THE YEAR AFTER THE ARMADA (continued 4)

Guise's adhesion to Spain made all the difference, and Philip welcomed the idea of deporting James Stuart to Spain as a preliminary measure. Mary herself was in high hopes, and Beaton said she was determined to leave her prison only as Queen of England. Her adherents, he asserted, were so numerous in the country, that if they rose the matter would be easy without assistance, "but with the aid of your Majesty it would soon be over." The plan was shelved for a time in consequence of the death of Vargas; and James' deportation became unnecessary on the fall of Protestant Morton, and the accession to power of D'Aubigny, Earl of Lennox, who had already sent Fernihurst to Spain to assure Philip of his devotion; but in April of the following year Mary Stuart opened negotiations with Tassis, the new Spanish ambassador in Paris. "Affairs," she assured him, through Beaton, "were never better disposed in Scotland, than now to return to their ancient condition, so that English affairs could be dealt with subsequently." The King, her son, she said, was quite determined to return to the Catholic religion, and inclined to an open rupture with the Queen of England.

Philip, however, wished to be quite sure that James was really to be a Catholic before helping him to the succession of the English crown. Father Persons and five or six Jesuits were busy in Scotland with Spanish money plotting for the restoration of the Catholic religion, and the young King himself told them, "that though for certain reasons it was advisable for him to appear publicly in favour of the French, he in his heart would rather be Spanish." Even thus early James' duplicity was the subject of wonder to those who surrounded him; and in January, 1582, Mary wrote rather doubtfully about his religion to Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in England. "The poor child," she said, "was so surrounded by heretics that she had only been able to obtain the assurance that he would listen to the priests she sent him." But she assures the Spaniard that she will bind herself and her son exclusively to Philip in future, and begs that the Scottish courtiers should be bribed in his interest. The Catholic revival in Scotland was being vigorously worked by the Jesuits and the nobles, and it soon became evident to them also that James was too slippery to be depended upon. So they sent Father Holt to London in February with some important proposals. The rank and file of the Jesuits had no idea that their Catholic propaganda in Scotland had been contrived and paid for by Spain with a political object, and Holt was astounded when the person to whom he was directed in London took him to Mendoza. His message was that the Scottish nobles had decided, as a last resource, if James continued obstinate, to depose him, and either convey him abroad or hold him a prisoner until his mother arrived in Scotland. They besought the guidance of the King of Spain in the matter, and begged that 2,000 foreign troops might be sent to them to carry out their plans. This message was repeated in a softened form to Mary Stuart in her English prison, and Mendoza urged his master to send the troops requested, "with the support of whom the Scots might encounter Elizabeth, and the whole of the English north country would be disturbed, the Catholics there being in a majority; and the opportunity would be taken for the Catholics in the other parts of the country to rise, when they knew they had on their side the forces of a more powerful prince than the King of Scotland."

Philip was on the Portuguese frontier at the time, and affairs in Madrid were being managed by the aged Cardinal de Granvelle, who sent to the King notes and recommendations on all letters received.

He warmly seconded Mendoza's recommendations that the troops requested by the Scots nobles should be sent, and says: "The affair is so important both for the sake of religion, and to bridle England, that no other can equal it; because by keeping the Queen of England busy we shall be ensured against her helping Alençon or daring to obstruct us in any other way." Somewhat later Granvelle repeats the same note. Speaking of the fear of the Scots nobles that the landing of a large foreign force might threaten their liberties, he says: "This is not what his Majesty wants, nor do I approve of it, but that we should loyally help the King of Scots and his mother to maintain their rights; and by promoting armed disturbance keep the Queen of England and the French busy, at a comparatively small cost to ourselves, and so enable us to settle our own affairs better. If it had no other result than this it would suffice, but very much more when we consider that it may lead to the re-establishment of the Catholic religion in those parts. It is very advantageous that the matter should be taken in hand by the Duke of Guise, as it will ensure us from French obstruction. Since we cannot hope to hold the island for ourselves, Guise will not try to hand it over to the King of France to the detriment of his near kinswoman." He also speaks of the probability of Elizabeth's coming to terms with Spain on being secured to the throne during her life, and the re-establishment of the old alliance between the two countries.

Thus far, then, the aims of Spain were legitimate and honest under the circumstances; and Philip had no avowed intention, or thought, of the conquest of England for himself. We shall see how he was gradually forced by circumstances and the jealousy between the English and Scottish Catholics to adopt a different attitude.

So long as Mary and Mendoza kept the direction of the conspiracy in their own hands all was done wisely and prudently, but as soon as Lennox and the Jesuits had a hand in it a complete muddle was the result. Tassis, the Spanish Ambassador in France, and Guise had been quite outside the new proposition of the Scots nobles, but in March, 1582, Lennox wrote a foolish letter to Tassis, which he sent by Creighton to Paris, laying bare the plan and giving his adhesion to it, but making all manner of inflated and exaggerated demands.

Creighton had promised him, he said, 15,000 foreign troops, of which he was to have command, and he asked in addition for a vast sum of money and a personal guarantee against loss of fortune in any event. Creighton also went to Guise and brought him into the business, and Jesuit emissaries were to go to Rome and Madrid to crave aid from the Pope and Philip. Mary and Mendoza were furious at the ineptitude of Lennox and the priests, and Mary particularly that her name should be used by them as being the head of the conspiracy. Creighton had no authority whatever to promise 15,000 men, and the idea that Lennox was to have command was absurd from a Spanish point of view. Philip was alarmed too at the large number of persons who were now concerned in the affair, and directed that no further steps should be taken. The inclusion of Guise in the project soon produced its result. He wanted naturally to take a large and prominent part, and travelled to Paris to meet Tassis secretly at Beaton's house. He was full of far-reaching, ill-digested plans; but his main desire evidently was to prevent Spanish troops from being sent to Scotland, for fear, he said, of the jealousy of the French. His idea was that a large mixed force should be sent from Italy under the papal flag, whilst he made a descent with Frenchmen on the coast of Sussex. But all these fine plans were soon frozen under the cold criticism of Philip and de Granvelle. Philip, it is true, did not yet think of conquering England for himself, but Mary and James must owe the English crown to him alone, and be bound to restore the close alliance between England and Spain, or the change would be of no use to him: and this could hardly be hoped for if there were too many French and Italian troops concerned in the business, or if Guise had the main direction of the enterprise.

Sir Francis Englefield was in Madrid as Philip's adviser on English affairs, and both he and the numerous English Catholic refugees in France, Flanders, and Spain soon made it clear that their national distrust and enmity of the French was as keen as ever, whilst they looked sourly upon any project which should make the Frenchified Scots paramount over England. This feeling they were careful to urge upon the Spaniards upon every occasion, and it is not surprising that Philip at last came to believe their assurances that all England would welcome a Catholic restoration if it came from their old friends the Spaniards, and not from their old enemies the French.

From that time a change was apparent in Philip's policy. When he heard of the Raid of Ruthven and the flight of Lennox he saw that English Protestant intrigue had conquered, and that the Scottish-Catholic enterprise was at an end for a time. Guise was to be flattered and conciliated, but it is clear that henceforward Philip wished to confine his (Guise's) attention to France. He was told how dangerous it would be for him to leave France with his enemies, the Huguenots, in possession, and was emphatically assured of Spanish support in his own ambitious plans at home.

Guise was flattered, but he could hardly be expected to look upon Scottish affairs from Philip's point of view. So he got one of his adherents, young de Maineville, sent to Scotland to revive the idea of the landing of foreign troops there. Beaton, who was thoroughly French, was just as anxious to keep the matter afoot in Paris, but Philip had lost faith in the enterprise, and only kept up an appearance of negotiation in order to maintain his hold upon the Guises and prevent them from undertaking anything except under his patronage. De Maineville soon got on intimate terms with James, but the Protestant lords were holding him at the time, and Guise was informed by his agent that the time was not now propitious for a Catholic descent upon Scotland.

Guise thereupon came to the Spaniards in May, 1583, with a fresh plan. He had decided, he said, to begin with the English Catholics. Elizabeth was first to be murdered and the country raised, whilst he landed on the coast, but Philip and the Pope must provide 100,000 crowns to pay for it. His plans, as usual, however, were vague and incomplete, and the English Catholics, as well as Philip, looked coldly upon them. Father Allen and the English exiles were in deadly earnest, "and thought all this talk and intricacy were mere buckler-play." Mendoza in Paris reports to Philip that "they suspected a tendency on the part of the Scots to claim a controlling influence in the new empire, and as the Scots are naturally inclined to the French, they would rather the affair were carried through with but few Spaniards, whilst the English hate this idea, as their country is the principal one ... and they think it should not lose its predominance."

The English Catholics had a plan of their own which they urged upon Philip. The English North Country was to be raised simultaneously with the landing of a Spanish force in Yorkshire, accompanied by the Earl of Westmoreland, Lord Dacre, and other nobles, with Allen as Nuncio and Bishop of Durham, and some of the extreme Catholic party, even in Scotland, distrusting the French, favoured some such plan as this under purely Spanish auspices.

