Malcolm - Royal Favouritism (1640-1665)

R O Y A L FA V O U R I T I S M A N D T H E G O V E R N I N G
E L I T E O F TH E S P A N I S H MO N A R C H Y ,
1 6 4 0 –1 6 6 5
OXFORD HISTORICAL MONOGRAPHS
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P. CLAVIN J. DARWIN J. INNES
J. McDOUGALL D. PARROTT S. A. SMITH
B. WARD-PERKINS J. L. WATTS W. WHYTE
Royal Favouritism and the
Governing Elite of the Spanish
Monarchy, 1640–1665
ALIS TAIR MALCOLM
1
3
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Acknowledgements
So many people have assisted me in the preparation of this book that it is

impossible to thank them all. However, I would like to express my
particular gratitude to John Elliott, who originally supervised it as a
doctoral thesis, and has since continued to show an interest and remark-
able patience with my research. I am also grateful for the many useful
comments and feedback provided by James Casey and David Parrott.
Whilst working in Spanish archives, I benefited from the assistance of
Julia Montalvillo at the Archive of the Dukes of Alburquerque in Cuéllar,
and José Manuel Calderón in the Palacio de Liria. I would also like to
thank the owners of these archives, as well as the counts of Orgaz, the earls
of Sandwich, and the Fundación Casa Medina Sidonia for allowing me
access to their papers. At the state archive of Simancas, Isabel Aguirre and
Agustín Carreras Zalama were of great help to me in the early months of
my research. Amongst the academic community, Fernando Bouza has
always been generous in sharing with me his immense knowledge of
Spain’s archives, whilst José Martínez Millán and Patrick Williams kindly
allowed me access to their unpublished material on the councillors of
Philip IV. For equally important reasons my thanks go to Catherine
Davis, Jeremy Lawrance, and Ron Truman. I would also like to express
particular appreciation to Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, Félix Beltrán
Díez, and Rafael Valladares for their friendship and encouragement during
the course of many years and visits to Spain.
This research was made possible by the British Academy, the Institute
of Historical Research, the de Osma foundation, and the Vicente Cañada
Blanch Institute at Manchester University. I have also benefited from
travel grants provided by Magdalen College Oxford and the University of
Limerick. I would particularly like to express my appreciation to my
colleagues in the Department of History at Limerick for allowing me a
lengthy career break to give me the time necessary to write this book, and
to the School of History at the University of St Andrews for the kind
welcome they have shown me. Writing about a subject that is primarily
based on continental European sources has many complications that have,
to a significant extent, been smoothed over by the assistance of the Inter-
Library Loans staff at the Universities of Limerick and St Andrews.
Over the years, I have inflicted a lot of text on unsuspecting readers.
John Cooper, Tony Lappin, and Guy Rowlands have waded through very
vi Acknowledgements
substantial amounts of my prose, and without their patience and con-
structive criticism, this book would not have appeared in its present form,
and probably not at all. I am also very grateful to Pádraig Lenihan, Eric
Nelson, Harald Braun, and to the late Robert Oresko, who read chapters in
earlier forms. Finally, and most importantly, I should mention my parents
Alan and Alison Malcolm, who sadly were only around in the early stages of
a project whose final outcome I hope would have been to their liking.
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 4/11/2016, SPi
Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Tables x
List of Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
I. THE P ROBL EM OF THE V A L I D O

1. Kingship, and the Perfect Courtier 17
The Desire for Personal Rule 17
Courtier and Intercessor 25
Conclusion: Some Advice for Don Baltasar Carlos 35
2. The Royal Family and Its Entourage 39

Access and Protocol 39
Life Beyond the Alcázar 46
Friends of the Valido near the King and Queen 52
Acting Gentlemen of the Chamber 55
Conclusion: Court and Government 60
3. Personal Rule, 1643–8 63

Apprenticeship 64
Godly Rule 72
Removal of Rivals 80
Conclusion: Inheritance 86
II . TH E M I NI S TER I AL ELI T E
4. Government and Society after Olivares 93
Bending the Rules 94
Relationships across Corporate Divides 100
Tax and Finance in Castile 107
Conclusion: An Integrated Monarchy 111
5. Ins and Outs: The Appointment and Employment

of Ministers 117
Rotation of Command 118
Public Service and Private Wealth 126
Conclusion: Exile and Homecoming 132
viii Contents
6. ‘Other People’ and ‘Different Ministers’:
A Factionless Era? 138
Clientage at One Remove 139
The Inner Circle 148
A Network of Families 158
Conclusion: The Practicalities of Government 171
III. WAR A ND PEACE I N EUROPE

7. Sustaining the Conflict, 1648–57 181
Priorities in Foreign Policy 181
The Failure to Make Peace, 1648–50 185
Divisions between Madrid and Brussels, 1650–6 192
An Austrian Solution? 198
Conclusion: Vienna, 1657 204
8. Crisis and Revival, 1657–9 206

Frankfurt 207
The Road to Elvas 212
Don Antonio Pimentel de Prado 217
Birds Coming Home to Roost 220
Disobedience Abroad 224
Conclusion: The Pyrenees 226
Aftermath: The Unravelling of a Valimiento, 1659–61 232
Epilogue: Personal Rule and Regency during the 1660s 241
Select Bibliography 245

Index 285
List of Figures
2.1 Plan of the room arrangement of the Alcázar palace 43
2.2 Map of Central Spain 49
2.3 Diego de Velázquez, Philip IV Hunting wild boar (1630s) 51
6.1 The marquises of El Carpio 161
6.2 Haro’s grandee relations: Segorbe, Medinaceli, Pastrana,
Medina Sidonia, and Lerma 163
6.3 Noble families related to Haro I: Santisteban, Grajal,
Segorbe, Arcos, Caracena, Las Navas 166
6.4 Noble families related to Haro II: Leganés, Los Balbases,
Poza, Almazán, Altamira 167
6.5 Noble families related to Haro III: La Puebla, Mirabel,
Santisteban, Peñaranda, Puñonrostro, Segorbe 168
8.1 The village of Montoro 230
List of Tables
2.1 The king’s acting gentlemen of the chamber 57
5.1 Viceroys and governors-general, 1640–65 122
6.1 Immediate provenance of Councillors of Castile, 1621–69 142
6.2 Presidents and governors of councils, 1640–65 150
List of Abbreviations
Libraries and archives

ACB Archivo de los Condes de Bornos, Madrid.
ACO Archivo de los Condes de Orgaz, Ávila.
ADA Archivo de los Duques de Alba, Madrid.
AFCMS Archivo de la Fundación Casa Medina Sidonia, Sanlúcar de
Barrameda.
ADAC Archivo de los Duques de Alburquerque, Cuéllar.
AGI Archivo General de Indias, Seville.
AGP Archivo General del Palacio, Madrid.
AGS Archivo General de Simancas.
AGS GA Archivo General de Simancas, Guerra Antigua.
AHN Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid.
AHN Nobleza Archivo Histórico Nacional, Sección Nobleza, Hospital de
Tavera, Toledo.
AHN OM Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid, Órdenes Militares.
AHPUV Archivo Histórico Provincial y Universitario de Valladolid.
AHPT Archivo Histórico Provincial de Toledo.
AHPV Archivo Histórico Provincial de Valladolid.
AHPZ Archivo Histórico Provincial de Zaragoza.
ASMi Archivio di Stato, Milan.
ASMo Archivio di Stato, Modena.
ASV Archivio Segreto, Vaticano.
BAM VN Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan. Vecchia Numerazione.
BBMS Biblioteca de Bartolomé March Servera, Palma de Mallorca.
BL British Library, London.
BNM Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid.
Bodl. Bodleian Library, Oxford.
IVDJ Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan, Madrid.
LSPM Library of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth.
MAC Mediathèque de l’Agglomération de Cambrai.
RAH Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid.
SPM Sandwich Papers, Mapperton House, Dorset.
TNA SP The National Archives, London, State Papers.
Printed sources
Abreu Abreu y Bertodano, Joseph Antonio de (ed.), Colección de los
tratados de paz, alianza, neutralidad . . . hechos por los pueblos y
príncipes de España . . . , 12 vols. (Madrid, 1740–52).
ACC Actas de las Cortes de Castilla, publicadas por acuerdo del
Congreso de los Diputados, 62 vols. (Madrid, 1877–1998).
xii List of Abbreviations
AJB Avisos de don Jerónimo de Barrionuevo, 1654–1658, ed. by
A. Paz y Melia, 2 vols., Biblioteca de Autores Españoles,
ccxxi–ccxxii (Madrid, 1968–9).
AP José Pellicer de Tovar, Avisos, ed. by Jean-Claude Chevalier
and Lucien Clare, 2 vols. (Paris, 2002). All references are
taken from vol. i.
BAE Biblioteca de Autores Españoles.
Bertaut François Bertaut, ‘Iournal du voyage d’Espagne fait en l’année
mil six cens cinquante neuf, à l’occasion du Traité de la Paix’,
ed. by F. Cassan, Revue Hispanique, 47 (1919), 1–317.
BRAH Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia.
Brunel Antoine Brunel, ‘Voyage d’Espagne’, ed. by Charles Claverie,
Revue Hispanique, 30 (1914), 119–375.
CCE Correspondance de la cour d’Espagne sur les affaires des Pays-Bas
au XVIIe siècle, ed. by Henri Lonchay, Joseph Cuvelier, and
Joseph Lefevre, 6 vols. (Brussels, 1923–37). All references are
taken from vol. iv.
CODOIN Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de España, ed.
by the Marquis of Fuensanta del Valle and others, 112 vols.
(Madrid 1863–90).
CSMA Cartas de Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda y de Felipe IV, ed. by
Carlos Seco Serrano, 2 vols., Biblioteca de Autores Españoles,
cviii–cix (Madrid, 1958).
CSMBB Cartas de Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda a Fernando de Borja y
Francisco de Borja (1628–1664), ed. by Consolación Baranda
Leturio (Valladolid, 2013).
CSPV Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts, relating to English
Affairs, existing in the archives and collections of Venice, ed. by
Allen B. Hinds, 38 vols. (London, 1864–1947).
DBE Real Academia de la Historia, Diccionario Biográfico Español,
50 vols. (Madrid, 2009–13).
DCCV Diario del señor D. Cristóval Crespí desde el día en que fue
nombrado presidente del consejo de Aragón (9 de junio 1652),
ed. by Don Gonzalo Crespí de Valldaura y Bosch Labrús,
Conde de Orgaz (Madrid, 2012).
DDMA Documentos de mi archivo: La elección de Fernando IV, Rey de
Romanos; correspondencia del III marqués de Castel Rodrigo,
Don Francisco de Moura, durante el tiempo de su embajada en
Alemania, 1648–1656, ed. by [Alfonso Falcò de la Gándara]
el Príncipe Pío, XVI Marqués de Castel Rodrigo (Madrid,
1929).
DHEE Diccionario de Historia Eclesiástica de España, ed. by Quintín
AldeaVaquero, Tomás Marín Martínez and José Vives Gatell,
4 vols. and supplement (Madrid, 1972–87).
List of Abbreviations xiii
DMO Escribir la corte de Felipe IV. El diario del marqués de Osera,
1657–1659, ed. by Santiago Martínez Hernández (Madrid,
2013).
EHR The English Historical Review.
FLEML Felipe IV y Luisa Enríquez Manrique de Lara, Condesa de
Paredes de Nava. Un epistolario inédito, ed. by Joaquín Pérez
Villanueva (Salamanca, 1986).
IRAG Istruzioni e relazioni degli ambasciatori genovesi, ed. by Raffaele
Ciasca, 5 vols. in the series Fonti per la Storia d’Italia, nos. 14,
20–1 and 30–1 (Rome, 1951–7). All references are taken
from vol. iii (no. 21).
LCMOVS Lettres du Cardinal Mazarin. Où l’on voit le secret de la
négociation de la Paix des Pirene’es: Et la relation des conférences
qu’il a eues pour ce sujet, avec D. Louis de Haro, ministre d’état,
2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1745).
LCMPSM Lettres du Cardinal Mazarin pendant son ministère, ed. by
A. Chéruel and G. d’Avenel, 9 vols. (Paris, 1872–1906).
LP Letters from the Pyrenees: Don Luis Méndez de Haro’s
Correspondence to Philip IV of Spain, July to November 1659,
ed. by Lynn Williams (Exeter, 2000).
MC Memoriales y cartas del conde duque de Olivares, ed. by John
H. Elliott, and José F. de la Peña, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1978–81).
MHE Memorial Histórico Español, published by la Real Academia de
la Historia, 47 vols. (Madrid, 1851–1915), xiii–xix, Cartas de
algunos PP. de la Compañía de Jesús sobre los sucesos de la
Monarquía entre los años 1634 y 1648, ed. by Pascual de
Gayangos.
Novoa Matías de Novoa, Historia de Felipe IV, rey de España, 4 vols.
in CODOIN, vols. lxix, lxxvii, lxxx, and lxxxvi (Madrid,
1876–86). All references are taken from vol. lxxxvi, unless
otherwise indicated.
RAL Relazioni inedite di ambasciatori lucchesi alla corte di Madrid
(sec. XVI–XVII), ed. by Amedeo Pellegrini (Lucca, 1903).
RAV Relazioni degli stati europei lette al senato dagli ambascatori
veneti nel secolo decimosettimo, ed. by Nicolò Barozzi and
Guglielmo Berchet 6 vols. (Venice, 1860). All references are
taken from Series I—vol. II (Spagna).
Recueil Recueil des instructions données aux ambassadeurs et ministres de
France depuis les traités de Westphalie jusqu’à la révolution
française, 29 vols. (Paris, 1884–1969), xi, ed. by A. Morel-
Fatio and H. Léonardon.
Introduction
Towards the end of 1642, and in the early months of the following year, a
series of important developments took place at the French and Spanish
courts. Cardinal Richelieu’s death at the beginning of December con-
cluded a ministry of eighteen years in which the French state had been
directed into what seemed like a perpetual conflict with its Habsburg
neighbours. Less than two months later, on 23 January 1643, the count-
duke of Olivares, who had exerted an influence over the Spanish Monarchy
that had been as lengthy and significant as Richelieu’s ascendancy over
France, left the Alcázar palace in Madrid for what he at first thought would
be an honourable retirement. Immediately on his departure, Philip IV
announced his intention to restore good government in Spain: he would
rule alone in accordance with justice and God’s law, and he appealed to
his councils for help in bearing the burden that he had now taken upon
his shoulders. These good intentions were assisted by a further develop-
ment in France. In May 1643 Louis XIII died, and until such time as his
four-and-a-half-year-old son should come of age, the government of
France was placed in the hands of a regency council that was nominally
led by the Queen Mother Anne of Austria, who was also the elder sister of
the king of Spain.
The near simultaneous disappearance of Olivares and Richelieu, along
with the emergence of a minority regime in France, seemed to present
a golden opportunity. There was a chance now that sibling Habsburg
rulers could take into their own hands the business of bringing an end to
a series of conflicts in Europe, some of which had lasted for decades.
Over the course of 1643, Spanish emissaries were sent into France with
the purpose of conveying to Anne of Austria her brother’s desire for
peace. The effort, though, was in vain. Anne had already fallen under the
influence of a new chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, who, as one envoy
explained to Philip IV:
does not want any correspondence between Your Majesty and the Queen of
France, because, as a declared enemy of Your Majesty, he holds it to be
2 Royal Favouritism and the Spanish Monarchy
dangerous to his ministry; neither does he want peace because, as one who
best understood the arts of Richelieu, he knows that it is war that makes him
indispensable [ forzoso] as a minister.1
The writer was Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, one of Philip IV’s most
important diplomats, and also the pre-eminent Spanish political philoso-
pher of the mid-seventeenth century. He did not, however, have much
personal knowledge of the new situation at the French court. Rather, he
was writing partly on the basis of his experience of representing Philip in
Rome and Munich, but his principal point of reference would have been
the court of Madrid, where he himself had been a client of Olivares.
The Spanish word that Saavedra used when he described Mazarin’s
ministry was ‘valimiento’. This was a neologism that had appeared during
the early seventeenth century in reference to the particular form of govern-
ment that was exercised by a valido—another recently coined expression
that is best translated as ‘minister-favourite’. The modern terms valimiento
and valido conveyed executive connotations that were not quite so evident
in the medieval expressions of privanza and privado. Although some writers
continued to regard this vocabulary as synonymous, it was more common
to think of privados as favourites of the king who might coexist with each
other in the plural, whilst the valido was the king’s principal minister, of
whom there could only be one at a time.2 He was literally the person whom
the king most valued, and over the course of the early and middle part of
the seventeenth century, a series of validos successively presided over the
government of the Spanish Monarchy, whilst other minister-favourites of
varying denominations achieved similar success throughout the length and
breadth of Europe.
There were good practical reasons why kings should have wanted to
delegate their authority to a single prime-ministerial-type figure. The
expansion of bureaucracy and the proliferation of institutions over the
course of the sixteenth century had made government hopelessly compli-
cated, and matters were not helped by a general admiration for Philip II’s
cumbersome working methods.3 Kings had more important things to do
than spend their time reading through piles of correspondence and council
minutes, and it was beneath them to have to be constantly chivvying
dilatory officials. There was also a need for a single point of contact who
1
AGS Estado K1420 (no. 101).
2
Covarrubias, Tesoro, 883; Real Academia Española, Diccionario, v, 385; vi, 414–16;
Corominas and Pascual, Diccionario crítico etimológico, iv, 650, 655–6; v, 733. See also
Thompson, ‘El valido arbitrista’, 313–14.
3
Vicens Vives, ‘The Administrative Structure of the State’, 73–7; Thompson, ‘The
Institutional Background’, 17–19; Thompson, ‘El valido arbitrista’, 318–20.
Introduction 3
could speak in the royal name to petitioners, financiers, and members of
the foreign diplomatic community. Moreover, as the costs of empire
spiralled out of control, and it became necessary to introduce ever more
onerous policies of taxation, it was useful for such measures to be imple-
mented by a minister who could deflect popular disquiet away from the
monarch.4 It was also expected that such a figure would have a wide
network of loyal relations and clients that could be placed at the disposal of
the government.5
Yet the problems outweighed the advantages. As Saavedra Fajardo had
implied with reference to the failed attempt to make an informal peace
initiative to Anne of Austria, there appeared to be a direct correlation
between the existence of minister-favourites, and the situation of perpetual
conflict that afflicted the European powers during the first two thirds
of the seventeenth century. The way in which a valido might seek to
legitimize his position on the basis of anticipated triumphs in foreign
policy had the effect of stimulating and prolonging expensive wars, as he
and his trusted subordinates sought to show themselves off to perfection in
their management of the complexities of military organization and deficit
financing. So, when the early modern states began to implode into revolt
and civil war after 1640, it was natural enough to blame Olivares and
Richelieu for what had gone wrong. Yet more sympathetic observers were
less concerned about personal recriminations than about the mode of
government that such figures represented, and about its consequences
upon the well-being of Christendom. Saavedra had been a close ally of
Olivares, but was uneasy in his mind about the type of regime with which
he had become associated. Other ministers would express similar reserva-
tions about the situation in the second half of the reign, for however
sincere Philip IV may have become in his intention to rule in person,
everyone knew that he had a strong personal attachment to the count-
duke’s nephew, don Luis Méndez de Haro. The latter would emerge
during the mid-1640s as the king’s new valido, and his government
would soon acquire the controversial implications that so worried the
people of the time. As the central figure in this book, it is worth pausing
briefly to describe his background and antecedents.
Haro came from an ancient family that already possessed an admirable
tradition of success within the claustrophobic environment of the king’s
4
Tomás y Valiente, ‘Las instituciones’, 116; Tomás y Valiente, Los validos, 66–7, 135;
Croft, ‘Can a Bureaucrat be a Favourite?’, Worden, ‘Favourites on the English Stage’,
Brockliss, ‘Concluding Remarks’, in Elliott and Brockliss (eds.), The World of the Favourite,
93, 165, 285–6, 288.
5
Tomás y Valiente, ‘Las instituciones’, 109; Thompson, ‘The Nobility in Spain’, 209;
Thompson, ‘The Institutional Background’, 21; Feros, ‘Clientelismo’, 36, 41–2, 45–6.
entourage. One of his ancestors had been don Juan Pacheco, first duke of
Escalona, and favourite of Henry IV of Castile.6 Pacheco was the great-
grandfather of the first marquis of El Carpio, whose younger brother (also
called don Luis Méndez de Haro) had been very close to Philip II. During
the reign of the Prudent King, members of the family received all manner
of military, ecclesiastical, and household appointments.7 Yet despite their
prestige and good fortune, the marquises of El Carpio were somewhat
isolated from the other great families of Spain. The successors to the title
during the later sixteenth century were women, and the tendency had
been for them to marry their distant male relations. This changed at the
turn of the sixteenth century when a betrothal was arranged between
the third marquis of El Carpio and doña Juana de Sandoval, a daughter
of the favourite of the heir to the throne, who would shortly become duke
of Lerma. The death of the young marquis in 1597 left the union broken
and without issue. However, five years later, the family went to the other
extreme with a wedding that took place in Valladolid between the future
fifth marquis of El Carpio and doña Francisca de Guzmán, daughter of the
second count of Olivares. These latter were Haro’s parents, and he was
born shortly afterwards in March 1603.8
Proximity to the duke of Lerma can only have complicated the family’s
relations with the counts of Olivares, which were not helped either by the
death of the second count in 1607. As Lerma began to find himself in
increasing political difficulties, the marquises of El Carpio made the
decision to leave court, and a significant part of don Luis’s early life was
spent in Andalusia—a region for which he would maintain an abiding
personal affection.9 For several years, his grandfather the fourth marquis
acted as the king’s representative before the city council of Seville (asis-
tente), but was back in Madrid by the time of his death in September
1614. He had taken care to commend his children to Lerma, and, as
Rafael Valladares has suggested, this precaution may have permitted don
Luis’ entry into the palace, which in turn gave rise to the close relationship
that the young lad managed to establish with the future king of Spain.10
After Philip IV succeeded to the throne in 1621, Haro quickly became
6
RAH Ms. 9/293, f. 37v.
7
López de Haro, Nobiliario, ii, 420–3; Pellicer, Memorial de la casa y servicios de don
Ioseph de Saavedra, ff. 28r–32r; Martínez Millán and Fernández Conti (eds.), La monarquía
de Felipe II, ii, 210, 260, 294.
8
AHN Consejos legajo 28138/10, ff. 27r–v; AHPV protocolo 775, ff. 402–3, 422;
RAH Ms. 9/281, f. 44v; CODOIN, xlii, 276–7.
9
AHN OM expediente 5130; Brunel, 258.
10
RAH Ms. 9/286, f. 176r; Salmerón, Rapsodia funebre (letter of dedication to Haro);
CSMA, i, 91; Valladares, ‘Méndez de Haro y Guzmán, Luis’, 445; Valladares, ‘Origen y
límites del valimiento de Haro’.
Introduction 5
knight of Santiago, cupbearer at the royal table, and gentleman of the
chamber. He thrived in the households of the new king and of Philip’s
younger brothers the infantes don Carlos and don Fernando, a melting
pot of numerous other young aristocrats, who would go on to acquire
fame and influence over the next forty or fifty years. During these early
years Philip IV’s other gentlemen of the chamber included the second
marquis of Castel Rodrigo, the third count of Olivares, don Fernando de
Borja, the seventh count of Santisteban, and the duke of Terranova, not to
mention Haro’s own father, the fifth marquis of El Carpio. Beyond this
inner circle many sons of noblemen acted as companions to the queen and
younger members of the royal family. Whilst records are fragmentary, it
seems that the future marquises of La Fuente and Caracena, the count of
Fuensaldaña, and all the sons of the count of Santisteban, started out their
careers in this way, with the palace title of menino, whilst the future third
count of Peñaranda was appointed as a chamberlain to the infantes.11
These aristocrats will be the principal actors in what follows. They were
young men (and some women), who had been brought up with the royal
family, would spend their lives in the king’s service, and a few of them
would ultimately grow old alongside Philip IV. This book, then, is not
intended as a biography of don Luis de Haro—although Haro will be its
main protagonist—but rather as a study of his ministry from the perspec-
tives of the different people who came to be part of it. The book is divided
into three parts, which combine a roughly chronological narrative with a
thematic discussion of specific areas of importance.
Part I considers the valido first in terms of how this figure had come to
be regarded by seventeenth-century political theorists, and then more
specifically with reference to Haro as the favourite of Philip IV during
the years immediately after 1643. His situation was congenitally unstable
because it gave rise to accusations that he was usurping the king’s authority.
Haro’s response was to cultivate a reputation as a perfect courtier, not only
as a means of maintaining the king’s trust and friendship, but also to
ensure that his place at Philip’s side might be as acceptable as possible to
the rest of the nobility. He also needed to demonstrate his competence as a
minister who might be capable one day of governing in Philip’s name, and
during the early and mid-1640s, he conducted a series of successful
missions away from court. Yet, however experienced and well liked he
11
ADA 232/1: La Fuente to Haro, 12 June 1661; MAC Ms. 759, ff. 19r, 130r;
Cespedes y Meneses, Primera parte de la historia de D. Felippe el IIII, 240; Pellicer, Calidad
y servicios de don Diego de Benavides, ff. 46r–8v; Salazar y Castro, Silva, ii, 666; Martínez
Hernández, ‘Nuevos datos sobre Enrique Teller’, 73 (n. 1). See also Bouza, ‘Servir de lejos’,
74–5; Hoffman, Raised to Rule, 49–51, 56–7.
might be, he still had enemies; and however immune Philip IV might have
been towards importunate courtiers, the king was still susceptible to
influence from those around him. The four or five years that followed
the dismissal of Olivares thus amounted to a time of political uncertainty
as Philip sought to divide his authority between a number of different
ministers, some of them survivors from the previous regime, and others
newly appointed to positions of importance.
Whilst the first three chapters of the book concentrate on the philo-
sophical and political environments that were immediate to the king, Part II
moves the focus of discussion outwards to consider the strengths and
weaknesses of the Spanish government from the personal perspectives of
its ministers and officials. The emphasis here, as in the rest of the book,
will be on the noblemen who were appointed to positions of influence
within Philip IV’s possessions in Europe. Unlike their colleagues in
America, the actions of the Spanish king’s representatives in Europe
were carefully circumscribed by the rival jurisdictions of royal councils
and local tribunals. Under Olivares, this system of shared authority had
been violated by the imposition of arbitrary methods of rule that had led
to the outbreak of revolts in Catalonia and Portugal. Yet, in the aftermath
of the count-duke’s downfall, there was a chance that things could be put
right by the implementation of a more acceptable mode of government in
which the king ruled through his councils and paid proper respect to the
laws of the different parts of the monarchy. This was more than an
idealistic fantasy. When left to their own devices, the various administra-
tions in Madrid, and in the other principal governing centres of Spain’s
European possessions could function more effectively than has often been
recognized. Nevertheless, Philip IV was fighting expensive wars, whose
requirements could only be properly met by the deployment of his full
executive authority. So, although for a few years after the removal of
Olivares, the king governed in person and in accordance with the laws
of his different realms, after 1648 there took place a reversion to form:
extravagant court festivities, decision-making by informal committees of
ministers, a more aggressive fiscality, a more aggressive foreign policy—
everything to suggest that a valido was back in control. Haro might have
been very courteous, and the interplay of noble relationships may well
have been much less conflictive than historians would have us believe, but
his situation as valido seems to have endowed him with a personal
insecurity bordering on paranoia. Power was therefore concentrated in
the hands of a very small group of council presidents whom he trusted,
and those who objected saw their influence confined to the political
wilderness of the Council of State, or to the government of some distant
viceroyalty.
Introduction 7
In such a world an appreciation of how king, valido, and ministers
worked alongside each other, and of how they sought to respond to the
challenges that they faced, is essential to our understanding of the practice
of government within the Spanish Monarchy during this period, and of
the reasons for its successes and failures. This book thus seeks to interpret
the past on the basis of the assumptions and preconceptions of the people
who helped shape it. It amounts to the kind of fusion of political and
social history suggested by John Elliott in a review article published in the
early 1980s,12 and again more recently in a discussion of the merits of
biography as a genre of historical writing.13 The arguments presented here
will thus differ from the more traditional tendency to read Spain’s situ-
ation through the economic criteria so beloved of the Annales school of the
1950s and 1960s. Demography, manufacturing, trade, and agriculture
were certainly important issues for early modern political scientists (arbi-
tristas), but much less so for the people who actually sat at the helm of
the state during the seventeenth century. For them what mattered was the
defence of religion, good government, the monarchy’s reputation, and the
ready availability of money to pursue these aspirations.
Unanimity of objectives nonetheless coexisted awkwardly with signifi-
cant differences about how these objectives were to be achieved. Part III of
the book will concentrate on the most polemical aspect of Haro’s vali-
miento: his foreign policy. Spain’s international situation during these
years was still relatively healthy in comparison with the predicaments of
her rivals. True, the revolts of Portugal and Catalonia in 1640 and the
defeat at Rocroi, had, as Elliott pointed out long ago, marked the end of
the monarchy’s unquestioned military pre-eminence.14 Yet, amidst the
chaos of the general European crisis of the mid-seventeenth century, Haro
and his colleagues did a reasonably effective job at sustaining the illusion
of Spanish hegemony: Catalonia was reconquered, along with significant
parts of the Spanish Netherlands and northern Italy; the Army of Flanders
held its own against the French for most of the 1650s; and a favourable
diplomatic outcome was achieved at the Peace of the Pyrenees. Of course,
the glow from this Indian summer would not last for long, and the
concluding chapters of the book consider the rather sad end to Haro’s
valimiento, and the return to direct government by the monarch during
the years after his death. Ever the master of personal relations, Haro’s
triumph at the Pyrenees, and his later undoing, could be said to lie in his
courtier’s ability to manipulate people into conceding to his wishes, and
12
Elliott, ‘A Question of Reputation?’, 483.
13
Elliott, History in the Making, 100–1.
14
Elliott, Imperial Spain, 341–9.
his misplaced reliance that these gentlemen’s agreements would be prop-
erly honoured. From the 1660s, Spain’s survival as a pre-eminent power
would be undermined by the shortcomings of a hidebound administration
operating in a time of royal decrepitude and minority, and by the financial
repercussions of international policies that had very much been Haro’s
own doing. If anything, the monarchy’s resilience during the second half
of the seventeenth century was not a consequence of either of the two
principal methods of rule that have most preoccupied historians—
conciliar and valido government—but of the ministers in the field who
were prepared to take the law into their own hands. These were noblemen
who were often closely connected with the prevailing regime, but were
uneasy about the way things were going. It was their independent initia-
tives that were most important in bringing about the peace of 1659, and in
allowing the monarchy to survive during the decades that followed.
This book was written in two stages: first as a doctoral thesis in the
1990s, and then nearly twenty years later during a period of leave from a
career spent in teaching and academic administration. At the outset of the
project there was very little printed material available in any language on
the political history of mid-seventeenth-century Spain. A limited number
of documents relating to the Rocroi defeat and the peace negotiations at
Westphalia had for long been in the public domain, as had Philip IV’s
correspondence with Sor María de Ágreda, and the series of newsletters
written by members of the Society of Jesus, and by the court commentator
Jerónimo de Barrionuevo. Secondary sources amounted to detailed insti-
tutional studies, as well as work on social and economic history, much of it
focused at a local level. A significant exception was Ramón Ezquerra
Abadía’s classic 1934 study of the duke of Híjar’s alleged attempt to
provoke a revolt in Aragon.15 There was also important research by Robert
Stradling, who had published what for its time was a seminal article on the
duke of Medina de las Torres.16 More recently, doctoral theses by Fernando
González de León, James Inglis-Jones, and Vanessa Gail Johnson had
made inroads into our understanding of the military situation in Flanders,
and of the political in-fighting that took place in Madrid during the mid-
1640s.17 At roughly the same time Jonathan Israel published a short but
extremely useful account of Spanish foreign policy between 1648 and
1659.18 Perhaps the most significant books to appear whilst I was writing
15
Ezquerra Abadía, La conspiración.
Stradling, ‘A Spanish Statesman of Appeasement’.
16
17
González de León, ‘The Road to Rocroi’; Inglis-Jones, ‘The Grand Condé in Exile’;
Johnson, ‘Factional Politics at the Court of Philip IV’.
18
Israel, ‘Spain and Europe’.
Introduction 9
the thesis were Carlos Puyol Buil’s reconstruction of the investigations
into the affair of the San Plácido nuns, Gianvittorio Signorotto’s work on
Spanish Milan, and Rafael Valladares’s study of the Portuguese war of
independence.19
In more recent years, a great deal of new scholarship has appeared. Lynn
Williams’s publication of a selection of the letters of don Luis de Haro
from the Pyrenees was a milestone in assisting our understanding of a
treaty that had hitherto been interpreted exclusively from the French point
of view.20 Similarly, the appearance of Santiago Martínez Hernández’s
edition of the journal written by the marquis of Osera during the years
1657–9,21 along with Consolación Baranda Leturio’s publication of the
correspondence between Sor María de Ágreda and members of the Borja
family, have made available very important sources that had previously
been little known.22 Analysis of Spain’s foreign policy has also advanced
with the work of Paul Sonnino, Daniel Séré, and Michael Rohrschneider
helping to clarify the peace negotiations that took place at Westphalia, and
in the years thereafter,23 whilst Manuel Herrero Sánchez has analysed
the repercussions of the Peace of Münster on Spain’s relations with the
United Provinces.24 The work of Davide Maffi and René Vermeir on
Milan and Flanders respectively has clarified much about war, govern-
ment, and finance in these theatres.25 There has furthermore been import-
ant research on the Spanish aristocracy by Santiago Martínez Hernández,
and Luis Salas Almela, alongside Fernando Negredo del Cerro’s group
study of the court preachers who were employed by Philip IV.26 Thanks
to these writers we are beginning to acquire a greater awareness of the
human resources at the monarchy’s disposal, as well as a better impression
of the chronology of events, and the decision-making process that shaped
them. It is also hoped that our understanding of the period will be further
enhanced by forthcoming research, such as Rafael Valladares’s long-
awaited biography of Haro, Nicole Reinhardt’s examination of the place
of royal confessors in the political history of early modern France and
19
Puyol Buil, Inquisición y política; Signorotto, Milano spagnola; Valladares, La rebelión
de Portugal.
20 21
Letters from the Pyrenees (LP). Osera, Escribir la corte de Felipe IV (DMO).
22
Cartas de Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda a Fernando de Borja y Francisco de Borja
(CSMBB).
23
Séré, La paix des Pyrénées; Rohrschneider, Der gescheiterte Frieden von Münster;
Sonnino, Mazarin’s Quest.
24
Herrero Sánchez, El acercamiento hispano-neerlandés.
25
Maffi, Il baluardo della corona; Maffi, En defensa del imperio; Vermeir, En estado de
guerra.
26
Martínez Hernández, El marqués de Velada; Martínez Hernández, Rodrigo Calderón;
Salas Almela, Medina Sidonia. El poder de la aristocracia; Negredo, Predicadores.
Spain, David Parrott’s study of Cardinal Mazarin’s government during the
1650s, and a major collection of essays on the Iberian World to be
published by Routledge under the joint editorship of Fernando Bouza,
Pedro Cardim, and Antonio Feros. Recent doctoral theses by Felipe
Vidales and Koldo Trápaga Monchet similarly promise to yield important
insights into the careers respectively of the marquis of Heliche, and of don
Juan José de Austria.27
And yet, for all this excellent research, anyone familiar with the broader
mass of secondary literature will also be aware of some serious shortcom-
ings. Within foreign-language scholarship there is a near total oblivious-
ness amongst many writers towards the experience of the reader. This,
when combined with an absence of proper indexing and editorial quality-
control, can leave the researcher in a state of lonely exasperation, struggling
in vain to make out the wood for the trees. Within the anglophone
academic world, on the other hand, the situation is no better. Here
published work on the seventeenth-century Spanish Monarchy—at least
in areas specific to political history—is often of a rather trifling or cursory
nature, which makes the business of teaching the subject to undergraduates
very difficult. A solution is to contextualize political history within the
intellectual and artistic developments of the time, for which there are much
richer traditions of scholarship in English. Such an approach has the
advantage of ensuring that students are not left with a bleak impression
of what was a vibrant composite state that in most senses continued to be
culturally brilliant until the end of the Habsburg period. However, it also
runs the risk of superficiality in the absence of a coherent and well-
documented interpretation of the objectives, preoccupations, and predica-
ments of the monarchy’s governing elite, which is what the present book
seeks to provide.
The lack of research into the second half of Philip IV’s reign has also
been conditioned by an absence of primary sources in manuscript. The
archive of don Luis de Haro’s descendants was damaged by a number of
fires that took place in the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries.28 Yet
one wonders how much of his own papers were actually lost. His was
a regime that was based on closed committees in which decisions were
made orally, and with very little paper trail to indicate reasoning or
responsibility. Where one would anticipate the existence of a mass of
documentation—during the periods when Haro was away from the king’s
side, in the mid-1640s, and again in the late 1650s—it is all there, and in
27
Vidales, ‘Gaspar de Haro y Guzmán’; Trápaga Monchet, ‘La reconfiguración política
de la monarquía católica’.
28
Calderón Ortega, ‘Memoria familiar e historia de la Memoria’.
Introduction 11
the form of lengthy and detailed memoranda. Yet the scarcity in the
valido’s correspondence during the period between 1648 and 1656—
precisely the years when his authority was at its height—necessitates the
inclusion of other viewpoints, rather than concentration on just one
person. Even here the documentation is limited. Unlike their French
and English counterparts, Spanish noblemen did not tend to conserve
their private correspondence, and they rarely wrote journals, or common-
place books. The nearest equivalent in Madrid to a Samuel Pepys or a
John Evelyn was don Francisco Jacinto Funes de Villalpando, the second
marquis of Osera, but his journal covers less than two years between the
autumn of 1657 and the summer of 1659. Otherwise, daily information
about the events of the court is much more fragmentary and sometimes
non-existent. Diplomatic correspondence and travellers’ accounts were
often prejudiced and ill-informed, or simply repeated the contents of
Spanish newsletters. Minutes from the debates of the councils, though
surviving in abundance, are of limited use, because these institutions did
not always play a very decisive role. More reliable are the letters from the
king’s ministers abroad, and the survival of a significant amount of this
material in the archives at Simancas, the Palacio de Liria, and the Real
Academia de la Historia is invaluable as evidence for Haro’s relationships
with the other members of the governing elite. An equally rich source of
evidence consists of the testaments of numerous noblemen and noble-
women for what it has to say about their personal and family relationships.
For all that, however, it is impossible to be on completely certain ground.
Analysis has to be based on a careful reading between the lines, the
judicious sifting of sundry miscellaneous items of information, and a
certain amount of conjecture. The conclusions offered here can therefore
only be tentative, but will at least provide points of debate for scholars in
the future to refine or correct.
If the political elite of the Spanish monarchy in the seventeenth century
has received relatively little attention as a group, this is not the case for the
particular mode of government that had come to prevail during these
years. Since Jean Bérenger first drew attention to the existence of the
minister-favourite as a European phenomenon, scholars have dedicated
themselves to the study of numerous individual examples, seeking to
understand their intervention in government, the nature of the influence
that they exerted over their rulers, and their involvement in artistic and
literary patronage.29 Antonio Feros and Patrick Williams have shown how
29
Bérenger, ‘Pour une enquête européenne’. See also the contributions in Elliott and
Brockliss (eds.), The World of the Favourite; Escudero (ed.), Los validos; Tropé (ed.), La
représentation du favori dans l’Espagne.
the authority that Philip III accorded to the duke of Lerma in 1598 was at
least initially welcomed, because it reopened the doors of government after
the very intense and reclusive form of rule practised by Philip II.30 There
has also been a lot of interest in the apparent disappearance of minister-
favourites in the 1660s, which contrasts with a parallel emphasis by other
historians on their continued existence during the later seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.31 For all that, little attention has been given to the
actual repercussions of their presence in office, and it is here that by
focusing on the Spanish government during the middle decades of the
seventeenth century this book proposes to fill a gap.
The understanding of the valido as harmful to good government also
needs to be spelt out on account of a recent historiographical tendency to
regard the king’s delegation of his authority on a favourite as somehow
beneficial for the reform and renewal of the state. Such a view, which
seeks to emphasize positive discourses on the question of whether the
king should, or should not, rule through a valido, is arguably a legitimate
reflection of political thought at the turn of the century, but had long
ceased to be valid by the time Haro came to the fore. It originated in
Francisco Tomás y Valiente’s classic analysis of the phenomenon.32 This
important work did much to inspire the early stages of my research, but its
treatment of literary responses to the rise of the valido overlooked the
subtle complexities of opinion held by the writers of the time. Close
reading of what they actually said often suggests that apparent recognition
of the place of the minister-favourite in Spanish government was very
strictly qualified. To take one example, the Augustinian Friar Pedro
Maldonado’s seeming defence of the valido, which was so influential
with later advocates of the king’s resort to such a person, was actually
quite double-edged.33 Only in the most qualified of senses did Maldonado
actually recommend such a practice. Yes, it was legitimate for the king to
entrust affairs to a special friend, but only on the very strict condition that the
latter were perfect in every way, shape, and form.34 In the understanding
of Francisco de Quevedo—another writer whose views on the subject
were highly ambivalent—the relationship had to be as perfect as that
which existed between Christ and John the Baptist.35
30
Williams, ‘Philip III and the Restoration of Spanish Government’; Williams, The
Great Favourite, 47, 54–5; Feros, Kingship and Favoritism, 50–7, 163–6.
31
Scott, ‘The Rise of the First Minister in Eighteenth-Century Europe’; Onnekink,
‘Mynheer Benting now rules over us’; Smith and Taylor, ‘Hephaestion and Alexander’.
32 Tomás y Valiente, Los validos. 33
Ibid., 124–5, 131–4.
34
Maldonado, ‘Tratado del perfecto privado’, 782, 784–5, 791.
35
Quevedo, Política de Dios, 103–4.
Introduction 13
The reality was that nearly all serious political philosophers regarded the
king’s delegation of his God-given authority to a favoured nobleman as a
travesty of good government, but they tended to transpose their experi-
ence of early modern politics to their readings of ancient, medieval, or
scriptural history, or they applied their reservations to the situation in
seventeenth-century France. What is most interesting is that some of the
really perceptive negative analysis of the king’s resort to a valido came
precisely from people within his own circle—analysis that often combined
grave misgivings towards the practice with sympathy for the practitioner.
This uneasiness of loyal supporters has been highlighted with regard
to don Juan Bautista Larrea by Paola Volpini,36 and to don Juan de
Palafox by Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo.37 Both ministers had originally
been enthusiastic proponents of the reform programme associated with
Olivares, before becoming disillusioned. On a broader level, the idea of
the valido as a detrimental force tends to be noticed by historians only in
passing, and usually with reference to the revolts of the 1640s. John Elliott
has pointed to how the ministries of Richelieu and Olivares served to
generate resentment and thus encourage rebellion.38 Similar suggestions
have been made by Francesco Benigno and Jean-Frédéric Schaub, but
again in this same context of the part played by the validos’ usurpation of
the king’s authority as an incentive and justification for revolt.39 No
modern historian appears to have identified the prevalence of warfare in
seventeenth-century Europe as a direct consequence of the need faced by
minister-favourites to justify and sustain their precarious hold on power.
And yet the problem was clearly recognized by the people of the time.
Another frustrated peace envoy during that valido-less summer of 1643
was don Antonio Sarmiento. He described the delegation by rulers of their
favour and influence upon a single minister, and everything that this
might entail in terms of resentment, factionalism, international conflict,
and the bankruptcy, revolt, and human misery that ensued, as ‘the misfor-
tune of our century’.40 Sarmiento’s observation provides a fitting starting-
point to understand the government of Spain’s European possessions during
the years subsequent to Olivares’ dismissal in 1643.
In what follows, Spanish units of currency have been translated into
ducats of 475 maravedíes, there being four ducats to the English pound.
36
Volpini, Lo spazio politico del ‘letrado’, 11–12, 72–4, 97–9, 118–19, 147.
37
Álvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 24–5, 148, 159–60.
38
Elliott, ‘The General Crisis in Retrospect’, 72.
39
Benigno, Mirrors of Revolution, 134–5, 174–9; Benigno, ‘Entre Corte y Estado’, 29;
Schaub, ‘Révolutions sans révolutionnaires?’, 646, 649; Schaub, Le Portugal, 81–2, 100–2,
389–91.
40
AGS Estado K1420 (no. 104).
Full bibliographical entries appear only once: either in the Abbreviations
list, or within the Bibliography. I have tried to make consistent use of
the ‘don/doña’ appellation in accordance with how seventeenth-century
names appear in the sources, but have avoided it with figures of literary
or artistic significance such as Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, Diego de
Velázquez, and Francisco de Quevedo.
PART I
T H E P R O BL EM O F TH E
VALIDO
1
Kingship, and the Perfect Courtier
Philip IV spent his life in the shadow of his grandfather, Philip II. The
latter had exerted an iron grip over the Spanish Monarchy, and by the
1620s his very intensive personal approach to government had come to be
regarded as the ideal of good kingship to which it was hoped that his
successors would adhere. The purpose of this chapter will be to consider
the expectations that were placed on Philip IV, along with the compromise
solutions that were recommended when these expectations proved still-born.
The tragedy of this king was that he lacked the stamina and forcefulness
that would have been necessary for him to follow in his grandfather’s
footsteps. Instead, he took the lead of his father, Philip III, and delegated
his authority to minister-favourites, or validos.
Don Luis de Haro was Philip IV’s valido for much of the second half of
the reign. His position was highly controversial. On the one hand, his very
existence was a negation of what was generally regarded as best practice in
government. On the other, his presence had certain advantages in assisting
the ruler to deal with his numerous responsibilities. Writers differed in the
extent of their condemnation. Serious political philosophers from the
university tradition would have no truck with the king’s failure to fulfil his
responsibilities. Others followed an uneasy double-standard, objecting to
the practice of governing through a minister-favourite whilst sympathizing
with the beneficiary of the king’s delegated authority. There were also those
who showed a willingness to accept the king’s resort to a valido, provided the
latter possessed the right attributes and behaved in the right manner. Haro
therefore had to tread extremely carefully. He had to present his relationship
with Philip IV in such a way as to minimize accusations that he was usurping
royal power, and he had to make sure that his relationship with the rest of
the nobility was kept as broad and inclusive as possible.
THE DESI RE FOR PERSONAL RULE
The seventeenth-century conception of Spanish royal power, and its

devolution upon the king’s ministers, may best be approached by a
memorial penned by one of the participants in a controversy arising over
the prerogatives of the Cámara de Castilla, a sub-committee of the Council
of Castile that had the responsibility for advising the king on appoint-
ments. In December 1627, Philip IV issued a decree conferring full
membership of the Council of Orders upon don Gaspar de Bracamonte,
a man already of about thirty years, who would go on to play a major
role in the governments of both Philip IV and Carlos II. Don Gaspar was
the younger son of the first count of Peñaranda, a title that in time he
himself would acquire by marriage to his niece. He had studied law at
Salamanca, before receiving appointment to the Council of Orders as its
prosecuting attorney (fiscal ) in the summer of 1626. The decision eight-
een months later to promote him to full membership was ostensibly made
by Philip IV, acting in consultation with the president of the Council of
Orders, but Bracamonte had no doubt in his mind that the real source
of his advancement lay with the count-duke of Olivares. The Cámara for
its part knew that due process had been disregarded and it blocked
his promotion.1
In normal circumstances, this kind of obstruction would have done no
more than postpone the inevitable fulfilment of the king’s orders. On this
occasion, however, the disconsolate official decided to address a paper to
Olivares on the origins of royal authority, the ways in which it might be
legitimately delegated, and the requirement for obedience from the insti-
tutions entrusted with implementing the king’s mandate.2 Drawing
inspiration from a variety of theological and juridical texts, he asserted
that the king was the beneficiary of an ancient agreement, whereby
authority had been conferred upon him by the community.3 Yet the
king was obliged to share this authority with his subjects who, in their
capacity as viceroys, members of the councils in Madrid, magistrates, city
oligarchs, or whatever, each formed a part of the general ‘sovereign
dignity’.4 In order for him to make a successful division of this authority,
and because his personal acquaintance of candidates for appointment was
inevitably limited, he had to put his faith in the recommendations of his
ministers. From these presuppositions a system of councils had been set up
to advise the king on matters of government, patronage, and justice.
However, the writer went on to argue that when the king already had
the necessary information to make up his mind, there was no reason for
him to need the advice of councillors. The unsolicited objections of the
1
For the controversy surrounding this appointment, see Gómez Rivero, ‘Consejeros de
Órdenes’, 683–6.
2 3 4
BNM Ms. 2359, ff. 157r–64v. Ibid., ff. 158r–v. Ibid., f. 159r.
Kingship, and the Perfect Courtier 19
Cámara to his own promotion thus amounted to blatant disobedience
from an institution which did not understand its subordinate role.5
In reaching his conclusion, Bracamonte was combining different cur-
rents of thought on the origins of sovereignty. On the one hand, there was
the belief that the king owed his authority to his subjects and was
responsible to them for his actions. This had been the view of scholars
working in Iberian and Italian universities during the sixteenth century.
They drew inspiration from medieval and humanist academic traditions to
argue that the community’s investment of power in a ruler was conditional
upon that ruler’s willingness to govern in the interests of his subjects, and
with the advice of their leading representatives.6 If he failed to do so, he
could potentially be overthrown, or even killed.7 On the other hand, there
was an alternative understanding that royal power derived from a divine
mandate, an idea that catered for a much more authoritarian approach to
government, and demanded the complete obedience of subjects.8 The first
view was reflected in the academic rigour of the universities, in the
objections of the Cortes to the resort to arbitrary means to finance
expensive wars, and in the theatrical representation of kings on the public
stage.9 The second interpretation was more intuitive. It had originated in
the fifteenth-century absolutist propaganda of John II of Castile, found
expression in court ideology and in the sermons of charismatic preachers,
and had an appeal for those in government circles wanting to enhance
the ruler’s ability to exploit the hidden resources of his monarchy.10
There was also a fair degree of confusion and overlap between the two
approaches. For example, the view of Francisco Suárez had evolved from
quite an absolutist one in which the community completely alienated its
authority to the ruler, to a belief in a much more conditional delegation of
power. Others like Pedro de Rivadeneira and Diego de Saavedra Fajardo
could be infuriatingly inconsistent.11 As a Salamanca-trained magistrate,
5
Ibid., ff. 162v, 164r–v.
6
Mariana, The King and the Education of the King, 111–21, 136–8, 156–9; Fernández-
Santamaria, The State, War and Peace, 65–8, 72–4; Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought, 227–9,
239–41, 248–51.
7
Mariana, The King and the Education of the King, 127–8, 146–50, 350; Höpfl, Jesuit
Political Thought, 244–5, 314–20, 332–7; Braun, Juan de Mariana, 19–22, 25–6, 81–91.
8
Tomás y Valiente, ‘La monarquía española del siglo XVII’, 12, 34–7, 95–7; Elliott,
Olivares, 181–2.
9
Thompson, ‘Absolutism, Legalism and the Law’, 196–7, 220–2, 226; Thompson,
‘Oposición política y juicio del gobierno’, 47–8, 50–1; McKendrick, Playing the King,
15–41.
10
Santa María, Republica y policia christiana, ff. 195r–v, 206r, 216v–17r; MacKay, Spain in
the Middle Ages, 136–42; Varey, ‘The Audience and the Play at Court Spectacles’, 399–406.
11
Salmon, ‘Catholic resistance theory’, and Lloyd, ‘Constitutionalism’, both in Burns
and Goldie (eds.), The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 237–40, 296–7; Truman,
don Gaspar de Bracamonte was imbued with the academic interpretation
of the universities, but he was now finding that it was in his interests to
adopt the more authoritarian outlook of the new regime that had come to
power with Philip IV’s accession to the throne. In this context, his treatise
reconciled the different ideologies by qualifying the community’s trans-
ferral of its authority to the king as having taken place ‘by the providence
of God’.12 The writer’s marriage of discrepant viewpoints no doubt stood
him in good stead, for the Cámara’s objections to his appointment were
overruled, and he was duly sworn in as a full councillor of Orders on
13 March 1628.
Yet there was something not quite right about Bracamonte’s reasoning.
Here was a treatise that was addressed to the valido, but made no explicit
reference to the valido’s intervention in the appointments process.
Regardless of whether the king owed his authority to his subjects, or to
God, or to both, could it in any way be justified for Philip IV to delegate
his power of patronage to one particularly favoured minister? Writers
from the university traditions that had inspired Bracamonte’s discourse
were pretty emphatic that the answer was no.13 Towards the end of the
sixteenth century, authors like Giovanni Botero, Francisco Suárez, and
Juan de Mariana had condemned the practice outright.14 Others, like
Pedro de Rivadeneira, were concerned that favourites, who were not true
friends of the king, might use flattery and bad counsel to encourage him
in his worst inclinations.15 By the second decade of the seventeenth
century, criticism against the delegation of royal power to a favourite
had become strident enough for Philip III to be so perturbed about
having signed away his responsibilities to the duke of Lerma that he
was widely understood to have made a moving deathbed repentance for
his failings as a monarch.16 When his son came to the throne in 1621, any
repetition of his father’s style of government would be out of the ques-
tion, and Philip IV immediately made a celebrated declaration that he had
Spanish Treatises on Government, 283–4, 290–2; Saavedra Fajardo, Idea, 112–15, 124–5,
128–32.
12
BNM Ms. 2359, f. 158v. For the notion of divinely bestowed authority as delegated
to the king ‘mediately’ by the community, see Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought, 224–5.
13
Feros, ‘El viejo monarca y los nuevos favoritos’, 16–22.
14
Botero, Della ragion di stato libri dieci, 79, 81–2; Mariana, The King and the Education
of the King, 228, 342–6, 350; Feros, Kingship and Favoritism, 117–18; Braun, Juan de
Mariana, 3–4, 63, 92, 118–19.
15
Rivadeneira, Historia eclesiástica del cisma; Rivadeneira, Tratado de la religión y
virtudes, 189–90, 207, 221–2, 227, 558–62, 586.
16
Santa María, Republica y policia christiana, ff. 38r–v, 206r–v, 214v–17r; Almansa y
Mendoza, Obra periodística, 169, 170; Cespedes y Meneses, Primera parte de la historia de
D. Felippe III, 69–70.
no need for privados, but would rule personally, sharing his time with his
family, and taking professional advice from his ministers and councillors.17
The new king was intelligent, well educated, and already had some famil-
iarity with treatises on good government, which may even have been used
by his tutors in his upbringing.18 Yet, at only sixteen years of age, he was
still young and inexperienced, and as John Elliott has emphasized, he
was encumbered by a sense of inadequacy that made him look for help
to Olivares.19
Once the count-duke’s valimiento had become established, some
writers were anxious to benefit from what it had to offer, and adapted
their views to conform to the prevailing political situation.20 Yet there was
also an abiding and painful awareness that the count-duke’s regime ran in
contradiction to received ideas of good kingship. The conflict between a
desire to curry favour and an uneasiness about the legitimacy by which
such favours were being distributed could manifest itself in different ways.
Authors might apply severe or impossible conditions to their recognition
of the king’s right to delegate his authority in this way. They might
enumerate and condemn instances of favouritism in the ancient and
medieval worlds, whilst turning a blind eye to the contemporary situation.
They would often express their views with ambiguous phrases, or resort to
panegyrics that might be double-edged in meaning. It was not uncommon
for writers to dedicate their treatises to the valido of the day, whilst making
no effort to shape their discourses in accordance with the views and
behaviour of the person to whom they were presented. For example, in
1627, Mateo López Bravo offered the second edition of his De rege et
regendi ratione, a work that criticized government by valido, to none other
than the count-duke of Olivares.21 At about the same time, the latter
was also a recipient of the first part of Francisco de Quevedo’s Política de
Dios, a discourse on good and bad counsel, where the role of the privado
was to proclaim and exalt his master’s majesty, rather than usurp it.22
17
Anonymous, ‘Sumario de las nuevas de la corte’, 343.
18
Braun, ‘Conscience, Counsel and Theocracy’, 60–1, 201 (n. 28); Braun, Juan de
Mariana, 97–100; Bouza, El libro y el cetro, 115–17, 157, 366–76; Hoffman, Raised to Rule,
75–6, 183–4, 186–8, 215.
19
Elliott, Olivares, 162, 171–2, 179; Brown, ‘Artistic Relations’, 51.
20
Maravall, Teoría del Estado, 15–20, 308–12; Tomás y Valiente, Validos, 121, 125–6,
134, 149, 151–2, 202–6.
21
The relevant passages are to be found at ff. 97r–9r of the 1616 edition, and ff. 58r–9v
in the 1627 edition.
22
Quevedo, Política de Dios, 102–6, 118. For this writer’s awkward relationship with
Olivares, see Elliott, ‘Quevedo and the Count-Duke of Olivares’, 190–4; Ettinghausen,
‘Quevedo ante dos hitos en la historia de su tiempo’, 87, 96, 98–100; Cacho Casal,
‘Quevedo contra todos’, 897–9, 913–16.
For Quevedo, the king had to imitate Christ for the salvation of his soul,
and for the good of the monarchy as a whole.23 This meant hard
work, and if he failed to fulfil his God-given responsibilities, not only
would he lose the respect of his subjects, but he would risk the fate of his
immortal soul.24
At the time Quevedo was writing, he was closely associated with the
government, and found himself proclaiming an ideal view of kingship that
was completely at odds with reality. Another writer in a similar situation
was the count of La Roca. A few years after Olivares’ death, La Roca
published a history of the fourteenth-century Trastámaran usurpation
under the title of El Rei D. Pedro defendido (Madrid, 1647). His biog-
rapher, Carmen Fernández-Daza Álvarez, has identified this text as general
criticism of validos, and a specific attack on Olivares.25 There is much to
support such a reading. Peter the Cruel is portrayed in this text as a young
and vulnerable king, prone to the temptations of women, and to the
distractions of festivities and entertainments, as well as dangerously sus-
ceptible to the influence of favourites.26 An obvious parallel was being
suggested between Philip IV’s court in the late 1620s, and the turbulent
situation that had existed 250 years before. Nevertheless, La Roca’s
empathy for the count-duke is well documented, and El Rei D. Pedro
defendido seems to amount to a description of the repercussions of
government by valido, as well as a sympathetic analysis of the people
who found themselves in such a dangerously all-powerful predicament.
The author made a clear allusion to the contemporary situation in a speech
of self-justification placed in the mouth of Juan Alonso de Alburquerque,
the favourite of Peter the Cruel.27 This medieval valido protested that he
had dedicated his life to the king’s service and for the good of the
kingdom; but his efforts had done no more than bring down upon him
all the opprobrium of the government’s critics. It was an obvious allusion
to Olivares’ predicament.
The prevailing uneasiness about the misallocation of royal authority
does not seem to have existed in quite the same way elsewhere. In England
and France public criticism against favourites tended to appear in theat-
rical productions and satirical verses. It amounted to personal and specific
attacks against the likes of Concino Concini, or the dukes of Luynes and
Buckingham, and was the outcome of jealousy, or political disagreement,
23 24
Quevedo, Política de Dios, 73, 77. Ibid., 79–81, 103–4, 114–15.
25
Fernández-Daza Álvarez, La Roca, 485–94. I am grateful to José Luis Colomer
for bringing this book to my attention.
26
La Roca, El Rei D. Pedro, ff. 4r, 6v–7v, 12v, 21v, 28v.
27
La Roca, El Rei D. Pedro, ff. 19r–21r.
or the mistakes made by these individuals.28 In Spain, on the other hand,
whilst these forms of criticism certainly existed, there was also a more
general and rationalized abhorrence of the minister favourite that was
firmly rooted in academic scholarship, and which made it seem as though
it were the rulers themselves who were at fault. Moreover, Philip IV’s own
concern that he was failing to live up to the required ideal of personal
kingship exacerbated the problem still further by preventing him from
making an open acknowledgement of the situation. This, in turn, left the
valido without a title of appointment, instructions, or oath of office, any of
which might at least have defined and legitimized his powers. The fact that
his position was unregulated meant that he could potentially do whatever
he wanted. He could govern through private committees of hand-picked
advisors, ignore, or even suppress, the views of the king’s legally instituted
councillors, and introduce his own clients anywhere within the state
machinery, and without regard for formal structures of promotion.29 Yet
the ambiguity of his position also left him at the mercy of the king’s whim,
and of the suspicions of the rest of political society.30 In essence, this lack
of clarification made the valido’s position at once immensely privileged,
but also extremely precarious.
In the absence of institutional constraint, and faced by the need to
‘prove himself ’ to the king and before his critics, the temptation to resort
to extravagant measures was hard to avoid. Olivares quickly tied his
colours to the pursuit of prestige policies abroad. He made the wars in
the Netherlands and Germany (which he had inherited when he entered
office) a central part of his programme.31 He then went on to complicate
Spain’s commitments in Europe through a disastrous military interven-
tion in northern Italy in 1628.32 Although the full-scale war that later
began with France in 1635 may not have been entirely his fault, efforts to
bring about a solution to these conflicts during the 1620s and 1630s
were hardly made with much serious intent.33 In fact, the escalation in
foreign policy commitments was all to the advantage of the individuals
28
Sharpe, ‘The Earl of Arundel’, 227–34, 241–3; Kettering, Power and Reputation,
1, 27, 80–1, 218–19, 227–8.
29
Tomás y Valiente, Validos, 67, 96, 106–7; Thompson, ‘The Institutional Back-
ground’, 15, 18–19; Thompson, ‘El valido arbitrista’, 314–15.
30
Benigno, La sombra del rey, 129–30, 134–5.
31
Elliott, Olivares, 65–6, 214–15, 224–5; Elliott, ‘Foreign Policy and Domestic Crisis’,
120–5.
32
Elliott, Olivares, 337–45; Oresko and Parrott, ‘The Sovereignty of Monferrato’,
47–56.
33
Israel, The Dutch Republic and the Hispanic World, 225–6; Elliott, Olivares, 236,
350–1, 353–4, 357–8, 519–23, 583–4, 600; Parrott, ‘The Causes of the Franco-Spanish
War’, 86–8, 95–104.
responsible, because it enhanced the situations of dependency that they
held with their king.34 Things reached their logical conclusion in the
military and political crises of the 1640s. As Catalonia and Portugal
seceded from the monarchy, people who had always been worried about
the king’s failure to fulfil his responsibilities became united with those
who were less concerned about the issue of the valido in general, but were
now very alarmed at what this particular valido had been doing.35
For a few years after Olivares’ departure in 1643, Philip IV made a
serious attempt to rule as a personal monarch with the assistance of his
councils. In fact, it would not really be until the end of 1646 (at the very
earliest) before don Luis de Haro could be considered to have emerged
as Olivares’ replacement. Even then, Haro did not come to possess the
titles and appointments necessary to substantiate his position until 1648.
Although he would enjoy near universal authority for the following eight
or nine years, he could never be completely certain of the king’s favour. In
1656–7, a number of international setbacks would force Philip to make
his valido more accountable for what he was doing. In 1659, a diplomatic
triumph achieved against all odds at the Pyrenees restored his position, but
the king still wavered, and there were clear signs that if Haro had not died
when he did in November 1661, he may not have been able to hang onto
his position for much longer. That winter, Philip IV once again declared
his intention to take control of affairs, and for the last four years of his life
he ruled without a minister-favourite, instead delegating different aspects
of his government to four or five carefully chosen ministers. In his final
testamentary provisions the king left it patently clear that he did not want
a valido situation to re-emerge during his son’s minority.36
The contradictory behaviour of the monarch and the seeming incon-
sistency of writers like López Bravo, Quevedo, and La Roca were reflected
across the broader political elite. By the 1640s, don Gaspar de Bracamonte
had acquired the title of count of Peñaranda, and his perceptions of
kingship were becoming increasingly outspoken. The execution of Charles
I of Great Britain in 1649 gave him the occasion to make a blunt reminder
that ‘it is the people who instituted and gave authority to kings for their
defence and preservation, and if [the king] abuses this authority, those
who gave it to him can take it away from him’.37 Peñaranda’s outlook,
running, as it did, in complete contradistinction to the ideal of absolute
monarchy and the reality of government by valido, was also reflected by a
34
Elliott, ‘Staying in Power’, 116, 121.
35
MC, ii, 233–44; Elliott, ‘A Non-Revolutionary Society’, 76–7, 80–2.
36
Testamentos de los Reyes, iv (Testamento de Felipe IV ), articles 21–53.
37
CODOIN, lxxxiv, 365. Also cited in Stradling, Philip IV, 301.
scholar from within his own circle. In 1655 Francisco Ugarte de Hermosa
published a treatise on kingship entitled Origen de los dos goviernos divino i
humano i forma de su exercicio en lo tenporal. The book was dedicated to
the count, who possessed a copy of it in his library, and it is not difficult to
discern a coincidence in the views of writer and patron.38 As the title
suggests, Ugarte’s book dealt with the origins and legitimate uses of royal
authority, precisely the subject that Peñaranda had himself written about
twenty-eight years before. However, Ugarte was not as shy as his patron
had been in dealing with the valido question. For this writer the king had
been accorded his authority by God, and thus had to follow God’s
example, and govern in his own person. If he did not do so, he could
legitimately be deprived of his authority.39 Such a view may be taken as
reflecting Peñaranda’s own ambivalence about the political situation in
which he found himself. He may have thrown his lot in with Olivares and
Haro, but his involvement in their methods and policies would become
increasingly uneasy as he found himself in Münster, Brussels, Prague, and
Frankfurt having to implement diplomatic agendas with which he was
often only half in agreement.
COURTIER AND INTERCESSOR
In a situation where even the valido’s principal allies were concerned about
the system of government that he represented, don Luis de Haro had to
pay particular attention to how he responded to the needs and sensibilities
of his fellow aristocrats. In this respect, his behaviour and actions were
closely in accordance with the stipulations of a different group of treatise
writers, whose works have been described by Antonio Feros as embodying
a positive discourse on favourites.40 We have seen how the robust aca-
demic approach to kingship associated with scholars like Suárez and
Mariana flatly rejected the king’s delegation of his responsibilities to a
chief minister. Yet there were also commentators, who, at least on the face
of it, seemed more sympathetic towards the valido, and whose approach
to the problem involved a move away from serious political theory
towards a completely different genre of literature—that of treatises on
courtly behaviour.
From about the turn of the seventeenth century, an attempt began to be
made to legitimize the valido by resorting to the analogy of the king’s
38
BNM Ms. 21292(4).
39
Ugarte de Hermosa, Origen de los dos goviernos, 151, 174, 217–18, 233–4.
40
Feros, ‘Images of Evil, Images of Kings’, 211–14; Feros, Kingship and Favoritism, 264.
relationship with an ideal friend, who would act as his confidant, as well as
help shoulder the burden of government.41 Writers who used this argu-
ment sought inspiration in classical literature, and in the renaissance
idea of the courtier as defined in Castiglione’s famous treatise of 1528.
Castiglione’s described a nobleman who held the favour of the prince
thanks to his personal accomplishments, and whose relationship with the
ruler was an ideal one, of the kind described by the ancients.42 Yet
seventeenth-century writers treated their subject in a more complex way.
They wrote in a Tacitean style that lent itself to double-meanings. They
often made use of a panegyric tone that appeared to praise a perfect valido,
whilst drawing attention to the gulf that existed between the person being
described in the text, and the real one, who was governing Spain in the
king’s name. Most importantly, this literature embodied a very strong
element of conditionality: it was permissible for the king to have a valido,
but only provided that his relationship with the valido were a perfect
friendship, and that the valido were a perfect courtier.
The perfect courtier had to be noble, modest, even-handed, all things to
all men, affable (in the sense of being gracious and approachable), urbane,
discreet, and able to leave everyone who met him conscious that he held
their interests at heart.43 This advice, which had been common enough in
the sixteenth century, was supplemented in the seventeenth by newer
recommendations of a more practical (arguably a more cynical) nature.
Personal qualities became a means to an end in a political struggle for the
prince’s favour. The courtier now had to be patient in adversity; he had to
mind how he enjoyed the exclusive confidence of the monarch so as not to
enflame the jealousy of his rivals; he had to be able to simulate qualities
that might not be natural to his personality, and he had to dissimulate his
true character and feelings. Whilst it had always been important for him to
be conscious of his honour, he now had to be perpetually aware of
personal and public relations, and he had to be able to manage and
manipulate those around him.44 Finally—and in implicit recognition
that the monarch’s reliance on a favourite was in no way a natural state
of affairs—he had to keep in mind the temporary nature of the king’s
41
Rivadeneira, Tratado de la religión y virtudes, 560–2; Maldonado, Tratado del perfecto
privado, 770, 772, 788; Tomás y Valiente, Validos, 131–4.
42
Cicero, On Old Age, On Friendship, On Divination, ‘Laelius on Friendship’, Books v–vii,
xvii–xviii, xxvii; Cassiodorus, Letters, Book i, letter 43; Book v, letters 3, 40; Castiglione, The
Book of the Courtier, 137–9, 284–9.
43
Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, 54–67, 87–8, 128–9, 141–2, 147–8, 151;
Maldonado, Tratado del perfecto privado, 789–93, 799; Fernández-Santamaría, The State,
War and Peace, 256–8.
44
Burke, The Fortunes of the Courtier, 119–24; Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, ‘Corte y
cortesanos’, 317–23, 339–41; Reinhardt, ‘Sotto il “mantello della religione” ’, 85–8.
favour that necessitated acceptance of misfortune as an incentive to virtue
and a prelude to eternal life.45
Nobody encapsulated this evolution in perceptions better than the
Jesuit, Baltasar Gracián. In 1646 he published El discreto, whose twenty-
five chapters (or realces) went together to present to the reader a universal
man, who was perfect in every way. The theme of the book was discretion,
and discretion, for Gracián, was the defining quality for a new nobility in a
new age.46 Discretion meant an understanding of how to live one’s life
successfully in this world, and it incorporated a series of practical qualities,
such as perspicacity, discernment, patience, self-knowledge, dissimulation,
experience, nonchalance (‘despejo’), and the ability to perceive things as
they really were (‘desengaño’). The next year, in 1647, Gracián published
his Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia, a compilation of 300 aphorisms
that defined a fully complete individual, capable of eliciting and main-
taining the admiration and respect of all around him. According to the
Oráculo, such a person had to have self-control, and be familiar with his
assets and shortcomings.47 He had to enjoy good fortune, but also needed
to be provident, and possess the ability to succeed through his own
ingenuity.48 He would have an ease of manner and winning temperament,
knowing how to make friends and make use of them, and possessing the
necessary modesty and tact to avoid upsetting the envious.49 In Gracián’s
vision, the world was a battleground for those seeking pre-eminence, so
there was also a darker side to his perfect courtier, who was somebody who
had to dissimulate his true intentions and emotions.50 Friends were there
to be used for personal advancement, and there was little room to be
compassionate about the unfortunate, because to associate with losers was
to tarnish one’s reputation.51 Appearances, artifice, even flattery were
legitimate tools for advancement; and reputation was the most highly
valued commodity.52 Yet, for all that, Gracián still sought to present the
qualities of a good man, caught up in an impossible situation, someone
who had to play his cards close to his chest, but who also needed to
45
Burke, The Fortunes of the Courtier, 86–95; Colomer, ‘Carta del desprezio de la
dignidad ’, 383–4.
46
Egido, Introduction to her edition of El discreto, 14, 17–18, 22–3, 25, 90 (n. 61).
47
Gracián, Oráculo, aphorisms, 8, 34, 52, 69, 89, 161, 167, 194, 222, 225. 238. There
is a recent English translation of this work by Jeremy Robbins: The Pocket Oracle and Art of
Prudence (London, 2011).
48
Gracián, Oráculo, aphorism 256.
49
Ibid., aphorisms 22, 32, 40, 42, 77, 79, 83, 85, 106, 117, 122–4, 148, 184.
50
Ibid., aphorisms 98, 120, 133, 155, 160, 253.
51
Ibid., aphorisms 26, 31, 144, 149, 163, 187, 197, 258.
52
Ibid., aphorisms 126, 130, 152, 153, 160, 172.
be guided by a genuine sense of morality.53 Ultimately, reputation and
appearances on their own were never sufficient without truth, merit,
intellect, application, and virtue. In the struggle to succeed, courtesy was
‘the most important political charm of great people’, but appearances
ultimately had to reflect reality.54 All the actions of the truly successful
individual ‘if not those of a king, should be worthy of one, . . . and in all
things, he should represent a king by his merits, . . . for true sovereignty
amounts to the integrity of one’s customs’.55
Gracián was interested in the overt political implications of personal
qualities and modes of behaviour, and he was not alone. Gaspar de Seixas y
Vasconcelos, writing in 1645, believed that there could be nothing worse for
the state than someone who was haughty, passionate, and severe. For Seixas,
the ‘supremo ministro’ (he was careful to avoid using the term ‘valido’) had to
exercise the qualities of patience, affability, moderation, and composure.
This author dedicated particular attention to the business of holding
audiences in such a way that, regardless of the outcome, the supplicant
did not go away feeling resentful or dissatisfied. The trick was to give full
attention to petitioners, and patiently allow them to talk on without
interruption, thus offering a form of satisfaction that cost nothing, and
which could be followed up by the communication of bland and affection-
ate generalities.56 Another author in the same tradition, Father Manuel de
Náxera, wrote in 1660 of the importance of courtesy in healing wounded
feelings, of modesty in winning friends and assuaging the jealous, and (like
Gracián) of how misfortune inevitably followed on from indiscretion.57
It might be argued that these treatises made recommendations that were
impossible to fulfil. How could the valido, at one and the same time, lend
a polite ear to all and sundry, ensure that he maintain the king’s affection
(whilst not usurping the monarch’s superior position), play a central role
in the direction of a global monarchy, and still be broadly accepted by
political society? The numerous requirements for the perfect courtier seem
to suggest that writers, who apparently favoured the king’s resort to a
valido, were hedging their acceptance of such a figure with so many
qualifications that they would really prefer him not to exist at all. Never-
theless, there was, as it happened, a credible precedent for a favourite,
who was understood to have possessed just these attributes, and to have
enjoyed ascendancy during the reign of a monarch whom everyone
53
Ibid., aphorisms 24, 96, 168, 179–81.
54
Ibid., aphorisms 32, 40, 175, 199, 296, 298, 300. The quotation comes from
aphorism 118.
55
Ibid., aphorism 103.
56
Seixas y Vasconcelos, Trofeos de la paciencia christiana, 28–9, 68–9, 78–9.
57
Náxera, En azañas de David, 54, 237, 242, 320–1; Gracián, Oráculo, aphorism 185.
recognized as a model ruler. This was Ruy Gómez de Silva, prince of
Eboli, who had been very close to Philip II during the 1550s and 1560s,
and who would provide a point of reference for later writers scrabbling for
inspiration to justify the valido.58 James Boyden has suggested that Ruy
Gómez personified Castiglione’s courtier in his physical attractiveness,
learning, and horsemanship. These were the qualities that allowed him
to flourish at court, whilst his modesty and amiable self-effacement
provided tools to survive amidst jealous rivals.59
The seventeenth-century writers willing to countenance the political
influence of a royal favourite therefore seem to have been advocating a
move away from the count-duke’s ministerial model of a valido, and back
towards the idea of someone like Ruy Gómez de Silva, a courtier who held
the favour and friendship of the king thanks to his personal accomplish-
ments, but did not seek to dominate the ruler or usurp his authority. One
might furthermore suggest that for these writers Haro represented the
qualities of a perfect courtier, albeit updated to meet the new requirements
of the times. Manuel de Náxera addressed him in a letter of dedication as
the ‘example of affability to the powerful’.60 Gracián’s Oráculo was also
offered to Haro, as the true model for which the book’s contents
amounted to an imitation.61 Towards the end of Gracián’s El discreto
the various qualities of the perfect nobleman are shown to be united in
the person of Haro, who encapsulated them all, and personified the
most important aspect of discretion, which was the virtue of integrity
(‘entereza’).62
As well as the specific links of dedication that existed between Haro and
these seventeenth-century writers, contemporary descriptions of don Luis
seem to have reflected very closely the attributes that they listed. In the
letters of those who met him, as well as in his own correspondence, he
comes over as possessing many of the attributes listed by treatise writers. It
was as a courtier—with everything that this entailed in terms of the careful
cultivation of individual relationships—that he most impressed foreign
diplomats. In the summer of 1645, the resident of the duke of Modena
compared Haro favourably with the other ministers in Madrid. He had
just been to see four members of the Council of State, but detected in all
of them ‘a hint of veiled indifference’, yet with Haro his reception was just
58
Pérez, introductory letter (1594) to his Norte de principes, 17–18; Brancalasso,
Labirinto de corte, 92–3; Hoffman, Raised to Rule, 189–90.
59
Boyden, The Courtier and the King, 118–25.
60
Dedication to Haro in Náxera, Panegiricos.
61
Gracián, Oráculo, 94. The dedication was written by Gracián’s patron Vincencio Juan
de Lastanosa.
62
Gracián, El Discreto, 352–3.
as he could have wanted it. Don Luis expressed appreciation that the
envoy should have chosen to come to him, and seemed to discourse ‘with
great candour and sincerity, promising to represent everything to His
Majesty’.63 The English royalist ambassadors who arrived in Madrid a
few years later were similarly impressed:
The favourite here is a right worthy person and hath the most generous sense
of our master’s condition and misfortunes that I have seen in any man,
and . . . a civility most proper and applicable to business, without any other
pomp of words than is necessary to let you see that he means very well. . . .
His nature (by what I hear or can observe) seems to me to flow most to
friendship and acts of kindness and less inclined to animosity and unchar-
itableness, than hard hearted men think necessary to give lustre to the
other.64
These ‘acts of kindness’ manifested themselves in numerous ceremonial
courtesies. When Camillo Massimo arrived in Spain in February 1654
with a papal appointment as nuncio, circumstances dictated that he be
refused admittance to Madrid.65 Haro’s words to Massimo were full of
regret: he had only just received his letter, and so had not been able to
reply until now, and after the king had already made his decision. Yes, of
course, he remembered Massimo’s uncle from when the latter had served
as nuncio in Madrid during the 1620s, and he would have wished
Massimo to have come now under different circumstances, so that he
might demonstrate his full esteem for him and his family. Such as things
were, however, Haro was restricted in what he could say by the turn of
events, and ‘by the sincerity of my obligations, as Your Illustrious Lord-
ship will understand’.66 After more than a year spent in an isolated village
in the province of Cuenca, Massimo was finally recognized as nuncio and
admitted to Madrid, but only to have the office removed from him in
the summer of 1658 by the new pope Alexander VII. Doubly slighted, he
had to venture once again across the arid Castilian plain. Yet to show that
there were no hard feelings on the Spanish side, a messenger came after
him with the gift of a diamond from the king, and a letter of consolation
from Haro,
because I did not want to omit saying to you in these lines how upset I am to
see Your Most Illustrious Lordship travelling at a time of such heat, and how
happy I will be to hear from Your Most Illustrious Lordship the good news of
63 64
ASMo Spagna, 55: 26 July 1645. Bodl., Ms. Clarendon 39, ff. 102r–v.
65
Signorotto, ‘Aristocrazie italiane’, 67–8; Beaven, An Ardent Patron, 137–9, 141–2,
166, 179.
66
BL Ms. Additional 26850, f. 20r.
your safe arrival . . . the which [news] I wish Your Most Illustrious Lordship
may continue to send me for the rest of your journey.67
To the modern reader, these attentions may ring hollow. Yet in a less
cynical age, and one in which the expression of relationship between
individuals was much more precisely defined and more publically dis-
played, these solicitous details, or ‘finezas’ as they were known, meant a
great deal. The old royalist soldier, George Goring, who spent his last
years in Madrid, wrote of Haro’s ‘tendernesses’ towards him.68 The earl
of Bristol, who was with Charles II’s retinue at the Pyrenees in 1659 (and
who may have been misidentified by the Spaniards as the English king’s
valido), wrote that ‘don Luis seems so sincere a person that, having taken
me into his care, and having begun with a present, made considerable by
just excuses that it was not more, I venture to Madrid upon it’.69 Again
and again, the same adjectives and characteristics spilled from the pens of
the foreign diplomatic community. As early as 1641, the Venetian
ambassador was reported by the count of La Roca to have said how he
had found Haro to be ‘most courteous, urbane [“suave”], wanting to
help, and generally well loved’.70 In January 1658, another Venetian
described him as ‘calm, urbane, patient, courteous, phlegmatic and
indefatigable’.71 People noticed that he had an incredible ability to pacify
heated tempers, and remarked on his talent at bringing petitioners and
foreign ambassadors around to his own point of view—skills that coin-
cide with the advice of Gracián and Seixas on how to deny petitioners
their requests without giving offence.72 For Domenico Zane (this time
quoting the count of La Roca) negotiating with Haro was like ‘playing
catch with a glass ball, where skill was at a higher premium than strength,
and where one had to throw the ball at the right time and where the
game required’.73
Was the correlation between the descriptions of Haro by foreign
envoys, and the very similar stipulations set out by the writers of treatises
for how the perfect courtier should behave, anything more than a coinci-
dence? The English and Italian diplomats, whose observations have just
been recounted, knew Haro personally, and the same can be said for a
number of the treatise-writers. Náxera was a Jesuit, who was active as a
preacher in the convent of the Descalzas Reales and in the royal court.74
Seixas was a loyal Portuguese living in exile in Madrid. Gracián was in
67
BL Ms. Additional 26850, f. 263r. Also ASV Spagna, 117, f. 383r.
68 69
TNA SP 94/43, f. 123. Bodl., Ms. Clarendon 64, f. 200v.
70 71
RAH Ms. 9/88, f. 35r. RAV, 271.
72
Gracián, Oráculo, aphorisms, 70, 73, 132; Seixas, Trofeos, 78–9, 84–90.
73 74
RAV, 273. Negredo, Predicadores, 453.
Madrid and Zaragoza during the early 1640s, and had friends in common
with Haro amongst the erudite circles of these cities.75 Yet the require-
ments that they enunciated for the successful politician were also symp-
tomatic of the adaptation of a literary genre for a different purpose than it
had originally been intended. Treatises on courtliness now seemed to
count as political theory, at least in their acknowledgement of the valido
as a fact of life, in their justification of his existence as a friend of the king,
and in their requirements for how he should behave. What didactic role (if
any) this literature may have played is difficult to know. Noblemen bred
up in the court appear both to have acted as models for the treatise writers,
and to have assimilated their stipulations in such a way as to make the
behaviour that this literature described their own.76 Haro’s library,
although it did contain some courtier literature by the likes of Castiglione,
Guevara, and Brancalasso, was more notable for the presence of texts on
political philosophy by Juan de Mariana, Justus Lipsius, Jean Bodin, and
writers in the anti-Machiavellian tradition.77 One might therefore con-
jecture that being a perfect courtier was so central to his make-up that he
would have had much less need of treatises on this subject than of more
rigorous works that set out the rules for what kings were and were not
supposed to do.
Of course, personal accomplishment on its own could not make a
valido and guarantee his survival. He also needed to be seen to manage
royal favour in an inclusive way that went beyond the advancement of a
small group of friends and their families. In other words, he had to act as a
general intercessor between the king and the aristocracy. An important
allusion to such a role can be found in Father Andrés Mendo’s treatise
Principe perfecto, y ministros aiustados (Salamanca, 1657), which was an
adaptation of a much larger Latin work by Juan de Solórzano Pereira, his
Emblemata centum, regio politica of 1653.78 Both writers made conditional
allowance for the king’s employment of a supreme minister.79 However,
Mendo was more explicit than Solórzano with regard to his depiction of
the valido’s relationship with the ruler, and with the rest of noble society.
At the heart of his argument was the assertion that
75
Batllori, Gracián y el barroco, 60–1, 78; Coster, Baltasar Gracián, 315–16; Malcolm,
‘En las márgenes’, 85–6, 88–9, 93 (n. 53).
76
Bouza Álvarez, ‘Escribir en la corte’, 87–9. See also Valladares, ‘Méndez de Haro y
Guzmán, Luis’, 449.
77
AHPM 6239, ff. 264v–93v, items 28, 103, 201, 250, 256, 352, 461, 514, 516, 519.
78
I have used the expanded third edition of Mendo’s work, which was published at Lyon
in 1662. For its relationship to Solórzano’s text, see Selig, ‘Concerning Solórzano Pereyra’s
Emblemata regio-politica’, 283–7.
79
Mendo, Principe perfecto, documento LXVII, 40–2; Solórzano, Emblemata, 452–3.
the privado must bring relief to the prince, and by the polish of his manner,
temper the rigour of cares and events, and by being allowed to speak for all
it will be easy for him to intercede on behalf of everyone without prejudice
to any.80
The image here was of a supple courtier, proffering a helping hand to the
king, as well as a conduit between the ruler and the rest of the nobility.
One might argue that Mendo was describing the official line: one that
represented the valido’s relations with king and nobility in such a way that
neither ruler, nor favourite, nor the aristocratic readership of such works,
would have had qualms about acknowledging. He dedicated his treatise to
Philip IV, whose conduct he continuously and explicitly held up for
admiration. For Mendo (and Solórzano), Philip was the príncipe perfecto
for whom the presence of this perfect valido was implicit and acceptable
alongside the ministros ajustados.
It was as an intercessor before the king that Haro sought to present
himself. He cultivated a welcoming manner towards petitioners, and readily
reassured foreign diplomats that he was the person with whom they should
do business. He also freely encouraged noblemen in the belief that he could
obtain for them what they wanted. The vocabulary of intercession is
everywhere to be found both in the letters that he wrote, and in those
that were addressed to him. In 1649, the king’s natural son, don Juan de
Austria, looked to Haro (‘in whose intercession I await my solace’) to resolve
his differences with the count of Oñate.81 In his testament of 1658, the
magistrate don Antonio de Feloaga claimed to owe everything to Haro, to
whom he commended his wife and children, asking that he favour them
‘and intercede with His Majesty so that he give them the reward that
I might expect’.82 Perhaps most touching are the words of the countess of
Oropesa, estranged from her husband, and writing to the king from a
convent in which she had taken refuge:
I am assured of Your Majesty’s protection in the misfortune that has befallen
me, of which don Luis de Haro will give you account, so that, in full
knowledge of the circumstances, Your Majesty will take pity on me, favouring
me in this sorry business, as befits the sorrow that it has caused and the anguish
in which it has placed me.83
Haro’s intercession also worked in the opposite direction. As valido it was
his job to make sure that royal orders were properly obeyed, and he often
80
Mendo, Principe perfecto, documento LXVII, 42 (emphasis mine).
81 82
RAH Ms. 9/103, f. 164r. AHPM 6280, ff. 637r–v.
83
ADA 220/14: countess of Oropesa to Philip IV, Convento de San Benito, Cuenca, 26
October 1652.
backed up the king’s letters to ministers in the field with his own more
personal missives. When money was required to send soldiers from the
Netherlands to Spain, the only available source of funds was to be found in
Naples. The resources of this kingdom tended to be earmarked for Italian
commitments, and so it was considered necessary that Haro should make a
personal request for compliance from the duke of Arcos, who was viceroy
of Naples, and the valido’s brother-in-law.84 Several years later, in 1656,
the marquis of Almonacid wrote to Cardinal Trivulzio, the interim
governor-general of Milan, asking that his revenues from the State be
released for him, as the king had ordered. In doing so, he included a letter
from Haro, in which the valido reinforced the marquis’ request in the
following terms:
I did not want to omit to accompany his [the king’s] letter with these lines to
beg of Your Eminence (as I do with all sincerity) to see fit to obey His
Majesty’s order, because, as well as being so much in accordance with the
royal will, Your Eminence will be doing me a very personal favour.85
The implication was clear: royal orders were to be obeyed when it was
convenient, but they had to be fulfilled when a personal request was made
by the king’s chief minister. This practice of intercession was recognized and
accepted, as essential to government, and Haro seems to have acted with a
considerable degree of impartiality, almost as though he were attempting to
build up and maintain a reservoir of recognition and gratitude. He also
seems to have been rather too free with his promises, thus potentially risking
his credibility when supplicants did not get their way. Reading their letters
one finds a wide range of emotional reactions to their encounters with Haro:
confidence, hope, disillusion, outrage, despair. And yet people kept coming
back to him, and open expressions of disrespect were rare. The unfortunate
marquis of Castañeda lamented that for all the encouragement that Haro
had given to him, no proper reward after his forty-six years of service was
forthcoming,
but in this I submit to what Your Excellency deems is most convenient to the
royal service, and without wavering for a moment in my confidence, once
again do I turn to Your Excellency’s protection to beg that you take pity
on me.86
The English royalist ambassadors of Charles II were likewise greeted in the
autumn of 1649 with welcoming reassurances, only to be asked to leave
84
AHN Estado libro 966, ff. 33v, 134r, 153r.
85
ASMi Uffici Regi, Parte Antica, carteggio 63/7: Haro to Trivulzio, 26 April 1656.
86
ADA Osera 3/3: Castañeda to Haro, 16 March 1645.
fifteen months later with nothing to show for their efforts. Like Castañeda,
they bore no personal resentment. Haro had, after all, procured them a
fine house for their stay in Madrid, ensured the payment of their expenses,
and resolved all manner of little complications that had arisen over the
course of their stay.87 Nearly everyone who encountered don Luis
expressed a similar liking for the favourite, and even those who did not
were still prepared to swallow their pride and seek his intercession. As the
person known to possess the ear of the king, the valido inspired trust, and
for those disappointed in their aspirations, the bad news could be wrapped
up in personal expressions of friendship and consoling reassurances of a
better outcome next time.
CONCLUSION: SOME ADVICE FOR DON

