The Court of Philip IV.: Spain in DecadenceHume, Martin A. S. (Martin Andrew Sharp)
Philosophy
The Court of Philip IV.: Spain in Decadence
Hume, Martin A. S. (Martin Andrew Sharp)
Philip IV, King of Spain, 1605-1665; Spain -- Court and courtiers; Spain -- History -- Philip IV, 1621-1665
A day or two later, proclamation was made in the streets that the King
ordered all the Portuguese murderers in Madrid to leave within a week,
or they would be apprehended and sent before the judges, who Were
considering their cases. "The intention of this," sapiently says the
chronicler, "appears to be that they may thus be forced to {305} enlist
as soldiers, and the pragmatic with regard to the number of lackeys
allowed had a similar object." At the same time a scandalous quarrel
was going on between the officers of the Inquisition and the alcaldes
of the Court, or judges of first instance, on some trivial point of
etiquette, but which ended in wholesale excommunication of all the
alcaldes in a body, and several inferior officers on both sides being
condemned and imprisoned by the rival authorities. In the summer
another panic occurred in the Church of St. Philip and on Liars' Walk,
because a heretic shouted some sacrilegious words in the church; and
soon afterwards an offended soldier murdered by a pistol shot a
gentleman named Bilbao on the steps leading to the crowded atrium of
the church, the most frequented spot in Madrid.
On the 28th July there was a great bull-fight in the Plaza Mayor, which
had attracted a vast concourse of people, as the bulls were said to
have been unusually savage. They must have been so, for several men
were killed; but worse than this, daggers were drawn and a slashing
match commenced under the King's very eyes. Philip, outraged at such
disrespect, ordered the offenders to be arrested. They were handed by
the alguacils to the Archers of the Guard, from whom they managed to
escape. Philip quite lost his temper at this, which he very rarely
did, and rose wrathfully to leave the arena. The Queen pulled him by
the cloak, and coaxed him into sitting again whilst two more bulls and
many horses were done to death. But the King was still unappeased, and
as he went out past the Archers of the Guard {306} he told them "that
they had managed it very nicely. Why were they Archers, he wondered,
and what were they paid for?" the matter ending in mutual
recriminations between the Archers and the alguacils, and the
punishment of the former.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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