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Break All the Borders
Break All the Borders
Separatism and the Reshaping of the Middle East

ARIEL I. AHRAM

1
 1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© Oxford University Press 2019
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,
or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with
the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning
reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the
Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ahram, Ariel I. (Ariel Ira), 1979- author.
Title: Break all the borders: separatism and the reshaping of the Middle East/Ariel I. Ahram.
Description: New York, NY, United States of America: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018030695 | ISBN 9780190917371 (hardcover) |
ISBN 9780190917388 (pb : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Arab countries—History—Autonomy and independence movements. |
Separatist movements. | Arab countries—History—21st century. |
Arab countries—History—20th century.
Classification: LCC DS39.3 .A36 2019 | DDC 909/.0974927082—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018030695

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Paperback printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America
We visited some two thousand places, many of which were almost un-
known, many of which proved unacceptable. . . . The imaginary uni-
verse is a place of astonishing richness and diversity: here are worlds
created to satisfy an urgent desire for perfection.
—Alberto Manguel, The Dictionary of Imaginary Places
 TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

Introduction 1
1. The Rise and Decline of Arab Statehood, 1919 to 2011 19

2. 2011: Revolutions in Arab Sovereignty 43

3. Cyrenaica 69
4. Southern Yemen 95
5. Kurdistan 121
6. The Islamic State 161
Conclusion: The Ends of Separatism in the Arab World 199

End Notes 207

Index 261
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In the course of researching and writing this book, I have incurred considerable
debts personal and professional. Hopefully, my talented coauthors—Ellen Lust,
Barak Mendelsohn, Rudra Sil, Patrick Köllner, Mara Revkin, Harris Mylonas,
and John Gledhill—rubbed off on me. Writing a book this broad in scope re-
quired consultation with country experts, many of whom indulged me with
their time and insights far beyond what I could have reasonably asked. Fred
Wehrey, Osama Abu Buera, and Lisa Anderson were kind enough to share their
insights on Libya. Nadwa al-Dawsari, Ian Hartshorn, April L. Alley, and Stacey
Yadav answered innumerable questions about Yemen. Amatzia Baram, Steve
Heydemann, Kevin Mazur, Ranj Alaaldin, Avi Rubin, Daniel Neep, Harith al-
Qarawee, and David Patel deepened my education on Syria and Iraq. Ranj
Alaaldin and Pishtiwan Jalal gave me a crash course on Kurdish politics. Any
mistakes are mine, not theirs. I also wish to thank Sam Parker, Miki Fabry, Marc
Lynch, Amaney Jamal, Jonathan Wyrtzen, Elizabeth Thompson, Mahdi el
Rabab, Ryan Saylor, Arnaud Kurze, Mohammed Tabaar, Dina Khoury, Benjamin
Smith, Amy Myers Jaffe, and Charles Tripp for their conversation and encour-
agement. Charles King, Gabe Rubin, and Sara Goodman provided me kind and
thoughtful advice about how to structure the manuscript. I particularly thank
Rachel Templer for helping to make this manuscript readable. Thanks also
to David McBride and Oxford University Press for taking a chance on diffi-
cult material.
Different versions of this paper benefited from presentation at the Weiser
Center for Emerging Democracies at Michigan, the Program on Governance
and Local Development at Yale, the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice at
Princeton, the Program in International Relations at New York University, and
the American University in Cairo. Thanks to Marc Lynch and Lauren Baker at
the Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS) for providing opportu-
nities and venues to discuss these topics. I was fortunate to spend nine months

ix
x A ck nowl edg me nt s

as a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, one of the
most fruitful endeavors of my professional life. I thank Henri Barkey, Rob
Litwak, Chris Davenport, Marina Ottaway, David Ottaway, and the Wilson
Center library staff, as well as my research assistants, Adena Moulton, Adnan
Hussein, Chelsea Burris, and Taha Poonwala.
I have the good fortune to work with excellent students and colleagues at
Virginia Tech’s School of Public and International Affairs in Alexandria. I thank
Greg Kruczek, Nahom Kasay, Giselle Datz, Joel Peters, David Orden, Patrick
Roberts, Anne Khademian, Tim Luke, and Gerard Toal. Special thanks are due
to Bruce Pencek and the university library. I gratefully thank the Institute for
Society, Culture and Environment at Virginia Tech and the Carnegie Corporation
of New York for funding the book’s research and writing.
Due to the insanity of traffic in Washington, DC, much of the final composi-
tion took place in the friendly confines of Ohr Kodesh Congregation. I thank
Jerry Kiewe and his staff for allowing me to treat the synagogue as a second office.
Finally, this book would be impossible without the love of a wonderful family.
My mother, Judi Ahram, continues to be a voice of encouragement for me.
Though it pains me to admit this as a writer, my wife, Marni, means more to me
than I can put into words. Leonie, my eldest daughter, kindly offered her version
of cover art for this project. I regretfully declined. My youngest daughter, Tillie
(Matilda), has been waiting her entire life for me to finish a book that would
mention her by name. I thank her for her patience.
 L I S T O F A B B R E V I AT I O N S

ADM Assyrian Democratic Movement

ASMB Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade
AQAP Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
AQI Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia/Iraq
CDF Cyrenaica Defense Forces
CPB Cyrenaica Political Bureau
CTC Cyrenaica Transitional Council
CUP Committee of Union and Progress
DFNS Democratic Federation of Northern Syria
DPA Declaration of Principles and Accord (Yemen)
DRY Democratic Republic of Yemen
FLOSY Front for the Liberation of the Occupied South Yemen
FoS Friends of Syria
FoY Friends of Yemen
FSA Free Syrian Army
GCC Gulf Cooperation Council
GNA Government of National Accord (Libya)
GNC General National Congress (Libya)
GPC General People’s Congress (Yemen)
HNC Hadramawt National Council
HoR House of Representatives (Libya)
IKF Iraqi Kurdistan Front
INC Iraqi National Congress
IS Islamic State (ad-Dawla al-Islamiyya)
JAN Jabhat al-Nusra
JRTN Jaysh Rijal Tariqat Naqshbandi (Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi
Order)
KDP Kurdish Democratic Party (Iraq)

xi
xii List o f Abbrev iati ons

KNC Kurdish National Council (Syria)

KRG Kurdish Regional Government (Iraq)
KRI Kurdish Region of Iraq
KRM Kurdish Republic of Mahabad
LCC Local Coordinating Committees (Syria)
LCG Libya Contact Group
LIFG Libyan Islamic Fighting Group
LNA Libyan National Army
MENA Middle East and North Africa
NCC National Coordination Council (Syria)
NDB National Defense Battalion
NDC National Dialogue Conference (Yemen)
NFZ No-fly Zone
NLF National Liberation Front (Yemen)
OLOS Organization for the Liberation of the Occupied South Yemen
PDRY People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen
PFG Petroleum Facilities Guard (Libya)
PKK Kurdistan Workers’ Party
PLO Palestine Liberation Organization
PMU Popular Mobilization Units (Iraq)
PRSY People’s Republic of South Yemen
PUK Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
PYD Democratic Union Party (Syria)
SAL South Arabian League
SCIRI Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq
SDF Syrian Democratic Forces
SM Southern Movement
SNC Syrian National Council
SOC National Coalition for Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces
SPKI Socialist Party of Kurdistan in Iraq
STC Southern Transitional Council (Yemen)
TNC Transitional National Council (Libya)
UN United Nations
UNSCR UN Security Council Resolution
YPG People’s Protection Unit
YSP Yemen Socialist Party
Break All the Borders
 Introduction

#Sykespicotover
Strolling amid the rubble of an abandoned military post somewhere along the
Syrian-Iraqi boundary, Abu Sufiyya had reason to boast. “This is the so-called
border of Sykes-Picot,” he said, referring to the secret 1916 agreement to divide
the Ottoman Empire into English, French, and Russian spheres of influence.
“Hamdullah [praise God], we don’t recognize it and we will never recognize it.
This is not the first border we will break. God willing [inshallah], we will break
all the borders.”1 Where Iraq and Syria’s red, green, and black tricolors had flown
side by side like fraternal twins for nearly nine decades, now the black flag of the
Islamic State (IS) stood alone, emblazoned in austere calligraphy: No God but God.
The summer of 2014 was the apogee for IS. Working from its stronghold in east-
ern Syria and western Iraq, IS’s forces stormed Nineveh Province and seized Iraq’s
second-largest city, Mosul. This put IS in control of an archipelago of dust-bitten
towns and riparian cities, dams, oil depots, and desert trade routes spanning some
12,000 square miles (31,000 km2). In place of the Syrian and Iraqi governments, IS
announced itself as a caliphate, the direct successor to the Prophet Muhammad’s
medieval Arabian state. The colonially implanted state system, IS propagandists
opined, divided and weakened the unitary Muslim people. They had allowed
Western powers to dominate them and permitted infidels, atheists, and religiously
deviant Shi’is to rule. Within the new caliphate, though, orthodox “Muslims are
honored, infidels disgraced.” IS called on Muslims worldwide to join them in revolt,
either by emigrating or building IS colonies in other countries.2 IS propagandists
flooded social media with images of bulldozers demolishing border crossings and
ripping apart fences. They even introduced a catchy hashtag: #sykespicotover.3
IS was hardly the only group intent on breaking borders in the Middle East
and North Africa (MENA).4 Abutting IS-controlled territory, Kurdish leaders
seized upon the opportunities of civil war and state failure to gain unprecedented
levels of autonomy in Syria and Iraq. Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish
Regional Government in Iraq, told a newspaper in 2015 that

1
2 Break All the Borders

forced division cannot last indefinitely. Instead of the Sykes-Picot

border, the new border is drawn in blood. . . . A new Iraq must be formu-
lated. The former Iraq has failed. . . . Look at what is happening in Yemen
and look at what is happening in Syria. Other countries have tribal and
regional problems, such as Libya. The decades-old equations of World
War I were shaken with violence.5

At the bottom of the Arabian Peninsula, members of the Southern Movement

(al-Hirak al-Janubi) in Yemen seized the opportunity of civil war to claim a new
state, tied to the memory of the once-independent South Yemen. Concurrently,
in eastern Libya a federalist movement demanded autonomy, if not outright self-
governance, for the once-independent Cyrenaica (Barqa).
These uprisings represent the latest in a century of strife in the Arab world. As
soon as regional states were conceived, there were calls to abort them. The sys-
tems of rule and political boundaries that appeared in the Arab world seemed
incongruent with popular identities and aspirations. As a result, for the last cen-
tury Arab states have endured a maelstrom of wars, revolutions, coups, and in-
surrections.6 Much of the blame for the region’s malformed states, as IS propa-
gandists demonstrate, is laid at the feet of two men—François Georges-Picot
and Sir Mark Sykes. Picot trained as a lawyer and joined the French diplomatic
corps, serving as consul general in Beirut. Sykes, heir to a Yorkshire baronetcy,
dropped out of Cambridge, wrote books, fought in the Boer War, and served in
Parliament. Working under Lord Kitchener during the Great War, Sykes took a
hand in Britain’s Near Eastern policies. Picot and Sykes met several times in
1915 and 1916 to discuss the disposition of the Ottoman domains once the war
ended. The document that would forever be associated with their names was
signed in St. Petersburg in February 1916 in consultation with the Russian
Foreign Ministry, which had its own designs on the Caucasus and Black Sea
region. The agreement was supposed to be secret. It only came to light because
the Bolsheviks, eager to embarrass the Allies, released the classified diplomatic
correspondence in November 1917. As memorialized in a thousand-word
memo and a finely hued watercolor map, they agreed to French control over
southern Anatolia and the northern Levant, where they had a long-standing re-
lationship with the Maronite Christian community around Mount Lebanon.
Britain would hold sway over the southern linkages between Baghdad and the
Persian Gulf through to the port of Haifa.
A century later, Sykes-Picot is discussed as MENA’s original sin, the root of its
malformed states and malignant politics. Yet this is a bad historical caricature.
For one thing, Sykes and Picot discussed not states but rather zones of colonial
control. These colonial footprints were significant, but rarely conclusive, in de-
termining the course of state formation. This jaundiced view also slights the
 Introduc ti on 3