BALTASAR CARLOS
What is clear from the foregoing is that Haro was falling over backwards to
create an image of himself that legitimized the unacceptable. Apart from
the relatively small number of apologists who were directly connected with
him, or were anxious to become so, nearly all treatise writers continued to
be nervous about the king’s delegation of his authority to a single minister.
They tiptoed around the problem, using vague, often contradictory,
language. Some sought to define the perfect valido in the context of
treatises on manners, which previously had next-to-nothing to do with
ideas about kingship and the nature of royal authority. Others looked for
inspiration in biblical and ancient history, and tied themselves in knots
amidst good and bad precedents. Those associated with the valido’s regime
often said one thing and did another, or combined condemnation of the
practice with sympathy towards the practitioner. Moreover, in the light of
the disasters that afflicted the monarchy during the early 1640s, and the
profound sense of alienation experienced by almost all of political society,
there could be no repetition of the kind of government that had been
practised by Olivares. If rule through a valido were to be allowed to continue
at all, it would have to be presented in a very different way. Haro therefore
cultivated a low-key and inclusive approach to the management of royal
authority in which he acted as the nobility’s representative before the king.
This was all very well, but there was no knowing how much authority the
king could legitimately accord to him, how much authority Haro might
87
Bodl. Ms. Rawl C. 726, ff. 14r, 44r, 93r; Clarendon, History, v, 71–8, 92–3, 150–1,
157.
come to wield, nor how Haro might seek to use this authority when the
going got tough.
During the 1640s, a wave of literature was directed at the heir to the
throne, Baltasar Carlos, in the hope of inculcating within him the more
personal form of government that had come to be associated with Philip II.
Diego de Tobar Valderrama was insistent on the inseparable nature of
royal sovereignty.88 Pedro de Figueroa reverted to the idea of the prince as
God’s representative on earth, with the responsibility to bear the weight of
government alone.89 The most lucid assessment of the damage that could
be caused by the king’s neglect of his responsibilities was provided by
Diego de Saavedra Fajardo. His monumental treatise, Idea de un príncipe
politico christiano, was first published in Munich in 1640, and quickly
reappeared in a second edition at Milan in 1643.90 The historian Francisco
Tomás y Valiente, who identified the significance of this work as a key to
understanding the valido problem, grouped its author among those writers
who were not opposed to the existence of a valido, but insisted that he be
properly subordinated to the king.91 This assessment is legitimate up to a
point. In the 49th empresa of the Milan edition, Saavedra certainly did argue
in favour of a single minister to assist the ruler in the bureaucratic tasks of
government, to oversee the other ministers, and to act as mediator between
the king and his vassals—provided the ruler was very careful about the terms
of their relationship.92
So far so good, but Saavedra Fajardo’s intelligent and very qualified
acceptance of the minister-favourite in the 49th empresa was over-
shadowed by the much longer 50th empresa, which amounted to a full-
blown examination of the negative repercussions of royal favouritism.
Here, the author painted a picture of the valido as a dangerous destabil-
izing force. He suggested numerous different ways in which a valimiento
might come about, all of them liable to give rise to a regime that was
dependent for its survival on a whole range of desperate stratagems.93
Saavedra’s principal point of reference was Tacitus, and many of his
examples of how ancient Roman favourites, like Sejanus, abused their
power had a contemporary resonance. Sharing out all the best offices of
88
Tobar Valderrama, Instituciones politicas, 120, 128–9.
89
Figueroa, Aviso de principes, 17, 58–60, 72–5.
90
The Milan edition bears the date 1642, but was almost certainly published after
Olivares’ withdrawal from court in January 1643. See Bireley, The Counter-Reformation
Prince, 188, 193, 196–7.
91
Tomás y Valiente, Validos, 134, 139–41.
92
Saavedra Fajardo, Idea, 337–9, 340–1; Tomás y Valiente, Validos, 106–7.
93
Saavedra Fajardo, Idea, 344–8. A similar argument had been put forward by Friar
Juan de Santa María, although not in such explicit detail: Republica y policia Christiana,
ff. 211r–v, 214v–15r.
state amongst the servants, relations, and friends of the favourite; under-
mining the ruler’s relations with his family and subjects; distracting him
with the diversions of a hedonistic lifestyle; keeping him away from court,
so that he could only be reached by the valido’s trusted lieutenants;
imposing an excessively strenuous work schedule that would leave the
king reaching in desperation for a solicitously proffered helping hand—
these were all devices that, with a bit of imagination, could be associated
with either Lerma, or Olivares, or both.94 Most significantly, Saavedra
showed how the valido often had no actual interest in the success of the
monarchy. Rather, he benefited from sailing the ship of state through high
seas and rough waves, so that the frightened prince would become ever
more dependent upon his assistance.95
Yet, having said all that, Saavedra went so far as to cap his warnings in
the earlier Munich edition of 1640, with a eulogy of the count-duke of
Olivares. In the Milan edition this disappeared. Over the course of the
intervening three years, the outbreak of revolts in Catalonia and Portugal,
and the fall of his one-time protector, had significantly altered the author’s
viewpoint. Now, in the Milan edition of 1643, instead of praising Olivares,
Saavedra went to the other extreme. The advice that he presented to
Baltasar Carlos is worth quoting at length, because it is indicative of
how government by minister-favourite had come to be perceived by the
end of the Olivares era:
I have outlined, most serene Lord, the contrivances of validos. But not in
such a way that the prince should feel he has to govern with them—in order
not to presuppose that he is to have them at all. For, even though he is
allowed to incline his will and his favour more to one person than to another,
it is not right that he should substitute his power in one who comes to be
recognized by the people as having dominion, reward, and punishment,
because such a valimiento is an alienation of the crown. In such cases,
government is inevitably in danger, even when the royal grace has been
correct in its choice of individual, because neither obedience nor respect are
paid to a valido in the way that they are owed to a prince, nor is the valido’s
attention directed towards the universal wellbeing, nor does God have in His
hand the heart of the valido, as He holds that of the prince. And thus,
although many of Your Highness’s ancestors had validos, who with great
attention and zeal (like those of today) wanted to do the right thing, they
either failed in their good intentions, or they forfeited the fruits of office.96
Clearly, Saavedra Fajardo would have preferred the prince not to resort to
such a figure at all, a conclusion which is borne out in the closing lines of
94 95 96
Saavedra Fajardo, Idea, 351–4. Ibid., 353. Ibid., 362.
the 50th empresa of the later Milan edition. Here the author moved
away from Roman history to the contemporary world, and the ruin that
he believed to have been brought about by the ministry of Cardinal
Richelieu.97 The message was spelt out explicitly with regard to France,
but could be applied by deduction to the situation of Spain: the failure of
rulers to take into their own hands the reins of government was directly
responsible for the wars and upheavals of the mid-seventeenth century.
Within the Idea de un principe-politico christiano, we see the sharpest
encapsulation of the valido problem, and it came from a diplomat in the
king’s service, who had previously been closely associated with Olivares.
As will be shown in later chapters, other members of the governing elite
were reaching similar conclusions, but they were usually reluctant to
acknowledge that these abuses were taking place in Spain. Diego de
Saavedra Fajardo was presenting the same confused double standard as
we saw at the beginning of this chapter with don Gaspar de Bracamonte.
Although the latter had avoided discussing the question of the valido in his
1627 memorial to Philip IV, he would not be so hesitant when he came to
make much the same allegations about Cardinal Mazarin as Saavedra had
made of Cardinal Richelieu. Here were protégés of the validos seeking to
define ideal systems of personal royal government that contradicted the
means of their own advancement. The double standard could hardly have
been missed by its principal practitioner, Philip IV. The few references
that the king made to his relationships with validos were inconsistent,
alluding on some occasions to sixteenth-century treatises on good govern-
ment, and on others to the softer courtier literature on which more recent
writers tended to draw. Haro, as the personification of the second dis-
course, was clearly vulnerable to a change of heart on the part of a
monarch who was all too aware of the requirements of the first.
97
Ibid, 362–3.
2
The Royal Family and Its Entourage
The following chapter will examine how and where Philip IV spent his
life, and will provide an introduction to the people with whom the king
was on closest terms. Research into the courts of the English and Scottish
monarchs has often shown them to be private environments that overlapped
and competed with the public authority of government.1 Another line of
investigation has explored the ways in which the royal entourage might
contribute (both positively and negatively) to how monarchs presented
themselves to their subjects.2 Both approaches—that concentrating on a
politics of intimacy, and that dealing with the projection of the ruler’s image
before his or her subjects—are relevant to the Spanish court. For Haro, the
king’s entourage was both a potential danger, and a basis of support. For
Philip IV, it was a reflection of his identity as a personal ruler. Yet, there is
also a need to correct some misconceptions. The court of the Spanish
Habsburgs has often been seen as a place where the monarch was kept
hidden from his subjects, invisible for most of the time to all but a small
number of highly privileged officials. It certainly was true that Philip II and
Philip III preferred to live out of sight from their subjects, and this may have
served to encourage the practice of valimiento. However, Philip IV was
different. He was surrounded by many more people than is often realized,
and he was also a man with clear ideas of his own about palace protocol, and
about the identity of the much smaller number of trusted courtiers, secre-
tarial staff, and religious advisers with whom he interacted on a daily basis. It
is of obvious importance to know who these people were.
ACCESS AND PROTOCOL
Back in the 1540s, Charles V had established a household for his son, the
future Philip II, that was based on the elaborate rituals that had been
followed by the fifteenth-century dukes of Burgundy. The intention had
1
Starkey, ‘Intimacy and Innovation’, 77–82, 107–17; Adamson, ‘The Making of the
Ancien-Régime Court’, 12–13; Adamson, ‘The Tudor and Stuart Courts’, 108–14.
2
Sharpe, ‘The Image of Virtue’, 226–60; Hammer, ‘Sex and the Virgin Queen’, 77–97.
been to enhance the magnificence of the heir to the throne, as well as to
present him in such a way as to encourage his future Netherlandish
subjects to accept a Spanish prince as one of their own.3 The detail of
‘Burgundian’ ceremony as it was practised by the Spanish Habsburgs was
very different from what it had been a hundred years before at the court of
Dijon.4 Yet, the overall effect was similar: it encouraged a remote style of
kingship, with the ruler’s public appearances limited to a very finite
number of occasions that were carefully choreographed to augment a
sense of splendour. Most of the evidence that we have for the Spanish
court in the early modern period relates to those great occasions when the
royal family was on show. For the rest of the time they lived out a more
comfortable, if less magnificent, existence, in which there was an under-
standable temptation to hide from the public gaze. Philip II’s very eremitic
court style was thus perpetuated into the seventeenth century, with his son
spending a lot of his time at a distance from the centre of government, in
the company of his family and only a very small number of attendants.5
After 1621 the situation changed. Philip IV would usually spend over
nine months of each year residing with his government in the Alcázar
palace, which was a much greater amount of time in Madrid than had
been the case with his predecessors. His ability to do this was the outcome
of an architectural innovation that took place at the beginning of the reign,
when a set of apartments was constructed in the lower floors of the palace
on the north-east side of the building.6 They provided the royal family
with comfortable lodgings facing onto the palace gardens, which meant
that they did not have to retreat to the Escorial during the hot summer
months as their predecessors had done. The king thus remained in the
same place for most of the year around, and was regularly to be seen by his
subjects, as he visited the convents and churches of Madrid, and attended
bullfights and equestrian celebrations.7 Unlike other European monarchs
such as Charles I of Great Britain, who tended to avoid contact with their
subjects, Philip IV presented an image to the world as a public ruler.8
3
Redworth and Checa, ‘The Kingdoms of Spain’, 47–50.
4
Elliott, ‘The Court of the Spanish Habsburgs’, 152–3; Paravicini, ‘The Court of the
Dukes of Burgundy’, 88–9, 100–1.
5
Rodríguez-Salgado, ‘The Court of Philip II’, 212–13; Williams, ‘Lerma, Old Castile
and the Travels of Philip III’, 379–97; Bouza, ‘La majestad de Felipe II’, 46–57; Bouza,
‘Servir de lejos’, 77–80.
6
Orso, Philip IV and the Decoration of the Alcázar, 23; Barbeito, Alcázar de Madrid,
154–7.
7
ACB, Villariezo, Variarum libro 50: ‘Los días que Su Majestad . . . sale a las iglesias y a otras
partes en el discurso del año y fiestas que guarde la villa’; Río Barredo, Madrid, Urbs Regia, 191–7.
8
Richards, ‘ “His Nowe Majestie” ’, 77–86, 89–93.
The Royal Family and Its Entourage 41
Such a situation was potentially a headache for a valido anxious to
control admittance to his master’s presence. Yet Philip IV knew how to
combine apparent accessibility with the projection of an unsettling aura of
remoteness. This much is clear from the protocol surrounding royal audi-
ences. In order to meet the king it was necessary to arrange an interview
through the valido, or one of the king’s principal secretaries, or (if the person
wishing to speak to the king were a diplomat) through the services of the
conductor de embajadores.9 At an agreed time, the visitor would be led
through a series of state rooms along the north wing of the palace to find
Philip waiting in one of the inner recesses of the royal apartments. The king
would listen as a petition or memorial was read aloud, and the meeting
would be concluded by his making some anodyne comment in response.10
It was also possible to hand petitions to the king as he processed through the
palace on his way to attend a service in the royal chapel.11 In either case, the
ruler would pass these documents to a secretary, whereupon they would
be looked at in detail by the relevant council, which in turn would provide
advice on how the king should respond. The king’s interaction with his
subjects was thus, in these instances, purely ceremonial. Foreign visitors
often compared Philip IV to an automaton or a statue, and those who knew
him only slightly better complained that what was said to him just went in
one ear and out the other. The effect was to make this ruler as inaccessible in
practical terms as he would have been if he had been living the secluded
existence of his father or grandfather.12
To be sure, Philip did, on occasion, converse individually with his senior
ministers. When noblemen returned from periods of service abroad, they
would usually have a lengthy private audience with the king.13 He also met
with the Cámara de Castilla every Friday, and there is some evidence to
suggest that he chaired sessions of the Council of State—although the
written records of such meetings are scarce.14 If the monarch’s personal
encounters with his most important ministers were few and far between, his
interaction with those lower down the government hierarchy was scarcely
any different from that of the ceremony for audiences just described.
9
ASMo Spagna, 55: 1 February 1645; Bodl. Ms. Rawl. C.726, ff. 10r, 16r, 39r; Jago,
‘La corona y la aristocracia’, 391–3.
10
Elliott, ‘Philip IV of Spain: Prisoner of Ceremony’, 173; Elliott, ‘The Court of the
Spanish Habsburgs’, 150.
11
Bertaut, 34; DMO, 539, 562; Etiquetas, 89; Deleito y Piñuela, El Rey se divierte,
156–7; Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, ‘Ceremonial de la majestad’, 370–3.
12
AJB, ii, 67; Brunel, 141, 144–6; CSMBB, 139, 221; DMO, 826.
13
ASV Spagna, 120, f. 621r; ASV Spagna, 121, ff. 92r–v; Álvarez de Toledo, Politics
and Reform, 268.
14
AGS Estado K1420 (no. 88); ASMo Spagna, 56: 14 March 1646, 3 July 1647; ASV
Spagna, 111A, ff. 131r, 135r–v; ASV Spagna, 112, f. 481r; Bertaut, 247–8.
A bizarre instance of this can be found in the summer of 1654, when Philip
met with two of his Councillors of Aragon. One of them—the count of
Robres—began to read out a long and detailed report, but his voice became
scarcely audible. When he had finished, the king uttered a generic response,
Robres tried to make a bow, but stumbled, and had to grab hold of the arm
of Philip’s chair, before being helped out of the chamber by his companion.
He had suffered a stroke that would leave him paralysed on his right
side. The source for this incident—don Cristóbal Crespí de Valldaura—
did not indicate whether Philip asked his minister to speak more clearly so
that he could be properly heard, nor whether he in any way altered his
demeanour as the situation became more alarming.15 One suspects that the
royal composure remained impassive throughout. For those who came away
from Philip’s presence more fortunately than the count of Robres, the
impact for many of them must often have been dampened by a growing
sense of disappointment and even futility at having tried, and failed, to
make any kind of impression upon such an inscrutable monarch.
The reality was that access to the royal family, and the influence that
might arise therefrom, was only of any relevance with the much smaller
group of aristocrats who dedicated their lives to the immediate service of
the king and queen, and their children. It was usually the heir to the
throne who was most susceptible. Lerma and Olivares had each managed
to establish their political authority as a consequence of the personal
ascendancy that they had respectively achieved over the future Philip III
and Philip IV when the latter were still princes. It was also in no small
degree the obsession of these validos with controlling who had access to the
prince that proved their undoing—Lerma by renouncing many of his
responsibilities towards Philip III in the hope of cultivating the future
Philip IV; and Olivares by his reluctance to allow Baltasar Carlos to have a
household at all.16 Similarly, very careful measures were taken to restrict
access to the queen. Protocol relating to her attendants was defined by sets
of regulations (etiquetas), which set out the duties, prerogatives, and rights
of entry to her apartments.17 Yet it took more than palace regulations
to prevent a determined royal consort from having her way. Isabel of
Bourbon, the first wife of Philip IV, broke free of the controlling measures
of the countess of Olivares in order to flourish as a competent and popular
regent of Castile during the last three years of her life. Nor did the etiquetas
15
DCCV, 89.
16
Novoa, 119; Williams, ‘Lerma, 1618’, 315–20; García García, ‘Honra, desengaño y
condena de una privanza’, 685–6; Feros, Kingship and Favoritism, 235; Filippini, Coscienza,
51–3, 69; Hoffman, Raised to Rule, 42–4.
17
La Válgoma, Norma y ceremonia, 26–7, 28, 98–9; Kamen, Philip of Spain, 102,
205–6.
4–6. State rooms, respectively sala de
guardia, saleta, and antecámara.
6 5 4 9. King’s lunch room.
12. Pieza oscura.
13. Portrait gallery.
15. King’s office.
24. King’s bedroom.
30. Chapel.
12
15
30 24
13
Figure 2.1 The room arrangement on the principal floor of the Alcázar Palace,
Madrid. The numbering refers to that of a groundplan and description of the
Alcázar produced by Juan Gómez de Mora in 1626. Author’s drawing
have much real effect in bringing order to the queen’s household. During
the 1650s and early 1660s, Mariana of Austria’s entourage was under the
chaotic regime of don Gaspar de Moscoso Osorio, the sixth count of
Altamira. The latter was a nephew of the duke of Lerma, who had managed
to survive the fall of his uncle, and hold office as master of the queen’s horse
and lord steward of her household for nearly all of Philip IV’s reign. During
Altamira’s later years, a succession of royal decrees testify to the king’s
painful awareness that decorum surrounding his consort was hopelessly
going by the board.18 Yet, politically, this was not a problem. Where
Mariana of Austria’s views are discernible they seem to have coincided
closely with the Austrian biases of her husband, her Jesuit confessor, and
the valido himself.
In the king’s household some element of disorder was also unavoid-
able.19 This was all the more so because of the sheer number of aristocrats
who were allowed into the royal apartments. Figure 2.1 shows a plan of
the room arrangement of the royal apartments in the Alcázar palace.
Anyone of social or political consequence could enter some or all of the
state rooms along the north wing of the building. Councillors of Castile,
18
ACO Castrillo legajo xliii/2: 4 February 1660; AGP Histórico 55/7; AHN Estado
libro 104: Montalto to Castel Rodrigo, 19 June 1659; Malcolm, ‘La práctica informal del
poder’, 44.
19
AHN Estado libro 869, f. 227v; ASMo Spagna, 55: 8, 15 February 1645; MHE, xiii, 48.
most titled aristocrats, foreign ambassadors, and the sons of grandees,
could reach as far as the north-west tower.20 A council president could
speak to the king in the so called pieza oscura, which was located near to
the royal office on the south-west corner of the king’s apartments.21 Any
grandee—and there were as many as seventy-three of them by the second
half of Philip IV’s reign—had right of access as far as the portrait gallery on
the south wing of the building, which was only two rooms away from
where the king slept. Councillors of State enjoyed this same privilege.
The king would also hand out posts of gentlemen of the chamber to
noblemen appointed to army commands, or diplomatic offices. It was an
accreditation intended to enhance their authority as people whose sup-
posed intimacy with the ruler gave them a claim to speak in his name.
Although these were gentlemen of the chamber ‘without exercise’, they
were still provided with keys to the doors of the palace, and were allowed
to be present in the room in which the king dressed.22 For example, the
count of Peñaranda was made gentleman of the chamber without exercise in
January 1645. This was at the same time as his appointment to represent
Philip at the peace conference at Westphalia, and for a few weeks before his
departure for Germany this former magistrate was allowed to wait upon the
king ‘with cape and sword’.23 Other titled aristocrats, like the marquis of
Osera, held the slightly lesser rank of gentleman of the chamber de capona,
which nonetheless gave them the right to attend the ruler at mealtimes, and
present him with petitions without having a formal audience.24 At the
beginning of Philip IV’s reign, the practice was getting out of hand, with
the young ruler visibly overwhelmed by so many gentlemen of the chamber
of different varieties.25
The problem of overcrowding and disorder was exacerbated by the
haphazard regulation of the king’s household. It was governed on the basis
of a collection of instructions, ordinances, and oaths of office that had
been issued over the previous hundred years.26 When confusion arose, the
20
AGP Histórica 55/7: consulta of the Bureo, 17 March 1625; royal order to the Bureo,
15 April 1625.
21
DCCV, 67.
22
Carrillo, Origen de la dignidad de grande, ff. 9v, 32v–3v (n. 21). See also Gómez-
Centurión, ‘Etiqueta y ceremonial palatino’, 971; Martínez Hernández, ‘La cámara del rey
durante el reinado de Felipe IV’.
23
AHN Estado legajo 6408: royal decree, 10 January 1645; AHN Estado libro 869,
f. 263v.
24
ADA Montijo 17: Osera to don Joseph de Villalpando, 18 August 1657; DMO, 874,
895, 979, 981, 982; Bertaut, 201–2.
25
Góngora, Epistolario, 120. For a list of the gentlemen of the chamber with and
without exercise in 1623, see González Dávila, Teatro de las grandezas, 316.
26
Gómez-Centurión, ‘La herencia de Borgoña’, 18.
deciding voice usually came from the palace servant who possessed the
longest experience, and best recollection of how things had been done in
the past.27 However, in 1647, the king sought to place the management of
his entourage on a sounder footing by commissioning the first full set of
etiquetas for his own household. Over the next four years a special
committee drew up a very detailed list of regulations that carefully defined
the duties, privileges, and rights of access of nearly 2,000 servants and
courtiers, as well as the ceremonial procedures to be followed on a whole
series of public occasions.28 The object of the exercise was not (as has
sometimes been argued) for the valido or anyone else to be able to exert a
tighter control over who could, and could not, approach the king. The real
purpose of these written regulations was to bring clarity to existing
practices at a time when many courtiers were confused about, or simply
could not remember, what duties they were supposed to fulfil, and which
parts of the palace were open or closed to them.
The historian Carlos Gómez-Centurión suggested that the outcome of
the 1651 etiquetas was to bring a halt to an evolution in protocol that had
taken place over the previous hundred years.29 This was no doubt what
Philip IV would have wanted. His aim was to project an unchanging vision
of kingly magnificence. This was why he treated nearly everyone around
him with the same polite but distant and non-committal indulgence. It was
the side of him that was witnessed by the members of his councils, the
diplomatic community, and all those who complained that he acted like a
statue and did not listen to a word of what they were trying to say. Yet, it is
unlikely that his attempt to set palace regulations in stone was all that
effective. The royal households remained places where the rules were often
only discreetly adhered to, and this meant that the Alcázar remained just as
interesting a place during the later decades of the seventeenth century as it
had been before.30 In the meantime, the king had to spend his daily life
surrounded by hundreds of courtiers and officials, most of whom he did not
know very well. His mask of remoteness is therefore understandable as a
means of maintaining impartiality, composure, and personal independence
within an environment in which everybody looked to him for their survival
and advancement. It was a busy, oppressive, sometimes chaotic, usually
magnificent world, and one over which the adult Philip IV, in as far as was
possible, remained in control.
27
La Válgoma, Norma y ceremonia, 18–19, 24–5, 56, 117–18; Elliott, ‘The Court of the
Spanish Habsburgs’, 152.
28
Orso, Art and Death, 13 (n. 1), 19 (n. 19).
29
Gómez-Centurión, ‘La herencia de Borgoña’, 21–2.
30
SPM, Journal, iii, 556–8; Maura Gamazo, Carlos II y su corte, i, 290–3; La Válgoma,
Norma y ceremonia, 47, 107–15.
LIFE BEYOND THE ALCÁZAR
Towards the end of his time in office, Olivares lamented to his brother-in-
law the count of Monterrey that a busy minister-favourite was lucky if he
could spend as much as fifteen minutes with the ruler in a day, and that
the idea that he might somehow be able to seal off the king from malicious
gossip was out of the question.31 This may well have been the case, but
from the evidence presented in the previous section it seems highly
unlikely that the mature Philip IV would have taken notice of court
tittle-tattle, nor that there would have been much real opportunity for
an aspiring factional player to whisper slander in his ear. Olivares and
Haro were in fact very fortunate that regardless of the crowds of people
who had some right of access to the king, the number of his close
companions was actually very limited. They amounted to a handful of
courtiers, secretaries, clerics, and family members, most of whom Philip
had known for a very long time. It was with these people that he engaged
in daily intercourse, and it was with them that there was indeed a likelihood
for a politics of intimacy to occur. The people to whom the king might
lend a willing ear can be identified as those who accompanied him when he
left Madrid. So, having considered life within the Alcázar palace, it is time
now to move beyond its walls and give attention to the world outside.
For five years, between 1642 and 1646, Philip IV spent the summer
months in Aragon in order to be near his army, which was endeavouring
to recapture and hold onto the Catalan town of Lérida.32 During these
visits he could be seen and approached by his soldiers and vassals in what
amounted to a highly successful public-relations exercise that was further
enhanced by shorter royal visits to Valencia and Pamplona. In July 1643,
the royal procession that trundled out of Madrid was quite small.33 Two
trumpeters came first, followed by a coach containing five gentlemen of
the chamber—the marquises of Aytona, Mairena, and Fromistá, don
Jaime Manuel de Cárdenas, and don Luis de Haro. Next came the king
with the marquis of El Carpio riding on one side of his coach and the
count of Grajal on the other. Bringing up the rear was the rest of
the household under the orders of the count of Barajas. Others would
join the party along the way, or arrive separately at Zaragoza. Amongst
them would be the royal confessor, and chief almoner, as well as the king’s
private secretaries, and the captains of the royal guards. Philip would also
be assisted by a single representative of the Cámara de Castilla for matters
31
AHN Estado libro 865, ff. 92v–3r. See also Elliott, Richelieu and Olivares, 58.
32 33
Stradling, Philip IV, 214–21. AP, 411; León Pinelo, Anales, 328.
of domestic policy, as well as by a small committee that advised him on the
conduct of the war, and was known as the Junta Particular. The latter
included the counts of Monterrey, Chinchón, and Oñate, with don
Fernando Ruiz de Contreras as secretary. These people amounted to
Philip IV’s intimates, and when they arrived in Zaragoza on 20 July
1643 the local authorities were delighted that there were not more of
them!34 Of course this small party would have been followed by a much
larger quantity of lesser servants and officials. The following year, in 1644,
302 mules were provided to transport the baggage of a retinue that
included twelve chapel staff, nine secretaries, a dozen doctors, surgeons,
barbers, and their assistants, four household administrative officials, not to
mention many more valets, kitchen staff, and all the other people who
were necessary to the business of sustaining a court on the move.35
Amongst those who remained in Madrid were most of the members of
the foreign diplomatic community, and without the regular reports and
letters of news that they sent to their governments, it is difficult to know
what was happening around the king when he was in Aragon. Yet glimpses
of this world can still be found here and there. For example, the bishop of
Sigüenza, Friar Pedro de Tapia, was able to behold the royal retinue as it
travelled through the small town of Atienza in the spring of 1646.36 As
well as Philip and Baltasar Carlos, the important members of the party
included the marquis of El Carpio, who was master of the horse, the count
of Grajal, and the duke of Alburquerque, who were gentlemen of the
chamber, the royal confessor Friar Juan Martínez, the secretary Ruiz de
Contreras, and don Antonio de Contreras (no close relation) from the
Cámara de Castilla. Also present was the count of Castrillo, who was a
Councillor of State, and was accompanying the king on his travels for the
first time. The party arrived at Atienza on 16 April to find the bishop
awaiting them to kiss hands with the king and prince. During their
conversation, Tapia congratulated Philip on his recent decision to close
the theatres.37 In contrast to the king’s normal manner of celebrating
audiences in the Alcázar, Philip showed pleasure at renewing acquaintance
with the bishop, paid attention to what he said, and ‘responded very
specifically, and with words of much favour’. At 7 a.m. the next morning,
the king attended mass in the company of the marquis of El Carpio and
the count of Castrillo, and after the service, the bishop greeted the king a
34
AP, 416.
35
AGS GA legajo 1565: ‘Lista del carruaje que sirve a Su Majestad y su casa esta jornada
de la Corona de Aragón’, 1644.
36
BNM Ms. 2276, ff. 64r–v. See also Johnson, ‘Factional Politics’, 27, 129.
37
For the broader context of this conversation, see Malcolm, ‘Public Morality’, 101–7.
second time, and talked at length with Castrillo. He also provided gifts of
food and wine for the journey, which were received ‘with great courtesy’,
whilst the lackeys and servants were provided with money totalling about
135 ducats. At a third encounter, Tapia offered to donate to the army a
substantial quantity of wheat and barley, for which Philip thanked him
profusely, before the king and his companions sped off in haste towards
Pamplona, where the Cortes had been summoned so that the prince could
swear to abide by the laws and privileges of that kingdom. This episode,
though incidental in significance, is valuable because it shows Philip in a
different, less formal environment, attended by a much smaller group
of courtiers, without a valido at his side, and freely interacting with
his subjects.
After the permanent re-establishment of the court in Madrid in the
autumn of 1646, normal routines were resumed. Although the king spent
considerably less time outside the Alcázar than his father and grandfather,
he still made regular visits to the other royal palaces. Figure 2.2 shows the
landmarks of the king’s regular peregrinations into the countryside. He
would usually go hunting at the Pardo to the north of Madrid for two or
three weeks in January, often with a few days spent further afield at
Colmenar Viejo. Shrovetide would be spent at the recently constructed
Buen Retiro palace on the eastern outskirts of the capital, before the royal
family returned to the Alcázar for Easter, and then moved to Aranjuez for
several weeks in the second half of April and early May. This was a palace
built at the confluence of the Jarama and Tagus rivers about thirty miles to
the south of Madrid, amidst gardens that had been extensively developed
in the sixteenth century. Back in Madrid by the early summer, a few more
weeks would be passed at the Retiro, before returning to the Alcázar in
mid-June. However, when Mariana of Austria was pregnant, the move
might be delayed because she found the surroundings at the Retiro more
congenial.38 In the autumn, the king would pass two or three weeks in the
Guadarrama mountains at the monastery-palace of San Lorenzo del
Escorial, before returning to the Alcázar after the feast of All Saints. His
stay at El Escorial was usually broken by a hunting excursion to the nearby
lodge of Valsaín. In addition to these seasonal visits, shorter excursions of
no more than two or three days’ duration would take place, usually to
Valsaín, the Pardo, or Colmenar for as long as the king remained vigorous
in health. There would also be separate visits of a religious nature to El
Escorial and Alcalá de Henares.39
38
AJB, i, 154, 163–4, 167–8, 214.
39
ASV Spagna, 112, f. 171r; ASV Spagna, 120, f. 386r; AJB, i, 113, 118.
Segovia
Valsaín
Ávila
Colmenar Viejo
El Escorial
Alcobendas
El Pardo
Alcalá de Henares
Madrid
Loeches
Navalcarnero
Valdemoro
Aranjuez
Ocaña
Toledo
Figure 2.2 Central Spain, showing Madrid and the surrounding cities and vil-
lages, with the principal country palaces and hunting grounds of Aranjuez, El
Escorial, Valsaín, El Pardo, and Colmenar Viejo. Author’s drawing
Something of the atmosphere of these country sojourns can be gleaned

from the king’s letters to the ninth countess of Paredes. She had entered
the palace on the death of her husband in 1637, shared a close relationship
with Isabel of Bourbon, and served as governess of the king’s children,
before taking the veil as a Carmelite nun in 1648.40 Philip continued to
write to her after she left the palace, often describing the happy family life
that he enjoyed after his second marriage in 1649. Hardly had the new
queen arrived than there took place a meeting at the Escorial with Philip’s
40
AGP Registro 182, ff. 36r, 50r (first foliation), 127r (second foliation); Novoa, 225;
Anonymous, Caída de su privanza, 10; Salazar y Castro, Lara, iv, 374.
daughter by his first marriage, the Infanta María Teresa, who was just four
years younger than her new step-mother:
they are great friends and very well matched, and greatly at ease in this place,
because they go out into the country, and we have [the actor] Juan Rana as
our guest who is still as full of mirth as you left him. We will be here until All
Saints and then shall go to the Retiro.41
Next spring the ‘young people’ were excited about going to Aranjuez, and
upset to have to return to Madrid after the country air had done them such
good. The following year they were all looking forward to their visit to the
Pardo and the Escorial.42 In 1652, news of the recapture of Barcelona
reached the king at Valsaín, and he immediately went back to San Lorenzo
where he found his ‘parientas’ in fine form, and ready to return to Madrid
for the thanksgiving at Santa María de Atocha.43 And so the story of Philip’s
happy domestic existence went on. In June 1653, the young people were
thrilled by Juan Rana’s performances at the Retiro, and Philip delighted
with his ‘compañerita’.44 In February 1654, the girls were again being
amused by Rana’s antics. Four years later, they were dividing their time
between the theatrical entertainments at the Retiro and visits to the baby
prince, Felipe Próspero, who had been kept behind at the Alcázar.45
In England it was remarked that James VI and I had two councils, with
the one at Newmarket being the more important, and the same might be
said of Philip IV’s attendants at Aranjuez, the Pardo or the Escorial.46 It
was at these residences that the king and his family were surrounded by
their true intimates. Heads of household departments, like don Luis de
Haro, the marquis of Castel Rodrigo, or the duke of Medina de las Torres,
might be present, but, more often than not, these great ministers remained
behind in Madrid. It was more usual for Philip to be accompanied by no
more than half a dozen acting gentlemen of the chamber, along with a
selection of trusted clerics and secretaries. The queen’s travelling house-
hold would also have included priests, personal secretaries, and her ladies,
of whom there were twenty-four present on her first visit to the Escorial in
the autumn of 1649.47 A snapshot of the court in the countryside—albeit
from a slightly earlier period—can be seen in Velázquez’s painting of a
boar hunt at the Pardo (Figure 2.3). The king, surrounded by his courters,
is shown in the act of spearing a wild boar that had been driven into a
41 42 43
FLEML, 102. Ibid., 127, 130, 139, 160. Ibid., 190.
44 45
Ibid., 200. Ibid., 221, 303.
46
Adamson, ‘The Tudor and Stuart Courts’, 112.
47
AGP Registro 182, f. 133 (second foliation).
Figure 2.3 Detail of Diego de Velázquez’s painting Philip IV hunting wild boar
(La Tela Real). © The National Gallery, London
canvas enclosure. It was either this occasion, or one similar, that was
described by a Jesuit writer in January 1638:
there entered into the enclosure Their Majesties’ coach, along with another
of gentlemen, two of ladies and one containing dueñas de honor. They then
removed the horses from the coaches, and the king got on horseback along
with the count-duke, and the other horsemen went off for the boar that was
to be run in. Taking part in the fiesta were the marquis of El Carpio, don
Luis de Haro his son, the count of Aguilar, the marquis of Almenara, the
marquis of Aytona, the marquis of la Torre and others.48
The ‘others’ would probably have included the constable of Castile, and
the count of Altamira. This select group of people enjoyed an intimacy
with the king that was far in excess of the numerous other noblemen,
thronging the Alcázar apartments in the vain hope of catching the eye of
their emotionally distant ruler. Some of these royal confidants were close
to Haro. Most of the rest were politically neutral. Yet there were always
going to be a few malcontents, and it was on the royal visits away from
Madrid that the risk to the valido would have been greatest.
48
MHE, xiv, 308.
FRIENDS OF THE VALIDO NEAR THE

KING AND QUEEN
Haro had been brought up in the court, and was already an acting
gentleman of the chamber by 1622. He would later become master of
the horse (caballerizo mayor) to the prince in June 1643, before receiving
the equivalent post in the king’s household in the summer of 1648, at the
same time as his appointment as master of the hounds (montero mayor).
Robert Stradling and Andrés Gambra Gutiérrez have drawn attention to
the fact that he never secured the post of groom of the stole (sumiller de
corps).49 This important office had jurisdiction over the king’s gentlemen
of the chamber and valets, as well as a right for its holder to reside within
the walls of the Alcázar.50 In the past it had always been held by courtiers
who had been on very close personal terms with the monarch, but for
much of Philip IV’s reign it was in the hands of Haro’s rival, the duke of
Medina de las Torres. It is very probable that Haro would have liked to
have been sumiller de corps, and that Philip’s insistence that the post
remain with Medina was a signal of the king’s refusal to be surrounded
by the representatives of a single political group.51 Nevertheless, there is a
danger in overstating the relevance of this office, and in exaggerating the
influence of its holder. With the exception of a few weeks at Zaragoza in
the autumn of 1644, the duke of Medina de las Torres was separated from
the king for over twelve years between his departure for Italy in April 1636,
and his re-establishment in Madrid in the summer of 1648. Moreover, even
after his return to court he lacked a relationship of confidence with the ruler,
and was therefore unable to make political capital out of his household
responsibilities, which, as often as not, were performed by somebody else.52
Nor was it possible for him to have impeded Haro’s daily access to the king,
since this was the latter’s right as an acting gentleman of the chamber.
Indeed, it would not be unknown in the eighteenth century for gentlemen
of the chamber, who combined possession of this office with the mastership
of the king’s horse, to be able to undermine the sumiller de corps within his
49
Stradling, ‘A Spanish Statesman of Appeasement’, 23–4; Stradling, Philip IV, 262;
Gambra Gutiérrez, ‘Don Luis Méndez de Haro, el valido encubierto’, 304–5. For the
translation of the term sumiller de corps as ‘groom of the stole’ see Clarendon, History, v, 93.
50
Núñez de Castro, Solo Madrid es corte, 198–9; DMO, 155, 157, 918; Redworth and
Checa, ‘The Kingdoms of Spain’, 45, 50–1; Gómez-Centurión, ‘Al cuidado del cuerpo del
rey’, 206–7, 211–12.
51
ADA Montijo 17: Osera to don Joseph de Villalpando, 19 February 1659; RAV, 136.
52
AGP Administrativo legajo 624; AGP Jornadas legajo 779; Bertaut, 200–1.
own department.53 Although Medina would in time become a threat to
Haro, this would not be until the late 1650s. Until then, the duke’s
situation was isolated and his influence very strictly limited.
Haro also possessed a wide circle of friends and allies within the royal
apartments. They included the counts of Añover and Puñonrostro, and
(interestingly) Lerma’s nephew, the elderly count of Altamira.54 Equally
significant was the constable of Castile, who would work alongside Haro
in the defence of Aragon during the 1640s, and whose younger son would
later become captain of the valido’s personal guard.55 Most important was
probably the count of La Puebla de Montalbán, who fulfilled the func-
tional responsibilities of the mayordomo mayor (lord steward), when the
king allowed this department headship to fall vacant after the death of the
second marquis of Castel Rodrigo in 1651.56 In addition to these male
allies, there were a number of sympathetic women within the queen’s
household. During the early 1640s, Haro’s closest female ally was the
countess of Paredes.57 Later, he would come to enjoy the support of a
number of other ladies of the queen: doña Antonia de Luna and doña
Mariana de Noroña, who were both relations of the count of Peñaranda;
doña Antonia de Moscoso, who was daughter of the fourth marquis of
Almazán; and the Benavides sisters, doña María and doña Luisa, daughters
of the seventh count of Santisteban. There was also the countess of
Humanes, who was sister of Haro’s ally the marquis of Tarazona, and
held the superior rank of dueña de honor. The most important office in the
queen’s household was that of chief gentlewoman of her chamber (camar-
era mayor), which was held for four years after the arrival of Mariana of
Austria by the countess of Medellín. In 1648, she had been a beneficiary in
the testament of Haro’s wife, from whom she had received a devotional
image.58 After the countess’s own death in December 1653, the queen’s
household was governed by doña Elvira Ponce de León, marchioness of
Villanueva de Valdueza, a more independent figure, but whose appoint-
ment may possibly have been engineered by Haro. One might also
conjecture that he had a hand in the choice of his client, the Capuchin
Friar Alexandro de Valencia, as confessor to the Infanta María Teresa.59
The entourage of Mariana of Austria therefore appears to have been a
reasonably safe environment, and, at first sight, the same can be said for
the companions of the king. Philip kept about himself a number of clerics
53
Gómez-Centurión Jiménez, ‘Al cuidado del cuerpo del rey’, 214.
54
AHPM 6311, f. 952r–v, 964, 969r–v, 971r; AHPM 9217, ff. 535–v, 540v.
55
BNM Ms. 2387, f. 57r. 56
Malcolm, ‘Don Luis’, 45–7.
57 58
FLEML, 339. AHPM 6239, ff. 564r–v.
59
AGP Registro 182, f. 149v (second foliation); AHN Estado libro 869, f. 212v.
and secretaries, whose loyalty was obviously of huge importance to Haro.
Under Philip II, the secretaries Francisco de Eraso and Antonio Pérez had
abused their influence, and similar scandals occurred during the following
reign.60 By the mid-seventeenth century, however, the successors of these
officials had been brought into line, and their influence severely curtailed
by the rise of the secretary of the universal dispatch—an administrative
functionary who effectively took over the influence of the once-powerful
secretary of the chamber.61 The secretary of the universal dispatch for
fourteen years from 1646 was Haro’s close ally, don Fernando Ruiz de
Contreras. His role and importance will be discussed more fully in
Chapter 6, but for the moment it can be said that he was in no sense a
threat or a liability to the valido. The same went for Ruiz de Contreras’
two principal assistants, don Francisco de Villamayor and don Pedro
Fernández del Campo, who also followed the king wherever he went.
Equally loyal were Pedro Coloma and Antonio Carnero, old allies of
Olivares, experienced and discreet professionals, who would themselves
briefly occupy the secretaryship of the universal dispatch following Ruiz de
Contreras’ death on 18 July 1660.62
The clergy within the king’s retinue during these years likewise showed
a loyalty that was absent from their predecessors.63 Amongst the royal
preachers, Haro could count on the support of the Jesuit Agustín de
Castro, the Dominican Pedro Yáñez, the Trinitarian Juan de Almoguera,
and the Mercedarian Marcos Salmerón, to name just a few.64 When the
king travelled, he was always accompanied by the head of the royal chapel,
don Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, who also held the dignities of chief almoner
(limosnero mayor) and Patriarch of the Indies. He was the uncle of the
ninth duke of Medina Sidonia, who had conspired against the king in
1641–2, and of doña Luisa de Guzmán, who had become queen of the
rebel kingdom of Portugal. The Patriarch’s continued presence at Philip
IV’s side, despite the behaviour of his close relations, constitutes evidence
in itself that his loyalty was never in doubt. Even more significant amongst
60
Carlos Morales, ‘El poder de los secretarios reales’, 133–45; García García, ‘Pedro
Franqueza’, 22, 34–42; Gascón Pérez, Alzar banderas contra su rey, 125–87; Martínez
Hernández, Rodrigo Calderón, 104–17, 209–21.
61
Discursos de Antonio de Mendoza, 61–3; Gómez Gómez, ‘La secretaría de la cámara’,
167–80.
62
AHN Estado libro 104: Montalto to Castel Rodrigo, 25 July 1660; MHE, xviii,
265–6; DMO, 1021; Elliott, Olivares, 421 (n. 55).
63
AHN Estado libro 869, ff. 284v–5r; ‘Cartas del conde-duque’, nos. 5, 7, 15; MC, ii,
272–4.
64
AJB, ii, 96; Valdenebro y Cisneros, La imprenta en Córdoba, item no. 187; Matilla
Tascón, Testamentos, 223; Negredo, Predicadores, chapters II.1.2, II.2.2, II.3.2. In 1646.
Salmerón dedicated to Haro his Rapsodia funebre.
the king’s religious companions was his confessor, whose advice is likely to
have been similar to that of the more rigorous political philosophers
described in Chapter 1. Yet most of Philip IV’s confessors appear to
have been politically neutral. Research by Nicole Reinhardt has drawn
attention to a reluctance on the part of the clergy to compromise them-
selves by close involvement with the government.65 This would account
for their quite limited representation within committees (juntas) during
the second half of Philip IV’s reign, and may help explain the very low-key
role taken by the royal confessor Friar Juan Martínez. Despite being
responsible for the royal conscience from the late summer of 1644, Martínez
was not actually confirmed in his post until September 1648.66 The delay
was possibly out of consideration for Friar Antonio de Sotomayor, who had
been retired some years earlier, and died in that month.67 However, it might
also have signified a period of probation, for there is evidence to suggest that
during the early 1640s, Martínez had connections with noble malcontents,
which would have led him to tread very carefully following the disgrace or
maginalization of these individuals.68 Whatever the case, his survival as royal
confessor, like don Alonso Pérez de Guzmán’s continued control of the royal
chapel, seems to have been a consequence of the willingness of both of these
senior clergymen to stay out of politics.
ACTING GENTLEMEN OF THE CHAMBER
Much of what has been said so far in this chapter would suggest that don
Luis de Haro did not really need to worry about the king’s entourage.
Philip IV was a visible and accessible monarch at the centre of a busy
court; he took care in the selection of his companions; and seems to have
been impervious towards anybody who might have sought to bend his ear
in private conversation. His charming family was uninterested in politics,
or was as yet too young to make a difference. Most of the people with
whom the king kept company were either politically neutral or were
friends of Haro. Nevertheless, the latter was clearly concerned enough to
take precautions. He made sure to place men of his own, such as Damián
Goetens, don Melchor de Alvear, and the second marquis of Guadalcázar
65
Reinhardt, ‘Spin doctor of conscience?’ 579–80, 588–9. I am very grateful to
Dr Reinhardt for having shared with me relevant sections from her forthcoming book:
Voices of Conscience.
66
AGP Expedientes personales 636/11.
67
Negredo, ‘Gobernador en la sombra’.
68
AHN Estado libro 869, f. 245v; AHPZ P-1/81/9: Híjar to Philip IV, 28 March 1646;
AHPZ P-1/81/18.
on the staff of the palaces around Madrid.69 He also arranged for the
appointment of clients like don Juan de San Martín and don Pedro de
Azcona as valets within the king’s chamber (supposedly Medina’s juris-
diction). San Martín acted as a witness to Haro’s testament in 1658.
Azcona saved the valido’s life at the battle of Elvas the following year, and
would go on to act as his lord chamberlain at the time of the Pyrenees
negotiations.70 The fact that Haro saw a need to take these precautions
suggests that he was worried. Apart from the duke of Medina de las Torres,
who else within the king’s aristocratic entourage might have been a threat?
It was the acting gentlemen of the chamber who provided the biggest
potential problem, so it is worth pausing to consider who these people
were.71 What follows should be read with reference to Table 2.1, which
seeks to pinpoint membership of the king’s retinue at different intervals
during the second half of the reign. Of those appointed before 1643, the
only ones who represented a significant threat were the duke of Medina de
las Torres, the marquis of Aytona, and don Fernando de Borja. Most of
the rest had been close allies of Olivares and would show similar loyalty
towards his nephew. This was the case with the marquises of Mirabel and
Leganés, and the constable of Castile—even though their ministerial
duties prevented them from spending much time with the king. More
useful was Haro’s father, the fifth marquis of El Carpio, who was one of
Philip’s constant companions until his death in August 1648. The count
of Grajal, who followed El Carpio to the grave a couple of weeks later, was
also reliable. Similarly, the second marquis of Castel Rodrigo, despite his
old enmity with Olivares, shared very good relations with Haro during
his three last years in Madrid. This left the duke of Terranova and don Jaime
Manuel de Cárdenas, the seventh duke of Nájera. Both were away from the
king’s side for significant periods, and both appear to have been much more
concerned about punctilios of ceremony than about political intrigue.72
Of those chosen after 1643, the duke of Alburquerque and the count of
Medellín were neutral figures, and the tenth admiral of Castile, after a
difficult period in the late 1640s, would become one of Haro’s principal
supporters by the end of the following decade.73 Equally reliable were the
69
RAH Ms. 9/1074, ff. 21r, 53r, 57r, 176r–v, 198r–9v (first foliation), ff. 65r–7r
(second foliation); Varey, ‘La mayordomía mayor’, 150–4, 158; Baltar Rodríguez, Juntas,
467 (n. 1022).
70
BL Ms. Egerton 336, f. 209v; AGP Administrativa legajo 624; DMO, 890, 1045;
León Pinelo, El Gran Canciller, p. clxxiv.
71
AGP Administrativo legajo 633.
72
Tercero Casado, ‘La jornada de la reina Mariana de Austria’, 658–61.
73
ASMo Spagna, 55: 20 September 1645; ASMo Spagna, 56: 2 October 1646;
Clarendon, History, v, 79–80; DMO, 868.
Table 2.1 The king’s acting gentlemen of the chamber (sections in white indicate presence at the king’s side)
Date of 1640 1641 1642 1643 1644 1645 1646 1647 1648 1649 1650 1651 1652 1653 1654 1655 1656 1657 1658 1659 1660 1661 1662 1663 1664 1665
admittance
Second marquis of Jan 1616 Absent from court between March 1628 until Jan 1648. Returned to Madrid in Jan 1648;
Castel Rodrigo appointed Lord Steward on 20
April 1649. Died 28 Jan 1651.
Don Fernando de 1615 Absent between Sept 1618 until his return to court in 1640. He served Philip IV as acting gentleman of the chamber until the king’s death. He was also master of the horse to the queen (Nov 1652–July 1659), and master of the horse to the king (Dec 1661–Sept 1665).
Borja
Duke of Terranova 1615 Absent in Sicily, Sept 1618–Oct 1643, with Ambassador in Vienna, June 1644 until Nov 1649. Serving as gentleman of the chamber from Nov Ambassador in Rome, Feb 1654 until Serving as gentleman of the chamber from Oct 1657. Died Jan
brief returns to court in 1621, and 1630–4. 1649 until Jan 1654. June 1657. 1663.
Marquis of El 15 July 1621 He also held the offices of master of the hounds from 28 July 1643, and served in Olivares’s stead as master of the
Carpio king’s horse from 30 June 1644. He died on 23 Aug 1648
Don Jaime Manuel 15 July 1621 He served the office until his departure from Madrid in November 1648 in order to escort Mariana of Austria to Spain. Absent from Lord Steward to the queen,
de Cárdenas, court, Nov Feb 1650 until his death in
1648–Feb Oct 1652.
1650.
Ninth admiral of 14 Aug 1621 Absent between Jan 1641 and Oct 1646. Lord Steward from his return to Spain in Oct
Castile 1646 until his death on 7 Feb 1647.
Don Luis de Haro 22 Nov 1622 Also served as master of the king’s horse between 8 Sept 1648 and his death on 16 Nov 1661. Absent from the king’s side: Sept–Oct 1641,
Oct–Nov 1644, July 1645, Oct 1645–April/June 1646, June 1647, 25 August 1658–14 Feb 1659, 7 July–5 Dec 1659.
Duke of Medina de 10 Oct 1624 Absent from court from April 1636 until June 1648, except for four weeks spent with the king at Zaragoza in the Returned to court in June 1648, and served Philip IV as sumiller de corps until the end of the reign.
las Torres autumn of 1644.
Marquis of Leganés 27 July 1624 Absent from court Sept 1635–Dec 1644, and again April Absent in Served Philip IV in Madrid between Nov 1650 and his
1645–Feb 1646. Extremadura, April death on 16 Feb 1655.
1648–Nov 1650.
Constable of Castile 17 Oct 1629 Heavily involved in defence of the frontier Absent in Milan, Oct 1645– Serving the king until his death on 31 March 1652.
of Aragon, 1642–5. Dec 1647.
Marquis of Mirabel 9 June 1633 Resident at court between spring 1639 until his death on 13 Feb 1651, with a brief absence in Extremadura in the autumn of 1641.
Marquis of Aytona 27 March Resident at court until his appointment as governor-general of Galicia in Governor of Galicia (summer 1645–March 1647), Served Philip IV from autumn 1649 until the end of the reign.
1638 summer 1645. commander of the Army of Catalonia (April–Nov
1647). In disgrace (Nov 1647–Sept 1649).
Marquis of Mairena 12 July 1642 Exiled on 3 Residing in Toro and Loeches