Guise appears finally to have adopted a combination of this plan and his own. The Spanish forces were to land at Fouldrey, Dalton-in-Furness, Lancashire, whilst the English North Country was to be raised, and the Catholic Scots on the border were to co-operate with the Spaniards. Guise at the same time was to land in the south of England with about 5,000 men. James VI., who had thrown himself into Falkland and had assumed the reins of government, was in complete accord with Guise about it, but the latter, as usual, was for pushing matters on far too rapidly to please Philip. He (Guise) took upon himself to send a priest named Melino to the Pope to ask him to furnish some funds for the expedition and to explain the whole of the particulars, and this deeply offended the King of Spain, who had no idea of having matters arranged over his head by such a bungler as Guise. The latter also sent Charles Paget in disguise to England in August, 1583, to inquire as to the amount of support he might expect when he landed on the south coast, and when Philip in due course saw the instructions taken by Paget, it became clear to him that he must somehow eliminate Guise from the project. On the margin of the instructions Philip scribbled sarcastic remarks as to the futility of Guise's projecting a landing and sending full particulars of his plans to the Pope before he had ascertained what support he could depend upon when he did land. What opened Philip's eyes more than anything else was that the English "were to be assured on the faith and honour of Guise that the enterprise is being undertaken with no other object or intention than to re-establish the Catholic religion in England and to place the Queen of Scotland peacefully on the throne of England, which rightly belongs to her. When this is effected the foreigners will immediately retire from the country, and if any one attempts to frustrate this intention Guise promises that he and his forces will join the people of the country to compel the foreigners to withdraw."

Well might Philip underline this and scatter notes of exclamation around it, for it marked the parting of the ways, and showed that Guise was more anxious for his family aggrandisement and personal ambition in placing his kin upon the English throne than to serve the interests of Spain by securing a close union between the two countries to the exclusion of France, which was Philip's main object.

Guise was therefore told that he must not be precipitate, and the matter was kept in suspense; but from that moment Philip decided to undertake the matter alone. Allen and the English Catholics had never ceased to urge upon him that his troops should be landed first in England, and not in Scotland; and this now obviously suited Philip best, as he was growing more and more doubtful about James' religious sincerity. Another fact must have also influenced him greatly in the same direction. His great admiral, Santa Cruz, had just brilliantly routed the French mercenary fleet in the service of the Portuguese pretender at the Azores, and in the flush of victory had written to Philip begging to be allowed to direct his conquering fleet against England. "Do not miss the opportunity, sire," he wrote, "and believe me I have the will to make you king of that country and others besides." The grand old sailor made light of the difficulties, and besought the King to let him go and conquer England in the name of God and Spain. But Philip was not ready for that yet, and the idea was only now being forced by events into his slow mind that perhaps he might be obliged, after all, to claim England for his own, since the English Catholics were for ever saying they wanted no French or Scotsmen; and not a single English pretender was otherwise than Protestant. So Santa Cruz was told that the King would consider the matter, and in the meanwhile provide for eventualities by ordering large supplies of biscuits, and by gradually sending men to Flanders. At the same time he wrote to his ambassador in Paris, telling him in confidence that he intended in due time to invade England from Flanders, but no one was to learn this until the preparations had advanced too far to be concealed; "and even then they (the French) must be told in such terms as may not make them suspect an intention of excluding the French from the enterprise."

But what is of more importance still, Philip gave directions in the same letter to Tassis in November, 1583, that his own claim to the English crown as a descendant of Edward III. should be cautiously broached. If England was to remain in close alliance with Spain, it is difficult to see what other course Philip could have taken. James as a successor to his mother was now out of the question, so far as Spanish interests were concerned, for he was playing false all round. No sooner did the Scots Catholics gain the upper hand than he intrigued with Elizabeth and the Protestants for their overthrow, and immediately the English and Protestant faction became paramount he wrote beseeching letters for aid to Guise and the Pope. All this, of course, Philip knew, for he knew everything, and although he intended to put Mary Stuart on the throne, from this time he was determined that her son should not succeed her.

The discovery of the Throgmorton plot and Guise's wild plans in connection therewith threw the whole project into the background for a time, and confirmed stealthy Philip in the idea that in future he must manage matters himself. When Tassis, his ambassador in Paris, was withdrawn from his post, in the spring of 1584, he wrote an important memorandum to his master setting forth at length the arguments on both sides for and against a landing in England or Scotland, by which it is clear that the English and Scottish Catholic factions in France were now bitterly at issue on the subject. As the English plan had gained ground, James had once more considered it advisable to feign a desire to become a Catholic; and Guise had again urged the adoption of the plan of a landing in Scotland, with the invasion of England over the Scots border, James himself being the figurehead. Tassis says that such is the jealousy of the Scots in England that if an army crossed the Border the English Catholics themselves might resist it. "The English," he says, "would not like to be dominated by Scotsmen, and if the crown of Scotland is to be joined to theirs, they still wish to be cocks-of-the-walk, as their kingdom is the larger and more important one. On the other hand the Scots may be unduly inflated with the opposite idea, so that imperfections may exist on both sides." As Mary Stuart had drawn closer to Spain she had grown distrustful of Beaton and Tassis, whom she considered too much wedded to French ideas; but withal Tassis in this document very emphatically leans to the English view, which he knew was that now held by his master. The full plan for a great armada was evidently slowly germinating in Philip's mind, but the vast expense had first to be provided for. When Guise's envoy, Melino, had gone on his meddling mission to the Pope his Holiness had offered to subsidise the expedition to a moderate amount, and in answer to the second appeal from James VI. himself he had said that he would stand by his previous promise. But this did not suit Philip, and he let the Pope know promptly that he was willing to undertake the great task for the glory of God and the advance of the Church, but that the Pope must subscribe very largely indeed, "and must find ways and means through his holy zeal to do much more than has yet been imagined." He was also warned that Guise ought not to be allowed to leave France, where he might serve the Catholic cause so much more effectively than elsewhere. And so Guise and the Scotsmen are pushed further and further into the background, Philip's aim being evidently to raise civil commotion in France, which was always easy enough to do, and so to paralyse Henry III. and the Huguenots from helping Elizabeth, whilst Guise would be powerless to promote the interest in England of his kinsman James.

When it became apparent that the Pope was to have a large share in the business the intrigue was transferred from Paris to Rome. Sixtus himself was wise, frugal, and moderate, and had no great desire to serve Philip's political aims, but only to signalise his own pontificate by the restoration of England to the Church; but he was surrounded by cardinals who represented the different interests. Medici, D'Este, Gonzaga, Rusticucci, Santorio, and others represented the French view, which was in favour of an arrangement with Elizabeth and James, and desired to exclude Spanish influence from England. Sanzio watched Guise's interests, whilst the Secretary of State Caraffa, Sirleto, Como, Allen, and the Spanish ambassador, Olivares, craftily forwarded Philip's wishes, the Pope himself being carefully kept in the dark as to the ultimate object in view. The cause of religion was invoked all through as being Philip's only motive; inconvenient points were left indefinite, with the certainty that Caraffa would interpret them favourably to Spanish designs; and by the most extraordinary cajolery the Pope was induced to promise a million gold crowns to the enterprise. He was not brought to this without much haggling and misgiving on his part, and was very cautiously treated with regard to Philip's intention to claim the English crown. "His Holiness," writes Olivares, "is quite convinced that your Majesty is not thinking of the crown of England for yourself, and told Cardinal D'Este so. I did not say anything to the contrary. He is very far from thinking your Majesty has any such views, and when the matter is broached to him he will be much surprised. However deeply he is pledged to abide by your Majesty's opinion, I quite expect he will raise some difficulty." Philip's constant orders were that the Pope should be plied with arguments as to the inadvisibility of the heretic James being allowed to succeed, and the need for choosing some good Catholic to succeed Mary. The person that Philip had decided to make sovereign of England was his favourite daughter, Isabel Clara Eugenia, but this was not to be mentioned to the Pope. "But if at any time the Pope moved by his zeal should talk about any other successor, you will remind him, before he gets wedded to his new idea, that he is pledged to agree to my choice in the matter."

In the meanwhile Allen, Persons, and the other English Catholics, were ceaseless in their steady propagation of the idea of Philip's own right to the crown, in consequence of the heresy of James, and the same view was forced upon Mary Stuart by Mendoza and her English confidants in Paris, all of whom were pensioners of Spain. At length Mary was convinced, and wrote to Mendoza at the end of June, 1586, saying she had disinherited her son in favour of Philip.

The full plan of the Armada had now assumed definite form. The King was in possession of Santa Cruz's marvellously complete estimate of cost and requirements of all sorts—a perfect monument of technical knowledge and forethought; the Pope was pledged to find about a third of the necessary funds, and to leave Philip a free hand with regard to the English succession and the time for the carrying out of the enterprise; whilst Philip's position with regard to his claim to the English crown was regularised by Mary's will in his favour.