agency of indigenous actors who authored their own drives to statehood and
tried simultaneously to take advantage of and resist colonial encroachment.7
Additionally, this view overlooks the role of new norms of self-determination
and popular sovereignty in inspiring and substantiating statehood. These ideas,
propounded by Woodrow Wilson at the end of World War I, became core prin-
ciples of international society. International institutions like the League of
Nations, Wilson’s brainchild, and the United Nations, articulated these norms as
they orchestrated the transition from colonialism to independence. The emer-
gence and endurance of Arab states, therefore, were part and parcel of the crys-
tallization of mid-century liberal internationalism.
Still, the Ottomans used the leaked documents to embarrass Arab rebels like
Emir Faisal bin Hussein al-Hashemi, who had cast their lot with the infidel
British instead of fellow Muslims. Arab leaders were outraged at what they saw as
Britain’s double-dealing, realizing that the agreement undercut promises to sup-
port an Arab kingdom.8 The agreement blocked the possibilities of establishing
states based on regions’ presumed organic unity, under the aegis of either Arab
nationalism or pan-Islam. Discussing the impact of Sykes-Picot during a private
meeting with Saddam Hussein in 1988, Iraq’s foreign minister commented deri-
sively (and largely erroneously) that “Lebanon, which is the size of an Arab
county, became a state. . . . Qatar, which is a small, tiny municipality, is now
spoken of as one with history, culture, and literature of its own. It is like someone
comes and talks about the inhabitants of Mahmoodiya [a small Iraqi city] . . . the
history, literature, and culture of Mahmoodiya!”9 In a 1998 epistle, Osama bin
Laden used similar terms, calling Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan “paper
mini-states.”10 On the eve of the 2003 Iraq war, he directly blamed the Sykes-
Picot Agreement for bringing about the “the dissection of the Islamic world into
fragments” and pronounced the American-led campaign against Iraq “a new
Sykes-Picot agreement” aimed at the “destroying and looting of our beloved
Prophet’s umma [people].”11 As his country descended into civil war in 2012,
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad said, “What is taking place in Syria is part of
what has been planned for the region for tens of years, as the dream of partition
is still haunting the grandchildren of Sykes–Picot.”12
The Sykes-Picot Agreement takes on a subtly different meaning in Western
discourse. Whereas the Arab nationalists and pan-Islamists faulted the agree-
ment for creating states that were too small, the Western pundits saw these states
as too large. Colonialists clumsily lumped too many fractious primordial ethno-
sectarian communities together. In the Western imagination, breaking the Sykes-
Picot border would yield not a single coherent mega-state but a plethora of more
compact states, their borders fitted to individual ethno-sectarian communities.
Instead of a single Gulliver, they anticipated a multitude of Lilliputians. In early
2008, an Atlantic magazine cover showed a regional map featuring potential
4 Break All the Borders

states like the Islamic Holy State of the Hijaz, the Alawite Republic, and distinct
Sunni and Shi’i states in Mesopotamia. The accompanying article asked: “How
many states will there one day be between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates
River? Three? Four? Five? Six?”13 Seasoned journalist Robin Wright speculated
that Libya, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen could readily splinter into four-
teen states.14 Yaroslav Trofimov, another veteran observer of the region, asked,
“Where exactly would you draw the lines? And at what cost?”15
This book is about the separatist movements that have tried to change states
at a fundamental, territorial level since the 2011 Arab uprisings. “Separatism” is
a sterile term for movements that are typically politically dynamic and incendi-
ary. Within the Arab world, incumbent regimes sometimes denigrate their ene-
mies as “separatists” (infasilun). Few groups refer to themselves that way, how-
ever, preferring instead “freedom fighters” or “movements of national liberation.”
I use “separatist” to mean those groups taking unilateral steps to break away from
an existing state and attain some form of self-governance over territory. Secession
is the fullest form of separatism. Secessionists seek to quit a parent state and es-
tablish a fully independent sovereign entity. But separatism also encompasses
extra-legal movements demanding control over legislation, resources, and the
means of coercion in a territory. Separatists defy the central government, typi-
cally when the state is too weak to resist. While such groups stop short of calling
for independence, they displace state sovereignty in function, if not in form.16
The central puzzle is why these conflicts erupted and how separatist move-
ments used the opportunity of state weakness to assert or expand territorial con-
trol. Arab politics is often stereotyped as a contest of ancient clans, tribes, and
sects masquerading under the banner of modern states and political parties.
“Sykes-Picot” is a metaphor gesturing to that fundamental mismatch between
deep primordial identities and contemporary political institutions.17 But why do
separatists appear, expand, or entrench in certain conditions and not in others?
Given the presumed ubiquity of sub-state identities, the region should be rife
with separatist rebellions seeking to break every border. Yet most of the rebels
involved in the 2011 uprisings sought to overthrow individual rulers and re-
gimes and did not contest the territorial integrity of the state. Why and how do
some rebel actors seek territorial separation while others seek to control the
entire state?
The book argues that the legacies of early- and mid-twentieth-century state
building in the MENA region are key factors in both fostering and constraining
separatist conflicts. Separatism, therefore, does not spell descent into ethno-
sectarian pandemonium, or resurgence of primordial identities, of either the
macro or micro variety. On the contrary, separatists resurrect prior state-building
efforts that drew inspiration from what Erez Manela calls the “Wilsonian mo­
ment” and the norms of self-determination.18 Although many of these efforts
 Introduc ti on 5

failed to attain statehood, they laid the foundation for future separatist struggles.
The legacy of these “conquered” or “missing” states worked through two distinct
but often interlinked mechanisms. First, at the domestic or internal level, the
memories of conquered states provided an institutional focal point for mobiliza-
tions against existing political regimes. Failures were not forgotten. On the con-
trary, they left faint but indelible imprints and could be recalled and reimagined
in collective and institutional memory. Separatists used these memories to gal-
vanize and mobilize domestic constituencies. Second, at the international or
external level, prior statehood provided separatists a platform from which to
­address the international community and appeal for its material and moral sup-
port. The fact that existing states were built on the graves of discarded ones sug-
gested that the current constellation of states was contingent and dispensable.
The international community, therefore, was more amenable to arguments about
eventually—and perhaps inevitably—replacing dysfunctional states, opening
up the possibilities for a new Wilsonian moment to arise. With each step toward
regional disarray, the prospects for separatism came tantalizingly closer. As with
any self-fulfilling prophecy, the more the overturning of Sykes-Picot and the
demise of existing states was contemplated, the more realistic such outcomes
became.19 But what would come next?
This question is of great policy significance, as the people inside and outside
the region struggle with instability in MENA. This book shows that disintegra-
tion did not affect every state equally and did not lead to hysterical fragmenta-
tion. Separatism only took root in certain kinds of states at specific moments of
crisis. The ultimate fate of separatists, though, depended as much on their own
actions as on external involvement in their conflicts. The United States, Iran,
Saudi Arabia, Russia, and other actors quickly inducted separatist movements as
proxies in their larger campaigns for regional hegemony.20 While this strategy
was sometimes successful in the short term, however, its overall impact on sta-
bility was dire. Separatists believed that by assisting great powers and abiding by
international norms, they would “earn” sovereignty and recognition.21 So far,
however, none of these groups have been rewarded with statehood. The quest to
rectify the mistakes of the first Wilsonian moment therefore continues.
Moving forward, regional order will require a reorientation of the entire re-
gional system, including its integration with the larger international society. As
Raymond Hinnebusch put it, “While Middle East states help make their own
regional international society, they do so in conditions not of their own making.”22
Outside actors play a critical role in establishing—or violating—standards of
conduct conducive to peace. Stability can only arrive through redefining the for-
mulae by which sovereignty is granted and how states themselves are organized.
Without such a redefinition, statehood itself may be doomed, replaced by other
political models.
6 Break All the Borders

Separatism, Sovereignty, and the Making and

Unmaking of States
Making and unmaking states involves a double transformation. On one hand,
states maintain and enforce order. In a lecture delivered during Germany’s post–
World War I turmoil, Max Weber defined the state as a political entity that suc-
cessfully claims “the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given
territory.”23 States are first and foremost providers of security. The weakening or
collapse of the state necessarily involves a breakdown of this monopoly. In such
anarchic conditions, people are forced either to submit to or to invent new insti-
tutions to provide for security. Separatists are among the actors trying to build
new institutions that can assert physical domination over territories in lieu of
the state.
Yet, as Weber himself understood, the legitimacy of a state’s claim to domi-
nance depends on its accordance with the norms, identity, and culture of its
population. Historically, rulers have legitimated their rule in myriad ways. But in
the modern era, by far the most prominent and potent has been through nation-
alism. The long-running debate between primordialists and constructivists as to
the origins and nature of national identity has now reached an uneasy truce.
Some nations may be more ancient than others, but all nations emerge in rela-
tion to the power of state institutions.24 In the post-colonial world especially,
state institutions are key propagators and promoters of particular notions of na-
tional identity, at once emphasizing and synthesizing the organic connection
between ruler and ruled. Moreover, elites often use these institutions to shape
citizens’ self-perception and images of community. Absent institutions, state or
otherwise, identities are so protean as to be endlessly shifting. State encourage-
ment of national identity formation facilitates collective action and assures po-
litical acquiescence. 25 When states dissolve, therefore, it is not just a brute
Leviathan that is lost; it is also a focal point of communal identity. In such insta-
bility, separatists act as political entrepreneurs, seeking to promote new notions
of identity as alternatives to the state’s official version of nationalism while build-
ing new organs of political control.
The topic of separatism rests astride multiple disciplinary, theoretical, and
analytical seams.26 Comparative politics and comparative sociology tend to
favor an inside-out approach, looking at separatist conflicts as the product of
domestic or internal political cleavages and tensions. International relations
tends to favor an outside-in approach, looking at separatist pressures as a re-
sponse to incentives and opportunities provided by the international commu-
nity. Both of these approaches are nomothetic in orientation, seeking to develop
and test broad generic theories about the origins of separatism and its impact in
 Introduc ti on 7

as a wide a population of cases as possible. A third approach, associated with

comparative historical analysis and historical institutionalism, is less interested
in generalization than in attending to unique and historically contingent features
of individual cases. If separatism is about the political disintegration of state in-
stitutions, then its course is deeply constrained by particular historical experi-
ences of political incorporation. Separatism is thus the analytical mirror image
of state formation.
Inside-Out Approaches. For a long time the primary thinking about separatism
was that it amounted to an internal challenger to statehood. Weber’s equation of
statehood with the monopoly of force has long stood as maximal ideal-type, not
a reality. Some states come closer to achieving it than others.27 Moreover, states
rarely get to impose their notions of national identity without a fight. Ethnic
conflict, disputes about communal identity, and disagreement about the distri-
bution of power among groups spur people to resist that state. But grievances
alone are not sufficient to cause rebellion. Rebellions are dangerous and their
rewards uncertain. Any effort at rebellion must overcome the prohibitive inertia
of the collective action problem, in which some people sacrifice but all reap
rewards.28
Instrumentalist analyses focus on factors that lower the cost and increase the
gain from rebellion. James Fearon and David Laitin, among many others, stress
the ecological and geographical determinants of rebellion. Mountains, jungles,
and other difficult-to-patrol terrains offer rebels succor and bases for operation.
Where and when states are weak, rebels advance.29 Access to natural resources,
like diamonds, oil, or other kinds of loot, provide crucial incentives to rebel foot
soldiers and leaders alike, raising the benefits of rebellion.30 When they have the
opportunity, rebels build more robust infrastructure of governance, including
police forces, courts, schools, and welfare programs, in effect supplanting the
dysfunctional state and becoming proto-states.31
Separatism is a distinct form of rebellion and has specific etiological charac-
teristics. Rather than overturn a specific regime, separatists want to break a
state’s hold over particular territories. Separatist leaders make strategic choices
about how and when they claim specific territories, as Harris Mylonas and
Nadav Shelef discuss.32 They are engaged in a particular kind of demographic
and physical engineering. They try to ensure that their group constitutes a ma-
jority (or at least plurality) within its claimed territory.33 The availability of oil or
other natural resources in that territory is also important. Access to rent-gener-
ating facilities can help rebels overcome collective action problems in recruit-
ment.34 Moreover, the presence of natural resources in what is considered a group’s
historical homeland can become grist for grievances. While the central govern-
ment hordes resources, it denies residents opportunities for political and eco-
nomic advancement.35 Beyond fighting the titular state, as Kathleen Cunningham
8 Break All the Borders

and others argue, separatists also contend with other rival rebel organizations.
Building cohesion around the cause of separatism, either by defeating or ag-
glomerating other armed groups, is a key for success.36 For this reason, separatist
rebels are typically the most eager to set up parallel state institutions that can
monopolize coercive control.37
Outside-In Approaches. International relations scholarship has only recently
engaged with the topic of separatism. This line of inquiry has yielded important
insights about how separatists respond to the constraints and incentives pro-
vided by the global balance of power and the norms and practices surrounding
sovereignty. Sovereignty and statehood are adductive. Sovereignty, according to
K. J. Holsti, “helps create states; it helps maintain their integrity when under
threat from within or without; and it helps guarantee their continuation and pre-
vents their death.”38 At a minimum, separatists pose a challenge to a state’s do-
mestic or empirical sovereignty, the ability to exercise de facto control on the
ground. Full-blown secessionists challenge the state’s juridical (de jure) sover-
eignty, its standing as a member of the society of states, as well. From this out-
side-in perspective, then, the international community’s support or opposition
to separatism is crucial.39 Outside states determine their orientation toward
separatists based on their material interests and their normative commitments.40
Reyko Huang and Bridget Coggins show how separatists, in turn, appeal to the
international community on both geostrategic and moral grounds.41 Military
and economic aid helps separatists effect their own de facto sovereignty.
Diplomatic support, up to and including formal recognition of sovereignty and
independence, provides crucial juridical support. Incumbent states, for their
part, try their best to deny rebels such material and moral resources.42
For much of the twentieth century, global norms of sovereignty formed an
important bulwark against separatism. Robert Jackson argues that the interna-
tional community’s emphasis on de jure sovereignty effectively made territories
inviolable and borders immutable. Cold War geopolitics reinforced this general
deterrent toward separatism. Efforts to break the borders of one state might spill
over to others, creating a slippery slope for state dismemberment and general
disorder.43 Pierre Englebert, straddling the comparative-international relations
divide, argues that international recognition provided regimes a crucial sym-
bolic resource to regimes and dampened the hopes of any group that might seek
separation.44 Since the end of the Cold War, though, this obstacle appears to
have lessened. New norms of humanitarian intervention seem to dovetail with
claims for self-determination by oppressed minorities.45 The geopolitical align-
ment no longer precludes external actors from backing separatists, as the United
States did in Kosovo and Russia in South Ossetia.
Longitudinal Approaches. Drawn from the tradition of comparative historical
analysis, longitudinal approaches to separatism move away from general theory
 Introduc ti on 9