Nov 1643. until his death on 13 June 1646.
Count of Grajal 19 Aug 1642 Serving the king from Aug 1642 until his death on 7 Sept 1648.
Duke of 8 May 1644 Served the king from May 1644 until Jan 1648. General of cavalry in Catalonia, and commander of the Serving as viceroy of Mexico, August 1653–Sept 1660. Thereafter commander of Mediterranean galley squadron. However, he was
Alburquerque Mediterranean fleet, Jan 1648–Oct 1652. at court in the spring and summer of 1662, and from spring 1664 until the end of the reign.
Count of Luna, 2 Oct 1644 He probably served the king between Oct 1644 and 1652, but there is little evidence of his presence at court. Probably residing on his estates between 1652 and his death in 1677.
Marquis of 6 May 1644 Served the king between May 1644 and Sept 1659. Absent in Sicily, Sept 1659–
Tarazona autumn 1662.
Count of Lumiares, 20 Jan 1645 Served the king, Jan 1645–Feb 1648. Ambassador at the Imperial court, 1648–56. He was back in Madrid for ten months between the end of Nov 1656 and Viceroy of Sardinia and Catalonia, he was back in Madrid for four months
third marquis of Sept 1657. between late Feb and late July 1664.
Castel Rodrigo
Count of Castrillo 4 June 1646 Present at court from summer 1646 until autumn 1653, but unlikely to have attended Absent in Naples, autumn 1653 until Sept 1659. At court from his return in late Sept 1659, but would have been
personally on the king for very much of this time. busy with conciliar responsibilities.
Duke of Osuna 29 Aug Serving the king between 29 Aug 1646 until his departure for Sicily in Sept 1655. He died on 13 Oct 1656.
1646
Duke of El Infantado 21 Jan 1647 Served the king Jan 1647 until Absent from court July 1649 until April 1656, when he was ambassador in Rome, and
July 1649. viceroy of Sicily. He was at court again for seven months between April 1656 and his
death on 15 Jan 1657.
M arquis of Orani 7 Sept 1648 Served the king as acting gentleman of the chamber, and as first groom of the king’s stables from 7 Sept 1648 until his death on 7 Dec 1661. Before 1648,
he had been sumiller de corps to the Cardinal Infante, and first groom in the household of Baltasar Carlos.
M arquis of Heliche 28 Dec Served the king from December 1648 until his disgrace on 26 Feb 1662. He was absent for two months between 20 Aug and 14 Oct 1657, and for another two
1648 months between early April and early June 1658.
Tenth admiral of 3 July 1649 Served the king from the time of his appointment as acting gentleman of the chamber until Philip’s death.
Castile
Count of Medellín 23 Oct 1650 He was living in exile during the mid-1650s on account of a misdemeanour. In April 1657, he joined the He was in constant attendance on Philip from the second half of 1659
Army of Extremadura, and was briefly held prisoner by the Portuguese after Elvas. until the end of the reign.
Count of Talhara 22 Oct 1659 Serving the king constantly from Oct 1659 until the end of the
reign.
Don Juan Domingo 22 Oct 1659 Serving the king constantly from Oct 1659 until the end of the
de Haro, count of reign.
Monterrey
count of Lumiares and the marquis of Tarazona. The former was heir to
the second marquis of Castel Rodrigo, whose title he would inherit in
1651. The latter was don Fernando de Ayala Fonseca Toledo y Valcárcel,
who was often described in sources by his other title of fourth count of
Ayala. He was an important member of the Olivares family circle, being
married to the daughter of the count-duke’s mentor, don Baltasar de
Zúñiga, and enjoying a close relationship with the count and countess
of Monterrey. The presence of these people at Philip’s side was important,
because other appointments during the 1640s went to less sympathetic
noblemen, like the marquis of Orani, and the dukes of Osuna and El
Infantado. The selection of Haro’s uncle, the count of Castrillo, as acting
gentleman of the chamber in June 1646 was probably a mixed blessing,
but it at least placed another member of his family near the king.
Also present at Philip’s side was Haro’s elder son, the marquis of
Heliche. He had been born in the same year as Baltasar Carlos, and it
may have been his reputedly close friendship with the prince that endeared
him to Philip, and led to his appointment as gentleman of the chamber in
December 1648.74 By 1650, Heliche was beginning to take over respon-
sibility for the king’s country palaces, and four years later he was allowed
to succeed his father in the office of master of hounds.75 The marquis was
one of the great picture collectors of the seventeenth century, and was
chiefly responsible for the lavish theatrical productions that dominated
cultural life in Madrid during the 1650s.76 Common interests in art and
theatre no doubt strengthened his bond with the king, but the young
man’s relationship with his father is more difficult to assess. Don Luis was
no doubt happy enough to devolve responsibility for organizing palace
festivities upon a close family member, and if Heliche were to enjoy
success and advancement, it was better that this were seen to be the result
of the king’s personal affection than of the influence on the valido.
However, Haro must have been embarrassed by his son’s arrogance and
increasingly erratic behaviour.77 There was also the inevitable aspiration (or
concern) that Heliche might succeed him in the valimiento—something for
74
Andrés, El Marqués de Liche, 7–22; Frutos Sastre, El templo de la fama, 33–4.
75
AGP Jornadas legajo 779; RAH Ms. 9/1074, ff. 1r, 3r, 53r, 180r–v; Varey, ‘La mayordo-
mía mayor’, 156.
76
AJB, i, 222, 237, 242; ii, 53–4; Shergold, A History of the Spanish Stage, 313, 325;
Stein, Songs of Mortals, 187, 211, 213, 253; Frutos Sastre, El templo de la fama, 42–7,
73–135.
77
AHN Estado libro 104: Montalto to Castel Rodrigo, 13 March 1661; Bodl., Ms.
Additional C.128, f. 282r; DMO, 302, 909–10; AJB, i, 104, 107; ii, 83, 100, 157, 201;
Andrés, El marqués de Liche, 11–13; RAV, 241, 273; Clarendon, History, v, 79–80.
which the duke of Uceda’s open rivalry with his father the duke of Lerma
cast a long shadow. In this sense, Rafael Valladares is doubtless correct to
suggest that Heliche was brought up to be the heir to a great aristocratic
house, but not to enjoy a political role in his own right.78
More research will be necessary to understand properly the relation-
ships between the different members of the king’s intimate circle, but
for the moment, a few preliminary observations can be made. After the
fall of Olivares, the king appears to have gone out of his way to favour
those who had been excluded or slighted by the count-duke, and these
appointments seem to have made his entourage more dangerous to
Haro by the end of the decade than it had been in 1643. Yet this
inner group of courtiers was very small, and became even more select as
time passed. After the count of Medellín’s appointment in October
1650, nobody else was chosen for a period of nine years. It is likely that
the absence of appointments was due to Haro’s increased influence
during this period. Eventually, in October 1659, two more young
noblemen were appointed. One of them was the valido’s younger son,
the seventh count of Monterrey, who had been recently married to the
daughter of the marquis of Tarazona. The other was a cousin of the
duke of Medina Sidonia, the second count of Talhara. It might be
suggested that these appointments reflected an attempt to ensure con-
trol over the king’s entourage during a difficult time when the valido
himself was absent from Madrid for lengthy periods. Yet it is impossible
to be certain. Similarly, with appointments at a lower level, the presence
of surnames like Marañón, Gamboa, and Angulo amongst the king’s
servants may suggest family connections with people who formed part
of Haro’s own household, but aside from the valets don Pedro de
Azcona and don Juan de San Martín, and the staff on the payroll of
the king’s country retreats, there is no real evidence to indicate that he
had managed to pack the king’s close entourage, or had even tried
consistently to do so. What is striking, however, is the seeming absence
of any definite creatures of his rivals until several years after his death.
Don Luis de Haro may not have needed to control the king’s household
in the way that his predecessors had done. However, he took the
court seriously, considered at least the male members of the royal
entourage as a possible source of danger, and had a reasonable amount
of success, at least in the 1650s, in making sure that it remained a
neutral environment.
78
Valladares, ‘Origen y límites del valimiento de Haro’. See also Bertaut, 230.
CONCLUSION: COURT AND GOVERNMENT
At the top of every early modern state there existed an overlap between the
functions of household and government, and it was often very difficult to
define boundaries between these two spheres. Philip IV, however, made a
clear effort to establish such a distinction. During the second half of the
reign, there were only a very few councillors who also held significant
household positions, and most of them (Castel Rodrigo, Medina de las
Torres, Leganés, Mirabel) had been established in their positions for a
long time before. The count of Castrillo may have believed that he could
come and go in the palace whenever he wanted, but he does not seem to
have been accepted by the other courtiers as one of their own.79 To be
sure, Philip was less circumspect when it came to allowing household
members into his government. In June 1659, he selected his friends, don
Fernando de Borja and the duke of Terranova, for the Council of State.
Yet, even here, Terranova’s promotion was in some way justified by the
embassies that he had previously conducted in Vienna and Rome, as was
Borja’s for all his time as viceroy of Aragon and Valencia during the 1620s
and 1630s. The latter’s appointment to a government job was in fact
combined with his loss of the mastership of the queen’s horse, which
meant that he sacrificed an important court office for two-and-a-half years,
until he was selected for the equivalent post within the king’s household
in December 1661.80
This attempt to draw a line between the roles of minister and courtier
may be considered as evidence of Philip IV’s reluctance that his entourage
should become politicized. Many of the people mentioned in this chapter,
such as the marquis of Heliche, the count of La Puebla de Montalbán, the
constable of Castile, the countess of Paredes, and others like them, were
useful allies of don Luis de Haro. However, they, like Haro himself, owed
their positions at court not to political reasons, but to the fact that they
came from families with long traditions of service within the households.
This was true of the vast majority of courtiers, who lived out their
existence as loyal retainers of the crown, with little or no involvement in
public affairs. Proximity to the king brought many advantages, such as
assistance with lawsuits and the negotiation of marriages, the provision of
debt-relief and pensions, and the advancement of family members. It was
79
ACO Castrillo legajo xliii/2: 4 February 1660; ACO Castrillo legajo xliv/3: 1 February
1662; Resumen de los puestos, ff. 7r–v, 9v, 10v–11r.
80
AHN Estado legajo 248/8; AHN Estado libro 104: Montalto to Castel Rodrigo, 19
June 1659, 6 March 1662; AJB, ii, 262.
for these reasons that the provincial nobility had been migrating to Madrid
since the beginning of the century. This basically stable and non-factional
environment that Philip IV created for himself is an important aspect of
the second half of the reign, and will be further discussed in Chapter 6. Yet
it was an environment that might still give cause for concern for a courtier
who had come to possess supreme favour, but lacked the institutional,
juridical, and theoretical underpinning to legitimize his situation. As will
be shown in Chapter 8, it would be during the moments of intimacy that
the king spent with his gentlemen of the chamber—usually when he was
away from the Alcázar—that Haro’s survival would be most at risk.
For the moment, the largely non-political nature of Philip’s surround-
ings, together with the king’s much diminished ability to reward his
courtiers, meant that some noblemen were beginning to lose faith in the
very concept of access to the monarch. The count of Castrillo, to be sure,
was anxious to secure the post of lord steward of the queen, and to
make his son a gentleman of the chamber. Yet, others, like the duke of
Montalto, regarded senior court office as a poor substitute for appoint-
ment to the councils, and Haro himself saw no need to place his daughters
within the entourage of the queen.81 Moreover, the vice-chancellor of the
Crown of Aragon, don Cristóbal Crespí de Valldaura, found that personal
audiences with the king were of only limited use. The two met together to
discuss matters of government on about a dozen occasions during the
1650s. Yet, when the initial sense of honour at being allowed to engage in
a personal interaction with the monarch had subsided, Crespí seems to
have become disillusioned. In August 1657, after a meeting with Haro, in
which they discussed the provision of a new viceroy for Aragon, he
recorded how, by mutual agreement, he had left it to Haro to bring the
matter before the king, since this was the more effective method of getting
business done.82
As things stood, Philip IV may have been a more visible and a more
accessible monarch than his contemporaries and predecessors, and he may
have asserted a greater control over the management of his entourage. Yet,
he appears to have been unsuited to matters of government. According to
the Modenese resident, he was ‘incapable of business, either from nature
and lack of practical judgement, or from having been steered away from
such matters for twenty-two years by the count-duke’.83 This meant that
when, during the period after the fall of Olivares in 1643, and again
following Haro’s own death in 1661, Philip did take control of public affairs,
81
ACO Castrillo legajo xliii/2: 4, 12 February 1660; Malcolm, ‘Spanish Queens’,
160–1, 167.
82 83
DCCV, 178. ASMo Spagna, 54: 27 January 1644.
nothing much happened. There was thus a real need for someone who could
assist the king in matters of state as public servant, personal friend, and
mediator. Haro fitted just such a requirement, but there were others like
him—the second marquis of Castel Rodrigo, the marquis of Aytona, the
duke of Terranova, don Fernando de Borja, the duke of Medina de las
Torres, maybe even newcomers like the marquis of Heliche, or the count of
Talhara. It was with these individuals that the distinction between court and
government became blurred, for it was the people most familiar to the king
in his private world who stood the best chance of acquiring public authority.
Philip was also prone to waver in the face of crisis, and even to break his
word. This much was clear in the months that followed Olivares’ dismissal
when the king went back on the promise that he had given the count-duke
for the protection of his wife and illegitimate son. The political developments
of the mid-1640s, which will be discussed in the next chapter, will show that
Haro’s gradual attainment of the position of valido would require much
more than a simple possession of the offices and attributes of a courtier.
3
Personal Rule, 1643–8
Such is the scarcity of research on the valimiento of don Luis de Haro that
even as simple a matter as its periodization is open to debate. Rafael
Valladares has recently argued that Haro had actually been assisting the
king with the principal business of the monarchy from as early as the
summer of 1642, and that it was at about this time—several months
before the final departure from court of the count-duke of Olivares—that
Philip IV had decided that his closest friend would be the best man to
represent a new and different form of government that the king wanted to
project.1 Valladares’ assessment arguably places too much emphasis on
Haro’s direction and authority during these early years, and contrasts with
another reading of the situation, in which the four or five years that followed
the removal of the count-duke amounted to a more cautious and gradual
introduction to government for the favourite.2 It is this second view that
I propose to take in this chapter, where it will be suggested that the new
valimiento did not begin to be established until 1646 at the very earliest, and
that a further two years would then elapse before Haro would finally come
to acquire the full gamut of titles and offices that had previously been
enjoyed by Lerma and Olivares.
In an ideal world, the valido was not supposed to exist at all, and Philip
was under huge pressure after 1643 to abide by his obligations to govern
alone. Yet, it was common knowledge that the king had advisers who were
assisting him behind the scenes. At the end of April of that year, the duke
of Modena’s envoy in Madrid famously remarked that
When it comes to intimacy and familiarity, and long and secret conversa-
tions, everyone now gives the first place to don Luis de Haro. . . . To begin
with it seemed as though His Majesty inclined towards don Fernando de
Borja, then he showed a particular confidence in the count of Oñate, but, for
all that, the one who is never far from his side is don Luis de Haro, who is
1
Valladares, ‘Méndez de Haro y Guzmán, Luis’, 448; Valladares, ‘Haro sin Mazarino’,
341–2, 348–9, n. 11; Valladares, ‘Origen y límites del valimiento de Haro’.
2
Stradling, Philip IV, 246–60; Thompson, ‘The Government of Spain in the Reign of
Philip IV’, 55–7.
currently in with the best chance, and has the general approval of the court
for being (as they say here) the idea of a true gentleman.3
Yet, being the king’s assiduous confidant did not mean that Haro was a
valido in the sense that the term had come to acquire by the 1640s. He did
not yet hold a monopoly of patronage, nor did he occupy a pre-eminent
role within the institutions of government. As somebody who was still not
a grandee, he did not have the social status necessary to command the
respect and obedience of the nobility. He also found himself having to
compete with other politicians, some of whom were new men brought into
office by the king in 1643 in order to break up the network of influence that
had been created by Olivares, whilst others were already experienced
ministers, who for years to come would continue to act as major influences
over the conduct of domestic and foreign policy.
This chapter will begin and end by considering Haro’s relationship with
the other members of his family. The middle two sections will look at the
climate of Godly rule that prevailed during these years, and at the
fortuitous disappearance, or deliberate removal, of a number of rivals.
Someone who was as successful a courtier as Haro, by definition, had to be
a master of the management of people, not just the king, but also the
leading members of his family and the other officials of court and gov-
ernment. These personal relationships were subject to flux, with likes and
dislikes evolving. Yet they can be anchored by examining them in the light
of key political moments: the short-lived influence of the royal confessor
Friar Juan de Santo Tomás; the alternating ascendancies of the counts of
Castrillo and Monterrey; the rise and demise of don Juan Chumacero; the
emergence and survival of don Diego de Arce y Reinoso; and the great
political trials of don Jerónimo de Villanueva and the duke of Híjar. What
follows will seek to chart a rapidly evolving situation. By the end of 1648,
the dust had begun to settle as Haro entered the full possession of the
valimiento, and the picture of how he interacted with the political elite
amidst the more stable environment of the 1650s will become clear in
future chapters.
APPRENTICESHIP
The letters that Haro received when he was with Philip IV at Zaragoza
during the summer and autumn of 1643 demonstrate an awareness on the
part of the writers that he enjoyed a special relationship with the king, but
3
MHE, xvii, 86; Filippini, Coscieza, 38–9 (n. 28); Elliott, Olivares, 654 (n. 52).
Personal Rule, 1643–8 65
they also suggest a certain confusion about what to say to him. His uncle
the count of Castrillo wrote short missives with information about finan-
cial and logistical matters, complaints that his nephew did not correspond
more frequently, and offers of support and comfort.4 The president of the
Council of Finance wanted to make Haro privy to the proposed budget
allocations and loans contracts for the following year—should it be the
case that Haro might actually want to see this material.5 One person who
was particularly frustrated at the ambiguities of a valido-less government
was the Jesuit court preacher, Father Agustín de Castro, who gently
goaded his recipient by suggesting that the latter was acting as though
he actually wanted the pre-eminent place that had recently been vacated
by Olivares to be considered as available for others.6 Castro’s letter may
have served as a stimulus. Back in Madrid, during the winter of 1643–4,
Haro began deliberately to cultivate a reputation as the person closest to
the king. He appeared in public with a large retinue of nobles, and did his
utmost to encourage the foreign diplomatic community into believing
that he was the best person to further the interests of their masters.7 The
historiographer and chronicler José de Pellicer, who had for a long time
been one of Haro’s literary clients, reported in December 1643 that don
Luis’s house was now full of all the people who used to surround
Olivares.8 At the beginning of February 1644, Philip departed once
again for Zaragoza, but unlike the previous year when Haro had followed
behind with the other gentlemen of the chamber, he now accompanied
the king in the royal coach. Father Agustín de Castro, sensing the way the
wind was blowing, had gone on ahead, and was awaiting the party on its
arrival. In early March he delivered a Lenten sermon, which urged Philip
to have recourse to a valido.9 By April, Pellicer was even proclaiming from
Madrid that don Luis had now been declared prime minister.10
Yet, this was evidence coming from people who were personally close to
Haro and anxious to play up his importance. The real situation was much
less certain. Philip was clearly embarrassed at being thought to have
chosen a successor for Olivares; he had listened to Castro in stony silence,
and the Jesuit was politely warned afterwards that he was not to bring up
the subject again. Others were far from sure about what was going on. The
diplomat and military procurement agent don Miguel de Salamanca was
at court for several months during the spring and summer of 1643, and
4 5
BNM Ms. 18202, ff. 79r–v, 85r, 99r. Ibid., ff. 115r–v.
6
Ibid., f. 94r. See also Tomás y Valiente, Validos, 17; Negredo, Predicadores, 114–17.
7
ASMo Spagna, 54: 27 January, 3 February 1644.
8
AP, 470; Malcolm, ‘En las márgenes’, 86–7; Malcolm, ‘Intercesor de escritores’.
9 10
AP, 491; MHE, xvii, 435. AP, 499, 503.
again at the same time of year in 1644. Yet, he was at a loss to know with
whom he should be corresponding in the absence of Olivares. Writing
from Brussels, in late November 1644, he had reached the conclusion that
the most influential person in Philip’s entourage was in fact the fifth count
of Oñate, but unbeknownst to him, this great minister had died just three
weeks earlier on 31 October.11
The count of Oñate’s death was followed by a steady depletion of other
ministers, like the count of Chinchón, the marquises of Santa Cruz,
Loriana, Villafranca, Castrofuerte, and Castañeda, the dukes of Villaher-
mosa and Nájera, and Cardinal Borja. All were Councillors of State and
highly experienced ministers, who passed away within the six years that
elapsed between 1643 and 1648. Someone who remained very much
alive, but thankfully absent from court, was the duke of Medina de las
Torres. On approaching the end of his term as viceroy of Naples, he had
been appointed in November 1643 to attend the peace conference that
was assembling at Münster, but the order was deferred so that he could
make what was intended to be a brief visit to Spain. During the autumn of
the following year, he spent several weeks in Zaragoza fulfilling his
household duties at the king’s side. At the beginning of October 1644,
Philip returned in haste to Madrid, where the queen was severely ill. Before
his departure, he ordered that Haro act as royal commissioner with the
army in Catalonia, and that Medina sail for Genoa to await instructions,
either to go to Rome to perform the embassy of obedience to the new
pope Innocent X, or to head northwards to Münster, as originally planned.12
Haro dutifully obeyed and spent the autumn of 1644 organizing the
winter quarters for the army and mediating the squabbles between the
different members of its high command.13 Medina, on the other hand,
prevaricated with excuses of ill health, forfeited the king’s favour, and was
confined to his estates in Valencia, pending the results of investigations
11
AHN Estado libro 964, ff. 408r, 414v. Don Miguel de Salamanca y Turri (1605–58),
who was shuttling between Madrid and Brussels during the mid-1640s, had previously
been Secretary of State and War to the Cardinal Infante, and now occupied posts on the
Spanish Councils of War and Finance. It is important to note that he was not the same
person as the Regente don Miguel de Salamanca y Salamanca (c.1597–1666), who was
Councillor of Italy and Castile, and would later become governor of the Council of Finance
between July 1663 and February 1666.
12
AHN Estado legajo 2880 (no. 24); AHN Estado libro 712: Philip IV to Medina, 19
November 1643; AGS GA legajo 1548: Montealegre to Philip IV, 1 September 1644;
ASMo Spagna, 54: 12, 19 October 1644; AP, 546, 551, 556.
13
AGS GA legajo 1536: ‘papeles que dio el Señor D. Luis de Haro cuando vino del
ejército, que se fueron viendo en la junta’, November 1644; AGS GA legajos 1516, 1555:
various letters from Haro to Ruiz de Contreras, written from Balaguer, Bujaraloz, and Ager
during October 1644.
into his conduct as viceroy of Naples.14 Haro’s acceptance of royal commis-
sions in the field on this and on a number of other occasions no doubt
enhanced his relationship with Philip. Not everyone would be so fortunate.
As will be shown in Chapter 5, the king’s representatives abroad often
received very little return for their efforts. Yet for those considering refusal
to go where their master bade them, Medina’s four-year exile in Valencia
would be an object lesson.
If Haro’s situation had been assisted by the death or exile of so many of
his competitors, the demise of the count-duke of Olivares was of even
greater benefit. The process by which the latter’s retirement from court for
reasons of ill health had turned into a formal disgrace was gradual. For
nearly four months in the spring of 1643 he had remained at the village of
Loeches, just a few miles to the west of Madrid. It was not until the end of
May that the king was compelled to order him to move further away, to a
destination that was soon clarified as the Old Castilian town of Toro. It
was not until November—ten months after the count-duke had left the
palace—that his wife and natural son, the marquis of Mairena, were also
forced into exile. Philip appears to have given assurances to the count-
duke that he would keep the countess of Olivares and marquis of Mairena
beside him, and his failure to do so provided another warning to those still
in the king’s favour that their situations were in no sense guaranteed. For
what remained of his life, Olivares yearned to be allowed to come back to
Loeches, and he saw his nephew as the person best placed to bring this
about. Yet the latter is unlikely to have wanted his uncle back on the
doorstep, and, even if he did, he was in no position to arrange this on his
own. In February 1645, he summarized his situation to Antonio Carnero
in an interview that the latter reported to the count-duke in exile:
He [Haro] did not deny that he enjoyed the grace of His Majesty . . . and
perhaps had a greater part of this than anyone else . . . but to think that he
held the authority and command [‘maño’] that Your Lordship once had is
madness, and to think that this business [Olivares’ desire to return to
Loeches] could be accepted by His Majesty without the involvement of
others was impossible.15
These ‘others’ consisted mainly of the count-duke’s family relations. They
included his brother-in-law, the marquis of El Carpio, and the latter’s
younger brother, the count of Castrillo. On the other side of the family
14
AHN Estado libro 869, f. 261; AGS GA legajo 1555: Medina to Ruiz de Contreras,
22 October 1644; Ruiz de Contreras to Medina, 22 October 1644; ASMo Spagna, 54: 16
November 1644; Quevedo, Nuevas cartas, 154.
15
AHN Estado libro 869, f. 261v.
was the count of Monterrey, who had become related to Olivares through
a double marriage in 1607, in which each had taken the other’s sister as a
bride. It is highly likely that both the counts of Monterrey and Castrillo
had played a part in their erstwhile patron’s removal, and would not
welcome his return.16 This was not least because, during his last eighteen
months in office, the count-duke had been assiduously promoting his
illegitimate son, the marquis of Mairena.17 So, when the old man finally
died on 22 July 1645, his nephew could breathe a sigh of relief. Don Luis
would inherit the original landed possessions of the counts of Olivares,
whilst it was hoped that an amicable arrangement could be made with
regard to the more recently acquired assets. Not only that, but the king
used the occasion of the count-duke’s death to honour Haro with his own
dukedom and the grandeeship of the first class.18 These were concessions
of huge importance, for without the grandeeship, it would be impossible
for Haro to have the respect of the rest of the nobility that would be
necessary for him to operate as valido. More immediately, he was now in a
position to deal on equal or superior terms with his own relations, and
during the next few years, there would take place a pollarding of the family
tree. The Medina branch had already been pushed out of the garden, the
illegitimate Mairena tendril could easily be cropped, and the Castrillo
and Monterrey branches more carefully pruned. Yet, there would also be
scope to nurture more distant offshoots, such as those of the Leganés
and Tarazona cousins.
Haro’s most reliable ally during these years was his father, the fifth
marquis of El Carpio. He had been an acting gentleman of the chamber
since the start of the reign, before being chosen to command the company
of royal Spanish guards in 1636. In July 1643, El Carpio was appointed
master of the hounds. A year later he was made master of the horse on an
interim basis, before being accorded the full rights to this highly important
office on Olivares’ death in 1645.19 El Carpio was an anonymous char-
acter. As a womanizer, consummate horseman, and deferential courtier he
hardly stood out much from his fellow aristocrats. Yet his name figures
time and again amongst the king’s companions on visits to Zaragoza and
to the palaces around Madrid, as well as on hunting parties or at equestrian
events. His influence also complemented that of his younger brother,
the count of Castrillo. No two siblings could be more unlike. Whilst
El Carpio was a solicitous gentleman about the king, Castrillo was a man
16
Caída de su privanza, 17–18; Elliott, Olivares, 642–4; Gelabert, Castilla convulsa, 198.
17
Marañón, El conde-duque, 366–76; Elliott, Olivares, 618–19, 631–2.
18
ASMo Spagna, 55: 9 August 1645; MHE, xviii, 138; Quevedo, Nuevas cartas, 187.
19
AGP Expedientes personales 204/52; La corte y monarquía, 36–7.
of business, trained in the law at Salamanca, and rapidly promoted by
Olivares through the councils during the 1620s. By the early 1640s he was
at the height of his authority as the most trusted minister of the queen.20 It
was during these years that Castrillo was also working in partnership with
Haro, but they seem to have been wary of each other, and there were signs
from as early as the end of 1644 that the relationship between uncle and
nephew was under strain. In late September, the queen fell seriously ill,
and Philip departed in haste to be at her side. El Carpio was one of the few
courtiers (along with the marquis of Aytona, and the count of Grajal) who
were on the road with the king when news reached them of Isabel’s
death.21 Back in Madrid, Castrillo appears to have made an attempt to
keep his nephew in Catalonia over the winter. However, El Carpio was on
hand to persuade the grief-stricken monarch to send for don Luis, and give
orders that Castrillo himself be excluded from the royal apartments.22 The
episode, if it happened as the Modenese envoy described it, would have
been a classic instance of the politics of intimacy at work, suggesting a
susceptibility of the king towards his immediate personal entourage that
made the developing political situation quite unpredictable.
Evidence for the involvement of Haro and Castrillo in the practical
business of government can be found in don Miguel de Salamanca’s
letters. In the absence of the count of Oñate, Salamanca worked seriously
with Castrillo during the first half of 1645, whilst Haro’s involvement was
more tangential, but necessary to ensure that orders were properly
obeyed.23 The queen’s death the previous year had left Castrillo without
a protector, but he was able to remain at the centre of government because
his nephew was so frequently absent. In the early summer of 1645 a
serious military setback in Catalonia—which had occurred whilst the king
was at Zaragoza—required don Luis to return to Madrid for the month of
July in order to raise levies, and persuade wealthy members of the
aristocracy to part with their money.24 He was scarcely back in Zaragoza
for two months in August and September before he once again had to
leave the king’s side, this time to go to Andalusia, where he would spend
the next six months, not returning to court until the beginning of April
1646. During the autumn he made a progress through his family heart-
land of Córdoba, before arriving in Seville in the middle of November.
There he spent several weeks eliciting money and supplies from the
20
Resumen de los puestos, ff. 4v–6r; RAL, 76; Fayard, ‘Los ministros’, 643–4; Elliott,
Olivares, 642–3, 653.
21 22
AP, 553. ASMo Spagna, 55: 14 December 1644.
23
AHN Estado libro 964, ff. 375v–9v, 381r; AHN Estado libro 966, ff. 139r, 169r–v.
24
BNM Ms. 13165, ff. 77r–v, 127r–8v; ASMo Spagna, 55: 5, 12, 19 July, 11 October
1645; Novoa, 181–2; MHE, xviii, 98–100, 104; Sanabre, La acción de Francia en Cataluña, 302.
principal institutions of that city.25 By the new year, he had moved down
to Cadiz, where he engaged in a whole range of tasks: directing the work of
naval supply, negotiating loans, sending shiploads of recruits to Tarragona,
and even fitting out a flotilla to patrol the Andalusian coast.26 By now,
he had also raised several thousand soldiers, including three provincial
regiments under local noblemen in his confidence.27 On the mission to
Andalusia, he carried special powers to act in the king’s name:
Everything that you do I of course approve, and ratify, and apply to it my
authority and royal decree, and I order the president, and those of my
Council and Cámara [of Castile], that by virtue of decrees signed with
your rubric and ordinary signature, they should dispatch the titles and
writs that might be necessary.28
This authority was great indeed, but it was limited to Haro’s relationship
with the Council of Castile in the fulfilment of a specific commission that
had been organized in the light of a military emergency. In no sense can
Haro’s influence at this time be considered as equivalent to the universal
authority that Olivares had once enjoyed, nor to the powers that Philip III
confirmed in the person of the duke of Lerma by his famous decree of
1612.29 Rather, one might best think of Haro’s activity during these years
as a form of apprenticeship, allowing him to acquire the necessary financial
and logistical skills and to demonstrate that he was properly qualified to
assume universal authority for when the moment should come for it to be
accorded to him.
In fact, Haro’s mission to Andalusia was initially interpreted as a form
of political exclusion, and it would take time before it became clear that
the person who was being left out in the cold was actually Castrillo. The
latter still officially shared responsibility for money provisions with his
nephew, but a significant proportion of the 1646 remittances were
dependent on Haro’s operations in Andalusia, or were being secured on
the basis of Haro’s family contacts in Naples.30 In March, Castrillo’s
letters to don Miguel de Salamanca simply repeated information that
25
BNM Ms. 13166, f. 232r; ‘Cartas Sevillanas’, 832–3; Ortiz de Zúñiga, Anales,
704–5.
26
AHN Estado libro 966, ff. 73r, 167r; ASMo Spagna, 56: 3, 17, 31 January, 28
February 1646; Novoa, 216; Goodman, Spanish Naval Power, 156–7.
27
AGS GA legajo 1537: Haro to Philip IV, 16 November 1645; AHN Consejos legajo
4430/122: Haro to Philip IV, 20 June 1646.
28
Quoted in Sanz Ayán, Los banqueros y la crisis, 173.
29
Tomás y Valiente, Validos, 6–8, 157–8; Feros, Kingship and Favoritism, 228–9;
Williams, The Great Favourite, 42, 176.
30
AHN Estado libro 966, ff. 49r–v, 134r, 153r, 163r.
the recipient had already received from other sources.31 Come September,
the count was having to remind don Miguel that he could also commu-
nicate important matters to him in cipher—as though the count were no
longer being sent information that required this precaution.32 Don Luis,
meanwhile, had started to write the sort of letters that could only have
been written by a valido. In the autumn of 1646, and having held the
grandeeship for scarcely a year, he felt himself able to pass on his own
personal assurances to the younger brother of the emperor ‘of the certain
friendship and correspondence that he will find in me’.33
Haro had good reason to be confident. At the end of April 1646, and
after a short stopover in Madrid, he had crossed the country to be with the
king at the celebration of the Cortes in Pamplona.34 For the court diarist
Matías de Novoa, who had previously had his doubts about Haro’s
influence, he was ‘somebody now marked out for great things, and the
ability to accomplish them’.35 From Pamplona, he was sent on ahead to
Zaragoza, where he was received with acclaim by military commanders
like the count of Fuensaldaña and the marquis of Leganés, both sympa-
thetic allies, who were anxious to have the royal favourite near them so
that he could keep the king informed of the needs of the army.36 In
August and September he made visits to the soldiers based at Caspe, where
he again received a warm reception, both on account of the payments that
he brought, and also because the men saw him as someone who would
bear witness to their services.37 On the night of 21/22 November 1646,
the royal army under the command of Leganés attacked the French in
their siegeworks around Lérida.38 The enemy was put to flight with the
loss of its baggage, standards, and artillery in what was the most significant
military triumph to have taken place on Spanish soil between the relief of
Fuenterrabía in 1638 and the recapture of Barcelona in 1652. Though not
present at the victory (he had followed the king back to Madrid at the
beginning of that month), Haro had played a more than significant role in
making it possible.39
Castrillo for his part had been seeking to reassert his position before
don Luis returned from his six-month sojourn in Andalusia. On 31 March
31 32 33
Ibid., ff. 65r, 66r. Ibid., ff. 21r–v. Ibid., f. 132v.
34
ASMo Spagna, 56: 18, 28 April 1646; BNM Ms. 2276, ff. 64r, 68v; MHE, xviii, 284.
35
Novoa, 162–3, 255. The quotation is at 232.
36
AHN Consejos legajo 4430/122: ‘consulta de la junta de cabos del ejército’, 22 June
1646; Philip IV’s response to a ‘consulta de la junta de asistentes de cortes’, 17 May 1646.
37
ASMo Spagna, 56: 27 June, 18 July, 22 August, 19, 22 September 1646; MHE, xviii,
333–4, 387.
38
Sanabre, La acción de Francia en Cataluña, 311–12.
39
MHE, xviii, 431.
1646, the royal confessor and a senior magistrate from the Council of
Castile arrived at the house of the count of Monterrey, and gave him
notice of the king’s wish that he leave court within a week.40 Monterrey
was the brother-in-law of Olivares, and Haro’s maternal uncle. Whilst
Castrillo had mainly been involved in Castilian and American affairs,
Monterrey had spent many years in Italy as ambassador in Rome and
viceroy of Naples, and his area of influence was foreign policy. In the
years that followed Olivares’ removal, he would accompany the king to
Zaragoza, and would chair the important Junta Particular that advised the
king whilst he was on campaign. For the other councillors Monterrey’s
imperious personal manner was insufferable. He was in the habit of
summoning them for meetings to his house, only to tell them to go
away again because he was feeling unwell. Castrillo loathed Monterrey,
and seems to have been foremost at instigating his removal.41
A few days after Monterrey’s arrest, the king left Madrid, taking Castrillo
with him. This was the occasion when we met them passing through Atienza
in Chapter 2. It was the only time the count accompanied Philip to the
eastern kingdoms. Whilst his advice on matters relating to the king’s
American possessions continued to prevail, Castrillo’s universal influence
was now at an end. Haro had already assured his other uncle of his full
support, and was on good terms with a number of people who were close to
Monterrey, such as the marquises of Leganés and Tarazona.42 The reason for
this shift in affiliations is likely to have been because the count of Monterrey,
who had experience of international affairs and proximity to important
ministers and aristocrats, would have been a better partner in government
than the count of Castrillo, whose loyalty was more suspect, whose influence
was confined to the lettered nobility of the law courts, and whose talent for
financial and military supply Haro was quickly beginning to acquire for
himself. So, in the spring of 1647, almost exactly a year after his disgrace, it
was now time to bring Monterrey back into the fold. He would act as his
nephew’s foremost adviser until his death seven years later.43
GODLY RULE
Haro, El Carpio, Castrillo, Monterrey, Leganés, and the other survivors of

Olivares’ downfall, whatever their relationships with each other, had to be
40
ASMo Spagna, 56: 4 April 1646.
41
ASMo Spagna, 56: 7 April 1646; Novoa, 222–6; MHE, xviii, 265.
42
ASMo Spagna, 56: fragment of a letter written in April 1646; BNM Ms. 2276, f. 63v.
43
RAV, 154, 157–8; IRAG, 256–7; Clarendon, History, v, 94.
even more careful of threats from beyond the family circle. The count-
duke’s dismissal in January 1643 had coincided with a brief visit by the
king to El Escorial. As Philip was returning, he was met along the way, and
escorted back to Madrid by a delegation of grandees. They included the
dukes of El Infantado, Osuna, and Híjar, and the count of Lemos. Their
action appears to have been instigated by the queen as an expression of
encouragement for her husband’s intention to rule on his own, as well as a
hint that Philip still needed to distance himself properly from the count-
duke’s regime.44 Most prominent amongst these people was the duke of
Híjar. He was a grandson of Philip II’s favourite, Ruy Gómez de Silva, and
his desire to follow in the footsteps of his ancestor had made him an
importunate courtier.45 Híjar possessed hereditary claims to some of the
Iberian kingdoms, and also enjoyed an ancient family privilege—that was
accorded to him on a single occasion in 1626—of dining in public with
the king at Epiphany.46 The descendance of grandee families from the
medieval Spanish and Portuguese rulers was common, and gave them a
sense of entitlement to act as informal counsellors of the ruler. As we will
see in Chapter 6, Haro himself was related by marriage to aristocrats of the
most exalted status, and this would assist him to justify his exercise of royal
authority. For the moment, and with Olivares out of the way, Híjar briefly
appeared to be one of those who was on the point of ingratiating himself
with the king and queen. He later declared that during the early spring of
1643, Isabel had explicitly requested that he, and the other grandees,
should come to the assistance of the royal family. Not only that, but the
king (again according to the duke’s evidence) had on several occasions
asked Híjar to accompany him to Zaragoza, and had even talked of
making him viceroy of Aragon.47
The royal family was also receiving informal advice from a number of
clergy. They included charismatics like the Dominican Friar Francisco
Monterón, who caused a scandal during the summer months of 1643 by
his efforts to influence the king to dismiss ministers who had previously
been connected with Olivares.48 There was also the mystic Franciscan
nun, Sor María de Ágreda, to whom Philip had been introduced at about
the same time. They immediately embarked on a remarkable epistolary
44
AHPZ P-1/81/9: Híjar to Philip IV, 28 March 1646; MHE, xvi, 503.
45
AHPZ P-1/81/10; MHE, xiv, 38–9 (nn. 1–2); Ezquerra Abadía, Conspiración,
88–115.
46
Porreño, Dichos y hechos, 152; Etiquetas, 147–8.
47
AHPZ P-1/81/9: Híjar to Philip IV, 12 March 1644, 28 March 1646; AHPZ P-1/
81/11.
48
Cueto, Quimeras, 86–7, 96 (n. 35), 132–5, 141–2; Cueto, ‘Trials and Tribulations’,
198–209.
relationship that would last until death overtook them both in 1665. Sor
María’s ideas on kingship were very traditional, and she was uncomprom-
isingly hostile towards Philip’s delegation of authority upon a valido.49 She
scarcely concealed her views in her early letters to the monarch, but she
expressed herself even more freely in another correspondence with don
Francisco de Borja, the illegitimate son of the king’s close friend, don
Fernando de Borja. In these letters we find her joking about the countess
of Paredes taking the veil, and how it would be good for everyone if don
Luis de Haro could not just follow her into a convent as well. Less
generously, and in reference to an illness that incapacitated Haro during
the spring of 1648, she expressed her wonder that Philip did not use this as
an excuse to give his favourite leave to retire.50
The king and the Borjas were not the only recipients of Sor María’s
letters. She had been in contact with the duke of Híjar since the time of
his father’s death in 1630, and was also in correspondence with the
marquises of Aytona.51 Híjar, Aytona, and the Borjas were unsympathetic
towards Haro, but this did not prevent her from writing to members of
the nobility whose affiliations were less sharply aligned. For example, she
was on very good terms with the count of Grajal, a nobleman who had
served as guardian to the count-duke’s illegitimate son, and would act as a
legal and political protector of the countess of Olivares.52 Sor María’s
affection for him is therefore surprising, but more curious was her corres-
pondence with the count and countess of Castrillo. The countess pos-
sessed estates in the vicinity of the convent at Ágreda, and the first contacts
arose at the time of her marriage in 1629. The letters are mainly of a
devotional nature, but they reveal how Sor María regarded the count of
Castrillo as a useful patron for her convent and for the advancement of
her relations. In January 1647, she expressed a reverential gratitude,
describing herself as an ‘obliged servant’ to the count for everything that
he had done for her community—the previous summer, he had donated
500 ducats to pay for the gilding of their high altar.53 Sor María’s very
broad epistolary connections therefore suggest problems in understanding
political relationships in a world where historians have tended to over-
emphasize the existence of faction.
Where there can be no doubt, however, is that the nun from Ágreda
wanted a return to good government, and good government meant above
49 50
CSMA, i, 6, 14, 36, 41, 43, 119, 151. CSMBB, 136, 141.
51
ADA Misceláneo, 58/5–10; AHPZ P-1/81/9: Híjar to Philip IV, 12 March 1644.
52
AHPM 6233, ff. 667v, 670r–v; CSMBB, 92, 93, 96, 119, 121, 146–7; Marañón, El
conde-duque, 369, 373, 480; Elliott, Olivares, 651.
53
ACO Castrillo legajo xliv/2: Sor María to countess of Castrillo, 16 January 1647;
CSMBB, 108.
all that the king should rule on his own without a valido. Her views were
shared by one of the king’s confessors, Friar Juan de Santo Tomás. The
latter had been summoned from the university of Alcalá at the beginning
of 1643, and immediately presented Philip with a paper of admonition
seeking to analyse all the different ways in which the king might be
construed as provoking divine anger.54 These were discussed under the
headings of disrespect for the Church, the waging of unjust wars, and
failure to promote the well-being of the king’s subjects. Embracing all
three categories was the concession of royal authority upon a valido. To
reinforce his message Santo Tomás made sure to expose Philip to the
warnings of other religious visionaries, and seems to have played a part in
instigating the royal orders that were issued in the autumn of 1643 for
the countess of Olivares and the marquis of Mairena to join the count-
duke in Toro.55 For these reasons, Ronald Cueto and Orietta Filippini
have given Santo Tomás pride of place amongst those seeking to under-
mine the survivors of the Olivares regime, but it needs to be emphasized
that he very quickly overreached himself. In February 1644, the English
ambassador Sir Arthur Hopton recorded that ‘the king’s new confessor is
little spoken of, don Luis de Haro having found means to lessen him in
His Majesty’s good opinion’.56 This was a clergyman who had played with
fire, and his dramatic rise and fall may quite possibly have influenced other
prominent clerics like Friar Juan Martínez and the Patriarch of the Indies
to steer clear of politics thereafter. Santo Tomás died at Fraga on 17 July
1644, still officially responsible for the royal conscience, but no longer a
significant player at court.
Of much greater importance was the new president of the Council of
Castile, don Juan Chumacero. He had been hostile to royal favourites
since as long ago as the 1620s when he had been involved in investigations
into the conduct of the dukes of Lerma and Uceda.57 Subsequently,
he had fallen foul of Olivares, and had been forced to spend a ten-year
exile in Rome.58 It was at about this time, during the mid-1630s, that
Chumacero began to correspond with Sor María de Ágreda, and on his
return to Madrid in January 1643, he brought with him the religious
charismatic, Friar Francisco Monterón, as his confessor.59 Two months
54
‘Du moyen de discourir sur les péchés des rois’, 37–54. Santo Tomás’s paper is also
transcribed in Cueto, Quimeras, 136–40, and discussed in detail by Reinhardt, Voices of
Conscience. For published versions of the text, see CSMBB, 25, and n. 48.
55
Cueto, Quimeras, 86–8, 141–2; Filippini, Coscienza, 55 (n. 62), 58–9.
56
TNA SP 94/42, f. 280v.
57
Benigno, La sombra del rey, 123–4; Mrozek Eliszezynski, Bajo acusación, 373–416.
58
Brown and Elliott, A Palace for a King, 242–3; Elliott, Olivares, 431, 436–7, 655.
59
CSMBB, 17–20; Cueto, ‘Trials and Tribulations’, 203.
later Chumacero was given the presidency of the Council of Castile, and
began to implement a major programme of moral reform. Efforts had to
be made to prevent men from living with women who were not their
wives, and to enforce the segregation of sexes in churches and other public
places. Measures were made to limit carnival revelry and excesses in
fashion. Preachers were ordered to denounce all forms of vice from the
pulpit. Prayers and intercessions were everywhere coordinated for the
success of Philip’s armies, and the Eucharist was to be kept permanently
on display in churches and convents.60
Chumacero’s reform programme was part of an attempt to win God’s
favour back for the monarchy. His outlook was a providential one that was
typical of early modern sensibilities, both Catholic and Protestant. It had
been spelt out in the sixteenth century by writers like Sir Richard Morison,
Giovanni Botero, and Pedro de Rivadeneira.61 Yet, what was different
about the situation in Madrid during the 1640s was the element of
political criticism that this Godly programme embodied. It was not
enough just to reform lewd behaviour and introduce a sober dress code,
but investigations had to be conducted into ministerial wrongdoing, and
reprisals enacted. Chumacero chaired a number of committees set up to
look into the alleged misconduct of the count-duke and his allies, and he
was probably more effective than any other single individual in persuading
the king to remove the ex-valido and his immediate family from the
vicinity of Madrid and the royal court.62
The Godly party also gathered strength in June 1643 by the formation
of a household for the heir to the throne, Baltasar Carlos. Most of the
prince’s new servants had previously been part of the entourage of the
Cardinal Infante, or were related to existing household officers of the king
or queen, and their selection was not politically motivated. However, the
most important offices went to people of significance. Pride of place was
given to Haro as the prince’s master of the horse, but Haro would be away
in Catalonia and Andalusia for much of the time, so the prince’s closest
attendant became his sumiller de corps, don Fernando de Borja.63 Another
significant member of this new household was his first equerry (primer
caballerizo), the marquis of Orani. The latter had previously been alienated
60
BL Ms. Additional 24947, ff. 23r–4v, 75v, 320r–v; ASMo Spagna, 56: 5 September
1646; CODOIN, xcv, 177, 213, 214–15, 250–1; MHE, xviii, 34–5, 38; Varey and
Shergold, ‘Datos históricos’, 286–7.
61
Rivadeneira, Tratado de la tribulación, 412; Botero, Della ragion di stato, 89, 92–3,
101–2. See also Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, ‘Virtud coronada’, 31–8; Hill, God’s Englishman,
132–5, 211–41; Sowerby, Renaissance and Reform, 105–6, 114, 141.
62
BNM Ms. 13163, ff. 124r–v. See also Malcolm, ‘Don Luis de Haro’, 71.
63
AGP Expedientes personales 760/2; León Pinelo, Anales, 328; Novoa, 124–5.
from Olivares, owing to the count-duke’s interference in his marriage plans
for his daughter, doña Ana de Silva, but in the new political circumstances
it was possible for the ceremony to take place. On 13 January 1644, doña
Ana was married to the marquis of Aytona, a friend of the king, who had
provided Philip with damning criticism of the count-duke’s management
of the war in Catalonia during the 1642 campaign.64 A week after the
marquis’ wedding, his sister, doña Catalina de Moncada, was married to
the duke of Montalto. Each bride was a lady of the queen, and was brought
out by the duchess of El Infantado.65
So, for all don Luis’ personal influence within the palace, as described in
the previous chapter, the presence there of grandees like El Infantado and
Montalto constituted a problem. In March 1644, just after the king had
departed for Zaragoza, the duke of Híjar held a meeting with five or six
other grandees at the Zarzuela palace. Híjar later claimed that the occasion
was intended as a farewell gathering for the duke of El Infantado who was
going to Zaragoza on family business. However, it was widely believed
that a Flemish-style banquet had taken place, at which these magnates had
taken vows to engineer Haro’s replacement.66 When El Infantado arrived
at Zaragoza, news of his supposed intentions had preceded him. Haro
politely informed him that the king no longer had a valido but only loyal
servants, and the duke was made to endure an embarrassing public
audience, in which the king reprimanded him for his presumption.67
The conspiracy was punished in a manner that overtly demonstrated
Philip’s intention to be seen to be ruling personally, and covertly revealed
the governing ministers’ wish to neutralize members of the high nobility
whom they regarded as dangerous. Most of those involved would, sooner
or later, find themselves leaving court to spend lengthy periods abroad.
Worst affected was the duke of Híjar, who was confined to his estates in La
Mancha for the next eighteen months. He did not return properly to
Madrid until early in 1646, and then under strict orders that he remain
in the capital.68
The failure of the grandee conspiracy in the spring of 1644 was
followed seven months later by the death of Isabel of Bourbon. During
Philip’s absences in Aragon, the queen had remained in Madrid as regent
64
MHE, xvi, 497.
65
ASMo Spagna, 54: 13, 27 January 1644; León Pinelo, Anales, 329; AP, 476–7,
478–9.
66
AHPZ P-1/81/9: Híjar to Philip IV, 28 March 1646; ASMo Spagna, 54: 2 March
1644; TNA SP 94/42, f. 287r; AP, 495.
67
ASMo Spagna, 54: 23 March 1644; Novoa, 162–5, 521.
68
AHPZ P-1/81/12; MHE, xvii, 451; AP, 496; Ezquerra Abadía, Conspiración,
127–30.
of Castile, spending long hours in committee meetings, annotating con-
sultas, negotiating with financiers, doing the rounds of the churches and
convents of Madrid to elicit God’s blessing upon the beleaguered mon-
archy, even selling her jewels to raise money for the royal army.69 In April
1644, she suffered a miscarriage, but continued her work regardless, and
in the autumn her health finally collapsed.70 Isabel had been sympathetic
towards the grandees, and had been closely involved with Chumacero’s
imposition of a moral agenda. As the guiding spirit in the movement for a
return to good government, her passing on 6 October 1644 deprived her
supporters of the legitimacy and unity that they needed to survive as a
coherent political group. Henceforward, isolated malcontents from the
high aristocracy would come and go, but no longer made the same kind of
combined efforts to unseat the favourite as had taken place in 1642–4.
Moreover, two years later in the autumn of 1646, a second tragedy would
take place with the death of the heir to the throne, which had the benefit
for Haro of preventing the development of a rival faction from within the
prince’s household. And yet, these events did not completely remove the
threat to the survivors of the old regime. Whilst the grandees—or at least
those of the most exalted lineage—tended to be pragmatic or changeable
in their allegiances, relationships at the slightly lower social level of the
household aristocracy were more constant. Even in the absence of Baltasar
Carlos and Isabel of Bourbon, these courtiers and their families remained
close. The marquis of Aytona and don Fernando de Borja were bound
together by a shared religious enthusiasm, and were members of the same
confraternity of the Esclavos del Santísimo Sacramento.71 Orani would
entrust his children to Aytona’s care when he died in 1661, by which
time Orani’s youngest daughter, doña María de Silva, had been married to
a nephew of don Fernando de Borja.72 In 1665, don Fernando would
appoint the marquis of Aytona as an executor in his testament, and would
bequeath him a painting of St Michael.73
There was also one new minister from the generation of 1643, who
would remain influential for the rest of the reign. This was don Diego de
Arce y Reinoso. Arce’s early career had been similar to that of Chumacero.
Both had fallen foul of Olivares, and whilst Chumacero had been sent to
Rome, Arce had been confined to a series of provincial bishoprics. In the
summer of 1643, he was recalled to court—possibly at Chumacero’s
69
AHN Estado libro 869, ff. 116v–17r; BNM Ms. 18201, f. 230r; Elliott, Olivares,
640. AGS GA legajos 1516, 1517, 1522 contain consultas of the Junta de Guerra de España
listing the decisions made by the queen during the spring and summer of 1644.
70 71
MHE, xvii, 452, 498. AHPM 10408, f. 151v; 9809, f. 909r.
72
AHPM 10408, ff. 290v–2r; Salazar y Castro, Silva, ii, 672–3, 675–6.
73
AHPM 9809, ff. 911r, 912v.
instigation—and was given appointment as Inquisitor General with a
mandate to revitalize the authority and credibility of the Holy Office.74
His first action was to reopen investigations into the affair of the San
Plácido nuns, a notorious case from the 1620s in which as many as
twenty-two sisters of a Benedictine convent in Madrid had experienced
a form of demonic possession.75 The founder and patron of the convent
was don Jerónimo de Villanueva, who had avoided investigation at the
time of the scandal, because he was the king’s principal secretary and
Olivares’ right-hand man.76 Yet, fifteen years later, with the count-duke
out of the way, the case was revived, and enough evidence was unearthed
to justify Villanueva’s arrest and incarceration in August 1644. The inves-
tigating tribunal was closely controlled by Arce, and proceedings were
allowed to drag on for over three years until don Jerónimo was finally
released in the autumn of 1647, a physically and mentally broken man.77
The intricacies of the San Plácido affair have been extensively studied
by Carlos Puyol Buil, who noticed the lack of any real political motivation
behind the downfall of Villanueva.78 At heart, Inquisitor-General Arce
was above faction. He was a defender of religious orthodoxy, and saw the
nuns of San Plácido as part of the same problem as that which was
represented in his eyes by the likes of Sor María de Ágreda. Whilst sharing
the austere religious ideals of the queen’s circle, Arce was also on surpris-
ingly good terms with former associates of Olivares, like the count of
Castrillo. Moreover, all of these people, by the equation that they recog-
nized between public morality and the success of the monarchy, had been
influenced by the greatest advocate of such a philosophy. This was the
highly respected Jesuit theologian, Father Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, who
also happened to be on good terms with former supporters of the count-
duke.79 The lack of consistency between religious outlooks and political
affiliations again suggests that the atmosphere within the Spanish court
was broadly non-factional. Although opposition towards the king’s resort
to a valido was at the centre of the Godly programme, not everyone who
74
BNM Ms. 13163, ff. 69r, 89r; Giraldo, Vida, y heroycos hechos, 23–47; Puyol
Buil, Inquisición y política, 333–6, 344–5, 481–92, 499–506.
75
Puyol Buil, Inquisición y política, 136–53, 157–8.
76
Ibid., 55–9, 71–2, 76–85, 232–42, 246–59.
77
Ibid., 352–66, 374–8, 381–2, 434–40, 467–73.
78
Ibid., 459–62.
79
LSPM Mss. XIV/A/1/3; XVIII/N/1/3; CSMBB, 15, 46–7, and n. 92; Madruga Real,
‘Las Agustinas de Monterrey’, ii, 605, 607; Bouza, ‘Felipe IV sin Olivares’, 49, 62; Martínez
Millán, ‘Transformación y crisis’, 126, n. 85; Martínez Millán, ‘Política y religión’, 1401–4.
Nieremberg’s Causa, y remedio de los males públicos (Madrid, 1642) was dedicated to the
count-duke.
was Godly was necessarily opposed to Haro nor to the other survivors of
the political upheaval of 1643.
For most of the time, the king’s own approach to questions of religion
and morality was very flexible. His correspondence with Sor María de
Ágreda was originally published by Francisco Silvela in the 1880s, and
until quite recently it amounted to one of the few widely available primary
sources relating to the second half of the reign.80 The tendency to read the
letters out of context led to a historiographical obsession about the nun
from Ágreda, and her place within the mythology of the decline of Spain.
On the other hand, her letters to don Francisco de Borja, whose existence
was little known until their recent publication, show quite clearly the
nun’s awareness (and frustration) that Philip paid very little attention to
what she said to him. What was important as far as the king was concerned
was that his own shortcomings and those of his ministers and subjects
might be offset by the prayers of the devout, whom he would tell whatever
he thought they wanted to hear in return for their intercessions. Philip’s
obliviousness for most of the time to the advice of the Godly was fortunate
for Haro, but there were still moments, such as in the spring and summer
of 1643, when the king’s head might be turned. Furthermore, whilst there
has been a tendency amongst historians to exaggerate the influence of Juan
de Santo Tomás, Francisco Monterón, and María de Ágreda, the parts
played by Chumacero and Arce y Reinoso were much more significant.
This must have been worrying to Haro as he inched his way towards the
re-establishment of a discredited form of government with himself at its
head. The fates of Olivares, Villanueva, and the duke of Híjar were object
lessons about what might happen to those whose services were no longer
needed. Philip’s intermittent liking for individuals of a noted reputation for
religious sanctity, or unimpeachable moral credentials, seems to have been
akin to his resort to minister-favourites. On the one hand, it suggested an
abiding reluctance to trust himself to govern alone. On the other, it meant
that nobody could be absolutely certain of his favour.
REMOVAL OF RIVALS
At some point at the beginning of 1648, Philip IV made the decision to

dismiss Chumacero from his post as president of the Council of Castile.81
The king had lost faith in his minister. The policy of Godly rule and the
80
Cartas de la Venerable Madre Sor María de Ágreda y del Señor Rey Don Felipe IV, ed. by
Francisco Silvela, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1885–6).
81
Giraldo, Vida y heroycos hechos, 175.
strict codes of public conduct that it entailed had been appropriate at a
time of national crisis, and when a number of members of the royal family
had recently died. However, by the time of don Luis de Haro’s return
from Zaragoza in the summer of 1647, the atmosphere at court was
becoming more celebratory. On 3 August, the Imperial ambassador
rode to the palace in the company of Haro and his father, the marquis
of El Carpio, in order to present the king with a letter from Emperor
Ferdinand III. It contained the capitulations for Philip’s marriage to
Ferdinand’s daughter the archduchess Mariana of Austria.82 That evening,
lights were placed in the windows of the houses in Madrid. Two days later,
all the members of the councils kissed hands with Philip and there were
bullfights in the main square ‘with many nobles dressed in festive array
and great popular rejoicing’.83 Although there would be no let-up in the
political and military problems of the monarchy, the imminent arrival of a
young royal bride marked an end to the period of austerity that had
followed the count-duke’s dismissal, and would set the tone for a series
of extravagant festivities that would last until the birth of the future
Carlos II in November 1661.84 This very pronounced change of mood
coincided with Haro’s real political ascendancy, and was inaugurated by a
shake-up in domestic government that left a number of ministers either
deprived of office, or politically marginalized, or brought into line with the
new regime.
The presidency of the Council of Castile was the second office in the
realm after that of the king. Its holder chaired the sessions of what
amounted to the court of highest instance, and had a major influence
over judicial and ecclesiastical patronage. He also had an important say in
fiscal and monetary policy, and played a part in organizing logistical
support for the armies fighting in Spain.85 It was an acknowledgement
of the significance of this office that in the summer of 1648 Philip IV
asked the count of Castrillo to take Chumacero’s place. Yet it was a
double-edged responsibility. The holder was expected to be above
reproach, and to confine his attention to the administration of Philip’s
principal realm. If Castrillo were to accept the post, he would also have to
resign his governorship of the Council of the Indies, and adopt a more
neutral political standpoint.86 It was probably for these reasons that he
82
ASMo Spagna, 56: 3 August 1647; MHE, xix, 69–70, 72–5.
83
León Pinelo, Anales, 334–5.
84
Deleito y Piñuela, El rey se divierte, 232–45; Varey and Shergold, ‘Datos históricos’,
295–7, 301–3; Shergold, A History of the Spanish Stage, 302–25; Varey, ‘Velázquez y
Heliche’, 407–9.
85
BL Ms. Egerton 332, ff. 323–9; Fayard, Los miembros, 140–4.
86
Novoa, 460–3; MHE, xix, 189.
refused the appointment, and in doing so, he put himself in a situation not
dissimilar to that of the duke of Medina de las Torres on his return from
Naples four years before. Castrillo, however, had the sense to swallow his
pride and appeal to the people he knew to have most influence with the
king, namely Haro, the marquis of El Carpio, and the secretary of the
universal dispatch don Fernando Ruiz de Contreras. Thanks to their help,
the count was allowed to escape the presidency of Castile, and remain in
possession of his other offices. But whom to choose in his stead? Another
independent minister who might have fitted the bill was don Diego de
Arce y Reinoso, but he also made his excuses, and, like Castrillo, sought
the intercession of Haro.87 So it was in front of don Diego de Riaño y
Gamboa that this poisoned chalice finally came to rest in July 1648. He
had been another new face from the spring of 1643, and since then had
spent his time investigating the conduct of old adherents of the count-
duke.88 Riaño was believed to be a zealous and impartial investigator, but
on his appointment as president of Castile, his reputation would quickly
become compromised by his responsibility for the arrest and trial of the
duke of Híjar, a notorious piece of injustice that would leave Riaño and
Haro beholden to each other in a marriage of convenience that would last
for thirteen years.
In the spring of 1648, the duke of Híjar had been presented with what
seemed like a golden opportunity to reassert his position at court. Don
Carlos de Padilla, a veteran cavalry commander, who had previously
worked with Haro in Catalonia, was now making approaches to both
men about a quite different matter.89 Padilla claimed an acquaintance
with the French chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, as well as numerous
contacts among the supporters of Louis XIV’s cousin, the prince of
Condé. He wanted to be given money and powers to undertake a special
mission to Paris in order to negotiate a peace with Mazarin, or, failing that,
to engineer Condé’s defection. Haro seemed interested, and held a series
of private meetings with Padilla.90 At the same time, don Carlos was
communicating to the duke of Híjar the elements of a third part of the
plan, one that had obviously not been on the table at the conferences with
Haro. This was to recruit French military assistance in a revolt that would
be provoked in Aragon under Híjar’s nominal leadership. If successful, the
87
Giraldo, Vida y heroycos hechos, 182.
88
MHE, xvii, 143–4, 212; xviii, 271, 343, 357; Novoa, 124; Ruiz de Vergara y Alava,
Vida del Illustrissimo Señor Don Diego de Anaya Maldonado, 310; Domínguez Ortiz, Política
y hacienda, 171–2; Schaub, ‘La visita de Diogo Soares’, 1–31.
89
AGS GA legajo 1516: Cantelmo to Philip IV, 23 October 1644; Haro to Ruiz de
Contreras, 26 October 1644; Ezquerra Abadía, Conspiración, 53–9.
90
Ezquerra Abadía, Conspiración, 210–15, 218–19, 223–4, 235–6.
duke would be enthroned as an independent king of Aragon under French
protection; Philip would be assassinated; and the Infanta María Teresa
kidnapped and taken to Portugal. The Spanish army of Catalonia would
be bought off with money provided by John of Braganza in exchange for
the concession of Galicia. Catalonia’s independence would also be guar-
anteed and France would receive Navarre and various strategic provinces
in the Pyrenees.91
It is clear that Híjar had an inkling that Padilla was up to something,
and was placed in a dilemma about how to convey his information to the
right people, not least because he had been warned to stay out of public
affairs. At the end of May 1648, he confided his anxieties in a letter to Sor
María de Ágreda, and she responded by urging him to speak immediately
and directly to the king, rather than to his ministers.92 This was on
28 July, three weeks before the arrests. In a tragic error of judgement,
the duke for once in his life held his tongue. What was going through his
mind can only be guessed at, but he conducted his dealings with Padilla
very openly, which suggests he felt he had nothing to hide. It was also very
doubtful that he could have seriously countenanced making himself king
of Aragon, since his personal following in that kingdom was negligible—
he placed a much higher value on his claim to the throne of Castile.93 It is
likely, however, that the duke showed an active interest in Padilla in order
to obtain information about what was afoot, perhaps with a view to
revealing the details of the conspiracy in a dramatic gesture that would
restore his credit with the king. Yet, everything went awry when the
conspiracy was brought into the open before time. After investigations
and a trial that lasted through the autumn of 1648, Padilla and one of his
accomplices, the marquis of La Vega de la Sagra, were found guilty and
executed. Híjar, who protested his innocence under torture, was con-
demned to spend the rest of his days in prison.
Ramón Ezquerra Abadía’s 1934 account of the alleged conspiracy of the
duke of Híjar remains the most important published source for this
episode. It does not, however, draw what seem to be obvious conclusions
regarding the parts played by Haro and Riaño. On several occasions in his
book Ezquerra Abadía dismissed the new valido as a political dupe.94 Yet,
Haro’s handling of the episode was anything but naive. He appears to
have known of Padilla’s intentions from an early stage, when one of the
latter’s servants had supplied information of what was afoot. Also, an
exchange of letters between Padilla and his accomplice in Seville, which
91 92
AHPZ P-1/47/17. CSMA, i, 172–3 (n. 5).
93
AHPZ P-1/81/8, ff. 14v–15r.
94
Ezquerra Abadía, Conspiración, 14–15, 203, 210, 214.
was used as evidence in the trial, had been passing through the hands of
the lieutenant governor of the royal palace in Seville, who was Haro’s
agent. It is therefore likely that the changeover in the presidency of
the Council of Castile in July 1648 was connected with the need to find
the right man to make the arrests and manage the trial. When the
conspiracy was denounced in August, the authorities were ready to pounce:
suspects were rounded up; incriminating evidence was seized from several
different locations; and a tribunal of judges was appointed to meet in
Riaño’s house.95
The duke of Híjar’s family later protested that he did not receive a fair
trial. They claimed that witnesses had been allowed to correlate their
stories; that the case against him depended on information that had
been extracted by torture or the threat of it; that references to Híjar’s
involvement in the letters of the convicted conspirators were no more than
incidental; and that Riaño’s men had obstructed the lawyers for the
defence in the preparation of their case.96 It seems the duke’s family had
good grounds for complaint. Some of the judges making up the tribunal
had clear ties with the regime, particularly don Francisco de Robles, who
had been very light-handed in his previous investigations into the author-
ship and publication of the Nicandro treatise that had appeared in 1643 in
defence of Olivares’ political record.97 More significantly, Padilla’s accom-
plice in Seville was interrogated by Haro’s close confidant, don Juan de
Góngora, before being sent to Madrid.98 It was also seen as suspicious that
so many of these judges either died or were sent on commissions to other
parts of the monarchy very soon after the trial.99 And if all this were not
enough, the Jesuit responsible for administering to Padilla’s spiritual needs
before his execution was none other than Father Agustín de Castro, who
had all along been encouraging Haro in his pursuit of the valimiento. Any
new information that Padilla may or may not have brought to light in his
preparation for death would thus remain a secret of the confessional.100
After the conclusion of the trial, the king wrote a letter to Sor María de
Ágreda, in which he seemed easy in his mind that justice had been done:
I fulfilled my obligations to the full, without being left with the least scruple
in the world, for I gave them [the accused] sufficient time to prepare their
95
Novoa, 484–5; León Pinelo, Anales, 337–8; Ezquerra Abadía, Conspiración, 260–4.
96
Ezquerra Abadía, Conspiración, 327–9, 331–2.
97
MHE, xvii, 100; Ezquerra Abadía, Conspiración, 226, 231; Marañón, El conde-
duque, 474. The other magistrates at Híjar’s trial were don Pedro de Amezqueta, don
Bernardo de Ipeñarrieta, don Martín de Larreategui, and don Melchor de Valencia. Don
Agustín de Hierro acted as prosecuting attorney.
98 99
Ezquerra Abadía, Conspiración, 267–8. AHPZ P-1/81/23.
100
Ezquerra Abadía, Conspiración, 306–7.
defences, and I let them choose the lawyers they wanted in order to represent
them, both orally and in writing; I appointed five judges, those of the
greatest satisfaction that there are in my councils; I urged them to think of
nothing more than the correct administration of justice, without allowing
themselves to be moved by any other emotion, and on the day the verdict
was to be decided [I gave orders] that in all the convents the right outcome
should be entrusted to God; after which I, for my part, had nothing more
to do.101
Over the previous six years his outlook had shifted away from the frenzied
decrees of 1643, to a more reluctant acquiescence towards moral reform in
the early months of 1645, to an authorization of public festivities to
celebrate his engagement in the summer of 1647, and finally to calls for
prayers that the carefully picked judges, in what could only be described as
a kangaroo court, should reach the ‘right’ verdict for the duke of Híjar. As
a Christian king, it was Philip’s duty to see to the proper administration of
justice, but in both this case, and in that of don Jerónimo de Villanueva,
he had taken his role no further than to delegate his functions to ministers
and their appointees. Having done so, he considered his duty accom-
plished, regardless of the patent malpractice that he was allowing to take
place on his watch. The irregularities in the proceedings against Híjar were
widely acknowledged by observers at the time and afterwards,102 but the
duke would still be left to languish in prison until his death in January
1664, and it would not be until the new reign before the charges against
him could finally be revoked.103
Haro’s conscience, meanwhile, was clear. It was Riaño who had organ-
ized everything. All Haro had done was play a waiting game that—at least
within the morality of the times—legitimately conformed to the exercise
of passive dissimulation when dealing with enemies.104 He had done
nothing actively to deceive or incriminate Híjar, but merely sat back to
watch this nobleman dig his own grave and then walk into it, before
Riaño’s men moved in to bury the truth under several feet of earth. The
valido’s behaviour also provided a pointer to the future. Padilla’s spurious
plan to engineer the separation of the prince of Condé from his loyalty to
Louis XIV would later become a reality, albeit by different means and
for different ends. The alliance concluded in November 1651 between
101
CSMA, i, 170.
102
ADA Montijo 17: Osera to don Josef de Villalpando, 29 December 1658; Carrasco
Martínez, Sangre, honor y privilegio, 182–3.
103
AHPZ P-1/81/27: correspondence between don Jaime de Silva fifth duke of Híjar
and don Cristóbal Crespí de Valldaura, 1665–6; RAH Ms. 9/7159(2): aviso of 27 January
1664; AJB, ii, 297; Bertaut, 238.
104
Rivadeneira, Tratado de la religión y virtudes, 525.
Philip IV and France’s first prince of the blood would become the central
aspect of Haro’s foreign policy until the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659,
when he would deal in much the same way with Cardinal Mazarin as he
had done with Híjar and Padilla: lulling them all into a false sense of
security, whilst dragging out the discussions as he watched and waited
until the right moment arrived to achieve his ends.
CONCLUSION: INHERITANCE
The duke of Híjar’s disgrace came just as Haro’s valimiento was finally
becoming consolidated. Santo Tomás and Isabel of Bourbon were dead,
Chumacero had been removed, and Sor María de Ágreda neutralized.
Monterrey, Castrillo, and Arce were still powerful, but their influence was
confined to their individual areas of responsibility. Don Fernando de
Borja’s position had been impaired by the death of Prince Baltasar Carlos
in October 1646. Of the grandees who had sought to dissuade Philip from
taking a valido, Medinaceli would soon be won over by a marriage alliance
between his daughter and Haro’s son, whilst the duke of Montalto had
been appointed viceroy of Sardinia. Still potentially troublesome were the
count of Lemos, and the duke of Osuna, who took part, together with
other potentially fractious aristocrats, at a great banquet hosted by the
duke of El Infantado in July 1647.105 The latter had taken on the role of
leader and spokesman of aristocratic disaffection at court. He had recently
served as captain-general of cavalry at the relief of Lérida, and was in high
credit. In the autumn of 1647 there was an incident in the gardens of the
Casa del Campo. The marchioness of Leganés was hunting small game,
and felt threatened by the presence of coaches nearby that contained the
admiral of Castile, his servants, and some professional singers. When they
refused to move away she fired arquebus shots towards them, and injured
the admiral’s coachman in the face. Written messages were exchanged,
and the different sides were placed under house arrest. Haro gave his
support to the marquis of Leganés, whilst El Infantado came out in favour
of the admiral. After some angry confrontations, the latter two aristocrats
were exiled to their estates.106
Haro’s family situation was also stronger. On 23 August 1648, five days
after Híjar’s arrest, the marquis of El Carpio died, leaving don Luis to
inherit his father’s title. At about the same time, he was the beneficiary of a
105
MHE, xix, 63.
106
ASMo Spagna, 56: 2 October 1647; BL Ms. 24947, f. 381r; MHE, xix, 118–19. See
also Martínez Hernández, ‘ “Por estar tan acostumbrados” ’, 289–90.
partial resolution of the litigation surrounding the count-duke’s legacy.
He had already taken possession of the Olivares estate in the summer of
1645, but the more recently acquired, and much richer, inheritances of
the duchy of Sanlúcar and marquisate of Mairena remained in dispute. At
the heart of the problem was that the countess of Olivares had been given
powers to make a testament in her husband’s name, and she had taken it
upon herself to incorporate these recently acquired assets into a single
entail (mayorazgo) for the benefit of the count-duke’s natural son, the
marquis of Mairena.107 It included not only the lands, alienated royal
taxes, jurisdictions, and patronage rights that Olivares had accumulated
during his years of ascendancy, but also the count-duke’s most prestigious
offices and dignities. Amongst other things, these included the grand
chancellorship of the Indies, the treasurer generalship of the crown of
Aragon, the grand commandery of the Order of Alcántara, and the
governorships of the Buen Retiro and Zarzuela palaces. As Francisco
Tomás y Valiente noted, it was these offices that had helped Olivares to
define and justify his valimiento.108 The king had allowed them to be
bound into the Sanlúcar estate, and they would be needed by anyone
seeking to fill the count-duke’s shoes.
Serious efforts had been made to bring the countess of Olivares to a
negotiated settlement, and this appears to have been on the point of
conclusion in the spring of 1646, but the countess had been persuaded
(possibly by her brother the count of Monterrey) to change her mind.109
Her refusal to compromise seems to have displeased the king, and may
have led more neutral figures, like José González, to lose patience, and side
with Haro. The countess’s position was also undermined by the death of
the first marquis of Mairena in June 1646, leaving a son of no more than a
few months in age. Her final mistake had been to arrange this child’s
marriage to the baby daughter of her Tarazona cousins, and to make the
marquis of Tarazona governor of the children (in place of the loyal count
of Grajal who had previously been responsible for Mairena’s interests).110
Both infants were dead by the following spring—‘happy them that God
should take them before they be possessed and lost to the contagion
of this sick world’ was the comment of Sor María when news reached
Ágreda.111 The duke of Medina de las Torres’ response was more worldly.
107
AHPM 6233, ff. 664v–5r; AHN Consejos legajo 37681/2796, ff. 92v–3r.
108
Tomás y Valiente, Validos, 96–102.
109
ASMo Spagna, 55: 15 November 1645; 56: 4 April 1646; BNM Ms. 2276, ff.
66r–v. For a more sympathetic view of the countess of Olivares’ attempts to preserve her
husband’s legacy, see Marañón, El conde-duque, 604–6.
110
AHPM 6233, ff. 673r–v; Marañón, El conde-duque, 348.
111
CSMBB, 136.
On 31 March 1648 he submitted a formal legal claim on the inheritance
to the Council of Castile.
Too late. Even before the death of the second marquis of Mairena, the
king had issued a decree on 29 January recognizing a deal made between
Haro and Tarazona, and mediated by Monterrey, Leganés, and José
González. It stated that Haro would renounce his claim on the totality
of the Sanlúcar and Mairena inheritances in return for various properties
in southern Spain along with the town and convent of Loeches. He also
made an agreement to pay 3,000 ducats a year to honour debts owing on
the remaining properties in Andalusia that he was not due to receive.112
The real political significance of the agreement, though, was to make
available a number of high offices. Thus far, Haro had been accorded very
few formal appointments, but in 1648, the situation changed. In February,
he received the grand commandery of Alcántara; in March he was made
grand chancellor and registrar of the Indies; and in December he was
accorded the interim governorship of the Retiro and Zarzuela palaces.113
In addition to these dignities, which had been held by Olivares, he received
the two important household posts of master of the horse and master of
the hounds, following his father’s death in August.
The January 1648 agreement was not the end of the affair. Even though
Haro had renounced his own rights to all other lands, jurisdictions and
titles that had once belonged to Olivares, in August that year one of his
lawyers made a new claim on behalf of his eldest daughter, doña Antonia.
After another two and a half years of litigation, agreement was reached in
April 1651, whereby she would receive an income of 5,000 ducats a year
derived from the residue of the count-duke’s estate. The process of
negotiation bore the signs of a cosy arrangement between friends and
family, in which Haro and his daughter were represented by don Juan de
Góngora, whilst the claims of the marquis of Leganés and his son were
represented by the count of Peñaranda—all with the cooperation of the
marquis of Tarazona in his new role as administrator of the affairs of
the late countess of Olivares.114 Left on the sidelines was the duke of
Medina de las Torres, who was confined to venting his anger in a legal
document that he signed before witnesses and a notary on 14 January 1650:
Don Luis de Haro now occupies the first place and valimiento in the king’s
grace, and has a close relationship with the marquis of Leganés, and both are
112
AHN Consejos legajo 37681/2796, ff. 131v–7v; AHPM 8156, ff. 779r–v.
113
ADA Carpio 81/37; AGP Expedientes personales 668/2; RAH Ms. 9/1074, ff.
176r–v; Schäfer, Indias, i, 222.
114
AGS Cámara, Libros de Relación, 36, ff. 56v, 60v, 283r; AHN Consejos legajo
37681/2796, ff. 80r–90v, 104r–5v, 114v–30r; Salazar y Castro, Silva, ii, 622–3.
intimate friends with the count of Monterrey, who is my greatest enemy, as
I have experienced on several occasions, and I recognize him for such
judicially, and it is he who is the sole governor of the actions of don Luis,
and to whom he [Haro] refers all the serious matters that occur in this
monarchy, and so it is impossible for me in any way to achieve and obtain
justice.115
For all his rancour, it was Medina’s own fault if he refused any part in a
compromise settlement that the king himself was anxious to achieve, and
in which, it should be emphasized, Olivares’ nephew, and closest surviving
descendant, had sacrificed quite a lot. Haro had been accorded some of the
offices that had been bound into his uncle’s entail, and would enjoy the
usufruct of others, but he was also having to pay 3,000 ducats a year to
honour debts on Andalusian properties that he did not himself own.
Litigation over the residue of the estate would drag on between Medina
and Leganés, but pending that outcome, the duke should have been
thankful at least to have been confirmed in his possession of the treasurer
generalship of the crown of Aragon, along with most of Olivares’ remaining
assets.116
In the meantime, the new regime was up and running, and as the
suspects in the Híjar conspiracy were being interrogated, Haro took the
oath as master of the king’s horse in a ceremony held on 5 September
1648 in the gilded hall of the Alcázar palace.117 Henceforward, he would
have the right to appear at the king’s side on all public occasions. His titles
and dignities had come suddenly, but they acted as the acknowledgement
of a gradual process of political recognition that had taken place over the
previous six years. As valido he had to fulfil many different roles. He had
always been a courtier, and had gained some experience of representing
the crown before the elites even during the Olivares years.118 By the end
of 1643, as we have seen, he was presenting himself to foreign envoys as
a man with whom they should do business. The next year, he was
being employed as the king’s representative with the army commanders in
Catalonia. In 1645 and 1646, he was raising large sums of money in Madrid
and Andalusia. He was also beginning to place his own men within the
administration. It was no accident, for example, that don Jerónimo del
Pueyo Araciel and don Juan de Góngora were both appointed to the
Council of the Indies during Haro’s visit to Cadiz. The former had worked
115
AHPM 8156, f. 773v.
116
Gil Pujol, ‘El ducado de Sanlúcar’, 81–101; Arroyo Martín, ‘Poder y nobleza’,
619–26.
117
AGP Administrativo, legajo 627; ADA Carpio 81/36.
118
Jago, ‘The Crisis of the Aristocracy’, 85; Elliott, Olivares, 260–1, 618.
closely with him during the recruiting drive in the autumn of 1645. The
latter would become his principal collaborator in the management of royal
finances during the 1650s and early 1660s. Whilst Haro’s involvement with
the army of Catalonia in the autumn of 1644 had been more in the capacity
of mediator, by 1646 he was taking a direct part in the strategic discussions
that led to the victory at Lérida. The letters he wrote from Aragon during
the summer of 1647 speak volumes about his technical expertise, and about
his more general approach to the monarchy’s problems. In an undated
missive, written probably on 11 or 12 July 1647, he even provided what
amounted to a political credo:
Great things cannot be attained without taking risks, and war in its nature is
nothing more than the surmounting of difficulties, which are implicit in
whatever plan of action is followed; and if, as we recognize our own
[difficulties], we also understand those of our enemies, we can see how our
own situation in some ways is better than theirs.119
Here was the flexible, optimistic philosophy of the minister who would
preside over Spain’s revival and survival for the next fourteen years.
Everything depended on money, good information, the conservation of
the army, and the providence of God. Difficulties could be overcome with
thought, effort, and divine assistance. Ultimately, Haro believed that Spain
would come out on top in a struggle in which all sides were facing the same
kind of problems. Looking forward, the period between 1648 and 1656
would witness him operating at the height of his powers. The next three
chapters will move the perspective of the book outwards to offer a broader
picture of Spanish political society and how its members were employed. In
as far as was possible, this would be a period of social harmony and political
stability. Nevertheless, there would always be a small number of mal-
contents at hand to remind the valido that he could never take his position
for granted.
119
CODOIN, xcv, 292–3.
PART II
T H E MI N I S T E R I A L E L I T E
INTRODUCTION
The first part of this book explored don Luis de Haro’s rise to power in the
context of the immediate philosophical and political environment that
surrounded the king. Although he had clearly emerged as the successor to
Lerma and Olivares by 1648, his position as representative of a discredited
form of government was very awkward. In due course, his resort to foreign
policy as a means of sustaining his domestic political situation will be
discussed in Part III. For the moment, it is necessary to consider the
governing elite in broader terms in order to understand the personal and
institutional frameworks within which the valimiento functioned. Chapter 4
will thus offer an analysis of the workings of society and government within
Philip IV’s European possessions. Recent scholarship has rightly suggested
that the monarchy in its time of crisis was becoming more integrated in
terms of a wider distribution of patronage, and a more balanced sharing of
the fiscal load between its various dominions. What follows here will echo
this research, whilst drawing attention to how a continued (or even
improved) functionality of government was manifest in, and assisted by, a
more harmonious relationship between the people at the top. The removal
of the very interventionist methods that had been practised by Olivares
would allow the monarchy to recover some of its normal rhythms, and
continue to defend itself with arguably greater effectiveness.
Some qualification is needed. Social and political stability was not a
universal phenomenon. Rural parts of the eastern Iberian viceroyalties and
the southern Italian kingdoms were beset by banditry exacerbated in no
small way by the internecine feuding of the local nobilities. There was also
sporadic unrest in the cities of Andalusia between 1647 and 1652, and
much more serious trouble in Naples and Sicily during 1647–8. Never-
theless, the great revolts of the mid-seventeenth century arose from below
as a result of uncertainties created by aggressive fiscality, food shortages, and
price fluctuations. Involvement of the elites, where it occurred, can mostly be

put down to a reaction against the aggressive methods of the authorities, or to
fears for their future in the light of the social forces unleashed. Otherwise, the
general outlook of Philip IV’s noble subjects was very loyal and remarkably
apolitical. This is all the more surprising in the light of the return to a more
intrusive approach to government that began to re-emerge as the new
valimiento found its feet.
Of course, Haro, like any other beneficiary of the ruler’s universal
favour, had enemies. Yet they were fewer in number than those of his
predecessors, and could be removed—at least temporarily—by appoint-
ment to prestigious offices away from Madrid. Chapter 5 will therefore
offer a consideration of the incentives and obligations that led noblemen
to agree to serve the king abroad, whilst suggesting reasons why they were
appointed, and considering what happened to them when they came
home. In the process the discussion will emphasize the valido’s role in
directing the lives and fortunes of those around him as an intermediary
and negotiator on behalf of the king. Chapter 6 will concentrate on Haro’s
family, and his close political collaborators. It will seek to understand their
involvement within the machinery of government, and how their different
patronage networks were put to the service of the state. Over the course of
these three chapters a picture will emerge of the valido’s relationship with a
group of people who were connected by ties of friendship and family, and
who worked together with remarkable success in stabilizing the fortunes of
the monarchy after the crisis of the 1640s. And yet the political situation
as far as don Luis was personally concerned would always be uncertain.
Whilst the principal theme of Part I of this book was the illegitimacy of the
valimiento as a mode of government, the keynote of Part II will be the
insecurity suffered by its principal representative within an environment
which was otherwise very stable.
4
Government and Society after Olivares
There is a tendency within scholarship to read early modern political history

through the prism of conflict. Seventeenth-century elites are often under-
stood as having been at loggerheads with each other over matters such as
ceremonial precedence, jurisdictional space, the distribution of royal favour,
or more individual issues of personal and family honour. They are also seen
as divided along social and vocational lines, with magistrates, sword noble-
men, clergy, and city aldermen belonging to supposedly exclusive corporate
groups. Noble society is thus traditionally regarded as fragmented, with
divisions extending towards a perceived structural disunity of the whole
monarchy. In such a view, Philip IV’s Iberian, Italian, and Burgundian
possessions were governed from Madrid by Castilians, whilst Castile alone
bore the expense of defending these dominions from their enemies. The
king’s other subjects, meanwhile, are said to have been excluded from all but
local government, as they hid behind their individual legal codes to avoid
ever more intrusive fiscal demands from the centre.
The reality, at least during the second half of Philip IV’s reign, was very
different, and this has begun to be appreciated in more recent historiog-
raphy. The legalistic character of the Spanish administration is now often,
and rightly, regarded as an asset that provided a peaceful means of resisting
royal authority in the law courts and gave an extra element of power to the
king and his ministers in Madrid as arbiters in disputes when these
occurred.1 Historians of the eastern Iberian viceroyalties, and of Spain’s
possessions in Italy and the Low Countries have, moreover, pointed to the
fiscal and military contributions provided by these dominions, whilst
emphasizing the cohesive nature of their noble societies.2 Meanwhile, the
political stability of certain parts of the monarchy, like Castile, Milan, and
the loyal provinces of the Netherlands, has become an important subject of
1
Elliott, ‘Spain and America’, 291–2, 302–3; MacKay, Limits of Royal Authority,
13–15; Caporossi, ‘La police à Madrid’, 51–3; Corteguera, ‘Loyalty and Revolt’, 87–9;
González de León, Road to Rocroi, 379–80.
2
Casey, Kingdom of Valencia, 159, 179–82, 191–2, 223–4; Thompson, ‘Castile: Polity,
Fiscality’, 173; Thompson, ‘Public Expenditure and Political Unity’, 885–8; Villari, Revolt
of Naples, 75–9, 112–13, 148–9; Vermeir, ‘En el centro de la periferia’, 400.
discussion within the broader debate over the general European crisis of the
mid-seventeenth century, and why this was avoided in most parts of the
Spanish Monarchy.3
Yet, as regards the teaching of early modern Spanish history in anglo-
phone universities, textbook misconceptions have changed little over the
past fifty years. Furthermore, and at the higher level of academic research,
there has been a tendency to allow analysis of the illness to be obscured by
description of its symptoms. Painstaking reconstruction of the minutiae of
noble affrays, disputes over precedence, or quarrels between competing
institutions has tended to distract from the occasional nature of such
instances. In general terms, for much of the later part of Philip IV’s
reign, government and society worked remarkably well. The differences
that had existed between the old aristocracy of the sword and the more
recently established lettered nobility of the universities were not nearly as
evident as had once been the case, and one might even go so far as to
say that most of the different members of the nobility actually quite liked
each other. This observation may seem to run against one of the central
arguments of this book, which is that an important reason for the ultimate
failure of Philip IV’s monarchy consisted in the practice of royal favouritism.
How could this be the case when Spain during the years of don Luis de
Haro’s ascendancy was politically stable, and enjoyed a significant resur-
gence as an influential European power? The answer is that the achieve-
ments of these years were in no sense a testament to the valimiento as a
reliable and legitimate mode of government. Haro may have been a much
less antagonistic manager of royal authority than Olivares, but, as we shall
see in later chapters, he was just as much an enthusiast as his uncle had been
for expensive and destructive international policies. Rather, the stable
situation that came to prevail for much of the second half of Philip IV’s
reign was partly a consequence of this particular valido’s ability to make the
best of a bad world, but also of advantages that were intrinsic to the Spanish
Monarchy, and which will now be examined.
BENDING THE RULES
The early modern understanding of kingship placed a heavy emphasis on

the ruler’s duty to ensure the proper administration of justice. Most of the
councils in Madrid were legal tribunals whose members were qualified
3
Elliott, ‘A Non-Revolutionary Society’; Esteban Estríngana, ‘Deslealtad prevenida’;
Giannini, ‘Un caso di stabilità politica’. See also the recently published collection of essays
edited by Quirós Rosado and Bravo Lozano: Los hilos de Penélope.
Government and Society after Olivares 95
magistrates. Their business was to administer justice in terms of the
running of public affairs (justicia gubernativa), civil and criminal disputes
(justicia contenciosa), and the selection of officials (justicia distributiva).4
The second two categories—concerning lawsuits and patronage—dealt
with how noblemen related to each other, and how they were able to
guarantee the prestige, influence, and material well-being of themselves,
their families, and their clients. The first notion of justice—as a form of
government—had wide-ranging political implications, for it implied that
royal authority was shared, or adjudicated, between different institutions
and representatives of the king, obedience to whom was subject to debate
and clarification. Such an approach often resulted in a slowness of dis-
patch, as well as an obstructiveness towards any kind of innovation. It
meant that royal authority could be contested in the law courts, and even
kept in check by the king’s own magistrate-ministers.5
Yet by the early modern period, government had become more than
simply a matter of justice. The king’s role was not only to make and
uphold the law. He also had to protect his subjects from foreign aggres-
sors, and he had to safeguard the Catholic religion. A second, more
interventionist, level of government, was therefore necessary, one to
which the financial and military administrations in Madrid—although
still technically bound by the law—were more sympathetic than the
ordinary jurisdictions of the different kingdoms and principalities of the
monarchy. In July 1648, the president of the Council of Finance José
González reminded Philip IV that his first obligation was the defence and
conservation of his kingdoms, which amounted to ‘the supreme law’ against
which private entitlements were of lesser concern.6 This minister was
seeking to defend the prerogatives of the Council of Finance, of which he
was president, and which were more intrusive than those of the Council of
Castile. Yet there existed still more arbitrary measures that were implicit in a
third level of government, one based around informal committees (juntas),
and which had come to be associated with the valido.
In fact, there was nothing intrinsically wrong with the judicial approach
to government. Administration through law courts had a very important
purpose, and this was precisely to impede the authority of the central
4
Fernández Albaladejo, Fragmentos, 101–4.
5
Historiography on this subject is immense. See in particular: Kagan, Lawsuits, 23–36,
42; González Alonso, ‘La fórmula “obedézcase, pero no se cumpla” ’; Hespanha, Vísperas del
Leviatán, 206–29; Schaub, ‘L’État quotidien’, 33–50; Thompson, ‘Castile: Polity, Fiscal-
ity’, 148–9; Thompson, ‘Absolutism, Legalism and the Law’, 195–200, 205–7, 217–19.
I am very grateful to Jean-Frédéric Schaub and to James Amelang for their assistance in
navigating this important aspect of current scholarship.
6
BL Ms. Egerton 339, f. 415r.
executive on those occasions when it was exceeding its powers. Yet there
were differences in the interpretation of what the king could and could not
do which were more accentuated in some of Philip IV’s possessions than
others. In one place it might be possible to elicit the cooperation of
the king’s subjects within a reasonably flexible environment, whilst in
another, more rigid legal definitions could lead to confrontation. For the
most part, the kingdom of Castile remained steadfastly loyal, because, as
Ruth MacKay has suggested, royal power could be negotiated between
different local institutions and legal authorities, thus allowing Philip IV’s
subjects a variety of resources of complaint and redress that did not involve
open defiance.7 Armies were raised with a reasonable degree of effective-
ness because the king had obtained the agreement of the Cortes, and the
cooperation of the local noble, ecclesiastical, and urban elites. Where
problems arose, they were usually more the result of confused directives
from the central government than of disagreements between its various
local representatives.8
In Portugal and Catalonia things were different. Here the laws and
customs were more rigid, and the demands of the central government,
though not as great as in Castile, were considered much more intrusive.
Jean Frédéric Schaub’s detailed reading of the road to revolt in Portugal
presents a sorry tale of conflicting personalities and misconceived policies.
The count-duke of Olivares had inflicted upon this kingdom a relentless
barrage of often contradictory initiatives that were implemented without
the consultation of the Portuguese Cortes, and enforced by a system of
juntas that were imposed from above, and without reference to the existing
tribunals in Lisbon. Moreover, the individuals selected to run the govern-
ment in Portugal were either creatures of the valido, or people he wanted
to neutralize politically, and they proved incapable of working with each
other, let alone with the existing administrative organs.9 It was a similar
story in Catalonia. Here, Olivares’ policies had been based on poor
information provided to him by special advisors who were prejudiced in
their outlooks.10 Unlike in Portugal, at least some attempt had been made
to secure constitutional agreement for reform, but this was done in a half-
hearted way, and the failure of the sessions of the Barcelona Cortes in
1626 and 1632 led to a much more aggressive campaign to bring the
7
MacKay, Limits of Royal Authority, 3–4, 21, 25, 33, 89–98, 140–4, 173. See also
Schaub, Le Portugal, 8–9, 390; Gil Pujol, ‘Más sobre las revueltas’, 375–6.
8
MacKay, Limits of Royal Authority, 35–6, 54–7, 80, 120–30. Also Pym, Gypsies,
128–31, 136; Schaub, Le Portugal, 171.
9
Schaub, Le Portugal, 147–9, 153–64, 182–200, 215–17, 233–5. Also Valladares, La
rebelión de Portugal, 22–6.
10
Elliott, Catalans, 238, 356–7, 409–11.
principality to heel. Operating through the Junta de Ejecución, which met
between 1636 and 1642, Olivares and his advisors bullied the magistrates
of the supreme court in Barcelona into following a course of action
that everyone knew to be illegal.11 The elected representatives of the
principality were arrested and imprisoned; tax-collecting responsibilities
were taken away from the local authorities and placed in the hands of
government agents; and new requirements were introduced that the
populace should not only give quarter to, but also pay for, the king’s
army fighting against France.12 By the spring of 1640, as John Elliott has
shown, every social group in the principality had been alienated.13 The
result was catastrophe. In Catalonia the king’s judges, who had been
complicit in the government’s efforts to make the principality support
an army of occupation, paid dearly for the consequences.14 In Portugal,
the initiatives of Olivares and his henchmen culminated in a revolution
that brought about the permanent exile of the king’s men, along with a
substantial section of the Portuguese noble and ecclesiastical elites.15 The
experiences of both dominions demonstrated the central government’s
capacity to reach out into the peripheral regions, and cause untold misery.
Historians often write of a return to traditional conciliar administration
after the fall of Olivares, and for a few years this was certainly the case. As
we saw in Chapter 3, the Council of Castile and the Inquisition were
placed under the vigorous new management of don Juan Chumacero and
don Diego de Arce y Reinoso. Philip also agreed to appoint a native-born
vice-chancellor to chair the sessions of the Council of Aragon—first
don Matías de Bayetola, and then, after 1652, don Cristóbal Crespí de
Valldaura. Yet, as memories of the count-duke’s government became
more distant, the strict rule of the law began to be bent in more interven-
tionist directions. The Council of Castile had an instrumental role in the
business of recruiting soldiers and raising money and supplies, and under
Chumacero’s presidency in the mid-1640s it did its utmost to ensure that
its own very strict interpretation of the law was upheld. Yet the Council of
Castile soon found itself having to share its military and financial respon-
sibilities with other institutions, like the Councils of War and Finance,
whose officials were less likely to adhere to the niceties of due process. It
was also having to compete on an increasing basis with ad hoc committees
of ministers that had been imposed from above, and whose framework of
responsibility possessed hardly any definition at all.
11 12
Ibid., 85–90, 367–8, 387–90. Ibid., 380, 403–5, 412–16.
13 14
Ibid., 486–8. Ibid., 520–1, 570–1.
15
Bodl. Ms. Tanner 65, ff. 224r, 249r; Bouza, ‘Entre dos reinos’; Valladares, La rebelión
de Portugal, 46, 87–96.
The confrontation between ‘good government’ and a more arbitrary
mode of rule—albeit one that was still conducted by the councils—can be
seen most clearly in the struggle to control the important subsidies that
were voted by the Cortes. These were administered by a standing com-
mittee of its members, the Comisión de Millones, which operated through
agents employed at a local level by the towns and cities of Castile. The
arrangement was unsatisfactory, because it left collection in the hands of
people who were not directly responsible to Madrid. Fraud and ineffi-
ciency were rife, and only a fraction of the money voted by the Cortes ever
reached the central treasury. To correct the problem a series of reforms
during the 1630s had brought the Comisión more closely under the
control of the government by the introduction into its numbers of two
members of the Council of Castile and two members of the Council of
Finance. In 1647, a further innovation took place when the Comisión was
incorporated into the Council of Finance in the hope of making the local
collecting agents solely responsible to this institution.16 This measure, as
Carmen Sanz Ayán has suggested, was probably part of an attempt to
increase the confidence of the financiers in the crown’s ability to repay
loans allocated to the millones.17 As such it would have tied in with the
slow return to a more arbitrary form of government, and the outcome
appears like a classic instance of a conflict of jurisdictions between two
councils fighting over an important source of revenue. However, it needs
to be emphasized that the key players in Madrid—José González, don
Antonio de Contreras, don Antonio de Camporredondo y Río, don
Francisco Antonio de Alarcón, don Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado—were
simultaneously members of each of the different institutions. In 1647,
the Cortes successfully appealed the decision, but during the 1650s, the
Comisión would take on a life of its own, and under the direction of Haro’s
protégé, don Juan de Góngora, it would come to overshadow the two
councils that had once fought to control it. Finally, in 1658, the year when
Góngora also took control of the Council of Finance, the incorporation of
the Comisión de Millones was at last allowed to take place.
Whilst the councils were responsible for day-to-day matters of admin-
istration, executive decision-making in the 1640s continued to take place
within informal committees. The most important of these were the Junta
Particular, which followed the king on campaign and advised him on
matters relating directly to the war in Catalonia; the Junta de Guerra de
España, which was based in Madrid, and organized the financial and
16
Jago, ‘Habsburg Absolutism’, 316, n. 39, 322–3; Thompson, ‘Crown and Cortes in
Castile’, 35, n. 31; Fernández Albaladejo, Fragmentos, 296–7.
17
Sanz Ayán, Los banqueros y la crisis, 205–7.
logistical support of the different military theatres in Iberia; and the Junta
de Estado, a select group of senior ministers responsible for foreign policy.
Examples of the role of these institutions in sorting out issues of jurisdic-
tion are not hard to find. In July 1644, the Junta Particular had to advise
the king about responsibility for filling the office of governor (corregidor)
of the important town of Badajoz near the frontier with Portugal. A list of
names had originally been provided by the Cámara de Castilla, but the
military nature of the appointment raised the question of whether or not
the Council of War should be consulted.18 The members of the Junta
Particular agreed to differ: the count of Peñaranda firmly defended the
legal supremacy of the Cámara, of which he was a member; the counts of
Chinchón and Oñate argued in favour of consultation with the Council of
War; and the count of Monterrey pointed out that it had been recent
practice to refer relevant recommendations from the Cámara to the Junta
de Guerra de España, because it consisted of ministers with military
experience who would be familiar with the candidates. None of this
discussion really mattered, though, because when all was said and done,
everyone was happy enough with the recommendations originally offered
by the Cámara de Castilla, which had recognized the military significance
of the post that needed to be filled, and had provided a list of names of
suitably experienced soldiers.19
Of course, things could be much more complicated when disputes took
place within the peripheral governments of the monarchy, where there was
no immediately available source of unquestioned authority to contrive a
solution. Most viceroys had to fight a constant battle with local tribunals,
which severely hamstrung their authority. However, and as will be dis-
cussed in greater depth in Chapters 5 and 7, this was not necessarily a
disadvantage. A policy of restraint conducted by default could be benefi-
cial to the stability of a region, and to the survival at least of its ability to
conduct attritional warfare against the king’s enemies. Vigorous and
energetic leadership, on the other hand, was more likely to bring about
revolt or military defeat. What was at stake in the practice of government
was how far it was acceptable to push the boundaries of legality. Whereas
Olivares had openly defied the privileges and constitutions of the periph-
eral areas of the monarchy, his successors found ways of bending the rules
more discreetly. And willingness to bend the rules went beyond strictly
legal matters. During the second half of Philip IV’s reign, there emerged
what might be described as a compromising ingenuity in the way that
18
AGS GA legajo 1565: consulta of the Junta Particular, 10 July 1644.
19
For a similar instance of agreement between supposedly competing institutions, see
Schäfer, Indias, i, 211.
members of the government responded to problems that previously would
have been considered intractable. It amounted to a tendency to seek out
advantages in the most unlikely of quarters, a willingness to turn a blind
eye when hard-pressed subjects ignored royal orders, as well as to forgive
and forget over matters of personal or public disagreement.20 For as long
as Philip’s new valido could avoid the mistakes of his predecessor, Spain’s
fortunes might still flourish amidst this more flexible and conciliatory
outlook.
RELATIONSHIPS ACROSS CORPORATE DIVIDES
In February 1659, there took place an incident in the theatre of the