Guise, Beaton, and the Scots had thus been routed all along the line, but it was not to be supposed that they would accept their defeat without a struggle. Their next move was within an ace of being successful, and nearly changed the whole plan of the Armada. In July, 1586, Guise wrote to Mendoza that a plan he had long been concocting had at last been brought to a head, and Beaton was commissioned to tell Mendoza what the scheme was. A Scottish gentleman named Robert Bruce had been sent to France with three blank sheets, signed respectively by Lords Huntly, Morton, and Claude Hamilton, which Guise was to fill up over the signatures with letters to Philip, appealing to him to aid the Scots Catholics. They asked for 6,000 foreign troops for one year and 150,000 crowns to equip their own men, and in return promised to restore Catholicism, release James and his mother, compel the former to become a Catholic, and, most tempting of all, to deliver to Philip one or two good ports near the English Border to be used against the Queen of England. Bruce went to Madrid to lay the Scots' appeal before the King, but when he arrived the failure of the Babington plot and the collapse of the Catholic party in England was known to Philip, and he had lost hope of effecting the "enterprise" except with overwhelming forces of his own. He did not wish, moreover, for Guise's interference, and was coolly sympathetic and no more. And yet, in the face of Santa Cruz's advice that he should secure some ports of refuge for the Armada in the North Sea, the offer of the Scots lords to give him two good Scotch harbours was one not to be lightly refused, so whilst he sent Bruce back with vague promises, he instructed Parma and Mendoza to report fully on the scheme. Parma was cold and irresponsive. He would give no decided opinion until he knew what Philip's intentions were. He was apparently jealous that he was not taken fully into his uncle's confidence, and perhaps angry that his son's claims to the English crown, which were better than those of Philip and his daughter, were being ignored. But Mendoza, an old soldier, the last pupil of Alba, as he called himself, was indignant at Parma's doubts, and wrote to Philip an extremely able paper strongly advising the invasion of England through Scotland, instead of risking everything in a vast fleet, to which one disaster would cripple Spain for ever. In prophetic words he foretold the possibility of the very catastrophe which subsequently happened, and prayed Philip, ere it was too late, to close with the Scots lords' offer. But Philip and Parma were slow and wanted all sorts of assurances; so Bruce was kept in France and Flanders for many months, whilst his principals lost hope and heart. At last, when they were on the point of going over to the Protestant side, on a promise of toleration for their religion, Bruce was tardily sent back with 10,000 crowns to freight a number of small boats at Leith to send over to Dunkirk for Parma's troops, and the 150,000 crowns demanded by the lords were promised when they rose.

During all this time the juggle in Rome was going on. Gradually Sixtus was familiarised with the idea that Philip could not go to war for the sake of putting heretic James on the throne; then Allen took care that he saw the genealogical tree showing Philip's claim, and at last, in the summer of 1587, it was cautiously hinted to him that, though Philip would not add England to his dominions, he might perhaps appoint his daughter to the throne. Sanzio, Mendovi and the French cardinals were straining every nerve to persuade the Pope that the King of Scots might be converted, and the Capuchin monk Bishop of Dunblane, amongst others, went to Scotland for the purpose of forwarding this view.

The result of Bruce's appeal at Madrid was concealed from Guise, but of course he learnt it indirectly, and was greatly indignant at his exclusion from a project of which he was the originator. It was really no secret, however, for in July, 1587, Father Creighton, sent by Guise, arrived in Rome full of it; he, like other Scotsmen, being in favour of James' conversion and his acceptance by Spain as King of England. But Allen, Persons, and the rest of them, soon silenced Creighton, with threats, cajolery, and money.

When Catharine de Medici got wind of the business she seems to have thought it a good opportunity for getting rid of Guise and checkmating Philip at the same time, and urged him (Guise) to go himself to aid his kinsman James to the crown, in which case she would largely subsidise him; and Guise himself was so incensed at the way Philip had treated him that he threatened to divulge the whole of Bruce's plot to James, and very probably did so. Elizabeth, too, sent young Gary to warn James of what was going on, so that when Bruce arrived in Scotland the King was fully prepared for him; and although he appeared to acquiesce in the hint from Bruce that the Spaniards would aid him to avenge his mother, he was now surrounded by ministers favourable to the Protestant interest, who saw that James had more to hope for from Elizabeth than from Philip, and the matter was deferred indefinitely. It was late in autumn when Bruce arrived in Scotland, too late in the season to freight ships, and he suggested that in the following summer ships for the transport of Parma's 6,000 men to Leith should be freighted in Flanders. This was impossible—in fact, the long delay whilst Philip and Parma were hesitating had ruined the project, which was now public and consequently impracticable, though Bruce and the Scottish lords continued to clamour for Spanish men and money until the Armada appeared. And so again Philip's want of promptness lost this chance, which might have saved the Armada.

By this time, late in the year 1587, the final plan of the Armada had been settled. Parma had received his full instructions from Philip some months before; all Spain and Catholic Christendom were ringing with preparations for the fray, and the great fleet—or what Drake had left intact of it on his summer trip to Cadiz—was mustering at Lisbon under gallant old Santa Cruz, who was already dying broken-hearted at the neglect of his wise precautions, at the confusion, waste, and ineptitude which foreboded the crowning disaster.

With the subsequent mishaps and catastrophe this study is not concerned. My object has been to show how circumstances drove Philip to adopt the course he did, both with regard to the invasion itself and his claim to the English crown; and to demonstrate that the ostensible prime object of the Armada, the conversion of England to Catholicism, although undoubtedly desired by Philip, was mainly used as a means to his real end—namely, a close political alliance with England, without which Spain was inevitably doomed to the impotence which eventually fell upon her.

Tailpiece

A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY.

Headpiece

A FIGHT AGAINST FINERY.

(A HISTORY OF THE SUMPTUARY LAWS IN SPAIN.)

It is a curious reflection that whilst all the serious acts and surroundings of civilised life have been rendered amenable to the law, whilst the very instincts inherent in the nature of mankind have been dominated and regulated by authority, utter failure has attended the persistent efforts of rulers to cope with the trivial follies of fashion, or to limit the vanity and extravagance of personal adornment. For long ages men, and particularly women, have insisted upon making themselves absurd and uncomfortable, at great cost and in an infinite variety of ways, in obedience to dictates or impulses springing from nobody knows where, and have only consented to forego each succeeding caprice when the taste for it has worn itself out and has given place to another, perhaps still more preposterous than its predecessor.

It has been from no fault of the rulers that they have been beaten in their fight with fashion, for they have tried their hardest for centuries. Our Plantagenet and Tudor sovereigns made many attempts to regulate the dress and adornment of their subjects, but the motive which mainly prompted them was the desire to differentiate the classes and prevent the humbler citizens from emulating, in appearance at least, their social superiors. In a state of society which depended upon the subjection of the majority by the privileged classes, this motive was perfectly reasonable; as was also the alternative one of protecting a particular national industry, which, in Tudor times especially, often furnished a reason for the imposition of sumptuary enactments; but both of these motives, from their very nature, were necessarily more or less ephemeral and artificial, because, on the one hand, the continual social development, the growing wealth of the traders and the emancipation of the labourers made the classes interdependent; and, on the other, the extended seaboard of England and the maritime enterprise of the inhabitants made the protection of a particular industry by prohibiting foreign competition impossible for any great length of time. The attempted interference, therefore, of English sovereigns with the dress of their lieges was intermittent and spasmodic, and was, at a comparatively early period, admitted to be useless.

Such, however, from various reasons was not the case in Spain. There the fight against finery was kept up persistently for nearly six centuries, and hardly a decade passed during that time without one or more petty and ridiculous attempts being made to interfere with the dress, food, personal habits, and surroundings of the people. The ostensible motives were usually different from those which operated in England. The separation of the classes has never been so complete in Spain as elsewhere in Europe, owing to the fact that from a very early period in the history of the country all Christians were banded together and dependent upon one another for protection against the common enemy, the infidel. Manual industry, moreover, was never a strong point with Spanish Christians, and the main reason for the various attempts to exclude foreign goods was the dread that Spanish gold would be sent out to pay for them. Nothing is more striking, indeed, than the absolutely murderous effect upon Spanish industry exerted by most of the paternal attempts at interference with trade, but political economy was even more of a dead letter amongst that nation of warriors than with our own ancestors. The earliest object of the great mass of sumptuary laws in Spain was to restrict the dreaded taste for luxury and splendour which was felt to be a characteristic of the hated Moor, who had been conquered bit by bit by people who were content to live roughly, feed frugally, and dress plainly. But with victory came wealth, with peace came intermixture, and the subtle, refined, Oriental blood, with its love of pomp and brilliancy, gradually permeated the rough Gothic-Iberians, until its manifestations alarmed rulers whose power still largely depended upon the self-sacrificing frugality and hardy endurance of their subjects. Thus it was that the attempt was made to keep people frugal and homely whilst they were growing rich, and the tendency continued during all the centuries that the struggle against Spanish luxury went on, although during the last three centuries of the period the original motive had disappeared, and the usual excuse for the interference of the King with the dress of his subjects was the desire to prevent them from spending so much money upon themselves, in order that they might spend more upon him.