and toward more specific explanations grounded in particular times and places.46
In their seminal studies of the drivers of state formation in Europe, Charles Tilly,
Hendrik Spruyt, and Thomas Ertman each emphasize distinct path-dependent
dynamics. Early movers had unique advantages in a highly competitive land-
scape. Polities that managed to achieve military, economic, and bureaucratic
competence were able to survive to take their place in the modern international
system. The continual need to assert themselves militarily, fiscally, and adminis-
tratively became self-reinforcing, leading to ever more robust states. Polities that
couldn’t compete effectively, like the Duchy of Burgundy or the Kingdom of
Aragon, were dismembered, absorbed, and typically forgotten.47 These dynam-
ics do not translate directly to the developing world, but the vocabulary of path
dependence suggests ways to approach separatism as a temporally and histori-
cally variant but bounded phenomenon.48
In particular, the breakup of the USSR and Yugoslavia prompted a consider-
ation of the historical processes of segmentation and sedimentation within
states affected by the trajectories of separatism. The USSR, as Yuri Slezkine put
it, was not a unitary state but a communal apartment, a series of stratified au-
tonomous republics and regions.49 Ostensibly, the ethno-federalist arrangement
was supposed to mollify demands for self-determination while fostering cohe-
sion under state socialism. In reality, these territorially segmented units became
the perches for separatism when the central state faltered. When the USSR
buckled, those groups already enjoying control over autonomous institutions
had the best chance to seek independence.50 There was an additional external
support to such transition from segmentation to separatism. The international
community generally abhorred altering international borders. By retaining the
pre-existing territorial demarcation, though, separatist movements were able to
show they posed less of a threat to global order. Moreover, parent states were
likely to accept secession by higher-order administrative units in order to fore-
stall the more disruptive departure of lower-level ones.51
In addition to contemporaneous segmentation, processes of sedimentation
within state institutions also proved to have a significant impact on separatism.
Michael Hechter shows how losing autonomy or statehood is a major motivator
for ethnic resentment and grievances. Rebellion becomes more likely when the
strength of the central governing authority wanes and the original bargain be-
tween center and periphery no longer holds.52 Examining the wave of separatist
and secessionist bids that emerged in the 1990s and 2000s, numerous cross-­
national statistical studies found that those groups making separatist and seces-
sionist bids in the 1990s and 2000s and had engaged in failed rebellions and
­resistance in the late nineteenth century and earlier in the twentieth.53 The pock-
marked ethno-federalist structure of the USSR was not a product of overarching
design but an improvised attempt to incorporate ethnic groups that had long
10 Break All the Borders

resisted Russian domination. When the Romanov empire crumbled in 1917,

many of these groups tried to launch their own independent states. The Soviets
offered autonomy in the hopes of appeasing the earliest and most potent poten-
tial resisters. As the Soviets reconsolidated power, though, they were less accom-
modating. They used violence to suppress opposition and unilaterally revoked
or diluted previous autonomy provisions.54 Just like ethno-territorial segmenta-
tion, the sedimented history of failed state building can have path-dependent
effects. The experience of having once enjoyed self-governance granted groups
the institutional structures necessary to undertake rebellion; the revocation of
that autonomy gave them motivation to break away. Such experiences counter-
act the integrative efforts of state building and provide a catalyst to separation.
Still, the mechanism behind what Philip Roeder calls the “conquered state
syndrome,” the propensity of separatism to arise among groups that had lost au-
tonomy, remains obscure.55 Rebel groups can take a multitude of forms and
make a variety of claims about identity. Why would separatists seek to resurrect
old, seemingly defunct, notions of political community instead of creating
new—and potentially more attractive and suasive—ones? How does an extinct
political order have enduring power to shape the future?56
This book offers two interrelated answers. First, the memories of bygone in-
stitutions are seldom lost, even though states do their best to supplant them with
new notions of belonging. Thus, once initiated, identities themselves have a pro-
pensity for endurance. They can remain entrenched socially and culturally even
after their initial impetus has dissolved. Elites and activists instrumentally try to
refurbish and retain the memory of these past political institutions as a way to
oppose or resist existing state power. As Allan Hoben and Robert Hefner put it,
these institutions and identities are “taught and learned, often quite deliberately . . .
[and] provide the social categories of discourse that define who is likely to be
good and to be trusted, and who is bad and should be hated and feared.”57 When
the central state’s authority dissipates, this prior statehood is a natural or default
focal point around which to organize collective actions, similar in many ways to
the ready-made platform of ethno-federal segmentation. Parliaments and other
institutions can be used to govern this recently regained homeland. Flags, an-
thems, and banners already exist to represent it. Militias can be raised to defend
it. All of this helps separatists to accumulate power in conditions where the state
is no longer effective and there are multiple groups vying for territorial control.58
Second, making claims to reinstate prior lost states also has important ramifi-
cations for separatists’ engagement abroad. Separatist movements face an uphill
battle given the international community’s general tendency to preserve existing
territorial boundaries. But by claiming to reinstate a political entity that had al-
ready existed in modern history and had standing in the international commu-
nity, they hope to give themselves a head start. They signal their understanding
 Introduc ti on 11

of the rules of the international system and their right to belong in international
society. The existence of prior statehood can also help in delimiting borders and
territory of a future state, further mitigating potential disturbance to the global
order. This ultimately increases the chance of gaining external support, up to and
including de jure recognition of sovereignty.

Separatism and MENA’s “Missing” States

There has been a great deal of attention to ethnic cleavages and conflicts that
divide MENA states, but relatively little to the potentialities of separatism. In the
1970s, leading scholars like Michael Hudson and Iliya Harik wrote about the
“horizontal” challenge to Arab states and the difficulty of bringing disparate
communities under a single, coherent national identity. Yet they presumed that
some form of vertical agglomeration was a foregone conclusion. Harik, follow-
ing Clifford Geertz’s influential theory of “integrative revolutions,” expected a
conglomerate national identity to arise, such as in Lebanon’s confessional
system. Hudson foresaw an eventual Gulliverian turn toward pan-Arab regional
integration. In both scenarios, political conflict focused on controlling the
center, not carving out territories at the periphery.59 Arab states generally did not
follow the Soviet example of building segmented ethno-federalist territorial
structures to accommodate disparate communities’ demands for self-rule.60
More recent studies of Arab politics emphasize the durability and persistence
of states and tend to ignore separatism altogether. Taking an inside-out ap-
proach, Sean Yom, Rolf Schwarz, and Thierry Gongora focus on how the politi-
cal economy of Arab states created its own centripetal power. The arrival of mas-
sive oil rents short-circuited the process of state development. With no need to
extract taxes or resources from their own population, Arab states did not build
durable institutions and national identities. Instead, states took on a kind of
armed mediocrity, using rents to bribe their populations into acquiescence or to
build ruthless security services to beat down dissent.61 Viewing the region from
the outside in, Ian Lustick, Keith Krause, and Boaz Atzili argue that norms of
territorial integrity linked to juridical sovereignty and practices of external inter-
vention effectively kept relatively weak and illegitimate Arab states intact.
Though they do not deal directly with separatism’s horizontal challenges per se,
they agree that ideational and geopolitical factors made changing borders im-
possible.62 Both the outside-in geopolitical and inside-out political economy ap-
proaches point ultimately in the same direction: a collection of states getting a
free ride on the rules of sovereignty granted by the international community.
They are prone to violence but incapable of—and possibly even disinterested
in—asserting effective control over the breadth of their allotted territories or
12 Break All the Borders

building the penetrating infrastructural power that binds citizens to the state. To
use Nazih Ayubi’s terms, Arab states are simultaneously fierce and weak.63 They
are also, though, enduring and immutable.
The uprisings of 2011 demonstrated just how sclerotic many Arab states had
become. The overthrow of Ben Ali, Mubarak, Saleh, and Qaddafi undermined
common assumptions about the adaptability and durability of Arab authoritari-
anism.64 Deeper than changes at the regime level, the uprisings also raised ques-
tions about the durability of states themselves. Barely a year after the 2011 Arab
uprisings, Marc Lynch predicted “a powerful change in the basic stuff of the re-
gion’s politics. . . . New rules and norms will emerge to govern regional interac-
tions.”65 With civil wars and insurgencies roiling the region, scholars like Mehran
Kamrava, Louise Fawcett, Lorenzo Kamel, and Ibrahim Fraihat discuss the pos-
sible fragmentation of incumbent Arab states.66 Still, there has been scant atten-
tion to the separatist movements that sought to supplant them, how they
emerged, and what they wanted to achieve.67
By taking the current regional constellation for granted, all of these studies
overlook one of the key insights of the historical, longitudinal approach—
namely, the importance of failed state-building efforts and consideration of the
region’s “missing states.” David S. Patel notes that since 1914 at least sixty now-
defunct polities once operated across the region.68 The number gets even larger
when you look to the late nineteenth century.69 As was the case for Burgundy,
Aragon, or the other vanished kingdoms of Europe, most of these have been
consigned to historical footnotes.70 But their exclusion is a form of selection bias,
examining only cases in which the outcome of interest (i.e., statehood) has al-
ready occurred.71 This yields a blinkered and teleological understanding of how
MENA states endured and how they might change.
Including missing or conquered states into the analysis brings back this impor-
tant element of open-endedness and contingency in the political changes. Every
separatist conflict after 2011 emerged in states where there had been missing,
dead, or conquered states. Libya was built over the defunct Tripolitanian Republic
(d. 1923) and agglomerated the Emirate of Cyrenaica in 1951. The Yemen Arab
Republic supersedes the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (d. 1990) in the
south, as well as prior iterations of the Aden settlement and various sultanates
that collapsed in 1967. Iraq overtook the failed Kingdom of Kurdistan (d. 1924).
Modern Syria incorporated various French-created mini-republics and autono-
mous zones from the 1920s and 1930s, such as the Jabal Druze State, the Alawite
State, and the Hasakah/Jazira autonomous area. Yet only states that endured sig-
nificant upheaval during the 2011 uprisings saw the separatist conflicts erupt. The
book therefore argues that opportunities of buckling central state power during
the revolution was a proximate cause that enabled separatist actors to mobilize
around the more distant historical legacy of dead statehood.
 Introduc ti on 13

Separatism did not emerge absent destabilization at the center, even when
dead states existed, such as the case of Morocco and the Rif Republic. Conversely,
states that did not have the same history of incorporation and sedimentation,
like Tunisia, Egypt, or Bahrain, experienced revolutionary upheaval but not sep-
aratism. Moreover, the legacy of dead states is even more important than ethno-
sectarian cleavages. Ethno-sectarian tensions in Syria and Iraq were long-standing,
if not always clearly salient. But the separatist movement in Libya shared lan-
guage, ethnicity, and religions with its antagonists. In Yemen, the grave sectarian
gap between northern Shi’is and southern Sunnis is relatively novel and even
contrived. It does not map on the division between separatists in the south and
other political actors.72
The coming chapters try to tell the story of conquered and missing states as if
they were real and viable, in a sense resuscitating them intellectually the way that
separatists tried to do politically. The chapters will probe the mechanisms con-
necting the conquered states to contemporary separatist movements, how these
movements engaged the international community, and how they mobilized
their own populations to make the claim for self-rule, often by trying to harden
political divisions into ethnic cleavages. Although these movements looked back
to history to buttress their legitimacy, their efforts were not indicative of deeply
rooted essential characteristics. Though leaders tried to “ethnicize” their status
and claims for autonomy, it is difficult to assert that South Yemen, Cyrenaica, or
even the Kurds have a long, unbroken history of self-rule dating to antiquity. IS
was an idiosyncratic outlier in this, as in many things. Yet it was is not as excep-
tional as it would appear. Separatist movements tended to focus on the period of
the early to mid-twentieth century, when their forefathers asserted standing in
the international arena but were eventually orphaned by the Wilsonian moment.

Methodology
In exploring the connections between separatism and conquered states, this book
looks to big structures and large-scale historical processes. It utilizes an “encom-
passing comparison,” viewing separatist movements in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and
Yemen as discrete but interrelated manifestations of larger system-level opera-
tions and changes.73 Complementing the encompassing comparison are “incor-
porating comparisons,” in which the emergence of the units themselves became
historically variant and contingent.74 Thus, extinct polities like the Kingdom of
Kurdistan, the Emirate of Cyrenaica, and the sultanates of Hadramawt take on
new importance as imagined alternatives to Iraq, Syria, Libya, or Yemen.
Admittedly, this is an exercise in methodological acrobatics. While it tends
toward the historical and longitudinal approach of comparative historical analysis,
14 Break All the Borders

it also draws insights from the inside-out and outside-in perspectives. Unlike
conventional most-similar and most-different inductive designs, encompassing
and incorporating comparisons do not presume that units are independent, ho-
mogenous, or fixed. On the contrary, they seek out the connections between
ostensibly separate experiences and try to place them on firm historical ground-
ing through process tracing. The aim is not to generalize, at least not too far.
Rather, it is to draw an inductive conceptual map that explains the similarities
and differences among MENA states and separatist movements by reference to
their respective position within an evolving global system.75 For this reason, it is
less important to pursue variance in the dependent variable than to trace the
complex, long-duration, and potentially multifarious causal pathways that lead
to a shared outcome.76
As is common in comparative historical analyses, I have relied largely on sec-
ondary sources published variously about Libya, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, espe-
cially for periods before the 2000s.77 I have tried to be attentive to issues of
­historiography within each country. Most importantly, I have tried not to suc-
cumb to the bias of methodological nationalism, the tendency to see states as
historically, territorially, and ontologically fixed entities, and rather consider the
processes that went into their emergence—and potentially their undoing.78
When possible, I have relied on archival and primary sources. The dire security
conditions in each of these countries prevented me from conducting intensive
field research. I have had to rely on newspapers and blogs published both in the
region and without to get data on more contemporaneous events. Fortunately,
many of the rebel groups are quite verbose and eager for an audience in the
Western world. I have also conducted interviews with some of the protagonists
in these conflicts. For reasons of safety, reliability, and transparency I have chosen
to keep my conversations with figures in these groups as deep background and
rely only on publicly available sources.