Alcázar palace in Madrid.21 Some noblemen were awaiting the start of a
play, and the marquis of Villasidro, son-in-law of don Cristóbal Crespí de
Valldaura, became caught up in a dispute over where he should be allowed
to stand in the audience. It seemed like the kind of incident to be found all
too frequently in the pages of golden age literature, one in which prickly
noblemen would come to blows on account of any real or imagined
slight.22 Yet on this occasion, a member of the old sword nobility came
to Villasidro’s assistance. This was the marquis of Osera, who happened to
be a litigant in a case that Crespí was judging. Thanks to Osera’s court
connections, a version of what had happened in the theatre that was
favourable to the young man was conveyed to the household stewards
responsible for investigating the affair. Accordingly, a senior magistrate
(Crespí) was accommodated by a titled member of the court nobility
(Osera) seeking to facilitate his private legal business by getting that
magistrate’s aristocratic son-in-law (Villasidro) out of a difficult spot. It
was an illustration in microcosm of just how well integrated political
society in Madrid could be.
It is true that relationships between the elites were not always so
straightforward, and could still be conditioned by distinctions of birth
or vocation. As well as the nobilities of sword and robe, there were other
important groups, that were quite self-contained, and anxious to safeguard
their social and corporate ethos. For example, the king’s secretaries were
usually members of the old hidalgo nobility from northern Spain, and
owed their influence to the intensive bureaucratic procedures introduced
in the sixteenth century. The senior clergy, for their part, had been given a
20
Ribot García, ‘Conflicto y lealtad’, 58–64; Gil Pujol, ‘Más sobre las revueltas’, 378–9.
21
DMO, 923–4.
22
Martínez Hernández, ‘ “Por estar tan acostumbrados” ’, 260–1.
considerably enhanced role in the localities by the Council of Trent, and
by the Spanish rulers’ need for bishops to act as their representatives in the
community, alongside—but often in awkward cooperation with—the
Inquisition.23 Professional groups could not only be affected by bound-
aries of jurisdiction, they also took pride in their individual cultural
outlooks that were reflected in different forms of dress, behaviour, and
interests.24 There was also plenty of scope for acrimony, stemming from
social prejudice, resentment at the outcome of a controversial lawsuit, or
hostility towards the implementers of unpopular government policies. In
the early 1660s an open confrontation was said to have taken place, when
the duke of Aveiro (a Portuguese grandee) had gone to the house of don
Juan de Góngora, and allegedly berated him for failing to pay his royal
pension:
you know me; I am the duke of Aveiro; you are a licenciadillo de mierda; and
when the king my lord has ordered you to provide me with prompt
assistance, it is not for you to make me come here, when it was your duty
to bring that assistance to my house.25
Less intemperate was the duke of Montalto in his objections to the investi-
gation of his conduct as viceroy of Sardinia by the ‘college graduates’ of the
Council of Aragon.26 And for aristocratic readers everywhere, part of
the attraction in seventeenth-century picaresque literature derived from the
frisson to be gained from reading narratives that had supposedly been written
by social upstarts seeking to explain the reasons for their comeuppance.27
Yet conflict, when it occurred, was usually quite easily resolved. In the
spring of 1647, the marquis of Leganés was involved in a lawsuit with the
duke of Sessa. The situation became ugly when Sessa’s retinue attempted
to prevent Leganés from presenting his arguments in court. The two
parties wanted to settle the matter in a duel, but their friends (Haro on
behalf of Leganés, and the duke of El Infantado on behalf of Sessa) had
informed the king of what was afoot, and magistrates were sent out to
place them both under house arrest. A reconciliation took place, and all
was well.28 Despite the occasional occurrence of deaths from duelling in
23
Nalle, ‘Inquisitors, Priests and the People’, 574–9.
24
Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 137, f. 28r; Kagan, Lawsuits, 175–6; Bouza, ‘Escribir en la
corte’, 83–4; Martínez Hernández, ‘ “En la corte la ignorancia vive” ’, 38–43; Mazín,
‘Ascenso político y “travestismo” ’, 91–106.
25
Bodl., Ms. Additional C. 128, ff. 301r–v. My thanks to Robert Stradling for drawing
this source to my attention.
26
AHN Estado libro 104: Montalto to second marquis of Castel Rodrigo, 20 October,
14 November 1648; BBMS Ms. 26/6/4, f. 202r.
27
Sieber, ‘Literary Continuity’, 149–50, 157–60.
28
ASMo Spagna, 56: 24 April 1647; MHE, xviii, 485.
the other cities of the monarchy, it was very rare during this period for one
titled nobleman to be seriously hurt by another in Madrid. There existed
procedures for avoiding bloodshed that involved the intervention of
secondary parties to effectuate reconciliations, as well as to contrive
solutions that would ensure that nobody lost face.29 In the same context,
the practice of litigation had the effect of compartmentalizing specific
disagreements so that opposing parties could coexist without resort to
violence—more often than not finding an amicable resolution to their
differences in an out-of-court settlement.30 As we saw with the lawsuit
over the inheritance of the count-duke of Olivares in Chapter 3, litigation
could serve to bring families together against a common enemy.
The elites of the wider Spanish monarchy also had a lot in common with
each other, not least their abiding sense of loyalty towards Philip IV. The
Lombard judiciary was unusual in still maintaining clear distinctions
between itself and the old aristocracy, but this did not prevent the state of
Milan from being one of the most politically stable of Philip IV’s posses-
sions.31 In Sicily, the nobility has been described as ‘a reasonably harmoni-
ous power bloc’, an expression that was also applicable to the integration
that existed between the elites of the Iberian kingdoms.32 Even in Naples,
where the situation was admittedly much less stable than elsewhere, the
undoubted existence of conspiracy and internecine feuding did not prevent
most of the upper ranks of society from rallying to the crown when things
turned nasty in the summer and autumn of 1647.33 And yet historians still
tend to define the elites of the Habsburg lands on the basis of their
vocational and social distinctiveness, and to assume that noble conflict—
be it motivated by jurisdictional, political, or personal reasons—was
endemic to early modern society, rather than an exceptional situation that
arose from time to time, and over quite specific issues. Evidence relating to
the families and professional outlooks of Philip IV’s ministers, which will
now be examined, suggests that the elites for the most part got along
reasonably well with each other.
29
Clarendon, History, v, 144; La corte y Monarquía, 117–19; MHE, xiii, 241; AJB, i,
116–17, 279, 281; ii, 3. See also Martínez Hernández, ‘ “Por estar tan acostumbrados” ’,
282; Signorotto, ‘Spagnoli e lombardi’, 144–7.
30
Kagan, Lawsuits, 77–8, 82–4, 92–3; Gil, ‘Más sobre las revueltas’, 374.
31
Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, ‘Corte y provincia’, 315–17, 322–4, 331–5.
32
Casey, Early Modern Spain, 182, 188–9; Elliott, ‘A Provincial Aristocracy’, 74;
Amelang, ‘Barristers’, 1269–74; Thompson, ‘The Nobility in Spain’, 205, 232–3; Ribot
García, ‘La época del conde-duque de Olivares y el Reino de Sicilia’, 667–8. For the situation
elsewhere, see Rowlands, ‘The Ethos of Blood’; Russell, ‘Parliamentary History’, 50.
33
Villari, The Revolt of Naples, 125–6. However, for different interpretations of the
nobility’s role on this occasion see Rovito, ‘Rivoluzione costituzionale’, 373–89; Benigno,
Mirrors of Revolution, 270–3.
The testaments that were written by members of the nobility are a
particularly useful indicator of friendships that crossed social and
professional divides. Out of forty-three titled aristocrats who died
between 1640 and 1680, over half chose at least one secretary, legal
expert, or clergyman as executors, whilst just under a quarter
appointed financial officials.34 The duke of Alba, the count of Mon-
terrey, and the marquises of Caracena, Los Balbases, and Leganés
selected executors from amongst other prominent figures within the
councils and royal households. Meanwhile, the counts of Peñaranda
and Fuensaldaña, the fifth count of Oñate, don Fernando de Borja, the
marquises of El Carpio and Aytona, the duke of Medina de las Torres,
and don Luis de Haro preferred to appoint friends, family, and
servants—although in Haro’s case many of these were leading political
figures in their own right. The count of Castrillo chose four lawyers
amongst a selection of other ministers and family members. This was
an unusually high tally of jurists, but perhaps not surprising given the
count’s own professional background. More curious is the presence of
nearly as many lawyers in the testament of Haro’s wife, doña Catalina
Fernández de Cardona y Aragón—although the document was actually
drawn up by her husband after she had provided him with powers to
make arrangements on her behalf. The clergy, for their part, featured
prominently as executors in the testaments of the count of Altamira,
the marquis of Cerralbo, the second marquis of Castel Rodrigo, and
the countess of Olivares, who each felt the need to involve at least
three religious. On the other hand, the count of Peñaranda, for all his
renowned piety, did not see fit to appoint any clergy in the manage-
ment of his estate, and the same went for a lot of other noblemen,
including the marquises of El Carpio and Los Balbases.
Whilst the aristocracy drew widely in their selection of executors,
most of them tended to restrict their actual bequests to clergy and to
immediate family members. Nevertheless, there were exceptions; the
fifth count of Oñate, on his death in 1644, left a silver writing set to
his secretary. Olivares’ sister, the marchioness of Alcañices, bequeathed a
silver drinking flask and salver to the financial overseer of the Sanlúcar
estate. The duke of Terranova, who was a Sicilian grandee, and member
of the king’s intimate circle, had friends of much more modest origins.
In January 1663, he drew up a will, in which he named as one of
the executors a judge from the Council of the Indies, and bequeathed
to him various items including a large devotional image, a silver brazier,
34
For what follows, see the references to noble testaments listed in the Bibliography.
and a German clock. Terranova described their relationship in touching
words:
Ever since I was a boy, I have always had a friendship for don Alonso Ramírez
de Prado, and this he has reciprocated at all times, doing me favours on
whatever occasion I have sought recourse to him and his person.35
The duke also bequeathed clocks to don Alonso’s grandson, and to don
Juan de Necolalde, a professional administrator who had served as secre-
tary of the embassy in Rome that Terranova had conducted during the
mid-1650s.36
If Philip IV’s courtiers and ministers had a fairly open-minded and
respectful regard for other social and vocational groups, the same went for
the lettered elite. The common backgrounds, promotion structures, and
mentalities that set magistrates apart as a professional group did not prevent
them from sharing friendships and family ties with people from numerous
other walks of life. Magistrates tended to have antecedents within the landed
gentry and the urban patriciates, but their siblings and children married
widely, and, more often than not, followed careers outside the law profes-
sion. The family of don Diego de Riaño y Gamboa, who was president of
the Council of Castile between 1648 and 1662, provides a case in point. His
ancestors had acquired wealth from the Burgos wool trade in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. More recently, as city aldermen (regidores), mem-
bers of his family had been selected as deputies to the Cortes, and repre-
sentatives on the Comisión de Millones. Yet their horizons stretched beyond
the narrow world of local government and fiscal administration. One of don
Diego’s brothers became general of the Benedictine Order, two others were
officers in the royal armies, and a fourth sibling became governor of
Havana.37 It was through the latter’s second son—a member of the Comi-
sión de Millones and a Councillor of Finance—that the Riaño succession
passed, after his elder brother, the viscount of Villagonzalo de Pedernales,
had lost his life in 1659 serving under Haro’s command at the battle
of Elvas.38
According to Janine Fayard’s evidence, just over 7 per cent of Coun-
cillors of Castile during the reign of Philip IV were descended directly
from titled noblemen, and considerably more had other connections with
the upper echelons of society.39 In this same context Richard Kagan has
35
ADAC Alcañices, no. 79, leg. 23, no. 70. See also AJB, ii, 106.
36
Loomie, ‘The Spanish Faction’, 37 (n. 4).
37
AHN OM expedientillo 10022; Ruiz de Vergara y Alava, Vida del Illustrissimo Señor
Don Diego de Anaya Maldonado, 311; Negredo, Predicadores, 456–7.
38
García Ramila, Don Diego de Riaño, 7, 106.
39
Fayard, Los miembros, 226, 230–1, 270–1, 292, 302–13.
noticed how there were certain noble families that had a tradition of
sending their sons into the universities.40 With these observations in
mind one might go further and suggest that the law functioned as a reserve
career choice for third or fourth sons of the high aristocracy, after their
elder siblings had been destined to inherit the family estate, or enter the
clergy and army. The count of Castrillo came from a large family, with
other brothers occupying military and ecclesiastical posts. The same went
for the count of Peñaranda, who described himself as having been ‘a
humble student and fifth child of my family’. Other younger male
offspring of aristocrats who pursued careers in the tribunals are not hard
to find. During Philip IV’s reign, the counts of Santisteban, Salvatierra,
and Torralba, the marquises of Tábara, and the dukes of Arcos and
Villahermosa all sent younger sons through the universities, where they
acquired legal degrees, held professorial chairs, and secured posts within
the provincial chancelleries, before entering the Council of Orders, which
was the common gateway to the central administration for highly born
officials. After that, a few were promoted into the Council of Castile, or
were destined for careers of a more aristocratic calling. During the second
half of Philip IV’s reign, it may have been the case that only a fraction of
the councillors in Madrid were of titled stock, but it was precisely from
this inner circle of high-born magistrates that the valido recruited his
closest ministerial allies.
The members of Philip IV’s governing elite also spread their confes-
sional bets widely. Peñaranda donated produce from his estates to the
Irish Jesuit College in Salamanca, but was primarily a devotee of the
Carmelites.41 Haro had connections with the Dominicans, Jesuits, and
Franciscans, but used Trinitarian confessors.42 The second marquis of
Castel Rodrigo had a particular devotion to the Carthusians, whilst also
employing Franciscan and Jesuit confessors, and commissioning masses
from Discalced Augustinian, Mercedarian, and Trinitarian convents.43
Although the Dominican Friar Pedro Yáñez had been on close terms
with the king’s confessor Friar Juan de Santo Tomás, his connection
with such an avid opponent of validos did not prevent him from acting
later as an executor in the testament of don Luis de Haro.44 Noblemen of
different hues also belonged to the same religious confraternities. The
Escuela de Cristo consisted of seventy-two clerical and lay brothers, who
40
Kagan, Students, 183.
41
LSPM Mss. XVIII/N/2/2; XIX/P/4/2; ‘Noticia de la fundación’.
42
RAH Ms. 9/97, f. 22r; Cueto, ‘Some Observations on the Trinitarian Connections’, 305.
43
BAM VN 201/13; MHE, xvii, 477; xix, 149.
44
Testamentos de 42 personajes, 223; Puyol Buil, Inquisición y política, 570, 606–7;
Negredo, Predicadores, 160–3, 463.
met once a week, and devoted themselves to prayer, meditation, and good
works. It contained a wide mix of people, ranging from politically inde-
pendent figures like the marquis of Aytona and don Juan de Palafox, to
Haro’s brother-in-law, don Pascual de Aragón, as well as other noblemen
and intellectuals from the valido’s wider circle, such as Nicolás Antonio
and the marquis of Mondéjar.45
The same went for the academies in which noblemen would meet to
write and perform poetry. The count of Lemos was suspected of conspir-
ing against Haro in the 1640s, and possibly as a consequence was
appointed to represent the king as viceroy in Aragon. He and his son
hosted literary academies in Zaragoza during the early 1650s. One might
have expected Lemos’s academy to have been a hotbed of malcontents,
and sure enough, amongst its members was the son of the disgraced duke
of Híjar. Yet it also included the marquises of San Felices, and Torres, who
dedicated literary works to the valido.46 Just like the Zaragoza academies,
those of Madrid included a representative cross-section of elite society. As
well as aristocrats, their membership included soldiers, financiers, court
officials, and bureaucrats. Jeremy Robbins has suggested that the academy
that held a celebrated meeting at the Retiro palace in February 1637, and
in which Haro acted as one of the judges, was probably an extraordinary
session of the long-running Academia de Madrid, of which (one assumes)
the future valido would have been a regular member. Those present at the
occasion in 1637 included professional poets and playwrights, secretaries,
courtiers, and noblemen of all types.47
Of course, shared literary enthusiasms, or religious preferences, or even
kinship ties were not in themselves indicators of friendship or political
alliance. There were always limits to what was acceptable for traditional
hierarchical outlooks. During the 1590s, the future count of La Roca had
nearly ruined his career by taking a woman of suspected Jewish ancestry as
his bride.48 Some grandees might also still shudder at the prospect of
marrying their children into letrado families. In 1648, the sixth duke of
Alba protested to Philip and Haro that, without the duke’s permission, his
son was negotiating the marriage of Alba’s granddaughter to the son of the
count of Castrillo.49 Yet not everyone was so punctilious. Family connec-
tions with the king’s magistrates were not such a problem for the mar-
quises of Almazán, Aguilar, and Cortes, nor for the count of La Puebla de
45
Sánchez Castañer, ‘Aportaciones a la biografía de Nicolás Antonio’, 5, 36; García
Fuertes, ‘Sociabilidad religiosa’, 320–5. See also, Signorotto, Milano spagnola, 41 (n. 30).
46
Egido, ‘Las academias literarias de Zaragoza’, 109–10, 113–14; Malcolm, ‘Intercesor
de escritores’.
47
Robbins, Love Poetry, 28–39, 51; Academia burlesca.
48 49
Fernández-Daza Álvarez, La Roca, 48–9. BL Ms. Egerton 338, ff. 529r–30r.
Montalbán, all of whom were happy enough to negotiate marriages
between their children and those of Castrillo. The grandee dukes of
Frías were notoriously pragmatic about whom they married, and had no
doubts about the union that was contracted in 1656 between a niece of
the letrado count of Peñaranda and a close relation of the seventh duke.
After all, it was alliances like these that allowed great families to survive
and prosper for centuries. Nearly all of the ministers who were closest to
Haro—the counts of Castrillo, Peñaranda, Fuensaldaña, and Santisteban,
the marquises of Mortara and La Fuente—were either descended from
mixed ancestry, or had siblings or younger children with university
educations, or were involved in the legal profession themselves.
TAX AND FINANCE IN CASTILE
An important reason why elite society within Castile was so loyal to the
king was because of the nature of its fiscal system. There could be no
doubt that over the long term the sustained weight of taxation on
Philip IV’s subjects was economically disastrous. However, the differ-
ent nobilities possessed a huge investment of their own in the assets
and revenues of the crown, which made them complicit in its actions,
and unlikely to object to its behaviour. Moreover, at least during the
mid-1640s, the situation was not quite as bad as it might have seemed.
Recent research has identified a reduction in the taxation burden that
took place during a period when the king was attempting to rule
within the law, and with the assistance and advice of his councils.50
What follows here will provide an overview of the finances of Castile
in the context of these two themes: the stakeholder mentality of the
elites, and the fiscal alleviation of the 1640s. It will also be suggested
that the reduction of the tax burden was only temporary, and would
be reversed following the dismissal of Chumacero and Haro’s full
establishment as valido at the end of the decade.
The annual expenditure of the crown of Castile during the second
half of Philip IV’s reign hovered between 11 and 14 million ducats, of
which about 9 million ducats were for the king’s immediate needs. The
remainder went to cover the onerous charges that were imposed by
bankers for their services in converting copper into silver currency, and
in ensuring that loans contracted in Madrid materialized as cash in the
50
Gelabert, ‘The King’s Expenses’, 241–6; Gelabert, Castilla convulsa, 206–7, 214–16,
220, 225–7, 237, 271–2, 307–10.
Netherlands.51 To find the money for these commitments, the king
possessed a variety of revenues. American bullion had traditionally pro-
vided a much-needed shot in the arm for Spain’s finances, but since the
second decade of the seventeenth century remittances had begun to
decline sharply, and after 1640 they tended to fall significantly below
1 million ducats a year.52 Income from the traditional medieval taxes and
customs duties of Castile amounted to about 4 million ducats a year, to
which could be added about 2.5 million in taxes collected from the
Church.53 On top of this, there was the extraordinary revenue of the
servicios de millones, so-called because they were subsidies voted in millions
of ducats by the Cortes. During Philip IV’s reign there took place very
significant increases in these grants, which, together with a number of
other taxes, such as the four unos por ciento, brought in an extra 4 million
ducats a year.54 Finally, there existed a miscellany of other impositions
that included a tax on the nobility to pay for garrison soldiers (the lanzas),
as well as taxes on offices and pensions (media anata de mercedes), on
official documents (papel sellado), and on various specific products, such as
raisins, salt, soap, indigo, sugar, playing cards, tobacco, and even snow.
The sum of the yield of these miscellaneous impositions amounted to
roughly 1 million ducats a year.55
On the face of it, the king’s Castilian revenues should have been able to
cover his needs. In fact, the nominal annual income of the crown of
Castile has been estimated in excess of 21 million ducats.56 The problem
was that most of this nominal figure was either not collected, or it went
into the pockets of fraudulent local officials, which meant that the king’s
real revenue from Castile rarely crept above 12 million ducats a year. What
was worse was that most of this collected money was already allocated for
the repayment of a massive consolidated debt that had built up over the
years by the sale of dividend-yielding government bonds (juros).57 By the
second half of Philip IV’s reign it amounted to somewhere between 130
51
Domínguez Ortiz, Política y hacienda, 62–7, 70; Gelabert, Castilla convulsa, 318;
Maffi, En defensa del imperio, 446–9.
52
Domínguez Ortiz, ‘Las remesas de metales preciosos’; Álvarez Nogal, El crédito de la
monarquía, 386–7; Álvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 180, n. 94; Sanz Ayán, Los banqueros
y la crisis, 85–7.
53
ADA 75/10; Domínguez Ortiz, Política y hacienda, 185–215, 229–36.
54
Jago, ‘Habsburg Absolutism’, 312–16, 319–24; Andrés Ucendo, ‘Una visión general
de la fiscalidad castellana’, 361–4.
55
Domínguez Ortiz, Política y hacienda, 217–22, 226; Sanz Ayán, ‘El canon a la
nobleza’.
56
Domínguez Ortiz, Política y hacienda, 72, 178–80; Thompson, ‘Crown and Cortes’,
31 (n. 9).
57
Castillo Pintado, ‘Los juros de Castilla’; Thompson, ‘Castile: Polity, Fiscality’, 161–2.
and 180 million ducats, and required 7–9 million ducats a year to
service.58 Accordingly, the king’s available income from Castile was only
a fraction of what he collected, which in turn was significantly less than the
amounts that were agreed by the Cortes. The annual shortfall between
what Philip received, and what he could actually spend might sometimes
be as high as 9 million ducats.59 To make up the difference, it was
necessary to negotiate high-interest loans contracts (asientos) with bankers,
which have been calculated as amounting to between 4 and 6 million
ducats a year after 1643.60 Such figures, which appear to be on the low
side, would certainly not have been enough to cover the difference
between available income and expenditure. To find extra cash, it was
necessary to resort to extraordinary measures, such as extorting forced
loans (donativos) from the cities, or selling off lands, offices, and jurisdic-
tions.61 In the process, the king pledged away his own authority, whilst
leaving his subjects at the mercy of investors who were anxious to use every
means they could find to secure a quick return. As a last resort, it was
always possible to manipulate the coinage, a practice that brought about
serious price fluctuations, undermined the real value of the king’s tax
receipts, and made the business of transferring money abroad even more
expensive on account of the conversion premiums that bankers demanded.62
All told, Castilian public finance involved chronic indebtedness, price-
fluctuation, repeated state bankruptcies, commercial recession, the near
disappearance of the manufacturing sector, and an economic sclerosis that
would last for the rest of the Habsburg period.
And yet, perversely, the practice of selling off revenues, offices, and
jurisdictions had the effect of ensuring that the purchasers of these assets
remained intensely loyal to the crown, and they included some of the most
pre-eminent of the king’s ministers. The count of Castrillo possessed a
dozen villages in Burgos and Soria, along with the rights to collect, and
keep, their medieval taxes.63 The duke of Terranova was the recipient of
pensions allocated on the millones of Toledo, Burgos, and Jaén.64 Other
investors included the secretary Antonio Carnero, and the Councillor of
58
Marcos Martín, ‘¿Fue la fiscalidad regia un factor de crisis?’, 230–2.
59
ADA 75/10; AHN Consejos legajo 7135: ‘provisiones del año 1653’.
60
Gelabert, ‘The King’s Expenses’, 231; Sanz Ayán, Los banqueros y la crisis, 120.
61
Thompson, ‘The Nobility in Spain’, 215–17; Marcos Martín, ‘¿Fue la fiscalidad regia
un factor de crisis?’, 203–14, 235–43; Andrés Ucendo, ‘Government policies and the
development of financial markets’, 67–79.
62
Domínguez Ortiz, Política y hacienda, 249–63; Domínguez Ortiz, Alteraciones anda-
luzas, 35–8.
63
ACO Castrillo legajo xxiv: testament of the count of Castrillo, ff. 23v–4v; AGS
Cámara, Libros de Relaciones, 35 (entry for 30 September 1643).
64
ADAC Alcañices, no. 79, legajo 23, no. 70.
Castile don Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado.65 True, this stakeholder culture
had its drawbacks. It meant that the king was unable to spend a significant
proportion of his own revenue, and it became very difficult to introduce
fiscal reforms. For example, when various proposals were made to replace
the miscellany of traditional taxes with what was hoped would be more
efficient levies on salt or on flour, ministers would raise legal prevarica-
tions, and piously call to mind the unhappy lot of the king’s subjects.66
Their lack of enthusiasm, though, was not such a bad thing, because it was
matched by a regular willingness to prorogue existing impositions, as well
as the more occasional agreement to permit the introduction of new taxes
or the increase of old ones.
For the valido, the management of royal finances was central to his
function. As lord over numerous Andalusian towns, he was another
beneficiary of the monarchy’s misfortune.67 Yet for most of the 1640s
Haro does not seem to have had any decisive say on how the king’s
revenues were to be raised and allocated. Rather, his public role seems
to have been limited to persuading aristocrats and financiers into putting
their money at the disposal of the crown.68 On 1 October 1647 he
famously obtained a 700,000-ducat loan from the directors of the four
principal Genoese banking houses, as well as a commitment that they
would continue to support the government. The deal was integral to the
general suspension of debt repayments that would be declared the follow-
ing day.69 Yet, in all probability, the 1647 bankruptcy was actually the
work of Philip IV, and had been introduced as a measure that was
considered as more amenable to his ordinary subjects than increasing
existing taxation, or introducing yet more new impositions.70 In this
sense, it can be associated with the wishes of the Council of Castile, and
its president, don Juan Chumacero. In April 1648, the latter went so far as
to recommend that Philip implement a universal reduction of taxes by
20 per cent.71 The time seemed to be right for such a measure, because a
65
AHPM 6280, ff. 411r–v; AHPM 8137, ff. 987v–8r.
66
BL Ms. Egerton 340, f. 90v; Schaub, ‘L’État quotidien’, 34; Gelabert, Castilla
convulsa, 322.
67
Ruiz Gálvez, ‘Don Luis de Haro y Córdoba’.
68
ADA 232/1: memorial of Cesare Ayroldo to Fuensaldaña, September 1659; Sanz
Ayán, Los banqueros de Carlos II, 59; Álvarez Nogal, ‘The Role played by Short-Term
Credit’, 81–95.
69
ASMo Spagna, 56: 2 October 1647; León Pinelo, Anales, 335; Ruiz Martín, Las
finanzas, 133–4, 142; Álvarez Nogal, El crédito de la monarquía, 132–6; Sanz Ayán,
‘Hombres de negocios y suspensiones de pagos’, 733–6.
70
Novoa, 365.
71
Gelabert, ‘The King’s Expenses’, 245–6; Gelabert, ‘La hacienda real de Castilla’,
858–60; Gelabert, Castilla convulsa, 237, 242, 283–4, 307–9.
peace had been signed with the Dutch in January of that year, and there
were hopes that a general settlement of the wars in Europe might also soon
be achieved.
At this time, in the spring of 1648, Haro produced a consultation paper
on the financial situation of the monarchy. The document was couched in
the false modesty of one who professed not to understand such matters,
whilst paying lip service to the prevailing desire for fiscal alleviation. He
explained how it had only been possible to fund the 1648 campaigns
because of the suspension of debt repayments the previous autumn. This,
he declared, had been implemented by Philip as a means of avoiding other
measures that would have been of greater hurt to his subjects, but it could
only work once, and the government was now faced with the problem of
how its commitments in the medium term might continue to be financed.
Yet, instead of proposing remedies of his own, Haro pointedly referred the
matter to the Council of Castile, which ‘as the head of justice’, and ‘with
its accustomed zeal, justification and prudence’ had the responsibility to
approve measures that were ‘most in accord with justice and least harmful
to government’.72 This was the view of someone who was not yet being
allowed to implement the difficult and controversial solutions that the
situation required. For the moment—and regrettably as far as Haro was
concerned—the justice of the Council of Castile would have to prevail.
CONCLUSION: AN INTEGRATED MONARCHY
Philip IV’s monarchy was not only extremely loyal and very stable, but it
was also becoming more integrated. On the one hand, significant tax
contributions were being made by his other European possessions. On the
other, the elites of Italy, the Netherlands, and the Iberian possessions were
becoming more interconnected by marriage, and more likely to secure
patronage and appointments beyond their places of origin. Such a process
might be said to have followed on from Olivares’ famous project for a
Union of Arms, but it also conformed to pre-existing trends, whilst respond-
ing by necessity to the military crisis of the middle decades of the reign.73
In fact, matrimonial alliances between houses from different parts of the
monarchy had for long been common. This to the extent that it is
often difficult to understand the great titled families of the monarchy in
purely national terms. The important dynasties of Portugal had frequently
72
73
García García, ‘Precedentes de la unión de reinos’.
intermarried with those of Castile.74 Similarly, the arrival of female royal
retinues from central Europe had injected Germanic blood into a number
of leading aristocratic houses.75 The mother of Haro’s ally, the marquis of
Mortara, for example, was from a family of courtiers of the emperor
Rudolf II, and had come to Spain at the turn of the century in the retinue
of Philip III’s consort, Margaret of Styria.76 Numerous Italian lines,
including the Pignatelli, Doria, Colonna, Spinola, Caetani, Carafa, and
Gonzaga, also took the decision to marry into the Spanish aristocracy. By
the 1660s the most cosmopolitan of the great families of the monarchy
were probably the marquises of Castel Rodrigo and Los Balbases, the
dukes of Gandía, and the princes of Ligne, but lesser dynasties like the
marquises of Almonacid and Fuente el Sol were also finding foreign
spouses for their children.77 The same went for members of the judiciary,
like don Benito Trelles and don Melchor de Navarra, and even more so for
those who served in Italian and eastern Iberian tribunals, which provided
employment for an extended group of mixed-nationality officials.78
Repeated inter-marriage of important families coincided with a process
of fiscal and military integration. During the 1640s, the two main com-
mitments for the government in Madrid were Flanders and Catalonia,
each of which claimed over 2 million ducats a year from Castilian
resources. Yet, in both theatres smaller, but still very significant, contri-
butions were provided at a local level. At the Cortes held in Zaragoza
between September 1645 and November 1646, the Aragonese had agreed
to recruit and pay for 2,500 soldiers, in addition to the 1,200 offered by
Valencia. Although the number of troops that were actually raised in these
kingdoms was often smaller than promised, there were still over 1,000
Aragonese and Valencian soldiers involved in the siege of Barcelona in
1651–2.79 In the loyal provinces of the Netherlands, the cost of the
garrisons, and a significant proportion of the standing army—amounting
to a quarter of total military expenses—had been met by the local estates
since the beginning of the seventeenth century.80 During the 1640s, this
74
Soares da Cunha, ‘Estratégias matrimoniais da casa de Bragança’; Soares da Cunha,
‘Títulos portugueses y matrimonios mixtos’; Soares da Cunha, ‘The Marriage of João de
Alarcão’.
75
Fernández de Bethencourt, Historia genealógica, iv, 213; ix, 445.
76
AHN OM expedientillo 617.
77
ASV Spagna, 112, ff. 48r, 205r, 380r; Fernández de Bethencourt, Historia genealó-
gica, iv, 265; Yun Casalilla, ‘Aristocratic Women across Borders’, 242–3, 247.
78
Signorotto, ‘Spagnoli e lombardi’, 156–60; Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, ‘Naciones
mixtas’.
79
Solano Camón, Poder monárquico, 31, 191–4, 125, 163–88, 211, 214; Gil Pujol,
‘ “Conservación” y “Defensa” ’, 55–6, 60, 71.
80
Esteban Estríngana, ‘Guerra y redistribución de cargas defensivas’, 62–4, n. 17.
contribution increased sharply, as the local communities came to be
responsible for the payment of officers’ salaries, the upkeep of fortifica-
tions, and the provision of supplies via a series of loans and cash donations.
By the end of the decade the money paid out by the loyal provinces had
come to equal and even to exceed the remittances arriving from Castile.81
In Italy, the Castilian treasury only provided relatively modest sums for
the war in Milan, which was for the most part financed by remittances
from Naples and Sicily.82 In the late 1640s and early 1650s, the govern-
ment of Milan achieved the incredible feat of holding off the armies of
France, Modena, and Savoy, without so much as receiving any significant
assistance from either Spain or Naples. The Lombard nobility raised levies
on their estates; new taxes were introduced; contributions were elicited
from communities who were anxious to avoid billeting; horses and food
supplies were requisitioned; royal towns and fiefs sold off. If all else failed,
the army could be kept in winter quarters for most of the year, whilst
immediate defence needs were met by the militias.83 By the early 1650s, if
Davide Maffi’s calculations are correct, the Stato appears to have been
successfully defending itself at a cost of just under 2 million ducats a year
provided exclusively from local resources.84 By the mid-1650s, and with
Habsburg government successfully re-established in southern Italy, Milan
could once again be supported by Naples, which contributed roughly
800,000 ducats a year during the second half of that decade.85
The Spanish Monarchy was not just becoming more socially and
financially integrated, but the process was also taking place on an institu-
tional level. Scholars have drawn attention to an increasing amount of
appointments of non-Castilians to senior offices.86 This was a trend that
was hardly new in terms of the selection of professional soldiers, but it was
now becoming more current in the civil and ecclesiastical establishments.
As a result of promises made at the Aragonese Cortes of 1626 and 1645–6,
noblemen from Valencia and Aragon began to be given more access to
81
Vermeir, En estado de guerra, 274, 301, 352–6.
82
Villari, The Revolt of Naples, 75–9, 85–7, 95; Ribot García, ‘La época del conde-
duque de Olivares y el reino de Sicilia’, 656; Maffi, ‘Milano in guerra’, 403; Maffi, En
defensa del imperio, 454, 469–74, 478–81.
83
Giannini, ‘Un caso di stabilità’, 125–6, 154–5; Maffi, ‘Milano in guerra’, 362–9,
390–8; Maffi, En defensa del imperio, 435, 483–90.
84
Maffi, ‘Milano in guerra’, 370, n. 67; Maffi, En defensa del imperio, 490–1.
85
AGS Estado legajo 3284: consulta of the Council of State, 2 January 1661 (voto of
count of Castrillo); AGS Estado legajo 3283 (nos. 16, 22); AGS Secretarías Provinciales
legajo 30: Castrillo to Philip IV, 23 December 1658; ACO Castrillo legajo xliii/2: 13
January 1659; ADA 232/1: Fuensaldaña to Haro, 17 March 1659; AJB, ii, 68, 181, 184;
Herrero Sánchez, Acercamiento, 276–7 (n. 643a).
86
Thompson, ‘Castile, Spain and the monarchy’, 148–50.
patronage within the wider monarchy.87 From amongst them, it is pos-
sible to highlight the cases of don Juan de Palafox, who was appointed to
the Councils of War and the Indies, before being consecrated bishop of
Puebla in Mexico. His half-brother, the marquis of Ariza, was made a
steward in the king’s household. The marquis of Osera was appointed
gentleman of the chamber at about the same time. Another Aragonese,
Dr Agustín Navarro, was employed in the highly influential office of
Secretary of State and War in Brussels before returning to Madrid in
1655. A couple of years later, the Valencian magistrate and political
philosopher, Lorenzo Matheu y Sanz, would be selected for a post respon-
sible to the Council of Castile, before becoming a Councillor of the Indies
in 1668. Don Jorge de Castelví, who was regent for Sardinia within the
Council of Aragon, would be chosen in 1664 as chief chaplain in the royal
monastery of the Descalzas.88 Catalans, Aragonese, and Valencians were
not the only beneficiaries. The eastern Iberian viceroyalties often went to
Italian aristocrats, such as the dukes of Nocera, Monteleone, and Mon-
talto, and the prince of Piombino. Castilian ecclesiastical posts meanwhile
were being offered to loyal Portuguese. In 1644, don Bernardo de Ataíde
received the diocese of Astorga, before being preferred to the see of Ávila
ten years later.89 The important bishopric of Segovia would be given to
Jerónimo de Mascareñas in 1668. He had previously been appointed, at
Haro’s behest, as head chaplain and chief almoner to Mariana of Austria
on her journey to Spain in 1649.90 It may be no coincidence that both
Mascareñas and Matheu y Sanz dedicated some of their published writings
to the valido, who liked to keep about himself a number of clients from
Flanders and central Europe, such as Damián Goetens and Cristóbal
Angelati von Crasempach. One of Haro’s most trusted allies was the
Burgundian Baron de Watteville.
This social and fiscal integration was of huge advantage to the survival
of the monarchy. On a personal level the elites generally worked well with
each other, and found numerous ways of expressing their mutual affec-
tion. Jurisdictional disputes, where they occurred, could be a nuisance,
but they also served to enhance the king’s authority as judge and arbiter,
whilst giving the government in Madrid an edge over other, potentially
rival, political centres. Moreover, the distribution of royal authority across
87
AHN Consejos libro 2029, f. 25v; Gil Pujol, ‘Integrar un mundo’, 87–8; Álvarez-
Ossorio Alvariño, ‘Naciones mixtas’, 606, 614–16.
88
AHN Consejos libro 2029, ff. 69r, 93v, 104r.
89
BNM Ms. 8391, f. 274r; DHEE, i, 150, 161.
90
AGP Expedientes personales 720/19; Mascareñas, Viage de la Serenissima Reyna,
dedications to Philip IV and Haro; DHEE, iv, 2400; Gómez Rivero, ‘Consejeros de
Órdenes’, 732.
different institutions meant that those who were at odds with the govern-
ment could resort to delay, prevarication, and appeals through the courts,
rather than more extreme alternatives. To be sure, the monarchy had its
fair share of problems, but these were endemic to an age of revolt and
upheaval throughout Europe. The secession of Portugal and Catalonia
had been the result of policies specific to the regime of the count-duke of
Olivares, whilst disturbances occurring elsewhere were very minor in
comparison with the upheavals taking place in Britain, France, and central
Europe. In Naples, limited involvement of the nobility in republican
insurgency appears to have been a reaction against the bombardment of
the city by the Spanish fleet in October 1647, rather than the result of any
deep-seated hostility towards Habsburg rule. As Koenigsberger and Elliott
pointed out long ago, the failure of these upheavals lay with the loyalty of
the broad mass of the governing classes towards the idea of monarchical
government, and the willingness of Philip IV and his ministers after 1643
to avoid provoking them with the kind of aggressive centralist measures
that had taken place under the count-duke.91
Yet, however beneficial and inclusive the governing framework of
Philip IV’s monarchy, it could still be endangered by the emergence of a
new valimiento. In July 1648, three months after he had made his
recommendations for tax cuts, Chumacero found himself out of office,
and in due course Haro’s quite limited role as the king’s personal repre-
sentative before the bankers would become much more interventionist. By
the early 1650s, he was no longer shy of suggesting new sources of
revenue: increases in the taxes on meat and wine, devaluation of the
copper coinage, another suspension of debt repayments, maybe even a
dramatic overhaul of the silver and copper currencies—anything to find
the wherewithal to fund the wars.92 According to José Ignacio Andrés
Ucendo’s figures, Castilian subjects were worst hit by taxation during the
late 1630s and early 1640s, and again during the 1650s—precisely the
periods when the valido form of government was at its most assertive.93
Already, in the autumn of 1650, the envoy of the duke of Modena was
reporting signs of discontent. Pasquinades had appeared in the palace
courtyards, one of which was posted on the doorway to the council
chambers proclaiming that ‘here enter the greatest fraudsters, who lead
the king astray’, the other expressing a more traditional wish for long life
to the king, and death to bad government. For the moment such protests
would ring hollow against the background of the triumphant reconquest
91
Koenigsberger, ‘The Revolt of Palermo in 1647’, 129; Elliott, Catalans, 546–7.
92
AHN Consejos legajo 7135: Haro to Philip IV, 26 November 1652.
93
Andrés Ucendo, La fiscalidad en Castilla, 157–9.
of the Italian cities of Portolongone and Piombino, and of a series of towns
along the river Ebro in Catalonia.94 Yet even a valimiento as successful as
this one could not avoid arousing discontent. Don Luis de Haro had the
technical ability and personal skills necessary to make the system work,
but he also had enemies. In the next chapter, we will look at how he would
seek to utilize ministerial appointments as a means of excluding his rivals.
94
ASMo Spagna, 57: 15 October, 3, 10 December 1650.
5
Ins and Outs
The Appointment and Employment of Ministers
The stability of the political landscape, as described in the previous

chapter, was assisted by a centre-periphery distinction that defined the
balance of power within the ministerial elite. A small number of noblemen
in Madrid exerted a decisive influence thanks to the favour that they
enjoyed with the king and his valido. Yet there were also those employed
in the field who occupied positions of great visible renown, but otherwise
only possessed what authority Philip IV and those close to him were
willing to concede. By no means were all viceroys, ambassadors, and
military commanders enemies of Haro. However, the geographical scope
of the Spanish Monarchy provided a useful way to guarantee political
harmony by the exclusion of malcontents to offices at a distance from
Madrid.
What follows here will consider the mixed fortunes of the king of
Spain’s representatives in the different parts of the monarchy. It will
look at the business of making appointments, and will seek to identify
who was responsible. It will also consider the possible incentives for why
noblemen should have agreed to spend their lives representing the king
in far-off locations. Most, but not all, of these aristocrats impoverished
themselves in the royal service, and it is worth considering their lot in
comparison with those who remained at home. Such an approach will
provide further introduction to these people and to their relationships
with Haro, whilst offering a guide to who was being employed where
and during what periods. By understanding their circumstances we will
begin to appreciate an important theme of Part III of this book: the
propensity of exasperated noblemen in the field to take the law into their
own hands, sometimes even to formulate their own foreign policies,
rather than continuously act as the haplessly obedient servants of a
distant regime.
ROTATION OF COMMAND
Before the reign of Carlos II, venality of office within the Spanish
Monarchy was mainly limited to the municipalities, and to relatively
minor posts within the great institutions of Madrid.1 It is true that
important secretaries, like don Fernando Ruiz de Contreras and don
Gregorio de Tapia, were sons of bureaucrats, and that others, like Pedro
Coloma and Jerónimo de la Torre, managed to place their own successors
in key offices. Still, this nepotism was unusual outside the secretariats, and
it anyway had the beneficial effect of allowing future bureaucrats to be
properly bred up in the world that they would later come to inherit.
Elsewhere, the making of appointments was a collective business that
involved both formal and unofficial sources of influence. Within the
civil and ecclesiastical administrations of Castile and Navarre, Philip IV
was nominally advised by the Cámara de Castilla, a very select institution
consisting of the president of the Council of Castile, and three or four of
its most senior magistrates, who would present the king with shortlists of
recommendations.2 From 1644, a similar institution, the Cámara de las
Indias, was created to advise the king on patronage within the American
administration.3 Suggestions for the selection of royal servants within
other important areas of jurisdiction were provided by each of the relevant
councils.4 This much, at least, was the official practice. However, on a
significant number of occasions—like the appointment of don Gaspar de
Bracamonte to the Council of Orders discussed in Chapter 1—ministers
were nominated not by conciliar recommendation, but by direct
royal decree.5
The authority of the councils over appointments in the secular admin-
istration was thus often diluted by other sources of influence, and the
same went for nominations to posts within the Church hierarchy.6 Here
1
Schäfer, Indias, i, 254–5, 261; Fayard, Los miembros, 66–7, 71; Domínguez Ortiz, ‘La
venta de cargos’; Villari, The Revolt of Naples, 16–18; Tomás y Valiente, ‘Ventas de oficios
públicos’; Arrieta Alberdi, El consejo de Aragón, 253.
2
Fayard, Los miembros, 85–6. For examples of this process, see AHN Estado legajo
6408.
3
Schäfer, Indias, i, 180–9, 223–8.
4
DCCV, 228–9, 267; Schäfer, Indias, i, 229; Gómez Rivero, ‘Consejeros de Órdenes’,
714–18.
5
Fayard, Los miembros, 86 (n. 6); Signorotto, ‘Spagnoli e lombardi’, 109–11, 129–30;
Gómez Rivero, ‘Consejeros de Órdenes’, 687–8.
6
AHN Consejos legajo 15240, no. 12 (1–3); AHN Consejos libro 2029, ff. 18r–v;
DCCV, 43, 135, 184, 198; Domínguez Ortiz, Las clases privilegiadas, 216–19; Rawlings,
‘The Secularisation of Castilian Episcopal Office’, 56–8, 75.
The Appointment and Employment of Ministers 119
conciliar influence was traditionally shared with—or had even been sup-
planted by—the royal confessor. During the early part of the reign,
Philip IV’s confessor Friar Antonio de Sotomayor had managed to build
up an extended patronage network with many of his nephews coming to
hold benefices, bishoprics, and posts within the Inquisition.7 Yet the
ability of certain aristocratic families, like the dukes of Gandía, and the
counts of Altamira and Salvatierra, to secure bishoprics for their younger
sons suggests an exercise of favour that stretched beyond councils and
confessional. Relations of the marquises of El Carpio had in the past held
the sees of Cadiz and Malaga, and such was their interest in ecclesiastical
preferment that they even kept agents in Rome to manage the acquisition
of benefices for family members.8 More recently, Haro’s uncle, don
Baltasar, had been a canon of Toledo and chaplain of the convent of the
Reyes Nuevos in that city until his death in December 1644. He was the
brother of the count of Castrillo, whose illegitimate son, don Luis de Haro
y Paz, also enjoyed a respectable collection of benefices.9 These examples
are demonstrative of aristocratic influence and royal favour within the
Church, which during the second half of the reign exceeded that of the
confessor. Friar Juan Martínez’ strong objections to the rapid turnover of
ecclesiastical office during the middle decades of the seventeenth century is
evidence of the confessor’s lack of involvement in these preferments.10 For
appointments of bishops further afield, particularly in Italy, it was only the
king’s ability to maintain an effective diplomatic pressure in Rome that
ensured the selection of his candidates.11
Within the army, the business of recommending soldiers for commands
officially lay with the Junta de Guerra de España, an institution made up of
ministers with military experience that was located in Madrid. However,
influence could also be exerted by generals in the field, or by the people
who were close to the king. The different forces at play can be seen with
regard to the fortunes of two important commanders. The first was Carlo
Andrea Caracciolo, marquis of Torrecuso. He was a Neapolitan aristocrat
with an impressive service record, who was considered to be ‘in valour and
resolution one of the greatest soldiers that His Majesty now possesses’.12
7
Contreras, El Santo Oficio, 211–24. See also Rawlings, ‘Bishops of the Habit’, 463–4.
8
Malcolm, ‘En las márgenes’, 74.
9
AHPT 128, ff. 387v–8r; AGP Reinados (Felipe IV) legajo 8; ACO Castrillo legajo
xxxiv, f. 7v; Nájera, Sermón de S. Ignacio de Loyola, dedication to don Luis de Haro y Paz.
10
Martínez, Discursos theologicos, 1–108; Domínguez Ortiz, Las clases privilegiadas, 228
(n. 46); Rawlings, ‘Bishops of the Habit’, 466. I am very grateful to Dr Rawlings for
discussion and advice on this subject.
11
Signorotto, Milano spagnola, 35; Giannini, ‘Un caso di stabilità politica’, 129.
12
MHE, xvii, 437. See also MC, ii, 200 (n. 3).
The second was his protégé, Dionisio de Guzmán, a professional soldier,
who had fought in Flanders and Italy for nearly three decades.13 In
February 1644 Torrecuso was appointed captain-general of the Army of
Extremadura. This was a secondary military theatre that would have fallen
below the marquis’s aspirations, and to mitigate the disappointment—as
well as make sure that Torrecuso accepted the post—the quite exceptional
step was taken of allowing him to appoint his own second-in-command, as
maestro de campo general.14 After some hesitation, the marquis chose
Dionisio de Guzmán, who had recently defeated a large Portuguese
army at the battle of El Montijo.15 The appointment was backed up by
the Junta de Guerra de España, but their recommendations carried no
weight against the influence of the people who had followed Philip IV to
Zaragoza.16 Furthermore, Torrecuso had enemies, who included don Juan
de Garay and the marquis of Mortara—two senior commanders, who
were serving near the king, and were close associates of don Luis de
Haro.17 These latter already seem to have played a part in preventing
the marquis’ own appointment to command the royal army in Catalonia
the year before, and quite possibly they were also responsible for over-
turning Dionisio’s nomination as second-in-command of the Army of
Extremadura in 1644. Whatever the case, Torrecuso’s effective power of
patronage, whilst he was in the field, did not go beyond the appointment
of captains of infantry and cavalry companies.18 When he tried to make
his views known by letter, he was usually ignored, or even criticized for
speaking out of turn. Yet in the winter of 1644–5, the situation became
more favourable. Philip was back in Madrid and reunited with the
institutions of military administration that were based there. So was
Torrecuso, which meant that Dionisio’s appointment was finally allowed
to go through. The marquis had learnt his lesson well. During 1645, he
would do his utmost to remain at the king’s side, and in the process
secured a hereditary grandeeship. Dionisio meanwhile continued to serve
with the armies as maestro de campo general, first in Extremadura and then
in Milan, Naples, and Tuscany.
13
Relacion de los servicios del maesse de campo general Dionisio de Guzman; Sánchez
Martín, ‘Guzmán y González, Dionisio de’, 480–2.
14
AGS GA legajo 1522: royal decree, 1 February 1644. See also AP, 483.
15
AGS GA legajo 1516: Torrecuso to don Gregorio de Tapia, 26 May 1644; AGS GA
legajo 1522: Torrecuso to Philip IV, 31 July 1644; AGS GA legajo 1539: same to same,
5 August 1644.
16
AGS GA legajo 1522: consultas, 21 August, 3 September 1644.
17
ADA Carpio 81/31; ASMo Spagna, 54: 3 February 1644; MHE, xvii, 226; AP, 435,
440.
18
AGS GA legajo 1522: consulta of the Junta de Guerra de España, 11 February 1644.
If Philip IV’s army commanders were kept on a tight leash, the same
was the case for the viceroys and governors-general. There was a real fear
that if the king’s representatives were to be given too free a hand, they
might destabilize the governments for which they had been made respon-
sible. This nearly happened in Valencia in 1646, when the count of
Oropesa tried to interfere in the process by which local officials were
selected. He was in the unusual situation of enjoying the support of
important members of the Council of Aragon, who had allowed him to
exceed his mandate.19 It was therefore understandable, and much more
common, for viceroys in Europe to be severely restricted in their actions
by the councils in Madrid, as well as by the local institutions and tribunals.
The governor-general of the Spanish Netherlands, for example, had
freedom to appoint individuals only to lesser posts which left him with
little control over senior military offices, and the high-ranking members of
the civil government and clergy. In the case of vacancies arising in these
areas, he would have to submit a list of three candidates. His suggestions
would then be discussed within the Council of Flanders in Madrid,
whereupon this institution would make its own recommendation to the
king, with or without taking into account the governor-general’s advice.20
Even those offices that did lie within his jurisdiction in practice tended to
be allocated by senior members of the Spanish High Command, much to
the annoyance of Archduke Leopold William, who represented Philip IV
in Brussels between 1647 and 1656. Elsewhere, the limits placed on the
influence and patronage of the king’s ministers in the field might
drive them to resort to controversial measures in order to enhance their
position. In response, the local institutions would send agents to Madrid
in the hope of undercutting the authority of the viceroy or governor-
general still further.21
The situation of Philip IV’s representatives was also weakened by the
swift turnover of appointments. From Table 5.1 it can be seen that very
few spent more than four years in post. Those who did included the
marquis of Caracena, whose tenure as governor-general of Milan lasted
nearly eight years between June 1648 and the spring of 1656—a period of
19
Casey, ‘La crisi general’, 134.
20
AHN Estado legajo 1414: instructions to don Juan de Austria, 26 March 1656, articles
6, 9, 10; instructions to the third marquis of Castel Rodrigo, 26 June 1664, articles 15, 19;
Vermeir, En estado de guerra, 263–4. For the equally limited powers of the governor-general of
Milan, see IVDJ ms 26/V/11: instructions to the sixth duke of Frías, 18 September and 7
October 1646; Signorotto, ‘Spagnoli e lombardi’, 99–101, 137–8.
21
ASV Spagna, 120, ff. 525v–6r, 544r, 653r–v; AJB, ii, 23; Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño,
‘Gobernadores, agentes y corporaciones’, 204–16; Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, ‘Corte, reinos
y ciudades’.
Table 5.1 Viceroys and governors-general, 1640–65 (simplified)
Aragon Valencia Catalonia Sardinia Flanders Milan Naples Sicily Navarre
1640 Duke of Federigo Colonna, Giovanni Andrea Cardinal Infante, 1634– Marquis of Leganés, Duke of Medina de las Don Francisco de Duke of Nocera, June
Nocera, Sept prince of Butera Doria, prince of Melfi. November 1641 Nov 1635–Jan 1641 Torres, Nov 1637– Melo, Nov 1638–Dec 1640–Oct 1640
1639–June May 1644 1640
1641 1641 Duke of Fabrizio Doria, duke Count of Siruela Admiral of Castile, Marquis of Tábara,
Medinaceli, May of Avigliano, April (interim), Feb 1641– Jan 1641–May 1644 Nov 1640–Nov 1641
1641–Jan 1642 1641–Aug 1644 Aug 1643
Marquis of Don Francisco de Melo, Count of La Coruña,
1642 Tábara, Nov Duke of Gandía Jan 1642–Sept 1644 Dec 1641–Jan 1643
1641–autumn (interim), Feb-Nov
1642 1642
Cardinal Duke of Arcos,
1643 Trivulzio, Nov Nov 1642–Sept Count of Oropesa, Jan
1642–Dec 1643 1645 1643–Nov 1645
Marquis of Velada,
1644 Bishop of Aug 1643–Feb 1646
Málaga, 1644 Don Diego de Aragall Second marquis of Castel Admiral of Castile, Marquis of Los Vélez,
Constable of (interim) Rodrigo, Sept 1644–April May 1644–Feb 1646 May 1644–Nov 1647
Castile, Nov 1647
1645 1644–Sept
1645 Duke of Montalto,
April 1645–April
1648
Bishop of Count of Oropesa, Bishop of Pamplona,
1646 Málaga, Sept Sept 1645–Aug Constable of Castile, Duke of Arcos, Feb Nov 1645–Feb 1646
1645–June 1650 Feb 1646–Sept 1647 1646–Jan 1648 Don Luis Ponce de
1648 León, May 1646–June
1647 1649
Archduke Leopold Count of Haro, Sept Cardinal Trivulzio,

William, April 1647–May 1647–Feb 1648 Nov 1647–Dec 1648
1648 1656 Don Juan de Austria,
Don Bernardino Marquis of Caracena, Jan–April 1648
Matías de Cervelló Feb 1648–April 1656 Count of Oñate, April
(interim) 1648–Nov 1653
Don Juan de Austra,
Dec1648–May 1651
1649 (absent from the
island for three Don Juan de Arce y
Count of Cardinal Trivulzio, months between May Otalora (interim), June
Lemos, 1649– June 1649–July 1651 and Aug 1650) 1649–Aug 1650
April 1653
1650
Archbishop of Duke of Escalona,
Valencia, Aug Aug 1650–Feb 1653
1650–Aug 1652
1651 Duke of El Infantado,
Don Beltrán de Dec 1651–Nov 1655
Guevara, August
1651–Feb 1652
1652
Archbishop of
Palermo
Duke of Montalto,
Aug 1652–Oct
1658 Don Juan de Austria, Don Juan de Arce y
1653 Jan 1653–Jan 1656 Otalora (interim),
March–Sept 1653
Count of Lemos, Sept Count of Santisteban,
1653–August 1656 Count of Castrillo, Sept 1653–March
Nov 1653–Jan 1659 1660
1654
Duke of
Monteleone,
1654–Aug
1655 1658
Duke of Osuna, Nov

1655–Oct 1656
1656 Marquis of Mortara, Don Juan de Austria, May Cardinal Trivulzio,

Feb 1656–March 1662 1656–March 1659 April –Aug 1656
Don Bernardino Count of Fuensaldaña,
Matías de Cervelló Aug 1656–April 1660 Bishop of Cefalù
(interim) (interim), Oct–Nov
1657 1656
Don Martín de Redín

(interim), Nov 1656–
Aug 1657
1658 Third marquis of
Archbishop of Castel Rodrigo, Jan Don Juan Bautista
Zaragoza, Aug 1658–May 1661 Ortiz de Espinosa
1658–Sept (interim), Aug–Dec
1659 1660 Marquis of Marquis of Caracena Count of Peñaranda, 1657
Camarasa, Feb (interim), March 1659– Jan 1659–Sept 1664
1659–Oct 1663 Sept 1664 Archbishop of
Palermo (interim),
Dec 1657–Jan 1660
Marquis of Tarazona,
Jan 1660–Sept 1662
1660 Duke of Sermoneta, Don Lope de los Ríos
April 1660–May 1662 (interim) March 1660–
Aug 1661
Prince of
1661 Piombino, Nov Bishop of Pamplona
1660–March (interim), Aug 1661–
1662 Archbishop of Feb 1662
Cagliari, June 1661–
Nov 1662
1662 Marquis of Astorga,
Don Luis Ponce de Feb 1662–Dec 1663
Third marquis of León, May 1662–
Duke of Castel Rodrigo, April Prince of Piombino, March 1668
1663 Ciudad Real, 1662–Jan 1664 Nov 1662–Dec 1664
Sept 1662–Sept
1667 Don Basilio de
Castelví
1664 Don Vicente Gonzaga, Duke of Sermoneta,
Marquis of Jan 1664–Jan 1667 March 1663–April Bishop of Pamplona,
Astorga, March 1667 and don Alonso de
1664–May 1666 Llano y Valdés
(interim)
Marquis of Castel Cardinal Pascual de Duke of San Germán,
1665 Don Bernardino Rodrigo (interim), Sept Aragon, Sept 1664– Sept 1664–Jan 1668
Matías de Cervelló 1664–Oct 1668 April 1666
(interim)
military revival, in which the marquis’ noteworthy achievements were
looked upon with guarded suspicion by the ministers about the king. In
Brussels, Archduke Leopold William nominally exercised the prerogatives
of governor-general for nine years between 1647 and 1656, but in
practice, as will be discussed more fully in Chapter 7, his authority was
anything but absolute. Elsewhere, the only noblemen to remain in post for
anything like as long were the count of Oropesa at Valencia between 1645
and 1650, the duke of Montalto, who held the same post from 1652 until
1658, and the marquis of Mortara, who acted as viceroy of Catalonia
between February 1656 and March 1662. The viceroyalty of Aragon
changed hands on an almost annual basis during the 1640s; that of
Sardinia was held by numerous different people between the duke
of Montalto’s departure in 1649, and the arrival of the third marquis of
Castel Rodrigo nine years later.22 Navarre and Sicily were more stable, but
did not tend to see viceroys being appointed to a second term, except in
the case of the count of Santisteban, who spent six-and-a-half years in
Pamplona between September 1653 and March 1660. It was also frequent
for these positions to be allocated on an interim basis to noblemen of lesser
stature, or to local prelates, or senior magistrates. This was a very rapid
turnover of office that was similar to that of the episcopate, and its
significance was that it made it all but impossible for the king’s represen-
tatives to build up a local power base.
Who was it then that had the authority to appoint these people?
Despite warnings that Haro was not in a position to give his views on
such matters, and would not appreciate being asked, the Imperial ambas-
sador was in no doubt, as early as 1643, that don Luis was already a key
influence in the choice of governor-general of Flanders.23 The reality,
though, was more complex, as has been demonstrated by Alicia Esteban
Estríngana in her reconstruction of the decision-making process behind
the appointments of the king’s representatives in the Netherlands during
the 1640s. It was a matter for the relevant councils both in Madrid and
Brussels, and in which the susceptibilities of the local populace also played
a part.24 However, if Haro’s influence over viceregal selection was at this
stage still more apparent than real, he did have a behind-the-scenes role in
persuading noblemen to accept these offices, and in negotiating the terms
of their employment. In the autumn of 1643, he was in close discussion
with the count of Siruela about the conditions for the latter’s nomination
22
Mateu Ibars, Los virreyes de Cerdeña, ii, 52–93.
23
BNM Ms. 18202, ff. 124v–5r.
24
Esteban Estríngana, ‘El “gobierno de príncipes” ’.
as ambassador in Rome.25 The two men were distantly related, and may
have been friends through common connections in the royal households,
where Siruela’s female relations were employed.26 It also may have been
the case that during the 1630s Haro would have represented the count’s
interests at court whilst the latter was on diplomatic missions in Italy and
Germany.27 None of this amounts to proper evidence of Haro’s respon-
sibility for the count’s appointments. However, his work in persuading
noblemen to accept offices abroad to which the king had appointed them
may have encouraged a belief in his responsibility for actually making the
decisions. As time passed, and as the Philip’s confidence in Haro’s judge-
ment increased, it would not have been too great a step for the business of
persuasion and negotiation to morph into a real influence over the
assignment of destinations for different individuals.
For the moment, decisions about which noblemen were to serve the
king in the field, and where, also had to be made in consultation with
the relevant council president. The person who was probably most
responsible for the count of Siruela’s appointment as ambassador in
Rome was the count of Monterrey, who was president of the Council of
Italy. The same can be said for the constable of Castile’s selection as
governor-general of Milan, not least because the constable was closely
allied to Monterrey’s sister, the countess of Olivares.28 Similarly,
Monterrey’s political eclipse in 1646–7 may well have left the counts of
Siruela and Fuensaldaña bereft of support during an important period of
transition in Spanish Italy.29 With regard to appointments to represent
the king in his Aragonese possessions, one senses a certain amount of
disagreement. Haro would probably have preferred the marquis of
Mortara to have received the Catalan viceroyalty following the reconquest
of Barcelona in 1652, but this post went to the king’s natural son, don
Juan de Austria in a decision that was very much in line with the wishes
of Vice-chancellor Crespí de Valldaura. It would not be until 1656
before don Juan could be removed to Brussels and Mortara installed in
Barcelona.30 Meanwhile, the duke of El Infantado’s sojourn in Rome
and Sicily between 1649 and 1656 was almost certainly the result of
Haro’s wish to keep this man at arm’s length. In fact, and as will be
25
BNM Ms. 18202, ff. 117r–18r, 128v–9r, 132r–v.
26
RAH Ms. 9/281, f. 44r: the first marquis of El Carpio was married to doña
María Ángela de Velasco y la Cueva, a daughter of the count of Siruela.
27
RAH Ms. 9/88, ff. 58r–9r, 81v. For a similar relationship that may have existed
between Haro and La Roca, see Fernández-Daza Álvarez, La Roca, 265–6.
28
AHPM 6233, ff. 664v, 670r, 679v.
29
ASMo Spagna, 56: 7 April, 8 May 1646; Signorotto, ‘Il marchese di Caracena’, 141.
30
DCCV, 70, 104–5, 127, 129.
discussed in greater depth at the end of this chapter, the valido’s role in the
making of high-level appointments abroad was often more clearly to be
discerned when it came to removing his rivals than in the selection of his
friends.
There was thus in the matter of patronage a division in responsibility,
which was shared between the king, the valido, and other influential
people at court, the most important of whom were the council presidents.
The latter may not have had the universal influence that Haro possessed
when he was at the height of his powers, but their authority within their
specific fields of jurisdiction was second only to that of the king. Most
significantly—and unlike the king’s viceroys—council presidents held
their posts for decades. Don Diego de Arce y Reinoso was Inquisitor-
General for the whole second half of Philip IV’s reign; don Cristóbal
Crespí de Valldaura was vice-chancellor of the Crown of Aragon for
nineteen years, between 1652 and 1671. The count of Monterrey and
the marquis of Leganés were respectively presidents of the Councils of
Italy and Flanders from the time of their appointments in the 1620s until
their deaths nearly thirty years later. Both ministers admittedly spent
significant periods abroad, but they and the other council presidents
were able to use the length of their tenures, their experience and know-
ledge, and their personal influence with the king and valido in order to
exert a decisive control over the institutions that they governed. The
Inquisition, in particular, tended to be a reflection of the personal inclin-
ations of the Inquisitor-General.31 Monterrey and Crespí de Valldaura, for
their part, were adept at swinging decisions against the contrary views that
their councils might attempt to express.32 Recent scholarship has con-
tended that Castrillo’s authority as governor of the Council of the
Indies declined significantly during the late 1640s, but the evidence of
the council minutes suggests otherwise. He regularly chaired sessions
until his departure for Naples in 1653; all council advice was submitted
to him whilst he was with the king in Aragón in 1646, with the king
usually deferring to his views. Philip also upheld Castrillo’s authority
against the council’s jurisdiction at the time of the count’s six-month
visit to Andalusia during the first half of 1647.33 Although the decline of
Castrillo’s universal influence at this time is undeniable, his ascendancy
over the American administration remained unquestioned.
31
MC, i, 82–3; Martínez Millán, ‘Los miembros del consejo de Inquisición’, 410.
32
BNM Ms. 9926, ff. 221r–2v; RAH Ms. 9/664, ff. 25r–v, 29r.
33
AGI Indiferente, 764: consultas of 24, 25 May, 30 June, 18, 25, 27 September, 18
and 30 October 1646; AGI Indiferente, 765: consultas of 16 March, 2 April 1647; Díaz
Blanco, Así trocaste tu gloria, 197; Álvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 191–2.
Official procedures for recommending individuals to the king that were
described at the beginning of this section had only limited relevance when
it came to choosing the members of these institutions. Whilst Haro came
to possess very significant influence in the nomination of council presi-
dents, viceroys, and senior diplomatic and military commands, he tended
not to interfere too much in the designation of officials lower down. Here,
as we shall see in Chapter 6, it was the presidents who were the really
significant wielders of patronage, establishing powerful individual centres
of authority based around their councils. In sharp contrast, the king’s
representatives in the field were limited by their instructions, and by the
authority of local institutions and elites. They were forever having to
justify themselves against the complaints of provincial envoys in Madrid,
and they were constantly being moved from place to place. It was thus
understandable that the office of council president should have been the
principal aspiration (not to mention the perceived entitlement) for those
coming home after lengthy periods away on the king’s service. What is
more difficult to discern is how and why they should have found them-
selves abroad in the first place.
PUBLIC SERVICE AND PRIVATE WEALTH
It could sometimes take months, or even years, before noblemen who were
chosen for offices at a distance from Madrid actually arrived at the
destinations to which they had been appointed. Usually there would be
a lengthy process of negotiation over salaries, expenses, and powers. In the
spring of 1646, it was rumoured that the marquis of Leganés had been
offered the title of duke, the grandeeship for his heir, 7,250 ducats in
revenue from juros, and a salary of 32,000 ducats a year—all to secure his
agreement to serve as captain-general of the Army of Catalonia.34 The
story was greatly exaggerated, but it reveals the extent to which such
positions were seen as requiring considerable incentives for the nobility
to accept them. There were, after all, numerous reasons to refuse.
A nobleman’s presence at court was desirable if he were to benefit from
royal patronage. It was also necessary for the successful pursuit of lawsuits,
and there were matters of a more human consideration that might
discourage him from leaving Madrid. In the spring of 1657, don Luis
Ponce de León was chosen to represent the king in Rome, after a number
of previous attempts to make him serve abroad had fallen through. The
34
ASMo Spagna, 56: 21 March 1646.
problem was that he lacked a male succession, and his wife, the countess of
Villaverde, was in a near permanent state of pregnancy. In October 1658,
she finally gave birth to a son, and the family left Madrid the following
spring. A month later, whilst they were awaiting the galleys at Denia, the
little boy died, and the countess suffered another miscarriage. It would not
be until December 1659, nearly three years after his original appointment,
that Ponce finally arrived in Rome.35
Yet there were other aristocrats who actually aspired to viceregal and
diplomatic appointments. Posts abroad were seen as a means towards the
ultimate end of securing high office on return to Madrid, and so they
might be sought by younger courtiers at the beginning of their careers.
The count of Oropesa had been placed at the head of the government of
Navarre in 1643 when he was in his early twenties. The future third
marquis of Castel Rodrigo was not much older when he travelled to Vienna
in 1648. For these young noblemen, the possession of high-profile offices
had a definite appeal. Even those with more experience were not averse to
representing the king in the field, if the rewards and conditions were
favourable. In the summer of 1660, Niccolò Ludovisi prince of Piombino
accepted the government of Aragon, and a court commentator noted that:
Here many are astounded that he should have left behind the magnificence
of Italy, and the sumptuous palaces and possessions that he has both within
and without Rome in favour of a viceroyalty, such as that of Aragon, so
distant and unaccommodating; but, it is thought that he has chosen it as a
means of securing other greater [offices] closer to home, to which he will later
return, having first taken possession of his grandeeship.36
It could require time, though, for aspirations to mature, and the gloss of
prestigious appointments often wore off after years and decades spent in remote
locations. Ludovisi would die in December 1664, having taken a second
viceroyalty in Sardinia, and still without the recognition he had hoped to obtain.
A few years before, the third marquis of Castel Rodrigo was appointed to the
same destination. He was enthusiastic enough at the outset of a new challenge,
but eighteen months into the job the local nobility were complaining about
him, and he was wanting to tender his resignation.37 Sardinia was described on
different occasions as an ‘exile’ and a ‘desert’ by the duke of Montalto, who
had also once been a zealous young viceroy, before finding himself trapped for
nearly twenty-five years of frustrated government on the periphery.38
35 36
ASV Spagna, 117, f. 504r; 120, f. 400v. AJB, ii, 230.
37
AHN Estado libro 104: Montalto to third marquis of Castel Rodrigo, 25 January
1658, same to same, Madrid, 11 July, 15 August, 30 September 1659.
38
AHN Estado libro 104: Montalto to second marquis of Castel Rodrigo, 14 November
1648, Montalto to third marquis of Castel Rodrigo, 1 July 1661.
In happier times, employment abroad had provided a more fruitful
means for advancement, but there were always certain posts that were
much more desirable than others. Back in the 1590s, the count of Portalegre
had written a paper of advice for his son, in which he categorized the offices
within the king’s gift. Apart from army commands, which were good for a
young man’s reputation, and court offices, which brought access to the royal
person, Portalegre believed the most desirable situations to be those in the
Councils of War or State, as well as the presidencies of the Councils of Italy
and the Indies. As regarded appointments abroad, he could only find it in
himself to recommend the Italian and American viceroyalties, the embassy
in Rome, or prestigious short-term embassies to represent the king on a
specific matter of significance.39 Fifty or sixty years later, the opportunities
even with these postings were much less certain. The marquis of Aytona still
saw foreign service as a means of solving his financial problems. He was
personally close to Philip IV, but had been unable to translate intimacy into
material advancement. During the 1640s, he had briefly served as governor
of Galicia, and commander of the Army of Catalonia, but he had taken
the law into his own hands by executing an insubordinate official, for which
he suffered a two-year imprisonment.40 Released in September 1649, he
was effectively grounded throughout the following decade. Aytona’s con-
stant attendance on the person of the king provided an irritating thorn in
the side of Haro’s regime, but the marquis went unpaid for his service at
court.41 He saw the viceroyalty of Sicily as the answer to his problems, and
resented its concession in 1659 to the marquis of Tarazona, another unpaid
courtier, albeit this time a member of the valido’s circle.42
It was never very clear how much of a minister’s fortune might actually
have been acquired abroad, and how much by other means closer to home.
The count of Monterrey was suspected of using funds obtained as viceroy
of Naples to undertake a series of lavish improvements to his house and
garden in Madrid, as well as to construct and decorate an Augustinian
convent in Salamanca.43 However, these projects had been commenced
before his departure for Italy, and their expense had taken their toll on his
pocket.44 By contrast, the duke of Medina de las Torres, for all his
39
Bouza, ‘Corte es decepción’, 494–6.
40
BNM Ms. 8388, f. 136r; MHE, xix, 131–2, 142–3, 153.
41
AHPM 10408, ff. 156v–8v.
42
ADA Montijo 17: marquis of Osera to don Joseph de Villalpando, 5 January 1659;
Biblioteca de Zabálburu, Madrid 73–219(3), p. 92; DMO, 889.
43
Novoa, 226; RAV, 158; Madruga Real, ‘Las Agustinas de Monterrey’; Lopezosa
Aparicio, ‘La casa de los Monterrey’, 278–81; Dombrowski, Giuliano Finelli, 144–8.
44
AHN Estado libro 865, ff. 92r–v.
complaining at being robbed of his family entitlements, was rumoured
at the end of his life to have had an income of about 290,000 ducats,
which was nearly twice that of the richest grandee. However, his fortune
came not from his stint as viceroy of Naples between 1637 and 1644,
but from the property of his second wife, the princess of Stigliano, and
from the estate of the count-duke of Olivares, the greater part of which
he secured for himself in December 1653.45 In fact, for most noblemen,
their time abroad had a much more negative effect on their personal
finances. The marquis of Leganés spent long periods in Brussels and
Milan, and came to possess lands in the vicinity of Madrid, as well as an
impressive collection of paintings housed in a large residence on the
Calle de San Bernardo in Madrid. Yet he found himself having to
sacrifice substantial amounts of his own resources to help fund the
king’s wars. By the 1640s he was in trouble, because his income was
largely derived from dividends accruing from state bonds (juros), pro-
portions of which the government had been withholding since the start
of the war with France.46 The count of Fuensaldaña also spent much of
his career in the Netherlands. In 1652 he was able to found a modestly
endowed convent of Franciscan nuns in his home town near Vallado-
lid.47 Yet the expense of this, along with his outgoings in the king’s
service, meant that he had mortgaged two-thirds of his private income by
the time of his death in 1661.48
It might seem as though noblemen who served the king in Madrid fared
no better than those who squandered their fortunes in far-off locations.
The marquis of Aytona and don Fernando de Borja both died in straitened
circumstances, as did Crespí de Valldaura, who had needed royal assist-
ance to help maintain him in the style appropriate to a council president.49
Many ordinary councillors were even worse off. In 1650, an appeal was
launched to provide assistance for the rebel princes in France. It was
means-tested on the basis of personal wealth, and this allowed all of the
Council of Aragon and a quarter of the Council of Castile to escape
contribution.50 These were officials whose financial circumstances were
45
SPM Journal, v, 352; Villari, Un sogno di libertà, 179–201; Arroyo Martín, ‘Poder y
nobleza’, 623.
46
AHN Consejos legajo 4430/15; BNM Ms. 18195, f. 180v.
47
‘Escritura de fundación.’
48
MAC Ms. 784, pp. 111–13; CCE, 521.
49
AHPM 9809, f. 912r; AHPM 10408, ff. 156v–7r; AHN Consejos libro 2029, ff. 44r,
55r, 105r–v.
50
AHN Consejos libro 2029, f. 29r. See also Signorotto, ‘Spagnoli e lombardi’, 134–5
(n. 103).
already blighted by the crown’s failure to pay them their salaries, and by
its endless demands for contributions to help pay for the wars.51
Not everyone, though, was unfortunate. Don Antonio de Contreras
and don Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado—both Councillors of Castile—died
leaving considerable possessions, and only negligible debts.52 The Secre-
tary of State Pedro Coloma possessed a tapestry collection, part of which
had been pledged to him in exchange for loans that he had made.53
Another secretary, Antonio Carnero, managed to provide for his eleven
children, and was still able to found an entailed estate in 1654 that
included the lordship, jurisdiction, and taxes of the town of Chapinería,
plus property in Madrid and Ocaña, and a post on the city council of
Ávila.54 Admittedly this was not overly impressive in comparison with the
size of the incomes from grandee estates, like those of the dukes of Béjar
(80,000 ducats), El Infantado (120,000 ducats), or Medina Sidonia
(170,000 ducats), or with the figure just mentioned as the rumoured
income of the duke of Medina de las Torres.55 Yet the wealth acquired in
office by these magistrates and secretaries was recent, and largely free of
mortgage. Unlike Philip’s viceregal and diplomatic representatives, more-
over, they do not appear to have been under an obligation to spend
substantial amounts of their own resources in the king’s service.
Once again it was the council presidencies that proved to be the most
desirable offices. The considerable influence that they gave to the holders
was matched by lucrative returns. José González and don Juan de Góngora
were rumoured to have had incomes of 30,000 ducats and 40,000
ducats respectively. González had invested in royal revenues from Atienza,
Valladolid and Logroño, plus several properties in the Calle de Rejas and
the Calle de la Puebla in Madrid, and the patronage of a convent of
Discalced Carmelite nuns in Calahorra. Just a year after resigning his
leadership of the Council of Finance in February 1651, he had been able
to purchase the town and lordship of Boadilla del Monte from the widow
of the duke of Nájera.56 Góngora was the lord of a number of small towns,
as well as a country estate at Chamartín to the north of Madrid, where
he hosted don Luis de Haro at the outset of the latter’s journey to the
51
ASV Spagna, 117, f. 397v; AJB, i, 115; ii, 115; DMO, 980; Danvila, ‘Cortes de
Madrid, 1655’, 27–8; Schäfer, Indias, i, 252–3, 262–3, n. 12; Domínguez Ortiz, ‘La
movilización de la nobleza castellana’, 821; Domínguez Ortiz, Política y hacienda, 259.
52
AHPM 9823, f. 1127r; AHPM 6280, f. 413r.
53 54
AHPM 6287, ff. 436v–7r. AHPM 8137, ff. 978r–89v.
55
Atienza Hernández and Simón López, ‘Patronazgo real, rentas, patrimonio’, 50–1.
These figures relate to the 1620s, and their real value would have declined thereafter.
56
AGS Cámara, Libros de Relaciones, 35 (entry for 14 December 1641); Domínguez
Ortiz, Las clases privilegiadas, 95, n. 20; Fayard, ‘José González’, 362–3.
Pyrenees in 1659.57 They were not the only ones to benefit from the fruits
of office. In 1663, the president of the Council of Castile don Diego de
Riaño y Gamboa died solvent with property valued at 78,000 ducats, which
included lordships, houses, orchards, and tax-collection rights in half a dozen
villages around Burgos, plus revenues deriving from loans and investments in
Burgos and Madrid. This was all in addition to the older family possessions
that included a palace in the city of Burgos with paintings, tapestries, fur-
nishings, and library, an oratory, and a convent of Cistercian nuns.58
There were therefore potentially rich pickings for those in Madrid. To
enjoy this kind of wealth whilst serving the king abroad, it was necessary to
have access to special favour. Somebody who was in just such a position
was the count of Peñaranda. When he was appointed as peace plenipo-
tentiary at Westphalia in 1645, he was permitted to retain the revenues
due to him as a member of the Council and Cámara of Castile, on top of
which he received a generous ambassadorial salary, plus an extra one-off
payment of 18,000 ducats for expenses.59 Back in Madrid, during the
early 1650s, he enjoyed an income of about 16,000 ducats in silver from
his offices. Asked to go abroad a second time in 1657, he was again
allowed to continue drawing his Madrid salaries, in addition to which
he would have 2,720 ducats a month to represent Philip IV at the electoral
conclave in Frankfurt, as well as another 18,000 ducats to pay for the
journey.60 In normal cases such sums were no more than academic given
the difficulties in claiming them, but Peñaranda had friends in high places,
and payment orders were issued to keep him in pocket.61 By the early
1660s, he was able to employ agents to purchase lordships in the province
of Salamanca, as well as found, construct, and generously endow a convent
of thirteen Carmelite nuns in the village of his title.62 Peñaranda had a
model career; his fortune came principally from government salaries, and
the special favour necessary to ensure that they were regularly paid to him.
For all that, he did not live in splendour, and even his enemies regarded
him as disinterested.63 On his return to Madrid in the autumn of 1664,
57
AGS Cámara, Libros de Relaciones, 36, ff. 186r, 380r; 37, ff. 26r, 44v; AHPM 9816,
ff. 19r–30r; SPM Journal, viii 58; Relacion del viage.
58
García Ramila, Don Diego de Riaño, 5, 8, 100–4, 111, 130, 143–6, 178–82.
59
AHN Estado legajo 6408: royal decree 10 January 1645; MHE, xviii, 6. See also Seiz
Rodrigo, La disimulación honesta, 213.
60
AGS Estado legajo 2478: royal decree, 8 June 1657; AGS Secretarías Provinciales legajo
30: statements of monies owed to Peñaranda, 1658–9.
61
AHN Estado legajo 1444/16. See also Mauro, ‘ “Il divotissimo Signor Conte
di Pegnaranda” ’, 12.
62
‘Noticia de la fundación’, 1–3, 12; Wethey, ‘The Spanish Viceroy’, 678–87; Mauro,
‘Le acquisizioni di opere d’arte’; Casaseca Casaseca, Catálogo monumental, 234–70.
63
SPM Journal, ii, 143.
he was forced to leave behind some of his possessions because he lacked
the means to redeem them from the bankers who had made loans to him
in Naples. Moreover, and unlike such great aristocratic builders as the
counts of Monterrey, Oñate, and Alba de Liste, he spent the rest of his life
living in rented accommodation, first in a property belonging to the count
of Benavente in the Plazuela de Santiago, and then in a house opposite the
royal convent of the Encarnación.64
One might conclude this section on the incentives and rewards for royal
service by suggesting that service near the person of the king was generally
better than having to go abroad, but appointments in Madrid did not
necessarily equate with prosperity. In all, there were probably no more
than twenty-five or so really desirable offices within the secular adminis-
tration. They included the three or four places within the Cámara de
Castilla, the departmental headships within the king’s household, eight or
nine council presidencies, the secretaryship of the universal dispatch, and
the viceroyalties in Naples, Sicily, and America. Holders of other secre-
tarial or magisterial posts within the Castilian administration could also do
well. However, positions responsible for the king’s other possessions were
less attractive, except for the presidencies of the privy council in Brussels,
or of the sovereign tribunals in Milan or Naples. Selection for ambassa-
dorial and viceregal posts might bring reputation and experience, but
could seriously undermine a nobleman’s wealth. As such, they amounted
to qualifications for something better in the future. Ultimately, it was the
decision of the king, his valido, and the president of the relevant council
whether a nobleman’s aspirations would be satisfied, and many people
ended up disappointed. In the final section of this chapter, we will see how
in a significant number of instances the valido attempted to use the further
reaches of the monarchy as a method for political exclusion, and how he
sought to deal with these excluded noblemen on their inevitable and
eventual return to court.
CONCLUSION: EXILE AND HOMECOMING
The count-duke of Olivares had repeatedly tried to blame the failures of