But, whatever the motives may have been, the fight against extravagance was carried on as persistently as fruitlessly until quite recent times, and there exists a mass of information with regard to the dress and manners of the people in the Spanish sumptuary enactments unequalled elsewhere. The decrees usually took the form of a representation from the Cortes to the sovereign, setting forth in a preamble the particular abuses to be remedied, and then proposing a remedy which the sovereign usually confirmed by what was called his "pragmatic sanction," and the decree was then proclaimed and had the force of law. A large number of these decrees or "pragmatics" of the highest interest will be found in the British Museum manuscripts (MSS. Add. 9933 and 9934), and many more are set forth in Sempere's "Historia de las leyes suntuarias" (Madrid, 1788), whilst the familiar and festive traditions of old Madrid teem with quaint stories of ingenious evasions and jovial defiance of the laws under the very noses of the sable-clad Acaldes and Alguaciles, whose grave and solemn duty it was to clip lovelocks and measure frills and furbelows.

The first vicious extravagance which seizes upon a hardy, simple people who find themselves safe after a period of struggle is naturally that of gluttony; and the earliest sumptuary decrees of the Castilian kings were directed against this particular excess.

In point of date the first decree extant in Spain of a sumptuary character was that issued by Don Jaime (El Conquistador) of Aragon in 1234. He was extremely devout and ascetic himself, and was shocked at the growing extravagance of his subjects, who having in his remote mountain kingdom finally expelled the Moors, turned their attention to tourneys, shows, and mimic warfare, at which great sums were spent both in feasting and adornment. The Jews too, who at the time nearly monopolised Spanish trade, encouraged the growing taste for the fine stuffs and precious ornaments, from the sale of which they derived so large a profit. So in 1234 Don Jaime decreed from his capital of Zaragoza that no subject of his should sit down to a meal of more than one dish of stewed, and one of roast meat, unless it were dried and salted. As much game as they pleased might be eaten, on condition that it had been hunted by the eater, but otherwise only one dish of game might be served. No jongleur or minstrel might eat with ladies and gentlemen, and no striped or bordered stuffs were to be worn. Gold and silver, as well as tinsel, were prohibited, and ermine and other furs were only to be used as a trimming to hoods and hanging sleeves. Jaime since his childhood had been trying to crush the rising power of his feudal nobles, and had already embarked on that long career of conquest by which he subdued the Moorish kingdoms of Majorca and Valencia, so that, although he himself was now safe in his mountain realm from invasion, his decree was as much prompted by his dread of the softening effect of luxury upon his subjects as by his own rough, simple tastes.

His kinsman of Castile was in worse case, for his dominions were more open to the Moor. Saint Ferdinand conquered the splendid Moorish city of Seville in 1248, where he died four years later, leaving his son, Alonso the Wise, to succeed him as King of Castile. Oriental luxury surrounded the frugal Castilians on all hands. The wealth of plundered cities, the spoils of Moslem palaces were to be had for the grasping, so that it was natural that extravagance in attire and eating should soon threaten to soften the Christian conquerors dwelling in the midst of the gentler, vanquished Moor. Alonso the Wise, in 1256, therefore issued in Seville his first great sumptuary enactment. By it no saddles were allowed to be covered or trimmed with plush. No gold or silver tinsel was to adorn them, excepting as a border of three inches wide, the saddle itself being of uncovered leather. Gold and silver might be used on caps, girdles, quilted doublets, saddle-cloths or table-covers, but not for draping shields or cuirasses. No jingling bells were to be used as trimmings, except on the saddle-cloths at the cane-throwing tourneys, but even then no device was to be embroidered on the cloths. Bosses upon the shields were not to be allowed, but the latter might be adorned with a painted or gilded-copper device. No milled cloth was to be worn, nor were the garments to be cut and pinked in fanciful shapes, or trimmed with ribbons or silk cords; the penalty for infringing any of these regulations being the loss of one or both thumbs by the offender, which of course meant his disgrace and ruin in the career of arms. Women were allowed a little more latitude, but not much. They might wear ermine and otter fur to any extent, but they were forbidden to adorn their girdles with beads or seed-pearls, or to border their kirtles or wimples with gold or silver thread, or to wear them of any other colour than white.

With regard to eating, Alonso the Wise held similar notions to those of his neighbour Don Jaime, and ordered that his lieges should not have upon their tables more than two dishes of meat and one of bought game, and on fast days not more than two kinds of fish. As if recognising the difficulty of enforcing this, the King solemnly undertook to comply with his own regulations. Great extravagance had arisen in wedding feasts, which were said (as in Oriental countries they do to-day) to often ruin the contracting families, and Alonso made strict rules to limit the excess in this direction. No presents of breeches were to be given, and the entire cost of a wedding outfit was not to exceed 60 maravedis, whilst not more than five men and as many women might be invited to the wedding banquet by each of the contracting parties. The money spent upon marriage rejoicings, indeed, had become so great that Alonso made this reform a great point in his decree, and provided against evasion by strictly limiting the time during which the feast might continue and wedding presents be given. Moors were said to be dressing like Christians, and this was rigidly forbidden. They were to wear no red or green clothes, and no white or gold shoes, and their hair was to be parted plainly in the middle of the head, with no topknot, whilst they were enjoined to wear their full beard, which made the distinction between them and the shaven-chinned Christians the more marked. The penalties imposed for disobeying this decree of 1256 were savage in the extreme, varying from loss of a thumb and a fine for the first offence, to death for the third; but savage as they were, they can hardly have been effectual, except perhaps in Seville, for only two years later, in 1258, Alonso came out with a perfect code of conduct for his subjects, far too minute to even summarise here, but of which some specimens may be given, as they served as a model for subsequent decrees for many years afterwards. Alonso had apparently got tired of his self-denying ordinance and says the King may eat and dress as he pleases, but agrees to limit his daily table expenditure to 150 maravedis a day, which in spending power would represent about £40 at the present time at least. But he orders his "ricoshomes," ruling men, to eat more sparingly and to spend less money. None of the members of the royal household, squires, scribes, falconers, or porters, except the head of each department, were allowed to wear white fur or trimmings, or to use gilt or plated saddles or spurs. They were forbidden to indulge in breeches of scarlet cloth, gilt shoes, and hats of gold or silver tissue. Priests, it appears, had been reducing the size of their tonsures and ruffling in fine colours, so as to be undistinguishable from laymen, and they are sternly ordered to have their tonsures the full size of their heads, gird themselves with a rope, and eschew red, green, and pink garments. The old regulations about eating were repeated with the addition of one plate of meat for supper, and the prohibition of fish on meat days. No man, however rich, was to buy more than four suits of clothes in a year, and no ermine, silk, gold or silver tissue, no slashes, trimmings, or pinked cloth might be worn by men. Two fur mantles in a year, and one rain-cape in two years was the limit of extravagance allowed to a man in this direction; and the King alone was to wear a red rain-cape. Lawn and silk for outer garments were confined to royalty, but the "ricoshomes" might employ them as linings. No crystal or silver buttons were to be allowed, nor was shaving or other signs of mourning permitted, except to vassals who had lost their overlord and to widows. Jews and Moors are cruelly treated in this decree, and their offences and those of the poorer classes are to be punished by torture or death, whilst those of the "ricoshomes" are left to the King's discretion. Ermine, vair, and otter furs would appear to have been amongst the principal articles of luxury, as the wearing of them is very strictly regulated, and white furs seem to come next in estimation after them.

For ninety years these laws of Alonso the Wise were repeated and reimposed with slight variations, but apparently ineffectually; since in 1348 the Cortes of Alcalá made a presentment to Alonso XI. of Castile bewailing the luxury and extravagance of the age, and proposing a new code of sumptuary rules, which in due course the King confirmed. These rules are very interesting because they demonstrate the great strides which had been made in luxury, refinement, and civilisation since the issue of the decrees of Alonso the Wise nearly a century before. No gold ornaments, no ermine or grebe-neck trimmings, no seed-pearl embroidery, gold or silver buttons or wire, and no enamels were to be worn except by nobles. No gold tissue or silk was allowed except for linings, and no man below the rank of a knight might wear vair fur or gilt shoes. Even the princes of the blood were strictly limited in their dress, and were ordered to use tapestry cloth or silk, but without gold or trimming of any sort. The Spartan wedding regulations of Alonso the Wise had now become obsolete with the advance of wealth, but the new rules, although wider, were to be enforced with equal or greater severity. No gentleman was to give his bride within four months after marriage more than three suits of clothes, one of which might be of gold tissue, and one embroidered with seed-pearls to the value of 4,000 maravedis, an enormous sum when we consider that ninety years before 150 maravedis were the limit of the monarch's daily expenditure, and that at this date, 1348, the value of a sheep was only eight maravedis. The bride's trousseau is regulated down to the smallest details, and the penalty for exceeding them is the loss of one-quarter of his land by the too-generous gentleman who does so. The decree sets forth that some women are wearing trains, "which are both costly and useless," but in future they are to be confined to those ladies who are travelling in a litter—a privilege limited to nobles. All other women are to wear pelisses without trains, just reaching the ground, "or at least not to drag more than two inches upon it." Ladies who broke this rule were to be fined 500 maravedis. Great stress is again laid upon the limitation of extravagance in wedding feasts, and burials, but the cost still allowed shows to what an excess luxury had been carried. The bride's wedding clothes might cost 4,000 maravedis and the groom's outfit 2,000; and thirty-two people were now allowed at the wedding feast. Much more latitude was permitted in the use of seed-pearls, gold, and silver, to people above the rank of knights, but the principal point to be noted in these decrees of Alonso XI. is the incidence of the penalty. In the decrees of Alonso the Wise, as has been shown, the most savage penalties were imposed upon the poorer classes, whilst the punishment of the nobles was left to the King's discretion. But much more even justice is dealt out by Alonso XI. The nobles who break the law are to lose one-quarter of their land, the knights one-third, the citizens 500 maravedis, whilst the poorer classes for slight offences against the sumptuary rules are condemned to lose the offending garment and its cost in money.

