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Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History
Kingship and Favoritism in the Spain of Philip III, 1598-1621
The reign of Philip III of Spain (1598SH1621) has been viewed traditionally as the age when Spain's world power started to wane. This book reappraises this interpretation and demonstrates that this period represented a realignment of Spanish power in world affairs. It also analyzes the career of the Duke of Lerma, Philip III's chief minister, the first of a series of European royal favorites (such as the Duke of Buckingham, Cardinal Richelieu, and the Count-Duke of Olivares) who influenced politics, court culture and the arts during the seventeenth century.
- GenresHistory
320 pages, Paperback
First published March 30, 2000
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March 1, 2018
Antonio Feros's monograph, Kingship and Favoritism in the Spain of Philip III, 1598-1621, offers a revisionist examination of Philip III of Spain's kingship. He takes a new look at old problems in seventeenth-century Spanish history, essentially the role of the privado, or favorite, and the understanding and exercise of power at court. In contrast to past studies, Feros argues that the presence of royal favorites between 1560 and 1640 represented not a decline in royal power, but an increase in the king's capacity for independent action. By portraying the often-vilified Francisco Gómez de Sandoval, 1st Duke of Lerma (1553 - 1625) as a political innovator who formulated new justifications for the role of the royal favorite, he distances the Duke from being a power-hungry psychopath. He conceives that Lerma constructed new structures for the administration of Spanish government in order to enhance royal authority. This study joins other recent analyses of a period of hitherto overlooked or underestimated. Like Magdalena Sanchez and Paul Allen, Feros finds that the court of Philip III, a king about whom few scholars have ever had a nice word, was the site of political developments of enormous consequence. Constructing his arguments on a wide range of primary and secondary sources, particularly from the Archivo General de Simancas, and the Archivo de los Duques de Lerma, Feros's study attempts to reassess a reality that was far more complex than generally recognized.
The question of why there were royal favorites in early modern European monarchies has attracted the attention of many modern scholars interested in the political and cultural history of this period. The answers to this question have frequently focused on issues of personality and king-craft. Feros places his argument by stating some historians have maintained ruling queens, such as Elizabeth I (1533 - 1603), introduced male favorites, some have adduced the alleged homosexuality of James I of England and Henry III of France as a contributing cause. More popular is the explanation citing the existence in the seventeenth century of rois fainéants, decadent products of generations of unhealthy marriages (Philip III and Philip IV of Spain) as proof of the decline in monarchs' intellectual abilities. Recently, scholars have offered psychological explanations, claiming, for example, that favorites rose to power because they represented father figures to young and inexpert kings. Others have emphasized the monarch's personality and style of government. Historian Davis Starkey, for example, claims that Henry VII of England never had favorites, or never let them flourish, because he was inaccessible and hard-working king. Constructing this historiographical framework, Feros's niche lies within the ongoing debate to place Lerma's rise to power, and this, favoritism at court, within the political, administrative and intellectual contexts of his time. In different polities political writers and actors developed distinct patters of epistemological legitimation of and opposition to royal favorites. These distinct theoretical approaches depended on particular political structures, contrasting views of monarchial power and disparate political traditions. Feros's historical niche shines through his insistence that it is imperative to understand the way in which late sixteenth century Spanish political authors characterized royal favorites and how debates about their roles in government of the monarchy influenced Lerma's quest for Prince Philip's favor.
First, Feros addresses several topics essential to understanding the reign of Philip III and the privanza of Lerma: the education of Prince Philip, the family background of Lerma, and sixteenth-century theories on royal favorites as well as changes in these theories during the reign of Phillip II. It also examines factional rivalries at the court of Philip II and the attempts by several courtiers to gain the favor of Phillip II while he was still prince. Born on 14 April 1578, the son of Philip II and his fourth wife, Anne of Austria (1549 - 80), Prince Philip became the official heir to the Spanish throne in November 1582. Until then he had been a secondary member of the royal household, one more Infante, but in 1582 he was publicly praised as the one chosen by God to succeed Philip II, because by then all other male heirs had died, namely Don Carlos in 1568 (1545-68), Fernando in 1577 (1571-7), Carlos in 1575 (1573-5), and Diego in 1582 (1575-82). In accordance with his new status, his consecration as Prince Philip occurred in a swearing-in ceremony, a public rite of passage first celebrated in Portugal in January 1583 and subsequently in Castile in November 1584 and in Aragon in March 1585. Soon thereafter Philip's education as the future king began.