the monarchy on a lack of ability within the Spanish governing elite. His
assessment was a sweeping generalization that in no way reflected the
64
AHPM 9847, ff. 697r–705r. These buildings may be identified as house numbers
203 (sheet 8, A1), and 399 (sheet 13, A4) of Vidaurre Jofre’s analysis of Texeira’s map of
Madrid: El Madrid de Velázquez y Calderón, ii. My thanks to Fernando Bouza for
information on Peñaranda’s residence in the house of the count of Benavente.
actual strengths and weaknesses of his fellow aristocrats.65 To be sure, not
everyone was up to the mark. The marquis of Tarazona, who was made
viceroy of Sicily in 1659, and the duke of Ciudad Real, who became
viceroy of Aragon in 1662, were popularly regarded as insufficiently
qualified, having been chosen for no other reason than that they had
friends in high places—Haro in the first instance, and don Fernando de
Borja in the second.66 The duke of Terranova owed his prestigious
diplomatic placements in Vienna (1646–9) and Rome (1654–7) to his
closeness to Philip IV, which meant that he could claim to be properly
cognizant of the king’s intentions, even if otherwise he was considered as
something of a liability.67 These, though, were anomalies in a world of
highly qualified professionals. Philip IV’s magistrates and secretaries had
spent years working their way to the top of their careers. The same was
true of many of his bishops, who did not receive preferment until they had
first acquired renown as preachers, university professors, senior members
of religious orders, or had already spent time as councillors in Madrid. For
ministers serving as ambassadors and viceroys, at the very least, a level of
expertise, diplomatic tact, and social accomplishment were needed for
them to perform their roles effectively. It is true that senior commands in
the military theatres often went, as the historian Fernando González de
León has noted, to grandees and courtiers, but this was necessary if they
were to command the respect and obedience of their men, and it was rare
for aristocratic commanders not to have at least spent some of their careers
gaining experience in the ranks.68
Yet the requirement to appoint properly qualified people to senior
office abroad in no sense precluded the employment of malcontents,
since it was precisely the latter’s suitability for government that made
them dangerous. Haro’s exploitation of appointments in the field as a
means of political control was a central aspect of his governing strategy. It
can be seen very clearly in the case of don Juan de Palafox. As bishop of
Puebla and visitor-general of the government of Mexico, he was unusual
in having made a home for himself in his place of employment, and it was
his controversial attempts at reform that necessitated his recall in 1649.69
Yet Palafox certainly was not going to be allowed to stay at court for very
65
MC, i, 56, 60, 63–5, 71, 81, 83; ii, 81–3. See also Thompson, ‘Aspects of Spanish
Military and Naval Organization’, 3; Ochoa Brun, ‘Los embajadores de Felipe IV’, 204–6;
González de León, Road to Rocroi, 205–7.
66
AHN Estado libro 104: Montalto to Castel Rodrigo, 6 March 1657, 6 March 1662;
AJB, ii, 67; Maura, Carlos II y su Corte, i, 73.
67
RAH Ms. 9/97, ff. 91r, 93r–v.
68
González de León, Road to Rocroi, 164–79. See also Maffi, ‘Al di là del mito’, 531–3.
69
Álvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 197–207, 229–46.
long, and in 1653 an episcopal vacancy arose that would permit his
removal. This was the important bishopric of Cuenca, to which, after
ten years’ experience of running a diocese in Mexico, Palafox could
consider himself to be more than entitled. The king was apparently set
on making the preferment, but Haro, who was unlikely to have wanted an
insubordinate royal servant to be given a high-profile ecclesiastical post,
had other ideas. In November 1653, a number of episcopal transfers freed
up a more remote destination. The bishop of Córdoba, who had been
consecrated only the year before, was rushed in to fill the gap at Cuenca,
and the promotion of the incumbent at Osma to the see of Córdoba
created a vacancy in a suitably impoverished and distant location in north-
western Castile. Palafox was thus exiled to the diocese of Osma, whilst the
more desirable Cuenca appointment was given to none other than the
natural son of the duke of Escalona, a former viceroy of Mexico whose
disgrace the bishop of Puebla had engineered back in 1642, and to whom
Haro himself was distantly related.70 For Palafox’s biographer, Antonio
González de Rosende, who was writing just a few years after Haro’s death,
the bishop’s dispatch to Osma in 1653 was a particularly flagrant instance
of abuse of power by a valido.71
He was no doubt correct, but an institutional structure that amounted
to a system for political exclusion can also be seen as an asset. In
France, there was much more scope for provincial governors to build up
powerbases in the localities, and much less requirement for them to be
permanently resident in their areas of jurisdiction, and this could make
them prone to involvement in local revolts as well as conspiracy at court.72
The representatives of the Spanish monarch, on the other hand, were
expected to remain resident in their places of appointment, where their
influence was carefully kept within bounds. A significant number of
noblemen who did not quite fit into Haro’s system therefore found
themselves spending lengthy periods away from court. They included
the duke of Montalto as viceroy of Sardinia and Valencia (1644–58);
the count of Lemos as viceroy of Aragon and Sardinia (1649–56); the
duke of El Infantado as ambassador in Rome and viceroy of Sicily
(1649–56); the count of Oñate as ambassador in Rome and viceroy of
Naples (1646–53); the count of Castrillo as viceroy of Naples (1653–8);
and the king’s natural son, don Juan de Austria as a representative of his
father throughout most of the trouble-spots of Europe between 1647 and
70
DHEE, i, 618, 656; iii, 1848.
71
González de Rosende, Vida del Ilustrissimo, y Excelentissimo Señor D. Iuan de Palafox,
112. See also Álvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 278.
72
Harding, Anatomy of a Power Elite, 171–3, 215–16.
1659. Another problematic aristocrat was the Neapolitan duke of
Monteleone. He had allegedly been appointed as viceroy of Aragon in
1653 to remove him from his homeland, where his presence was considered
to be dangerous.73 When Monteleone requested leave to come to Madrid in
1656, Crespí de Valldaura advised Haro against agreeing, and further
warned him (as if the valido needed any telling) that ‘to open the door for
viceroys to come to court on their private business, [and] before the end of
their terms of office, would not have good consequences’.74 Viceroys were
expected to remain in their places of jurisdiction not least because they had
often been sent there precisely so that they might be kept out of the way.
Of course, this kind of manipulation of appointments could only be a
temporary expedient. However intricate the arrangements may have been
to secure a nobleman’s departure, he would usually be back again sooner
or later. In 1648, just as Haro was entering into his full possession of the
valimiento, the political situation in Madrid was complicated by two new
arrivals. One was the duke of Medina de las Torres, who, with the
exception of a few weeks in the autumn of 1644, had been absent from
court for twelve years, first as viceroy in Naples, and then as an exile in
Valencia. His return to Madrid led observers to look for signs of rivalry
with Haro, but the duke himself regarded his position as weak, and he
even felt it necessary to beg the support of the valido at the time of his
entrance into Madrid.75 Two years later he made matters worse for
himself by openly conducting an affair with a married woman, and
again found himself in the embarrassing situation of having to appeal to
Haro’s mediation for his exile to be lifted.76
Medina’s return to Madrid in the summer of 1648 is likely to have been
facilitated by another new arrival. This was don Manuel de Moura, the
second marquis of Castel Rodrigo, who had arrived back at court six
months earlier. As a young man in the 1620s, don Manuel had been a
favourite of the royal family, but a political crisis in the summer of 1627
had allowed Olivares to engineer his exclusion.77 The marquis then spent
over twenty years serving Philip in Lisbon, Rome, the Imperial court, and
Brussels, during which time his family properties in Portugal were seized
by the rebel government in Lisbon. Now, finally back at the king’s side in
1648, he took up his seat on the Council of State, was admitted to the
more important and exclusive Junta de Estado, and, in the absence of a
vacant council presidency, it was also decided that he should be appointed
73
Brunel, 324; Villari, Un sogno di libertà, 361–2.
74 75
RAH Ms. 9/664, f. 3v. ADA 220/14: Medina to Haro, 13 June 1648.
76
ASMo Spagna, 57: 17, 23 September, 24 October 1650.
77
Martínez Hernández, ‘Aristocracia y anti-olivarismo’, 1149–51, 1195.
as lord steward (mayordomo mayor) of the king’s household.78 On the face
of it, the second marquis of Castel Rodrigo was very close to Haro. It was
in the latter’s house that he resided as a guest on his return to court, and
Haro represented his greatest hope for compensation for his material
losses in Portugal. In the spring of 1646, a decision was made to endow
the marquis with extensive properties in Naples. The arrangement, which
would provide an income of 150,000 ducats, had still not been finalized
by the late 1650s, and left the family beholden to the valido both in
gratitude for such a generous gift and in anxious anticipation of its
fulfilment.79
Yet Castel Rodrigo was never just a client of Haro. He had also been a
mortal enemy of the count of Monterrey, and was one of the few friends of
the duke of Medina de las Torres. The arrival of both Castel Rodrigo and
Medina in 1648 led to the emergence of a division between government
and household that was described at the end of Chapter 2. Public affairs
were dominated by Monterrey and Haro, who were close allies; the king’s
personal entourage, on the other hand, was at least nominally headed by
Castel Rodrigo and Medina, who were likewise good friends. Between the
two blocs, Haro and Castel Rodrigo, who were also on close terms,
remained influential within each other’s sphere: Haro in the household
as gentleman of the chamber and master of the horse, and Castel Rodrigo
in the government as a member of the Junta de Estado. Monterrey and
Medina meanwhile were confined to their respective areas of influence.
This carefully balanced governing arrangement that prevailed between
1649 and Castel Rodrigo’s death in January 1651 is an interesting
example of the valido having to make sacrifices in order to provide the
king with a workable team of individuals at the head of the monarchy. It
was a compromise made necessary by the impossibility of keeping two
important ministers permanently away from court. Furthermore, it is
illustrative of the ambiguities of political alliances. When the second
marquis of Castel Rodrigo died in January 1651, he showed his appreci-
ation to the valido by leaving him a painting of Christ as a young boy
debating with the doctors of the temple by Giuseppe de Ribera—the only
original painting that he had come to possess after so many years in Italy.
Yet in the very next sentence of his testament, he also urged his successors
to demonstrate their gratitude to the duke of Medina de las Torres.80
78
BAM VN 201/5.
79
AGS Secretarías Provinciales legajo 29: consultas of the Council of Italy, 31 March
1646, 20 July 1656, 15 September 1657; ASMo Spagna, 57: 8 January 1648.
80
BAM VN 201/13.
Castel Rodrigo’s personal circumstances meant that he and his son were
profusely loyal to the valido, but also prone to look for assistance from
elsewhere. The presence in Madrid of such people as Castel Rodrigo and
Medina brings us back to the question of the valido’s endemic insecurity—
something that would also be central to his relationships with Philip’s other
ministers.
6
‘Other People’ and ‘Different Ministers’
A Factionless Era?
Philip IV’s own understanding of his relationship with don Luis de Haro
was encapsulated in a famous letter that he wrote to Sor María de Ágreda
on 30 January 1647.1 The document conveys the king’s embarrassment at
being perceived as having done the wrong thing, as well as a desire to
justify himself. Philip regretted having kept the count-duke of Olivares in
power for so long. Yet, as someone familiar with the courtly genre of
literature on validos discussed in Chapter 1, he excused himself on the
grounds that it was reasonable for him to have depended, at least initially,
on the assistance of a trusted friend. Haro’s involvement in government
was represented as being limited to that of an intermediary and enforcer.
He did not, in the king’s eyes, have the character of a minister in the sense
that previous favourites like Lerma and Olivares had also been ministers.
Most importantly, Philip made it clear that he relied on the advice of ‘other
people’ and ‘different ministers’, and in all cases made sure that it was he,
the king, who made the final decisions. It is these ‘other people’ and
‘different ministers’ who will provide the subject for the present chapter.
The nine or ten years that followed on from the king’s letter of
justification to Sor María witnessed the height of Haro’s ascendancy,
but this amounted to a joint enterprise. Don Luis was someone always
looking for advice from those who possessed more experience of govern-
ment than he. He also knew that it was beneficial for him to be seen to be
doing so, because royal influence had, after all, to be properly dissemin-
ated. So, when considering the government of Philip IV during the second
half of the reign, it is necessary to think in terms of a group of people along
with their families and clients, rather than just of a partnership between
the king and his valido. Most (but not all) of these people were located in
Madrid, and they tended to hold council presidencies. Strictly speaking,
1
CSMA, i, 91–2. See also Tomás y Valiente, Validos, 16, 107–8, 172–4; Stradling,
Philip IV, 261; Cueto, Quimeras, 62–5.
they were not really clients of Haro, but were independently powerful
noblemen, whose influence rested on the king’s trust, as well as on their
own social standing, experience, and connections. However, the valido’s
personal intercession with Philip IV could inestimably advance their
interests. It was therefore principally a combination of office and favour
that allowed the counts of Monterrey, Peñaranda, and Castrillo, along
with the marquises of Leganés and Los Balbases, to place their supporters
within the councils and secretariats in a way that was not possible for the
duke of Medina de las Torres or the count of Oñate.
The use of the term ‘faction’ during this period is problematic. The
king’s delegation of his authority upon a single favoured nobleman was
bound to stimulate jealousies. Yet, for a situation to occur that was
politically divisive, a good number of nobles needed to be alienated, and
there had to be an alternative focus of legitimacy to whom they might
appeal. After the deaths of Isabel of Bourbon in October 1644, and of
Baltasar Carlos two years later, Philip IV had no other legitimate relations
who were of an age to act as poles of attraction for the discontented.
Cynics might even read his controversial second marriage to a twelve-year-
old archduchess—in the agreement of which Haro had been closely
involved—as a very successful manoeuvre to ensure that the palace should
remain politically neutral. On the other hand, if Haro himself could be
said to have possessed a faction, it certainly did not consist of a tight-knit
team of ministers working together under his close direction, as had been
the case with Olivares. Rather, he headed a much looser structure—a
framework of different clientage networks led by a group of men who were
united in their loyalty to the valido, but also by their close connections
with each other, as well as with noblemen from outside Haro’s own circle.
With these caveats in mind, we can now consider the different patronage
brokers who held influence during the second half of Philip IV’s reign.
This will lead on to a discussion of Haro’s family strategy, and will
conclude with an examination of the rather coy way in which he sought
to package his intervention in the practical business of government.
CLIENTAGE AT ONE REMOVE
During the 1620s and 1630s, Olivares had managed to place a number
of his own people within the Cámara de Castilla, the institution
which formally recommended candidates for appointment to civil and
ecclesiastical offices. By far the most important of them was Haro’s
uncle, the count of Castrillo. Having entered the Council of Castile as a
supernumerary member in February 1624, he had been promoted with
unseemly haste into the Cámara by April of the following year, and this
position of influence, along with his prolonged direction of the Council of
the Indies between 1632 and 1653, enabled him to nurture a generation
of aspiring ministers. Of lesser importance, but still highly influential,
were don Francisco Antonio de Alarcón, José González, and don Antonio
de Camporredondo y Río. These three, in addition to their responsibilities
within the Council and Cámara of Castile, also held the presidency of the
Council of Finance in succession to each other between May 1643 and
November 1652. Another important camarista—although not directly
connected with Olivares—was don Antonio de Contreras, who was a
member of this institution between his appointment in 1638 and his
death in 1670. To these names may be added don Luis Gudiel, who
attended the Cámara between June 1642, and his death in Zaragoza on
1 August 1644, and the count of Peñaranda, who attended meetings
between April 1642 and February 1645, and again between July 1650
and February 1651. Antonio Carnero was secretary of the Cámara for
eighteen years between 1643 and his death in 1661.2 These individuals
managed to survive the fall of Olivares thanks to their ability as experi-
enced and highly qualified administrators. Haro’s relationship with them
was therefore not one of a faction leader, nor even of a patron towards his
clients. Rather, it was a matter of mutual respect, in which each side had
something to offer the other.
Of course, don Luis did have creatures of his own. We have already seen
in Chapter 2 how he was able to introduce his personal family servants
into minor, but still significant, positions within the king’s household, and
much the same can be said about the valido’s close servants within the
administration. His secretaries, don Juan de Escobedo, don Juan del Solar,
and don Cristóbal Angelati, were the essential points of contact for
everybody wishing to do business with him, but they did not actually
enter the royal bureaucracy until the very end of their master’s life, and
they certainly never held the controversial authority that the likes of
Rodrigo Calderón or don Pedro Franqueza had achieved under Lerma.
At a slightly higher level, it is possible to single out don Luis Manuel de
Lando, don Juan and don Antonio de Oviedo, and don Felipe de Porres,
whose appointments to the Council of Finance can almost certainly
be ascribed to Haro’s influence.3 Many of his protégés were groups of
2
Fayard, ‘Los ministros’, 646–9, 652; Elliott, Olivares, 286, 663; Mazín, ‘Ascenso
político y “travestismo” ’, 85–90.
3
ADA Carpio, 81/37; AHN Consejos legajo 37681/2796, ff. 148v–50v; AHN Con-
sejos libro 728, ff. 267v–9r; AHPM 4194, f. 412r; ACC, lix(ii), 851; AJB, ii, 118; MHE,
xviii, 284; Valdenebro y Cisneros, La imprenta en Córdoba, 85, 86; Guevara, Libro aureo
(letter of dedication by the bookseller Carlos Sánchez); León Pinelo, El gran canciller, clxxiv.
siblings, such as don Antonio and don Álvaro de Benavides, and don
Jerónimo and don Antonio de Lezama.4 Another set of brothers were don
Francisco and don Antonio de Feloaga who were promoted through the
conciliar ranks during the 1650s. The former had represented Haro in
legal business, and the latter acclaimed the valido in his testament of 1658,
as ‘the person to whom I owe everything that I possess’.5 One might
also single out don Jerónimo del Pueyo Araciel, a magistrate who assisted
Haro during the latter’s visit to Andalusia in 1645–6, and was soon
afterwards appointed into the Councils of the Indies and Castile, as well
as don Francisco Zapata, also a member of the Council of the Indies, who
witnessed the signing of important legal documents for the valido’s
family.6
This was a relatively small group of secretaries and councillors, who
perhaps might in some sense be said to have constituted Haro’s domestic
political network—his ‘parentela’. Otherwise, he relied on the clientage
networks of his close ministerial allies, who included the members of the
Cámara already mentioned, as well as the various council presidents. An
idea of the scope of their influence can be gleaned from the prosopograph-
ical data relating to Councillors of Castile that has been provided by Janine
Fayard.7 In Table 6.1, we can see that it was the norm during the first two
decades of Philip IV’s reign for Councillors of Castile to be drawn from
the Council of Orders, with only five coming from the American admin-
istration, which was roughly the same intake as from the Council of
Finance, and from the sala de alcaldes (an institution responsible to the
Council of Castile, and which had the task of policing Madrid). But then,
during the 1640s, there was a marked increase both in the number of
appointments to the Council of Castile, and in the proportion of those
being drawn from the American administration. This was the period when
the count of Castrillo was at the height of his influence. The new arrivals
included men like don Juan de Santelices Guevara, don Cristóbal de
Moscoso, don Bartolomé Morquecho, and don Martín Nieto de Trejo.
Although the count played a diminished role from the late 1640s until his
return from Naples in 1659, the regime still needed people to staff its
institutions, and more often than not, it was officials who had previously
4
AHN Estado libro 869, f. 263r; BNM Ms. 8388, ff. 10r–11r; RAH Ms. 9/89, f. 118v;
Pellicer, Calidad y servicios de don Diego de Benavides; Fayard, ‘Los ministros’, 692, 712.
5
AHPM 6239, ff. 6r, 9v–10r; AHPM 8156, f. 780v. The quotation is taken from
AHPM 6280, ff. 637r–v.
6
AFCMS legajo 997/8; AGS GA legajo 1537: Haro to Philip IV, 16 November
1645; Fayard, ‘Los ministros’, 663; 699–700.
7
The following information, except where otherwise stated, has been drawn from
Fayard, ‘Los ministros’. See also Fayard, Los miembros, 75–8.
Table 6.1 Immediate provenance of Councillors of Castile, 1621–69
Total American Council of Italian Council of Alcaldes de Casa y Others
appointments administration Finance administration Orders Corte
1621–9 14 4a 3b 0 5c 1d 1e
1630–9 16 1f 2g 2h 5i 3j 3k
1640–9 27 10l 4m 1n 5o 7p 0
1650–9 17 7q 2r 4s 3t 1u 0
1660–9 16 7v 1w 1x 3y 1z 3aa
a Don Pedro Marmolejo, don Sancho Flores Melón, don Diego González de Contreras, don Francisco Antonio de Alarcón.
b Don Juan de Frías Mesía, don Francisco de Alarcón, don Antonio de Camporredondo y Río, don Antonio de Contreras.
c Don Pedro de Guzmán, don García de Haro, don Juan Coello de Contreras, don Juan Chumacero, don Luis de Villavicencio.
d José González.
e Berenguel Daoiz.
f Don Luis de Paredes,
g Don Antonio de Contreras, don Luis Gudiel y Peralta.
h Don Alonso de Guillén de la Carrera, don Juan Bautista de Valenzuela Velázquez.
i Don Miguel de Carvajal y Mesía marquis of Jódar, don Fernando Pizarro de Orellana, don Gaspar de Bracamonte, don Álvaro de Oca y Zúñiga, don Sebastián Zambrana
de Villalobos.
j Don Antonio Chumacero, don Francisco de Valcárcel, don Antonio de Valdés.
k Don Pedro Pacheco Girón, don Diego de Arce Reinoso, don Diego de Riaño y Gamboa.
l Don Juan de Santelices Guevara, don Cristóbal de Moscoso y Córdoba, don Martín Nieto de Trejo, don Bartolomé Morquecho, don Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado, don
Jerónimo del Pueyo Araciel, don Francisco de Solís Ovando, don Diego de Rivera Báñez, don Antonio de Lezama y Ochoa, don Juan Jiménez de Góngora.
m Don Juan Bautista Larrea, don Pedro de Velasco Medinilla, don Martín Íñiguez de Arnedo, don Melchor de Valencia.
n Don Pedro de la Vega y de la Peña.
o Don Diego de Cevallos y de la Vega, don Lope de Morales, don Juan Chacón Ponce de León, don Bernardo de Ipeñarrieta y Galdós, don Antonio Sarmiento de Luna.
p Don Gregorio López de Mendizábal, don Francisco de Robles Villafañe, don Juan de Morales Barnuevo, don Pedro de Amezqueta, don Francisco de Valcárcel Velázquez,
don Martín de Larreategui, don Agustín de Hierro.

q Don Pedro Núñez de Guzmán, don García de Medrano, don Francisco Zapata count of Casarrubios, don Jerónimo de Camargo, don Gregorio González de Contreras,
don Juan de Carvajal y Sande, don José Pardo de Figueroa.

r Don Martín de Bonilla, don Francisco Salgado de Somoza.
s Don Ramos del Manzano, Regente don Miguel de Salamanca, don Gaspar de Sobremonte, don Francisco de Feloaga.
t Don Pedro de Munibe, don Juan de Arce y Otalora, don Francisco Ruiz de Vergara.
u Don García de Porras y Silva.
v Don Juan González de Uzqueta, don Fernando de Guevara Altamirano, don Gil de Castejón, don Antonio de Monsalve, don Álvaro de Benavides, don Sebastián Infante,
don Alonso de Llano y Valdés.

w Don Alonso Márquez de Prado.
x Don Benito Trelles.
y Don Juan Girón y Zúñiga, don Juan Golfín de Carvajal, don Gabriel de Chaves y Sotomayor.
z Don Antonio de Vidania.
aa Don Lorenzo Santos de San Pedro, don Francisco de Paniagua y Zúñiga, don Lope de los Ríos.
been responsible to Castrillo’s Council of the Indies who were appointed
to head the domestic administration in Castile. The count’s return to
court was followed by a two-year term as president of the Council of Italy,
before he became president of the Council of Castile in his own right
between 1662 and his retirement in 1668. During these years, his control
over the judiciary was probably even greater than it had been before he
departed for Italy. Amongst the most successful of his new protégés were
don Gil de Castejón, don Benito Trelles, don Sebastián Infante, the Regente
don Miguel de Salamanca, don Lope de los Ríos, don Alonso de Navarra
Cárcamo, and the count’s secretary don Juan de Subiza.8
Of course, Castrillo was not the only significant patronage broker. Every
council president exerted a decisive influence over who served under him.
Within the Council of Italy, the count of Monterrey’s creatures included
(amongst others) don Fernando Ezquerra, the count of Mora, don Pedro
Neila, and the Regente don Miguel de Salamanca (who appears to have
moved towards Castrillo after Monterrey’s death in 1653).9 It is quite likely,
moreover, that further investigation will reveal that Monterrey exerted at
least as great an influence over appointments within the Italian tribunals as
Castrillo did in those of Castile and America. Also very important was the
count of Peñaranda, amongst whose protégés one can include don Antonio
de Monsalve, don Francisco de Vergara, don Martín Íñiguez de Arnedo,
and the count’s natural son-in-law don Antonio Márquez de Prado.10 The
continued predominance of the American administration in appointments
to the Council of Castile well into the reign of Carlos II may also be
evidence for Peñaranda’s influence at the helm of the Council of the Indies
following Castrillo’s departure to Naples in 1653. One other minister who
was highly influential in matters of patronage was the Inquisitor General
Arce Reinoso, who can be linked to nearly every appointment made to the
Suprema during his twenty-two-year chairmanship of that institution, as
well as a significant number of selections for the episcopacy.11
To return to the Cámara de Castilla, even those members who refrained
from overtly installing their clients in positions of authority were certainly
8
ACO Castrillo legajo xxxiv/1: testaments of the count of Castrillo, 15 December
1668, 22 December 1670; AHPM 9861, ff. 70r–v; RAH Ms. 9/7159(2): avisos of 13, 20
January, 3 February, 2 March 1664; SPM Journal, v, 145–7.
9
ADA Monterrey 96/29; ASMo Spagna, 54: 3 February 1644; BNM Ms. 9926, ff.
221r–2r; RAH Ms. 9/97, ff. 42r–v; Andrés de Uztarroz, ‘Elogio al autor’, published within
the preliminaries of San Iosef, Genio de la historia; Madruga Real, ‘Las Agustinas’, ii, 587–8,
603–5.
10
AHN Inquisición legajo 1463/5; AHPM 9844, ff. 785v–6r; Vera, Una industria, una
capilla, y un linaje, 35, 52.
11
Giraldo, Vida y heroycos hechos, 141–2; Martínez Millán, ‘Los miembros del Consejo
de Inquisición’, 410, 415–16, 443–6; Puyol Buil, Inquisición y política, 352, 500.
beneficiaries of the system of recommendation and favour within which
they formed a part. Don Antonio de Contreras had clearly profited from
his thirty-two-year membership of the Cámara, and was reluctant to
countenance fiscal reforms that might have undermined his private
income. Yet he was still generous with his money, and bequeathed his
fortune to hospitals, convents, dowries for orphaned girls, and numerous
other pious works.12 Contreras was well liked, and acted as executor in the
testaments of at least seven other ministers.13 The secretary of the Cámara,
Antonio Carnero, also appears to have been popular, but in contrast to the
politically independent Contreras, Carnero relied on the support of
numerous people. His career suffered after 1643, not just because of his
loyalty towards Olivares, but also because he was trying a little too hard to
do his best for the count-duke’s bickering relations. In a letter to don
Fernando Ruiz de Contreras he bemoaned his situation:
I am so unfortunate that, without realizing how it happened, I have managed
to incur his [the count of Monterrey’s] ill will because of his jealousy for the
duke of Medina, and I find myself in the same situation with the duke,
because of the jealousy that he has for the count, from which Your Lordship
will see how I find myself now, having served them both, as a man of
honour, and without prejudice to the other.14
Carnero’s fortunes gradually revived, and he married his numerous daugh-
ters across a broad section of the up-and-coming juridical elites, whose
careers were no doubt assisted by their common father-in-law.15 During
the last year of his life, he reached the top of his profession as holder of the
secretaryship of the universal dispatch. Fully cognizant of the source of his
advancement, he commended his children to Haro in his testament.16
The identification of political alliance on the basis of career patterns,
family association, and provisions in wills can, of course, only serve to
pinpoint relationships at specific moments in time. It is quite clear that the
officials and ministers of Philip IV’s government sometimes changed their
allegiances, or acted as servants of more than one master. One character
who stands out as something of a maverick was José González. Like many
of his colleagues, he combined deference towards Haro with proximity to
12
AHPM 9823, ff. 1115r–27v.
13
Don Juan Chacón Ponce de León, José González, don Juan Chumacero, don Lorenzo
Ramírez de Prado, don Juan de Góngora, the Regente don Miguel de Salamanca, the count
of Castrillo.
14
AGS GA legajo 1545: Carnero to Ruiz de Contreras, 3 January 1644.
15
Doña María Luisa Carnero was married to don Bernabé de Andrade y Funes. Doña
Antonia Carnero married don Antonio de Feloaga. Doña Juana Carnero married don Gaspar
de Sobremonte y Rebolledo.
16
AHPM 8137, ff. 990v–1r.
the count of Castrillo. Also, and like Antonio Carnero and the Lezama
brothers, he was extremely loyal to his former patron, the count-duke of
Olivares. He survived the count-duke’s downfall relatively unscathed, but
Castrillo’s absence in Naples between 1653 and 1659 may have been
responsible for a decline in his situation. Before the count’s departure,
González had been able to secure the promotion of a number of clients,
including his son, don Juan González de Uzqueta y Valdés, and his nephew,
don Juan de la Calle. Yet for the rest of the 1650s, his own career, as well as
those of his protégés, stagnated. Disagreement even spilled over into the
Cortes, where his nephew openly came to blows with the nephew of don
Diego de Riaño y Gamboa.17 Yet, in 1660, José González was made
governor of the Council of the Indies, and two years later he became
president of the council responsible for ecclesiastical taxation (comisario
general de la cruzada). Not only that, but his son was appointed to the
Council of Castile in 1660 by direct royal decree.18 It is tempting to
attribute these promotions to Castrillo’s return to Madrid the previous
autumn, but it is more likely that they were a reward for González’s services
to the valido at the Pyrenees in 1659. Haro chose to include González
amongst his executors in the codicil that he drafted before his death in 1661,
although this minister’s name had not appeared in the will that the valido
had made three years before in the summer of 1658.19 On the other
hand, Castrillo was conspicuous by his absence from the very long list of
executors that González selected in 1667, suggesting a cooling in their
relations during the last years of their lives.20
If José González did well by switching allegiance from Castrillo to
Haro, someone who remained loyal to Castrillo, and seems to have
suffered the consequences, was don Juan de Carvajal y Sande. Having
been president of the Chancelleries of Granada and Valladolid during the
1640s, he was appointed president of the Council of Finance in November
1652.21 This should have left him in a powerful position, but he seems to
have been undermined by a difficult relationship with Haro. Back in 1647,
when revolts had broken out in Andalusia, Carvajal had made an outspoken
denunciation of the aggressive estate management of the valido’s brother-in-
law, the duke of Segorbe.22 His situation declined further when his patron
the count of Castrillo departed for Naples just a few months after his
appointment to the presidency of Finance. Although Carvajal was later
17
AJB, i, 140–1. 18
Fayard, ‘Los ministros’, 648–9, 706.
19
Matilla Tascón, Testamentos, 219, 223.
20
Fayard, ‘José González’, 362–3.
21
Schäfer, Indias, i, 226 (n. 194), 240 (n. 265), 342; Fayard, ‘Los ministros’, 704.
22
Gelabert, Castilla convulsa, 276–8.
honoured by appointment to the Council and Cámara of Castile in 1658,
and would accompany Philip IV and María Teresa to the Pyrenees two years
later, he remained an obscure figure, wealthy enough to make generous
private donations to help fund the king’s armies, but seemingly unable to
translate the possession of high office into real authority.23
Carvajal’s reduced influence was to the benefit of the individual who
was by far the most important of Haro’s own protégés. This was don Juan
Jiménez de Góngora, who dominated the financial administration of
Castile during the 1650s.24 Góngora’s allegiance to Haro pre-dated the
fall of Olivares. They were distantly related and both had interests in
Córdoba.25 He had begun his career as a judge in the audiencia of Seville,
and had conducted important investigations into the administration of the
Indies trade.26 At the beginning of 1649, having been promoted to the
Council of Castile, he arrived in Madrid, and over the following years was
also appointed to the Cámara de Castilla, and, perhaps most significantly,
to the presidency of the Comisión de Millones. The court commentator
Barrionuevo described him as ‘a crafty man who . . . will get whatever he
wants, for the valido does nothing that does not first pass through his
hands’.27 It was Góngora’s obvious friendship with Haro that allowed him
to marginalize not only don Juan de Carvajal from financial affairs, but
also the increasingly infirm don Diego de Riaño y Gamboa from the
management of the Cortes. In March 1658, Góngora’s practical influence
was officially recognized by appointment to govern the Council of
Finance, just at the moment when this institution was finally allowed to
bring the influential Comisión de Millones under its aegis. For the next five
years, his control over the finances of Castile would be all-powerful, but
his close alliance with the valido probably played a part in compromising
his own situation during the years that followed the latter’s death.
What conclusions can be drawn from these patterns of relationship and
appointment? In line with the observations made in previous chapters, the
overriding impression that one gains is that, for most of the time, these
were people who worked well with each other, married into each others’
families, and shared common interests and sympathies. Whilst disagree-
ments certainly occurred, Philip IV’s ministers and officials were usually
quite pragmatic in their willingness to patch up their differences in the
face of new opportunities and threats from outside the valido’s circle.
23
ASV Spagna, 117, f. 414r.
24
Lucena Ortiz and Guisado Domínguez, ‘Parentesco y linaje’, 245–50.
25
Pellicer, Memorial de la Casa y Servicios de Don Ioseph de Saavedra, f. 32r.
26
Fayard, ‘Los ministros’, 694–5. 27
AJB, i, 216. See also RAV, 271–2.
Even Castrillo admitted that his own interests were ultimately the same
as those of his nephew, amounting, as they did, to the enhancement of the
decorum and perpetuity of their house. With Haro, as with others, he was
willing to let bygones be bygones, and during the 1660s, he would become
closely allied with the valido’s supporters.28 Most notably, in November
1664, he and the count of Peñaranda chose to express their mutual
solidarity by selecting each other’s clients for their own institutions:
Peñaranda’s confidant, don Antonio de Monsalve, was promoted at
Castrillo’s behest to the Council of Castile, whilst Castrillo’s client, don
Alonso Ramírez de Prado, was elevated to the cámara of Peñaranda’s
Council of the Indies.29 Once again, testamentary provisions show the
same names appearing time and again as executors, beneficiaries, and
guardians of children. Before he died in 1657, don Juan Chacón placed
his affairs in the hands of (among others) González, Góngora, and don
Antonio de Contreras.30 The same year, don Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado
chose Contreras and don Francisco de Feloaga to assist his widow in the
management of their estate.31 A little later, the Regente don Miguel de
Salamanca chose as his executors Contreras and Góngora, along with two
other councillors and a royal secretary.32 On numerous occasions Haro’s
name was invoked by those who predeceased him for the sake of the
welfare and advancement of their successors. These were all people whose
careers had flourished with his approval, but only a few of them were
actually his creatures. They had reached the top, and were there to stay, for
they represented a vast reservoir of talent made available for the king and
his monarchy by their patronage.
THE INNER CIRCLE
Haro’s closest advisers probably amounted to no more than seven or eight

people during the whole period of his ascendancy, and this very small
group of ministerial allies is suggestive of an important aspect of his
situation and mindset: his deep personal insecurity. However acceptable
he may have made himself to the broad mass of political society, he seems
to have been highly mistrustful of anyone who might constitute a rival to
28
ACO Castrillo legajo xliv/3: 8 November 1664. See also ACO Castrillo legajo xliii/2:
18 February 1660; ACO Castrillo legajo xliv/3: 8 February 1663: ACO Castrillo legajo
xliii/3: 12 May 1667.
29
ACO Castrillo legajo xliv/3: 8 November 1664; Schäfer, Indias, i, 361.
30 31 32
AJB, ii, 95. AHPM 6280, f. 413v. AHPM 9861, f. 53r.
his position. And there were even ambiguities in his relationships with
those who were supposedly close to him. The difficult proximity he
shared with his uncles, the counts of Castrillo and Monterrey, has been
described in Chapter 3. After his split with Castrillo in 1646, the latter’s
influence in certain areas of government remained significant, and his
complete alienation would have run the risk of disaffecting numerous
lesser officials. Removing Monterrey, likewise would have denied Haro
the assistance of an acknowledged expert on international affairs, who
also had a powerful network of friends and clients. So, during the late
1640s and early 1650s, Castrillo and Monterrey remained in the system,
cantankerous elder statesmen with their influence carefully ring
fenced—Castrillo to the American administration; Monterrey to Italian
affairs. They were accompanied within Haro’s circle of advisers by a
small number of other power brokers who exercised influence of their
own from the vantage point of the individual governing institutions that
they were allowed to control.
In addition to the Councils of State and War, whose president was
nominally the king, there were nine other councils, some of which were
headed by more than one individual. Apart from the titular president,
who held his office ‘en propiedad’, there might also be a governor who
would direct the council if the president were unable to exercise his
duties. In reality there was little difference between the powers and
perquisites of presidents and governors, and they were often confused
by the people of the time, but it is worth keeping in mind who was in
practical control of these institutions. From the information included in
Table 6.2 it is clear that not everybody who was involved in the direction
of the councils in Madrid was a close collaborator of Haro. The others
included independent professional administrators, like don Diego de
Arce Reinoso, don Pedro Pacheco Girón, and don Cristóbal Crespí de
Valldaura. Haro’s favour was necessary to allow them to exert the
influence that was implicit in their offices, but he himself depended on
the expertise and broader political connections that these people pos-
sessed for his regime to function properly. What needs to be emphasized
is that, as far as the valido was concerned, the business of finding enough
dependable and trustworthy people to direct these institutions was a
serious problem. At times, he even had to prevail upon friends to hold
down two presidencies at once, and resorted on one occasion to exercis-
ing the duties of a council president himself. His regime therefore
amounted partly to a power-sharing arrangement, and partly to a patron-
age balancing-act in which a variety of different players were included,
whilst others—not necessarily all of them his enemies—would be left
out in the cold.
Table 6.2 Presidents and governors of councils, 1640–65

Indies Finance Italy Orders Castile Aragon Flanders Inquisition Cruzada
1640 Count of Castrillo, Don Antonio de Count of Monterrey, Count of Oñate, October Don Diego de Castejón y Cardinal Borja, president, Marquis of Leganés, Friar Antonio de Friar Antonio de
‘governor with the Camporredondo y presidente, 1626 1638–Oct 1644 Fonseca, June 1640– March 1637–Dec 1645 Nov 1628–Feb 1655 Sotomayor, Sept Sotomayor, Feb
prerogatives of Río, governor, Dec –March 1653 March 1643 (absent from Madrid 1632–June 1643 1627–July 1646
1641 president’, April 1632 1634–July 1642 serving in various
–June 1648 occupations until Jan
1647)
1642
Count of Castrillo,
governor, July 1642–
May 1643
1643 Don Juan Chumacero,
March 1643–June 1648
Don Francisco Don Diego de Arce
Antonio de Alarcón, Reinoso, June 1643–
1644 governor, May 1643– July 1665
April 1644, president,
April 1644–Nov 1647 Interregnum, Oct 1644–
March 1645
1645
Marquis of Mirabel,
March 1645–Feb 1651
1646 Count of Chinchón,

1646–7 Don Diego de
Don Matías de Bayetola Riaño y Gamboa,
(vice-chancellor), Nov Marquis of Leganés in July 1646–July
1647 1646–May 1652 Madrid, Jan 1647– 1648
Count of Monterrey April 1648
returned to favour in
April 1647, president
José González,
until his death in
1648 president, Nov 1647–
March 1653
Feb 1651
Marquis of Leganés
(absent in Don Pedro
Castrillo, president, Extremadura, April Pacheco Girón,
1649 Don Diego de Riaño y 1648–Nov 1650)
June 1648–March Aug 1648–Oct
1655 Gamboa, July 1648– 1662
Jan1662
1650
Marquis of Leganés in
Madrid from Nov
1651 Don Antonio de Count of Peñaranda, 1650 until death in
Camporredondo y president, Feb 1651–Oct Feb 1655
Río, Feb 1651–Nov 1653
1652
1652 Don Cristóbal Crespí de
Valldaura(vice-
Don Juan de Carvajal chancellor), May 1652–
y Sande, Nov 1652– Feb 1671
March 1658
1653 Marquis of Leganés,
president, April 1653–
Peñaranda, governor, February 1655
Oct 1653–March 1655 Marquis of Velada,
governor, Dec 1653–Feb
1654
1655
1655
Peñaranda, president, Marquis of Velada,
March 1655–July governor, March
1671 1655–Jan 1660 Marquis of Tábara, Marquis of Los
governor, Aug 1655–Jan Balbases, president,
1656
1660 Sept 1655–Aug 1659
1657
Don Luis de Haro,

June 1657–May 1660
1658
Don Juan de Góngora,
governor, March
1659 1658–July 1663
Count of Castrillo, Marquis of Tábara, Marquis of Velada,

1660 governor, ‘with the president, Jan 1660– president, Jan 1660–
José González, May prerogatives of June 1663 Aug 1666
1660–Nov 1662 president’, Jan 1660
until Jan 1662
1661
1662 Duke of Medina de las Count of Castrillo, Jan

Torres, president, Jan 1662–March 1668
1662–Dec 1668
Don Francisco Ramos José González,

1663 del Manzano, Nov Nov 1662–Sept
1662–Nov 1664 1668
Regente Don Miguel Count of Oropesa, July
1664 de Salamanca, July 1663–Aug 1669
1663–Feb1666
Count of Peñaranda,
1665 returned to Madrid in
Nov1664, president
until July 1671
One council president who seems to have been chosen as a safe pair of
hands, rather than as a result of any clearly discernible influence by Haro,
was don Antonio de Zúñiga y Dávila, third marquis of Mirabel. He was
selected as president of the Council of Orders at the beginning of March
1645, having previously spent twelve years (1620–32) as ambassador in
Paris, and another three (1636–9) as an advisor to the Cardinal Infante in
Brussels.33 Mirabel was politically active in Madrid from the time of his
final return to court in 1639 until his death on 13 February 1651. He was
sympathetic towards both Olivares and Haro, and might be regarded as
something of a ‘company man’ who was happy to work with whoever it
was that possessed the king’s favour. In the summer of 1643, he was
appointed as governor (ayo) to Baltasar Carlos, and he combined this
responsibility with attendance on the Council of State, and a number of
committees connected with Flanders.34 His selection as president of the
Council of Orders in the spring of 1645 is difficult to interpret. It followed
a six-month interregnum during which there were a number of candidates
for the job, and it seems likely that Mirabel’s appointment was intended as
a stopgap solution, pending the return to Madrid of the count of Peñar-
anda.35 Over the next six years, the marquis would show his loyalty to
Haro by openly challenging the authority of Chumacero’s Council of
Castile, and by assisting in the resolution of disputes between malcon-
tents.36 In his testament he made guarded acknowledgement of his debt to
the valido whom he hoped would intercede with the king for the sake of
his widow, son, and grandchildren.37
Mirabel’s replacement as president of the Council of Orders in 1651
was his close relation the count of Peñaranda. The special favour that the
latter enjoyed as an ambassador and viceroy has already been discussed. He
was one of the most brilliant of Philip IV’s ministers, who, even before his
departure for Germany in March 1645, had been regarded as indispens-
able in the management of recruiting and supplying the royal army in
Catalonia. After three years of negotiations at Münster he concluded a
peace with the United Provinces that would inaugurate a long period of
economic and military cooperation between the old enemies.38 Eight
months after his return to Madrid, he was allowed to ‘inherit’ Mirabel’s
presidency following the marquis’ death in February 1651, and having
chaired the meetings of the Council of Orders for two-and-a-half years, he
was invited to govern the Council of the Indies on Castrillo’s departure for
Naples. In March 1655, he acquired the full presidency of this institution,
which he would hold (with a lengthy period of intermission), for the next
33
MC, ii, 209 (n. 8).
34
AP, i, 409; Baltar Rodríguez, Juntas, 560–2 (nn. 1340, 1345).
35
AHN Estado libro 869, ff. 204r–v.
36
BL Ms. Additional 24947, f. 381r; MHE, xviii, 103, 130, 134, 485.
37
AHPM 6028, f. 275r.
38
AGS GA legajo 1520: consultas of the Junta Particular, 13 December 1643, 7 January
1644; Herrero Sánchez, Acercamiento.
sixteen years.39 Peñaranda had no doubt about who was responsible for his
advancement, for on occasions he would appeal to the valido’s protection
from common enemies, and the women and children of his family would
live in Haro’s house for two years after his second departure from Madrid
in the summer of 1657.40 And yet the count could at times be outspoken,
and by the late 1650s, as we shall see in Chapter 8, he would become
prone to criticize his friend and benefactor.
An altogether more easy-going character than Peñaranda was don
Antonio Sancho Dávila y Toledo, third marquis of Velada, who was
invited to stand in for the count as governor of the Council of Orders in
December 1653. Don Antonio was now a man in his early sixties, and had
divided his life between active service on behalf of the king and the
leisured existence of a courtier in Madrid. In his youth he had held
important commands in north Africa and Flanders, as well as a short
embassy in London.41 Olivares had believed in his abilities, and recom-
mended him for high office in Italy, which Velada duly exercised as
governor-general of Milan for three years in the mid-1640s, and with a
reasonable degree of success.42 The Italian ambassadors spoke highly of
him as a competent, straight-talking, down-to-earth gentleman, who liked
his food, and was free of personal interest.43 He seems to have been a
friend of Haro, for they shared literary interests, but there does not appear
to have existed any close political connection between them until the mid-
1650s. Velada did not help himself after his return to court in 1646 by
refusing a succession of appointments abroad, and by socializing with
malcontent grandees.44 Although he was made a Councillor of State, it
would take another six years before he received his first real position of
influence at the end of 1653. It appears that, after some hesitation, the
valido had finally come to regard Velada as someone who could be placed
in charge of important institutions. The marquis would repay that trust
during the difficult years at the end of the decade.45
39
AHN Consejos libro 728, ff. 160v–1v, 223r–4r; DCCV, 103.
40
ACO Castrillo, legajo xliii/2: 16 February 1659; ADA 138: Haro to Peñaranda, 11
April 1650, 28 July, 8, 30 August, 25 September 1657; ADA 233/20: Peñaranda to Haro,
22 April 1659, 14 December 1659; CODOIN, lxxxiv, 165, 231, 242.
41
IVDJ Ms. 26/II/7; Elliott, ‘The Year of the Three Ambassadors’, 169; Martínez
Hernández, ‘Aristocracia y gobierno’.
42
AHN Estado libro 865, f. 98r.
43
RAV, 159–60, 277–8; IRAG, 256–7; Signorotto, ‘Spagnoli e lombardi’, 105, 149
(n. 137).
44
ASMo Spagna, 56: 22 December 1646; IVDJ Envío 85/192; MHE, xix, 63; Novoa,
373; Martínez Hernández, ‘ “En la corte la ignorancia vive,” ’ 65.
45
ASV Spagna, 121, ff. 287r–8r.
For Haro, characters like Mirabel and Velada served a useful purpose in
filling council presidencies in order to keep out other noblemen whom he
considered to be his enemies. The latter included the count of Oñate and
the duke of Medina de las Torres. Both were more than qualified to
exercise influence over the central institutions of the monarchy, and, as
former viceroys of Naples, had particular claims on the Council of Italy.
Oñate had played an important part in the suppression of the revolt in
Naples, before overseeing the reconquest of the Tuscan strongholds, and
setting in motion an effective programme to re-establish royal control over
southern Italy.46 He was just the sort of battle-hardened, highly experi-
enced independent minister that the valido did not want to have around
him in Madrid. Fortunately, Oñate was also quite an unpopular character,
and fairly easy to isolate.47 Medina was more dangerous. He held the
office of treasurer-general of the crown of Aragon, which was a medieval
distinction dating back to Aragonese rule over Naples and Sicily. It
entitled its holder to occupy second place in the Councils of Aragon and
Italy, as well as to chair sessions of these institutions in the absence of a
formally appointed vice-chancellor or president.48 Consequently, it was
vital for Haro to make sure that neither of these two councils should be
allowed to default into the hands of his rival. The Council of Aragon was
safe because Crespí de Valldaura had his own disagreements with Medina.
However, there was a danger of losing control over the Council of Italy
following the death of the count of Monterrey in the early spring of 1653,
when for the space of three weeks Medina was left to direct this important
institution until a replacement could be rushed in to fill the gap.49
The replacement was don Diego Felípez de Guzmán marquis of
Leganés. He was an older cousin of Olivares, and his loyalty to the
count-duke had complicated his relations with the government since
1643. For two years, he was kept under house arrest, and even after the
charges against him were dropped, his situation remained unclear.50 In all
appearance, the marquis of Leganés’ relationship with don Luis de Haro
was very good. They sang each other’s praises in their letters to the king;
the relief of Lérida in November 1646 was something of a shared triumph;
and, as we saw in Chapter 3, Haro made sure to come to the marquis’
46
Galasso, Napoli spagnola dopo Masaniello, i, 3–26.
47
Brunel, 144, 269–70; DDMA, 294–5; Goldberg, ‘Spanish Taste’, 104 (n. 13).
48
Arrieta Alberdi, El consejo de Aragón, 343–52.
49
AGS Secretarías Provinciales libro 674; DCCV, 212; Gil Pujol, ‘El ducado de
Sanlúcar la Mayor’, 87–9.
50
ASMo Spagna, 55: 21 December 1644; BL Ms. Additional 24947, ff. 250–316v;
BNM Ms. 18195, ff. 181r–2r; Elliott, Olivares, 637–8.
assistance when the latter came into conflict with other noblemen.51 For
these reasons, it is very difficult to understand why Leganés should have
found himself posted to the command of the secondary war theatre in
Extremadura for two-and-a-half years between April 1648 and November
1650.52 It is possible, as Francisco Arroyo Martín has recently suggested,
that the decision was made in anticipation of an early victory in Catalonia
that would have allowed the king to redirect his full attention westward in
what was hoped would have been a triumphant reconquest of Portugal.53
However, it is also of some relevance that the marquis possessed a claim on
the Sanlúcar estate, and one might conjecture that his absence from
Madrid was necessitated by a need to avoid a clash with the duke of
Medina de las Torres, whose return to court was imminent at the time of
Leganés’ departure for Badajoz. We do not know how Haro managed to
persuade his ally to make way for their mutual arch-rival, but his success is
evidence of how the valido’s skill in the management of people could also
be directed towards ensuring that the composition of the noblemen about
the king could work on its own terms. This might mean having to say
goodbye to a friend, as would happen once again, in 1657, when the count
of Peñaranda was persuaded to leave a second time for central Europe. Yet,
like Peñaranda, Leganés would enjoy considerable political support and a
very generous salary whilst he was away.54 The marquis’ final return to
Madrid in the autumn of 1650 coincided with agreement over doña
Antonia de Haro’s portion of the Sanlúcar estate, and for the remaining
four years of his life Leganés would act as one of the valido’s principal
allies. His elevation to the presidency of the Council of Italy in April 1653
came in addition to that of the Council of Flanders, which he already held.
Entrusting a minister with not just one council, but two, demonstrates the
value and esteem that Haro placed in Leganés, and is again suggestive of
his difficulty in finding other noblemen to whom he was willing to allow
such authority.
On 16 February 1655 the marquis of Leganés passed away at the age of
seventy-three, and another reshuffle of ministers was necessary. Castrillo
was given the presidency of Italy, but as he was away in Naples, the actual
management of this Council fell to the marquis of Velada, who now
became governor of the Council of Italy, and president of the Council
of Orders. Meanwhile, a replacement was brought in as acting governor of
51
AHN Consejos legajo 4430/122: Haro to Philip IV, 2 May 1646; ‘consulta de la
junta de cabos del ejército’, 22 June 1646; MHE, xviii, 333–4.
52
White, ‘War and Government’, 349–50, 523.
53
Arroyo Martín, ‘Poder y nobleza’, 458–9.
54
Pérez Preciado, ‘El marqués de Leganés y las artes’, 455–6, n. 1701.
the Council of Orders in Velada’s stead. This was don Enrique Pimentel,
fifth marquis of Tábara. The latter was a man with close connections to
the grandeeship. Back in 1629, he had been appointed captain of an elite
company of guards, an honour that placed him alongside the likes of the
dukes of Alba and Medina de las Torres, and of don Luis de Haro
himself.55 Yet, whilst his fellow officers appointed substitutes to fulfil
their duties, the marquis of Tábara pursued an active military career in
the front line. He saw service in the war against the French in Catalonia,
before being appointed to govern Navarre, Aragon, and Galicia in rapid
succession between the autumn of 1640 and the summer of 1645. But
then, for the next ten years, he retreated into obscurity, as he was left to
defend the forgotten frontier between Portugal and Old Castile.56 Tábara
was related by marriage to the marquis of Leganés, to whom, as José Juan
Pérez Preciado has recently discovered, he presented pictures from his art
collection.57 It is therefore possible that Tábara’s return to Madrid shortly
after Leganés’ death in 1655 may have been with the purpose of main-
taining family influence at court. However, he was not quite in the same
league as his deceased relation, and his appointment as governor of the
Council of Orders may again have been intended as an interim measure
before moving him elsewhere. Yet he remained in Madrid until his death
on 29 June 1663, something of a figure of fun on account of his physical
resemblance to one of the court buffoons, but also another safe pair of
hands within which the Council of Orders could be kept neutral.58
The changes in government that took place in 1655 also brought in
somebody of much greater importance, and with whom this summary
of Haro’s inner circle will conclude. The newcomer was don Filippo
Spinola, second marquis of Los Balbases. As Manuel Herrero Sánchez
has observed, the Spinola were particularly valuable to the Spanish king on
account of their wealth and international contacts.59 Los Balbases’ sister,
Polissena Spinola, had been married to the marquis of Leganés between
1628 and her death in 1637, and these connections were amplified by a
close relationship that both families held with the Doria dukes of Tursi,
another cosmopolitan family that was married into the Castilian aristoc-
racy.60 Leganés and Los Balbases served alongside each other in Flanders,
55
AGS GA libro 187, ff. 159r–v.
56
AP, 158, 292, 303, 456; White, ‘War and Government’, 523.
57
Pérez Preciado, ‘El marqués de Leganés y las artes’, 470, n. 1761.
58
BBMS Ms. 26/6/4, ff. 264r–5v, 306r–7r; AJB, ii, 18, 55–6.
59
Herrero Sánchez, ‘La red genovesa Spínola’, 109–10, 115–17, 132–3; Herrero
Sánchez, ‘Spínola, Felipe’, 274–5.
60
RAH Ms. 9/103, ff. 58v–9r; MHE, xvii, 438; Signorotto, ‘Il marchese di Caracena’,
157–8, 178 (n. 84).
and at the battle of Nördlingen, before sharing responsibility for the
defence of northern Italy during the late 1630s. Whilst Leganés stayed
in Milan until the beginning of 1641, Los Balbases returned to Spain in
1639, and for the next two years was in charge of military operations
against the French in the eastern Pyrenees. He bears some responsibility
for the crisis of 1640 on account of his failure to keep his troops in good
order, and after the revolts broke out, the count-duke no longer con-
sidered him to be suitable for military command.61 By 1642, he was back
in Italy, and would live for the next thirteen years in what seems to have
been a comfortable semi-retirement, dividing his time between Genoa and
his estates at Rossano and Tortona. He was now blind in one eye and had
difficulty walking, but he continued to act as a highly valued adviser on
policy, as well as an enforcer of royal orders.62 There is some evidence that
Philip IV had wanted to have Los Balbases at his side after his dismissal of
Olivares, and various attempts were made over the following years to lure
him back. It would not, however, be until September 1655 that he
made his final entry into Madrid, whereupon he was immediately
appointed as president of the Council of Flanders in succession to
Leganés.63 Over the next four years until his death on 8 August 1659,
Los Balbases would act as one of the two or three most important
members of the valido’s rapidly diminishing circle of intimacy.
In tracing these comings and goings of council presidents it is important
to be aware of who was not amongst them. Aside from the duke of Medina
de las Torres and the count of Oñate, who were obvious omissions, there
were other experienced and qualified ministers who ought to have stood a
better chance of being brought into the fold. One was the count of La
Roca, who had been close to Haro since the early days.64 Yet La Roca was
an eccentric character who did not always inspire trust. An important
figure of the golden age, he was deeply influenced by the literature
of Tacitus, which meant that his letters, poems, and books were written
in a difficult style that was intentionally susceptible to double-readings.
He published under false names, and sought to disguise his modest
social origins with invented titles and fabricated genealogies.65 Although
61
AHN Estado libro 865, f. 95r.
62
ASMi Uffici Regi, Parte Antica, carteggio 63/4; BAM VN 629/3, 95–6; RAH
Ms. 9/103, f. 209v; DMO, 994; FLEML, 88; Signorotto, ‘Il marchese di Caracena’, 177
(n. 78); Herrero Sánchez, ‘La red genovesa Spínola’, 121–2.
63
AGS Estado legajo 3606 (nos. 105–8); AHN Estado libro 89: Los Balbases to second
marquis of Castel Rodrigo, 26 April 1643; CCE, 507.
64
RAH Ms. 9/97, f. 51r.
65
Fernández-Daza Álvarez, La Roca, 144–6, 266, 272; Colomer, ‘El conde de la Roca y
el marqués Virgilio Malvezzi’, 526–7.
contemporaries praised his abilities, it seems he could be unreliable with
money. He was, moreover, clearly not in the confidence of Olivares, who,
despite everything that La Roca might say to the contrary, had almost
certainly engineered his fourteen-year sojourn as ambassador in Turin and
Venice between 1630 and 1642 as a means of keeping him out of
Madrid.66 And yet, given all his experience, and everything that he had
done to cultivate Haro’s favour, it is surprising that the count of La Roca
should have played little or no part in the Italian administration after his
return. Instead, he was accorded no other responsibility than membership
of the Councils of War and the Indies, along with a few committees to
discuss military and financial affairs.
There were other, more reliable, officials who might have been entrusted
with high office: Cardinal Trivulzio, the count of Fuensaldaña, don Alonso
de Cárdenas, or even the marquises of Mortara and Caracena—any one of
whom might have been brought back to court if Haro had wanted to avail
of his services in Madrid. Of course, many of these people were needed in
the places where they were employed. Yet the count of Santisteban, who
was well liked, highly educated, and very close to people such as Peñar-
anda, spent most of the 1650s occupying the relatively minor viceroyalty
of Navarre.67 The same went for the baron de Watteville, who was given
an important role in the attempts to support the Fronde in Bordeaux, but
after its failure was left to while away his time in the governorship of the
Basque province of Guipúzcoa.68 The duke of Arcos, and the counts of
Siruela and Oropesa after periods spent in viceroyalties and embassies
during the 1630s and 1640s, retired to their estates, and even Haro’s
brother-in-law, don Pedro de Aragón, spent most of the early and mid-
1650s in the wilderness. These were all noblemen who had run into some
sort of trouble in the exercise of their offices, which appears to have blown
their chances of future appointments. Clearly, the members of Haro’s
government were not allowed to make mistakes. And yet it is also
surprising that figures of the calibre of don Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado,
or don Antonio de Contreras never received council presidencies, not least
because either would have been experienced enough to replace the
decrepit Riaño y Gamboa at the head of the Council of Castile from the
mid-1650s. For want of more evidence, one is left to conclude that the
Spanish Monarchy did not suffer from a lack of competent leaders.
66
RAH Ms. 9/88, f. 78v; MHE, xviii, introduction, xv–xvi; RAL, 76; La Roca,
Manifiesto, 6, 14, 32; Fernández-Daza Álvarez, La Roca, 147, 158.
67
Brunel, 343, 346–7; Bouza, ‘Escribir en la corte’, 98–9. Santisteban was the author of
Latin verses published as Horae Succisivae D. Didaci Benavidii Comitis Sancti Stephani
(Lyon, 1660).
68
Thiéry, ‘À la découverte d'un acteur de la Fronde’.
Rather, the valido was simply unwilling to make use of all the human
resources at his disposal. His anxiety to control the institutional frame-
work is perhaps most clearly evident in his response to Peñaranda’s
departure on a second mission to central Europe in the summer of
1657. There were people enough who were qualified to stand in for the
count as president of the Council of the Indies. But, rather than allow
them the chance to shine, Haro took this institution into his own hands
by privilege of his office as grand chancellor.69 It was not until three years
later, and after spending months working alongside José González at the
Pyrenees, that he found a man he could trust to take his, and Peñaranda’s,
place at the head of this important institution.
A NETWORK OF FAMILIES
If Haro’s choice of ministerial advisers can be taken as evidence for his

political insecurity, the same can be said for his family strategy, much of
which was also dictated by the obsession to legitimize his position as royal
favourite. However, his policies in both areas—governmental and
domestic—had positive repercussions. As the clientage networks of min-
isters like the count of Castrillo or the marquis of Los Balbases permitted
the monarchy to be governed more effectively, so the members of Haro’s
extended family would help control the localities, particularly along the
sensitive new frontier with Portugal.
A successful valido had to do more than simply maintain the trust of
the ruler; he also needed social credibility in order to elicit the recogni-
tion and respect of his peers. The ancestry of the marquises of El Carpio
was not unimpressive. The historiographer José de Pellicer noted how it
could be traced back through the male line for over nine hundred years,
whilst other writers drew attention to the way in which the progenitors
of the family, the Lords of Vizcaya, had been accustomed to minting
their own coins, and had married into the royal house of León. Lorenzo
Matheu y Sanz said that Haro’s blood was ‘derived from sceptres’, and
Charles II of Great Britain addressed him in Latin as ‘consanguineo et
amico nostro’.70 Yet these royal connections were distant, and derived
through a cadet line. It was, moreover, not until 1624 that his father, the
69
AHN Estado libro 104: Montalto to Castel Rodrigo, 19 June 1659; BBMS Ms. 26/6/4,
ff. 352r–5r; BL Ms. Additional 26850, f. 245r.
70
BL Ms. Egerton 616, f. 66r; Pellicer, Memorial de la casa y servicios de don Ioseph de
Saavedra, f. 31v; Bussières, Ramillete, i, letter of dedication by the translator to Haro. See
also Merino Malillos, ‘ “Verdadero descendiente de mis antiguos señores” ’.
fifth marquis of El Carpio, was given some sort of acknowledgement as a
grandee. Even then, the recognition was made conditionally, and on
ambiguous terms, which meant that it had to be reconfirmed in 1640,
and again in 1654. Haro’s personal status therefore depended mainly on
the title of conde-duque de Olivares (which he only used in formal
documents) and the grandeeship of the first class that were accorded to
him by the king in August 1645.71
If the credentials of the husband were relatively modest by the illustri-
ous standards of the high aristocracy, they were nonetheless immeasurably
enhanced by those of his wife. In 1626 Haro had married doña Catalina
Fernández de Cardona y Aragón, the daughter of the fifth duke of
Segorbe. The wedding took place in Barcelona, and was the ceremonial
culmination of an alliance that had been negotiated two years before. The
dukes of Segorbe (who were often described by their other grandee title of
dukes of Cardona) held extensive properties in Catalonia, Valencia, and
Andalusia. Until his death in 1640, the fifth duke, Haro’s father-in-law,
had been a powerful figure in Barcelona, and it was in recognition of his
services that Philip placed the family in high favour. Don Luis Ramón, the
young sixth duke of Segorbe, had been made knight of the Golden Fleece
at the time of his sister’s marriage to Haro. Now, following the outbreak of
revolt in Catalonia, their brother don Pedro was appointed to the Council
of War, and given the command of the German palace guard.72 In
practical terms both men turned out to be liabilities. The sixth duke was
renowned for seeking to evade the royal fisc, whilst exploiting his vassals in
Andalusia. His brother never quite managed to live down his alleged
implication in the death of Baltasar Carlos.73 Of the other siblings, don
Antonio was something of a favourite of Haro himself until his premature
death in October 1650; he was not quite thirty-four years of age, and, just
months before, had been made a cardinal. Don Vicente lived out an
anonymous private existence as a beneficiary of the Church.74 Don
Pascual, the youngest sibling, served as a Councillor of Aragon through
the 1650s, was raised to the purple in 1660, and would become one of
the most important ministers in the regency government of Carlos II.75
71
BNM Ms. 9926, ff. 187–8; Novoa, 185; MHE, xviii, 138; Domínguez Ortiz, Las
clases privilegiadas, 81 (n. 83).
72
AGP Expedientes personales 109/36; AHPUV Crespí libro 5/34; Carrió-Invernizzi, El
gobierno de las imágenes, ch. 1.
73
ASMo Spagna, 56: 24 November 1646; BL Ms. Egerton 347, ff. 170r–1v; SPM
Journal, v, 272, 354; MHE, xviii, 432–3; RAV, 136.
74
ADA Carpio 81/34, 81/37; AP, 561; Sanabre, La acción de Francia en Cataluña, 259;
DHEE, i, 349.
75
Estenaga y Echevarría, El Cardenal Aragón.
Their sister, doña Ana, was married to the duke of Arcos in 1645, just
before the latter’s departure to take up the viceroyalty of Naples.
For the valido what mattered most about the House of Segorbe was its
genealogical descent from kings. The practice by which medieval Iberian
rulers had married their younger offspring into the nobility, and the public
recognition that was accorded to such relationships, had the effect of
placing the early modern Habsburg rulers at the head of an extended
family of grandees.76 It also left the high nobility with a strong sense of
social exclusiveness and political entitlement. We have seen in Chapter 3
how the duke of Híjar took his royal pretensions seriously. He was not
alone; the duke and duchess of Osuna practised a household ceremony
that was described as being very like that of the royal family, and similar
customs were followed by other grandees to the extent that the king would
sometimes have to reprimand them for their presumption.77 Association
with sovereignty had provided Lerma and Olivares with a justification for
the favour and influence that they enjoyed, and the Segorbe alliance would
do the same for Haro.78 By his marriage to doña Catalina, he became
related to a family directly descended in a legitimate male line from
Ferdinand of Antequera, the early fifteenth-century regent of Castile and
king of Aragon.79
The couple had five children who survived into adulthood, and, as can
be seen from Figure 6.1, the arrangements for the eldest three were made
during the period of Haro’s greatest influence. The marriage of his elder
son, the marquis of Heliche, to doña Antonia María de la Cerda, the
daughter of the duke of Medinaceli, was negotiated in the spring of 1649
with don Juan de Góngora and the marquis of Villanueva acting as
intermediaries. Two years later the young couple were brought together
at a ceremony conducted at Puerto de Santa María on 17 April 1651.80
The local influence of the duke of Medinaceli was of great importance for
the defence of the Andalusian coasts and the southern frontier with
Portugal, as well as for the preparation of the Atlantic fleets.81 But if
Haro’s association with Medinaceli was in the public interest, he also had
much to gain by marrying his son into a family that possessed as credible a
76
Carrillo, Origen, f. 38r; Casey, The History of the Family, 45–6, 62–4.
77
AP, 561; Bertaut, 137; Domínguez Ortiz, Las clases privilegiadas, 78–9, n. 81.
78
Elliott, Olivares, 25 (n. 77); García García, ‘La aristocracia y el arte de la privanza’,
120–1, n. 38; Feros, Kingship and Favoritism, 102–3.
79
Salazar y Castro, ‘Representacion’, 143; Fernández de Bethencourt, Historia genealó-
gica, ix, 97–8, 114–15; MacKay, Spain in the Middle Ages, 135–6; Altisent, Història de
Poblet, 523–4.
80
ADA 220/14: Medinaceli to Haro, 14 March 1649; RAH Ms. 9/99, ff. 1r–4r.
81
Salas Almela, Colaboración y conflicto.
The marquises of El Carpio
(1601) (1605)
Don Diego López de Haro y = Doña Francisca de Guzmán y Don Pedro de Haro Doña Beatriz = Don Pedro Velázquez
Sotomayor, fifth marquis of Pimentel († 1642) knight of Calatrava († 1636) de Haro († 1609) Dávila, second marquis of
El Carpio († 1648) Loriana. Brother of first
Marquis of Leganés
(1622)
Don García de Haro y = Doña María de Avellaneda y
Sotomayor (1588–1670) Delgadillo, second countess
of Castrillo († 1670)
Fray Plácido Antonio de Haro, Don Gaspar de Don Baltasar de Haro knight of
predicador de la Casa de Castilla Alcánara, canon of Toledo († 1644).
Haro (1637–65)
(† 1661). His mother was
Doña Bernardina de Navarrete y
Sotomayor, natural de Orán
Don Luis Méndez de Haro y (1626) Doña Catalina Fernández de Cardinal Don Enrique de
Guzmán, sixth marquis of El = Córdoba y Aragón, daughter of Haro y Guzmán (1604–26)
Carpio, first duke of Montoro, Don Enrique Folch de Cardona y Aragón,
count-duke of Olivares (1603–61) fifth duke of Segorbe and sixth duke of
Cardona (1610–47)
Don Gaspar de Haro y Don Juan Domingo de Doña Antonia de Haro y Doña Manuela de Haro y Doña María de Don Francisco Manuel de
Guzmán, seventh marquis Haro y Guzmán (1640–1716) Guzmán († 1667) Guzmán († 1682) Haro y Guzmán Haro y Guzmán (1647–53)
of El Carpio, marquis of (1666)
(1663)
Heliche (1629–87) (1657) (1657) = =
(1651) = =
=
Doña Antonia María de la Doña Inés de Don Gaspar Juan Pérez de Don Gaspar Pimentel Vigil Don Gregorio de Silva
Cerda y Enríquez de Ribera, Fonseca y Zúñiga, Guzmán, fourteenth count of de Quiñones y Benavides, Mendoza y Sandoval, fourth
daughter of the seventh duke of seventh countess of Niebla and tenth duke of eldest son of the eleventh count of prince of Melito and fifth
Medinaceli (1635–70) Monterrey († 1710) Benavente duke of Pastrana
Medina Sidonia (1630–1667)
Figure 6.1 The marquises of El Carpio

genealogical link to the kings of Castile as the dukes of Segorbe had with
the rulers of Aragon. The dukes of Medinaceli were descended from don
Fernando de la Cerda, the eldest legitimate son of Alfonso X, who had
been married to the daughter of St Louis of France. Their successors had
been forced to renounce their rights to the throne, but they still displayed
the lion, castle, and fleur de lys on their coats of arms.82 It would have been
in defence of such an illustrious pedigree, that doña Antonia María de la
Cerda’s siblings were also married very selectively: her younger sister to the
future admiral of Castile, who himself was of medieval royal blood; her
younger brother to the niece of the sovereign duke of Guastalla; and the
heir to the Medinaceli title, don Juan Francisco Tomás de la Cerda, was
married in 1653 to none other than Haro’s niece, the daughter and heiress
of the sixth duke of Segorbe. As can be seen from Figure 6.2, the tendrils
of the valido’s lineage were becoming intertwined with those of grandees,
foreign rulers, and princes of the blood.
Although it was not necessary to find quite such a prestigious bride for
the second son, a similar combination of public and private considerations
lay behind the marriage of don Juan Domingo de Haro. He was eleven
years younger than the marquis of Heliche, and was just seventeen years
old—in comparison to his brother’s twenty-two years—when he took his
bride. The arrangements, however, had been long in the planning. Doña
Inés de Fonseca y Zúñiga was the great-niece, and heiress, to the counts of
Monterrey, and from at least as early as 1652, her great-aunt had wanted
her to be given in marriage to Haro’s second son.83 When the capitula-
tions were finalized in March 1656 the couple were still minors, which
meant that Haro signed the document on behalf of his son, and doña Inés
was represented by her father the marquis of Tarazona. The ceremony
itself took place on 7 February 1657, and if the commentator Barrionuevo
is to be believed, it was a splendid occasion, with the couple receiving a
coach as a present from the king, in addition to a one-off gift of 30,000
ducats, and income to be derived from numerous other assets. As part of
the arrangement, the bride’s father was allegedly given the promise of the
viceroyalty of Sicily, a controversial appointment that he would take up a
few years later.84 The counts of Monterrey were valuable subjects of
the crown because they owned extensive possessions in Salamanca and
Galicia. Bearing in mind the duke of Medinaceli’s influence in western
82
Fernández de Bethencourt, Historia genealógica, v, 5–7, 12; Méndez Silva, Parangon
de los dos Cromueles, dedication to Medinaceli.
83
DDMA, 326; Madruga Real, ‘Las Agustinas’, ii, 602–3, 610.
84
AJB, i, 78, 102, 259; ii, 54, 61, 137.
Haro’s grandee relations: Segorbe, Medinaceli, Pastrana, Medina Sidonia, and Lerma
Don Francisco Gómez de
Sandoval y Rojas, first duke of
Lerma (1553–1625)
(1603)
Don Cristóbal, first duke of Doña Juana de Sandoval Don Diego = Doña Luisa de
Uceda (1577–1624) (1597) (1598) Gómez de Mendoza, twelfth
= 1. Don Diego López de Haro, third = 2. Don Manuel Alonso Pérez de Sandoval († 1632) countess of Saldaña
marquis of El Carpio (1583–97) Guzmán el Bueno, eighth duke of († 1619)
Medina Sidonia (1579–1636)
(1606)
Don Francisco de Sandoval y Don Enrique Ramón Folch de = Doña Catalina Fernández de
Rojas, second duke Lerma Cardona y Aragón, fifth duke Córdoba (1591–1646)
and Uceda († Flanders, 1635) of Segorbe, sixth duke of
Cardona (1588–1640)
(1630) (1625) (1626) (1630)