But whatever the penalty might be, extravagance, checked in one direction, broke out in another, and Peter the Cruel, the son of Alfonso XI., only a few years after the date of the decree just mentioned, issued a complete sumptuary code in which the punishments were positively ferocious. Fines, scourging, mutilation, and banishment for first and second offences, and death for the third, were imposed for the smallest infraction. Peter was particularly hard on priests, who were said to be swaggering about with women, tricked out in gay finery, and they were ordered in future to be sober and frugal, wearing no ornaments of any kind, and only sad-coloured garb. Workmen, too, were to labour from sunrise to sunset for a fixed wage on pain of punishment as severe as those imposed by our own labour laws. The King, moreover, fixed stringently the cost which was to be incurred by cities and towns in entertaining him when he visited them. The dietary scale appears a pretty generous one from the point of view of to-day, consisting as it does of 45 sheep at 8 maravedis each, 22 dozen of dry fish at 12 maravedis a dozen, 90 maravedis worth of fresh fish, with pork, grain, wine, &c.; the total value of the feast being limited to 1,850 maravedis. Villages and nobles were not to spend more than 800 maravedis on a similar occasion.

In 1384 Peter the Cruel's nephew, John I. of Castile, was well beaten by the Portuguese at the battle of Aljubarrota, and marked his sorrow by issuing a decree prohibiting the use in any form of dress of silk, gold, silver, seed-pearls, precious stones, or ornaments of any kind, and everybody was ordered to don a simple mourning garb. When, four years after this, John of Gaunt's daughter Catharine came to marry the heir to the crown of Castile, she brought something else with her besides the wide, pointed coif which Spanish widows wore for the next three hundred years. Part of her dower consisted of great herds of merino sheep, which crossed and thrived so well in Spain that the coarse duffel, which had been the only native cloth, gave place in a few years to beautiful fine woollen textures which could vie with those of England and Flanders.

Intercourse between nations, the growth of wealth, the spread of learning, and the advance of civilisation were moving with giant strides. The soft arts of peace were practised with greater success than ever, now that the Moslem and the Christian were fast merging into one people in Seville and Toledo, and the refinement of the one was strengthened by the energy of the other. Beautiful stuffs, stiff with gold and gems, gauzy silk, soft cloths, and fine linens, had no longer to be brought from the Moors or the kingdoms across the sea. Seville, Toledo, and Cordova could produce everything that the most luxurious extravagance could desire, and the sumptuary laws for a time were forgotten.

In 1452 the Cortes of Palenzuela presented a petition to John II. asking that the stringent sumptuary code of Alonso XI. should be re-enforced. The King, in reply, admitted that the law was a dead letter, and that the extravagance in dress was greater than ever. He says that gold tissue and silks are now ordinary wear, and that gold trimmings and marten-fur linings are used even by people of low estate. "Actually working women," he says, "now wear clothes that are only fit for fine ladies; and people of all ranks sell everything they possess in order to adorn their persons." Still the remedy proposed to him of a revival of the stern code of a hundred years before he saw was an impossible one, and the matter was held in suspense. He died soon afterwards, and his feeble successor, Henry IV., was equally powerless to stem the rising tide of industry and wealth with their natural consequences.

In 1469, during the interregnum which followed the deposition of Henry, the Master of Santiago issued a proclamation deploring the growing extravagance of the age, and enjoining more moderation. Amongst other similar things it says, "Such is the pomp and vanity now general, even amongst labourers and poor people in their dress and that of their wives, that in appearance they seek to vie with persons of rank, whereby they not only squander their own estates but bring great poverty and want to all classes." But it was useless: and luxury went unchecked until Ferdinand and Isabel the Catholic were firmly seated on the twin throne of a united Spain and the last Moslem stronghold had fallen. Then, in 1495, a "pragmatic" was issued which superseded all previous obsolete sumptuary codes and established a new one, which formed the model for similar decrees for the next two centuries. Probably a more economically unwise decree under the circumstances was never penned. All other previous pragmatics had forbidden the wearing of extravagant apparel, and this did the same, especially severely as regarded the precious metals; but it did more than this. It absolutely forbade the introduction and sale of every sort of gold and silver tissue, and rendered criminal the exercise in Spain of the industry of embroidering or weaving gold, silver, and every other metal. The Christianised populations of the south of Spain were greatly excelling already in this industry. Their gold embroideries on velvet were in great demand for church vestments and royal trappings all over Europe. The taste for chivalrous splendour was not confined to Spain, and the beautiful half-Oriental tissues of Andalusia were eagerly sought for in every Court; gold was just beginning to find its way direct to Spain from the new-found Indies, and if the industry had remained untrammelled there was no reason why the country should not have provided the world with textile splendours to its own great advantage. The ingenious, industrious people—for they were industrious until the strangling of their handicrafts made them idle—did their best to avert ruin. In 1498, only three years afterwards, the Cortes made a presentment to the Queen saying that things were worse than ever. It was true that gold brocade was no longer made and the wicked waste of the precious metal was thus avoided, but all sorts of strange devices and novelties were being introduced in the manufacture of silks, whereby the people were tempted to squander their money on useless finery. The Spanish silk factories were then the finest in Europe, and great quantities of raw silk were raised in the south-east of the Peninsula: and yet a "pragmatic" was issued the next year, 1499, stringently forbidding the manufacture, sale, or use of silk, except for lining. It was a staggering blow to a flourishing industry, and in order to prevent total ruin a decree was given that no raw silk from abroad was to be introduced into the country, and only Spanish-grown silk used. But this was not enough, and some of the silk-making provinces, reduced to desperation, petitioned for the relaxation of the law. Their prayer was granted, as if in irony, to the extent of allowing them to wear silk against the law. But they did not want to wear silk, but to make it for other people to wear, and their industry languished, never entirely to recover.

By the time Isabel the Catholic had died the Spanish silk industry was nearly at an end, and the skittish young Bearnaise princess, Germaine de Foix, who succeeded her as old Fernando's wife, came too late to do it much good. It is true she snapped her slender fingers and threw up her pretty chin at the straitlaced sumptuary laws, and surrounded herself with silks and velvets, gold brocade and gems, wherever she went; but unfortunately they mostly came from the looms and workshops of Southern France, and gave no work to Spanish hands. Money, of course, had to be sent out of Spain to pay for the finery, and in 1515 the Cortes of Burgos complained of this to Jane the Mad, Isabel's nominal successor, who thereupon issued a decree entirely forbidding brocades and gold or silver embroidery and trimmings to be worn at all, and strictly limiting the wearing of silk in any form to people of rank.

But Jane's power was the merest shadow; Spain was in the throes of a great struggle for its democratic institutions, which it lost, and no notice was taken of poor Crazy Jane's decree. If she understood it she probably had as little sympathy with it as her young stepmother, for she had lived for years with her handsome husband Philip as head of the most pompous and splendid Court in Europe, in busy Flanders, surrounded by all the traditional magnificence of the house of Burgundy, and her young son, the coming Emperor Chares V., Fleming as he was by birth and instinct, was even less likely than she to revert willingly to the simple, democratic, and patriarchal traditions of the Spanish Court.

He came to his new country with a whole host of Burgundian, Flemish, and German nobles, whose taste for finery had never been checked; and whatever decrees Charles might issue for the dress of his people, he and his Court were the first to disregard the letter and spirit of his precepts. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that they were not obeyed for long together by any one else. The initiative, moreover, did not come from the King or his courtiers, but from the Cortes of Castile, who were naturally swayed entirely by Spanish ideas, of which Charles had at this time, boy as he was, but little knowledge or sympathy. This was so clearly recognised that when he was about to leave Corunna in 1520 to assume the imperial crown, the Cortes held there petitioned him at least to order that the sumptuary laws with regard to silks, brocades, gold embroideries, and gold and silver lace, should be strictly enforced during his absence from Spain, since they saw that, with such a Court as his, they would not be enforced in his presence. But the example of the Court had struck too deeply, and the fury for splendour had now really taken hold of the Spaniards, who in their ages of struggle had been so simple and homely.