Plan of the Book

Part I of the book examines the historical evolution of the international system
and MENA’s integration into it. Chapter 1 details how Arab states came of age in
the midst of a global transformation of sovereignty, self-determination, and
statehood following World War I. The coupling of Wilsonian liberal norms with
changes in the global balance of power afforded some local actors pronounced
advantages in attaining and building statehood. For others, though, the new
rules of the international system obstructed the pursuit of sovereignty. Struggles
in the Arab world, accordingly, became more about vertical or centripetal ten-
dencies and less about separatism.
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
so close ranked."[6] But amiable as were the appearances, the distrust was
deep, especially on the side of the English. When Cottington arrived within
a day's journey from Madrid, he sent his coadjutor, Mr. Arthur Hopton,
ahead to discover what preparations were made to receive him. He learnt, to
his surprise, that Philip was absent from the capital, having gone to escort
his sister, the Infanta Queen of Hungary, on her way to her new home, and
that Olivares had been left behind to do the honours to the English envoy.
Cottington was determined that this should not be, so he dodged the host of
grandees, who had been sent out with coaches and guards to welcome him,
and entered Madrid secretly by night. No sooner had he arrived at his
lodging than Olivares presented himself, but the Englishman flatly refused
to receive him there, and, entering a coach, drove off to the palace to offer
his respects to the Queen in the absence of the King, and seek audience
through Olivares as first minister.

There, in his apartment, Olivares kept Cottington in converse until

midnight, using all his blandishments to persuade the Englishman that he
meant to deal straightforwardly this time. "All my art of fence," wrote
Cottington, "could not keep him from entering into the principal business,
yet but flashed and intermixed with other points. He could not doubt, he
said, that I had brought orders to renew the peace negotiations at least. I
said yes, if I found good resolutions to give satisfaction to my King
(Charles) and his friends and allies. I know your meaning, he said, ye would
have restitution of the Palatinate. Yes, said I; but that is not all. You know
that my King has made a league with the States, and their interests must
also be considered." The protestations and heated disputes continued
between them thus for hours; the point of Olivares evidently being to secure
the marriage of the Palgrave's son with a daughter of the Emperor or other
Spanish nominee without a prior restitution of any part of the Palatinate. At
last Olivares rose, and, taking Cottington by the hand, said: "The King of
England shall do the greatest work in Christendom, for by his means the
Palatinate shall be entirely restored, and by his means also the King of
Spain shall find peace in those northern parts."[7]

Whilst the two statesmen were talking, the Countess of Olivares entered
with a message from the Queen, to ask after the health of King Charles.
Cottington was rigid. King Charles, he said, had sent a letter to the Queen
by him, though she had not written to him for a good many years; and when
he delivered the letter he had a good mind to tell her so, as King Charles
was very much offended. Both Olivares and his wife were much concerned
at this, and asked Cottington what had better be done. You may tell the
Queen, he replied, that she might write a letter to King Charles, and send it
to the Spanish Ambassador in London before the King of England's letter
was delivered to her. This was promised, and when finally Cottington was
led to the Queen he found her all smiles and kindness for the ambassador of
her brother-in-law, for matters were complicated terribly by the fact that she
was the sister of Queen Henrietta Maria.

Cottington in Philip was not expected to return to Madrid for several

Madrid days, and in the meantime it was necessary for Olivares
somehow to worm out the nature and extent of the
Englishman's instructions. On Monday, two days after the interview just
described, Olivares made the excuse of taking Cottington out hawking, to
get him quietly in the country and alone all day from morn till dark. But
they had no sport, says Cottington ruefully, for the Count-Duke was so
eager in his talk that he forgot all about the hawks. The disputations, now
on horseback, now in a coach, often waxed angry. The States would not
have a peace, but wanted a truce, said Olivares. They will not have either,
replied the Englishman, unless my King's demands are granted. How can
we restore the Palatinate? blustered Olivares, which is held mostly by
Bavaria. Then Cottington in a rage said he should go back to England
immediately, as he saw they had been deceived. If you do, retorted Olivares,
we will make a league of half Europe against you.[8]

On Friday the King arrived in the capital, and great efforts were made to
persuade Cottington to leave Madrid, and make a state entry, but this he
refused to do. The next best thing was to send the whole Court in its finest
garb to accompany him to the palace for his first audience with Philip.
Nothing could exceed the honour paid him, though on that occasion nothing
political was discussed. But on the next day, in private conference,
Cottington came to close quarters with Philip. The great question, of course,
was that of the Palatinate. Philip assured Cottington that he would give
every satisfaction on that point if he only had patience until powers came
from Germany. As the Englishman left only half convinced, Philip called
him back and asked him why the English would not accept a suspension of
hostilities. Because, replied Cottington, it would look like a surrender of the
point about the Palatinate. There can be no peace, he said, until that
question is settled.

Cottington's The weeks dragged on, every trifling point being utilised
negotiations by Olivares to keep the negotiations afoot, and relieve Spain
of the strain of war with England, without ceding—what it
was clear they could not cede—the restoration of the Palatinate, which was
mostly held by the Germans. An interminable wrangle took place about the
titles to be given to the King of England: whether he should be called
Majesty, which the Spaniards always gave grudgingly to any king but their
own. Then it appeared that the draft protocols sent by Coloma from London
gave Charles the style of "King, etc.," without his full titles, and "Defender
of the Faith." Although it was late at night when the courier arrived,
Cottington hurried off to complain to Philip of this. The King of England
shall be given whatever style he likes, laughed Philip. Then there was a
lengthy squabble about the styles to be used by the two sister-Queens in
writing to each other. When that was settled, Cottington grumbled
incessantly at all this intriguing with the Catholic Irish rebels, and at
Tyrone's presence in Madrid. Again and again Cottington, tired of Olivares'
shilly-shally, was for returning to England post haste, but the Count-Duke
always managed to smooth matters over by assuring him that they would
really use all their influence to get the Palatinate restored if he only had
patience.

But at length, in March 1630, Cottington's long-suffering gave way. He

saw, he says, that he was being played with, and he sent Hopton to England
to ask permission for him to come home. Charles was loath to give up hope,
but he too was beginning to doubt the good faith of Philip and his minister,
and sent instructions that there must be no more delay. Spain wants peace,
but before peace can be made by England, Philip must say clearly and
promptly what portion of the Palatinate he will guarantee to restore. When
this message from England was brought to Madrid by Hopton in the middle
of May, Philip and Olivares took fright, for a continuance of the war with
England whilst they were at war with France meant certain ruin for Spain,
and yet they could not take the Palatinate from Catholic hands and restore it
to Protestant Frederick.

So again the blandishments re-commenced. "Pray tell me your real

opinion," asked Philip of Cottington. "My real opinion, sire, is that I shall
return at once, unless some means be found for making peace with the
Hollanders and raising the ban against Palgrave," replied the Englishman.
Philip very rarely showed anger or emotion of any sort, but he grew
impatient and cross at Cottington's insistence, which he attributed to his
personal desire to return home for domestic reasons. Rojas, the friend of
Velazquez, and Olivares' factotum, came and implored Cottington as a
friend to deal plainly with him, and tell him whether he was really going
home; and Olivares himself sent for him late at night to ply him with
remonstrances and expostulations.[9]

Peace with And thus the juggle went on for months, until at last
England Charles I., himself sorely needing peace, gave way and sent
instructions to Cottington to make a treaty with Spain,
leaving all questions still unprejudiced, like the agreement of 1604, with
which this book began. Thenceforward all was straight sailing, for Olivares
had once more worked his way, and attained the peace that was necessary
for Spain, and yet pledging Philip to nothing. Whilst yet the final terms
were being settled, with which Rubens was to be sent to London, news
came to Madrid of the birth of a son and heir to the King of England. On
the 15th June, Philip received Cottington in full state to congratulate him
upon the news. Never in the brightest time had the old palace of Madrid put
on a braver aspect, for now that in the essential matter of peace the King
had gained his point, in that of ceremonial rejoicing he Was determined
there should be no shortcoming. Surrounded by a full gathering of grandees
in gold chains, Philip stood under his canopy dressed in his military garb,
almost English in fashion, as he stands in the Dulwich Gallery portrait, with
a splendidly embroidered scarlet ropilla doublet, a broad lace collar and
"paned" hose, his breast covered with rich jewels and with a great feather in
his hat. As Sir Francis Cottington approached him the King expressed his
joy at the news. He was as glad, he said, as if the son had been his own; and
he had prayed upon his knees for the happiness of the young prince. Then
the delighted Englishman visited the two Infantes to receive their good
wishes, they being, as Cottington says, "no less brave in attire" than their
brother. In the afternoon another state visit was paid to the Queen, and to
the baby Prince Baltasar Carlos, "in cap and feathers and loaded with
charms and jewels." Solemn proclamation of the news was made by heralds
in the public squares; the Calle Mayor and the Plaza were illuminated as
bright as day with wax torches, and a great firework display was made
before the palace. Every religious house in Madrid held a solemn service of
thanks, and all the priors visited the English ambassador with their
congratulations. Four days afterwards, one of the big royal bull-fights, in
honour of the birth of a Prince of Wales, was given by Philip in the presence
of Cottington in the Plaza Mayor, at which twenty bulls were killed, with
many horses and three men.[10] At length the treaty of peace, the real
object of all the plausibility, was settled. Olivares had won the game again.
England and Spain were at peace, with the Palatinate still unrestored, and
Cottington left Spain, that he knew so well, outwitted for the second time
by the bland procrastination of Spanish diplomacy.

Once more the rivals, Richelieu and Olivares, France and Spain, were
face to face in North Italy; the Pope, Venice, and the new Duke of Mantua
(Nevers) being on the side of France. Richelieu was victorious almost
everywhere over the Spaniards, Germans, and Savoyards. Carlo
Emmanuele sank to the grave broken hearted, leaving his ancient duchy in
the occupation of the French conquerors, and Spinola died of grief before
Casale at the scant support and ungenerous treatment he received from
Spain. His successor, Santa Cruz, patched up an ignominious treaty with the
French in the field, to the violent indignation of the Spaniards at home; for
the country which had paid most for the war had gained nothing by the
peace. But the treaty of Casale was merely a local pacification between
France and Spain. The house of Austria must be crushed, if France were to
be raised to the first rank amongst the nations. Olivares unhappily could not
shake off the imperial traditions which had been the ruin of Spain; and for
many years to come Spanish men and money wrung from starving Castile
were still poured in an endless stream to fill the armies of the Emperor. Year
after year the deadly struggle went on in Central Europe. Sweden and the
Protestants with France on the one side, the house of Austria and the
Catholics of Germany on the other; with Spain and Spanish Flanders as the
milch cow to provide the wherewithal to face all the progressive elements
of Europe.

The Thirty- With the vicissitudes of this epochal war between

Years' War antagonistic civilisations the present book is not directly
concerned, but only with such echoes and influences of it as
reached the Court of Spain. Battles and sieges, the death of heroes and the
fall of kings, seared their deep brand upon the page of history. Spain, bereft
of commerce and almost of industry, might in its agony protest with
passionate tears that it could suffer no more, and lower its dark brows when
the arrogant minister who ruled the fainéant King was mentioned.[11] But
through it all Madrid laughed and rioted with ghastly gaiety and pagan
fatalism, eating, drinking, and making merry, lest before to-morrow it
should die. Outside its mud walls the fields lay bare and arid, in the
provincial cities sloth and apathy ruled supreme over grass-grown market
squares and empty streets; but in the Court, "the only Court," the
Madrileños boastfully called it, shameless waste ran riot still; flaunting
finery elbowed aside the squalid parasites that sought its smiles and
struggled for its scraps; vain shows and vainer posturings filled the hollow
days, and the witling who had pompously declaimed a turgid epic upon the
nation's glory was held a hundred times a greater hero than he who starved
in Flemish dykes, or rotted of putrid fever in overcrowded hosts before a
German city, fighting and dying, as scores of thousands of them did, for the
vague mirage of Spanish honour, of which the Court of Philip the Great was
the centre and the source.