Doña Mariana de Sandoval, = Don Luis Ramón Folch Don Antonio Juan = Doña Ana María Doña Catalina = Don Luis Doña Catalina de = Don Rodrigo de
third duchess of Lerma de Cardona y Aragón, Luis de la Cerda, Enríquez Afán de Fernández de Méndez de Mendoza y Sandoval, Silva, fourth
(1614–51)
sixth duke of Segorbe, seventh duke of Ribera, fifth duchess Cardona y Haro eighth duchess of El duke of Pastrana
(1614–75)
seventh duke of Cardona Medinaceli (1607–71) of Alcalá (1613–45) Aragón (1610–47) Infantado
(1608–70)
(1653) (1651)
(1666)
Don Ambrosio, fourth Doña Catalina Antonia de = Don Juan Francisco de la Doña Antonia = Don Gaspar de Haro, Doña María de Haro = Don Gregorio de Silva, fifth
duke of Lerma (1650–9) Aragón y Sandoval, fifth Cerda, eighth duke of María de la seventh marquis of El duke of Pastrana
duchess of Lerma, eighth Medinaceli (1637–91) Cerda (1635–70) Carpio, marquis of
duchess of Segorbe, ninth Heliche (1629-87)
duchess of Cardona (1635–97)
(1688)
(1687)
Don Francisco = Doña Catalina de Don Manuel Alonso = Doña Luisa de Silva
Álvarez de Haro y Guzmán, Pérez de Guzmán el Mendoza Haro y
Toledo, tenth eighth of El Carpio Bueno, twelfth duke of Guzmán (b. 1670)
(1672–1733)
duke of Alba Medina Sidonia (b. 1671)
(1662–1739)
Figure 6.2 Haro’s grandee relations: Segorbe, Medinaceli, Pastrana, Medina Sidonia, and Lerma
Andalusia, Haro seems to have been focusing his family commitments
towards the Atlantic world and the recovery of Portugal.
Concern for the security of Spain’s western frontier and a desire to
consolidate existing family connections were also behind the choice of
spouse for the eldest daughter, doña Antonia de Haro y Guzmán.85 Don
Gaspar Juan Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno, fourteenth count of Niebla, was
heir to the duke of Medina Sidonia. His father had been a once powerful
aristocrat brought low in 1641 by a misguided attempt to conspire with
the government in Lisbon, where his sister (the duchess of Braganza) had
recently become queen consort of Portugal. Following the discovery of
the plot, and the duke’s incomprehensible failure to abide by the terms of
the pardon that Philip IV had offered him, he and his family had been
confined to the city of Valladolid, several hundred miles to the north of
their western Andalusian possessions.86 By 1654, however, the king of
Spain had become more forgiving, at least towards the duke’s heir, who
had been only eleven years old at the time of the conspiracy. Yet, rather
than have him residing on his father’s estates in Huelva, and becoming an
unwitting focus for instability on the border with Portugal, it was believed
that he should be kept at court, and in sight of the king. In the back-
ground of these discussions was the idea of a marriage between Niebla and
the valido’s eldest daughter.87
Initial misgivings of the bride and her family seem to have subsided by
the beginning of 1656, when the count of Niebla was made a knight of
Santiago. That summer he came in secret to Madrid, probably to take part
in arrangements for the defence of the Andalusian coast, and by July of the
following year the match had been settled.88 The capitulations were
signed on 18 November 1657, and witnessed by don Juan de Góngora
and don Fernando de Fonseca Ruiz de Contreras; they provided the
couple with an income of 15,000 ducats, which included the 5,000 ducats
that had been accorded to doña Antonia back in 1651 as her portion of the
Sanlúcar estate.89 On 26 December 1657, the marriage took place at a
private ceremony conducted by Niebla’s great-uncle, the patriarch of the
Indies.90 According to Sir Henry Bennet, the event amounted to ‘a great
85
Salas Almela, ‘ “Queriéndolo disponer el Señor don Luis.” ’
86
Domínguez Ortiz, ‘La conspiración’, 126–40, 146–9; Salas Almela, The Conspiracy,
1–2, 77–8, 89, 103–9, 112–21.
87
ADA 220/14: Medinaceli to Haro, 16 January 1655, Villaumbrosa to Haro, 23
February 1655; AJB, i, 83; Malcolm, ‘Don Luis’, 178–9.
88
AFCMS legajo 997/3; RAH Ms. 9/53, ff. 162r–3r; Salas Almela, Medina Sidonia, 432.
89
AFCMS legajo 997/8.
90
AJB, ii, 132–3; Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 57, f. 6v; Deveny, ‘Poets and Patrons’, 23.
point of state and hath in it great advantages to both the houses’.91
Certainly, the match was in the public benefit, but the rewards for the
contracting parties are less clear. Haro wanted to perpetuate the Guzmán
surname in his house, and in this much his intentions were in accord with
those of the king, who, in reference to the ninth duke’s conspiracy, saw the
marriage as a means ‘to break the ice of the past accident’.92 Yet for the
cautious valido considerations of state and dynastic prestige did not
cover the admittance of a potentially dangerous aristocrat into the heart
of Philip IV’s entourage. Nor was the count of Niebla to be allowed into
Haro’s own circle, where his presence would almost certainly have pro-
voked jealousies with don Luis’ two sons. He would therefore be accorded
no more than the limited privileges of a gentleman of the chamber without
exercise, despite having to pay a significant gratuity to Diego de Velázquez
when the latter presented him with the ceremonial key.93 During the
following years Niebla would remain behind in Madrid when his father-
in-law travelled to Extremadura and the Pyrenees, and on the occasion of
the king’s meeting with the duke of Medina Sidonia at Valladolid in June
1660, Haro and his two sons were not present.94
In the same way as the small circle of ministerial allies formed the tip of
the iceberg of political influence, so the valido’s close relations were at the
centre of a great kinship network that stretched throughout Iberia and
beyond. An impression of these multiple-family networks can be derived
from Figures 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5. Again, they provided a means by which
government authority could be more effectively implemented within the
localities. Whilst the spouses of Haro’s elder children had influence in
regions bordering the frontier with Portugal, his close ministerial allies had
possessions concentrated around Madrid (Leganés), Córdoba (Góngora),
Burgos (Castrillo, Los Balbases), Toledo (Velada), and Salamanca (Mon-
terrey, Peñaranda). Other collaborators included the counts of Santiste-
ban, who had their power-base in Jaén, the counts of La Puebla de
Montalbán in Toledo, and the marquises of Las Navas, who were a
powerful family from Ávila. The marquises of Almazán originated near
Soria, but were also connected to the counts of Altamira from Galicia; and
the counts of El Montijo and Grajal possessed estates stretching from
Extremadura to Old Castile. Further research will be necessary to under-
stand more precisely how the local influence of the aristocracy worked to
91
Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 55, f. 246v.
92
ACO Castrillo legajo xliii/2: 18 September 1657 (paraphrase of letter from Haro to
Castrillo, 10 July 1657).
93
AFCMS legajo 997/10: Velázquez to don Francisco Navarro, 26 January 1658.
94
Castillo, Viage, 272; Salas Almela, Medina Sidonia, 441, 444, 447–8.
Noble families related to Haro I: Santisteban, Grajal, Segorbe, Arcos, Caracena, Las Navas
Don Luis Carrillo de Toledo, first = Doña Isabel de Velasco y =
marquis of Caracena and first Mendoza daughter of Don Diego de Benavides, sixth Doña Leonor Don Pedro Esteban Don Antonio Dávila y Zúñiga,
count of Pinto (born La Puebla de marquises of Almazán count of Santisteban Dávila Dávila, third marquis of third marquis of Mirabel Councillor
Montalbán, 1564; † 1626) Las Navas of State, President of the Council of Orders († 1651)
(1603)
Don Luis de Doña Ana Carrillo de 2. Doña Mariana = Don Francisco de Benavides, = 1. Doña Brianda de Bazán y
Benavides, fourth Toledo, second Carrillo de Toledo seventh count of Santisteban Benavides
marquis of Fromistá = marchioness of (no succession) gentleman of the chamber with exercise
gentleman of the chamber Caracena († 1640)
with exercise († c. 1645)
(1621)
Doña Ana Francisca de = Don Rodrigo Ponce Doña Catalina de Don Álvaro de Don Antonio de
Aragón daughter of fifth duke de León, fourth duke Aragón (1610–47) Benavides, Benavides,
of Segorbe (born 1609) of Arcos (1602–1658) (1626) Councillor of Castile comisario general de
= Don Luis de Haro (1622–68) la cruzada († 1691)
(1603–61)
(1652)
Don Luis de Benavides Carrillo y = Doña Catalina Ponce de 1. Doña Antonia Dávila (1628) Don Diego de Benavides, (1654) 3. Doña Ana de
Toledo, third marquis of León (1629–1701) Ruiz de Corella, seventh = eighth count of Santisteban = Silva Manrique de
Caracena (1608–1668) marchioness of Las (1607–1666) la Cerda
Navas (†1648) (1651)
= 2. Doña Juana Dávila
Ruiz de Contreras,
Doña Mariana de Benavides Doña Victoria de Toledo y eighth marchioness of
(1642)
Carrillo y Toledo Benavides Las Navas (no Francisco Álvarez de = Doña Leonor
Don Luis de Moscoso Osorio Mendoza, = Don Cristóbal de Luna y Portocarrero, fourth succession) († 1653) Vega, fourth count of Rodríguez de
= eighth count of Altamira, seventh marquis of count of El Montijo, great-nephew of Peñaranda Grajal (1608–65) Villafuerte, niece of
Almazán, sixth marquis of Poza († 1698) (1638–1704) Peñaranda († 1663)
(1630) (1660) (1677)

1. Doña Mariana Isabel de = Don Luis Ramón Folch de Cardona = 2. Doña María Teresa Doña Teresa de = Pedro Álvarez de Vega, fifth
Sandoval, third duchess of y Aragón, sixth duke of Segorbe de Benavides Benavides (born count of Grajal († 1698)
Lerma (1614–51) (1608–1670) 1656)
(1660)
Doña Francisca Josefa = Don Francisco de Benavides, ninth count of Santisteban, ninth marquis of Las Navas (1644–1716)
(1647–97)
Figure 6.3 Noble families related to Haro I: Santisteban, Grajal, Segorbe, Arcos, Caracena, Las Navas
Noble families related to Haro II: Leganés, Los Balbases, Poza, Almazán, Altamira
Don Álvaro de Bazán, first Don Diego Velázquez Dávila = Doña Leonor de Guzmán Don Luis Méndez de Haro y = Doña Beatriz de Haro y
marquis of Santa Cruz Mesía de Ovando Sotomayor († 1614) Sotomayor, fourth marchioness
of El Carpio
Doña María de Bazán = Don Juan Velázquez Dávila, first Don Pedro Velázquez = Doña Beatriz de Haro Don Garcíade Haro y
marquis of Loriana Dávila, second marquis of Sotomayor, count of
Loriana Don Diego López de Haro, fifth Castrillo (1588–1670)
marquis of El Carpio († 1648)
=
Doña Brianda de Bazán Doña Francisca de
Guzmán († 1642)
= Don Francisco de Benavides,
seventh count of Santisteban
(† 1640) Don Luis de Haro (1603–61)
Don Gaspar de = Doña Antonia de Mendoza,

Ambrogio Spinola, first Moscoso Osorio, fifth third marchioness of
marquis of Los Balbases count of Altamira Almazán
(1628)
Don Filippo Spinola, second 1. Doña Policena = Don Diego Felípez de = 2. Doña Juana de = Don Lope Hurtado de
marquis of Los Balbases Spinola (†1637) Guzmán, first marquis of Córdoba y Rojas, fifth Mendoza y Moscoso, fourth
(1596–1659) Leganés (c. 1584–1655) marchioness of Poza marquis of Almazán
Don Gaspar Dávila Mesía y = Doña Francisca de Rojas y Doña Inés María Felípez de = Don Gaspar de Moscoso y Doña Leonor de = Don Gaspar
Guzmán, second marquis of Córdoba, daughter of the marquis Guzmán, fourth marchioness of Mendoza, fifth marquis of Moscoso y de Haro y
Leganés, first marquis of Morata of Poza Leganés († 1685) Almazán (1631–64) Córdoba († 1690) Avellaneda
(1637–65)
(1684)
Don Luis de Moscoso Osorio = 1. Doña Mariana de Benavides
Mendoza, eighth count of Carrillo y Toledo
Altamira, seventh marquis of
= 2. Doña María Ángela de Aragón
Almazán, sixth marquis of Poza
y Benavides (1666–1737)
Figure 6.4 Noble families related to Haro II: Leganés, Los Balbases, Poza, Almazán, Altamira
Noble families related to Haro III: La Puebla de Montalbán Mirabel, Santisteban, Peñaranda, Puñonrostro, Segorbe
(1560)
Don Pedro Dávila y Doña Jerónima
Doña Ana Dávila y Córdoba = Don Juan de Bracamonte y =
Córdoba, second Enríquez de Guzmán,
Guzmán, Señor de Peñaranda daughter of fourth count of Alba
marquis of Las Navas
de Liste
(1574) (1578)
Doña Juana Pacheco Don Alfonso Téllez
Don Alonso de Bracamonte = = Doña María
y Guzmán, first count of de Mendoza, daughter of Girón (1555–90) Magdalena de la
the first count of La Puebla de
Peñaranda († 1622) Cerda (1609)
Montalbán
Don Baltasar Manuel de Don Alonso de Don Alfonso Téllez Girón,

Bracamonte, second Bracamonte († 1634) second count of La Puebla
count of Peñaranda († c. 1637) de Montalbán (1590–1666)
= Doña Mencía de Villafuerte,
(1618) seventh señora de Villafuerte
= Doña María Portocarrero, born,
Jerez de los Caballeros, 1599. Doña Isabel Pacheco Don Melchor Téllez Girón Doña Teresa María
Daughter of second count of El Montijo Mendoza y Aragón Pacheco de Mendoza (1620–50) Pacheco de Mendoza
(1555–90)
(1663) (1640)
= = =
(1636)
Doña María de Villafuerte, = Don Francisco Doña Inés María de Haro y Don Gonzalo Arias y
(c. 1640) Don Gaspar de eighth señora de Villafuerte
Doña María de Álvarez de Avellaneda (†1643), daughter of don Bobadilla fifth count of
= Bracamonte y (1642)
Bracamonte y Doña Leonor de Villafuerte, = Vega, fourth García de Haro, count of Castrillo Puñonrostro (†1661)
Portocarrero, third Guzmán (1596–1676) ninth señora de Villafuerte count of Grajal
Countess of (1608–1665)
Peñaranda (1623–1677)
Doña Leonor Dávila Don Antonio

Don Enrique Dávila
= Dávila y Zúñiga
Guzmán, first marquis († Feb 1651).
of Povar († 1630) Don Diego de Benavides y de la
Cueva, sixth count of =
= Doña Catalina de
Santisteban
Rivera, daughter of Doña Francisca de
second marquis of Malpica Zúñiga y Dávila,
third marchioness
of Mirabel
Doña Jerónima Dávila y Guzmán, Doña MaríaTeresa
second marchioness of Povar de Benavides
(1629) (1660)
(1626) =
= =
Don Luis Méndez Doña Catalina de Don Pedro de Aragón (1611–1690) Don Luis Ramón de Cardona y Aragón,
de Haro (1603–65) Cardona y Aragón (1610–1647) sixth duke of Segorbe (1608–1670)
Figure 6.5 Noble families related to Haro III: La Puebla de Montalbán, Mirabel, Santisteban, Peñaranda, Puñonrostro, Segorbe
the benefit of king and valido during this period. For the moment it can be
said that their possession of seats on the city councils gave them an
influence in the process of recruiting and raising money on the ground.
The marquis of Leganés had the right to appoint municipal councillors in
Madrid and the surrounding villages.95 The marquises of El Carpio
enjoyed similar privileges with the cities of Seville, Córdoba, and Écija.
The marquis of Mirabel was dominant in Plasencia, and the counts of
Grajal and Monterrey were respectively buying up municipal offices in
Salamanca and Galicia during the 1650s.96 These families also made an
important personal contribution in the business of supplying and com-
manding the armies, and some would be killed or captured by the enemy
in the attempted invasions of Portugal at the end of the reign. One can
finally point to more international family connections, such as those
between the marquises of Leganés and Los Balbases, the counts of Paredes
and the dukes of Guastalla, the marquises of Tábara and dukes of
Sermoneta, which helped maintain Philip IV’s influence in Italy.
The affiliations of these aristocrats were again expressed in their testa-
ments, as well as in their shared cultural interests. The marquis of Mirabel,
just before his death in February 1651, had chosen Leganés, Peñaranda,
and Santisteban to act as his executors; and he bequeathed a painting from
his art collection to the countess of Peñaranda.97 When Leganés drew up
his will in November the following year he also made generous bequests.
To Peñaranda, he left an ebony writing desk that had been a present to
him from the king; to Monterrey, he promised one of his paintings; Los
Balbases and the count of Altamira both received swords and arquebuses;
the marquis of Heliche was given a horse from his stables and one of the
best swords in his collection; the valido received an ornamental clock that
had been a present to Leganés from Archduke Albert, together with a
half-length painting of a gardener said to be by Correggio.98 Like his
brother-in-law, Los Balbases was also an art connoisseur and, before
leaving Italy in 1655, he made a testament in which he gave a painting
of Saint Sebastian by Rubens to Haro, and a depiction of Saint Jerome,
supposedly by Albrecht Dürer, to the count of Peñaranda.99 This shared
enthusiasm for accumulating artworks—along with other interests such as
bibliophily and antiquarianism—was something that sustained and
enhanced the relationships between these noblemen. It also provided a
95
AHPM 6265, f. 360r.
96
AGS Cámara, Libros de Relaciones 36, ff. 28v–9r, 77v, 396r, 404r–v; AHPM 4194,
ff. 736r–v, 742r–v; Thompson, ‘Crown Sales of Municipal Offices’, 770–1; Malcolm,
‘Don Luis’, 167 (n. 38); Ruiz Gálvez, ‘Don Luis de Haro y Córdoba’.
97 98
AHPM 6028, ff. 271r, 273v, 275r. AHPM 6265, ff. 363r–4r.
99
ADAC Balbases, no. 91, legajo 1, no. 6.
means of assisting their political fortunes. Art historians have shown how
Haro would make use of trusted ministers in London and Brussels in order
to buy up works of art from the sales of paintings belonging to Charles
I and to English and Scottish royalists, the best of which would be
presented to Philip. Other ministers, such as the marquises of La Fuente,
Tarazona, and Caracena, and the counts of Peñaranda and Castrillo, were
doing the same from their positions of responsibility in Flanders and
Italy.100 Together they contributed to the development of a splendid
royal collection that amounted to a visible manifestation of the king’s
relationship with his ministers: broadly defined by the royal taste, but also
reflecting the favours and appointments bestowed at an individual level.
Something else that will need to be investigated further is the extent to
which the development of this great network of families was the result of
clearly discernible marriage ‘strategies’. To be sure, a certain number of
family alliances, like those of the valido and his children, did have a
deliberate political purpose, but this was unusual. In general there was
an ambivalence about kinship alliances that makes it difficult to draw
political conclusions from marriage patterns. The count of Niebla was a
case in point, as was the marquis of Caracena. The latter possessed historic
family connections with the counts of La Puebla de Montalbán and the
marquises of Almazán. He was personally close to the count of Castrillo
and the marquis of Leganés.101 He was also the most successful Spanish
soldier of his day, and he was married to Haro’s niece. Yet, despite these
advantages, the marquis of Caracena always came second place in the
valido’s estimation to other military commanders, like the count of
Fuensaldaña and the marquis of Mortara—neither of whom seem to
have had close ties of kinship with Haro or his other relations. In the
aftermath of Caracena’s great victory at Valenciennes in 1656, the duke of
Arcos found it necessary to use the incident as a polite reminder of the
valido’s family obligations.102 Overall, people did not marry to be part of a
faction. What mattered were social, economic, and even sentimental
considerations. Appointments to court and government might have
ensued, but they were incidental benefits to be enjoyed by families most
of which would still have been connected with each other regardless of
the political fortunes of their leaders. Again and again, noblemen were
100
Harris, ‘Velázquez as Connoisseur’, 179–84; Vergara, ‘The Count of Fuensaldaña
and David Teniers’; Brown, Kings and Connoisseurs, 66–90, 95–7, 126, 137–8, 143; Burke,
‘Luis de Haro as Minister, Patron and Collector of Art’, 59–68, 87–105.
101
Fernández de Bethencourt, Historia genealógica, iii, 216–24; ix, 106; Signorotto, ‘Il
marchese di Caracena’, 161.
102
ADA 220/14: Arcos to Haro, 8 August 1656.
marrying noblewomen from within a small group of titled families—

Santisteban, Las Navas, Almazán, Mirabel, El Montijo, Frías, Grajal,
Leganés, Peñaranda, La Puebla de Montalbán, Caracena—each a gilded
thread in a tightly woven tapestry of lineages that formed an unchanging
backdrop for the actors in a drama whose conflict lay principally in the
mind of its central character.
CONCLUSION: THE PRACTICALITIES

OF GOVERNMENT
Over the last three chapters it has been suggested that for most of the
second half of Philip IV’s reign the Spanish Monarchy functioned remark-
ably well. Of course, this is a generalization, and, as such, it has exceptions.
A few prominent bankers, and a handful of magistrates and favoured
ministers did well for themselves at the crown’s expense, whilst the
king’s other servants went unpaid. Not all members of the high nobility
were fully in accordance with their fellows and with the government. For a
few dangerous months in 1647 and 1648, Naples and Sicily were plunged
into revolt. As always, there were conspiracies, and very occasionally
somebody of social importance might be exiled, disgraced, or slightly
hurt in a duel. Philip IV’s resort to a second valido ran a strong risk of
stimulating resentment and jealousy, and Haro clearly worried about his
situation enough to use appointments in the field as a temporary system of
exclusion, and to do everything possible to make sure that the council
presidencies were held by people he could trust. Yet, given these caveats,
the fact remained that most parts of Philip’s empire during the 1640s and
1650s enjoyed an enviable political stability, whilst his government con-
tinued to be effective at sustaining the monarchy’s international reputa-
tion. The emergence of a new valido was unfortunate, but Philip had at
least chosen the right man for the job, and the latter deployed the king’s
authority through a highly proficient team of ministers whose clients and
relations stretched throughout Spain and beyond. In what remains of this
chapter some consideration will be given to Haro’s involvement in the
practicalities of government, and to his relationship with arguably the
most important of his allies: the secretary of the universal dispatch, don
Fernando de Fonseca Ruiz de Contreras.
It is a telling indicator of the way in which public affairs were conducted
during the second half of Philip IV’s reign that neither Haro nor Ruiz de
Contreras had anything much to do with the Council of State. This was
the most prestigious of all institutions in Madrid, consisting, as it did, of
noblemen who had spent lifetimes in the royal service. It was made up of
senior prelates, ex-ambassadors, military commanders, and former vice-
roys, and acted as a forum for the discussion of high policy. As such, it
differed in outlook from the more legalistic mindset of the other councils,
and its real influence depended entirely on the king’s wish to adhere to its
advice. During the period of Haro’s ascendancy between 1648 and 1656,
the Council of State played an all but negligible role in the decision-
making process. Very few new appointments were made, and often no
more than three or four ministers took an active part in its proceedings.
Haro was made a Councillor of State in the summer of 1647, but he does
not appear to have attended any meetings, nor even so much as to have
taken the oath.103
Instead, the valido’s influence operated through committees (juntas).
They included the well-established Junta de Guerra de España to which he
had been appointed along with his close allies Ruiz de Contreras and the
marquis of Mortara in January 1647.104 He also came to chair a number
of less formal committees that often met in his own house to discuss
military and financial affairs. Evidence for their existence, let alone for
what was actually discussed at these meetings, is very patchy, and seems to
have depended on the identity of the secretary in attendance. The most
important of these semi-official institutions was the Junta de Estado. It
amounted to something of an advisory council, which allowed Haro to
debate complex diplomatic issues with the people he trusted.105 On the
occasions when the Secretaries of State Jerónimo de la Torre and Pedro
Coloma were present, documentation has survived, and it is possible to
reconstruct patterns of debate. However, the Junta de Estado would often
meet without a secretary, which meant that minutes would either be
drawn up by one of the members, or not at all. There was a vagueness
about its proceedings, even to the extent that its name varied from Junta de
Estado to just the Junta.
It was, though, within these obscure and semi-official committees that
the real business of government took place. Matters such as the suppres-
sion of the reform movement in Mexico in 1647–8, the reconquest of
Catalonia between 1648 and 1652, the sale of Pontremoli to the grand
duke of Tuscany in 1650, the drafting of don Juan de Austria’s instruc-
tions as governor-general of Flanders, the peace negotiations that took
place in Madrid in 1656, the military offensives against Portugal in
1657–8—all were conducted with little or no input from the Council of
103
Hermosa Espeso, ‘Ministros y ministerio’, 54–5.
104
BNM Ms. 18188, f. 407r.
105
Tomás y Valiente, Validos, 90–2; Baltar Rodríguez, Juntas, 95–6, 539–43.
State.106 Whilst always making a pretence of consultation, Haro made no
secret that official business was also being handled through other channels
than the councils—and sometimes it was at the specific request of foreign
envoys that their masters’ affairs should be dealt with in this way.107 The
valido was also very clear with Philip’s own viceroys and ambassadors that
the correspondence they addressed to the king should consist only of
information that it was safe to share with the secretaries and members of
the Council of State. Classified business had to be addressed to Haro so
that he might deal with it more discreetly.108
Philip IV’s personal involvement in government is easily to be seen in
the thousands of signatures and responses that he left in the state papers.
Moreover, official language fell over itself to make clear that it was the king
who was the author of all decisions. Whilst it is tempting to dismiss such
evidence as linguistic platitudes, there can be no doubt that the monarch’s
initiative could be decisive over certain issues. During the 1640s, as we
have seen, he took a close interest in the direction of the war in Catalonia,
and in the measures taken to alleviate the tax burden on his subjects. He
also had clear ideas regarding the management of his court and the
marriage of his daughters. He would reprimand the Council of State for
seeking to influence what he said in his private letters to other European
rulers, for it was often here—and not in the official correspondence that
passed through the State secretariats—that important initiatives took
place.109 Philip’s central role in the government quickly made itself
known when he was overcome by illness.110 One nobleman, frustrated
that his petitions were not being answered, wanted to know why his affairs
could not just be settled ‘by order of His Majesty, and the intervention of
don Luis’, to which the response came back that ‘it was necessary for the
king to be present to dispatch business’.111 It was of course necessary for
Haro to be there too, and the same lengthy delays had to be endured when
the valido was unwell, or absent from court.112
106
AHN Estado legajo 1414: consulta of Jerónimo de la Torre, 4 March 1656; BNM
Ms. 18203, ff. 47r–50v; IRAG, 246–7, 249, 256–7; RAV, 274–5, 280; Álvarez de Toledo,
Politics and Reform, 244.
107
ASV Spagna, 113, ff. 321r–2v; BL Ms. Additional 26850, ff. 138r–v.
108
ADA 232/1: Haro to Fuensaldaña, 7 September 1660; RAH Ms. 9/91, ff. 59r, 61v–2r,
94r–v.
109
AGS Estado legajo 2363: royal response to the Council of State, 8 March 1655.
110
ADA 232/1: Haro to Fuensaldaña, 5 March 1659; AHN Estado libro 104:
Montalto to Castel Rodrigo, 28 March 1659, 19 June 1659; DCCV, 245; DMO, 977, 980.
111
DMO, 976.
112
ADA 232/1: Haro to Fuensaldaña, 8 November 1659; AHN Estado libro 104:
Montalto to Castel Rodrigo, 7 December 1658; BBMS Ms. 26/6/4, ff. 324r–5v; BL Ms.
Egerton 1176, ff. 10r–v.
And yet government was also a collective endeavour that went beyond a
simple partnership of king and valido. During the early and mid-1650s,
the valido’s principal allies were Monterrey, Leganés, Peñaranda, and Los
Balbases. They were all members of the Junta, which also included the
marquises of Castel Rodrigo, Mirabel, and Velada. After 1657, when
nearly all of these ministers had died, and Peñaranda had departed for
Germany, Haro came to work more privately with just Los Balbases and
Góngora. The person who brought the parts together so that the whole
could function properly was the king’s principal secretary, don Fernando
de Fonseca Ruiz de Contreras. It was a situation that was summarized by
an agent of the third marquis of Castel Rodrigo with a chess metaphor:
‘when all is said and done, the game in the Council boils down to what
goes on in the Junta, which in turn depends on what passes between the
king, the rook [Haro] and Contreras, who is the most powerful pawn on
the board’.113
Like so many others, Ruiz de Contreras had been brought up in the
American administration, where his father had been secretary of the
Council of the Indies with responsibility for Mexico, a post that don
Fernando inherited in 1625. Ten years later he became a secretary of the
Council of War, and also served as secretary to, and member of, a wide
variety of committees that had been established by Olivares, including the
highly influential Junta de Ejecución. Ruiz de Contreras’ principal patron
during these early years was Castrillo, and it was probably no coincidence
that don Fernando was able to establish himself in the royal office just
when Castrillo was at the height of his powers.114 In March 1646 he was
appointed secretary of the universal dispatch—although he had been
fulfilling the functions of this office for some time before on account of
the poor health of his predecessor. Don Fernando would remain in this
most senior and most influential bureaucratic office for the next fourteen
years until his death on 18 July 1660, and during these years he would be
one of the most significant allies of don Luis de Haro. As early as 1632, the
latter had acted as sponsor (‘padrino’) for the secretary’s son when the lad
was admitted to the military order of Santiago, and during the mid-1640s
don Fernando did his utmost to emphasize don Luis’ achievements before
the king.115 When Haro began to distance himself from Castrillo, Ruiz de
113
DDMA, 363: ‘porque finalmente el juego del consejo se reduce a la Junta y ésta a
Rey, Roque y Contreras que es como peón de punta.’ See also Almansa y Mendoza, Obra
periodística, 172.
114
Novoa, 463.
115
BNM Ms. 3255, ff. 260r–2v. I would like to express my gratitude to Dr Marta
Bustillo for having drawn my attention to this volume, which consists of documents relating
to Ruiz de Contreras’ numerous appointments.
Contreras inclined towards the valido, and, together with Góngora,
appeared at important family occasions. When Ruiz de Contreras drew
up his testament in December 1659, he made no mention of Castrillo in
the document, but he chose Góngora as one of his executors, and invoked
the valido to ensure that the provisions were fulfilled.116
The job of the secretary of the universal dispatch was to act as a conduit
between the king and the different ministers and conciliar secretariats.117
When presenting documents for the royal signature, he had to summarize
their contents, and so could potentially influence Philip’s decision. In
addition, he enjoyed a financial role as the controller of the king’s secret
expenditure, or gastos secretos, a separate budget that amounted on average
to around 60,000–70,000 ducats a year.118 As if these responsibilities
were not enough, Ruiz de Contreras also held one of the three secretary-
ships of the Council of State: that of Spain, which allowed him to
influence matters pertaining to the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, as
well as the Indies.119 This bureaucratic role fused with ministerial func-
tions that he also possessed as a member of the Council and Cámara of the
Indies, the Junta Particular in Zaragoza, and the Junta de Guerra de
España. Don Fernando was thus constantly to be encountered between
secretaries’ offices, council chambers, and the king’s apartments, a tall,
thickset man whose short-sightedness led him to squint at his interlocutors
as he met their petitions with cryptic responses, often mumbled through
clenched teeth.120 He married twice, both times to women of quality: the
first, a lady in the household of Isabel of Bourbon, the second, the
marchioness of La Lapilla, from where he acquired a title and the Fonseca
surname.121 He also built up a sizeable estate that included property in and
around Madrid and Salamanca, as well as a family chapel, a collection of
tapestries, substantial revenues in Central America, and rights of appoint-
ment within the municipal governments of Jaén, Toro, Ciudad Rodrigo,
and Badajoz.122 His daughter brought a dowry of 48,000 ducats on her
marriage to a gentleman-in-waiting at the king’s table, and the bridegroom
received a title and lucrative revenue from estates of the military orders.123
He almost certainly spent more time in Philip IV’s presence than anyone
116
AHPM 7154, ff. 1126r–v.
117
Escudero, Los secretarios, i, 252–8; González Alonso, ‘El Conde-Duque de Olivares y
la administración de su tiempo’, 301–2.
118
FLEML, 136; Bermejo Cabrero, Estudios, 25–6, 32–4; Seiz Rodrigo, La disimulación
honesta, 122–4, 180–2, 207–23.
119 120
Schäfer, Indias, i, 342–3. Brunel, 313; DMO, 1047, 1058.
121
AHPM 7154, ff. 1104v, 1106r; BNM Ms. 3255, f. 212r.
122
AGS Cámara, Libros de Relaciones, 36, ff. 38r, 119v; 37, f. 18r; AHPM 7154,
ff. 1103v, 1108v–10r; BNM Ms. 3255, ff. 135v, 139r–v, 201r; ACC, lix(ii), 584–5.
123
AHPM 7154, ff. 1109v, 1115v–16r, 1123v; BNM Ms. 3255, ff. 238r, 268r.
else in the second half of the reign. As often as not, the royal annotations
in the margins of the state papers were written in his elegantly illegible
handwriting, with the king’s rubric appended to indicate his approval.
Don Fernando de Fonseca Ruiz de Contreras can be said to personify
Spain’s governing elite during the second half of Philip IV’s reign: a Castrillo
client who switched sides to Haro; a professional administrator with close
links to the titled aristocracy; someone who had gained prosperity in office,
and had the ability to use this to enhance royal authority in the localities. As
a friend of many, and widely mourned at the time of his death, he also
encapsulated the better side of Haro’s regime.124 This was a ministry whose
approach was low-key and narrowly collegial. Cracks in the system were
papered over by a bureaucracy that kept the king busy, and by a professional
use of language that continuously honoured a royal supremacy that on
important occasions could still come into its own. The valido’s presence was
always unacceptable in theory, but at least went unresented by most people.
Haro was an affable and gracious minister, whose government seemed to be
producing results. He shared power with a small number of council
presidents at the heart of an extended ‘royal’ family of grandees, whose
patriarch, the king, everyone sought to cultivate by the pursuit of similar
cultural interests. It was a social and political system that worked well,
provided its laws, beliefs, and privileges were seen to be respected, and
provided the monarchy’s international reputation remained intact. Yet
everything depended on Philip’s willingness to allow such a state of affairs
to exist, when he knew in his heart of hearts that the delegation of his
authority to a single favoured nobleman was wrong. In the remaining
chapters we shall see how Haro would attempt to use foreign policy and
the management of war as a means of persuading him otherwise.
124
AHN Estado libro 104: Montalto to Castel Rodrigo, 25 July 1660; AJB, ii, 228.
PART III
W A R A N D P E A CE I N E U RO P E
INTRODUCTION
In 1643 don Juan de Palafox published his Historia real sagrada. The work
appeared in the same year as the second edition of Saavedra Fajardo’s Idea
de un principe politico cristiano, which was discussed in Chapter 1. Both
authors dedicated their books to Baltasar Carlos, the heir to the throne,
whom they sought to educate in the requirements of good government,
and both—albeit for slightly different reasons—insisted on the need for
the ruler to take personal command of the state. Palafox’s contribution
was a commentary on the Old Testament books of Samuel, but also
presented a strongly implied analogy between the teachings of Scripture
and the seventeenth-century political world. His overriding message was
that royal power was conditional on how it was used, and that if the ruler
failed to do his duty, he would jeopardize both the future of his monarchy
and his own position at the apex of its government.1 Intrinsic to this was
an out-and-out condemnation of the valido. Such a figure, in Palafox’s
estimation, was a source of factional division, who interfered in the ruler’s
relationship with his councils and subjects, and undermined his ability to
impart justice.2 Like Saavedra, Palafox knew what he was talking about;
he had been a member of the Councils of War and the Indies during
the 1630s. However, he also happened to be a client of the count-duke of
Olivares, and his condemnation of the misallocation of royal favour was
tinged with an awkward sympathy for the recipient—for someone who
was left with the worst of all worlds, neither applauded for his achieve-
ments, nor pardoned for his mistakes; abhorred by the populace and
nobility whilst he enjoyed the king’s favour, and condemned by everybody
on his inevitable fall from power.3
1
Palafox, Historia, ff. 26v, 130v, 149r.
2
Ibid., ff. 104v–10r. See also Álvarez de Toledo, Politics and Reform, 148.
3
Palafox, Historia, f. 109v.
The Historia real sagrada was a reflection of the time in which it was
written, during the last years of the count-duke’s regime. Don Luis de
Haro’s ministry would avoid many of the pitfalls that it described, but in
one respect Palafox’s assessment continued to be legitimate, and this was
in the emphasis that he placed on the valido’s insecurity—his ‘descon-
fianza’.4 The valido was at the head of a government that was precarious
because it rested solely upon the whim of the monarch. His situation was
(to borrow one of Palafox’s analogies) akin to that of somebody walking
along a clifftop, constantly wary of being pushed over the edge. This
‘desconfianza’ was what led Haro to look for means of guaranteeing his
position in ways that we have been seeing over the course of this book.
They might be quite innocuous, such as a modest personal demeanour, a
clever manipulation of appointments, or a relationship with the monarch
that was based on a common upbringing and shared cultural interests.
However, there was also the temptation to secure the regime upon
foreign-policy successes, in the organization of which the king might
become locked into what John Elliott has described (in the context of
Philip IV’s relationship with Olivares) as a situation of dependency.5 That
is to say, a situation whereby only the valido was deemed to be capable of
managing the highly convoluted financial, military, and diplomatic
requirements that were perceived to be necessary for the monarchy’s
survival. For Saavedra Fajardo, the valido was at one and the same time
the pilot who adroitly steered the ship of state through stormy seas, and
the agent of misrule who stirred up the waters of conflict. In the process,
he was ultimately liable to destroy himself and everything around him in
his efforts to hold onto power.
This interpretation is directly relevant to the next two chapters, which
will be concerned with the role of war and foreign policy in providing a
solution to Haro’s domestic political insecurities. It was by presiding over
the revival of Spain’s international fortunes during the early 1650s that he
was able to justify the favour and influence that he had come to enjoy
with the king. It would also be his diplomatic triumph at the Pyrenees
in the autumn of 1659 that would vindicate his ministry. Yet, in a more
negative way, the valido played a central role in the delay and prevari-
cation that prevented a conclusion of hostilities with France for much
longer than might otherwise have been the case. In demonstration of this,
Chapter 7 will seek to understand the priorities of Spanish foreign policy
by considering the outlooks of several key individuals: Haro, the counts of
Peñaranda and Fuensaldaña, and the marquises of La Fuente and Castel
4
Ibid., ff. 107v, 108r–v.
5
Elliott, Richelieu and Olivares, 96, 100; Elliott, ‘Staying in Power’, 116.
War and Peace in Europe 179
Rodrigo, as well as of Philip IV himself. The domestic troubles suffered by

the regency of Louis XIV presented the government in Madrid with a
golden opportunity, but not everyone was in agreement about how it was
to be exploited, and there was a similar uncertainty about how relations
with the emperor should be conducted in the aftermath of the Austrian
peace with France in 1648.
A running thread in both Chapters 7 and 8 will be the question of the
marriage of Philip’s elder daughter, María Teresa. Between the death of
Baltasar Carlos in October 1646 and the birth of Felipe Próspero in
November 1657, ‘la infante’, as she was known, stood to inherit the
whole Spanish Monarchy. An oft-repeated maxim was that she would
either marry a husband who would provide Spain with the means to
continue the war, or one who would bring about an honourable peace.
For a while there were clear signs that the former alternative was more
likely, as there took place a revival of the special relationship between
Madrid and Vienna that began to lead to a very significant renewal of
military support from Austria. However, Ferdinand III’s death in April
1657 once again placed the alliance in doubt, and Chapter 8 will consider
the downturn in fortunes that Haro’s government suffered during the late
1650s. This was a time when Philip began to insist on the inclusion of
more noblemen in the decision-making process. Haro was also forced to
deal with ministers who were returning from abroad with high expect-
ations, and he was even finding his judgement questioned by those closest
to him. Defeated in battle by the Portuguese in January 1659, he was a
beleaguered figure by the summer of that year, but still prepared to risk
everything on a personal meeting with another minister-favourite whom
he knew was also in trouble.
7
Sustaining the Conflict, 1648–57
The fall of great men was a recurrent theme in Spain’s golden age, and the
fates of Olivares, Híjar, Villanueva, and Chumacero were reminders of
how Philip IV was not always prepared to stand by his ministers. The king
occasionally broke his promises, and was, as we saw in Chapter 3, remark-
ably complaisant towards the occurrence of judicial malpractice. Haro’s
political survival therefore came to depend very much on his role as a
minister in charge of war and foreign affairs. Validos traditionally liked to
emphasize their Herculean efforts to ensure the survival of the Spanish
Monarchy. However, when it came down to it, the pursuit of a purely
defensive conflict was not so very difficult. As long as resources could be
found to maintain garrisons and equip field armies that could impede the
advance of the enemy, the scope for a long-term attritional war was literally
endless. Not everyone, though, was in agreement with such an approach,
and an examination of the controversies surrounding Haro’s foreign policy
will also permit us to see how decisions were implemented on different
levels. The good government that Palafox advocated was that of the king
ruling with the advice of his magistrate counsellors, as described in
Chapter 4. This was at odds with the extra-legal approach of the valido,
with his juntas, technocratic advisers, and enforcers. But there were other
kinds of intervention, such as that which might be exerted by royal
representatives in the field who were prepared to take the law into their
own hands. There was also the possibility that the king might decide to act
on his own account. After all, these were years when everything hung on the
choice of a husband for María Teresa, which in the final analysis was a
decision that could only be made by her father.
PRIORITIES IN FOREIGN POLICY
During the 1620s and 1630s, the count-duke of Olivares and Cardinal
Richelieu had indulged in a series of ambitious and pre-emptive military
actions. Initiatives like the Spanish attack on Monferrato in 1628, or the
French occupation of territories in the Rhineland and Lorraine during the
early 1630s, had set France and Spain on a course that led into open
conflict from 1635.1 The need for heavy investment in money and
manpower created political opportunities, as the great ministers who had
first launched their masters on the path of conquest struggled to mobilize
sluggish state machineries in the pursuit of policies of reputation that
might be seen to justify the existence of their regimes. And yet, by the
second half of Philip IV’s reign, reputation had become much less a matter
of military triumphs as of being seen to be working for the good of
Christendom, and for the well-being of hard-pressed and potentially
fractious subjects. After 1648, what was important was the ability to
maintain an equilibrium between the public avowal of peaceful intentions
and an extreme caution not to be railroaded into a settlement that would
fail to justify all the years of investment.
The practice of outwardly seeking peace but not really wanting it would
be central to the foreign policy of don Luis de Haro. This much was clear
from his behaviour and actions down to the final conclusion of the Peace
of the Pyrenees in 1659. Yet more specific evidence of his intentions is
scarce. Unlike Olivares, he avoided association with a policy programme
that might later turn out to be misconceived or unsuccessful. So our
understanding of what Haro was actually seeking to achieve is often a
matter of deduction on the basis of second-hand testimony, as well as the
scattering of indicators that he left amongst his own papers. At the outset
of his ministry, he was understood to have delivered an exposition to
Philip IV and to other leading ministers on how he believed that the
conflict with France might best be resolved.2 According to this source, he
made no bones about Olivares’ shortcomings, arguing that the problems
of the monarchy had been brought about by the count-duke’s rivalry with
Cardinal Richelieu. In such an analysis, both men had been guilty of
seeking to flaunt their statesmanship at the expense of the tranquility of
Europe, like pilots wanting to display their navigation skills at the height
of a storm. The analogy recalls the comments of treatise-writers like
Saavedra Fajardo,3 and is interesting as an example of a royal favourite
apparently identifying and critiquing the prevailing characteristic of his
ilk. The new valido was going to be different, and here came the crux of his
discourse: he purported to believe that neither France nor Spain had
anything to gain from the continuation of the war; and that it was the
common desire of everyone for their rulers to bury the hatchet, so that
they might act as equal counterweights in keeping and maintaining the
1
Elliott, Olivares, 341–2; Parrott, ‘The Causes of the Franco-Spanish War of 1635–59’,
85–9, 95–6, 106; Parrott, ‘Richelieu, the Grands and the French Army’, 148–9.
2 3
Brunel, 260–2. Saavedra Fajardo, Idea, 206, 238–42, 348–9.
Sustaining the Conflict, 1648–57 183
peace of Europe. What was preventing this was the expressed need of
Louis XIV and Philip IV to protect the interests of their allies. If the latter
could be won over with proper concessions, the complexities of the war
might be reduced to a simple matter that the kings of France and Spain
could resolve on equal terms.
It needs to be emphasized that the evidence that Haro actually made
such a declaration is tenuous. Nevertheless, the story is valuable for what it
tells us about how he was believed to be thinking at the outset of his
ministry, and provides a point of reference from which to assess more
certain information from other sources. Haro, at least during the late
1640s, was seen as a peacemaker by Venetian and English diplomats.4 His
strategy, if it existed in the form just described, was a practical one that can
be related to the concessions that Philip’s plenipotentiaries had been
offering at Westphalia. It also coincided with a general suspicion by the
Spaniards of big congresses in which all the allies were represented, and
which seemed to provide a means for the French to drag out proceedings
to their own advantage. Efforts were thus made by Philip IV during the
years immediately after the removal of Olivares to negotiate separately
with his fellow rulers, and to ensure that the minor technical differences
that existed between their allies should not be allowed to impede a final
settlement. Furthermore, the valido’s alleged intentions to find a solution
to Spain’s war with France by reducing it to a one-to-one affair would
ultimately be fulfilled in 1659 by the decision to hold peace negotiations
at a series of personal meetings between the French and Spanish plenipo-
tentiaries in which the representatives of the allies would not take part. Yet
for all that, it has to be said that the outcome at the Pyrenees was at least as
much (and probably much more) the result of ministers in the field
working to bring an end to the war as it was of any deliberate intention
on the part of the valido.
In broad terms, Haro’s foreign policy can be understood as centring
around three key aspects: (1) a desire to concentrate on Iberian priorities;
(2) a tendency to rely on contingent factors, such as revolt in France or
Imperial assistance, to come to the rescue of Spain’s possessions in
northern Italy and the Netherlands; and (3) an abiding reluctance to
make peace unless the final outcome might be seen to be honourable to
the king of Spain, and thus to justify the valimiento. Otherwise, Spanish
foreign policy evolved over time. At least initially, there could be no
abandonment of Spain’s responsibilities in northern Europe. Philip IV
spent as much on the defence of Flanders during the 1640s as he did on
4
RAV, 161; Clarendon, State Papers, ii, 502–3.
the reconquest of Catalonia; and the idea which had been floated at
Westphalia for an exchange of the Spanish Netherlands for the return of
conquests nearer to home seems only to have arisen as a means of sowing
seeds of discord between France and her Dutch allies.5 Nor does Haro seem
to have doubted the count-duke’s policy of encouraging close relations with
Vienna. The Austrian marriage of 1649 took place in spite of the emperor’s
conclusion of a separate peace with France the year before, and probably
because it was necessary in order to prevent the hand of Mariana from being
pledged to Louis XIV. Thereafter, the old alliance had to produce results,
not just in the form of an heir to the Spanish Monarchy, but also in the
renewal of logistical and military assistance for Milan and Flanders. As
remittances from Madrid to these two theatres tailed off during the
1650s, the form of warfare to be conducted there would have to be of a
strictly limited and attritional nature. For Haro, Iberia was always of greatest
importance. In the aftermath of the fall of Barcelona in 1652, and the failure
to uphold the Frondeur position in Bordeaux the following year, the
priority would be the long-delayed reconquest of Portugal. Although inva-
sion plans did not materialize until the end of 1656, the continuous efforts
to ensure the diplomatic isolation of the rebel kingdom make clear that its
recovery was always at the top of his agenda.6
And yet the stress on simplifying and reducing the extra-Iberian com-
mitments was not always directed in Haro’s mind towards the pursuit of
a peaceful outcome. He was someone whose clear awareness of the
monarchy’s exhaustion was offset by a profound faith in the intervention
of providence to uphold its supremacy.7 His reliance on what the marquis
of Santa Cruz had once described as ‘those great miracles that Your
Excellency often says God has in store for the House of Austria’8 had
been justified by the outbreak of the Frondes in 1648. Thereafter, and
having once been vindicated, he would forever be hoping in some future
contingency that might allow Spain the upper hand in her conflict with
France. In a lengthy and revealing letter of September 1657, which was
discovered by Rafael Valladares, Haro declared that
when all is said and done, this crown has no other enemy but France, and
France has no other enemy but ourselves. This will go on being the case as it
5
Séré, La paix des Pyrénées, 135–7; Sonnino, Mazarin’s Quest, 53, 55, 57, 59–60, 70.
6
BL Ms. Additional 26850, ff. 81r–v; Valladares, ‘Juristas por el Rey’, 809–10, 814.
7
ADA 138: Haro to Peñaranda, 11 April 1650, 8 July 1658; ADA 232/1: Haro to
Fuensaldaña, 6 September 1659; ADA 233/20: Haro to Peñaranda, 31 October 1659; ADA
220/14: Haro to Ayala, 15 November 1659; BNM Ms. 13166, f. 53r; RAH Ms. 9/91,
f. 153r.
8
BNM Ms. 18202, f. 101v.
always has been, a perpetual quarrel because these [France and Spain] are the
two greatest powers.9
This was a similar argument to the one that, years earlier, the valido was
said to have put before the king and his councillors, but now he was
thinking not in terms of a peace with France, but of how he might be able to
sustain a conflict he believed to be eternal. For Haro, the war was a purely
Franco-Spanish affair complicated by an alliance that Mazarin had recently
negotiated with the English Protectorate. It was therefore necessary to
secure a separate peace with London as soon as possible—not for the sake
of a general conclusion to hostilities, but to allow Spain to continue with her
struggle against France unhindered. Furthermore, the valido’s desire to
simplify the conflict by making generous concessions to France’s allies was
not something that would stand in the way of concluding new alliances in
Philip’s name, nor of resorting to measures intended to provoke trouble in
France or elsewhere. In November 1651, Philip IV signed a treaty with the
prince of Condé. This was Louis XIV’s cousin, and the most successful
French military commander of the previous decade, who had recently gone
into revolt against the government of Mazarin. The agreement purported to
seek a universal peace in the face of the cardinal’s alleged wish to keep
Europe at war. The reality, though, was that Haro could have found no
more effective a means of eternalizing the conflict than if this had been his
deliberate intention.10
THE FAILURE TO MAKE PEACE, 1648–50
Exactly ten years earlier, in the autumn of 1641, a meeting between

representatives of the emperor and the kings of France and Sweden had
decided that a settlement to the Thirty Years War would have to be
worked out at a great congress to be held in Westphalia in which all the
different parties would be represented. This congress format would help
postpone the end of the conflict in central Europe for another seven years,
and would establish a methodological precedent for peacemaking that
would permit the differences between France and Spain to be spun out for
a good while longer as each side would compete with the other in
proposing new congresses to be held at different venues. In an important
essay published in 1992 Hermann Weber showed how the inclusion of
9
RAH Ms. 9/91, ff. 145r–50v. There is a nineteenth-century copy in BNM Ms.
18548/8. See also Valladares, ‘Una disputa perpetua’, 46–7.
10
Abreu (Felipe IV, part vi), 110–14.
allies and secondary parties at the peace talks had been the consequence of
Cardinal Richelieu’s professed ambition to bind the final outcome to
principles of collective security. Richelieu considered Louis XIII to be
the protector of Christendom, and he sought to base such a claim on a
permanent system of alliances that would hold the Habsburgs in check,
and that would in turn mean that all of France’s existing allies (as well as
those of everybody else) would have to be allowed to take part in the
negotiations.11 Regardless of whether or not the cardinal was sincere in his
motives, the tragic outcome of these requirements, as Weber pointed out,
was to make the negotiation of peace all but impossible amidst the
cacophony of argument that took place between the 176 plenipotentiaries
who took part at Westphalia.12
From an early stage in the negotiations, the government in Madrid had
understood the problems of trying to make peace within a congress
setting. This was why, in the months after Olivares’ removal, Philip IV
had made a concentrated effort on his own part to secure a quick
settlement with the other principal rulers.13 However, as we saw in the
Introduction, his efforts to open a direct line of contact with his sister
Anne of Austria were prevented by her new chief minister, Cardinal
Mazarin, whose political situation (the Spaniards believed) was predicated
on the continuation of the war. The development of the peace negoti-
ations over the next four or five years demonstrated these fears to have
been correct. Philip IV’s plenipotentiary, the count of Peñaranda, arrived
at Westphalia in the summer of 1645 and made swift progress in nego-
tiations with the Dutch.14 Also, a series of offers were made to the French
that by February 1647 had come to include the right for them to hold
onto all of their conquests in the Netherlands, plus Roussillon, Cerdagne,
Rosas, Cadaqués, Pinerolo, as well as to be entitled to participate in the
government of Casale.15 Nobody, at least for the moment, could doubt
the Spanish desire for peace, and after two-and-a-half years of negotiations
a settlement was duly signed with the United Provinces in January 1648.
It had been assisted in no small measure by Dutch alarm at the behaviour
of their French allies, who had rejected all the offers that had been
11
Weber, ‘ “Une Bonne Paix” ’, 47–60.
12
Ibid., 61–2. See also Parker (ed.), The Thirty Years’ War, 178.
13
AGS Estado K1420 (nos. 88, 89, 105, 109); AHN Estado libro 964, ff. 437v–8r;
ASMo Spagna, 55: 25 January, 22 February, 23 November 1644; Gelabert, Castilla
convulsa, 210–11; Vermeir, En estado de guerra, 278–9.
14
Israel, The Dutch Republic and the Hispanic World, 360–2, 368–70; Sonnino, Mazarin’s
Quest, 71, 86, 91, 113–14.
15
Sonnino, Mazarin’s Quest, 68, 84, 96, 99, 118–19.
presented to them, whilst increasing their demands with each new military
triumph achieved by their armies.16
The breaking of the Franco-Dutch alliance later came to be seen as
something of a coup for Spanish diplomacy.17 Yet in the opening months
of 1648, Philip IV’s surrender to the peace demands of the United
Provinces must have seemed like just one aspect in a general collapse of
the monarchy’s position in Europe. At that time, the only place where his
armies were managing to hold their own was Catalonia. Elsewhere there
had been a string of setbacks in the Netherlands that had culminated in
the loss of Dunkirk in October 1646. In Italy, the State of Milan was
under severe threat from the armies of France, Savoy, and Modena; the
Spanish strongholds of Portolongone and Piombino in Tuscany had
recently been captured; and Naples and Sicily were in open revolt. In
fact, Spain’s affairs had reached such a pass that in January 1648—the
same month as peace was signed with the Dutch—the king authorized the
count of Peñaranda to present his French counterparts with what was
undoubtedly the most generous package of concessions that they had, or
would ever, receive in the whole course of the 1635–59 war. According to
these terms, Philip IV would concede all French conquests in the Low
Countries and Luxembourg and would agree that Louis XIV should
remain in possession of the land that he and his allies occupied in Italy
and Catalonia for the duration of a thirty-year truce.18 Spaniards would
later look back upon what had been offered in January 1648 with some
horror.19 There was, of course, no need to worry, because Mazarin
rejected these concessions, just as he had rejected all those of the previous
years.20 Yet, having done so, he saw his own position in France suddenly
and rapidly deteriorate as the Paris Parlement refused to cooperate any
longer with his taxation demands. Faced with a mounting financial crisis,
the cardinal sought to return to the Spanish offers, ordering Abel Servien
to make peace on the basis of the January terms.21 No such luck. The
count of Peñaranda had made a hasty retreat to Brussels, where he
continued to act as Philip IV’s peace plenipotentiary—albeit in a much
more half-hearted way—between July 1648 and May 1650.
16 17
Ibid., 107–11, 128, 143, 151–4. SPM journal, v, 538, 540.
18
Israel, ‘Spain and Europe’, 107–9; Parker (ed.), La crisis de la monarquía de Felipe IV,
133. See also Rohrschneider, Der gescheiterte Frieden von Münster, 424–32.
19
ADA 233/20: Peñaranda to Haro, 23 May 1659; AGS Estado K1616: Haro to
Pimentel, 13 January 1659; CCE, 115, 128, 217; CODOIN, lxxxiv, 245, 272–3.
20
CODOIN, lxxxiv, 513–14; Recueil, 39–43; Juan Reglá Campistol, ‘El tratado de los
Pirineos’, 111; Parker (ed.), The Thirty Years’ War, 179, 185–7.
21
CODOIN, lxxxiv, 236, 300.
There were good reasons for the about-turn in the Spanish position.
During the spring and summer of 1648, peace with the Dutch, the
suppression of the revolts in southern Italy, and the outbreak of the
Frondes had quite suddenly turned around the international situation,
and persuaded against a return to old concessions that had been made
under quite different circumstances. Furthermore, Mazarin’s behaviour
during the mid-1640s gave every reason to distrust his sincerity. Peñar-
anda believed him to regard peacemaking as a matter of artifice, in which
the principal intention was not to bring an end to the war, but to foist the
blame for its continuation on Spain.22 However, the count’s views, which
were based most immediately on his experiences at Westphalia, are also
very likely to have been conditioned by the situation as he had witnessed it
in Madrid. We have seen from Chapter 1 that his ideas of good kingship
sat awkwardly alongside the support that he had received from Olivares.
He was clearly a beneficiary of political favouritism, but was also very
aware of the negative side of the delegation of royal power to principal
ministers—be they French or Spanish—who might seek a basis for their
domestic political survival in the pursuit of extravagant policies abroad.
If we accept Peñaranda’s assumptions about Mazarin as a transposition
of his reading of Olivares’ intentions, we might go further and ascribe
the openness of the Spanish government towards peace at the time of
the Westphalia congress as the consequence of the ‘good government’ of
Philip IV’s personal rule during those years. Minister-favourites were not
necessary for kings to become involved in wars (although they often
helped), but kings were much better at making peace when they operated
on their own account. Examples of treaties like Vervins, the Truce of
Antwerp, and the peace of Asti had demonstrated that concessions to the
enemy, when presented by a ruler, could be ascribed to royal magnanimity
for the sake of the welfare of Christendom. When made by the govern-
ment of a favourite, on the other hand, they raised questions about the
latter’s competence in office. It may have been no more than coincidence
that the sudden hardening of the standpoint held by Madrid towards the
negotiation of a peace in 1648 came at the moment when Haro was
establishing himself at the head of Philip IV’s government. However, the
continued Spanish reluctance to end the war—and after the initial run of
successes in the early 1650s had expired—has to be seen as a consequence
of the valido’s influence. For it was this figure, as the head of a form of
government that was inherently unstable because it lacked legitimacy, who
had most to lose from the negotiation of a dishonourable peace.
22
CODOIN, lxxxiv, 143, 176, 245, 311, 315.
During the two years that followed Peñaranda’s departure from
Münster, French proposals for a new peace congress to be established on
the borders of France and the Netherlands came thick and fast. However,
the count refused to negotiate without preliminary agreement over three
essential points: French abandonment of the Portuguese rebel cause, Louis
XIV’s acknowledgement of the rights of Philip IV’s ally the duke of
Lorraine, and (now) the return of French conquests in Catalonia and
Italy.23 Peñaranda’s standpoint, which went against previous concessions
that the Spaniards had placed on the table at Westphalia, was controver-
sial, but no more so than Mazarin’s habit of increasing his demands with
each new French military success. It now seemed only right to meet him
on his own terms, by ‘matching artifice with artifice’.24 But to what extent
did Peñaranda’s obstinacy echo the views in Madrid? On the face of it, the
deadlock in the peacemaking process after 1648 caused some disquiet with
Philip IV and his ministers, who were very anxious to make clear their
desire to end the war. The king in his letters to Sor María de Ágreda and to
Sor Luisa de Jesús described the Frondes as a God-sent opportunity for a
peace, and his good intentions were apparently reflected by the valido.25
In November 1649 two English royalist ambassadors arrived with news
that Mazarin wanted a personal meeting with Haro on the borders
between France and Spain.26 The offer, once conveyed, was immedi-
ately taken up by don Luis, who left the Englishmen convinced that his
government had no desire to make capital out of the political unrest in
France.27
It thus seemed as though Philip’s peace plenipotentiary in Brussels
was letting the side down. In January 1650 the royalist ambassadors
concluded that
all overtures between Paris and Flanders we see have produced little and, it
may be, if Peñaranda shall take that court [Paris] in his way home, the
business will be little the more advanced, many here being not abundantly
satisfied with his roughness and abruptness. But it is believed that if the
cardinal and don Luis de Haro met, to which the last is marvellously
inclined . . . , that a peace will undoubtedly ensue.28
23
AHN Nobleza, Osuna CT. 11, D.1: Peñaranda to nuncio and Venetian ambassador
in Paris, 18 October 1649; CODOIN, lxxxiv, 385, 419–20, 422–3, 430–1; Recueil, 1–5,
21–9; Lonchay, La rivalité, 152–3.
24 25
CODOIN, lxxxiv, 312. CSMA, i, 181, 188; FLEML, 88, 92, 104.
26
Bodl. Ms. Rawlinson C. 726, f. 14r; Clarendon, History, v, 67–8.
27
Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 39, ff. 5r, 33v, 36r, 69r, 72r–v; Clarendon, State Papers, ii, 513, 515.
28
Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 39, f. 16r.
Such words were more a lucky prediction of the future than an accurate
reflection of the real situation, for, as Daniel Séré has suggested, Peñar-
anda’s behaviour in Brussels appears to have amounted to no more than a
faithful accomplishment of his instructions from Madrid.29 The pious
aspirations that Philip expressed to his female confidants were not
reflected in the king’s correspondence with his representatives in Brussels,
nor in his private letters to the emperor, where he made it pretty clear that
(for the time being at least) he wanted to use all diplomatic and military
means to exploit the unrest in France.30 Whilst evidence for Haro’s
standpoint is scarce, he certainly endorsed the behaviour of the count,
and the honours and promotions that the latter received on his return
to court in July 1650 were a sure sign that his actions had the approval of
the king.31
And yet Peñaranda seems to have been a man pulled in different
directions. He was certainly aware of the advantages of making hay whilst
it rained in France.32 However, he was concerned in his own mind that his
failure to make peace might lose the moral high ground that the Spanish
delegation had so successfully attained at Westphalia.33 The count would
also no doubt have liked to cap his achievement with the Dutch by
negotiating a similar agreement with the French, and was frustrated at
being bound by orders that prevented him from doing so.34 On his return
to Madrid, he therefore felt a need to justify his conduct in a paper that
he addressed to the king, and circulated in manuscript amongst other
courtiers and ministers.35 It amounted to a disquisition on Mazarin’s
belligerent intentions, which was couched in terms of providential caus-
ality and interpreted from the hindsight of the more advantageous situ-
ation that the Spanish Monarchy had recently come to enjoy. The count
argued that Mazarin was seeking to implement a ‘new reason of state’.
Hostilities between rival monarchies had in the past been concluded by
the magnanimity of kings, whose reconciliation was marked by the mutual
return of conquered territories. This was what had happened at Cateau
Cambrésis in 1559, and at Vervins in 1598. But now, in violation of
established practice, and against all reason, religion, and the bonds of
dynastic fellowship, the French regency government was asserting a
claim to the possessions of the king of Spain by simple de facto conquest.
29
Séré, La paix des Pyrénées, 172, 179, 184.
30
AHN Estado libro 712: Philip IV to Ferdinand III, 20 October 1648, 10 March
1649; CCE, 48–9, 55–6, 95, 114–15, 122, 169, 170–2, 240–1, 290–1, 391.
31
ADA 138: Haro to Peñaranda, 11 April 1650.
32 33
CODOIN, lxxxiv, 332–4. Ibid., 261, 309–10.
34
Ibid., 166, 280–1.
35
Ibid., 511–62: ‘Relaciones del señor don Gaspar de Bracamonte’.
The timely collapse of effective government in France could, in Peñar-
anda’s view, be accorded two equally compatible interpretations. On the
one hand, the Frondes had occurred at the behest of God through His
direct intervention in human affairs and, on the other, they were the
purely natural result of the policies of a minister who had perpetuated war
for his own personal interests and now found that his strategies had blown
up in his face. Mazarin’s ‘blind ambition to continue the war in order to
avoid the risks of peace’ had undermined the interests of his royal master
and reduced his subjects to prostration and bankruptcy. He, along with
his predecessor Richelieu, were (in the count’s interpretation) jointly
responsible for the civil wars, uprisings, and calamities afflicting Europe.
They were pilots (again the analogy!) of a once great vessel that they
sacrificed for their private interests, despoiling neighbouring dominions,
and using the ultimate rightness of kings as so much wadding for their
cannon.36
In contradistinction to the French minister-favourites who were seen as
uniquely responsible for the woes of Europe, Peñaranda’s disquisition
praised Haro alongside other Spanish ministers for their shared role in
the recent recovery of the monarchy. He justified the prudence of the
government in Brussels in the face of the troubles in France, and argued in
favour of a scaling down of commitments.37 Over half of the count’s
memorial was dedicated to a narrative of recent successes in Catalonia, in
the description of which he placed emphasis on the active participation of
thousands of Valencian and Aragonese soldiers.38 It must have made
pleasant reading in Madrid, for by the time of writing in January 1651,
the marquis of Mortara was back in control of the Ebro river as far as
Tortosa, and it was still too early to be able to describe the recapture of
Barcelona, Dunkirk, and Casale, which simultaneously capitulated to
Spanish arms in the autumn of 1652. If this were not enough, the king
of Spain’s desire for peace still appeared more sincere than that of the
regency government in Paris. When Mazarin began to temporize on his
earlier suggestion of a meeting with Haro at the Pyrenees, his prevarication
confirmed everybody’s suspicions.39 In fact the only cloud in the sky was
Louis XIV’s recovery of Bordeaux in August 1653, which meant that
many French noblemen made their peace with his government, whilst the
prince of Condé became an awkward guest of Philip IV in Brussels. As
minds in Madrid became accustomed to the idea of an extended and
36 37
CODOIN, lxxxiv, 513–15, 532–4, 543. Ibid., 523–7, 534–5.
38
Ibid., 535–62 (especially 553–4, 558).
39
Clarendon, State Papers, ii, 515, 527.
successful conflict with France, it would be in northern Europe where
Philip’s representatives would continue to make their own efforts to bring
an end to the war.
DIVISIONS BETWEEN MADRID

AND BRUSSELS, 1650–6
We saw in Chapter 5 how appointments to high offices abroad were a

