with the same lack of restrictions. Olivares was unable to achieve this, but he set out a path that would eventually lead to this outcome.

Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimentel Rivera y Velasco de Tovar, Count-Duke of de Olivares.

Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimentel Rivera y Velasco de Tovar, Count-Duke of de Olivares.

References

  1. The quotation from Lisón y Biedma is taken from: Discursos y apuntamientos de Don Mateo de Lisón y Biedma, señor del lugar de Algarinexo, veintiquatro de la ciudad de Granada, y su procurador de Cortes […] dadas a su Majestad en su Real mano, […] en que se tratan materias importantes materias del gobierno de la Monarquía, y de algunos daños que padece, y de su remedio. s.l., s.n., s.f. (but 1622)
  2. Pedro Fernández de Navarrete’s de: Conservación de Monarquías y discursos políticos sobre la gran consulta que el Consejo hizo al Señor Rey Don Felipe Tercero, Madrid, Imprenta Real, 1626. (There is a modern edition, Madrid, Ministry of Finance, 1982).
  3. There are multiple editions, at least partial, of Olivares’ “Instrucción secreta”. See John J. Elliott and José F. de la Peña, Memoriales y cartas del Conde-Duque de Olivares, Madrid, Alfaguara, 1979, (t. 1, Política interior, 1621-1627), document IV. (There is an expanded edition, Madrid, Marcial Pons, 2013).

Bibliographical suggestions.

  • John J. Elliott, El conde-duque de Olivares, el político en una época de decadencia, Barcelona, Crítica, 1991, is essential for an understanding of Olivares and his politics, as well as basic aspects of the reign of Philip IV. In general, the extensive bibliography of this author, an excellent specialist in the period, is indispensable.
  • Antonio Domínguez Ortiz, Política y Hacienda de Felipe IV, Madrid, Editorial de Derecho Financiero, 1960 (there is a later edition, Madrid, Pegaso, 1983).
  • By the same author, La sociedad española del siglo XVII, Granada, University of Granada, 1992.
  • A synthesis of the political thought of the period can be found in José A. Fernández-Santamaría, Razón de estado y política en el pensamiento español del Barroco, Madrid, Centro de Estudios Constitucionales, 1986.

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On This Day

1556 Felipe II is crowned king of Spain in Valladolid.
1844 The Duke of Ahumada creates the Guardia Civil.
1899 Marconi establishes communication between the two sides of the English Channel.
1939 Spanish Civil War: General Franco enters Madrid victorious.
1979 Nuclear accident at the Three Mile Island power station (Pennsylvania).

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