The Policy of There is no doubt that deep discontent smouldered

Olivares throughout the country at the results of Olivares' policy.
Spaniards were ready enough to acclaim the privilege and
duty of their country to set all the world right about religion, and to interfere
in the quarrels of Central Europe. The boastful vainglory of Spanish
superiority and the hollow pretence of the King's irresistible power and
wealth were as popular as ever, though evidence of their falsity was patent
in every house in the land. But though by most Spaniards the dire effect was
not traced to its true cause, and they never thought of blaming themselves
for their sufferings, the minister who was the protagonist of the system was
held personally to be the cause of all the trouble. Already the outer realms,
Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, and Portugal, understood clearly that Olivares
aimed at destroying their ancient autonomy,[12] and were seething in anger
against him and the triflers at Madrid. The greater nobles, even in Castile
itself, disgusted at the monopolous arrogance of Olivares, stood
ostentatiously aloof from him, only awaiting an opportunity to retaliate. The
minister had taken care to place in the councils persons entirely subservient
to him, or those whose age or feebleness of character made them innocuous.
His principal subordinate ministers were his own kinsmen,—the Count of
Monterey; the Marquis del Carpio; Marquis of Leganes; the Marquis of
Aytona; the Marquis of Heliche, who had married his only daughter, but to
Olivares' intense grief had been left a widower within the year; and the
Duke of Medina de las Torres; Cardinal Zapata, the Inquisitor-General and
member of many Councils, who was old, weak, and foolish; and the King's
confessor, Sotomayor, was a man of no character, and entirely sold to the
minister.

It will be seen, therefore, that Philip was quite inaccessible to anyone not
in the interests of Olivares. The Queen resented her husband's isolation, but
the minister and his wife kept her also well under subjection, and her love
of pleasure made her almost as easy to manage as the King.

If it had been possible, even now, for the whole truth to be told to Philip
as to the real causes of the poverty and wretchedness that afflicted the
country, a prompt reversal of the policy that caused it might have arrested
the ruin. But, in any case, it was unlikely that such change should be made;
for Philip himself failed to see, as did the friends as well as the foes of
Olivares, that only by a frank acceptance of the fact that Spain must
abandon all her old flighty notions and impossible claims, could prosperity
be brought back to the country. To prevent the danger of Philip's either
discovering for himself or being told by others how deep and growing the
discontent of the country was, Olivares plunged the idle young King more
completely than ever in the pleasures and distractions that occupied most of
his time and thoughts. Hunting, play-going, religious ceremonies, literary
amusements, and other entertainments left no opportunity for investigation
and sustained application to business by the King. It is evident that now,
whatever may have been the case at the beginning of the reign, the minister
deliberately promoted this waste of time for his own ends; and his efforts to
distract the King increased as the discontent in the country and Court grew.

A sumptuous On the 1st June 1631, for instance, the Countess of

feast Olivares gave a sumptuous entertainment to the sovereigns,
as she was in the habit of doing on every possible pretext, in
the gardens of her brother, the Count of Monterey;[13] and this is
represented by the contemporary chronicler, who describes both fetes to
have aroused the emulation of her husband to give another entertainment to
the King and Queen on the night of St. John, three weeks later, that should
eclipse all similar occasions. The document from which I am quoting,
written by a whole-souled admirer of Olivares, is too long and tedious for
reproduction entire here, but a few extracts from it may be interesting as
showing now desperately the Olivares tried to please.

"Although there were but few days to arrange everything, the Count-
Duke was determined to show the extreme love and care with which he
serves our Lord the King, and how easily he conquers the most difficult
tasks by means of it. As a beginning of the preparations for the feast, which
was, amongst many other things, to include two new comedies not yet even
thought of, much less written, his Excellency ordered Lope de Vega to write
one, which he did in three days, and D. Francisco de Quevedo and D.
Antonio de Mendoza the other, which they wrote in a single day, and the
comedies were handed to the companies of Avendaño and Vallejo, the two
best now on the boards, to study and rehearse."

Notwithstanding his constant state occupations, Olivares is said to have

worked night and day in personally making the preparations for the great
fete. Not only the garden of Monterey, but those on each side of it[14] were
appropriated; and a great Italian architect, who had designed the wonderful
jasper pantheon of the Kings at the Escorial, was commissioned to build a
beautiful open-air theatre and a series of improvised edifices for the
accommodation of the principal guests. Like magic, thanks to lavish
expenditure, there sprang up in the shady gardens a gorgeously upholstered
chamber or bower with chairs of state for the King and his two brothers,
and the customary cushions for the Queen, placed in a projecting balcony
from which the stage could be seen, with two similar apartments, one on
each side, for the suite, and retired nooks or niches between them, we are
told, in which the Count and Countess of Olivares might watch over the
comfort of their guests. A stage, surrounded and crowned by a multitude of
lights in crystal globes, and decked with flowers, faced the royal pavilions,
and on each side seats were provided for the ladies of the Court, but no
gentleman was allowed to be present. By the wall separating the gardens
from the Prado great stands were erected to accommodate the six orchestras
and choirs that were ordered to be present, and the gentlemen guests, none
of whom were asked to the garden itself. To each of Olivares' great kinsmen
already mentioned was assigned a department: one was to superintend the
rehearsals, another was to take charge of the marshalling of the coaches and
the reception of the royal guests, another had under his care the
refreshments, and so on.

On the day before the fête the Countess of Olivares dined in the garden,
and witnessed a full dress rehearsal of the whole entertainment; and Madrid
was agog with excitement when, after dark on the night of St. John, all the
grand folk from the palace in their heavy coaches lumbered down to the
Prado to attend the fête. At nine o'clock the royal party were received by the
Countess at the entrance pavilion which had been erected for the purpose,
the united choirs chanting a pæan of welcome as the King and Queen
advanced to the chamber whence they were to see the comedies. Gentlemen
of the Count-Duke's household on their knees offered to the royal guests
and their suite of ladies perfumes in crystal and gold flasks, scented lace
handkerchiefs, bouquets, scented clay crocks,[15] fans, etc., on silver
salvers. Then, after a flourish of trumpets and an overture on the guitars,
Quevedo's and Mendoza's new comedy was performed by Vallejo's
company. "Who Lies Most Thrives Most" was the name of the piece, and we
are told that it was crammed "with the smart sayings and courtly gallantry
of Don Francisco de Quevedo, whose genius is so favourably known in the
world." The principal actress was the famous Maria de Riquelme,[16] who
in verse welcomed the great guests, and praised the King in a manner that,
if he had not been case-hardened to adulation, would have made an
archangel blush, whilst at the same time several strong hints were
introduced that the Count-Duke himself was only one degree less divine
than his master.

For two hours the stage entertainment went on, with comedies, dances,
poetry and music, all present agreeing that Don Francisco de Quevedo had
in his one day's work put more wit and humour than other authors would
consider sufficient for a dozen comedies. At one of the intervals, when the
first comedy was finished, the King and Queen were conducted to the
adjoining garden of the Duke of Maqueda, where they found a series of
beautiful chambers communicating with one another, and constructed
entirely of flowers and leaves. One of these was for the King and his
brothers, another for the Queen, and the third for the ladies in attendance,
and in each of the rooms were disguises for the guests. For the King had
been provided a long brown cloak, trimmed with great scrolls of black and
silver, and closed by frogs and olives of wrought silver, a white hat with
white and brown plumes, a shield of scented leather and silver, and a white
falling Walloon collar; similar but diverse disguises being provided for the
two princes. Upon a side table in each flower chamber was a precious
casket of morocco leather and gold filled with choice sweetmeats, a variety
of perfumes, and some of the scented clay vessels of which Spanish ladies
of the day fancied the taste to nibble and even sometimes to swallow. The
Queen's disguise was like that of the King, but with much more adornment
in the way of spangles and the like; and when the whole party had covered
their ordinary garb with these unusual additions, "strange in shape and
fashion," they were led in stately procession with much attitudinising to see
the second comedy, in which, says the awestricken chronicler, "they lost no
jot of the majesty which is not the least of their inestimable virtues and
perfections."

The assumption of these fantastic disguises by the royal personages is

elaborately apologised for by the chronicler, by whom it was considered
apparently as a somewhat risky and undignified experiment; especially as,
owing to it, no male person except Olivares and his household was admitted
to the gardens themselves; the gentlemen of the Court being relegated to the
stands by the Prado wall, in order that they might not see the King unbend
sufficiently to don a disguise. When Lope de Vega's new comedy, "The
Night of St. John," was finished, the royal party retired to a banqueting-
room constructed of flowers in the other garden on the north. Here a
sumptuous supper was served at midnight, the King and Queen at their high
table being served by Olivares and his wife, everything being done with
perfect silence and order,—"though a multitude of dishes were carried to
the musicians, singers, and gentlemen in the orchestra stands." By the time
the lights were dimming, and the sky was turning to pearly grey beyond the
trees of St. Geronimo, the whole stately company turned out in their
coaches for a drive up and down the Prado; and then back to the palace,
doubtless to sleep.[17] When the dawn broke fully, it was found that,
notwithstanding the prohibition, a perfect host of people, men and boys, had
surreptitiously found their way in from the Prado, and, hidden in the copses
and under the stagings, they had witnessed the whole show, including the
questionable proceeding of risking the majesty of monarchs by a fancy
dress; whereupon the chronicler attributes the quietness and patience of
these intruders to the awe and reverence inspired by a king, no matter how
dressed.[18]

As will be seen by this curious account, the hand of Olivares was

everywhere. From handing the King his shirt in the morning and drawing
his bed curtains at night, to deciding peace and war for the nation, the
Count-Duke did everything. The King's amusements and amours were as
much his affairs as were the routine duties of Government; and I unearthed
some years ago, and described fully in a former book of mine,[19] a curious
series of original manuscript documents which prove that at the period now
under review (1630-1635) the most secret domestic concerns of the King
were settled by Olivares as a matter of course. The first document of the
series[20] is a note written by Olivares to the King in 1630, saying that it
was high time that a certain little boy, whose age is given as four years,
should be concealed, and taken away from the people he was then with; so
that all trace of him may be broken. He has, he says, been thinking very
deeply how this is to be done, and, as was usual with him, had found
objections to every solution that has presented itself. But he thinks, upon
the whole, that the child should be secretly put in the care of a certain
gentleman of his acquaintance living at Salamanca, named Don Juan de
Isasi Ydiaquez; and the Count-Duke proposes that this gentleman should be
summoned to Court without telling him why he was wanted; and "after
seeing him, your Majesty may decide." Across this document Philip has
written in his big straggling hand: "It appears very necessary that something
should be done in this matter, and I approve of your suggestion."

One of Philip's The rest of the papers unfold the poor sad little mystery.
sons The babe in question was one of Philip's illegitimate
children, christened Francisco Fernando, and he was
probably his first son; born, as we are told in these papers, at the house of
his grand-parents, who were gentlefolk, between eleven and twelve at night
on the 15th May 1626; Don Francisco de Eraso, Count of Humanes,[21]
leading the midwife thither and being present at the birth, the infant being
conveyed immediately afterwards to the house of Don Baltasar de Alamos,
Councillor of the Treasury, where a nurse awaited him, in whose care he
remained until he was delivered by Olivares to his new keeper, the hidalgo
of Salamanca, who belonged to a notable bureaucratic and secretarial
family. The subsequent short career of the infant does not enter into our
present subject; but it is fully detailed in the documents: the periodical
reports of the child's progress, the grave discussions of Olivares with
physicians and keepers as to his diet and health; the provisions for his
proper education, his clothing and diversions, his infantile ailments, the
most trivial circumstances of the child's life, are all considered and passed
in review by the minister, upon whose bowed shoulders the whole work of
the State rested. The little left-handed royalty, for all the care with which his
life was surrounded, failed to resist the bleak air of Salamanca, and on the
17th March 1634 the King's Secretary of State, Geronimo de Villanueva, of
whom we shall hear again, wrote to the hidalgo Isasi Ydiaquez, saying "that
his Majesty had received with the deepest grief the news of the death of
Don Francisco Fernando, who showed such bright promise for his tender
years, and his Majesty highly appreciated all the care that had been taken
with him."[22] And a few days later, the little corpse, dressed in a red and
gold gown, and enclosed in a black velvet coffin, was carried with all
secrecy to the Escorial, where, in the presence of the inevitable Don
Geronimo de Villanueva, the secretary and confidential agent of the King,
the "body of Don Francisco Fernando, son of his Catholic Majesty Don
Felipe IV.," was handed to the bishop of Avila in the porch of the church,
and buried by the friars in the vaults of their monastery.
 The frowning old Alcazar on the cliff overlooking the Manzanares, so
often mentioned as the scene of Philip's festivities, was unfit for gaiety, and
offered but few attractions to him. The Escorial for similar reasons was
never a favourite residence of his; and Aranjuez was always insalubrious
except in the spring. The Court therefore was usually in residence in Madrid
itself, or in the neighbouring hunting seat of the Prado. But there was in the
extensive and beautiful grounds attached to the monastery of St. Geronimo
at the east gate of the capital a suite of apartments used by the royal family
for religious or mourning retreats, or for an occasional guest house. It
occurred to Olivares in 1631 that this place might be made more attractive,
and used more frequently as a relief to Philip from the stern mediæval
palace at the other end of the town. The idea began with the mere levelling
of an inequality here, the clearing of a lawn there, and the building of an
aviary and a few fountains and summer houses. But very soon the Count-
Duke's ambition grew, and he and Philip became fascinated and absorbed in
the building of a palace which became to the reign of Philip what Versailles
was to that of Louis XIV.