useful means of excluding malcontents. This, though, was a limited
strategy, because the valido needed at least some loyal and competent
aristocrats to serve in important parts of the monarchy outside Castile.
The Spanish Netherlands were traditionally governed by younger mem-
bers of the House of Austria, because the exalted status of an archduke or a
royal sibling was believed to provide a more effective and legitimate form
of representation than could be achieved by a mere nobleman. Yet in order
to make sure that the king’s delegated authority was exerted for the desired
ends of the government in Madrid, the governor-general needed to be
accompanied by trustworthy (and usually Spanish) ministers. From April
1647 Philip IV was represented in Brussels by the younger brother of the
emperor, Archduke Leopold William. At first, and somewhat to his
annoyance, the archduke found that his freedom of action was impeded
by the second marquis of Castel Rodrigo, and by the marquis of Caracena.
Then, a year into his mandate, he was obliged to work alongside don
Alonso Pérez de Vivero, third count of Fuensaldaña. The latter, according
to one source,
had general command of the army and the direction of affairs under Archduke
Leopold. In fact, he was the prime mover of both, having all the authority, all
the confidence, and even the secret trust of the king his master and of don Luis
de Haro, the prime minister, who was also his [Fuensaldaña’s] intimate
friend.40
The writer was Michel-Ange de Vuoerden, a minor nobleman from
Hainault who served in Fuensaldaña’s retinue throughout most of the
count’s later career and whose papers provide a useful source in recon-
structing the relationships and motivations of this obscure but highly
influential Spaniard.41 Vuoerden’s assertions are borne out in this instance
by the archduke himself, who complained that Fuensaldaña decided all
military matters, gave orders on his own account to the governors of the
40 41
MAC Ms. 759, f. 17r. See also Vendegies, Biographie.
different provinces of the Netherlands, and was so widely respected by
foreign ministers and princes that the latter often ignored the governor-
general altogether.42
Leopold William was exaggerating a little. René Vermeir has recently
shown that the archduke was in fact allowed to have his way in many
important matters of civil and ecclesiastical government.43 Yet, with
regard to the management of financial and military affairs, he had to
defer to Fuensaldaña.44 Like so many of the other close collaborators of
the valido, don Alonso was a nobleman from a family that transcended
professional distinctions. His father, the second count, had fought for
Philip II in Flanders, and his grandfather had been a general of cavalry in
Milan. His mother, on the other hand, was descended from important
members of the financial and judicial administration in Madrid.45 The
count’s connection with Haro probably stemmed from the fact that both
of them (they were almost exactly the same age) had served as meninos in
the household of the queen during the reign of Philip III.46 However, in
1623, when don Luis was establishing his career as a courtier, don Alonso
departed for Flanders, where he spent five years serving as a captain of
infantry, before returning to Spain in the retinue of Ambrogio Spinola.
Back in Madrid, he resumed his household occupation as a gentleman of
the chamber first to the king’s younger brother don Carlos, and then
within the entourage of the Cardinal Infante, whom he followed to
Brussels in 1634. The count’s military advancement from then on was
rapid.47 He was also a protégé of the count of Monterrey, and the latter
seems to have been instrumental in his appointment in November 1647 as
governor of arms in Flanders, and ‘prime minister’ to the archduke.48
Over the following years there would prevail a power-sharing arrange-
ment in Brussels that superficially mirrored that of Madrid, with Leopold
William representing Philip IV, and Fuensaldaña acting for Haro. Indeed,
the count may be seen as a form of surrogate valido for, in addition to his
42
AHN Estado libro 713: Leopold William to Ferdinand III, 22 February 1653.
43
Vermeir, ‘Un austriaco en Flandes’, 603–6.
44
RAH Ms. 9/91, ff. 57r–v; BBMS Ms. 26/6/4, ff. 256r–7v; ADA 232/1: Haro to
Fuensaldaña, 15 February 1659, Fuensaldaña to Haro, 27 July 1659; LCMOVS, i, 263;
Brunel, 266.
45
ADAC Ms. no. 366, Varios/III, no. 1; ADAC Ms. Fuensaldaña no. 184, legajo 1,
no. 8; López de Haro, Nobiliario, ii, 248.
46
MAC Ms. 784, pp. 145–6.
47
MAC Ms. 759, ff. 19r–v, 130r–1r; Aedo y Gallart, Viaje del Infante Cardenal, 79, 82;
White, ‘War and Government’, 276, 523.
48
AHN Estado legajo 1414: Philip IV to Archduke Leopold William, 8 November
1647 (three letters); Signorotto, ‘Il marchese di Caracena’, 141; González de León, The
Road to Rocroi, 362–3, n. 115.
financial and military responsibilities, he was also the head of the arch-
duke’s household. But here the similarity ended. Fuensaldaña had been
imposed on Leopold William against the latter’s will, which meant that the
count was unable to establish any kind of personal bond upon which to base
his authority. In the short term, this did not matter because he owed his
position not to the archduke’s favour, but to his masters in Madrid, but it
left the governing partnership in Brussels operating in an atmosphere of
profound mistrust. Moreover, in an ironic twist, Leopold William happened
to have his own favourite, the count of Schwarzenberg, whose presence at his
side was deeply resented by the Spaniards. As early as the autumn of 1648,
Philip IV had made an unsuccessful request to the emperor that Schwarzen-
berg be given some position of honour that would remove him from
Brussels.49 When polite attempts at persuasion failed, Schwarzenberg’s
position was made so untenable as to force his departure in the summer of
1653. Denied the company of his friend and confidant, Leopold William’s
already frosty relations with Fuensaldaña could only become worse.50
In effect, the confusion and personal divisions in Brussels amounted to
an extreme example of the problem of conflicting jurisdictions that was
discussed in Chapter 4. Such a situation, though, had the important
advantage of guaranteeing the proper subordination of the administration
in the Netherlands to the authority of the king and his advisers in Madrid.
It also restricted the freedom of action of the military. In this context
research by Fernando González de León has shown how a process of
aristocratization within the officer corps of the Army of Flanders had
made it all but useless in major battlefield actions that required the presence
of large numbers of well-trained professional soldiers.51 It was therefore
vital to ensure that the army’s activity was strictly limited to attritional
operations in which it could perform more effectively. Here the count of
Fuensaldaña was exactly the right man for the job because he was renowned
for his reluctance to engage the enemy in battle, even in situations where
the Habsburg forces appeared to have the upper hand.52 Yet this very safe
approach to warfare ran contrary to the wishes of other commanders to
bring assistance to the rebel nobility within France.53 At least while the
Frondes lasted it was possible to have the best of all worlds, with the army
49
AHN Estado libro 712: Philip IV to Ferdinand III, 4 October 1648.
50
Clarendon, History, v, 143–4; CODOIN, lxxxiv, 355–6, 359; CCE, 385–6, 389–91,
393, 405–6, 417, 419, 445.
51
González de León, The Road to Rocroi, 157, 328, 338–9, 373.
52
MAC Ms. 760, ff. 182r, 191v–3v; Vendegies, Biographie, 24–5, 43; Signorotto,
‘Spagnoli e lombardi’, 104; Israel, ‘Spain and Europe’, 132. See also CODOIN, lxxxiv,
425.
53
CCE, 321, 331, 345, 407–9, 413–14, 454, 463–4.
scurrying back and forth across the border in a series of complex man-
oeuvres that assisted the perpetuation of noble insurgency in France whilst
recapturing towns in Flanders.54 However, the effort involved a severe
defeat at Rethel in December 1650, which led both Leopold William and
Fuensaldaña—despite their differences on just about everything else—to
agree on the need to open negotiations with the enemy.
The shock of Rethel also appears (at least briefly) to have encouraged a
more conciliating atmosphere in Madrid. The Junta de Estado (in Haro’s
presence), advised Philip to relinquish Spanish claims on Roussillon and
Cerdagne, and to settle for a ceasefire with no more than private reassur-
ances from the French on the essential three points regarding Portugal,
Catalonia, and Lorraine. It was also decided that negotiations should take
place on the Franco-Flemish border with Fuensaldaña acting as plenipo-
tentiary, and royal orders were issued to this effect.55 Nevertheless, having
publicly endorsed what amounted to a serious attempt to bring an end to
hostilities in the north, the valido then proceded in his own letters to urge
the count of Fuensaldaña not to agree to any ceasefire that might com-
promise the ongoing reconquest of Catalonia.56 In the event, the 1651
peace initiative came to nothing for other reasons than the Spanish valido’s
private misgivings. However, the exchanges that took place during these
months are evidence for Haro’s concern about ministers in the field—even
those, like Fuensaldaña whom he thought he could trust—who might
conclude a settlement that was not in the monarchy’s wider interests. This
was the last occasion when negotiations would be delegated to the Brussels
administration, and from now onwards the peace process would be
carefully controlled from Madrid. Even within this safer environment,
however, the king, the valido, and the other influential ministers were not
always in agreement. Their contrasting views at the time of the 1651
initiative would foreshadow more serious differences that would occur at
the end of the decade, when it would not be so easy for Haro to correct
official policy through the means of his private channel of communication
with the king’s representatives abroad.
The valido had reason to be worried, not least because Fuensaldaña was
already in unofficial contact with Cardinal Mazarin. The latter had been
forced into exile in the spring of 1651, and spent several days travelling
through the Spanish Netherlands with an armed escort that was commanded
54
Lonchay, La rivalité, 153–5, 158–60.
55
CCE, 263, 264–5, 267; Cánovas del Castillo, Estudios, ii, 503–13; Sanabre, El tractat
dels Pirineus, 26–7; Israel, ‘Spain and Europe’, 119–20.
56
RAH Ms. 9/97, ff. 85–90v, 97r–v.
by Fuensaldaña’s confidant, don Antonio Pimentel de Prado. Pimentel
regaled his guest with compliments, offers of money, and hints at new
initiatives to try to bring an end to the war.57 He even reassured the
cardinal that Fuensaldaña had received unlimited powers to negotiate,
which, as we have just seen, was not in fact the case.58 Mazarin would
remain in contact with Pimentel and Fuensaldaña over the next six
months, and by the autumn was even on the point of holding a personal
meeting with Fuensaldaña in the neutral territory of Liège.59
The plans for this interview and indeed for the whole peace process
came to nothing because of the commitment that Philip IV and Haro
made to the prince of Condé in November 1651. Although the conclusion
of such an alliance boded well for the future, the honeymoon did not last
for long, for, by the end of the following year, Condé had been forced out
of Paris, and was living as an exile in Brussels, and in August 1653, matters
were made worse by the collapse of the Fronde in Guyenne. Yet the
government in Madrid was still confident of the prince’s value as an ally,
and was anxious to fulfil its treaty obligations by providing him with
everything he needed in order to sustain his rebellion. This was to the
annoyance of both Leopold William and Fuensaldaña, who were hard put
to it to keep the king of Spain’s own forces supplied and paid.60 The
disagreements over resources were further compounded by disputes over
how the Habsburg-Condéan forces might be deployed. Fuensaldaña knew
the limitations of the Army of Flanders, and was anxious not to risk its
survival. Condé, on the other hand, needed to sustain and enhance his
reputation in France by instigating grand and ambitious designs that
would encourage his followers and undermine the government of his
enemies.61
In the summer of 1654, it seemed that the prince would have his way.
An attempt was made to recapture Arras, the principal town of Artois, a
province of the Spanish Netherlands that was almost entirely occupied
by the French. The project was an ambitious one, not least because
Louis XIV’s possession of the towns of La Bassée and Béthune further to
the north would allow his forces to interfere with the supply lines of
the besieging army. The enterprise was totally against the counsel of
Fuensaldaña, but he was overruled by the archduke and Condé, who
were hoping that the capture of Arras would permit the recovery of the
whole province as well as jeopardize Mazarin’s political situation in
57 58
LCMPSM, iv, 108, 109–12, 122–3. Séré, La paix des Pyrénées, 194–5.
59
LCMPSM, iv, 312, 420, 501–6, 520, 552–3.
60
CCE, 341, 345, 350, 359, 372, 426, 461, 473, 487, 519.
61
CCE, 407–8, 409, 413–14, 454.
France. High stakes were therefore involved and the resulting siege,
which lasted from early June until the arrival of Louis XIV’s army on
25 August, showed Fuensaldaña to have been justified. When the town
was relieved, the Army of Flanders bore the brunt of the attack on the
siege works, with some 3,000 of its men taken prisoner, along with
baggage and artillery, in just the kind of mishap that he had feared all
along might take place.62
Research by James Inglis-Jones has shown how, at least until 1656,
Condé’s presence in the Netherlands served to stimulate the pre-existing
divisions within the government in Brussels, whilst complicating its
relations with the administration in Madrid.63 Fuensaldaña’s pursuit of
a strictly limited war was in accordance with government policy. However,
it was at odds with the desire in Madrid to do everything possible to
support and perpetuate the noble revolts in France. How did don Luis de
Haro reconcile these objectives, and how did his support for the flamboy-
ant and impulsive Condé tie in with his personal friendship with the staid
and unadventurous Fuensaldaña? In seeking to understand this problem
one might perhaps think of the count as a lightning rod, forced to take the
consequences for Haro’s contradictory policies, but also given a free hand
to ignore orders from Madrid when they conflicted with interests on the
ground. Although, Fuensaldaña was certainly not to be allowed to nego-
tiate an end to hostilities with France, in all other senses the valido seems
to have trusted completely in his discretion. In the spring of 1656,
circumstances obliged the replacement of both Fuensaldaña and Leopold
William.64 The new governor-general was Philip IV’s illegitimate son,
don Juan de Austria, who would have a much better relationship with
Condé and with the marquis of Carcena, who would soon arrive to replace
Fuensaldaña as commander of the Army of Flanders.65 Such a situation—
one in which the government in Brussels worked well—was just what
Haro most feared, for over the following two years Caracena, Condé, and
don Juan would jointly propel Spanish forces towards their final defeat at
the Battle of the Dunes.66
62
BL Ms. Additional 14007, ff. 132–5; FLEML, 242; Chéruel, Histoire de France, ii,
170–81; Vendegies, Biographie, 40–8; González de León, The Road to Rocroi, 359–60.
63
Inglis-Jones, ‘The Grand Condé in Exile’, 53–105.
64
RAH Ms. 9/92, ff. 96–9.
65
Inglis-Jones, ‘The Grand Condé in Exile’, 171–4, 192; Inglis-Jones, ‘The Battle of
the Dunes’, 271–4.
66
ADA 138: Haro to Peñaranda, 24 October 1657, 3 and 30 July 1658; RAH Ms. 9/91,
f. 57v.
AN AUSTRIAN SOLUTION?
It was over a matter connected with the Habsburg dynastic succession that
the count of Fuensaldaña’s relations with Leopold William completely
broke down. The archduke was a man of nearly forty-two years, with holy
orders and several bishoprics to his name, but until quite recently he had
been a possible contender for the hand of Philip IV’s elder daughter María
Teresa.67 At first, Haro and Peñaranda seem to have taken the idea quite
seriously,68 but when Fuensaldaña was consulted, he expressed doubts
about Leopold William’s physical and personal inclinations towards mar-
riage. By 1655, the count’s reservations had found their way back to
Brussels and amounted to the final straw for the archduke, who returned
to Vienna in July 1656, resentful and humiliated after his nine-year
experience as a cat’s paw of Spain’s imperial system.69 In truth, Leopold
William’s ability to conceive children ought not to have been a problem,
since the Spanish Netherlands had been devolved once before to a royal
couple who had been considered unlikely to produce a succession. Yet on
that previous occasion, when Philip II had entrusted the government of
Brussels to his daughter Isabel and to her husband the archduke Albert,
the king had a son to succeed him as ruler over the rest of the monarchy.
What prevented history from repeating itself fifty years later was the lack
of a male heir to Philip IV. His second marriage to Mariana of Austria,
which had taken place in the autumn of 1649, had so far failed to produce
a son. Another daughter, Margarita María, had been born in July 1651
after a difficult confinement; a pregnancy had miscarried in August 1653;
and a baby girl, María Ambrosia, had survived for just two weeks in
December 1655. It would not be until 28 November 1657 that the
queen would finally give birth to a son, Felipe Próspero, and until then
María Teresa stood to inherit everything. The leading contender for her
hand was the archduke Leopold Ignatius, who had become the heir to the
Austrian possessions following the death of his elder brother in July 1654.
Since then, he had been crowned king of Hungary and Bohemia, but had
still to be elected king of the Romans.
Yet the Spanish king’s mind was becoming aware of different possibil-
ities. In a number of remarkable personal letters written between the
summer of 1654 and the end of 1656, he set out his thoughts on the
67
Schreiber, ‘Entre dos frentes’, 619–20, n. 29.
68
Höbelt, Ferdinand III, 378, 382.
69
MAC Mss. 755, ff. 58v–60r; 759, f. 17v; RAH Ms. 9/92, ff. 96–9; Vendegies,
Biographie, 62–5.
subject of his daughter’s marriage and the succession of the Spanish
Monarchy.70 As ever, Philip IV’s personal inclinations were conditioned
by the need to live up to his responsibilities as a Christian king. Whilst he
still believed that Mariana of Austria would bear him a son, he also knew
that it was his duty to make contingency plans in case of disappointment.
The problem was that in the absence of an heir to the Spanish Monarchy,
María Teresa could not be allowed to leave Madrid. If the young archduke
were brought to Spain, on the other hand, he would disqualify himself for
election as king of the Romans. Philip’s solution was complex. He
believed that the elderly Leopold William should be elected to succeed
his brother as emperor. This would create time for Leopold Ignatius to
come to Madrid, wed María Teresa and, if necessary, rule as king consort
of Spain after Philip’s death. But if a male heir were born, either to María
Teresa or to Mariana, Leopold Ignatius would then be free to hurry
back to Germany in order to stand at the next Imperial election in
succession to his uncle. If he were obliged to remain in Spain for any
length of time, then his younger half-brother, the archduke Charles
Joseph (son of Ferdinand III by his second marriage to the archduchess
Maria Leopoldina), might be elected as king of the Romans in succession
to Leopold William.
This was a messy arrangement to be sure, but Philip IV was aware of an
alternative. In the summer of 1656, Hugues de Lionne had arrived in
Madrid in an attempt to negotiate a peace. A number of important
concessions were presented to the Spaniards, which marked a significant
retreat from the position that the French had held since Münster, but
Lionne’s chances of reaching a settlement were compromised from the
outset by Mazarin’s strict instructions that he not spend more than eight
days in Madrid.71 It should have been next to impossible for him to
conclude a peace agreement in such a short space of time, but in the likely
knowledge that he would have the support of Anne of Austria, Lionne
disobeyed his orders, and remained at the Spanish court for nearly three
months, during which time he worked out with Haro an agreement on
most of the disputed territorial issues.72 The discussions ostensibly failed
70
For what follows, see AGS Estado legajo 2953: Philip IV to Ferdinand III, 13 June
1654; Philip IV to Castel Rodrigo, 5 April 1655, Philip IV to marquis of La Fuente, 22
December 1656. See also Lothar Höbelt’s analysis of the succession question as derived
from the letters of the Imperial ambassador Lamberg: ‘ “Madrid vaut bien une guerre?” ’.
71
Valfrey, Hugues de Lionne, 3–63; O’Connor, ‘La mission secrète de Lionne à Madrid’,
315; Séré, La paix des Pyrénées, 223–64.
72
AGS Estado K1616: ‘Memoria dada por M. de Leone a don Antonio Pimentel de lo
que tuvo ajustado en Madrid el año de 1656’; BL Ms. Additional 14000, ff. 235r–40v;
RAH Ms. 9/659, ff. 209v–10v.
because neither side could reach agreement over the terms of the prince of
Condé’s re-establishment in France, but it had been made clear to the
Spaniards that even this matter could be resolved to their satisfaction on
the condition that the hand of María Teresa were granted to Louis XIV.73
For Philip, it seemed as though God was arranging a way out of the
monarchy’s difficulties by withholding the birth of male children in order
to increase his daughter’s diplomatic value. There was now a clear choice:
María Teresa would either marry someone who might facilitate peace—as
was clearly the case with Louis XIV—or someone who might provide the
necessary assistance to continue the war with France, in which case
Leopold Ignatius, as the heir to the Austrian Habsburg lands and the
most likely future emperor, was the most desirable candidate. For the time
being, Philip IV’s heart was set on an Austrian marriage. However, there
was now at least a possibility—even in the absence of a male heir—that
María Teresa’s hand might be conceded to Louis XIV, should it be the
case that the emperor refuse Spanish terms.74
Haro was a fervent advocate of the traditional Vienna alliance. During
the 1640s, he had been closely involved in the negotiation of Philip IV’s
marriage to Mariana of Austria, and saw the Empire as a vital source of
practical assistance for both Flanders and Milan. His strategy had not been
assisted by the Westphalia peace terms which prevented the emperor from
helping Philip IV in his continued war against France, and Austrian
assistance had been meagre in the years that followed. However, during
the mid-1650s there took place a revival in the relationship, thanks to the
close cooperation between the Spanish ambassadors in Vienna and
the emperor’s hispanophile minister-favourite, Johann Weikhard von
Auersperg.75 Since March 1648, Philip had been represented at the
Imperial court by don Francisco de Moura, the count of Lumiares, who
became third marquis of Castel Rodrigo after his father’s death in January
1651. In the light of increasingly belligerent activity by the new king of
Sweden, Castel Rodrigo and Auersperg managed to win Ferdinand III
around to a policy of rearming the Empire. By the autumn of 1655, there
were 30,000 Imperial troops on the ground, with plans to raise a further
20,000 by the end of the year.76 Had it not been for these precautionary
measures, it was believed that Charles X might well have invaded central
Europe, but instead he brought his army into Poland-Lithuania. With the
73
ASV Spagna, 113, ff. 321r–2v, 329r–v, 334r, 347r.
74
See Colomer, ‘Paz política, rivalidad suntuaria’, 77.
75
Mecenseffy, ‘Im Dienste dreier Habsburger’, 297–508; Schwarz, The Imperial Privy
Council, 134–58, 201–2.
76
AGS Estado legajo 2363: Castel Rodrigo to Philip IV, 12 September 1655, don
Jacinto de Vera to Philip IV, 6 November 1655.
Swedish king busy further to the east, Castel Rodrigo believed it was time
for Ferdinand III to deploy his new armed strength for the benefit of
Milan and Flanders. Neither action violated the letter of the Westphalia
settlement, because intervention in north Italy could be justified as
directed against the duke of Modena, a vassal of the emperor who had
attacked another Imperial state, whilst supplying assistance to the Spanish
Netherlands had become necessary in order to protect these provinces
against an anticipated English invasion.
Imperial assistance to Flanders and Milan could not have come at a
more welcome time, because the government in Madrid was no longer
able or willing to fund its extra-Iberian commitments. This was despite the
introduction of a series of increasingly aggressive financial measures. In
1651–2, the reconquest of Barcelona had been paid for out of the profits
of an increase in the value of the low-denomination copper coinage that
wreaked havoc with local economies and was directly responsible for the
string of revolts that took place across Andalusia.77 This was followed by
another suspension of payments to the bankers in the summer of 1652,
which exacerbated a budgetary deficit that now stood at over 5 million
ducats, and would increase further in subsequent years.78 When the
Cortes met in 1655, government committees worked overtime to devise
new ways of collecting revenue: withholding annuities, pensions, and
salaries; another 1 per cent surcharge on the alcabala sales tax; doubling
of the tax on legal documents; an imposition of nearly 12,000 ducats to be
paid by each city; even a tax of 100 ducats to be imposed on coaches.79 If
these measures were not enough, the millones subsidies continued to be
prorogued, and a new agreement was made in the summer of 1657 for
3 million ducats to be collected over the following three years from duties
to be imposed on meat and wine.80 Collection methods were also becom-
ing more effective and intrusive, which meant that revenues in the late
1650s were rising to levels not seen since the years before the fall of
Olivares.81 Most controversial were the measures to make the clergy
contribute to the millones subsidies without papal agreement, and which
77
Gelabert, Castilla convulsa, 330–7, 343–4, 351–2, 358, 361–2.
78
AHN Consejos legajo 7135: Haro to Philip IV, 26 November 1652; ‘provisiones del
año de 1653’, 22 November 1652.
79
ASV Spagna, 117, ff. 383r, 397r; ASV Spagna, 119, f. 230r; AJB, i, 236, 259; ii, 85,
115, 118; DMO, 591; Domínguez Ortiz, Política y hacienda, 196, 219; Sanz Ayán,
Los banqueros de Carlos II, 148.
80
ASV Spagna, 117, f. 341r; Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 58, f. 117v; Danvila y Collado,
‘Cortes de Madrid de 1655 a 1658’, 274, 277.
81
Andrés Ucendo, La fiscalidad en Castilla, 30, 63–4, 158–9.
led to serious protests that were coordinated by Pedro de Tapia and by
Juan de Palafox.82
Yet, for all the effort, very little of this new revenue was finding its way
to Brussels or Milan. The subsidies of between 2 and 2.5 million ducats
that had been sent each year to the Spanish Netherlands during the 1640s
declined to 1.5 million ducats a year in 1651–3. Thereafter the govern-
ments of Leopold William and don Juan de Austria were lucky if they
received annual remittances that totalled as much as a million ducats, and
they often had to content themselves with much less. Milan in the
meantime was left to rely on remittances from Naples.83 While it is true
that Philip’s loyal Flemish and Italian subjects were raising significantly
greater amounts for their own defence, the sharp decline in subsidies from
Spain still took its toll. After the setback before Arras in the summer of
1654, a string of towns—Stenay, Le Quesnoy, Binche, and Clermont—
fell to the French, and the following year Louis XIV’s army overran Le
Catelet, Landrecies, Condé, and Saint-Ghislain. In the autumn of 1655 a
friendly treaty was concluded between the governments in London and
Paris, and the Army of Lorraine defected to the French.84 The situation in
Milan was not much better. In the summer of 1654, the king broke off
relations with the Republic of Genoa, which led to property embargos and
a collapse in trade and lending.85 The following year the duke of Modena
made another alliance with the king of France, and in mid-September
1655, the town of Pavia only narrowly withstood a siege from a Franco-
Savoyard army.86
This dramatic tail-off in subsidies to fund Spain’s wider European com-
mitments has to be seen as part of a concentration on commitments that
were closer to home. It was the reconquest of Barcelona, the Fronde in the
south-west of France, the defence of the Spanish mainland against English
naval attacks, and the war against Portugal that became the priorities for the
government in Madrid during the 1650s. Responsibility for the defence of
Flanders and Milan would in the meantime default to the emperor. In
Vienna Philip’s representatives, the marquis of Castel Rodrigo and the
marquis of La Fuente, were courtiers closely connected with Haro, and as
82
Domínguez Ortiz, ‘La desigualdad contributiva en Castilla’, 125–32; Perrone, ‘Cler-
ical opposition in Habsburg Castile’, 333–6.
83
Danvila, ‘Cortes de Madrid de 1655’, 23–53 (original figures provided in maravedís).
See also Malcolm, ‘Don Luis’, 141 (n. 122), 142 (n. 127); Maffi, En defensa del imperio, 454.
84
Chéruel, Histoire de France, ii, 284–300, 322–6 and 390–2.
85
Signorotto, Milano spagnola, 29; Herrero Sánchez, ‘La quiebra del sistema hispano-
genovés’, 140–3.
86
Chéruel, Histoire de France, ii, 336–8; Signorotto, ‘Il marchese di Caracena’, 160–1;
Oresko, ‘The Marriages of the Nieces of Cardinal Mazarin’, 127–31.
noblemen of Portuguese descent their interests were firmly rooted in the
Iberian peninsula. In personality and social status, however, the two
ambassadors were quite different. Castel Rodrigo was a grandee with a
reputation for high-handedness. He could be prone to threaten the
emperor, and by the end of 1655 he had managed to fall out with
the prince of Auersperg, whose cooperation was essential for any revival
in the Spanish-Imperial relationship.87 La Fuente, on the other hand, was
a man of self-control and good-humoured deference. He was rumoured to
be an illegitimate son of Olivares, but if this were the case he had inherited
little of the count-duke’s irascibility.88 For Louis XIV—at whose court he
would act as ambassador between 1662 and 1667—La Fuente was
a true gentleman, refined and sharp-witted, speaking a lot, but agreeably, and
with great vivacity, and always to the point, having to convince on all sorts of
matters [but] arguing them with wit, and [always] being the first to laugh.89
In effect, there could be no more persuasive an agent to secure assistance
for Philip’s beleaguered European possessions than if Haro had made the
journey to Vienna himself. At his first private audience with Ferdinand III
on 23 June 1656, the new ambassador got straight to the point with a
frank and humble admission that the Spanish Monarchy simply did not
have the resources for the defence of its outlying European possessions.
His message to Ferdinand III was a simple one: ‘Your Majesty has
more interest in the conservation of the State of Milan than does the
king my lord.’90
Within two months of La Fuente’s arrival—and with Auersperg’s
renewed assistance—he had managed to secure the emperor’s agreement
for the dispatch of a 12,000-strong army of Imperial veterans to Milan,
with the possibility of similar assistance for the Spanish Netherlands to be
conceded at a later date.91 By September 1656, the first batch of 6,800
soldiers had arrived in Milan, unfortunately too late to prevent the town of
Valenza del Po from capitulating to the duke of Modena. It was a major
setback, for it gave the French the bridgehead into Lombardy that they
had lost when Casale had been taken by the marquis of Caracena four
87
AGS Estado legajo 2365: Castel Rodrigo to Ferdinand III, 23 July 1655; Castel
Rodrigo to Philip IV, 15 December 1655; Castel Rodrigo to Haro, 15 December 1655;
RAV, 270; SPM journal, v, 292.
88
MHE, xviii, 380–1; Fernández-Daza Álvarez, La Roca, 267 (n. 12).
89
Recueil, 499.
90
AGS Estado legajo 2365: La Fuente to Ferdinand III, 23 June 1656. Philip’s
ambassador in The Hague was saying much the same thing. See Herrero Sánchez, Acerca-
miento, 160–1.
91
Rodríguez Hernández, ‘Las limitaciones de la paz’, 1375–81; Malcolm, ‘La embajada
del conde de Peñaranda’, 1442.
years before.92 Yet with more Imperial contingents moving down into
Italy in the spring of 1657, there was a clear possibility that the damage
could be rectified. The situation therefore remained very promising until
the beginning of April, when everything was suddenly thrown into doubt
by the death of Ferdinand III.
CONCLUSION: VIENNA, 1657
Until the election of a Habsburg successor to the Imperial title, there

would be no chance of any more assistance for Spanish interests in Italy
and the Netherlands, and the Austrian forces currently operating in Milan
lost their legitimacy. The interregnum was likely to be long and compli-
cated. Leopold Ignatius was still a minor, which meant that he would not
have a vote in the election, a privilege to which he would normally have
been entitled as king of Bohemia. Also, the government in Vienna was for
the time being entrusted to the regency of the archduke Leopold William.
The hispanophile prince of Auersperg, whose participation had been so
important in the recent concessions of military assistance, now lost influ-
ence to the advantage of none other than the archduke’s favourite, the
count of Schwarzenberg.93 Matters were further complicated by the king
of Spain’s expressed wish that Leopold Ignatius be brought to Madrid
to marry his daughter. At the last moment, Philip realized the implications
of removing from Germany the favoured Habsburg candidate for the
Imperial succession, and sent orders countermanding his previous arrange-
ments.94 Yet these would take time to arrive, which meant that the
regency government in Vienna was still given to understand that Leopold
William would be the candidate for the Imperial election, whilst Leopold
Ignatius would go to live in Spain with María Teresa. It was not until the
end of the summer that it was finally agreed that the young archduke
should remain in central Europe and be presented as the official Habsburg
candidate for the Imperial succession.95
In Madrid, the Council of State was horrified by what La Fuente had
been arranging. Although Philip came to his ambassador’s defence, the
confusion that had accompanied the king’s convoluted marriage plans for
92
AGS Estado legajo 2365: La Fuente to Fuensaldaña, 9 October 1656.
93
ADA 138: Haro to Peñaranda, 28 July 1657; AGS Estado legajo 2953: La Fuente to
Haro, 2 April 1657; AHN Estado libro 125, ff. 74v–6v.
94
AGS Estado legajo 2366: consulta of the Council of State, 27 June 1657; AGS
Estado legajo 3918: consulta of the Council of State, 26 May 1657.
95
AGS Estado legajo 2478: Philip IV to Peñaranda, 30 July 1657; AGS Estado legajo
2367: La Fuente to Haro, 13, 20 June 1657; AHN Estado libro 125, ff. 158v–66r.
his daughter tells us much about the exclusive way in which decisions were
being made—one in which those who did not form part of the king’s
circle were kept in the dark, and even those who did were not always able
to prevail. Philip’s desire for an Austrian marriage certainly accorded with
Haro’s wish for closer relations with Vienna, but it is hard to believe that
the valido could have countenanced the removal of Leopold Ignatius to
Madrid at such a sensitive moment. One suspects therefore that by
1656–7 his relationship with the king was becoming more difficult.
There had been early signs of disagreement over the peace process in the
spring of 1651. Now, Philip was taking the initiative to decide his
daughter’s future. It was a development that can be linked to others
occurring at about this time, and which will be discussed in more detail
in Chapter 8.
For the time being, a Habsburg marriage for María Teresa was still the
most likely outcome, but it would have to come with a resumption of
Austrian military and logistical aid to Milan and Flanders. On the other
hand, a French marriage, as had been suggested in 1656 by Hugues de
Lionne, promised the best means of achieving an honourable peace. For
the moment, Philip had a preference for Leopold Ignatius, and Haro
wanted to continue the war, but before anything else the young arch-
duke’s election as emperor had to be secured. The task of representing
Philip IV at the forthcoming electoral conclave could only be given to
someone who had the valido’s full trust. The man chosen was the count
of Peñaranda.
8
Crisis and Revival, 1657–9
Towards the end of March 1657, Sir Henry Bennet arrived in Madrid as
the resident of the exiled Charles II of Great Britain. An alliance had
recently been signed between Spain and the English royalists, and Bennet
was under orders to ensure that Philip IV honoured his commitments to
the Stuart king. He had come with letters of introduction addressed to
don Luis de Haro and to the count of Peñaranda, but found on his arrival
that neither minister wanted, nor was able, to do much for him.1 Instead,
he had to make approaches to all of the members of the Council of State,
and soon reached the conclusion that it was the marquis of Los Balbases,
who ‘passes for the considerablest man in the affairs’.2 The Englishman’s
experience of the Spanish court was different to what he had been led to
expect. Philip’s government appeared to have opened up, with the king
taking advice from a greater number of people, not all of whom were
necessarily beholden to Haro.
In previous chapters the second half of Philip IV’s reign has been
presented in the context of the problem of the valido. The latter’s situation
was intrinsically insecure, because in a well-governed polity, where the king
ruled in accordance with the advice of his councils, there should have been
no need for the existence of a minister-favourite, and the presence of such an
individual ran a strong risk of encouraging domestic discord and foreign
turmoil. It is true that between 1648 and 1656, Haro had benefited from a
stable political environment around the king that had been enhanced by
significant military successes. Yet such a situation could not last forever. The
near universal desire for peace was becoming impossible to ignore, whilst
even those close to the valido were becoming uneasy about what he was
asking them to do. It needs to be emphasized, though, that don Luis’
situation during these years was not consistently bad. In fact, the lot of
any royal favourite whose career was based on the whim of the ruler was
inevitably one of ups and downs. Philip’s receptivity to other sources of
1 2
Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 54, ff. 76r–v, 97r. Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 54, ff. 122r–v.
Crisis and Revival, 1657–9 207
counsel was intermittent, which meant that the domestic political situation
was prone to fluctuate. Haro was in difficulties over the autumn and winter
of 1656–7, but restored his position between the summer of 1657 and the
summer of 1658. Then, his absences from court between August 1658 and
November 1659 weakened his government once again. He would be
brought lowest by the failure of his attempt to invade Portugal in January
1659, but he would ultimately be saved by his ability to negotiate an
acceptable peace with Cardinal Mazarin ten months later at the Pyrenees.
FRANKFURT
The count of Peñaranda’s departure from Madrid in the summer of 1657

can be linked to recent mishaps following the outbreak of a new war
between Spain and the English Protectorate. Philip IV’s government had
previously hoped to cut a deal with Oliver Cromwell, but the latter had
decided in the spring of 1654 that English interests lay with plundering
American treasure and acquiring new possessions in the Caribbean. It had
taken the Spaniards some time to realize what was afoot. News of Admiral
Penn’s failed attack on Santo Domingo, and the subsequent English
seizure of Jamaica, did not reach Madrid until September 1655.3 It
would be a while longer before the two states were formally at war, and
in the meantime the authorities in Madrid seemed remarkably uncon-
cerned about the presence of an English fleet off Spain’s southern coasts.4
Yet in June 1656 John IV of Braganza finally ratified a treaty with London
that would allow English ships access to the facilities of Portuguese
harbours, and this allowed the Protectorate navy to remain off the Spanish
coast on a semi-permanent basis.5 In September disaster struck when a
squadron of seven ships from the Indies was intercepted outside Cadiz.
Most of the ships were destroyed, but the English managed to capture one
of them, together with its valuable cargo of silver.6 The Spanish system of
credit was immediately thrown into disarray, and by the following year,
only one financier (Andrea Pichinotti) was still able to ensure that the
3
AJB, i, 181–2, 185–6.
4
AGI Indiferente, 1876: consultas of the Junta de Guerra de Indias, 18, 22 June 1655;
ASMi Uffici Regi, Parte Antica, carteggio 63/7.
5
AJB, i, 301; Firth, ‘Blake’, 229–30, 233; Shaw, Trade, 60–4; Valladares, La rebelión,
123–6.
6
AJB, i, 318–19, 321–2; CSMA, ii, 64; Firth, ‘Blake’, 231; Domínguez Ortiz, ‘Una
relación de la pérdida’, 299–307; Morineau, Incroyables gazettes, 109.
loans agreed with him in Madrid would actually be honoured by his
correspondents in Antwerp.7
The political fallout from the English attacks manifested itself over the
autumn and winter of 1656–7. Already in September, Haro’s negotiations
with Hugues de Lionne appear to have been opened up for discussion
within the Council of State, and in the king’s presence.8 Then, on 16
October, Philip departed with the queen and the infanta María Teresa on
the annual royal visit to El Escorial. They would be gone for nearly three
weeks during which the king, by all accounts, was in a state of profound
melancholy.9 It is not known what his companions, the marquis of Aytona
and the duke of El Infantado, may have said to him when they were out
there together, but on Philip’s return to Madrid he continued to take
advice from a wider selection of ministers. In November and December,
he held a series of personal conversations with don Cristóbal Crespí de
Valldaura, from which the latter noted how his master was in disagree-
ment with Haro over a number of important matters.10 By now Philip was
also rumoured to be in contact with independent-minded clerics like
Pedro de Tapia and Juan de Palafox, and showed signs of exerting a closer
royal watch on episcopal patronage.11 At the turn of the year, the exclusive
Junta de Estado threw open its doors to the likes of the duke of Medina de
las Torres and the count of Oñate. If Barrionuevo is to be believed, Haro
was very nearly the victim of a reshuffle of ministers that was only
narrowly prevented by the faithful presence of don Fernando de Fonseca
Ruiz de Contreras at the monarch’s side.12 Meanwhile, Philip’s letters to
Sor María de Ágreda expressed concern about his accountability before
God, and about the need for divine assistance if the present crisis were to
be resolved.13
The count of Peñaranda was president of the Council of the Indies, and
thus carried public responsibility for the loss of the silver galleons.14 If the
English attacks in the autumn of 1656 had not been bad enough, they
were followed up in the spring of 1657 by the destruction of sixteen more
ships from the Indies as they lay at anchor in the Canary Islands.15 In all
appearances, therefore, the count’s appointment to represent Philip IV at
7
RAH Ms. 9/91, f. 87v; AJB, ii, 111; Sanz Ayán, Los banqueros de Carlos II, 177.
8
ASV Spagna, 112, f. 481r; ASV Spagna, 113, ff. 321r–2v, 323r. Written records of
these meetings do not appear to have survived: Séré, La paix des Pyrénées, 267–8.
9
AJB, ii, 17, 23; ‘Relación de la estancia’, 416–17.
10 11
DCCV, 146–9, 152–3. Ibid., 148; AJB, ii, 20.
12
See Malcolm, ‘Don Luis’, 191–2. 13
CSMA, ii, 64, 66–7, 69.
14
BNM Ms. 1440, ff. 341v–5v; Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 55, f. 196v; AJB, ii, 5, 17, 59, 85;
CSPV, xxx, 271.
15
Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 55, f. 10r; AJB, ii, 86–7; Firth, ‘Blake’, 238–43.
the Imperial election amounted to the timely removal of a minister who
had become a liability. But was this really (in Sir Henry Bennet’s words)
an ‘honourable banishment’? The official instructions for the embassy to
Frankfurt do not help much; they scarcely amount to more than five
pages, and were formulated by (of all people) the count of Oñate.16
However, evidence from council minutes and from Peñaranda’s own
letters leave no doubt that the decision was made by Haro himself, and
that the count had a much wider mandate than met the eye.17 Whilst his
departure was convenient because of his unpopularity in Madrid, it also
has to be read as a sign of the importance that central Europe still held
for the valido’s foreign policy. Peñaranda had to ensure not only a quick
Imperial election for Leopold Ignatius, but also a renewal of Austrian
military assistance, which, in turn, would be dependent upon the new
emperor’s marriage to Philip’s elder daughter. Amidst these consider-
ations, the only area of responsibility for which the count was definitely
not given a mandate was the negotiation of a peace.
The Spanish ambassador spent nearly a year at the court of the king of
Hungary between his arrival in Prague in the middle of October 1657 and
his departure from Frankfurt a few days after the coronation of Leopold I
in August 1658. Much of his energy during this time was concentrated on
yet another issue: that of winning over Frederick William I of Brandenburg.
The Great Elector’s support was crucial if the Habsburgs were to have
the majority they needed in the conclave, as well as an Imperial capit-
ulation that would be reasonably favourable.18 Every effort therefore
had to be made to placate him, even to the point of creating a league of
Imperial princes with the purpose of attacking Swedish possessions in
north Germany. This was an outcome that might also oblige the king of
France to intervene as a guarantor of the Peace of Westphalia, and thereby
release pressure on the beleaguered Spanish possessions in north Italy and
the Netherlands.19 Peñaranda’s letters to Haro convey an unseemly bel-
ligerence that was hardly to be found in his official correspondence with
the king, and suggests a tendency to offer advice in accordance with the
opinions of his recipient.20 The latter, for his part, would continue to
16
AGS Est leg 3918: Jerónimo de la Torre to Philip IV, 29 May 1657; BNM Ms.
11267/47. The quotation is taken from Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 55, f. 196v.
17
Malcolm, ‘La embajada del conde de Peñaranda’, 1443–5.
18
ADA 233/20: Peñaranda to Haro, 12 January 1658, Peñaranda to Leopold Igna-
tius, 23 January 1658; AGS Estado legajo 8474, ff. 55r–v.
19
ADA 233/20: Peñaranda to Haro, 13 December 1657.
20
ADA 233/20: Peñaranda to Haro, 26 December 1657, 3 June 1658; AGS Estado
legajo 2368 (no. 66).
harbour aspirations of French embroilment in a war in the Empire long
after everyone else had given up hope.21
Frederick William’s vote was also important because a number of the
other princes were showing little interest in permitting a swift and uncon-
ditional election. The archbishop of Mainz, for one, was anxious to
transform the proceedings at Frankfurt into another giant peace con-
gress. Peñaranda was in no way opposed to the negotiation of a peace,
and during the winter of 1657–8, he had sent a number of warnings to
Madrid about the need to bring an end to hostilities.22 However, as
Philip’s former representative at Westphalia, he understood all too well
the problems of trying to do so at a great international congress, and he
feared that the opening of peace negotiations at Frankfurt would simply
delay the election, whilst the French armies made further inroads into
the Spanish Netherlands and the State of Milan.23 After several months of
deadlock, on 23 July 1658 he finally lost patience, and issued a public
declaration calling for talks at the Pyrenees.24 His action was in flagrant
violation of orders from Madrid, and even went so far as to represent
before the conclave his own personal views as being those of the king of
Spain.25
For the ambassadors of Louis XIV at Frankfurt, the idea of a conference
at the Pyrenees was outrageous. Hugues de Lionne responded by publish-
ing a lengthy discourse that raked over the previous 150 years of peace
negotiations, and concluded with a detailed analysis of what he considered
to be the political mentality of his opponents—one that was supposedly
based on his experience of visiting Madrid two years before. In the
Frenchman’s conception, the Spanish ministerial elite possessed a deeply
held providential faith that God would always come to the monarchy’s
assistance. Accordingly, there was no real urgency for them to negotiate a
peace, because, after all, the worst that could happen would be the loss
of one or two towns in Flanders each year. In the meantime (Lionne
continued) there would always be armies available to recruit in Germany,
and if open conflict broke out in the Empire as well, then France would be
obliged to intervene. Why, wondered Louis XIV’s minister, should the
Spaniards ever want to bring an end to the war, when they just needed to
wait for the silver fleet to arrive, or for the French state to go bankrupt, or
21
ADA 232/1: Haro to La Fuente, 27 September 1659; ASV Spagna, 119, f. 226r;
ASV Spagna, 120, f. 16v; LCMOVS, i, 275–6.
22
ADA 233/20: Peñaranda to Haro, 27 October 1657, 19 January, 7 February, 20 May
1658; AGS Estado legajo 2368 (nos. 37, 41, 66); Herrero Sánchez, Acercamiento, 369.
23
AGS Estado legajo 2367: Peñaranda to Philip IV, 26 October 1657; AGS Estado legajo
2368 (no. 141).
24
BNM Ms. 5542, ff. 20v–1r. 25
See Malcolm, ‘Don Luis’, 203–4.
for the Frondes to reignite? If all else failed, they would still be able to
secure the return of their losses in exchange for the hand of María
Teresa.26
It was an extremely pertinent, but also a very sweeping assessment of
the Spanish mindset. Lionne’s discourse was made at the beginning of
August 1658, and came at the time of a brief moment of triumph for the
Habsburgs. The alliance with Frederick William of Brandenburg had
finally been concluded, which meant that the king of Hungary had the
majority he needed for his election under conditions that seemed to allow
the new emperor to provide support for Milan and Flanders on the same
basis as his father had done.27 All ought therefore to have boded well for a
renewal of the special relationship. During the autumn of 1658 and the
spring of 1659, proposals for an Austrian marriage for María Teresa came
thick and fast, as thousands of troops were raised in Germany.28 And yet
nothing came of this. Officially the reason was because Austrian fears of
trouble from Sweden and the Turks meant that the Empire had to remain
in arms for its own defence. However, the count of Peñaranda was
profoundly sceptical that there was any serious intention on the part of
the government in Vienna to come to the assistance of Spain.29 He was
also deeply annoyed, not just with Leopold’s ministers, and with his
opponents at Frankfurt, but also with his superiors in Madrid, where
the attitude towards peace had been no more than lukewarm. Against the
archbishop of Mainz’s attempts to transform the electoral conclave into a
peace congress, the Spanish government had made counter-proposals for a
conference in Rome—proposals that were highly disingenuous, because
they were offered only in the knowledge that such a venue would be
unacceptable on account of Cardinal Mazarin’s difficult relations with
Pope Alexander VII.
In the spring of 1659, just at the time when other circumstances were
finally turning the vision of a conference at the Pyrenees into a reality, there
appeared a detailed response to the discourse that Lionne had circulated
at Frankfurt eight months before.30 Authorship is uncertain, but its liter-
ary style, and its repeated references to the official correspondence of the
26
BNM Ms. 5542, ff. 32r–60r, especially ff. 55v–9r.
27
Malcolm, ‘La embajada del conde de Peñaranda’, 1458–9.
28
AGS Estado legajo 2368 (nos. 121–2); AGS Estado legajo 2675: La Fuente to Philip
IV, 6 November 1658; consultas, 9, 31 December 1658; papers of the count of Lamberg, 26
November, 16 December 1658; Rodríguez Hernández, ‘Las limitaciones de la paz’,
1382–3.
29
AGS Estado legajo 2368 (nos. 146–7); AGS Estado legajo 3918: consulta, 22 May
1666; SPM, Journal, vi, 54, 56.
30
BL Ms. Additional 14000, ff. 247r–67v.
Spanish delegation in central Europe, make it fairly safe to assume that it
was Peñaranda’s own work, or had been written by someone in his close
entourage. The document encapsulated his views on how peace should be
negotiated; and it provided a justification of his own conduct at Münster,
Brussels, and Frankfurt. It also provides the reader with insights into the
count’s relationship with the Spanish king and his valido. Lionne had
attributed to Philip IV a comment, supposedly made to a foreign diplomat
in 1652, that seemed to express royal displeasure at the recent failure to
make peace. Yet such an allegation was preposterous because anyone who
had actually met Philip IV would know that this kind of off-the-cuff remark
was all but impossible for a monarch whose inscrutability was notorious.
And, what was more, how could the Spanish king have denigrated his
minister whilst at the same time approving his appointment to the highest
offices in Madrid?31 The implicit answer was that no orders had been given
to make peace, just as no displeasure had been conveyed at the failure to do
so. The author went on to respond to the generalizations made by Lionne
about the Spanish political mentality: the obsession with providence, the
eager anticipation of political trouble in France, and the importance
ascribed to María Teresa were characteristics that could only apply to one
person. During the three months that the Frenchman had spent in Madrid
over the summer of 1656, the one Spanish minister with whom he had been
in contact had been don Luis de Haro.32 Lionne’s vivid portrayal of Spanish
optimism in the face of defeat therefore applied to the valido himself—an
attitude of mind that was becoming less and less typical of other ministers in
the late summer and autumn of 1658.
THE ROAD TO ELVAS
The reactivation of the long dormant conflict against Portugal in the late
1650s was both a repercussion of Haro’s existing political weakness and a
stimulant of further trouble. The decision had been made in December
1656, when the presence of the English fleet off Spain’s southern coasts,
along with the likelihood of Imperial assistance for the defence of Flanders
and Milan, encouraged a concentration of resources on Iberia. Also, the
recent death of John IV had led to the establishment in Lisbon of a
precarious regency to govern in the name of his son.33 Hopes therefore
ran high that an invasion of Portugal leading to the capture of a few key
strongholds might trigger a series of defections and revolts in Philip’s
31 32 33
Ibid., ff. 263r–v. Ibid., f. 267r. Valladares, La rebelión, 232–4.
favour. And, with the king’s mind committed to the preparations for a
great new enterprise in which there was a likelihood of easy victory, it was
very improbable that the instigator of such a policy would be dismissed. If
the invasion were a success, other setbacks would be forgotten; if it failed,
Haro’s skills as a logistical and financial manager would once again come
into their own in the organization of the resources necessary to sustain the
new conflict.
An indication of how the enterprise was to be financed can be found in
correspondence with the governor-general of Flanders. By the early
months of 1657, don Juan de Austria was finding it increasingly difficult
to persuade the bankers in Antwerp to honour letters of exchange from
Madrid, and was wondering why the services of the most solvent financier,
Andrea Pichinotti, were not being used. In reply, don Luis reassured him
that he would henceforth be basing the Flanders subsidies on ‘very secure
and reliable Castilian resources without the uncertainty of the galleons
and fleets’.34 This was protesting a little too much, and a few weeks later
the valido thought it necessary to provide some more explanation.35 The
campaign strategy in the western Iberian theatres, which he proceeded to
outline, would in no way impinge upon the monarchy’s other commit-
ments; instead it would be derived purely from the militias of Extrema-
dura and Andalusia, the veteran soldiers from the Atlantic fleet, and some
new regiments raised in Castile—as if these were any different in their
source of funding from the secure and reliable Castilian resources that had
previously been intended as the basis of provisions for the Netherlands!
By the summer of 1657 Haro’s political situation appeared to have
recovered. It was now clear that the newly expanded Junta de Estado was
not going to have the same kind of influence as its more exclusive prede-
cessor. In the autumn, the dissentient count of Oñate was persuaded by
some amazing feat of bargaining to accept the governor-generalship of
Milan, but the arrangement came unstuck when he fell ill in December
and his friends within the Council of State attempted to have the decision
reversed.36 Philip was now placed in a quandary which he sought to resolve
by reference to a special ‘committee of don Luis de Haro and the marquis of
Los Balbases’. This new institution unsurprisingly endorsed the opinions
that the marquis of Los Balbases had himself previously expressed within
the Council of State to the effect that Oñate’s appointment to the
34
RAH Ms. 9/91, ff. 86–v. See also Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 54, f. 77r.
35
RAH Ms. 9/91, ff. 109–10v.
36
AGS Estado legajo 3374 (nos. 117 and 122); Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 56, ff. 166v, 318v;
AJB, ii, 130.
governor-generalship should be upheld.37 When the count died on 22
February 1658 the question of the governor-generalship was once more
thrown open.38 Again, the Council of State was divided, and again Philip
followed the opinion of Los Balbases, this time to the effect that the present
governor, the count of Fuensaldaña, be asked to remain in Milan for the
time being.39 Such faith in the advice of the single member of the Council
of State who supported Haro was an indication of the revival of the latter’s
authority. Regardless of the providential occurrence of Oñate’s death, his
removal from the scene had already been skilfully arranged and Fuensalda-
ña’s conduct in Milan endorsed.
It was just as well that the valido was back in control, because his foreign
policy was once again turning sour. News arrived of the death of Emperor
Ferdinand III in May 1657 just as it was becoming clear that the invasion
of Portugal was not going to lead to the upsurge of loyal Habsburg feeling
that had been anticipated. By impeding the provision of further Austrian
assistance to Milan and Flanders, the Imperial interregnum destroyed the
conditions under which Haro’s Iberian strategy had been possible. So the
priority that had been placed on Portugal in the first half of 1657 now had
to be turned towards the financing of Peñaranda’s mission to central
Europe. At the beginning of June, the governor-general of Flanders was
given to understand that nearly 60,000 ducats from the money that had
been raised for dispatch to the Spanish Netherlands had now been
reassigned for immediate use at the court of the king of Hungary.40
Furthermore, on 20 June Peñaranda left Madrid with the promise of
almost 200,000 ducats to fund his embassy, not including the 60,000
already sent out in advance to the marquis of La Fuente. This money was to
be dispatched in letters of exchange negotiated on the Antwerp money
market through the correspondents of Andrea Pichinotti—the single reliable
financier whose services were apparently deemed too important to be wasted
on remittances for the Army of Flanders. The full cost of the embassy is not
known, but it would have been considerably in excess of 300,000 ducats.41
This was in comparison with the entire Brussels subsidy which was
scarcely more than 700,000 ducats in each of the years 1656 and 1657.42
37 38
AGS Estado legajo 3375 (nos. 1 and 2). Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 57, f. 118r.
39
AGS Estado legajo 3375 (nos. 6, 143 and 147).
40
RAH Ms. 9/91, f. 117r. See also AGS Estado legajo 2478: Philip IV to La Fuente,
2 June 1657; Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 54, f. 196r.
41
ADA 138: Haro to Peñaranda, 28 July, 8 August, 24 October 1657; AGS Estado
legajo 2368 (nos. 45, 58, 66, 134); AGS Estado legajo 2478: Philip IV to Peñaranda,
17 August 1658; AHN Estado libro 270, ff. 140v–1r, 148v–9v.
42
Figures derived from correspondence of Haro and Bennet. See also Domínguez Ortiz,
‘España ante la paz’, 173; Maffi, En defensa del imperio, 454–5.
The consequences of the shortfall were clearly to be seen in the capture
of a string of towns in the Spanish Netherlands during the late summer
and autumn of 1657: Montmédy, Saint Venant, and Bourbourg fell in
August and September, and Mardyke was taken after a siege of just four
days in October. The French successes had been assisted by the arrival of
English regiments, and the government in Brussels had been sent next to
nothing with which to respond. Despite Haro’s reassurances to don Juan,
the Flanders remittances had in effect become the first recourse for an
impoverished government in search of money to finance its commitments
elsewhere. And there was nowhere else to turn. Milan was surviving on
local resources and money from Naples; revenues in Spain were having to
be directed towards assembling a fleet to meet the treasure galleons
that were waiting in the Indies;43 the Army of Catalonia had been reduced
to a skeleton force, in part financed by the kingdoms of Valencia and
Aragón;44 and the money raised for the Portuguese invasion had all been
spent. In late October 1657, a sizeable Portuguese army crossed the river
Guadiana at Juromenha, and advanced to within sight of the Castilian
towns of Jerez de los Caballeros and Valencia de Alcántara.45
The following year, the situation went from bad to worse. In the early
summer of 1658, the Army of Flanders was cut to pieces in its fourth
major field action defeat in fifteen years. As usual, though, the government
in Madrid was more worried about affairs closer to home.46 Just the day
before the Battle of the Dunes, a Portuguese invasion force of 15,000
infantry and 2,000 cavalry arrived outside Badajoz.47 If this city fell, the
whole of Extremadura would be open to the enemy and Seville itself
would be under threat. On 27 July the marquis of Osera noted how Haro
was ‘much afflicted’ by his rivals, who were ‘brazenly taking advantage of
this danger to unsettle him’.48 The crisis raised questions about the
instigation of an active war against Portugal, which had been undertaken
on the valido’s own initiative, and against the better advice of the Council
of State. However, unbeknownst to Osera, Haro had that same day
volunteered to assemble and command a relief army himself.49 As Philip IV
43
Bodl. Mss. Clarendon 55, ff. 133v, 246; Clarendon 56, ff. 37v, 70v; AJB, ii,
90–1, 121, 123; CSPV, xxxi, 81.
44
BBMS Ms. 26/6/4, ff. 115r, 300r, 324r–5r, 332r–v, 340r–4r, 352r–5r, 360r–1v;
BNM Ms. 12621, ff. 31–6v.
45
Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 56, f. 37r; AJB, ii, 104, 106–7, 110, 115.
46
TNA SP 94/43, ff. 247r–v.
47
ASV Spagna, 117, ff. 303r–v; Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 58, f. 81v; AJB, ii, 198; DMO,
484, 494.
48
DMO, 588.
49
ASV Spagna, 117, f. 383r; ASV Spagna, 119, ff. 243r–v; Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 58,
ff. 147r–8v.
was no longer able to undergo the hardships of a military campaign, it
was the valido’s responsibility to take the king’s place. He left court on
25 August 1658 with unprecedented discretionary powers and a consid-
erable entourage, plus a baggage train that even included the magnificent
campaign tent that had once been used by Charles V.
The example encouraged other important noblemen and their retainers
to join the colours. Contributions flooded in from the great cities of
Andalusia, which, along with the recently introduced taxes, served to
fund a substantial war budget of some 260,000 ducats a month.50 As
summer turned to autumn, it became clear that the danger was not quite
as great as had at first been imagined; Badajoz was well defended, and the
Portuguese had already suffered serious losses. The pendulum thus seemed
to be swinging back in Haro’s direction, and it now appeared likely that
the raising of the siege would be followed by further military efforts to
trigger the much desired reconciliation between Philip and his wayward
subjects.51 By the third week of October, the Portuguese had retreated
across the border, and much of what was left of their army was holed up in
the city of Elvas.52 If Haro could capture this place, then other towns and
provinces might follow in its wake, and he would be able to return to
Madrid with an unassailable political advantage.53 No such luck. By the
last weeks of December, renewed optimism was reverting back to serious
concern. Over the course of the autumn the valido’s army had been
depleted by disease and desertion, and it was understood that a large
Portuguese relief force was on the move.54 On the morning of 14 January
1659, the count of Cantanhede’s men battered their way through the
Spanish siege works, forcing the invaders into a disorderly retreat.55 The
Elvas incident had been a shambles, but for Haro the true frustration
consisted less in the defeat itself than in what he considered had so nearly
been in his grasp.56 As things now stood, a conclusion (however tempor-
ary) to hostilities with France was becoming ever more necessary.
50
ADA 138: Haro to Peñaranda, 27 August 1658; ADA 220/14: Osuna to Haro,
5 August 1658; ASV Spagna, 117, ff. 413v–14r, 420r–v, 433r, 439v, 468v; ASV Spagna,
121, ff. 60r–v; Bodl. Mss. Clarendon 58, f. 199v; Clarendon 59, f. 63r.
51
Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 58, f. 363r; IVDJ Envío 85/117.
52
ADA 138: Haro to Peñaranda, 24(?) October 1658; Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 59, ff. 83r,
131r, 132v, 153r–v; Ericeira, Historia, iii, 141–3.
53
Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 59, ff. 187r, 243v, 270r.
54
ASV Spagna, 121, ff. 60r–v.
55
BNM Ms. 2387, ff. 5r–15r, 38r–53v; Ericeira, Historia, iii, 204–27; António Paulo
David Duarte, Linhas de Elvas, 1659: prova de força (Lisbon, 2003), 68–76.
56
ADA 232/1: Haro to La Fuente, 20 February 1659, Haro to Fuensaldaña, 5 March
1659, Haro to Fuensaldaña 12 May 1659; RAH Ms. 9/91, f. 153r: Haro to Don Juan, 28
February 1659.
DON ANTONIO PIMENTEL DE PRADO
The development of the peace process between August 1658 and its
conclusion at the Pyrenees in November 1659 closely reflected Haro’s
domestic political situation. His regime had been based on the pursuit of
an ambitious foreign policy, and on the maintenance of stability in
Madrid. Both of these prerequisites were now coming unstuck. The
collapse of Spain’s war effort was leading Philip IV—admittedly in a
somewhat halting way—to seek counsel from a wider circle of noblemen.
As the environment around the valido became more difficult, the prospect
for a settlement to Spain’s wars became more likely. Research by Daniel
Séré and Lynn Williams has emphasized the parts played by the king and
the Council of State in pushing forward such an outcome.57 In line with
their conclusions, it is possible to refine our understanding of the different
forces at play by examining the peace process in the context of themes
previously encountered within this book. The expectations placed on the
king; the link between political influence and access to the monarch; the
extra level of discretionary authority exerted by ministers in the field;
the growing uneasiness of even the valido’s ministerial allies about where
he was leading the monarchy—all these were aspects governing the
relationships that existed between Philip IV, Haro, and the wider political
elite, and would play their different parts as the negotiations unfolded.
When the valido left Madrid at the end of August 1658, there was at
first no indication that his authority would in any way be diminished. All
business had to be sent out to his field headquarters several hundred miles
away, and everybody bemoaned the delays.58 Whilst he remained in
regular written communication with the king, his allies the marquis of
Los Balbases, don Juan de Góngora, and don Fernando de Fonseca Ruiz
de Contreras acted as something of a regency triumvirate for the manage-
ment of business in Madrid.59 The duke of Medina de las Torres, as the
most senior member of the Council of State, ought also to have had a say,
but it took time for his influence to appear. He seems to have been
distracted by the lengthy negotiations for his marriage to the daughter of
the count of Oñate, and although he was consulted on important matters,
the affairs of the diplomatic community for the moment were handled by
57
Séré, ‘La paix des Pyrénées ou la paix du roi’, 249, 253; Williams, ‘Jornada de
D. Luis’, 126 (n. 22), 134.
58
Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 59, f. 153v.
59
ADA 138: Haro to Peñaranda, 27 August 1658; ASV Spagna, 117, f. 420v; ASV
Spagna, 119, ff. 247r–v; Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 58, f. 200r; DMO, 668.
Los Balbases, and Ruiz de Contreras.60 As late as 4 January 1659, scarcely
two weeks before Elvas, it seemed that the valido’s position was still quite
secure. On that day the duke absented himself from the baptism of
Philip’s second son, Fernando Tomás, supposedly because he had been
refused the place of honour that would have been occupied by the valido
had the latter been at court.61
Nevertheless, the ability to maintain political supremacy at a distance
from Madrid did not necessarily equate to control over the diplomatic
process itself. In the middle of October 1658 don Antonio Pimentel de
Prado was sent to the French court on a secret mission to try to bring an
end to the fighting. Two months earlier, he had arrived in Madrid with
letters from the count of Fuensaldaña warning of the calamitous state of
Milan’s defences, and requesting the count’s recall. Fuensaldaña’s
seventeenth-century biographer Michel-Ange de Vuoerden believed that
Pimentel had also been primed by the count on how to negotiate a peace,
and that the final Pyrenees outcome of November 1659 had actually been
conceived in Milan fifteen months before.62 This is unlikely, as it is
also unlikely that Fuensaldaña had any advance knowledge of Mazarin’s
intentions to marry Louis XIV to a princess of the House of Savoy.63 It is
important therefore not to exaggerate the significance of Pimentel’s mis-
sion at this early stage. The instructions that were given to him in Spain
were to request a temporary ceasefire, and to present a personal letter from
Philip IV to his sister Anne of Austria.64 He was also under a strict time
limit to secure the ceasefire, failing which the Spanish government had a
reserve plan that appears (at least in Haro’s mind) to have consisted in
offering the infanta’s hand to the emperor.65
In fact, the valido was as anxious as possible to limit the scope of a
mission that had arisen almost by accident. Before Pimentel had arrived
on the scene, arrangements were being made for the secretary of the
Council of Flanders, Jacques Brecht, to be sent to Brussels in order to
conduct an investigation into the administration there. During the days
either side of Haro’s departure from Madrid on 25 August, Brecht’s remit
seems to have expanded to include an attempt to meet with Anne of
Austria whilst passing through Paris, and, if such an opportunity should
60
AGS Estado K1686 (nos. 111, 112); ASV Spagna, 119, f. 326r; Bodl. Ms. Clarendon
59, ff. 8r–9r, 46r–7r, 132r, 171r, 172r, 186r–v, 226r, 243r, 244r.
61
DMO, 868.
62
MAC Mss. 755, f. 68r; 760, ff. 227v–8v.
63
Séré, ‘Mazarin et la “comédie de Lyon” ’.
64
Saltillo, ‘Don Antonio Pimentel’, 28–9, 98–103.
65
AGS Estado K1686 (nos. 53, 77, 88). However, see Williams, Jornadas, 26 (n. 16);
Williams, ‘Jornada de D. Luis’, 124.
materialize, to request a ceasefire and hint at the possibility of a future
peace and marriage.66 This went beyond the valido’s intentions, and don
Antonio Pimentel’s arrival in September offered him a means to regain
control of the negotiations. Pimentel had had previous dealings with
Mazarin and Christina of Sweden, which made him ideal to make initial
approaches, and possibly guide Anne of Austria in the right direction.
However, he was not qualified in status or experience to handle the detail
of the business, and still less (as a client of Fuensaldaña) to act as a
representative of the interests of the prince of Condé. As far as Haro was
concerned, the main objective was to bring a temporary halt to French
advances at the expense of the wider monarchy, but no more. Sure
enough, on Pimentel’s arrival at the French court towards the end of
November, Mazarin quickly realized the limitations of his mission and
was understandably suspicious. Anne of Austria’s enthusiasm, however,
meant that the envoy had to be given time to send for proper powers and
instructions.67
It was during this interval, in November and December 1658, that
Haro once again let slip his hold over the diplomatic process. On the face
of it the general atmosphere in Madrid continued to be as oblivious as ever
towards the need to bring an end to the war. However, the letters that
Philip wrote to Sor María de Ágreda conveyed a sense of profound upset
that Dunkirk should have been allowed to fall into the hands of English
heretics, and that the Spanish position in Italy and the Low Countries was
about to collapse altogether.68 By the beginning of January 1659, Bennet
began to report on how the talk at court was finally turning towards a
general peace.69 The duke of Medina de las Torres and the marquis of
Velada, who had now been let in on the secret of Pimentel’s mission, were
urging Philip to be more compromising, and Ruiz de Contreras was
growing ever more anxious about Haro’s continued absence from
court.70 The day before the battle of Elvas, the valido found himself at
last having to put together formal instructions necessary for don Antonio
to negotiate a full peace and a French marriage.71 This was a climbdown,
but if all went well there would still be a chance to prevent ratification of
66
AGS Estado K1686 (nos. 52, 53); AGS Estado legajo 2368 (no. 140); Saltillo, ‘Don
Antonio Pimentel’, 107.
67
ASV Spagna, 121, ff. 85r–6r; LCMPSM, ix, 113–14; Chéruel, Histoire de France, iii,
207–11; Valfrey, Hugues de Lionne, 227–9.
68
CSMA, ii, 106, 110, 115, 117, 119, 125–6.
69
Bodl. Mss. Clarendon 58, f. 186r; Clarendon 59, f. 153v; TNA SP 94/43, ff. 266r,
269v.
70
BL Ms. Additional 14000, ff. 277r–8r; Saltillo, ‘Don Antonio Pimentel’, 40–5; Séré, La
paix des Pyrénées, 343–4.
71
AGS Estado K1616: Haro to Pimentel, 13 January 1659.
whatever the envoy might be persuaded to sign. Yet all did not go well. On
25 January, having been lucky to escape with his life after the Elvas defeat,
and with his political future very uncertain, don Luis sent an urgent letter
ordering Pimentel to defend the interests of Condé before Anne of
Austria. It was advice from a beleaguered valido on how to bring influence
to bear upon a susceptible royal person.72
In Madrid, news of the setback in Portugal reached the king on 19
January. Philip apparently showed great relief when he heard that Haro
was safe.73 Yet the knives were out. That day the marquis of Osera
encountered the duke of Medina de las Torres, surrounded by triumphant
retainers as he was being carried in his chair down the great staircase of the
Alcázar palace. Meanwhile, the marquis of Aytona, still furious at having
been refused the viceroyalty of Sicily, was criticizing the valido’s judge-
ment within earshot of the king.74 The atmosphere amongst the common
people was also turning ugly. Exaggerated figures were bandied around for
how much the enterprise against Portugal had cost: 5 million ducats for
the invasion, plus 4 million lost in plunder to the enemy—including the
treasured campaign tent of Charles V, which Haro, who was not a
member of the royal family, had no right to have been using.75 Pasquin-
ades were appearing in public places and satirical literature was circulating.
Crowds were gathering in front of the Alcázar to declaim against bad
government, and stones were thrown at the windows of the valido’s house.
On 14 February Haro entered the capital in secret and under cover of
night. He went straight to Philip, and they were enclosed for some time,
whereupon don Luis emerged with a smile on his face to kiss hands with
the queen and infantas.76
BIRDS COMING HOME TO ROOST
For the moment, in the early spring of 1659, the position of the valido
once again appeared to be safe, but it remained to be seen whether he
would be able to exert the same authority as before. The political envir-
onment was becoming crowded. New appointments were being made that
would broaden membership of the Council of State to include the duke of
72 73
AGS Estado K1424 (no. 18b). TNA SP 94/43, f. 271r.
74
DMO, 889–91.
75
ADA Montijo 17: Osera to don Joseph de Villalpando, 21 December 1658;
DMO, 893.
76
ASV Spagna, 121, ff. 72r–3r, 92r–v; DMO, 932–3; Sátira política, 12, 16–19, 38–70.
Terranova and don Fernando de Borja. These were the first significant
promotions to this institution in many years, and it was inevitable that
those still excluded would be disappointed. One of them was the duke of
Montalto. He had just come back from Valencia, and believed himself
entitled to a position of influence in Madrid. Yet he also carried a
reputation as a troublemaker, having been involved with malcontent
grandees during the early 1640s, before finding himself the (probably
innocent) figurehead for a secessionist conspiracy in Sicily.77 The duke’s
situation was echoed by a still more important figure: the king’s natural
son don Juan José de Austria, whose homecoming from Brussels was
imminent. Attention to how these returning noblemen were accommo-
dated will serve to enhance what we already know about Haro’s skill as a
manager of people, and about the particular dangers that he faced when
the king left Madrid for the more intimate surroundings of his palaces in
the country. It will also help us to appreciate the valido’s subsequent
successes against Cardinal Mazarin at the Pyrenees.
The duke of Montalto was one of the first to greet don Luis de Haro as
he emerged from his audience with the king on 14 February 1659. The
previous October, this aristocrat had been appointed ambassador in
Vienna to congratulate Leopold I on his election; it would have been his
fourth overseas appointment in a career spanning nearly twenty-five years,
and he had no wish to go on his travels again.78 However, the post-Elvas
climate gave him cause for hope, and, having been reassured by the
secretary Ruiz de Contreras that Haro was now back in universal control,
the duke decided to try his luck. Between February and April 1659 he
would hold four lengthy meetings with the valido, and their outcome
would be successful inasmuch as the duke would be allowed a comfortable
existence at court, if not the political influence to which he aspired.
At first, he found the chastened valido more sympathetic than he had
expected. Also encouraging was the king’s attitude, for, in an unusual
display of intimacy, Philip took the trouble to engage the duke of
Montalto in private conversation about paintings. But then something
went wrong. On 25 March, he found to his dismay that his dispatch
to central Europe was still on the cards, and it took another month
before a compromise solution could finally be worked out: the duke
would be excused the embassy, but would have to rest content for the
77
Koenigsberger, ‘The Revolt of Palermo in 1647’, 143; González Asenjo, Don Juan
José de Austria, 103–6; D’Angelo, ‘La capitale di uno stato feudale’, 29–31.
78
For what follows, see AHN Estado libro 104: Montalto to Castel Rodrigo, 25
February, 28 March, 25 April, 19 June 1659.
moment with a senior office within the queen’s household. Haro broke
the news amidst a histrionic show of intimacy:
Having looked from one side of the room to the other, and having closed two
doors, he told me, as one gentleman to another, and begging my word to
keep the secret, . . . that what the king had decided was to give me the office
of master of the queen’s horse, accommodating the grey hairs of don
Fernando de Borja with a post of honourable retirement.79
These were words uttered not as a minister of the king, ‘but as don Luis de
Haro, friend of the duke of Montalto.’ To which the latter asked whether
as a friend of the duke of Montalto he could countenance Borja entering
the Council of State whilst he remained outside. The valido responded
evasively by seeking to persuade the duke of his future protection: ‘do not
trouble yourself so greatly, my lord duke of Montalto. Let yourself be
governed by your friends, and trust in me.’80 The reassurances worked, for
the duke would remain a loyal ally for the final years of the regime, even
though it would take a while longer before he was allowed into the
Council of State.
What are we to make of these exchanges? On Haro’s part they
amounted to a combination of delaying tactics, and personal manipula-
tion (as one gentleman to another) in order to entice a truculent grandee
into the acceptance of a role in Madrid that was less influential than the
latter had desired. The valido was also (with the help of Ruiz de Contreras)
doing his utmost to give the impression that he was still in command of
appointments. Yet appearances could be deceptive. It may have been at
Haro’s instigation that Montalto was denied entry to the Council of State,
but this was a small success, and don Fernando de Borja’s admission to
that institution constituted a potentially much greater problem. It is also
quite likely that Haro needed the presence of a grandee, like Montalto, to
bolster the king of Spain’s representation at the Imperial court, and that
the duke’s refusal of the post was a setback. The audience on 25 March
1659, in which Montalto was told that he might, after all, have to go to
Vienna, found don Luis briefly in a stronger position amidst growing
doubts about the likely success of the Paris negotiations.81 Yet hopes for
the continuation of the war proved short-lived. On 7 April the marquis of
Osera had an audience in which Haro seemed remote, ‘as though he were
79
AHN Estado libro 104: Montalto to Castel Rodrigo, 19 June 1659.
80
Ibid.
81
ASV Spagna, 121, ff. 102r–3r, 127r; TNA SP 94/43, f. 274r; DMO, 992; Williams,
Jornadas, 33–5; Séré, La paix des Pyrénées, 373–7.
absorbed and immersed in other matters and unattentive to ours.’82 Then,
two weeks later, the valido’s final interview with Montalto, in which he
informed the duke of his appointment to the queen’s household, took
place at around the same time as orders were sent to don Antonio
Pimentel de Prado to do whatever was necessary to secure a ceasefire.
The display of genial affability thus disguised a very difficult predicament,
and indicated a need to cultivate friends wherever they could be found.
A few days later Haro fell seriously ill, just at the moment when the king
was departing on his spring visit to Aranjuez.
Philip left Madrid on 16 April, and would be gone for nearly a month.
He took with him the queen, the two infantas, and their close personal
retinues. The latter included the the marquis of Tarazona and the duke of
Terranova—both acting gentlemen of the chamber—along with the
marquis of Malpica, who held the post of steward. Other aristocrats,
such as the count of Medellín, the marquis of Villafranca, and the marquis
of Osera, came and went for shorter periods. The early days of the visit
were interrupted by heavy rain, but the king was still able to enjoy the
gardens, as well as go hunting in the company of the marquis of Orani,
who served as first equerry (primer caballerizo). The duke of Medina de las
Torres was there too, although he delayed his arrival until 20 April. Haro,
who remained in Madrid, had to rely on his allies, who, in addition to
Tarazona, included the admiral of Castile and the ubiquitous Ruiz de
Contreras. It was also fortunate for him that the marquis of Aytona,
normally one of Philip’s most assiduous companions, was on this occasion
unable to be present until the final days of the visit.83
This was the setting for Philip’s meetings with his bastard son, don Juan
de Austria. There is no real evidence that the young man harboured ill
feelings towards Haro. In fact he had always been anxious to seek the
valido’s assistance against aristocrats whom he believed were trying to
undermine him.84 Nevertheless, for an insecure minister-favourite who
was clearly jealous of his relationship with the king, don Juan’s arrival back
in Spain could hardly have come at a worse time.85 For over three months
the young man was forced to reside in different locations around Madrid,
but on 22 and 23 April he made two visits to see his father at Aranjuez,
visits that were made at the behest of the duke of Medina de las Torres.86
82
DMO, 1034. He was also known to be upset at the death of a granddaughter: ASV Spagna,
120, ff. 307r–v.
83
DMO, 1058–61, 1107.
84
BL Ms. Egerton 616, f. 64r; RAH ms 9/91, ff. 95r–v; RAH Ms. 9/103, ff. 160r–4r,
207r–11r.
85
TNA SP 94/43, f. 141r; RAV, 267.
86
DMO, 1063–5; González Asenjo, Don Juan José de Austria, 315–19.
The meetings were formal, but Philip was reported to be overjoyed by his
son’s return, and Ruiz de Contreras never let him out of his sight. In the
meantime, Haro, who had been confined to his house in Madrid on
account of a painful abscess on his leg, found himself obliged to rise
from his sickbed in order to go out to meet the new arrival at Alcoben-
das.87 We do not know what passed between them, but it is clear that the
beleaguered minister-favourite was deeply uneasy about Philip’s son being
allowed to reside in Madrid. It would not be until the beginning of July—
just a few days after Haro had departed for the Pyrenees—that don Juan
would finally be accommodated at the Retiro.88
DISOBEDIENCE ABROAD
The unwelcome presence of competing forces around the king was