In October 1569, the prince's tutor, García de Loaysa sent to the king a report outlining the Prince's virtues and shortcomings. This acted as a guideline to transform the prince into a genuine king. According to Loaysa, who began his report by emphasizing the spirit of friendship and cooperation among members Philip's household, the prince had all the qualities to a Christian prince. He was religious, devout, and honest, as well as composed, obedient to his father and tutors, affable with his servants, very intelligent and lacked all vices except for his tendency to sleep too much. Loaysa then emphasized the need to transfer these favorable qualities "from the man Philip to the would be-king," a process that would also require a modification of some unfavorable aspects Philip's character (30). Utilizing archival material, Feros conveys an angst and uncertainty around the king young prince. Some of the prince's servants worried, for example, about his inflexibility, reserved and secretive nature, and tendency from people around him. Philip II's reaction to Loaysa's report remains unknown, but no changes were in the prince's political education. Instead, a few months later in 1597, Philip II expressed his own views of the royal majesty to his son in a memorandum in which he advised the prince to be pious and obedient to God's law, and remember that all the able monarchs administered justice and obeyed the laws of the land. By this year, Prince Philip assumed many key responsibilities in government of the monarchy, including the signing of all documents and royal orders. A further example of the prince's growing influence put forward by Feros is portrayed in the in the instructions the king sent to the Junta de Gobierno following Archduke Albert's departure to the Low Countries as the govern-general in 1595. This new role gave Philip first-hand experience at state affairs and an opportunity to create his own circle of political advisors.
Building upon the pace set by the prince's early years, Feros's second chapter covers some of the more important issues that attracted the attention of Philip's and Lerma's contemporaries. These issues are not excusive to this generation of scholars, but are also of interest to modern historians. Essentially they include the nature and ideological foundations of royal power developed during Lerma's privanza when political writers began to clearly articulate the principles sustaining the monarch's claims to absolute authority the way in which political influence was won and conserved in personal monarchies. Additionally, Feros highlights the increasing complexity of the discourse that justified the power of royal favorites; the political and institutional changes provoked by the presence of a royal favorite, and the forms of government Philip III and Lerma enforced to secure the implementation of their policies. The valido, or or favorite was the intimate companion of a ruler or other important person. In medieval and Early Modern Europe, the term defines the individual who was delegated significant political power by a ruler. It is especially a phenomenon of the sixteenth-century and seventeenth-century, when government had become too complex for many hereditary rulers with no great interest or talent for it, and political institutions were still evolving. Feros further challenges the common notion that the privado necessarily lessened a king's power. Instead, he ascertains Lerma was instrumental in helping to create a system of government that strengthened the monarchy. Both Philip and Lerma were well aware of Spain's problems and needs. As such, both men developed and followed consistent strategies to address them, and did not shirk the demands of government. A prime reason for Philip's sad legacy was his dependence on Lerma. However, Feros disagrees, constructing a strong argument that Lerma was not weak favorite of a weak king but rather "the most powerful in Spanish history" (91). Additionally, the presence of the validos in the Spanish Habsburg courts did not erode royal power, but enhanced it.
Organized chronologically around topics that are central to understanding political developments during Philip III's reign, Feros frames chapters III and IV by exploring similar topics but from a similar perspective, specifically practical politics. Chapter III draws attention to several topics that dominated politics at the beginning of the reign: international affairs, the financial crisis of the monarchy, and the beginning of the criminalization of the political debate. Chapter IV consists of a study of the political opposition that ultimately led to Lerma's fall in October 1618. The last chapter and the Epilogue analyze the political crisis that developed with Lerma's fall from power. The final sections also examine how the debates surrounding the reign and Lerma's privanza influenced the methods and policies of the new monarch, Philip IV, and his favorite/ chief minister, the Count-Duke of Olivares. Both men tried to halt the decline of Spanish power, and solve the political and financial problems that the Spanish crown had faced since the end of the sixteenth century. Feros's closing chapter vibrantly alludes to Lerma's legacy. One of the paintings Giorgio Vasari designed to house in Atezzo depicted 'virtue trampling on Envy and seizing fortune her hair, hitting both with sticks.' Additionally, Vasari wrote that when one 'walks around the room, it sometimes looks as if Envy were above fortune and Virtue and then Virtue above Envy and Fortune, just as it often happens in real life.' This analogy summarizes Lerma's privanza very well. In triumphal moments he was portrayed as a man of virtue, in control of fortune and victorious over envy, while during moments of crisis and before his downfall he seemed to his admirer and, no doubt, himself a victim of Envy and Fortune. Ultimately, by presenting himself as a virtuous servant of the king, Lerma tried to protect himself against attacks by opponents whom he and his followers tried to portray not as adversaries of the privado but as enemies of the king.