In the pragmatic of 1537 it is said that during the Emperor's absence the use of brocades, silks, and precious embroideries had increased more than ever, and they are absolutely prohibited, and the rigid law of 1498 again repeated. The preamble of the decree of 1537 says that this law against gold embroidery was generally evaded by making the gold lace and devices separately and then stitching them on to the cloth, which cost much more even than embroidery would have done; and the making of such adornments was consequently prohibited altogether. Only nine years afterwards, in 1548, the Cortes of Valladolid made a presentment to the Emperor saying that things were worse than ever, and the cost of clothes had been increased instead of decreased by the ingenuity of tailors, who had taken to the plan of cutting out the most elaborate patterns of coloured cloth with fine scissors and sewing them on to the cloth garments, almost covering the latter with delicate lace-like snippet work of applied cloth. In face of this abuse the Cortes prayed the Emperor to forbid the use of any and every sort of trimming, lace, or adornment on the garments, both of men and women, which might give an excuse for the wicked tailors to charge extravagant prices. Charles V. thought this too sweeping, but in 1552 he issued a "pragmatic" prohibiting the applied snippet work, and also the use or manufacture of gold and silver lace and ornaments, the wearing and making of velvets, silks, and satins being also rigidly limited. Spain, flooded with the precious metals from the Indies, richer perhaps in actual bullion than ever a country was before or since, with home-grown silk in abundance, and the most deft and tasteful weavers in the civilised world, was therefore obliged to import its manufactured gold and fine stuffs from abroad, whilst its own humbler citizens languished amidst the wealth they were not allowed to earn. No decrees could prevent rich people from squandering their money on dress, least of all when the Emperor and his Court were in a constant blaze of magnificence.

Philip II., who in his later years usually wore black velvet trimmed with jet or bugles, with the simple chain of the Golden Fleece about his neck, was in his youth as splendid as his father; and the preparations for his voyage to England to marry Mary Tudor in 1554 included the making of more solid magnificence in the way of dress than probably was ever made for one event in modern history. His son's valet[1] was of a literary turn of mind, and has left us a precise description of the dresses and trappings made for Philip and his army of courtiers—the flower of Spain—in which the language of extravagance is exhausted. Horse furniture, bed-hangings, canopies, quilts, and upholstery, as well as dress, were all of satin or velvet covered with gold embroidery and seed-pearls. There were twenty great nobles, Spaniards, Flemings, and Italians, each with scores of followers, all dressed in silks and satins with gold chains. Philip's German bodyguard, even, of 100 troopers, wore facings of silk on the gaudy red and yellow uniform of Aragon, and the common sailors of the fleet had crimson silk caps with white plumes. Some few amongst Philip's numerous suits may be mentioned as an example of the dresses then in vogue, although many of his nobles appear to have fully rivalled him in splendour. For some years, as has been shown, gold-embroidered dresses had been strictly prohibited; and Muñoz, in his description of the sartorial wonders prepared for the wedding, mentions the revival of gold embroidery as a novelty. Prince Philip had one suit consisting of surcoat, doublet, trunk-hose, and jacket of crimson velvet covered with little lozenges formed of twisted gold chains, the interstices being filled with a running sprig of silver braid, the leaves formed of silver filigree. The surcoat was lined with silver cloth of satin, embroidered in the same way. Another surcoat was of grey satin covered with alternate stripes of applied gold chains and silver bugles. It was lined with stamped cloth of silver, and the doublet, trunks, and jacket were of white satin ornamented in the same way. Another "pretty suit," we are told, consisted of a French surcoat of black velvet embroidered all over with gold and silver bugles, the trunks and jacket being of crimson velvet, and the doublet of crimson satin with the same embroidery. One of his dresses consisted entirely of white silk velvet covered with a costly embroidery of gold filigree; and another had a surcoat of black velvet with a border of gold bugles and heavy twisted silver cords, the garment itself being almost hidden under a closely embroidered running sprig in gold, the leaves being filled in with silver filigree, and in the spaces between the sprigs were slashes of white satin. With this gorgeous coat went a suit of white velvet and gold. Precious stones were worn at the neck and wrists, and gold chains and gems were looped around the hat. Heavy gold chains rested on the shoulders, and arms and housings flashed with riches inestimable, the spoils of the two Indies.

This will give some faint idea of the fashions of a time when the rulers were fruitlessly trying to repress extravagance in dress amongst their subjects. Most of this finery was prepared in the city of Valladolid, whence Philip left on his journey, and it is not entirely surprising that in the following year 1555, the Cortes of Castile, sitting in that place, boldly presented a petition asking that the sumptuary laws should be done away with altogether. They say that they are entirely a dead letter, and are consequently a scandal, as well as being useless and vexatious. Their petition was not granted, for Philip and his father still thought that all the growing wealth of the country should come to them, instead of being used for decking the undistinguished persons of private citizens.

There had been no finer flax than that of Galicia, and no better linens than those made from it, but the trade had been crippled by the sumptuary restrictions, and the business had already fallen into the hands of Flemings and Frenchmen, who got paid for their stuffs with Spanish gold. The wool industry was still more cruelly treated. Thanks to the merino stock, the manufactory of fine cloths, serges, and friezes had been very prosperous, and Spain could, and did, export these textiles largely; but in 1552 the export of such goods was strictly prohibited, and even wool in the fleece might not be sent out of the country except on condition that for every twelve sacks exported two pieces of foreign cloth and one bale of foreign linen should be introduced to prevent the export of gold.

The silk growers of Valencia and elsewhere had been ruined, but the looms remained, and the weavers attempted to obtain raw silk from Italy and France. The introduction of raw silk was thereupon forbidden, and most of the weavers went the way of the growers, to idleness and ruin, or across the seas to the Indies. The Cortes of 1555 saw the evil that was being done and, as usual, made a presentment on the subject. They pointed out the paralysis of Spanish industry and the large sums of coin sent out of the country to pay for French and Flemish linens, and ascribed the evil to its secondary and not its primary reason. They say flax-growing is neglected and decayed, and suggest that public lands, where suitable, should be cultivated, and every landowner forced to plant a certain proportion of flax on his estate. It was useless and absurd, of course, as the sumptuary laws limiting the making or wearing of lawns and fine linens had killed the industry, and the coarse linens were still spun and woven at home; so nothing came of it.

But the acme of absurdity and political perverseness was reached in the Cortes of 1552, which presented a petition begging that the export of manufactured goods of all sorts to the new Spanish empire in America should be strictly prohibited. They say that the people there are getting their money so easily and becoming so rapidly rich, that they buy such great quantities of Spanish goods as to raise the prices in the Peninsula, "whereby we who work here cannot live."

The Cortes of 1560 reported that the nation was fast being ruined by extravagance in dress, and begged that a "pragmatic" should be issued forbidding every sort of ornament or tissue in which metal entered, and strictly limiting the trimming of garments to a plain piping round the edge. This pragmatic was duly granted, but during the next few years a considerable change was seen. Philip had married the beautiful young French Princess Elizabeth of Valois, who had been brought up with Mary Stuart in that light-hearted court that Brantome described so well. She had no patience with the rigid puritanism and peddling interference of stern authority with beauty's armoury, and French fashions for ladies became general. A "pragmatic" was published in 1563, ostensibly re-enforcing that of 1537 (which, as has been shown, prohibited the use of gold lace or embroidery in any form), but really relaxing the regulations greatly, for the benefit of the ladies. They might in future wear sleeves of point lace in gold or silver, gold or silver gauze, or silk shot with gold, and their jackets might be made of similar stuffs, whilst they might deck their coifs, wimples, stomachers, and under-linen with as much gold as they pleased. Gold, silver, or crystal buttons could now be worn, but not on the skirt, and only on the head, bosom, bodice, and sleeves; whilst the hat might be trimmed with gold gimp. Some concessions were made to their spouses as well, for they were permitted to clothe their nether limbs in silk hose, and their trunks might be slashed and trimmed with silk, and, generally speaking, the wearing of silk was greatly extended.

Contemporary writers are full of the great extravagance in dress which followed this period. Moncada says that it was not uncommon for a man's dress to cost 300 ducats a suit, whilst the abuse of precious stones, both by men and women, was carried to a ridiculous excess. Contemporary portraits show that things were bad enough in this respect in England at the time, but they were much worse in Spain.

Only one year after the proclamation of the pragmatic just mentioned, namely, in December, 1564, another elaborate decree was issued, on the pretext that the previous one had left several points in doubt, and the authorities had consequently been lax in enforcing it. The decree of 1563 had said that one year's grace was to be given for garments already made, and this concession had served as a loophole for the evading the regulations altogether. The authorities are therefore ordered strictly to enforce the decree; but the opportunity is taken of elucidating doubtful points and still further modifying the severity of the orders. It is now explained that the prohibition of gold, silver, and silk stitching, gimp, or trimming of any sort on the garments, referred only to applied trimmings, and was not meant to include the weaving of gold or silk threads or stripes in the textures, or even the sewing of stripes of silk or leather on to the garment, which stripes might be bordered by a piping and held by two rows of ornamental backstitch on each side, provided that no other sort of adornment is used. Silk gimp even may be applied on garments for indoor wear, whilst silk frogs may be sewn on to overcoats and travelling cloaks. Fringes were also allowed on horse furniture and harness now, and swordbelts and baldricks might be worn as rich as the taste and extravagance of the owners cared to make them. Some doubt is said to exist as to the legality of stuffing the trunk-hose with baize to extend them, and whether the slashes might be lined with baize for the same purpose, and these practices are strictly forbidden, "nor may piping be inserted like farthingales, nor may threads, nor wires, nor gummed silk be employed to extend the trunks unduly, as we are informed has fraudulently been done." The previous pragmatic had imposed the same penalties for infraction of the decree by people in their own houses as in public, which appears to have caused much vexation by the invasion of domiciles by inferior officers, on pretext of searching for forbidden garments, and the right of search was now abolished.

