Note 1337 — Chapter VIII

‘The king has taken away, by a late decree, a third part of all wages and salaries of all officers and ministers without exception, and suspended for the ensuing year, 1694, all pensions for life granted either by himself or his father.’ Letter from the English Ambassador, dated Madrid, November 18th, 1693, in Mahon's Spain under Charles II., London, 1840, p. 40. This is also stated in Millot, Mémoires de Noailles, vol. i. p. 359, Paris, 1828; ‘retranchant le tiers des dépenses de sa maison, et des appointemens de ses officiers tant militaires que civils.’ In the preceding reign, the pension had been stopped, at all events for a time. In 1650, Sir Edward Hyde, writes from Madrid, ‘there is an universal stop of all pensions which have been granted formerly.’ Clarendon State Papers, vol. ii. p. 538, Oxford, 1773. The next step which was taken was a proposal, in 1667, to tax the salaries of the members of the Council of Castile, Arragon, &c.; but this idea was abandoned, until at length, they, like all other public servants, came under the comprehensive edict of 1693. See the letter from the French Ambassador to Louis XIV., dated Madrid, June 2nd, 1667, in Mignet, Négociations, vol. ii. p. 128, Paris, 1835, 4to. The only chance of recovering the history of Spain in the seventeenth century, is by collating these and similar documents with the meagre notices to be found in Spanish writers.