Feros has composed a sophisticated and thoroughly research monograph. However, certain problems mar an otherwise excellently constructed historical piece. In arguing that the king accelerated Lerma's astonishing rise, he offers no convincing evidence to support this claim. Additionally, Feros freely uses the term "absolutism," often to refute arguments that Philip III had rendered the monarchy powerless. The establishment of many small juntas, for example, does not consider the possibility that centralization and dispersion may be simultaneous, just as both the king and the aristocracy could gain during Lerma's rule. These points aside, he skillfully bridges the gap that until recently dethatched political studies of sixteenth-century Spain from those of the seventeenth-century. He succeeds in presenting to us a new, persuasive, complex, and engaging portrait that strengthens our understanding of two decades of monarchial rule that justified greater attention.
The question of why there were royal favorites in early modern European monarchies has attracted the attention of many modern scholars interested in the political and cultural history of this period. The answers to this question have frequently focused on issues of personality and king-craft. Feros places his argument by stating some historians have maintained ruling queens, such as Elizabeth I (1533 - 1603), introduced male favorites, some have adduced the alleged homosexuality of James I of England and Henry III of France as a contributing cause. More popular is the explanation citing the existence in the seventeenth century of rois fainéants, decadent products of generations of unhealthy marriages (Philip III and Philip IV of Spain) as proof of the decline in monarchs' intellectual abilities. Recently, scholars have offered psychological explanations, claiming, for example, that favorites rose to power because they represented father figures to young and inexpert kings. Others have emphasized the monarch's personality and style of government. Historian Davis Starkey, for example, claims that Henry VII of England never had favorites, or never let them flourish, because he was inaccessible and hard-working king. Constructing this historiographical framework, Feros's niche lies within the ongoing debate to place Lerma's rise to power, and this, favoritism at court, within the political, administrative and intellectual contexts of his time. In different polities political writers and actors developed distinct patters of epistemological legitimation of and opposition to royal favorites. These distinct theoretical approaches depended on particular political structures, contrasting views of monarchial power and disparate political traditions. Feros's historical niche shines through his insistence that it is imperative to understand the way in which late sixteenth century Spanish political authors characterized royal favorites and how debates about their roles in government of the monarchy influenced Lerma's quest for Prince Philip's favor.
First, Feros addresses several topics essential to understanding the reign of Philip III and the privanza of Lerma: the education of Prince Philip, the family background of Lerma, and sixteenth-century theories on royal favorites as well as changes in these theories during the reign of Phillip II. It also examines factional rivalries at the court of Philip II and the attempts by several courtiers to gain the favor of Phillip II while he was still prince. Born on 14 April 1578, the son of Philip II and his fourth wife, Anne of Austria (1549 - 80), Prince Philip became the official heir to the Spanish throne in November 1582. Until then he had been a secondary member of the royal household, one more Infante, but in 1582 he was publicly praised as the one chosen by God to succeed Philip II, because by then all other male heirs had died, namely Don Carlos in 1568 (1545-68), Fernando in 1577 (1571-7), Carlos in 1575 (1573-5), and Diego in 1582 (1575-82). In accordance with his new status, his consecration as Prince Philip occurred in a swearing-in ceremony, a public rite of passage first celebrated in Portugal in January 1583 and subsequently in Castile in November 1584 and in Aragon in March 1585. Soon thereafter Philip's education as the future king began.
In October 1569, the prince's tutor, García de Loaysa sent to the king a report outlining the Prince's virtues and shortcomings. This acted as a guideline to transform the prince into a genuine king. According to Loaysa, who began his report by emphasizing the spirit of friendship and cooperation among members Philip's household, the prince had all the qualities to a Christian prince. He was religious, devout, and honest, as well as composed, obedient to his father and tutors, affable with his servants, very intelligent and lacked all vices except for his tendency to sleep too much. Loaysa then emphasized the need to transfer these favorable qualities "from the man Philip to the would be-king," a process that would also require a modification of some unfavorable aspects Philip's character (30). Utilizing archival material, Feros conveys an angst and uncertainty around the king young prince. Some of the prince's servants worried, for example, about his inflexibility, reserved and secretive nature, and tendency from people around him. Philip II's reaction to Loaysa's report remains unknown, but no changes were in the prince's political education. Instead, a few months later in 1597, Philip II expressed his own views of the royal majesty to his son in a memorandum in which he advised the prince to be pious and obedient to God's law, and remember that all the able monarchs administered justice and obeyed the laws of the land. By this year, Prince Philip assumed many key responsibilities in government of the monarchy, including the signing of all documents and royal orders. A further example of the prince's growing influence put forward by Feros is portrayed in the in the instructions the king sent to the Junta de Gobierno following Archduke Albert's departure to the Low Countries as the govern-general in 1595. This new role gave Philip first-hand experience at state affairs and an opportunity to create his own circle of political advisors.