An attempt to shame ladies into obeying the law was made for the first time, of many, in these pragmatics of 1563-4 by giving to women of bad character the right to deck themselves in prohibited finery in their own houses. But Madrid was already commencing upon the downward career which made it for more than a century the most dissolute place in Europe, and women of rank even were proud of their effrontery, so that no attempts to induce them to obey the law by appeals to their modesty ever succeeded. The brazen-faced impudence of the Madrileñas, which so shocked foreigners in the seventeenth century, still remains as a cherished tradition of the fast-disappearing race of majas and manolas of Lavapies and other low neighbourhoods of the capital, and is encouraged in them as a national trait by their social betters.

In 1568 Philip lost both his beautiful young wife and his only son. Defeat and disappointment met him on all sides, and his gloom, deepened by fanaticism, became heavier as the years rolled on. Henceforward he and his Court dressed in black, and the fashions of his people followed him, to the extent of relinquishing almost entirely the use of gold tissues and embroidery on their garments. But poor as was the King's exchequer, and in despite of Drake and the buccaneers, gold still poured into Spain from the Indies, and luxury, if checked in one direction, was certain to break out in another. Coaches had been brought by Charles from Flanders when he came to Spain, and by the end of the sixteenth century a perfect rage for coaches had seized upon the people of the capital—a form of extravagance which for the next century at least was carried to a ridiculous excess, and even now remains the principal foible of the Madrileños. The new taste was supposed to threaten the art of horsemanship and the breed of horses; so for some years pragmatics were issued ordering that no coach or wheeled litter or chariot was to be drawn by less than four horses. To encourage men to ride on horseback, doctors, lawyers, and licentiates of universities were authorised in 1584 to use long housings to their steeds, and whilst mules were still to be housed with plain harness, horses might be decked with velvet saddles, gold and silver fringes, gimp and nails, and made as smart as possible, in order to encourage their use.

In 1593 Camillo Borghese was sent to Madrid by the Pope, and has left behind him for our enlightenment a minute account of the fashions of his day,[2] by which we may see the effects that had been produced by the "pragmatics" we have described. "The dress of this country," he says, "is as follows. The men wear long breeches, with a surcoat and hat, or else a cloak and cap, as it would be a great breach of decorum with them to wear a hat and cloak together. This costume would certainly be very pretty if the breeches were not cut so long as to be disproportionate. Some men have taken to wearing hose in the Seville style, which they call galligaskins, and with these it is proper to wear a cloak and hat instead of a cap. The ladies, like the men, usually dress in black, and have a veil round their faces like nuns, their heads being enveloped by their mantillas in such a way that their faces are hardly visible. Indeed if it were not for the pragmatic issued by the King on the subject they would still cover their faces completely, as they used to do a few years ago. When they do not wear these veils over their faces, they have on collars with enormous ruff pleats. They are naturally dark-skinned, but the use of paints is so common that they all look fair, and though small in stature their high pattens make them look tall, so that it may be truly said that all Spanish ladies turn themselves from little and dusky to big and bright. The main street of Madrid would be fine if it were not unutterably filthy and almost impassable on foot, and the better class of ladies are always in carriages or litters, whilst the humbler ones ride on donkey-back or pick their way through the mire. They (the ladies) are naturally impudent, presumptuous, and off-handed, and even in the street go up and talk with men whom they do not know, looking upon it as a kind of heresy to be introduced properly. They admit all sorts of men to their conversation and are not a bit scandalised at the most improper proposals being made to them.

"The gentlemen now rarely ride on horseback but often go in carriages. They are preceded in the streets by a group of pages and a couple of servants they call lacqueys, the pragmatic not allowing them more, although the grandees may be attended by four. The pragmatics only allow saddle cloths to be worn from October to March, but for the rest of the year velvet saddles may be used. The one pastime of these people is to drive up and down the Calle Mayor (High Street) from midday to midnight."

The good churchman was much shocked at the effrontery of the people and their filthy habits, but this branch of the subject is foreign to the present article. Rough magnificence, side by side with boorish rusticity, seems to have been the characteristic of the Spain of Philip II. In the same year that Borghese wrote, a very severe pragmatic had been issued prohibiting the use of silver ornaments on household furniture, which, it says, had reached a pitch of extravagance which could no longer be endured. Decrees were issued in 1586, 1590, and 1594, which are interesting as showing that the inevitable extravagance of dress had now turned into the direction of the starched ruff. "No man," says the last-named pragmatic, "may wear either at his neck or wrists on any sort of ruff or frill, fixed or loose, any trimming, fringe ravelling, or netting, starch, rice, gums, rods, wires, gold or silver threads, or any 'alchemy' or anything else to extend or support them, but only a plain Holland or linen ruff with one or two little pleats, on pain of forfeiture of shirt and ruff and a fine of 50 ducats." Great resistance was offered to this, and it was found, somehow or other, whether by "alchemy" or what not, the "lettuce-frill" ruffs still stood stiffly from the neck, and the Council of State gravely considered the matter, with the result that the decree of 1594 insists upon the law being enforced, the ruffs to be as described, and not more than three inches wide from the band to the hem, the colour to be pure white. The penalties for infraction were tremendous—for a first offence, 20,000 maravedis fine, for the second, 40,000, and for the third, 80,000 and a year's banishment.

This was not by any means the only sumptuary law promulgated in this year of 1594; a much relaxed code of dress was issued with regard to gold and fancy silk textures, of which the universal use of unadorned black for so many years had greatly decreased the manufacture in Spain. Women were now allowed to wear fine cloth or silk jackets, and cover the seams thereof with gold or silver braid or scrolls, whilst their dresses and mantles might be trimmed as profusely as they pleased with the same ornaments. Doublets, jackets, and waistcoats were now allowed to be of quilted silk, satin, or taffety; whilst the trunk hose of the men might be slashed, and double-stitched at the edge of the slashings. The said breeches, moreover, might be stiffened by a single thickness of baize and all the fine stuffs used for gentlemen's garments could now, for the first time for many years, be stamped with patterns. New and more severe measures were adopted at the same time to keep up the breed of horses, which animals were thought to be almost in danger of extinction, as horsemanship was less than ever indulged in, and mules were preferred for drawing the coaches.

In the same year, 1594, a curious pragmatic was proclaimed dealing with the extravagant abuse of honorific titles. It commences in the King's name by saying that, although it is unnecessary to make rules for himself or his family, he will begin at the top for regularity's sake. The King must be addressed in writing simply as "Sir" at the head of the letter, which must end with "God guard the Catholic person of your Majesty," at the bottom. The heir to the crown was to be addressed in the same way, but with "Highness" substituted for "Majesty," the Princes of the blood being given the style of Highness, but "his Highness" alone standing for the heir to the crown. The rest of the Princes were to be addressed on the outside of a letter, "To his Highness the Infante Don So-and-so." The titles "Excellency" and "Illustrious Sir," which had become very general forms of courtesy, were forbidden, and "Most Reverend Sir" was only to be applied to Cardinals and the Primate of Spain, the Archbishop of Toledo. The highest grandees, bishops, and members of the Council of State were in future to be addressed by the inferior title of "Señoria," or Lordship, whilst, out of courtesy and at the option of the person speaking or writing, the same title could be given alone to Marquises, Counts, Presidents of Councils, and Grand Commanders. All letters of every kind were ordered to begin at the top with a cross, and then to state the business without any address or name, ending with "God guard your lordship"—or other title—and the date, place, and signature of the writer. Absolutely no further compliment was to be permitted, no matter what the relationship or rank of the parties. As a further attempt to enforce simplicity, the same pragmatic provides that in future, on pain of a fine of 10,000 maravedis, no coronet may surmount any coat of arms, except such as are borne by Dukes, Marquises, and Counts.

The proclamation of this pragmatic caused a dreadful fluttering of the dovecotes of the Calle Mayor. "Liars' parade" (the raised terrace before the church of St. Philip), the favourite lounge of the gilded youth, rose in revolt, the cadets of the Cordobas, the Mendozas, the Maquedas, the Leivas, the Manriques, and the rest of them, who had been called "Excellencies" and "Lordships" from their cradles, turned like the worm at last. Dress without gold they might, but they, the sons of Dukes, to be addressed with no more ceremony than dustmen—perish the thought! that they would not stand. So they and the rest of the rufflers, led captains, kept poets, bullies, and blacklegs, swept down the Calle Mayor carrying the grave Alcalde and all before them. Shops were shut, water was boiled to throw out upon the base "Corchetes," who dared to call such gallants plain "Mister," and the gloomy recluse in the Alcazar at the end of the street himself heard the row. When he was told the cause of it, he only remarked, so the chronicles say: "Bah! what does it matter to me what they are called? Let them be Lordships, or what they will, so long as they serve me well." And the pragmatic thus died on the day it was born, for no attempt was ever made to enforce it, and "Señorias" in the Calle Mayor remained as plentiful as blackberries in an English hedgerow.