The Buen The palace of the Buen Retiro was intended by Olivares,
Retiro and truly was, a fit setting for the elegant, chivalric, and
poetic surroundings of the King, a light and pretty retreat in
the midst of enchanting gardens, where upon stages under the trees or in
high and gilded halls the witty dissolute comedies might be played to an
audience of the elect. Nothing that the inspiration of genius, the efforts of
flattery, or the exercise of unrestrained expenditure could compass was
spared by Olivares in making the Buen Retiro perfect for its purpose of
keeping the King diverted. An immense territory, in addition to the
monastery grounds, was appropriated for the purpose,[23] and Olivares
exhausted all the horticultural knowledge of the time in laying out the
grounds with lakes, grottoes, and cascades; whilst in a very short time there
arose in all its beauty the palace that in future was to be the symbol of
Philip's elegant, picturesque, but useless reign.

Even before the building itself was finished, the place was inaugurated
by a ceremony characteristic both of Philip and his minister. On the 1st
October 1632, the King paid his visit to see the preparations being made for
the festival to be held in celebration of the birth of an heir to his sister the
Queen of Hungary. When he approached the new royal house, he was met
by Olivares, who had conferred upon himself the post of honorary
Constable of the Palace, bearing upon a silver salver the gold master-keys
of the Buen Retiro.[24] Kneeling, he handed them to the King, who,
touching them with his hand, signified that the bearer should retain them;
and when, later, the festivities commenced in the recently built rooms, to
continue thereafter for many days, Philip and his wife fairly fell in love
with the place, whose lightsome grace was a revelation to them after the
dark old Alcazar.

First there was a showy cane tourney, in which the King on horseback,
with Olivares at his side, led a glittering troop of riders, Philip taking part in
the festivities, as the flattering poet said, "not as a king but as a most gallant
skilful gentleman." This splendid show the greatest poet of his time, Lope
de Vega, then rapidly sinking into the grave, celebrated in verse. "The Vega
del Parnaso," dedicated to the first festival of the new palace, was an
appropriate swan's song of the great dramatist, whose inexhaustible wit and
invention had done so much to lead the thoughts of his countrymen to the
theatrical expression of which this new fairy palace was to be the
apotheosis. Afterwards there was one of the usual bull-fights; then running
at the ring, with rich prizes of silver plate, of course won by the King, and
afterwards a ball was held in the unfinished halls, at which, as at a modern
cotillon, "perfumed purses of ducats and rich dress lengths" were given to
the lady dancers.[25]

Baltasar Carlos Only a few months before this, the Church of St.
Geronimo had been the scene of another of those stately
ceremonials which were the birthright of Spanish princes. There, upon a
splendidly decked staging before the high altar, the tiny Prince Baltasar
Carlos, who had been carried thither the day before, received the oaths of
the Commons of Castile as heir to the throne. There were two violent
altercations for precedence between nobles, even in the King's presence,
before the ceremony; but all was silence as the chubby princeling, in
crimson plush embroidered with gold, toddled up the nave to the staging,
held in leading strings by his two uncles Carlos and Fernando; the first in a
few months to sink into the grave, a silent, amiable young enigma to the
last. The little Prince, we are told, carried a miniature sword and dagger
covered with enamel and diamonds, and wore a black hat trimmed with
bugles and diamonds, and adorned by scarlet plumes. It is to be remarked
that in most of these festivities Philip himself was faithful to his love of
brown for his dress; and on this occasion is described as wearing light
brown velvet embroidered with gold thread, and wearing the collar of the
Golden Fleece, whilst he rested his hand upon the shoulder of his
gentleman-in-waiting, the Count de Galve, clad smartly in crimson satin
and gold.[26]

Financial In the meanwhile, over the tinkling of all this courtly

exactions gaiety, there echoed the distant rumbling of the storm. Mr.
Arthur Hopton, the new English ambassador, left in Madrid
to look after English commercial interests, and to push the eternal question
of the Palatinate, wrote to Lord Dorchester in February 1631: "All the
Spanish Barbary garrisons are starving, but the want of corn here is so great
that every grain from Andalusia is sorely wanted for Castile."[27] But the
extravagant expenditure on the Buen Retiro and on the never-ending war
had to be met somehow, and Olivares had to incur increased odium by
inventing new exactions. "The Count of Olivares," continues Hopton,
"being the most industrious man in his master's service, and more so in the
matter of his revenue than anything else, hath made him an instrument by
directing a new imposition on salt, making the King the owner of all the salt
that is spent, and delivering it out at 40 reals the fanega (i.e. 1½ bushels),
whilst remitting 12 per cent. on the wine and oil excise that had nine years
to run. This is a pretty way of imposing taxation on the clergy and religious
without the leave of the Pope."[28]

But the salt monopoly was much more than that, as Hopton soon found
by the bitter complaints of the English shipmasters, who, now that the trade
was reopened, had hoped to do a large business again with salt from
Andalucia to England. Olivares replied suavely to all his remonstrances,
that he wished to treat the English better than any others, but the King must
have money, and he hoped the increased price of salt would not alter the
new friendship. It soon turned out that the new tax was to be in addition to,
and not in place of, the wine and oil excise ("the millions," as it was called);
and Hopton displays almost admiration at the financial resource of Olivares.
 "He means to keep the millions too, now that he has got the other voted.
I think it may be truly claimed that the inventor of this project hath
discovered a way to bring a greater revenue to this King's purse than
Columbus did that discovered the West Indies. Aragon has not yet
consented, but probably will do so, as the tax is to be imposed on strangers
(i.e. those who bought Spanish salt for export). When I was last with
Olivares he let fall a word that makes me think they mean to satisfy his
Majesty (i.e. King Charles of England) in another way. I said it would
require good consideration to instruct their ambassador what reasons to
make the imposition appear to be no breach of the Article. He said: 'Doubt it
not.' I said it would be fit to do it presently, for it would be better to come to
his Majesty (Charles) by way of reason than complaint. He replied, 'We are
providing some papers to send to the King (of England) that will not be
unwelcome.'"[29]

What this "secret affair," as Hopton calls it, was does not appear; but
doubtless it was one of Olivares' usual mystifications to keep the English
complaints from being pushed too urgently, for the hosts of English
shipmasters so long kept out of Spain by the war, but who were now
crowding into Spanish ports to trade, were clamorous about the extortion
and injustice to which they were subjected. Hopton bribed Olivares'
subordinates heavily, and besieged the minister himself; but the resources of
delay in Spanish diplomacy were infinite, and little redress could be
obtained. Of sweet words Hopton found an abundance from Olivares, who
was always ready to flatter in furtherance of his aims, and Hopton was
inclined to be boastful of English prowess. "All the rest of the world must
pardon me," said Olivares once to him, in answer to a bit of innocent brag,
"but I hold no nation fit to fight in a royal Armada but England and Spain."
[30]

Money, and ever more money, was Olivares' constant cry. "His time is
principally taken up," says Hopton, "in arranging loans." The price of salt
had been raised to 35 or 40 reals 1½ bushel for inland consumption or
export, an enormous increase "which will bring an exorbitant revenue if
they can enforce it in all the kingdoms. They are also decreeing a tax on all
royal grants, titles, and appointments, which will also bring a vast revenue."
Writing to Lord Dorchester in August 1631, Hopton mentions the excessive
price of all commodities in Madrid. "I can assure your Lordship that only in
regard of the value of brass money, wherein all the trade of this country is
done, what was last year at 30 per cent. and upwards is not now worth 10
per cent., the charge of living here since last year is one in five increased."
[31]

Spain's Dire news too came from Central Europe, which

responsibilitiesforeshadowed the need of yet greater sacrifices for Spain.
The meteoric Swede, Gustavus Adolphus, had entered the
field on the side of France (January 1631), and was sweeping all before
him. One imperial city after the other opened its gates to him, and some of
the Emperor's feudatories who had been considered the most loyal rallied to
the victorious enemy. The empire was altogether inadequate to face the
strong new combination against it, and could only, as usual, appeal to Spain
for resources. Looking back at the position with our present lights, it is
impossible to understand the besotted folly that led Philip and his minister
to assume the main burden of a war such as this. They had nothing material
to gain by it. The religion, and even the territorial disputes, of the German
princes were of no real importance to Spain, and a nation in the terrible
financial and industrial condition of the latter was not justified in further
consummating its ruin for the sake of an already outworn sentiment.

Fresh Another trouble almost as pressing as the Emperor's war

embarrassment loomed also in the near future. The old Infanta Isabel was
s rapidly sinking to her grave childless; and in accordance
with the calamitous agreement of 1598, the Flemish
dominions of the house of Burgundy were to revert in that case to the crown
of Spain, a fatal inheritance, the Flemish States being open to attack from
France on one side and Holland on the other, and destined to keep Spain at
war until the final catastrophe overwhelmed both nation and dynasty.
Olivares had kept the two Infantes in the background until now; though, as
we have seen by his paper of six years before, he had always foreseen the
ultimate necessity of sending Fernando, the young Cardinal, to Flanders as
his brother's representative. Carlos, silent, amiable, unambitious, and
lacking in vitality, gave the minister little cause for anxiety; but Fernando
was by far the cleverest of his house. The nobles of Castile were already
looking to him as a possible leader against Olivares; and at last it was
decided that Fernando should go to Flanders, to be near his aunt, and
succeed as Governor for his brother when the Infanta should die. Carlos
being, as he said, a man of arms, for once plucked up spirit to protest and
claim his right, as senior, to go to Flanders, but Olivares said that after
Baltasar Carlos, "who had growne sickly of late, and there is some doubt
whether the King will have any more children,"[32] he (Carlos) was his
brother's heir, and could not be allowed to go far away. He was mollified by
promises that were never kept, that he should be sent to command in
Portugal or Catalonia; but in the summer of next year, 1632, as will be told,
he sickened and died unmarried, greatly, no doubt, to the relief of Olivares,
who dreaded the possibility of his being made a figurehead by his enemies.
[33]

It was not easy to send Fernando to Flanders, even after it was decided to
do so, and many months passed before even the money could be raised and
preparations made for his going. Hopton wrote in August 1631: "The
Infante Cardinal hastens his going to Flanders, and has arranged to borrow
of the Fucars 240,000 ducats at 40,000 per month. The matter is so forward
that the brokers have received the first payment, but I do not believe that he
will go; for if he do it will be no easy matter to stay Carlos going to
Portugal, and it is not likely that the King will leave the realm so destitute
of his brothers, and expose them to the familiarity with those who may be
dangerous to him." A month later he reported that, after all, the young
Cardinal was not to go that year, "but may slip away secretly, in imitation of
our King's coming hither."

In fact, serious news had suddenly reached Olivares from Central

Europe. The battle of Breitenfeld, in which the Emperor's best General,
Tilly, had been routed by Gustavus Adolphus, had made the latter master of
Germany, and if he chose to march on, Vienna itself was at his mercy.
Dismay reigned amongst the imperialists at this crushing blow, and as soon
as Olivares received the news at the end of September he sent for Hopton,
late at night. The Englishman found him in great agitation. "There is no
time for words," he said, "but for God's sake send to England post haste,
telling them to send to Vienna at once every offer that may facilitate an
arrangement with the Emperor. I speak out of my goodwill to England, and
I am sending to Vienna with the same object." The real end of Olivares'
move is evident. In the critical position of the imperialists, with most of the
Emperor's feudatories falling away and John Frederick of Saxony in arms
against him, joined to Sweden and France, this was the opportunity, if ever,
for England to strike an effectual blow for the Palatinate. It is true that the
Marquis of Hamilton and some Scottish mercenaries were already with
Gustavus Adolphus, but this was not national war; and if England could be
diverted into diplomatic negotiations during this time of the imperialists'
adversity, all might be well, but if she joined the allies the house of Austria
was ruined; and for the next few weeks, whilst the danger lasted, nothing
could exceed the amiability of Olivares to the English.[34]

Blow after blow continued to fall upon the imperial cause. Gustavus at
Mayence was practically the master of Europe, the Spanish fleet had been
defeated off Flanders. Tilly was utterly crushed and killed at Ingolstadt, and
a revolt had broken out in Spanish Sicily against the new taxes of Olivares.
Worst of all, when the minister decreed that the salt tax should be levied in
the autonomous Basque provinces, the assembly there flatly refused to pay
it. Olivares blustered that he would send 30,000 soldiers to make them. "We
will await their coming," replied the assembly, "with 3000 and beat them."
[35] And so gradually the policy of Olivares, which kept Spain at war with
Europe for a barren idea, was leading the outer realms of the Peninsula
itself towards rebellion, a thing unheard of for generations, because of their
fear that they too were marked out by the minister to undergo the same fate
as unhappy Castile.