Building upon the pace set by the prince's early years, Feros's second chapter covers some of the more important issues that attracted the attention of Philip's and Lerma's contemporaries. These issues are not excusive to this generation of scholars, but are also of interest to modern historians. Essentially they include the nature and ideological foundations of royal power developed during Lerma's privanza when political writers began to clearly articulate the principles sustaining the monarch's claims to absolute authority the way in which political influence was won and conserved in personal monarchies. Additionally, Feros highlights the increasing complexity of the discourse that justified the power of royal favorites; the political and institutional changes provoked by the presence of a royal favorite, and the forms of government Philip III and Lerma enforced to secure the implementation of their policies. The valido, or or favorite was the intimate companion of a ruler or other important person. In medieval and Early Modern Europe, the term defines the individual who was delegated significant political power by a ruler. It is especially a phenomenon of the sixteenth-century and seventeenth-century, when government had become too complex for many hereditary rulers with no great interest or talent for it, and political institutions were still evolving. Feros further challenges the common notion that the privado necessarily lessened a king's power. Instead, he ascertains Lerma was instrumental in helping to create a system of government that strengthened the monarchy. Both Philip and Lerma were well aware of Spain's problems and needs. As such, both men developed and followed consistent strategies to address them, and did not shirk the demands of government. A prime reason for Philip's sad legacy was his dependence on Lerma. However, Feros disagrees, constructing a strong argument that Lerma was not weak favorite of a weak king but rather "the most powerful in Spanish history" (91). Additionally, the presence of the validos in the Spanish Habsburg courts did not erode royal power, but enhanced it.
Organized chronologically around topics that are central to understanding political developments during Philip III's reign, Feros frames chapters III and IV by exploring similar topics but from a similar perspective, specifically practical politics. Chapter III draws attention to several topics that dominated politics at the beginning of the reign: international affairs, the financial crisis of the monarchy, and the beginning of the criminalization of the political debate. Chapter IV consists of a study of the political opposition that ultimately led to Lerma's fall in October 1618. The last chapter and the Epilogue analyze the political crisis that developed with Lerma's fall from power. The final sections also examine how the debates surrounding the reign and Lerma's privanza influenced the methods and policies of the new monarch, Philip IV, and his favorite/ chief minister, the Count-Duke of Olivares. Both men tried to halt the decline of Spanish power, and solve the political and financial problems that the Spanish crown had faced since the end of the sixteenth century. Feros's closing chapter vibrantly alludes to Lerma's legacy. One of the paintings Giorgio Vasari designed to house in Atezzo depicted 'virtue trampling on Envy and seizing fortune her hair, hitting both with sticks.' Additionally, Vasari wrote that when one 'walks around the room, it sometimes looks as if Envy were above fortune and Virtue and then Virtue above Envy and Fortune, just as it often happens in real life.' This analogy summarizes Lerma's privanza very well. In triumphal moments he was portrayed as a man of virtue, in control of fortune and victorious over envy, while during moments of crisis and before his downfall he seemed to his admirer and, no doubt, himself a victim of Envy and Fortune. Ultimately, by presenting himself as a virtuous servant of the king, Lerma tried to protect himself against attacks by opponents whom he and his followers tried to portray not as adversaries of the privado but as enemies of the king.
Feros has composed a sophisticated and thoroughly research monograph. However, certain problems mar an otherwise excellently constructed historical piece. In arguing that the king accelerated Lerma's astonishing rise, he offers no convincing evidence to support this claim. Additionally, Feros freely uses the term "absolutism," often to refute arguments that Philip III had rendered the monarchy powerless. The establishment of many small juntas, for example, does not consider the possibility that centralization and dispersion may be simultaneous, just as both the king and the aristocracy could gain during Lerma's rule. These points aside, he skillfully bridges the gap that until recently dethatched political studies of sixteenth-century Spain from those of the seventeenth-century. He succeeds in presenting to us a new, persuasive, complex, and engaging portrait that strengthens our understanding of two decades of monarchial rule that justified greater attention.
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