The isolation of Philip II. in his gloomy old age, together with the relaxation of the enactments already mentioned against the use of gold and silver tissues, had allowed luxury in dress practically to go unchecked during the last years of the sixteenth century, and when the King died, in 1598, he left Spain, and particularly the capital, in a perfect frenzy of prodigality. The most brazen dissoluteness accompanied the blindest religious fanaticism; the exchequer was bankrupt, the fields untilled, the aforetime busy workshops of the south silent and abandoned, the people starving or flocking across the seas in search of the easily won gold that was ruining them; and when the coveted gold came to the few who survived the pursuit, it was lavished in insensate waste on the adornment of their outer persons—for they always fed frugally in that lean land—and most of the wealth left the country as fast as it entered it, the idleness it engendered being its net result to the country that won it.

For the next hundred years the same process went on. The monarch of Spain and the Indies was reduced to beg his subjects in the name of charity to provide food for himself and his family, whilst the mines of Peru and Mexico were sending millions. The splendour of the polished Court of Philip IV. was only rivalled by that of his nephew, the Grand Monarque, but it was soaked to the core in sloth and squalor, whilst the humbler people found the purchasing power of gold grow less and less as the metal poured in and the workers, dazzled by wealth so lightly won, ceased to produce commodities for consumption. Philip III. was a narrow bigot without his father's industry or intellect, but he was well-meaning and sorely beset, and was unequal to the propping up of the great empire into which his father's narrow and halting policy had introduced the dry rot. The regulation of dress, however, and the repression of profane extravagance was just the task which appealed to his tastes and sympathies, and he set about it as soon as he mounted the throne.

His pragmatic of 1600 was a new departure in many things and was the pattern of all similar enactments for the next hundred years. It is very minute, but a few of its provisions are worth preserving, as they throw much light on the tastes of the time. The King in his preamble sets forth that he is informed that the sumptuary pragmatics are quite disregarded, and seeing that the great excess and extravagance in dress constitutes a national scandal which must be moderated, he has conferred with his wisest councillors and has decided to issue a new pragmatic which shall supersede all previous ones.

To begin with, the following sweeping order is given: No one of whatever rank, except the King and his children, shall wear any sort of brocade or cloth of gold or silver, or stuff shot with gold or silver, or silk in which metal is woven. No cord, gimp, ornamental stitching or quilting, either of silk or metal, is to be permitted, excepting on religious vestments and uniforms, and no precious stones or pearls are to be worn on housings or accoutrements in any shape. There is an absolute prohibition of the employment of lute-string, twist, ruchings, flat braid, cording, chainlets, crewels, cross-stitching, through-stitching, tangle trimming, puffs, and any sort of bead or steel trimmings; and the following dress is alone prescribed: The cape or other over-garment may be of any sort of silk with stripes, on each edge of which may be an ornamental stitching. Surcoats and ropillas (a sort of half-tight over-jacket with double sleeves, the outer ones hanging loose from the shoulder) may be also of silk and trimmed in the same way, and, if desired, a piping of another sort of silk, but not the same, may be put between the stripes. The inside of the capes may have similar stripes of silk, satin, or taffety, but not velvet. Shoulder capes may be made of velvet, and the hoods of riding-cloaks or rain-capes may be lined with the same. Silk gimp and frogs may be sewn on to duffel cloaks, &c. The trunks may be worn of any kind of silk, and each slashing may be edged with a velvet or silk piping and an "eyelash" border. If the slashing is a wide one this edging may be worn on both sides of it, but if otherwise only on one side. The slashings may be lined with taffety. Silk gimp or braid of any sort may be worn on the trunks excepting lutestrings or crewels. Galligaskins may also be made of silk, but with no trimming but a row of gimp on each side and at the opening. Dressing-gowns for women and men may be of any material or fashion, so long as gold or silver is not used. Doublets, ropillas, or trunks made of satin may be ornamented by silk stitching of any colour, but on no account may the stuff be pinked, ravelled, or fringed. The rules generally apply to women as well as men, but the former are allowed to wear jackets of light cloth of gold or silver, which may be trimmed with a braid of the same over the seams, and the whole jacket may be covered with "whirligigs" or scrolls of gold or silver, so long as there is no working in the stuff itself. The frills and flounces of these garments may also be ornamented in the same fashion. Hats, belts, baldricks, &c., were all treated in the same way; gold or silver gimp, braid, and lace were allowed to be sewn on, but not embroidered or woven in, the texture.

A rather curious point in this decree of 1600 is the distinction in it of different classes of citizens. Thus women of known evil life were allowed to wear what they liked inside the houses, but were to conform to the law in the streets; pages might dress in silk jackets, coats, trunks, and caps, but their capes were to be of cloth or frieze; no lackeys were to have silken clothes or velvet scabbards, but they were allowed to wear taffety caps. The punishments for the breaking the orders seem severe but unequal. Offending wearers were to lose the peccant garment and pay a sum equal to its value for pious uses, but tradesmen who made or sold the goods were to be condemned to four years' exile and a fine of twenty maravedis for a first offence, double the punishment for a second, and the pillory and ten years' exile from Spain for a third. All this sounds very severe, but there were plenty of ways out of it. For instance, garments already made might be worn for four years by men and six by women, although they were not in accordance with the law. This pragmatic was proclaimed with the usual ceremony by one of the Alcaldes de Casa y Corte with the sound of drum and trumpet in the High Street of Madrid on the 8th of June, 1600. The month must have been a busy one for the dignified officials in question; for during the first fortnight of it decrees regulating almost every conceivable subject were issued. The rigid and unpopular decree about courtesy titles was superseded, and nearly everybody of position might now be called Señoria. No gold or silver in any form was to be used in furniture or household decoration, "as the King is shocked at the waste of the estates of his subjects in such superfluities, and considers it high time that the money were employed in useful and necessary things." Velvet or silk might be employed in upholstery, but no gold or silver except a gold fringe on the edges. The same rule applied to the lining of carriages and litters, but no silk was to be used on the outside of vehicles.

The regulation of jewellery was just as minute and severe, and to judge from that which was in future to be allowed, the excess in this respect must have been very great, since after pages of prohibitions with regard to the fashions of jewellery, and the limitation of enamels and precious stones, men were still allowed to wear as many rings as they liked, chains and girdles of gold pieces, sets of cameos mounted in gold, and strings of pearls in their caps. The use of silver plate is also much limited, but still side-saddles might be made of silver, if plain, and the harness and horse-cloths covered with the same metal. Here, again, the same loophole for evasion was given; for all things already made were exempt if registered within six months.

Attempts were made at the same time, as on many subsequent occasions, to suppress the ostentatious promenading up and down the Calle Mayor, which grew more scandalous as the years went on, until it reached its apogee in the reign of Philip IV., and for which the taste has never yet quite died out. No women of loose life were to promenade in coaches, nor might coaches be hired for the purpose on pain of confiscation. No person but a grandee might have more than two torches carried before him under penalty of one hundred ducats fine, and if any person hired a lackey by the day, or for less than a month, he was to be put in the pillory and exiled for four years. The reasons for these regulations will be well understood by those who have studied the characteristic picaresque novels of the period, and have smiled at the amusing subterfuges adopted by impecunious scamps to pass themselves off as noble hidalgos, the better to prey upon their fellow-creatures.

Amongst other things Philip III. in his youthful zeal tried to deal with the vexed subject of ruffs. He made no attempt to stand against starch any longer—indeed, to judge from his portraits, no one ever wore such stiff or extensive ruffs as he did himself, but he sternly draws the line at trimming. There must be no lace edges or ravellings; they must be pure white, with two little pleats only, and not more than 4½ inches wide, half as wide again as had been allowed by his father. For the next few years pragmatics positively rained in Madrid, altering, restricting, relaxing this or the other detail of the various decrees; but all to no purpose apparently, for in 1611 Philip came out with another long proclamation, saying that the extravagant abuse of dress being worse than ever, he has consulted discreet experts and has decided to alter the rules. The use of gold and silver thread and foil, and of coloured silks, is more restricted than ever, the only exceptions being for church vestments and the dresses of officers actually engaged in war. In other respects, however, the trimmings allowed appear to be exceedingly elaborate, and in the pragmatic of 1611 about a dozen different specimen trimmings of trunks alone are described with all the finnicking minuteness of a modern Court dressmaker's bill; the sum total of it all being that the employment of silk, velvet, and other fine stuffs, stamped and plain, was now almost unrestricted, whilst bullion was more severely forbidden than before, except for ladies' jackets and a few of their trimmings.

Another desperate attempt was made in the same year to restrict the unprofitable idling in the streets with carriages and an order was issued that no new coaches were to be made without a license from the President of the Council, and no man was to ride in a coach without leave, "as the King is informed that gentlemen are forgetting how to ride." Women also are to refrain from covering up their heads and faces, in order that they may be seen and recognised, and they may only be accompanied by their husbands, fathers, sons, or grandfathers. The girls of a family may ride in a coach without the mistress of it, and the owners of coaches may be accompanied by a friend, but with this exception no coach is to go out without its owner, and may not be lent, exchanged, or sold without special license.

Ruffs had now apparently become general with all classes, as a pragmatic was issued in 1611, saying that, notwithstanding the former prohibition of the use of long-lawn and muslin for ruffs, frills, and collars, poor people would insist upon wearing them, and they consequently might now be made of those cheaper materials as well as of fine linen.