Olivares and In the midst of all his difficulties at home and abroad, the
England consummate skill with which Olivares played upon the
English statesmen is almost amusing at this distance of time.
Hopton's spirits rose and fell from week to week, as those of Anstruther did
in Vienna. Olivares and the Emperor understood each other perfectly, and
had no difficulty between them in keeping England quiet with the old bait
of the restoration of the Palatinate. A specimen from Hopton's letters will
illustrate the clever way in which Olivares beguiled his interlocutor.
 "In the time my memorial was in debate I sometimes took occasion to
see the Conde (i.e. Olivares). On one it happened that the Ave Maria bell
rang, and when he had ended his prayer he examined me in all the material
points of our religion, wherein, I perceive, he is not ignorant. In the
sacrament of baptism I said all the essential parts are the same in both
Churches. But, he said, here they say, 'O! he was christened by a minister;
but I (Olivares) tell them that I see no cause why a man may not as well be
saved being christened by a minister as by a priest.' This was in the palace,
on the occasion of the christening of our Princess, of whom they have
begun to talk of as theirs.[36] When the Duke of Lennox went to kiss the
Prince's hand, the Countess of Olivares, who was present, bade the Prince
ask for his cousin's hand, and said, 'You have a mistress there; and then,
turning to us, she said, 'We are beginning to galantear (i.e. to court)
already.' He (Olivares) examined me upon the Lord's supper, and was much
pleased to know the chiefest difference is in the manner of the presence. He
asked me concerning divorces, and approved of the practice of confession,
though, he said, that it was too lightly practised amongst them. Did we, he
asked, receive the blessed Virgin? I said he who did so was not considered a
good Christian. He said, 'The top of the difference is the Pope's supremacy,
and the chiefest scruple was in temporalities, because you would not have
him meddle in matters of Kings.' I said yes; whereupon he shook his head
and said no more. I know his meaning, as things stand between him and the
Pope. He said that if that point could be agreed I think it would not be hard
to reconcile Protestants to the Church."[37]

All this talk about marriage and reconciliation in religion had done duty
only ten years before; but apparently the English diplomatists were as ready
as ever to follow the Will o' the Wisp until the time of danger for Spain had
passed and they could safely be shelved. The young Duke of Lennox was
flattered and treated with almost royal honours, and Hopton himself was
quite confused by the sustained amiability of Olivares. But at length even
he began to doubt; and presented a strongly worded memorial to Philip,
calling upon him to have the Palatinate restored. After inordinate delay the
reply to this was simply another promise to instruct the Spanish ambassador
with the Emperor to urge the matter again upon him. In very truth this
eternal shuttlecock between Vienna and Madrid was growing stale again;
and the English Government did now, when it was too late, what it should
have done at first, namely, talk of preparations for war. But it was only talk;
and though it frightened Olivares for a week or two, Hopton deplored that
the preparations were not being made a good earnest to fight; "for this is the
only way to bring Spain to reason, and they themselves are making
preparations for a big war."

In fact it was quite evident now to everyone that unless Spain promptly
withdrew her pretensions a great war to the death would have to be fought
with France. Her troops in the Emperor's armies had never ceased in Central
Europe to meet in combat those of Louis XIII., but the impending
resumption of rule by Spain over Catholic Flanders was an event that again
threatened the integrity of France itself; for with Spanish frontiers, north,
south, and east of her, the old position that had led to the great wars
between Charles V. and Francis I. in the previous century would be
repeated; and the new France which had arisen under Henry IV., and had
been strengthened by Richelieu, would never suffer without a struggle a
return to the old state of affairs. Money, constant, never-ending money, was
the first desideratum of King Philip, if such a war as that foreshadowed, in
addition to the struggle in Germany, was to be undertaken. The outer
realms, and especially Portugal, were in a condition of sulky apprehension;
but Philip was forced to meet the legislatures before he could get money
from them. It was a necessity that he and Olivares dreaded and hated, but it
had to be faced. All the Cortes therefore were summoned. "All to get money
for their great engagements: how great they are they know not themselves,"
wrote Hopton.

The need for But money had to be got somehow, even before the
money Cortes could meet or King go to his eastern realms. All the
taxes had been anticipated, the loan-mongers had run dry,
and the silver from the indies had not arrived. Writing in February 1632,
Hopton says; "They have levied heavy contributions on the tradesmen of
Madrid,[38] but they press them not hard yet, trying mild means first, and
then passing to violent. However, they spare not those who are known to be
moneyed men; for they have sent to the Duke of Bejar for 100,000 ducats,
and to the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and others in proportion. It will be a
very great sum in all, but will be needed for the war next summer." Cardinal
Borgia contributed 50,000 crowns, and nobles, merchants, and churchmen
were squeezed as they had never been squeezed before, even in the time of
Lerma.[39] In the Cortes of Castile (February 1632) a spirited protest for
once was made, representing the poverty of the country, and saying that it
was unjust to impoverish the land in order to send vast sums of money to
the Emperor for a war useless to Spain.[40] But, as usual, the deputies, who
were bribed heavily, ended in voting despairingly what was asked; and after
taking the oath of allegiance, as has already been described, to Prince
Baltasar Carlos in the Church of St. Geronimo, they were promptly
dismissed.

The two The journey of the King to Aragon was an anxious

Infantes matter. Olivares had complicated the situation by aiding
Marie de Medici and Gaston Duke of Orleans in their armed
revolt against the government of Richelieu, to the openly expressed fury of
the people of Madrid, who hated disloyalty to a King, even if he were King
of France; and the rumour prevailed that in revenge for the action of
Olivares a French army was preparing to invade Catalonia and carry the
war into Spain itself. The risk and danger of the King's journey were urged
upon Philip, and discussed at length in his Council; but Olivares, whilst
admitting the risk, concluded that, "considering the penury of your
Majesty's treasury, ... the suffering to be incurred and the risk of annoyance
from the Cortes would be lesser evils than the loss of the two millions (of
ducats) we hope to get."[41] But though the voyage was decided upon, of
one thing Olivares had quite made up his mind, namely, that the King's two
brothers should not be left behind to plot at liberty the downfall of the
favourite they hated. Don Carlos, left to himself and excluded from all
affairs by Olivares, had fallen into a dissipated mode of life; and both he
and his abler brother Fernando were on terms of intimate friendship with
the Count-Duke's enemy, the Admiral of Castile and his kinsmen, especially
with Don Antonio de Moscoso, who was the inseparable factotum of Don
Fernando. A most interesting paper, transcribed at length by Novoa as being
written at the time by Olivares to the King on the subject of the two
Infantes, shows how bitter and unscrupulous the minister was towards these
two young Princes. The vilest suspicion is expressed as to their loyalty, and
the most cynical distrust of all their actions and words. It had been decided
to send Fernando to Flanders, but for various reasons he had not yet been
allowed to start; and when the voyage of the King to Barcelona was decided
upon, Olivares made his cowardly secret attack upon him and his brother
Carlos in the document in question.[42] The nobles who are friendly to the
Infantes are all represented as traitors and scoundrels; and the Princes
themselves are credited not only with unworthy behaviour, but also with
evil plots and designs.

"In any case," says Olivares, "they must both be separated from all their
friends, and this voyage to Barcelona will offer a good opportunity for
doing it without attracting public notice. Fernando," he continues, "is
already kicking over the traces, and assuming airs on the strength of his
going to Flanders; and the money he has command of is making him
dangerous. He and Carlos are close friends, and their secret
communications indicate an evil bent. Under the pretext of these Cortes in
Barcelona your Majesty might get Fernando and his servants out of Madrid,
saying that you wanted him to look after ecclesiastical affairs there, and the
noble and university members of the Cortes, leaving him there when you
return to deal with and close the assembly. Moscoso, who has a wife in
Madrid and does not like travelling, would stay here, ... and if he was bold
enough to disobey orders and try to join the Infante, we would soon find
means to upset his projects. As for Don Carlos, when the Admiral is away
from him, and the Prince absent, his household will assume a very different
aspect. Seeing the musters of enemies on our frontiers and the dangers
threatening us on every hand, it will be a good plan to send the (Catalan)
nobles to their own estates, to see what troops they can raise, giving out that
Fernando is to be their leader, surrounding him with greyheads to keep him
more enclosed, and even imprisoned, for it is a grave crime for him to show
annoyance as he does at your Majesty's orders.... So, Sire, if we get the
Admiral away from here there will be a way to prevent him from returning,
and the Infante Fernando may remain in Barcelona better occupied than he
is now, whilst Carlos, quieter and in better frame of mind, may stay by your
Majesty's side."
Philip and the Philip as usual accepted his mentor's recommendation.
Catalans The two Infantes, fully informed by Olivares' enemies of the
reason for taking them away from Madrid, had to
accompany their brother to the east, the Queen remaining behind as Regent.
Philip and his brothers, with a large following of the minister's kin and
friends, left Madrid on 12th April 1632, the two young Princes being almost
without attendants. Fernando's reduced household were sent ahead to
Barcelona, and the Infante cried out aloud that this meant that he was not to
return to Madrid, and that the whole journey to Catalonia had been got up
solely to get him away from Court for good. The Princes, indeed, were
almost in open revolt against Olivares; and it was noticed that they travelled
with loaded pistols at their saddle-bows, a thing never seen before. After a
stay of a week in Valencia, where Cortes were convoked and swore
allegiance to the little Prince Baltasar Carlos, the whole Court moved on to
Barcelona, where the great struggle for money was expected, for the stout
Catalans were determined now that they would make a stand against the
encroachments of Olivares on their liberties. The Viceroy, the Duke of
Cardona, met the King at Murviedro, and warned him that the Catalans
were in a dangerous mood. They objected to vote any more money, objected
to a royal Prince for a Viceroy,—it was the duty of the King himself, they
said, to come to them, and remain whilst the Cortes were in session, and
they would not be contented unless the King stayed at least four months
with them. All along the road the King and his favourite found the people
scowling, and at Tortosa they broke out in subversive cries because he only
stayed a few hours in the town.

At Barcelona the King found the Cortes of Catalonia more recalcitrant

than ever, opposing endless difficulties to everything proposed, and
advancing all sorts of old claims with regard to ceremonial and ancient
privilege, each one of which had to be discussed interminably.[43] At last
the ordinary supply was voted without increase, and the Infante Fernando
was accepted by the Catalans as Governor with a sufficiently ill grace.
Fernando himself was furious, and protested to his brother and Olivares
hotly that he was being isolated in the interests of the latter, without the
chance of distinction and elevation that he would have gained in Flanders.
But he was at last reconciled by mingled flattery, cajolery, and appeals to
duty, and remained as Governor to continue the Cortes, closely surrounded
by mentors in the interests of Olivares.[44] Lerida had refused to send
members to the Barcelona Cortes at all, and as Philip approached the city
on his way home it was given out that he intended to punish it for its
disobedience. Terrified, the city fathers came to meet the King and pray for
pardon, which, only with difficulty and a complete submission, was
partially accorded to them. When the Court arrived at Almadrones, two or
three days' journey from Madrid, they were met by Antonio Moscoso, with
an ostentatious train of followers and servants, on his way to join the
Infante Fernando at Barcelona. This could never be allowed, and the King's
confessor ordered Moscoso to return to Madrid at once. He appealed and
wept in vain at the humiliation of such a return; but was told that the King's
orders must be obeyed without reply. When he went to kiss Philip's hand,
the King, immovable as a statue, drily asked, "When are you leaving?" "I
must speak to the Count-Duke first, your Majesty," replied Moscoso. "You
will be too late," said Philip, "for he was going to rest at once, and would
not awake till ten at night, in order to set out on the road from twelve to
one."[45] So Moscoso was fain to turn back with a heavy heart, explaining
by the way to Olivares that the Infante had sent for him, and he meant no
harm. But though Olivares tried to lay the whole of the responsibility upon
the King, this insult rankled deeply in the breast of the Infante Fernando,
and was one more mark for vengeance scored up by the enemies of the
minister. An indignant and formal complaint was made to the King by his
brother, and in order to ensure its attention it was handed to Philip by his
wife, much to the dismay of Olivares, who knew now that Isabel of
Bourbon was the head of his foes, and that he could not dispose of her as he
had done of the Infante.

Death of Don As soon as Philip returned to Madrid, at the end of June

Carlos 1632, the occasion was celebrated by another great auto-de-
fé in the Plaza Mayor, where the King and Queen with the
Infante Carlos sat in their balcony from eight in the morning (3rd July
1632) till late in the afternoon, witnessing the indictment, the preaching of
prosy sermons, and the reading of legal documents, reciting the errors and
heresies of the poor wretches who stood upon the high scaffold in the midst
of the square, dressed in sambenitos. The ghastly rejoicing, such as it was,
soon turned to mourning. The Infante Carlos had fallen ill on the way home
from Barcelona, but had partially recovered on his arrival at Madrid. The
summer was the most oppressive that had been experienced for years, and
the young Infante—he was only twenty-five—fell ill of fever in Madrid,
and died in a few days;[46] and Olivares had one less difficulty to contend
with, though the amiable, unambitious young man was of himself
inoffensive.

France and Nor was it long before the other Infante was removed
Spain from the path of Olivares. The old Infanta Isabel ended at
last her strenuous life in 1633, and Fernando was sent by
way of Italy to the States of Flanders to govern the fatal dominion for Spain
once more, to Spain's ultimate undoing. Fernando was able and ambitious.
From Milan he was to lead a large Spanish force to Flanders. But affairs
had gone ill with the imperial cause. Gustavus Adolphus, it is true, had
fallen; but in the fight at which he fell he had beaten Wallenstein, with the
loss of 12,000 men on the imperialist side. On the appeal of the Emperor,
Fernando turned aside, and a critical moment when the imperialists were
delivering the attack he arrived before the Protestant city of Nördlingen
(September 1634). His presence turned the scale, for a relieving force of
Swedes was just approaching, and the ensuing battle, one of the most
decisive in the Thirty Years' War, was a crushing defeat to the Swedes and
the Protestants. The Cardinal Infante passed on his way triumphant to his
new governship, crowned by the laurels of victory and the plaudits of his
countrymen. But his active intervention in the war with Spanish
Government troops changed the aspect of the war. The Swedes were no
longer the leaders of a federation of Protestants against a federation of
Catholics. It was clear to Richelieu that unless with the whole force of
France he threw himself into the fray against the house of Austria, not only
Protestantism in Germany would suffer—for that indeed he cared nothing,
but the vital interests of France. And so it happened that when the Cardinal
Infante was entering Brussels in pompous triumph, Richelieu had already
heavily subsidised the Dutch for an active renewal of their war against him;
and within a few months, early in 1635, Spain herself was in the grip of a
great national struggle with France, a struggle which extended as time went
on from her Flanders dominions to her Italian possession, and from the
Franche Comté to the sacred soil of Spain itself.
[1] See letters from Madrid to Eugene Field in the Monastery of Timoleague, etc., in
Record Office, S.P. Spain 34, 1627.

[2] Scaglia to Carlisle. Record Office, S.P. Spain 34, MS., 19th January, 1628.

[3] Rubens to Carlisle. Record Office, S.P. Spain 34, MS., January 1628, etc.

[4] A good specimen of his style is seen in his reply to a letter from Scaglia early in April
1629 (Record Office, S.P. Spain 34, MS.), asking for an audience at the desire of Lord
Carlisle, in order to tell Olivares how much Carlisle esteems him. "I will give this audience
to your lordship very willingly to-night (writes Olivares), and it will give me most
particular pleasure to talk about the Earl of Carlisle, of whom I am the most affectionate
servitor, and have been so all through the worst tribulations; although when he was here I
always considered him a friend of France.... The differences that have taken place between
us are all owing to French intrigue."

[5] Record Office, S.P. Spain 34, MS., December 1629.

[6] Record Office, S.P. Spain 34, 10th January 1630.

[7] Cottington to Dorchester, 29th January 1630, Record Office, S.P. Spain 34, MS.

[8] Cottington to Dorchester, 29th January 1630. Record Office, S.P. Spain MS.

[9] Cottington to Dorchester, MS. Record Office, S.P. Spain 34, many letters in 1630.

[10] Cottington to Dorchester, July 1630, Record Office, S.P. Spain MS.

[11] W. Gardiner, writing to Lord Dorchester when Cottington landed at Lisbon in 1629,
says: "This city has now lost all its ancient splendour since I was here seventeen years ago.
It is now completely ruined. All the merchants are bankrupt, and all their commodities are
gone except their diamonds, Brazil tobacco, and coarse sugar, all of which are dearer here
than in Holland. There is great discontent with Castilian rule, and especially some new
laws whose object is to bring them more absolutely under the King." Record Office, S.P.
Spain 34, MS.

[12] In a letter sent by Abbé Scaglia to Lord Carlisle in 1628 a long document is enclosed,
drawn up by the Marquis of Leganes, who was Olivares' principal instrument and a
kinsman, advocating the absorption of Portugal by Spain. The evil and danger of the
existing want of unity are pointed out, and the need to arouse a united national spirit is
enforced. This document, supplementing those of Olivares himself quoted on an earlier
page, show that the propaganda in favour of national unity was pushed persistently, and the
outer realms were naturally alarmed and disturbed at the threat implied to them. Record
Office, S.P. Spain 34, MS.

[13] The house and garden of Monterey occupied the centre portion of the space facing the
Salon del Prado between the Calle de Alcalá and the Carrera de San Geronimo.

[14] Occupying thus the whole of the space from the Calle de Alcalá to the Carrera de San
Geronimo. That on the north is now covered by the new Bank of Spain, and that on the
south is still the palace of the Duke of Villahermosa, the descendant of the Duke of
Maqueda, to whom it then belonged.

[15] These very fine pieces of red biscuit clay unglazed and highly scented were much
prized; and it was a vicious fashion, of ladies particularly, to masticate or eat this ware.

[16] This beautiful and gifted actress, the idol of the susceptible Madrileños, was also for a
wonder at that period a decent member of society. She was a member of the charitable
fraternity of Nuestra Señora de la Novena, and was very devout. She died in 1656, and was
buried at Barcelona in the Augustan Monastery of St. Monica, where there was a special
actors' chapel. Fifty years afterwards, her body, and even the veil in which it was
enveloped, were found incorrupt, and she was thenceforward considered almost a saint.
Juan de Caramuel wrote of her: "She was a beautiful girl, gifted with so vehement an
imagination that, to the surprise of everyone, when she was acting her colour changed in
accordance with the emotions she portrayed. If the event represented were a pleasant one,
her face was rosy, whilst pallor cloaked her cheeks when the play was sad and sorrowful.
In this she was unique and inimitable."

[17] Less than a fortnight after this costly feast, a terrible fire, which threatened all Madrid
with destruction, and demolished in the three days it lasted half of the Plaza Mayor, took
place (7th July 1631). The loss and terror of the people were great; but so wedded was the
capital to shows, that almost before the ashes were extinguished a great royal bull-fight in
the presence of the King and Court was held in the still smoking square. During the corrida
a house in the Plaza caught fire again, and many of the panic-stricken people in their
efforts to escape were trampled upon and seriously injured. It is stated that Philip did not
even rise from his seat, and ordered the bull-fight to proceed.

[18] MS. account reproduced in Mesonero Romanos' Antigua Madrid.

[19] The Year after the Armada, and Other Historical Studies.

[20] Egerton MSS. 329, British Museum.

[21] This was a well-known noble poet and friend of Philip's in his dramatic amusements.
[22] Philip showed his appreciation of the services of Don Juan Isasi Ydiaquez in the most
flattering way, by at once appointing him governor and tutor of his legitimate son and heir,
the promising little Don Baltasar Carlos, then five years old.

[23] The vast park of Madrid represents part of the grounds which ran up from the present
line of the Prado to the extreme end of the present park on the east, and included the whole
space from the Alcala to the Atocha. Olivares had kept his plan secret from the King as
long as he could, having gradually acquired the ground without disclosing his intention.
The Venetian ambassador Corner mentions in 1635 with surprise that the whole place had
sprung up in two years.

[24] The only portions of the palace now remaining are the Artillery Museum, and the fine
concert hall, built by Philip V., and decorated by Luca Giordiano. The ancient church of the
monastery, of course, still exists.

[25] At all these festivities it was the fashion for the company to pelt each other with egg-
shells filled with scent.

[26] MSS Add. 1026, British Museum.

[27] Sir Arthur Hopton's Notebook MS., British Museum, Egerton, 1820.

[28] The meaning of this is that nobles and clergy were exempt from the food excise, but
all consumers of salt would have to pay the increased price. But, in fact, the excise was not
remitted after all.

[29] Hopton's MS. Notebook, British Museum.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Hopton's MS. Notebook, British Museum.

[32] Hopton's MS. Letter-book.

[33] There is an extremely curious medical report on the health and habits of Carlos in one
of Hopton's letters from Madrid, in July 1632. MS. Notebook.

[34] This was indeed the crucial time in the fate of the Palatinate. In the contest of
ambitions in Germany only a bold course, both towards Spain and the Empire on the part
of England, would have been effectual. But poor Frederick at the Court of Gustavus
promptly came to understand that whilst his English brother-in-law held aloof from the war
he could expect little consideration. At this very period Charles I. was principally interested
in adding to his picture gallery. Cottington, writing to Hopton, 10th November (O.S.) 1631,
says: "You must tell the Count of Benavente from the King that the copie of the Venus of
the Prado is now ready for him, with a picture of his Majesty, if he will give him his St.
Philip for them. You must remember to send the King the painted grapes which the poore
fellow hath drawn for him." Hopton's MS. Notebook.

[35] Hopton's MS. Notebook.

[36] Mary Stuart, afterwards Princess of Orange, whom it was proposed to betroth to the
Prince Baltasar Carlos.

[37] Hopton's MS. Notebook, January 1632.

[38] There is in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, a draft of the royal order, petitioning
those who could afford it to come to the assistance of the King with money at this juncture
(January 1632).

[39] Hopton, writing at this time, says: "The King told the Cortes that if the war goes on he
will have to call upon them again. Though how the country will beare it I know not, for in
all the kingdom of Castile their poverty is not to be dissembled. I am informed for a
certainty that the procuradores of Andalucia have told the King plainly that if the peace
with England be kept they will be able to serve him, but if not they cannot do it." MS.
Notebook.

[40] Hopton, writing during the session of this Cortes, 4th March 1632, gives an account of
the anger of Olivares and the King at the cities that had not given their representatives full
powers to vote supplies, whilst the cities themselves were very angry at the demand for
6,000,000 ducats (i.e. in three years), and a renewal of the excise in addition to the salt tax.
"A decree is lately issued for a donation through all the realm, which is put into practice by
sending gentlemen of qualitie to every man's doore and taking their almes down as lowe as
foure reales." Hopton's MS. Notebook.

[41] Decision of the Council of State, 23rd March 1632. Danvila, El Poder Civil en
España.

[42] Memorias de Matias de Novoa. vol. i. p. 133.

[43] They are all set forth in the documents reproduced in Danvila's Poder Civil en España.

[44] There were endless squabbles between the Infante Fernando and the Catalan deputies
on all manner of subjects. He objected to the deputies being covered before him; they
insisted upon it as their right. He forbade them to repair and strengthen the city walls; they
at once employed three times as many men on it as before. But, said Hopton, writing on the
subject: "He is doubtless a most sweete young Prince. All are ready to forgive him and lay
all the blame on Count Oñate, who is with him." MS. Notebook.

[45] The heat was very great, and the King consequently travelled by night. Novoa.
[46] On the 29th July, Hopton wrote: "Don Carlos was sick for seventeen days with
ordinary ague at first, but at the end of eight days it turned to tabardillo (spotted typhus)
with convulsions. My man has come in from the palace whilst I am sealing up this, and
says he is not yet dead, but cannot live two hours. All things for his funeral are prepared,
and blacks taken up, and servants that are to wait on his body to ye Escorial are
commanded to be in readiness so that your honour (Coke) may take it that this gallant
young Prince is a dead man." Hopton's MS. Notebook. In another letter he wrote of the
distress of the people at the Infante's death: "The mourning could not be more hearty for
the King, and they have good reason, for he was a Prince that never offended any man
willingly, but did good offices for all; being bred upp amonge them to as much perfection
as they could expect." Writing an unofficial letter to Cottington on the same day, Hopton
gives some extremely curious private details of the causes of the Prince's illness, which
cannot be here translated. But he continues: "The poore Conde de Olivares is the scape,
goat that must bear all men's faults; but he is very much afflicted, for he was very sure of
this Prince's love, whatsoever the world sayeth."

CHAPTER VII
INTRIGUES TO SECURE ENGLISH NEUTRALITY—HOPTON AND OLIVARES—
SOCIAL LAXITY IN MADRID—CHARLES I. APPROACHES SPAIN—THE
BUEN RETIRO AND THE ARTS—WAR IN CATALONIA—DISTRESS IN THE
CAPITAL AND FRIVOLITY IN THE COURT—PREVENTING LAWLESSNESS—
THE RECEPTION OF THE PRINCESS OF CARIGNANO—SIR WALTER ASTON
IN MADRID—THE ENGLISH INTRIGUE ABANDONED

As Spain drifted nearer and nearer to the inevitable war with France,
Olivares became more friendly with the English. He hinted that Spain was
getting tired of the burden of the Emperor's wars, and might soon be
pleased to give up the Palatinate. At another time he told Hopton that the
Palatine business might be settled in a few hours; and through all the
reverses that were daily befalling the imperial and Spanish cause the Count-
Duke kept a good face. "I never saw him merrier, nor with greater
appearance of confidence. God grant he may have reason," reported Hopton
in the summer of 1633. Rojas, too, who was the mouthpiece of Olivares,
harped constantly on the same string. "They were most desirous of close
friendship with England; but had such crosses with Germany." At the same
time the talk of war with France grew throughout the country; though
Hopton could not understand how it was possible for them to raise armies
or money, for all their talk, "having neither men sufficient to man their ships
nor to till their ground."

Decay of The penury of the country, indeed, was greater than ever.
commerce The American trade, a close monopoly nominally, had
previously been the ultimate resource of Spanish kings in
need; but that was failing now. In June 1632 the silver fleet came into
Seville, and instead of the treasure being delivered to its legitimate owners,
most of it was seized by the Government. The merchants utterly lost heart,
and when the time came for the return fleet to leave Seville in the autumn,
Hopton wrote:

"The Indian fleet is ready to sail, but there is no merchandise nor

merchant ships, and it will cost the King more than it will bring. The reason
for this is that for many years past the trade of the Indies has decayed, being
wholly given up by Spaniards, and kept alive by strangers. The Spanish
merchants think it not worth while to continue a fleet, as the King keeps in
the Contratacion (India House) all the silver and gold, and hath assumed to
himself first the customs, then the 47 per cent. average, and will not declare
his purpose as to the rest. This has caused such disability and unwillingness
to send goods, and hath brought trade so low, that whereas licences for
strangers to trade there were hardly gotten for 4000 ducats, they are now
offering them for 4000 reales; and I thinke they will shortly be forced to
hyre adventurers. As for the trade in Portugal, that country cannot do a sixth
part of it, and so they are obliged to grant licences to contract with strangers
to trade in Brazil, offering such conditions as they may trade safely."

I have transcribed these lines at length, because they show in vivid terms
how the suicidal system of finance was ruining every class of the
community. The workers, agricultural and urban, especially the former, had
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