accompanied by a cooling of old friendships. In March 1659, the count
of Fuensaldaña, annoyed at not being allowed to return to Madrid, and
frustrated at having to preside over what he thought would be the
imminent fall of Milan, took the law into his hands by negotiating an
unauthorized peace treaty with the duke of Modena.89 A few months later
it was the turn of the count of Peñaranda to lose patience. Over the winter
the emperor had given his approval for a new peace congress at Augsburg.
In truth, this was an initiative about which Haro seemed to know nothing,
and he found himself in the embarrassing position of having to explain to
the papal nuncio that ‘because he had been absent from court for the space
of five months many things had happened without his full direction.’90
However, the count of Peñaranda was suspicious. As far as he was
concerned, big congresses were devices that were used by minister-
favourites in order to obstruct the peace process. He could contain himself
no longer:
I should like to know out of curiosity what personal convenience Your
Excellency might have in the continuation of the war? What offices do you
acquire for your person or your household in military appointments? What
posts do you occupy with your own men? What contributions do you extract
from the provinces? What courtly humours that are dangerous to Your
87
ADA 232/1: Haro to Fuensaldaña, 12 May 1659; ADA 233/20: Haro to Peñaranda,
10 May 1659; AHN Estado libro 104: Montalto to Castel Rodrigo, 25 April 1659; DMO,
1051, 1054, 1075, 1079–81, 1103, 1109, 1111, 1118.
88
ASV Spagna, 120, f. 485r.
89
ADA 232/1: Fuensaldaña to Haro, 17 March 1659; LCMOVS, i, 262–6.
90
ASV Spagna, 121, ff. 93r–v.
Excellency do you purge or correct with this means, by getting rid of notable
men who, if they were established at court, might undermine Your Excel-
lency’s future? . . . If all these considerations, or just some of them, are as
important to Your Excellency as they are to other validos, I would go along
with those who have doubts about your intentions with regard to the
peace.91
The count may have been writing with his tongue in his cheek, and he was
careful to reserve judgement until he was fully in possession of the facts,
but these were still extraordinary words. Here was someone very close to
the valido who was explicitly presenting the problem of the minister-
favourite within a contemporary Spanish context. By apparently condon-
ing a congress that had no realistic chance of leading to a peace, Haro
seemed (at least for the moment) to be behaving just like Mazarin,
Richelieu, and all the others.
Two days before the count fired off his rebuke from Naples, news had
reached Madrid on 21 May that don Antonio Pimentel de Prado had
concluded a ceasefire with Cardinal Mazarin. The so-called Treaty of Paris
provided for the exclusion of Portugal, and included an acceptable terri-
torial settlement. The wording of some of the articles was considered
disrespectful towards Philip IV, but this could be settled at a forthcom-
ing meeting between Haro and Mazarin, whose principal purpose would
be to arrange the marriage between Louis XIV and Philip’s elder daughter.92
Yet relief turned to outrage when the terms that Pimentel had nego-
tiated for the prince of Condé became known. The Paris treaty specifically
forbad the king of Spain from providing any serious form of com-
pensation to the prince for the loss of his offices in France, and even
went so far as to threaten his total exclusion from France if he did not
cooperate.93 Back in 1656, at the time of the meetings in Madrid, the idea
of Philip IV providing some form of recompense to Condé had seemed
acceptable to Lionne.94 Yet now it appeared as though the point had been
lost, and that Pimentel had committed Philip IV to a worse deal than that
which had previously been on the table.95 This awkward situation would
never have come about had it not been for the valido’s prolonged absence
from court, his loss of authority after the Elvas defeat, and the accidental
91
ADA 233/20: Peñaranda to Haro, 23 May 1659.
92
Williams, ‘España y Francia cara a cara en la frontera’, 166, 176.
93
Abreu (Felipe IV, part vi), 432.
94
Séré, La paix des Pyrénées, 241–2, 249–50.
95
AGS Estado K1616: Haro to Pimentel, 13 January 1659. See also Malcolm, ‘Don
Luis’, 230–3.
placement of such important affairs in the hands of a lesser minister who
was clearly out of his depth.
Peñaranda, who perhaps regretted his own previous adherence to the
valido’s orders, described Pimentel as a ‘poor man’ for whom ‘it mattered
more . . . to have appeared in the gazettes as plenipotentiary of the king for
a negotiation of this quality than all the fine detail of the business itself.’96
In happier times, don Luis should have been able to overturn the settle-
ment, just as Richelieu had done with the treaty of Ratisbon nearly thirty
years before. However, as things now stood, there was nothing else for it
but to try to work out a more favourable settlement at a personal meeting
with Mazarin. In the powers accorded to him for the occasion, the modest
valido was carefully represented with all his titles and offices—perhaps out
of fear lest people might otherwise forget that he was still, at least in name,
Philip IV’s ‘first and principal minister’.97
CONCLUSION: THE PYRENEES
On 11 June 1659, when the ceasefire had been concluded, but before the
details of the Treaty of Paris were known in Madrid, the duke of Medina
de las Torres was already claiming credit for the peace. He declared to the
papal nuncio that it had been he all along who had been responsible for
the decision to send don Antonio Pimentel de Prado into France the
previous autumn. This was a likely story told by a notorious opportunist,
but the duke did have some justification when he also blamed the valido
for wanting to perpetuate the conflict on the grounds that ‘in time of war
the fortunes of prime ministers were less at risk’.98 Indeed, there was some
concern amongst Philip’s other ministers about how far the valido might
be prepared in his negotiations with Mazarin to jeopardize the recent
settlement for the sake of Condé’s interests. Don Fernando de Borja was
quick to remind Philip that his first obligation was to look to the universal
welfare, rather than to endanger it in favour of private interests.99 Medina
went further, and warned the king that if he allowed the Treaty of Paris to
be broken he would bring divine wrath upon his monarchy, and bear the
guilt for all the bloodshed, death, and destruction that would ensue.100
96
ADA 233/20: Peñaranda to Haro, 10 September 1659. Also ASV Spagna, 121, ff.
237r–v.
97 98
Abreu (Felipe IV, part vii), 230, 234–5. ASV Spagna, 121, ff. 223r–4v.
99
Séré, La paix des Pyrénées, 403.
100
Saltillo, ‘Don Antonio Pimentel’, 113, 116–17.
This was the language of Sor María de Ágreda and the court dévot party
of the 1640s. It added up to an another attempt to influence Philip
through his conscience, but was also based on a clear understanding of
the monarchy’s exhaustion after so many years of war. Against this, Haro’s
insistence that his master was honour-bound to support Condé to the
bitter end rang hollow, and it is worth pausing to consider just why he
should have been so obsessed with the prince’s full restoration. The answer
certainly did not lie with any fear that Condé might abandon Philip IV in
order to make his own reconciliation with a regime that had done its
utmost to make the conditions of his return to France as humiliating as
possible. The prince himself had protested on several occasions that he did
not want to stand in the way of the peace. Moreover, the valido’s trust in
his loyalty was so profound that he even quite seriously considered
Condé’s appointment as governor-general of the Spanish Netherlands.101
Rather, the crux of the matter again lay with Haro’s domestic political
situation. The 1651 treaty amounted to a defining aspect of his ministry;
Philip IV’s responsibility for the prince’s interests had provided the
best possible justification for the war that sustained the valimiento; and
Condé’s honourable re-establishment in France would finally vindicate
all the effort.
The meetings at the Pyrenees took place over the course of twenty-
five lengthy encounters spread out between the middle of August
and the beginning of November 1659. From the outset there was a
definite sense of occasion in the way each side was responsible for provid-
ing the tapestries, paintings, carpets, and furniture to decorate a confer-
ence centre that was built on an island in the middle of a river exactly
marking the border between France and Spain.102 There were also sizeable
retinues, and amongst Haro’s men were to be found many of his close
supporters, like the count of Santisteban and the baron de Watteville. His
secretaries were also there in abundance, as was his household, which was
headed by his lord chamberlain don Pedro de Azcona, his master of the
horse don Alonso de Brezosa, and his principal steward don Gregorio
Ortiz de Santecilla. Amidst the pageantry, expectations were high. Peñar-
anda, writing from Naples, interpreted the event in theatrical terms: a
cathartic moment by which it would at last become clear whether the
101
ADA 233/20: Haro to Peñaranda, 6 September 1659; ADA 232/1: Haro to La
Fuente, 27 September 1659; ADA 220/14: Haro to Mancera, 12 October 1659; AGS Estado
K1622 (no. 17); AGS Estado K1686 (nos. 106, 112); ASV Spagna, 121, ff. 174r–5r; BL Ms.
Additional 14000, ff. 299v, 300v–1r.
102
Colomer, ‘Paz política, rivalidad suntuaria’, 61–5.
performance had been a comedy that would end in a marriage, or a tragedy
that would lead to the renewal of war.103
As the onlookers awaited the outcome, Haro was busy lulling his
opponent into a false sense of security. Mazarin described the encounters
in letters that he wrote to Michel Le Tellier that were read aloud to Louis
XIV and Anne of Austria.104 He portrayed himself as being in full control
of the negotiations, but as summer turned to autumn, and as the French
court waited impatiently at Bordeaux, the confidence of the cardinal’s
letters somehow failed to tally with his inability to secure the infanta’s
arrival at the frontier before the onset of winter.105 In the meantime, Haro
had established a strong negotiating position. He did everything possible
to raise expectations by ensuring that the terms for the marriage between
Louis and María Teresa were quickly agreed; and he knew how to play
upon Mazarin’s desire for towns in the Spanish Netherlands as a price
for the prince of Condé’s restoration.106 He also understood, and was
prepared to exploit—as Pimentel had not—the cardinal’s situation as a
minister-favourite who depended utterly on the support of his ruler.
On 30 August, María Teresa’s dowry was fixed at just under half a
million ducats and the renunciation of her inheritance was agreed.107
With the marriage settlement as good as complete, the cardinal was a
man in a hurry to conclude the treaty, but the valido seemed to have all the
time in the world, and was no longer quite so willing to make generous
offers on behalf of the prince.108 After all, Louis XIV was hardly likely to
allow the negotiations over Condé’s interests to be broken off, now that
his marriage had been arranged, and Mazarin’s threats to terminate the
conference were met with the response that if he did so, his political
situation in France would no longer be tenable.109 It was a case of one
minister-favourite spelling out to another their shared predicament.
On 11 September the cardinal was obliged to inform the French royal
family that there would be no possibility of bringing the infanta to the
frontier that year.110 The letters requesting dispensation from the pope
could not be sent off until Philip had provided his formal consent to the
marriage, and this could not be obtained until a special embassy had been
103
ADA 233/20: Peñaranda to Haro, 23 May 1659.
104
Mémoires de . . . Brienne, ii, 13–14.
105
LCMOVS, i, 245–6, 270–5, 353–5, 399–400.
106
RAH Ms. 9/659, ff. 137r–v; LCMOVS, i, 336.
107
ADA 233/20: Haro to Peñaranda, 6 September 1659; Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 63,
f. 274r; LP, 46–7.
108
LCMOVS, i, 371–2, 394.
109
Ibid., i, 417–19; LP, 65. See also ADA 233/20: Peñaranda to Haro, 30 September
1659.
110
RAH Ms. 9/659, ff. 91v–2r; LCMOVS, ii, 21–9.
dispatched to Madrid to request María Teresa’s hand on Louis XIV’s
behalf. Philip also intended to accompany his daughter to the frontier and,
with the winter snows, there could be no hope of a marriage before the
spring.111 Deeply concerned, Cardinal Mazarin was so convinced of
Haro’s sincerity that he even took the Spaniard into his confidence:
He [Mazarin] did not know how he was going to break this to the king and
queen [Louis XIV and Anne of Austria], because it would greatly shock
them, and moreover would have very ill consequences within the kingdom
[of France] and everywhere, because, if the king and queen, having come to
Bordeaux, should [then] return to Paris, and it thus became known that the
marriage had been delayed, everyone would conclude that there was to be no
marriage and no peace, for one did not come without the other.112
The fourteenth conference on 21 September went badly.113 Haro reiter-
ated the logistical impossibility of bringing the infanta to the frontier
before the spring, and went on to bring up four new objections that would
have the potential to delay the signing of the treaty even further. First, he
wanted to establish the claims of Condé’s son, the duke of Enghien, to
the governorships of Berry and Champagne. Next, he thought that the
wording of the articles relating to Condé was not sufficiently honourable
for the prince. Further, he suggested that there was also a problem about
the dependencies of Avesnes—the town that had been agreed as the price
for Condé’s full restoration. And finally, he attempted to fudge any
specific concession of Conflent by insisting on the appointment of
boundary commissioners who would decide whether the place lay north
or south of the Pyrenees. Nevertheless, to show that there were no hard
feelings, and in a sublime display of fineza, Haro chose precisely this
moment to present the cardinal with twenty-fine Andalusian horses.114
The act of generosity gave the valido a psychological advantage neces-
sary to win more concessions at the fifteenth conference on 25 September:
he could not express with greater apparent sincerity his despair at how
recent incidents had upset their new friendship; the negotiations, he
believed, had now gone too far for them not to be concluded without
everyone’s satisfaction; and he went on to pay so many compliments to his
opponent that the latter could not but agree to a compromise wording
over Conflent and even make promises that he would intercede with Louis
in order to secure Enghien’s claims to his governorships at some later
111
LCMOVS, ii, 55–9.
112
RAH Ms. 9/659, f. 97r. Also LCMOVS, ii, 59. Charles I of Great Britain had been
placed in a similar situation when he visited Madrid as Prince of Wales in 1623. See
Redworth, The Prince and the Infanta, 117–18.
113 114
LCMOVS, ii, 66–81. Ibid., 66; LCMPSM, ix, 273–4.
Figure 8.1 The village of Montoro was located close to the other estates of the
marquises of El Carpio along the Upper Guadalquivir valley east of Córdoba.
Haro was given the title of duke of Montoro in recognition of his success in
negotiating an honourable peace settlement with Cardinal Mazarin by the Treaty
of the Pyrenees. Author’s photograph
date.115 This was not quite the end of the matter, but by 1 October it was
possible to finalize the articles relating to Condé and the territorial
settlement to Haro’s satisfaction.116 Having done so, the duke of Gramont
commenced his journey to Madrid, where, on 16 October, at a public
audience held in the Alcázar palace, he formally requested the infanta’s
hand in marriage for Louis XIV. The Spanish king’s assent was willingly
given, and great celebrations ensued.
Taking everything into consideration, there can be no denying that the
Peace of the Pyrenees was far more favourable to the Spanish side than
anybody could have believed possible. The valido would be richly
rewarded for his efforts, and deservedly so (Figure 8.1). He had snatched
diplomatic victory from the jaws of military defeat. Louis would be
marrying a Spanish bride, which (it was hoped) would make the peace
secure; Portugal had been excluded from the treaty; the interests of the
duke of Lorraine had been upheld; and, after all the argument, Condé’s
restoration had been secured at the cost of no more than the towns
of Avesnes and Jülich—the latter of which belonged anyway to the
115 116
LCMOVS, ii, 84, 85–8, 91–2. LP, 94–8, n. 163; LCMOVS, ii, 109–18.
duke of Neuburg.117 Such an achievement was the result of one minister-
favourite’s ability to understand and exploit the political weakness of
another. Having spent much of his career excluding his adversaries from
the presence of Philip IV, don Luis had now himself become a minister in
the field with the initiative to bend the rules as he best saw fit. An essential
part of his strategy was to keep Mazarin away from Louis and Anne of
Austria for as long as it took to ensure a satisfactory renegotiation of the
unfortunate treaty of Paris. Despite everything, the cardinal remained
convinced of his opponent’s sincerity. He had, after all, been dealing with
a courtier who knew how to apply his skills as a manager of individuals to
the practice of international diplomacy. Foreign policy and domestic policy
had become one and the same.
117
Abreu (Felipe IV, part vii), 188–90. See also LP, 101–8; Malcolm, ‘Don Luis’,
247–9.
Aftermath
The Unravelling of a Valimiento, 1659–61
The success that don Luis de Haro had achieved in the conclusion of a
favourable peace with France was confirmed by the important role that he
was accorded during the royal visit to the Pyrenees the following spring.
He continued to act as plenipotentiary in the ongoing negotiations
with Cardinal Mazarin, and he was also granted the honour of represent-
ing Louis at the proxy marriage service that took place at Fuenterrabía on
3 June.1 He thus played the role of surrogate bridegroom for a foreign
prince, and further enhanced that association with sovereignty which was
discussed in Chapter 6 as helping to legitimize his authority as valido.
Over the course of the three meetings between the French and Spanish
royal families, he acquitted himself with his customary modesty and good
taste, taking credit for the reconciliation which (rather in spite of himself)
he had brought about.
Another pre-eminent courtier who was also at the Pyrenees in 1660 was
the count of Fuensaldaña. He had been appointed to the post of governor-
general of Flanders, but before taking up this commission, he had been
asked to spend a few months as ambassador extraordinary at the French
court.2 He was received with great warmth by Cardinal Mazarin at Saint
Jean de Luz, and took a prominent part in the royal meetings, and at the
entrance of Louis and María Teresa into Paris in August.3 Once installed
at the French court, he would be integral to the establishment of the peace.
The count had been appointed to the household post of lord steward to
the queen, which would give him access to, and potentially a degree of
influence over, Louis XIV himself. Haro also wanted it to be understood
that the prince of Condé had been restored to his lands, titles, and
governments at the behest of the king of Spain, for it was hoped that he
would thus be impelled by a sense of obligation to continue to favour the
1
Castillo, Viage, 44–5, 197–213; Mémoires de Mlle de Montpensier, iii, 493–8.
2 3
AHN Estado legajo 3457 (no. 27). MAC Ms. 777, ff. 92v–5r.
The Unravelling of a Valimiento, 1659–61 233
interests of Philip IV. Moreover, with Louis XIV married to a Spanish
princess in an arrangement brought about thanks to the insistence of
Philip IV’s sister Anne of Austria, it was reasonable to expect that France
would remain neutral while Philip IV withdrew his armies from Italy and
the Netherlands in order to concentrate on the recovery and consolidation
of his strength within the Iberian Peninsula.
Haro therefore had some cause to be confident. On his return to
Madrid at the end of June 1660, his regime once again began to find its
old rhythm. The marriage market was back in full swing, as the eighth
count of Santisteban chose to reinforce his ties to the valido by a double
union with the family of the duke of Segorbe. The weddings took place in
the summer and autumn of 1660, when the sixty-two-year-old duke was
married to the seventeen-year-old doña María Teresa de Benavides in July,
and, in October, when doña María Teresa’s brother, the future ninth
count of Santisteban, was married to Segorbe’s daughter, doña Francisca
Josefa (see Figure 6.3).4 Earlier that year these important families had
received signs of favour, when the duke of Segorbe’s younger brother, don
Pascual de Aragón, had been raised to the cardinalate, and when the count
of Santisteban had been appointed viceroy of Peru.5 Haro also brought to
a conclusion the negotiations for the marriage of his second daughter,
doña Manuela, to the heir to the House of Benavente (see Figure 6.1).
The capitulations were signed in March 1661, and again witnessed by
servants and friends of the valido, including don Juan de Góngora, don
Álvaro de Benavides, and don Juan de Escobedo.6 It was another alliance
between two grandee families, where one spouse provided a large dowry
and the prospect of political assistance at court, while the other brought
influence over an important area of the borderland between Old Castile
and Portugal.
Foreign policy also appeared to be going according to plan. Mazarin was
kept satisfied by the gift of abbeys and the promotion of his clients’
personal interests in the Spanish Netherlands.7 During the spring and
summer of 1660 the French evacuated their remaining garrisons from the
Pyrenees and in August Fuensaldaña concluded a treaty for the resump-
tion of trade.8 The provisions for the exclusion of Portugal likewise were
4
AHN Estado libro 104: Montalto to Castel Rodrigo, 7 July 1660; AJB, ii, 231;
Fernández de Bethencourt, Historia genealógica, ix, 95–6, 101.
5
ASV Spagna, 120, f. 792r; DCCV, 274–6; AJB, ii, 226.
6
AHPM 6290, ff. 437r–46v.
7
ADA 232/1: Haro to Fuensaldaña, 11 October 1660; MAC Ms. 758, ff. 44v, 54v,
69v, 71r–v.
8
MAC Ms. 758, f. 14v; AJB, ii, 227, 231.
being put into practice.9 More complicated issues, such as the proper
definition of the borders of Artois and Hainault, were postponed until
such time as Fuensaldaña was able to take up the governor-generalship of
the Spanish Netherlands.10 In addition to the establishment of good
relations with France, Haro was doing his utmost to cultivate the Stuarts.
In the late autumn of 1659, Charles II spent two weeks at Fuenterrabía,
where he was lavishly entertained, and went away convinced of the valido’s
good intentions.11 Early the following year, the situation in Great Britain
began to move rapidly in Charles’s favour, and during the months either
side of his restoration, he made a public point of ignoring the envoys of
France and Portugal, whilst treating those of Philip IV with high esteem.12
In September 1660 a peace was proclaimed between Spain and Great
Britain that was followed shortly afterwards by the arrival in London of
Philip’s ambassador, the Baron de Watteville.
As the monarchy’s relations with France and Great Britain augured so
well, there was little to distract attention from Haro’s pursuit of a strictly
Iberian policy of the kind outlined in Chapter 7. In accordance with the
terms of the peace, a bilateral commission had been appointed to decide
which villages in the mountains of Aragón and Catalonia were to be ceded
to France, but after three weeks of meetings in March and April 1660 its
members failed to reach agreement. So, while Philip and his daughter
marked time on their progress towards the frontier, Haro had ridden on
ahead for another round of hard-fought negotiations with Mazarin.13 The
valido’s attention to the territorial integrity of the Iberian Peninsula
contrasted tellingly with his cavalier disregard for the defences of the
Spanish Netherlands. It was an ideological factor that distinguished his
outlook from that of the duke of Medina de las Torres, for whom Flanders
and Milan remained the outer bastions (‘antemurales’) that were indis-
pensable for the defence of Spain.14 Yet clear-cut policy differences of
this kind did not really stretch beyond the personal antagonism between
Haro and Medina, which makes the tendency of historians to use expres-
sions like ‘Austrian party’ and ‘Spanish party’ at the court of Madrid quite
9
Ibid., ff. 17r–21r, 51v–2v, 86r, 86bis, 97v.
10
Ibid., ff. 43r–v, 66v–7r, 112r–v.
11
ADA 220/14: Haro to Tarazona, 15 November 1659; ADA 232/1: Haro to
Fuensaldaña, 31 October 1659; Bodl. Ms. Clarendon 66, ff. 3r–v, 5r, 33r.
12
CSPV, xxxii, 162–5, 171–4; Hutton, Charles II, 131; Shaw, Trade, 82.
13
AHPUV Crespí libro 7: Crespí to Philip IV, 30 April 1660, Philip IV to Crespí,
3 June 1660; Castillo, Viage, 101–2, 104; Reglá Campistol, ‘El tratado de los Pirineos’,
126–31; Sahlins, Boundaries, 47–8; Séré, ‘Les difficultés d’execution d’un traité’, 220–7.
14
Memoranda and written opinions of Medina 6 August 1657 (AGS Estado legajo
2367), 8 December 1661 (AGS Estado legajo 3918), 14 July 1666 (AGS Estado legajo
2538).
unhelpful. In reality, many other noblemen would continue to use a
similar language to that of Medina in order to espouse the importance
of Philip’s wider European commitments, and his obligations as a Chris-
tian ruler, even though they were not necessarily friends of the duke, nor
enemies of Haro. The third marquis of Castel Rodrigo had lectured
Ferdinand III on how Philip’s possessions in the Netherlands and north-
ern Italy were essential for the security of Germany. Fuensaldaña believed
sincerely in the importance of Flanders as an intrinsic part of the Spanish
monarchy. Castrillo was clear about the king of Spain’s need to uphold his
pre-eminence in Italy and northern Europe. Peñaranda’s views on king-
ship fused with his criticism of Mazarin in a process of association and
denunciation to uphold an ideal of kingship that was totally at odds with
Philip’s concession of power to a minister-favourite, and which Haro
himself, through the use of all manner of linguistic formulae, had also
been anxious to proclaim.
In September 1660, Philip’s opening address to the Cortes of Castile
was well couched in the rhetoric of good kingship. It listed the security of
the entire Spanish Monarchy, the defence of the Catholic religion, the
peace and well-being of his subjects, and his own duty in conscience to
protect his inheritance as together being the reasons for his decision to set
about the reconquest of Portugal.15 Over the following months and years
the process of integration discussed in Chapter 4 would see the monarchy
turn in on itself as the resources of Spain, America, Flanders, and Italy
were concentrated on this final endeavour. In October 1660 the marquis
of Caracena advised that about 6,000–7,000 Walloon, German, and Irish
infantry could be spared from the Army of Flanders, along with 2,000
cavalry.16 These were foolhardy recommendations, and can only be
explained by the author’s recent appointment to command part of the
invasion force, yet they were willingly endorsed by the councillors in
Madrid.17 By the autumn of 1661, Caracena was preparing to return to
Spain with a further 2,000 infantry and 600 cavalry, leaving Habsburg
forces in the Netherlands reduced to well under 10,000.18 In Italy,
measures were being taken that were equally drastic. In the autumn of
1660 about 2,000 German and Italian infantry were embarked at Finale
15
Danvila y Collado, El poder civil, vi, 336–7.
16
AGS Estado legajo 2098: Caracena to Haro, 6 October 1660.
17
AGS Estado legajo 2098: consulta of a plenary meeting of the Councils of State and
War, 10 December 1660.
18
ADA 232/1: Fuensaldaña to Haro, 5 September 1661; AGS Estado legajo 2098:
Caracena to Haro, 8 August 1661, count of Marsin to Haro, 21 November 1661; MAC
Ms. 758, f. 92r.
on a voyage which ended in tragedy with the loss of two of the ships in
storms outside Cadiz. By January 1661, another four tercios were being
prepared for embarkation and reached Spain in March, leaving the Army
of Milan very severely depleted.19 By now, there had also arisen the
question of the payment of the Naples monthly wartime remittance to
Milan of 50,000 ducats. As viceroy of Naples, the count of Peñaranda was
keen to send all available revenue to Spain, rather than waste it on
subsidizing the peacetime government of Milan or (still worse) assisting
the emperor in his war against the Turks. Almost to a man, the Council of
State supported him, except for Castrillo, who wanted half the subsidy to
go to Milan and half to the emperor, and Medina, who seemed unable to
decide between the needs of Portugal ‘as just, right, and convenient for the
whole monarchy’, and the emperor ‘for obligations of religion, family, and
other considerations’.20
For all the military preparations, Haro’s experience of the Portuguese
front left him well aware that the rebel kingdom was more likely to be
recovered by appealing to the loyalty and self-interest of its nobility. Sure
enough, the peace with France was followed by a number of high-level
defections that included the grandee duke of Aveiro and his family, as well
as Afonso VI’s representative at The Hague.21 And in the light of the
chaotic situation in Lisbon, there was good cause to hope for more social
and political unrest that might bring about the collapse of the Braganza
regency. Reliance on internal domestic upheaval accounts in part for the
absence of any serious attempt to recover Portugal by force of arms during
the years immediately following the Pyrenees settlement. Yet there were
also problems of finance, and differences within the high command. Haro
appears to have wanted to take personal command of the invasion, and
thus make amends for the Elvas débâcle. However, Philip was adamant
that the main army of Extremadura should be placed under the leadership
of his son, don Juan de Austria.22 Faced with the prospect of a potential
rival succeeding where he had failed, Haro sought to contest the extent of
don Juan’s powers in a series of negotiations that lasted the length of 1660
19
ADA 232/1: Haro to Fuensaldaña, 27 November 1660; AGS Estado legajo 3284 (no.
45); AJB, ii, 227.
20
AGS Estado legajo 3284: Peñaranda to Philip IV, 24 November 1660; consulta of the
Council of State, 2 January 1661.
21
AGS Estado legajo 2677: consulta of the Junta de Estado, 17 January 1660; ASV
Spagna, 120, ff. 526v, 742r; AJB, ii, 217, 230, 241; Ericeira, História de Portugal, iii,
286–90; Shaw, Trade, 69; LCMOVS, i, 381–4.
22
AHN Estado libro 104: Montalto to Castel Rodrigo, 3 April 1660; BL Ms. Egerton
1176, ff. 10r–v; AJB, ii, 228, 235; RAV, 306–7; Documentos escogidos, 497–8.
and meant that the prince did not actually leave Madrid for the frontier
until March 1661.23
In the meantime, the last Cortes of the reign was not going well. The
king had requested an annual subsidy of five million ducats, plus a one-
off payment of a million ducats in silver.24 The first sum was to finance
an invasion of Portugal and the second to underwrite the minting of a
new coinage made of a copper-silver alloy, which Góngora proposed as a
means of finally stabilizing the currency whilst providing a healthy profit
to the Crown.25 Both requests were rejected by the representatives of the
Castilian cities, who would go on to prove themselves so obstreperous
over the next four years that no new Cortes would be summoned in
Castile for the rest of the century.26 Faced with refusal of his demands,
there was nothing else for it but for Philip to make do with the renewal
of existing subsidies and one-off impositions, and to go it alone with the
recoinage.
As the main opportunity to benefit from Portuguese diplomatic isola-
tion was allowed to slip away, the sense of optimism of the spring and
summer of 1660 began to turn sour. Observers noted a change in Haro.
The defeat at Elvas, the gruelling rounds of negotiations at the Pyrenees,
the loss of so many close allies—Monterrey, Leganés, Peñaranda, Los
Balbases, and, most recently, Ruiz de Contreras, who died just a few
days after the king’s return from the Pyrenees—had left him personally
withdrawn.27 Success with Mazarin notwithstanding, his influence
was still threatened by rivals. The duke of Medina de las Torres, don
Diego de Arce y Reinoso, don Fernando de Borja, the duke of Montalto,
the marquis of Aytona, don Juan de Austria—each constituted a pres-
ence that might potentially undermine the valido’s universal authority.
The only person left whom he really trusted was don Juan de Góngora, the
governor of the Council of Finance, and instigator of the unpopular fiscal
measures that were afflicting Philip’s subjects. There was also the count of
Castrillo, who had arrived back in Madrid from Naples towards the end of
September 1659. After four months of waiting, he was accorded the
governorship of the council of Italy.28 Castrillo’s relations with Haro do
23
AHN Estado libro 104: Montalto to Castel Rodrigo, 13 March 1661; AJB, ii, 250;
Maura Gamazo, Carlos II y su corte, i, 185.
24
Danvila, ‘Cortes de Madrid de 1660–1664’, 308–9; Lorenzana de la Puente, ‘Política
y hacienda en 1660–64’, 348, 352–3.
25
Domínguez Ortiz, Política y hacienda, 78–9, 258–60.
26
Thompson, ‘The End of the Cortes of Castile’, 127.
27
MAC Ms. 758, ff. 113r–v; RAV, 308.
28
ACO Castrillo legajo xliii/2: 21, 24 January 1660; AGS Secretarías Provinciales legajo
30: Philip IV to don Íñigo López de Zárate, 15, 16 January 1660.
not appear to have improved since the time of his departure from Madrid
six years before, but if the count’s letters are anything to go by, the ill will
principally came from his nephew. Castrillo wanted the post of lord
steward to the queen for himself, and that of acting gentleman of the
chamber for his son, and sought to impress upon the valido the shared
interests of their dynasty, but don Luis was either unwilling or unable to
oblige his uncle. The latter did not accompany the king on his progress to
the frontier and Haro avoided the hospitality of the countess of Castrillo
when he passed through Aranda de Duero towards the end of April 1660.29
Also, the valido’s relationship with the count of Fuensaldaña, which had
been beginning to show signs of strain before the Peace of the Pyrenees,
was now positively frosty. Fuensaldaña had previously been given assur-
ances that he would be brought back to Madrid, and he appears to have
wanted the presidency of the council of Flanders which had been vacated
by the death of the marquis of Los Balbases in August 1659.30 He was
unhappy with his situation at the French court, but his potential influence
there, as someone who had regular access to the royal family, made him too
valuable to be moved.31 He was accordingly sent orders towards the end of
February 1661 to remain where he was for the time being. Fuensaldaña’s
response minced few words about his frustration and annoyance:
I am now much older than I would like to be, and few of my years have not
been spent serving the king, without enriching nor enlarging my estate, but
rather destroying both it and myself, and this when I ask for no other reward
but that the promises that were given to me in writing and orally should be
kept. . . . When all is said and done, My Lord, everything has its limit, and so
does my patience.32
In other words, Haro had lost the trust of one of his closest allies, just as
the situation at the French court was slipping out of control.
On 9 March 1661, Cardinal Mazarin died, and Louis XIV made a
declaration of his intention to rule in person. Initially, this seemed like
no more than a pious expression of the kind made so regularly by Philip IV.
Haro simply could not conceive of the French king ruling without a minister-
favourite, and he made lengthy speculation in a letter to Fuensaldaña
about Mazarin’s succession. He predicted that the direction of affairs in
France would pass into the hands of a governing committee, from which a
29
ACO Castrillo legajo xliii/2: 4, 12, 18 February, 28 April, 25, 30 June 1660.
30
ADA 232/1: Haro to Fuensaldaña, 6 September, 19 October, 8 November 1659,
Fuensaldaña to Haro, 7 September, 17 September, 11 October 1659.
31
MAC Mss. 758, ff. 69r, 114r–15r; 784, 6–8, 64.
32
ADA 232/1: Fuensaldaña to Haro, 11 March 1661. See also, Fuensaldaña to Haro,
6 March, 25 May, 14 June 1661, in the same source.
principal minister would in time come to emerge as had so often happened in
the past. He believed it unlikely that Condé would be able to secure the first
place in the new government, but he hoped that the prince would continue to
be of use to Spain, either from within the government, or as a disgruntled
malcontent.33 Fuensaldaña had no hesitation in giving the lie to such specu-
lation. He described Louis’ determination to rule alone; his consultation in
matters of government with Lionne and Le Tellier to the exclusion of Condé
and the high nobility; and the complete absence of any potential sign of a
return to civil disorder in France.34 What was more, Louis’ intention to rule as
his own master left him free to choose his own mistresses. Marie Mancini’s
departure to Rome in the spring of 1661 was a relief to everyone, but by July
the wandering eye of the king had come to rest on his Stuart sister-in-law,
Minette.35
If this were not enough, in October 1661 there took place an affray of
precedence between the French and Spanish ambassadors in London, in
which several members of the French retinue were killed as the Baron de
Watteville’s coach forced its way into first place in a procession to welcome
the new Swedish ambassador. Louis regarded what had happened to his
representative in London as a gross insult to his honour and good faith. He
reduced María Teresa to tears by threatening war against her father, and
denied Fuensaldaña the privilege of a farewell audience. All discussions for
the resolution of outstanding matters from the peace treaty were placed in
suspension; the new Spanish ambassador, the marquis of La Fuente, was
refused entrance to the French court; and Caracena’s passport allowing
him to return to Spain through France was revoked.36 The diplomatic
system created at the Pyrenees had hardly survived the lifetime of one of its
formulators, and its definitive collapse now threatened to carry in its wake
the other. With Flanders and Milan laid open to French invasion, the heir
to the throne, Felipe Próspero, died on 1 November and a Bourbon
succession briefly became a possibility. It was against this background
that don Luis de Haro’s regime came to an end with his sudden, and
opportune, death on 16 November 1661.
The last two years of Haro’s life had been a disappointment. His
shrewdness at the level of personal interaction, as well as financial and
33
ADA 232/1: Haro to Fuensaldaña, 28 February 1661. This letter has been analysed in
detail by Rafael Valladares, ‘Haro sin Mazarino’.
34
ADA 232/1: Fuensaldaña to Haro, 17, 30 April, 25 May 1661. See also MAC Ms.
758, ff. 97v–8v, 100v–1r, 111r–12r; Mémoires de . . . Brienne, ii, 7–12, 36; iii, 95–9.
35
ADA 232/1: Fuensaldaña to Haro, 16 July 1661.
36
AGS Estado legajo 2098: Fuensaldaña to Caracena, 17 October 1661, Watteville to
Philip IV, 10, 20 October 1661; Mémoires de . . . Brienne, iii, 100–3; Ochoa Brun, ‘El
incidente diplomático’, 104–13.
military administration, seemed to have given way to a rather painful

ineptitude when it came to the management of international relations in a
time of peace. Indeed, his misreading of the political situation in France
suggests a naivety that was also evident in the faith that he placed in old allies
like Condé and Charles II, or new treaty partners like Louis XIV. One
might even go so far as to conclude that his perception of foreign affairs was
based on the principles that governed personal relationships at court. To
the modern reader, the obligations of service, recompense, and mutual
courtesy, which generally worked in the sphere of aristocratic society,
would hardly seem applicable to great-power rivalry. Yet, for Haro, as well
as for the other members of Spain’s governing elite, military power and
economic strength—the factors so often taken into consideration when
assessing Spain’s ‘decline’—were of secondary importance to traditions
rooted in the early sixteenth century that were based on the mutual respect
that ought to prevail between the representatives of the pre-eminent two
monarchies at the apex of the European hierarchy of states. Philip IV’s
ministers had no illusions about Spain’s reduced material condition, but, in
their understanding, this should not have been an issue for the gentlemen
who represented their royal masters, and whose principal objective was
to sustain reputation and the existing state of affairs.
Epilogue
Personal Rule and Regency during the 1660s
Don Luis de Haro’s death was followed by an immediate change in the

form of government in Spain. If Louis XIV was ruling personally, then
Philip IV would have to do the same. The king continued to be as interested
as ever in bureaucratic details, and his new principal secretary don Luis de
Oyanguren came to play just as important a role as don Fernando de
Fonseca Ruiz de Contreras had done during the two previous decades.
However, there would be no valido. During the winter of 1661–2, orders
were issued for negotiations with foreign envoys to be shared by the count of
Castrillo, the duke of Medina de las Torres, and don Fernando de Borja,
whilst ecclesiastical business was transferred to don Diego de Arce y Reinoso,
and the affairs of private petitioners were handled by José González. There
was also another campaign to prevent abuses by those in office, as well as an
attempt to return to rule by the law that had supposedly prevailed during
the king’s last attempt to govern without a valido in the mid-1640s.1
According to the count of Castrillo, the government of the king’s final
years was one of ‘many heads’ in which only the ruler was absolute.2
Certainly it was becoming more compartmentalized, with power divided
between the individual councils and their presidents in accordance with the
specific remits of each institution.3 Whereas previously the authority of the
presidents had depended on their personal relationship with the valido,
presidential offices now began to supersede the individual importance of the
people who held them. For example, the governor of the council of Finance,
don Juan de Góngora, was deprived of many of the supplementary respon-
sibilities that he had acquired through Haro’s influence. Castrillo, on the
1
AGS Estado legajo 3284: royal decree, 27 November 1661; BNM Ms. 18203: papers
addressed to Borja by don Blasco de Loyola; AJB, ii, 255–6, 262, 264, 269–70; Tomás y
Valiente, Los validos, 176.
2
ACO Castrillo xliv/3: 8 November 1664.
3
AHN Estado libro 104: Montalto to Castel Rodrigo, 6 January, 6 March 1662.
other hand, accepted the presidency of the Council of Castile in January
1662, having refused it fourteen years before, because he knew that he
would be allowed now to wield far greater influence than would have been
permitted to him under the previous regime.4 Nevertheless, the resort to
council presidents without a valido to oversee their activity brought about a
loss of direction. The admiral of Castile described government in the early
1660s as a sort of chaos, in which each president acted as a prime minister
within his own jurisdictional sphere, but failed to work in proper coordin-
ation with the other institutions. It seemed as though the situation had
changed from one in which the valido had risked everything for the sake of
reputation, to one in which there was not even so much as an incentive to
follow right or wrong policies. There was thus no requirement to achieve
success, and the administration was left to tick over, with its officials ‘bound
by the strings of the tribunals’.5
Philip’s final years witnessed no innovations in foreign policy. The crisis
of the autumn of 1661 fizzled out. Louis XIV’s temper was mollified by
the birth of a dauphin to María Teresa, while Spanish grief at the death of
Felipe Próspero soon turned to joy when Mariana of Austria gave birth to
the future Carlos II. The count of Fuensaldaña died at Cambrai, just a
week after Haro, and thus obliged the marquis of Caracena to remain at
his post in the Spanish Netherlands and reap the consequences of his zeal
for their unilateral demilitarization. The marquis of La Fuente was allowed
into the French court in March 1662 when he read out Philip’s formal
agreement that his ambassadors should abstain from appearing alongside
French ambassadors at future public occasions. The declaration later
became twisted to represent an open acknowledgement of universal
French diplomatic precedence, which Philip had never in fact made.6
And yet the signs that the balance of power in Europe had shifted away
from the Spanish Monarchy were clearer than ever before. Attempts to
invade Portugal were humiliatingly defeated in 1663 and 1665. A working
relationship was established with Great Britain that was based on Spanish
inability to counter the English presence in north Africa and the Carib-
bean.7 In Vienna, the marquis of Mancera spent barely nine months as
ambassador before being recalled without replacement.8 In Paris the
4
ACO Castrillo legajo xliv/3: 11 January 1662.
5
BNM Ms 18728/38, ff. 335r–v. The quotation is at f. 337v. See also Hermosa Espeso,
‘Ministros y ministerio’, 47.
6
Ochoa Brun, ‘El incidente diplomático’, 114–26, 144–8.
7
Belcher, ‘Spain and the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance’, 85–7; Stradling, ‘Anglo-Spanish
Relations’, 77–80, 93–8, 119–26, 132–7.
8
AGS Estado legajo 3918: Mancera to Haro, 30 November, 11 December 1661,
consulta of the Council of State, 12 March 1662; AGS Estado legajo 3948: Philip IV to
Mancera, 28 December 1661, Philip IV to don Luis Ponce, 18 March 1662.
Personal Rule and Regency during the 1660s 243
marquis of La Fuente found that the rights of access that he enjoyed
with Anne of Austria and María Teresa had next to no effect in preventing
the successive inroads made by Louis XIV into a peace settlement that
was fast becoming redundant.9
The real change in Spain’s international policy came after Philip died.
With the succession of a three-year-old boy, government was offi-
cially entrusted to a committee of ministers appointed by Philip in his
testament. In practice, though, power came to rest with the queen, her
Austrian confessor, and the duke of Medina de las Torres. Before the old
king had even passed away, his soon-to-be widow was already counter-
manding the transport of recruits from Flanders and Italy to the war
zone in Extremadura.10 In the spring of 1666, close relations were re-
established with Vienna by the marriage of the younger Infanta Margarita
to Emperor Leopold I. After a proxy wedding in which Medina repre-
sented the emperor in such a manner as to convey his increased status to
its full visible advantage, there followed a carefully choreographed
manoeuvre in which the viceroys of the Spanish Mediterranean changed
places in order to allow enough galleys to assemble for this, the last
Spanish Habsburg infanta, to be shipped off to the Empire in safety.11
Meanwhile, drastic measures began to be enacted in an attempt to refortify
the Spanish Netherlands under the governor-generalship of the marquis of
Castel Rodrigo, who would conduct himself in Brussels with a heavy-
handedness that arguably precipitated the French invasion of May 1667.
At home, there took place a factionalization in political society of the
kind that had hardly been seen in twenty years. In 1662, the marquis of
Heliche was disgraced amidst an alleged conspiracy to blow up the Retiro
palace; and the following year don Juan de Góngora became locked in a
conflict with the count of Castrillo that led to his removal from the
Council of Finance.12 Political enmities appeared to be manifesting
themselves with a new viciousness. In the summer of 1659, Medina’s
two younger sons had arrived at court from Italy and were soon causing
trouble. In May 1664, one of them killed the marquis of Almazán
in a duel. The latter was the son-in-law of the late marquis of Leganés,
9
ADA 232/1: La Fuente to Haro, 29 June 1661; BNM Ms. 18192, ff. 172r–89r;
AHN Estado libro 137: Philip IV to La Fuente, 13, 27 March, 8 April, 2 June, 16 July
1663; Yetano Laguna, Relaciones entre España y Francia, 228–9, 268–9, 275–6.
10
AGS Estado legajo 2683: consultas of the Council of State, 14 September,
12 November 1665, Mariana of Austria to Medinaceli, 21 September 1665.
11
AGS Estado legajo 2684: consulta of the Council of State, 25 February 1666; Maura
Gamazo, Carlos II y su corte, i, 215.
12
AJB, ii, 278–9, 282; Shergold, A History of the Spanish Stage, 325–6; Andrés, El
marqués de Liche, 13–19; Ruiz Martín, Las finanzas, 156–64. For new light on the so-called
Retiro plot, see Vidales, ‘Gaspar de Haro y Guzmán’.
and his sister was married to the son of the count of Castrillo.13 In
response, the surviving members of the old regime closed ranks to form
something of a genuine faction. Peñaranda and Caracena both returned to
court in the autumn of 1664, and quickly joined forces with Castrillo.
Góngora, despite his differences with the count, by the time he came to
draw up his testament in 1667 knew very well to whom he should
commend his wife and children ‘for all that I and my ancestors have
owed to the lords of the House of El Carpio, especially the most excellent
count of Castrillo’.14
With the fracturing of political society, nobody was to be allowed to
carry away the prize of the valimiento. During the 1660s, writers con-
tinued to regard such a form of government with varying degrees of
uneasiness, whilst stipulating requirements that were difficult to fulfil.15
In 1667, four members of the Council of Castile explicitly rejected a
suggestion that the queen should channel matters of government through
a single individual. They called to mind Philip’s decision to rule in person
after 1661, which they believed had been the consequence of the misfor-
tunes of his reign: ‘entrusting public affairs to one person alone has
brought about great harm; business dealt with by a valido never has a
satisfactory outcome; and they are so hated by the people that all have met
a sorry end.’16 And yet, the minister-favourite still cast a long shadow.
Haro’s memory lived on amongst the most important protagonists of the
reign of Carlos II. The count of Benavente, and the dukes of Medina
Sidonia and Alba were related to his children and grandchildren. In 1666,
his youngest daughter doña María was married to the fifth duke of
Pastrana. It was part of a family attempt to secure the duchy of Lerma,
which was also coveted by the dukes of Segorbe. Contested claims on the
inheritance of the first valido were matched by a shared descendance from
the medieval kings of Castile and Aragon. Don Juan Francisco de la Cerda
Enríquez Afán de Ribera the eighth duke of Medinaceli was the husband
of the eighth duchess of Segorbe, and brother-in-law of the seventh
marquis of El Carpio. As such, he had a better claim than most to head
Spain’s government between 1680 and 1685. He may well be considered
as the political heir of don Luis de Haro, and of the group of noblemen
and ministers associated with him. Valido and governing elite had fused
into an oligarchy of equals.
13
ACO Castrillo legajo xliv/3: 28, 29, 31 May, 13 June 1664; Original letters, 90–1.
14
AHPM 9816, ff. 19r–30r.
15
Náxera, En azañas de David; Núñez de Castro, Séneca impugnado de Séneca, 58–61;
Navarra y de la Cueva, Logros de la monarquia.
16
Select Bibliography
M A NU SC RIP T SOU RC E S
Archivio di Stato, Milan
Uffici Regi, Parte Antica
Carteggio 63/4: royal appointment of the marquis of Los Balbases (in first place)
and the duke of Tursi (in second place) as governor-general of Milan in the
event of the death of the marquis of Caracena, 28 May 1652.
Carteggio 63/7: letters from Spanish ministers to Cardinal Trivulzio, January–
July 1656.
Archivio di Stato, Modena

Cancelleria Ducale, Spagna
54: letters from Father Hippolito Camillo Guidi to Duke Francesco I d’Este,
January–November 1644.
55–6: letters from Pietro Giovanni Guidi to Duke Francesco I d’Este, October
1644–October 1647.
57: letters from Carlo Pellegrini to Secretary Gratiani, March 1650–July 1654.
Archivio Segreto Vaticano

Segretaria di Stato, Nunziatura di Spagna
111A–114: original and deciphered letters from the nunciature, 1655–7.
117–22: original and deciphered letters, 1658–60.
124–7: original and deciphered letters, 1660–2.
Archivo de los Condes de Bornos

Villariezo
Variarum libro 50: ‘Los días que Su Majestad . . . sale a las iglesias y a otras partes
en el discurso del año y fiestas que guarde la villa.’
Archivo de los Condes de Orgaz, Ávila

Castrillo
Legajo xxxiv/1: testament and codicil of the count of Castrillo, 15 December
1668, 22 December 1670.
Legajo xliii/2: letters from the count of Castrillo to doña María de Avellaneda,
August 1657–October 1661.
Legajo xliii/3: letters from the count of Castrillo to doña María de Avellaneda,
October 1666–June 1667.
Legajo xliv/2: letters from Sor María de Ágreda to the count and countess of
Castrillo, 1629–47.
Legajo xliv/3: letters from the count of Castrillo to doña María de Avellaneda,
November 1661–June 1667.
246 Select Bibliography
Archivo de los Duques de Alba, Madrid

75/10: ‘provisiones generales de dentro y fuera de España’, 24 March 1655.
138: letters from don Luis de Haro to the count of Peñaranda, 1650 and 1657–8.
220/14: correspondence between don Luis de Haro and various titled noblemen,
mid-seventeenth century.
231/9: letters from don Luis de Haro to don Luis Ponce de León, 1659.
232/1: correspondence between don Luis de Haro, the count of Fuensaldaña, and
the marquis of La Fuente, 1659–61.
233/20: letters from the count of Peñaranda to don Luis de Haro, 1657–9.
El Carpio
81/31: title in don Luis de Haro’s name of a captaincy of light cavalry in the
guardias de Castilla, 16 August 1639; powers to the marquis of Mortara to
exercise the command in his name, 17 October 1639.
81/34: the marquis of Heliche’s ceremonial admission to the Order of Alcántara,
21 November 1646.
81/37: don Luis de Haro’s ceremonial admission to the Order of Alcántara, 22
February 1648.
Misceláneo
58/5–10: five letters from the marchioness of Aytona to Sor María de Ágreda,
1659–64.
Monterrey
96/29: letter from the Regente don Miguel de Salamanca to the countess of
Monterrey, Naples, 12 July 1644.
Montijo
17: letters from the marquis of Osera to his brother don Joseph de Villalpando,
1657–9.
Archivo de los duques de Alburquerque, Cuéllar

Alcañices, no. 79, legajo 23, no. 70: testament of don Diego de Aragón, fourth
duke of Terranova, 1663.
Balbases, no. 91, legajo 1, no. 6: testament of don Filippo Spinola, second
marquis of Los Balbases, 1655.
Ms. Fuensaldaña no. 184, legajo 1, no. 8: genealogical information on the counts
of Fuensaldaña.
Ms. no. 366 Varios/III no. 1: genealogical information on the counts of Fuensaldaña.
Archivo de la Fundación Casa Medina Sidonia, Sanlúcar de Barrameda

Legajo 997: documents relating to the marriage of doña Antonia de Haro and the
fourteenth count of Niebla, 1657–67.
Legajo 1000: testaments of the dukes of Medina Sidonia, and members of their
immediate family.
Archivo General de Indias

Indiferente general
764–5: consultas of the Council and Cámara of the Indies, 1645–7.
1876: consultas of the Junta de Guerra de Indias, 1654–63.
Archivo General de Simancas

Cámara de Castilla
Libros de relaciones 34–7: ‘registros en “relación” de las provisiones y cédulas,
despachadas por la Cámara’, 1638–69.
Estado
Legajos 2098, 2672, 2675, 2677, 2683–4, 2363, 2365–8, 2953, 2478, 3282–4,
3374–5, 3606, 3918, 3948, 8474, K1420, K1616, K1622–4, K1686: corres-
pondence between Philip IV and his ambassadors and viceroys, and consultas of
the Council of State, 1643–69.
Guerra Antigua
Libro 187: ‘copiador de despachos de la Junta de Guerra de España, y del Consejo
de Guerra’, 9 April 1645–8 April 1647.
Legajos 1516–65: documents relating to Iberian military affairs, 1643–5.
Secretarías Provinciales
Legajos 29–31: consultas of the council of Italy, relevant to the kingdom of Naples,
1657–61.
Libro 674: ‘libro de plazas del consejo de Italia.’
Archivo General del Palacio Real, Madrid

Administrativo
624, 627, 633, 641: consultas del Bureo; lists of appointments to key offices within
the royal households.
Administrativo ( Jornadas)
779: papers relevant to the annual royal visits to the Pardo, Aranjuez, and El
Escorial.
Registros
182: ‘mercedes que se han hecho en el despacho de la reina nuestra señora desde 1
de enero 1641 en adelante.’
Reinados (Felipe IV)

8: consultas del Bureo; lists of appointments to key offices within the royal
households.
Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid

Consejos
Legajos 4428–30, 13199, 15240: Cámara de Castilla, consultas y decretos de gracia,
reign of Philip IV.
Legajo 7135: decrees and consultas of the Council of Castile, dealing with war
finance, covering the years 1632–1713.
Legajo 28138/10: baptismal certificates, testaments, and marriage capitulations
relating to the marquises of El Carpio.
Legajo 37681/2796: Lawsuit over the succession to the estate of Sanlúcar la
Mayor.
Libros 530–1: Libros de Navarra, 1643–68.
Libro 728: Cámara de Castilla, libro de plazas, 1640–60.
Libro 2029: journal of the Councillor of Aragon, don Pedro de Villacampa.
Estado
Legajo 248: appointments decrees for the Council of State.
Legajo 1414: draft copies of instructions for governors-general of the Spanish
Netherlands, and senior ministers in Brussels.
Legajo 1444: payments to ministers of the Council of Italy, reign of Philip IV.
Legajo 3457 (nos. 26, 27): instructions of the count of Fuensaldaña as ambassador
extraordinary at the French court, 1660.
Legajo 2880 (no. 24): Philip IV’s powers to his representatives at Münster,
5 January 1645.
Legajo 6379/3 (no. 10): consulta of don Diego de Riaño y Gamboa, requesting
offices for his nephews in the light of his enforced retirement, 10 January 1662.
Legajo 6408: documents pertaining to appointments within the Council and
Cámara of Castile, reign of Philip IV.
Libro 89: letters to the second marquis of Castel Rodrigo by ministers in Italy
1640–3.
Libro 104: letters from the duke of Montalto to the second and third marquises of
Castel Rodrigo, 1648–62.
Libros 125, 137: correspondence of the marquis of La Fuente, 1657, 1663–4.
Libros 712–13: private letters between Philip IV, Ferdinand III, and the archduke
Leopold William; correspondence between Philip IV and his ministers at the
Imperial court, 1648–59.
Libro 865: documents, mainly in the hand of Antonio Carnero, relating to the
final years of Olivares’s ministry.
Libro 869: correspondence between the count-duke of Olivares and Antonio
Carnero, May 1643–February 1645.
Libros 964, 966: correspondence of don Miguel de Salamanca, 1644–7.
Inquisición
Legajo 1463/5: ‘Informacion por actos positivos como para familiar del Santo
Oficio de la genealogia y limpieza del Excelentisimo Señor don Gaspar de
Bracamonte . . . y doña María de Bracamonte su mujer’, 1652.
Archivo Histórico Nacional, Sección Nobleza, Hospital de Tavera, Toledo

Osuna CT
11, D.1: Letters of Peñaranda, written from Brussels, 1649.
Archivo Histórico de Protocolos, Madrid

Protocolos
3547, ff. 669r–89v: testament of doña Inés de Guzmán, marchioness of Alcañices,
10 December 1648, with codicil of 20 December 1651.
4194, ff. 411–14v: testament of don Diego López de Haro, fifth marquis of El
Carpio, 22 August 1648.
6028, ff. 249–v and 265–75v: testament and codicil of don Antonio de Zúñiga y
Dávila, third marquis of Mirabel, 31 January 1651; idem, ff. 814–18v, mar-
riage capitulations of don Diego de Benavides y de la Cueva, eighth count of
Santisteban and Doña Juana Dávila y Corella, 12 April 1651.
6222, ff. 183r–93v: testament of don Íñigo Vélez de Guevara, fifth count of
Oñate, 25 October 1644.
6226, ff. 780r–5v: testament of Cardinal Gaspar de Borja, 26 December 1645,
first and second codicils, 28 December 1645.
6233, ff. 661r–80r: testament of doña Inés de Guzmán Zúñiga y Velasco,
countess of Olivares, 22 September 1645; first codicil, 5 September 1647;
second codicil, 9 September 1647.
6239, ff. 3r–862v: testament made in the name of doña Catalina Fernández de
Cardona Córdoba y Aragón, duchess and countess of Olivares, 15 August
1648; partition of family property that followed her death on 19 November
1647.
6265, ff. 348–69v: testament of don Diego Felípez de Guzmán, first marquis of
Leganés, 14 December 1652, with codicils of 1 March 1653 and 3 August 1654.
6269, ff. 599r–607r: marriage capitulations between don Juan Domingo de
Guzmán, and the countess of Monterrey, 17 March 1656.
6280, ff. 407r–14r: testament of don Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado, 16 May 1657;
ff. 635r–8r: testament of don Antonio de Feloaga, 23 November 1658.
6287, ff. 434r–8v: testament of Pedro Coloma, 6 July 1659.
6290, ff. 254r–64r: testament of don Gonzalo Arias y Bobadilla, fifth count of
Puñonrostro, 7 February 1661; first codicil, 8 February; second codicil, 10
February; third codicil, 11 February 1661.
6311, ff. 949r–72v: testament of doña María Pacheco, countess of Añover, 21
May 1655; codicil, 15 March 1661.
7154, ff. 1103r–27r: testament of don Fernando de Fonseca Ruiz de Contreras,
31 December 1659.
8137, f. 966r–993v: testament of Antonio Carnero, 31 August 1661.
8156, ff. 769r–813r: notarial documents, and testament provisions relating to
Ramiro Felípez Núñez de Guzmán, duke of Medina de las Torres, 12 April
1651, 21 May 1654.
8180, ff. 621r–2v: testament of don Francisco de Moura, third marquis of Castel
Rodrigo, 21 November 1675.
9215 (unfoliated): testament of don Fernando Álvarez de Toledo y Beaumont,
sixth duke of Alba, October 1667.
9217, ff. 534–45: testament of don Gaspar de Moscoso Osorio, sixth count of
Altamira, 6 September 1655; codicil, 29 July 1664.
9279 (badly foliated): testament of don Blasco de Loyola, 1669.
9809, ff. 907r–913r: testament of don Fernando de Borja, 27 November 1665.
9813, ff. 474r–84v: testament of don Juan de Carvajal y Sande, 1667.
9816, ff. 19r–30r: testament of don Juan de Góngora, 1667.
9823, ff. 1115r–29v: testament of don Antonio de Contreras, 5 January 1666;
codicils of 10 and 11 April 1668, and 29 October 1670.
9830, ff. 186r–97r: testament of don Francisco de Feloaga, Valladolid, 19 June
1668.
9843, ff. 406r–13v: testament of don Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, eighth
duke of Alburquerque, 12 March 1676.
9844, ff. 778r–86r: testament of don Gaspar de Bracamonte, third count of
Peñaranda, 12 December 1676.
9847, ff. 697r–705r: rental contract of the counts of Peñaranda for a house
located opposite the royal convent of the Encarnación, 1668.
9861, ff. 45r–71v: testament of the Regente don Miguel de Salamanca, 15 March
1663; codicil, 6 November 1666.
10205, ff. 112–21: testament of don Francisco de Valcárcel Velázquez, 1666.
10408, ff. 149r–66r: testament of don Guillén Ramón de Moncada y Alagón,
fourth marquis of Aytona, 18 December 1656; first codicil, 14 March 1670;
second codicil, 15 March 1670.
Archivo Histórico Provincial y Universitario, Valladolid

Crespí
Libro 5/34: ‘antiguedad de los señores del consejo de guerra.’
Libro 7: papers relating to the definition of the Pyrenees frontier, 1660.
Archivo Histórico Provincial de Toledo

Protocolo 128, ff. 386r–90v, 391r: testament of don Baltasar Méndez de Haro,
12 December 1644, with codicil of 14 December 1644.
Archivo Histórico Provincial, Valladolid

Protocolo 775, ff. 402r–30v: marriage capitulations between doña Francisca de
Guzmán and don Diego López de Haro, 17 March 1601.
Archivo Histórico Provincial, Zaragoza

Híjar
P-1/47/17: ‘Relacion de la causa y castigo de don Carlos de Padilla, don Pedro de
Silva, Domingo Cavral y don Rodrigo de Silva Duque de Hijar y del tormento
que dieron al dicho Duque’ (unfoliated).
P-1/81/8: Esteban de Prado and Pedro Muriel Berrocal, Defensa y peticion del
Excelentissimo Señor Duque de Hijar en respuesta de la querella, y acusacion puesta
por el Señor Fiscal del Consejo (no details of publication).
P-1/81/9: letters from the duke of Híjar to Philip IV, 1644–6.
P-1/81/10: letter from Híjar to Friar Juan de Santo Tomás, 28 May 1644.
P-1/81/11: ‘punto segundo tocante al destierro.’
P-1/81/12: letter from don Francisco Antonio de Alarcón to Híjar, 12 March 1644.
P-1/81/18: letter from don Ruy Gómez de Silva to Híjar, 7 November 1657.
P-1/81/23: ‘Borrador para un epitome de todo el suceso del señor conde duque
don Rodrigo Sarmiento Villandrado de la Cerda.’
P-1/81/27: fragment of a list of seventy-eight instances in which Híjar provided
assistance and information to the king; letters relating to the clearing of the
duke of Híjar’s name, 1665–7.
Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan

Archivio Falcò Pio di Savoia
VN 201/5: ‘Casa de Moura, contiene el origen de la casa de Moura que empezó
por los años 1260.’
VN 201/13: testament of don Manuel de Moura, second marquis of Castel
Rodrigo, 29 December 1630, and codicil of 20 January 1651.
VN 629/3: typescript transcriptions of letters from don Fadrique Enríquez,
castellan of Milan, to the second marquis of Castel Rodrigo, March 1642–
February 1644.
Biblioteca de Bartolomé March Servera, Palma de Mallorca

Ms. 26/6/4: letters from the duke of Montalto to his agent in Madrid, January to
September 1658.
Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid

1440, ff. 341v–5v: ‘servicios que ha hecho a Su Majestad el conde de Peñaranda,
presidente del consejo de Indias, vueltos por pasiva.’
2276: correspondence between don Francisco de Oviedo and Friar Pedro de
Tapia, 1646–7.
2359, ff. 157r–64v: ‘Papel de don Gaspar de Bracamonte al conde de Olivares’,
22 December 1627.
2387, ff. 38–53v: account of the battle of Elvas, January 1659; ff. 57–8v, account
of courtesies exchanged between Haro and Mazarin at the Pyrenees.
3255: decrees of appointment relating to don Fernando de Fonseca Ruiz de
Contreras and his family.
5542: copies of papers exchanged between Hugues de Lionne, the count of
Peñaranda and the archbishops of Mainz and Cologne at the electoral conclave
of Frankfurt, 1658.
8388: letters written to Juan Francisco Andrés de Uztarroz by José de Pellicer,
1640s.
8391: letters written to Andrés de Uztarroz by Antonio de León Pinelo, the count
of La Roca, the marquis of Colares, and others, 1641–53.
9926: papers of the duke of Medina de las Torres, 1650s.
11267/47, ff. 1–5: instructions to the count of Peñaranda on being sent to
represent Philip IV as ambassador extraordinary at the electoral conclave of
Frankfurt, 8 June 1657.
12621: account of the services of the duke of Montalto, 1659.
13163–6: papers of don Juan Chumacero, 1643–7.
18188, f. 407r: royal decree appointing Haro, Mortara, and Ruiz de Contreras to
the Junta de Guerra de España, 18 January 1647.
18192, ff. 172r–89r: ‘relacion de lo que franceses han faltado a la paz y su
respuesta’, undated (probably June 1663).
18195, ff. 136r–82r: two accounts of the services of the marquis of Leganés.
18201, ff. 227r–31r: five letters from Baltasar Carlos to Philip IV,
October–November 1642.
18202, ff. 72r–134v: letters written to don Luis de Haro during the summer and
autumn of 1643.
18203: letters and consultas from the second half of Philip IV’s reign.
18548: nineteenth-century transcriptions of letters from the Salazar y Castro
collection in the Real Academia de la Historia.
18728/38, ff. 335r–8r: memorial addressed to Philip IV by the admiral of Castile
in the aftermath of Haro’s death.
21292/4: catalogue of the count of Peñaranda’s library, 1666.
Biblioteca de Zabálburu, Madrid

73–219(3): Memorial presentado al rey nuestro señor por D. Fernando de Ayala
Fonseca Toledo y Valcárcel, tercer conde de Ayala . . . del origen y calidades de las
casas y estados que posee y de los servicios de sus pasados y suyos (Madrid, 1651).
Mediathèque de l’Agglomération de Cambrai

Ms. 755: correspondence between Michel-Ange de Vuoerden, and the marquises
of Caracena and La Fuente and the count of Fuensaldaña, 1661–3.
Ms. 758: Michel-Ange de Vuoerden’s journal of the count of Fuensaldaña’s
embassy to the French court, 1660–1.
Mss. 759–60: ‘Mémoires du baron de Vuoerden depuis la campagne de l’année
1653 jusques au traité des Pyrénées.’
Ms. 777, ff. 92v–5r: ‘L’entrée de Monseigneur le Comte de Fuensaldagne à
la cour de France en qualité d’ambassadeur extraordinaire, le 12e juin 1660.’
Ms. 784: Michel-Ange de Vuoerden, ‘Le dernier voyage à la cour de France,
la sortie du royaume, la maladie et la mort du feu Monseigneur le comte de
Fuensaldagne.’
Bodleian Library, Oxford

Additional
C. 128: ‘Memorables sucesos por don Francisco de Miranda y Paz de sus tiempos.’
Clarendon
39: letters of Sir Francis Cottington and Sir Edward Hyde from Madrid, 1649–50.
54–9, 61–71, 73: correspondence of Sir Henry Bennet with Sir Edward Hyde and
Charles II, 1657–60.
137: William Edgeman’s journal of the Stuart embassy to Madrid, 1649–51.
Rawlinson
C. 726: copybook of official correspondence for the Stuart embassy in Madrid,
1649–51.
Tanner
65: letters from Sir Arthur Hopton, Madrid, 1640–1.
British Library, London

Egerton
332, ff. 21r–v: royal decree addressed to the Council of War, 14 December 1645;
ff. 297r–8r: ‘voto particular de cuatro ministros del Consejo Real de Castilla
contra una consulta del mismo consejo en que se proponía a la reyna nuestra
señora eligiesse persona por cuya mano corriesen las materias del gobierno
desta monarchia’; ff. 323–9: ‘advertencias de lo que entre otras cosas parecen
convenientes al oficio de Presidente del Consejo’.
336, ff. 208r–9v: list of the members of Haro’s retinue at the Pyrenees.
337, ff. 208r–13v: consulta of José González, 15 November 1650.
338, ff. 529r–30r: letters between the duke of Alba, Philip IV and Haro, July–
August 1648.
339, ff. 414r–16r: consulta of José González, August 1648.
340, ff. 68r–126: documents of the Councils of Castile and Finance relating to tax
reform, the 1647 bankruptcy, and the withholding of dividends on juros,
1644–50.
347, ff. 165r–6r: copy of a letter from the duke of Medinaceli to Haro, 11 June
1650; ff. 170r–1v: same to same, 29 August 1655.
532, ff. 102r–12v: description by don Juan Velasco de la Cueva, count of Siruela,
of the circumstances leading to his withdrawal from the embassy in Rome,
27 March 1646.
616, ff. 64r–78r: letters from don Juan de Austria, the duke of Lorraine, Charles II,
the duke of York, and the duke of Ormonde written to don Luis de Haro and to
the marquis of Heliche, 1650–61.
1176: letters from don Alonso de Cárdenas to don Enrique de Cárdenas, 1659.
Additional
14000, ff. 235r–8r: Philip IV to don Juan de Austria, 26 September 1656; ff.
239r–40v: ‘Resumen de la negociacion de paz entre España y Francia a que
vino a Madrid Monsieur de Leoni, embiado del Rey Cristianissimo, año de
1656;’ ff. 247r–67v: ‘Examen de las notas y observaciones de los señores
embaxadores de Francia sobre las replicas, que el señor conde de Peñaranda hizo
en Francfort a los papeles que le enviaron los señores electores de Maguncia y
Colonia el año pasado de 1658;’ ff. 277r–8r: Ruiz de Contreras to Haro, 8 January
1659; ff. 295r–304v: Haro to Condé, 30 July 1659, and the prince’s response.
14007, ff. 132r–5r: ‘copia de carta del conde de Fuensaldaña escrita a un amigo,
avisándole los motivos, que hubo para sitiar a Arras, y lo que pasó hasta que la
socorrieron franceses’, 1654.
24947: papers of don Juan Chumacero, relating to sumptuary edicts; the removal
of Olivares from Loeches to Toro; and the investigations into the marquis of
Leganés, 1640s.
26850: papers of the nuncio Camillo Massimo, 1654–67.
Chetham’s Library, Manchester

Ms. A.2.122: journal of Sydney Montagu, 1666.
Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan, Madrid

Ms. 26/II/7: services to the king of don Antonio Sancho Dávila y Toledo, third
marquis of Velada.
Ms. 26/V/11: instructions to the sixth duke of Frías on the occasion of his
appointment to the governor-generalship of Milan, 18 September and
7 October 1645.
Envío 85/117: letter from Philip IV to the marquis of Villamanrique, 4 August 1658.
Envío 85/192: ‘traslado de un capítulo de nuevas de la carta que se escribe a don
Luis de Haro para enviar al Marqués de San Román’, 20 January 1637.
Library of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth

Salamanca Papers
Mss. XIV/A/1/3; XVIII/N/1/3; XVIII/N/2/2; XIX/P/4/2: letters of the marquis
of Tarazona, Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, the count of Peñaranda and Father
Eugene Nagel to the rectors of the Irish Jesuit college in Salamanca, 1632–51.
The National Archives, London

State Papers
94/42: letters from Sir Arthur Hopton, Madrid, 1642–4.
94/43: letters from Sir George Goring and Sir Henry Bennet, Madrid, 1656–9.
Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid

Colección Salazar y Castro
9/53: correspondence between Haro and other leading officials, ministers and clerics.
9/88: letters written to Haro by the count of La Roca, 1639–44.
9/89: letters written to Haro by don Fernando Ruiz de Contreras, 1644.
9/91: correspondence between Haro and don Juan José de Austria, 1650s.
9/92: correspondence between Philip IV, Haro, and Archduke Leopold William,
1651, 1655–6.
9/97: correspondence between Haro and various ministers, clerics, and senior
aristocrats.
9/103: letters written to Haro by the duke of Tursi and don Juan de Austria.
9/281: genealogical material relating to the marquises of El Carpio.
9/286: testaments and family papers relating to the marquises of El Carpio.
9/293: genealogical material relating to the marquises of El Carpio.
9/659: copies of letters and consultas relating to the peace negotiations, 1659.
9/664: correspondence between Philip IV, Haro, and don Cristóbal Crespí de
Valldaura.
9/1074: a volume of royal orders relating to the palaces around Madrid during the
reign of Philip IV.
9/7159(2): anonymous newsletters from Madrid, December 1663–April 1664;
idem (25) voto of the count of Peñaranda on matters relating to the Empire, 7
July 1667.
Sandwich Papers, Mapperton House

Journal of Edward Montagu, first earl of Sandwich, during the time of his embassy
to Madrid, 1666–8 (8 vols.).
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Rey Don Felipe IV, ed. by Francisco Silvela, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1885–6).
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in CSMA, ii, 259–65.
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Manuel Borrego (Madrid, 2001).
Andrés, Juan Francisco, Carta a don Miguel Batista de la Nuza . . . . Refierese en ella
la enfermedad, y muerte del Serenissimo Señor don Baltasar Carlos de Austria (no
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Anonymous, Caída de su privanza y muerte del conde-duque de Olivares, gran
privado del señor Rey Don Felipe IV, in Antonio Valladares (ed.), Semanario
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Anonymous, ‘Sumario de las nuevas de la corte y principios del nuevo gobierno de
la Católica Majestad del rey don Felipe IV nuestro señor’, anonymous relación
published in Cartas de Andrés de Almansa y Mendoza. Novedades de esta corte y
avisos recibidos de otras partes, 1621–1626, published in the series Colección de
libros españoles raros o curiosos, vol. 17 (Madrid, 1886), 341–51.
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cortesanos (Naples, 1609).
Bussières, Jean de, Ramillete de flores historiales, recogido de los mas señalados sucessos
que ha visto el mundo, desde su creacion hasta la muerte de Christo, 2 vols., trans.
Lorenzo Matheu y Sanz (Valencia, 1655).
Cárdenas, Fray Miguel de, Sermón en las honras del . . . maestro fray Nicolás Baptista
(Madrid, 1663).
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goza en los actos publicos, y palacio de los reyes de España (Madrid, 1657).
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Santiago Rodríguez, Revista de Archivos Bibliotecas y Museos, 76 (1973), 323–404.
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lxxxxvi (Madrid, 1890), 377–521.
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de las Españas (Lisbon, 1631).
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Index
access to royal family 39, 41–2, 43–4, 46, Alcázar 220, 230
52, 61, 69, 120, 217, 220, 232–3, access to king’s apartments 41, 43–4,
238, 242–3 220
see also entourage, household chapel 41
administration: summer apartments 40
conciliar 97–8, 241–2 times of residence 48, 50
legalistic character 93, 95–6, 172 theatre / gilded hall 89, 100
local 96, 98, 108, 121, 158, 169 Alexander VII, pope (1599–1667) 211
offices 132 Alfonso X of Castile (1221–84) 162
strengths 93, 94 Almazán, house of 165, 170, 171
weaknesses 8, 95, 98, 108 Almazán, don Lope Hurtado de Mendoza y
see also councils, government, juntas Moscoso, fourth marquis of (active
Admiral of Castile, don Juan Gaspar 1620s–40s) 53, 106–7
Enríquez de Cabrera, tenth admiral of Almazán, don Gaspar Hurtado de Mendoza
Castile, sixth duke of Medina de Moscoso Osorio, fifth marquis of
Rioseco (1625–91) 56, 86, 162, (c. 1631–64) 243–4
223, 242 Almoguera, Friar Juan de, Trinitarian court
Afonso VI of Portugal (1643–83) 212 preacher (1605–76) 54
Aguilar, don Juan Ramírez de Arellano, Almonacid, don Agustín Homo-Dei y
eighth count of (d. 1643) 51 Portugal, second marquis of (d. 1657),
Aguilar, don Juan Luis Manrique de Lara, 34, 112
sixth marquis of (d. 1653) 106–7 Altamira, house of 119, 165
Alarcón, don Francisco Antonio de, Altamira, don Gaspar de Moscoso Osorio,
president of the Council of Finance sixth count of (d. 1669) 43, 51, 53,
(1587–1647) 65, 140 103, 169
Alba, don Fernando Álvarez de Toledo y Alvear, don Melchor de, servant of don Luis
Beaumont, sixth duke of de Haro 55
(1595–1667) 103, 106 Amezqueta, don Pedro de, Councillor
Alba, don Antonio Álvarez de Toledo y of Castile (active 1630s–40s) 84
Beaumont, seventh duke of Alba, fifth (n. 97)
marquis of Villanueva del Río Angelati von Crasempach, Cristóbal,
(1615–90) 106, 160 secretary of don Luis de Haro (active
Alba, don Francisco Álvarez de Toledo, 1640s–60s) 114, 140
tenth duke of (1662–1739) 163, 244 Anne of Austria (1601–66) 1, 3, 186, 199,
Alba de Liste, don Luis Enríquez de 218–19, 220, 228–9, 231, 233, 243
Guzmán, ninth count of (d. 1667) 132 antiquarianism 169
Albert, archduke, governor-general of Antwerp, Truce of (1609) 188
Spanish Netherlands appointments 95
(1559–1621) 169, 198 as a means of political exclusion 117,
Alburquerque, don Francisco Fernández de 132, 133–5, 157, 221–3
la Cueva y Enríquez de Ribera episcopal 119
(1619–76) 47, 56 military 119–20
Alburquerque, Juan Alfonso de, favourite of of non-Castilians to posts in Castile and
Peter the Cruel 22 America 111, 113–14
Alcalá de Henares 48, 75 process and responsibility 18, 20, 56–9,
alcaldes de casa y corte 141–3 99, 117, 118–19, 121–4, 126, 132,
Alcañices, doña Inés de Guzmán y 148, 192–3, 222
Pimentel, seventh marchioness of viceroys and governors-general 121–3
(d. 1652) 103 Aragon, viceroyalty of 123, 127
286 Index
Aragón, doña Ana Francisca de, duchess of Austria, Cardinal Infante don Fernando de
Arcos 159–60, 166 (1609–41) 5, 76, 151, 193
Aragón, don Antonio de, Cardinal Aveiro, Raimundo de Alemcastre, fourth
(1616–50) 159 duke of (d. 1665) 101, 236
see also Segorbe Avesnes 229, 230
Aragón, doña Francisca Josefa de, countess Ayala, count of, see Tarazona
of Santisteban (1647–97) 166, 233 Aytona, don Guillén Ramón de Moncada y
see also Segorbe Alagón, fourth marquis of (d. 1670):
Aragón, don Pascual de, Cardinal as courtier 46, 51, 56, 69, 77–8, 128,
(1626–77) 106, 159, 233 208, 223
see also Segorbe as provincial governor and soldier 128
Aragón, don Pedro de (1611–90) 157, choice of executors 103
159, 168 correspondence with Sor María de
see also Segorbe Ágreda 74
Aragón, don Vicente de (1620–76) 159 financial problems 128, 129
Aranda de Duero 238 religiosity 78, 106
Aranjuez, palace 48, 49, 50, 223 rival of Haro 62, 220, 237
Arce y Reinoso, don Diego de Azcona, don Pedro de, servant of don Luis
(1585–1665) 64, 80, 149, 237 de Haro (active 1650s–70s) 56,
and Castrillo 79 59, 227
early career 78–9
influence during 1660s 241 Badajoz 99, 175
Inquisitor General (1643–65) 79, 86, siege of ( June–October 1658) 215–16
97, 125, 144 Baltasar Carlos, prince (1629–46):
refuses presidency of Castile 82 death 78, 86, 139, 179
renews investigations into the San friendship with marquis of Heliche 58
Plácido nuns 79 household 42, 76–7, 151
Arcos, don Rodrigo Ponce de León, fourth recipient of books on political
duke of (1602–58) 105, 166 philosophy 35, 36, 37, 177
and Haro 34, 159–60, 170 travels with his father 47, 48
viceroy of Naples (1645–8) 34, 157 bankers, see financiers
aristocracy, see nobility bankruptcies 115
Ariza, don Juan Francisco de Palafox, third (1647) 110, 111
marquis of, steward in king’s (1652) 201
household (d. 1675) 114 see also asientos, financiers, juros
Arras, siege of (1654) 196–7, 202 Barajas, don Diego de Zapata y Mendoza,
artifice 27, 188–9 second count of, steward in the king’s
asientos 65, 70, 98, 107–8, 109, 110, 207–8 household (d. 1644) 46
see also bankruptcies, financiers, juros Barcelona, recapture of (1652) 50, 71,
Asti, Peace of (1615) 188 112, 172, 184, 191, 201, 202
Ataíde, don Bernardo de, bishop of Astorga Barrionuevo, Jerónimo de, writer of
and Ávila (d. 1656) 114 newsletters 8, 147, 162, 208
Atienza 47 Bayetola, don Matías de, vice-chancellor of
Auersperg, Johann Weikhard von the crown of Aragon (d. 1654) 97
(1615–77) 200, 203, 204 Béjar, house of 130
Austria, don Juan de (1629–79): Benavente, don Francisco Pimentel de
and Haro 33, 134–5, 237 Quiñones, twelfth count of
command of Army of (d. 1709) 244
Extremadura 236–7 see also Luna
governor-general of Flanders Benavides y Bazán, don Álvaro de,
(1656–9) 172, 197, 202, 213–14 magistrate in the Chancellery of
return to Madrid (1659) 221, 223–4 Valladolid, prosecuting attorney in
viceroy of Catalonia (1653–6) 124 the Council of War (1622–68) 141,
Austria, Infante don Carlos de 166, 233
(1607–32) 5, 193 see also Santisteban
Index 287
Benavides y Bazán, don Antonio de, chief Bristol, George Digby, second earl of
almoner to the queen (d. 1691) 141, (1612–77) 31
166 Buckingham, George Villiers, first duke of
see also Santisteban (1592–1628) 22
Benavides y Bazán, doña Luisa de Buen Retiro, palace 48, 50, 87, 88, 106,
(d. 1660) 53 224, 243
see also Santisteban Burgundy, dukes of 39–40
Benavides y Bazán, doña María de 53 see also courts, household
see also Santisteban
Benavides Dávila y Corella, doña María Caetani family 112
Teresa de 166, 168, 233 Calderón, Rodrigo, secretary of Philip III
see also Santisteban (1576–1621) 54, 140
Bennet, Sir Henry, earl of Arlington Cámara de Castilla 18–19, 20, 41, 46, 47,
(1618–85) 164–5, 206, 209, 219 70, 99, 118, 132, 139–40, 141,
Bodin, Jean, political philosopher 144–5, 147
(1530–96) 32 Cámara de Indias 118, 148, 175
bonds, see juros Camporredondo y Río, don Antonio de,
Bonelli, Carlo, papal nuncio (d. 1676) 226 Councillor of Castile and president of
book-collecting, see libraries the Council of Finance
book dedications 21, 25, 29, 33, 36, 37, (1579–1652) 98, 140
106, 114, 177 Canary Islands 208
Borja, don Fernando de (1583–1665): Cantanhede, dom António Luís de
and foreign diplomatic community 241 Meneses, third count of Cantanhede,
as Councillor of State 221, 222 first marquis of Marialva
as rival to Haro 62, 63, 237 (1603–75) 216
choice of executors 103 Caracena, don Luis de Benavides Carrillo y
courtier 5, 9, 56, 60, 77–8 Toledo, third marquis of (1608–68):
correspondence with Sor María de choice of executors 103
Ágreda 9, 74 early career as menino de la reina 5
financial problems 129 failure to obtain high office in
influence 133 Madrid 157, 170
religiosity 78, 226 in Brussels 192, 197, 235, 239, 242
sumiller de corps to Baltasar Carlos 76, 86 in Milan 121–3, 203–4
viceroy of Aragon and Valencia 60 personal and political
Borja, don Francisco de, chaplain of relationships 166, 170
Descalzas Reales (d. 1685) 9, 74, 80 purchase of artworks 170
Borja, don Gaspar de, Cardinal Carafa family 112
(1580–1645) 66 Cárdenas, don Alonso de, Philip IV’s
Bordeaux 157, 184, 191, 196, 202 ambassador in London
see also Condé, Frondes (1592–1664) 157
Botero, Giovanni, political philosopher Cárdenas, don Jaime Manuel de, see Nájera
(1533–1617) 20, 76 Cardona, house of, see Segorbe
Bracamonte, don Gaspar de, see Peñaranda Carlos II 18, 81, 144, 159, 242,
Braganza, doña Luisa Francisca de 243, 244
Guzmán, duchess of Braganza and Carnero, Antonio, royal secretary
queen of Portugal (1613–66) 54, 212 (1586–1661) 54, 67, 109, 130,
Brancalasso, Giulio Antonio, writer 140, 145
(c. 1550–c. 1609) 32 Carvajal y Sande don Juan de
Brandenburg, Frederick William I, Great (c. 1590–1667) 146–7
Elector of (1620–88) 209–10, 211 Casale 186, 191, 203–4
Brecht, Jacques, secretary of the Council Castañeda, don Sancho de Monroy, first
of Flanders (active 1630s–50s) marquis of, Councillor of State
218–19 (1576–1646) 34–5, 66
Brezosa, don Alonso, servant of don Luis de Castejón, don Gil de, Councillor of Castile
Haro (active 1650s) 227 (1618–92) 144
288 Index
Castel Rodrigo, don Manuel de Moura y influence 64, 69, 70–1, 72, 86, 125,
Cortereal, second marquis of 149, 241
(1592–1651): local influence 165
choice of executors 103 policies 235, 236
cosmopolitan outlook 112 possible role in downfall of Olivares 68
courtier 5, 50, 53, 56, 60 purchase of artworks 170
in Brussels (1644–8) 192 president of the Council of Castile
landed wealth 135–6 (1662–8) 238, 241–2
member of the Junta de Estado 174 refuses presidency of Castile
relations with other ministers 56, 136–7 (1648) 81–2
religious affiliations 105 viceroy of Naples (1653–9) 134, 146,
re-establishment in Madrid (1648) 135–6 151, 154
Castel Rodrigo, don Francisco de Moura y wealth and assets 109
Cortereal, third marquis of Castel Castrillo, doña María de Avellaneda,
Rodrigo, fourth count of Lumiares countess of (d. 1670) 74, 238
(1621–75): Castro, Father Agustín de, Jesuit
ambassador in Vienna (1648–56) 127, court preacher (d. 1671) 54,
200–1, 202–3, 235 65, 84
courtier 58 Castrofuerte, don Pedro Pacheco, first
governor-general of Flanders marquis of, Councillor of State
(1664–8) 243 (d. 1645) 66
proximity to Haro 56–8 Catalonia:
viceroy of Sardinia (1657–61) 123, 127 juridical situation 96–7
Castelví, don Jorge de, Councillor of reconquest 7, 71, 116, 172, 173,
Aragon (active 1640s–60s) 114 183–4, 187, 191, 195
Castiglione, Baldassare (1478–1529) 26, see also revolts
29, 32 Cateau-Cambrésis, Peace of (1559) 190
Castile: Cerdagne 186, 195
local administration 98, 158, 169, 175 ceremony:
loyalty 96, 109–10 at Pyrenees (1659) 227–8
political stability 93–4 Burgundian inspiration 39–40
Castrillo, don García de Haro y Avellaneda conflicts over 93, 94, 239, 242
(1588–1670): lapses 43, 45
accompanies king to Pamplona and regulation 44–5
Zaragoza (1646) 47, 72 see also protocol, etiquetas
and Arce y Reinoso 79 Cerralbo, don Rodrigo Pacheco y
and Caracena 170, 244 Osorio, third marquis of
and Haro 65, 68, 69, 148, 237–8 (d. 1644) 103
and Monterrey 71–2 Chacón Ponce de León, don Juan,
and Peñaranda 148, 244 Councillor of Castile
and Isabel of Bourbon 69 (c. 1602–57) 148
as courtier 47, 58, 60, 61, 238 Charles I of Great Britain (1600–49) 24,
as man of business 68–9 40, 170
as patronage broker 139, 140, 141–4, Charles II of Great Britain (1630–85) 158,
148, 174, 244 206, 234, 240
choice of executors 103 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
correspondence with Sor María de (1500–58) 39, 216, 220
Ágreda 74 Charles X of Sweden (1622–60) 200
early career 139–40 Charles Joseph, archduke (1649–64) 199
family background and relationships 67, Chinchón, don Luis Jerónimo Fernández
105, 107, 199 Cabrera y Bobadilla, fourth count of,
governor of Council of Indies Councillor of State and member of
(1632–53) 125 the Junta Particular (d. 1647) 47,
governor of the Council of Italy 66, 99
(1660–2) 237 Christina of Sweden (1626–89) 219
Index 289
Chumacero, don Juan de (1580–1660): Cortes, don Miguel de Navarra y Mauleón,
appointment as president of the Council fourth marquis of 106–7
of Castile (1643) 75, 97 see also Castrillo
and fiscal alleviation 110–11 cortes 19, 96
dismissal (1648) 80–1, 86, 107, 115, 181 of Aragon 112, 113–14
hostility towards family and clients of of Castile 98, 104, 108, 201, 235, 237
Olivares 76, 80 of Catalonia 96
pursuit of Godly reform 75–6, 78 of Pamplona 48, 71
Ciudad Real, don Francisco Idiáquez of Portugal 96
de Butrón y Mogica, third duke of Cottington, Sir Francis (1579–1652) 30,
(d. 1687) 133 34–5, 189
Clarendon, first earl of, see Hyde, councils 41, 118, 141–4, 149
Sir Edward as legal tribunals 94, 172
clergy 46, 53–4, 100–1 government by 97–8, 241–2
acting as interim viceroys 123 military and financial responsibilities 97
bishops 101, 114, 118–19, 133–4 minutes and consultas 11, 172
confessors 43, 46, 55, 119 origins 18
executors in testaments 103 pre-eminence over officials in field 6
preachers 54 see also administration, government,
taxes paid by 108, 146, 200–1 juntas
clientage 92, 95, 119, 126, 139–48 Council of Aragon 97, 101, 121,
see also appointments 129, 153
coinage: Council of Castile 70, 88, 95, 97, 98, 105,
debasement and revaluation 109, 115, 110, 111, 129, 139–40, 141–4,
201, 237 146–7, 148, 151, 157, 244
vellón conversion charges 107, 109 Councillors of Castile 43, 104, 105,
Colmenar Viejo 48, 49 141–3
Coloma, Pedro, royal secretary see also magistrates
(c. 1587–1660) 54, 118, 130, 172 Council of Finance 95, 97, 98, 140,
Comisión de Millones 98, 104, 147 141–3, 146–7
committees, see juntas Council of Indies 89, 140, 141–4, 151,
Concini, Concino (1575–1617) 22 158, 174
conductor de embajadores 41 Council of Italy 144, 153–4
Conflent 229 Council of Orders 18, 105, 141–3,
connoisseurship, see picture-collecting 150–2, 155
Constable of Castile, don Bernardino Council of State 6, 29, 41, 60, 128, 135,
Fernández de Velasco y Tovar, 171–3, 204, 206, 208, 213–14, 215,
seventh constable of Castile, sixth 217, 220–1, 222, 236
duke of Frías (1609–52) 51, 53, 56, Councillors of State:
60, 107, 124 access to king 44
Constable of Castile, don Íñigo Melchor and foreign diplomats 29–30, 206,
Fernández de Velasco, eighth 217–18, 241
constable of Castile, seventh duke of decease of (1640s) 66
Frías (1629–96) 107 new appointments (1659) 60,
Colonna family 112 220–1, 222
Condé, Louis de Bourbon, prince of Council of War 97, 99, 128
(1621–86) 82, 85, 185, 191, council presidents 128, 138, 149–50
196–7, 200, 219, 220, 225–6, access to king 44
227, 228, 229, 230, 232–3, influence during 1660s 241–2
239, 240 longevity in office 125
Contreras, don Antonio de, Councillor of of Castile 81, 84
Castile (1591–1670) 47, 72, 98, 130, patronage networks 141–4
140, 145, 148, 157 role in appointments
convents 74, 79, 88, 128, 129, process 124–5, 126
130, 131 relationship with Haro 149–57, 171
290 Index
courts: Elvas (siege of, October 1658–January
advantages of residence 1659) 56, 216, 218, 219–20, 225,
at 60–1, 126–7 236, 237
as distinct from government 39, Enghien, Henri de Bourbon, duke of
60–2, 136 (1643–1709) 229
as theatre for monarchical see also Condé
self-representation 39, 45 English Protectorate 185, 202, 207–9,
England and Scotland 39, 50 212, 215
historiography 39 entourage of king:
see also access, entourage, household, aristocratic 55–9
festivities as a politically neutral space 53–4, 55,
Crespí de Valldaura, Cristóbal (1599–1671): 59, 60–1
family 100 potential source of danger for valido 39,
financial problems 129 49–51, 59, 61, 165, 208, 223–4
interaction with Philip IV 61, 208 religious 46, 53–4
journal 42 see also access, courts, household
relationship with Haro 61, 124, 149 size and composition 43–4, 45, 46–7
vice-chancellor of the Crown of Aragon entourage of queen 50, 61, 112,
(1652–71) 97, 125, 135, 153 222, 238
Cromwell, Oliver (1599–1658) 207 Eraso, Francisco de, secretary of Philip II
(1507–70) 54
discretion, 27–9 Escalona, don Juan Pacheco, first duke of,
dissimulation 26, 27, 85 favourite of Henry IV of Castile
Doria family 112, 155 (1419–74) 4
duelling 101–2, 171, 243–4 Escalona, don Diego López Pacheco
Dunes, battle of ( June 1658) 197, 215 Cabrera y Bobadilla, seventh duke of
Dunkirk 187, 191, 219 (d. 1653) 134
Escobedo, don Juan de, secretary of
Eboli, Ruy Gómez de Silva, prince of, don Luis de Haro
favourite of Philip II (active 1640s–60s) 140, 233
(1516–73) 29, 73 Escorial, San Lorenzo del 40, 48, 49–50,
El Carpio, house of 119, 158, 169 73, 208
see also Haro, Heliche etiquetas 42–3, 45
El Carpio, doña Francisca de Guzmán, see also ceremony, protocol
marchioness of (d. 1642), mother of European crisis, see revolts
don Luis de Haro 4 Extremadura, Army of 119–20, 154, 216,
see also Haro, Heliche 235–6
El Carpio, doña Catalina Fernández de Ezquerra de Rozas, don Fernando,
Cardona Córdoba y Aragón, Councillor of Italy (d. 1642) 144
marchioness of (1610–47), wife of
don Luis de Haro 53, 103, 159, 160, faction, see family networks, political
161, 163, 168 climate
see also Haro, Heliche family networks 92, 111–12, 158–71, 233
El Fresno, don Pedro Fernández de Felipe Próspero, prince (1657–61) 50,
Velasco y Tovar, marquis of 179, 239, 242
(d. 1713) 107 Feloaga, don Antonio de, prosecuting
El Infantado, house of 130 attorney in Councils of Finance and
El Infantado, don Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar Indies (d. 1658) 33, 141
Hurtado de Mendoza, seventh duke of Feloaga, don Francisco de, Councillor of
(1614–57) 58, 73, 77, 86, 101, 124, Castile (1595–1672) 141, 148
134, 208 Ferdinand of Antequera, king of Aragon
El Infantado, doña María de Silva y (1380–1416) 160
Mendoza, duchess of El Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor
Infantado 77 (1608–57) 81, 179, 200, 203, 204,
El Montijo, house of 165, 171 214, 235
Index 291
Ferdinand María, archduke and king of the Fuensaldaña, don Alonso Pérez de Vivero,
Romans (1633–54) 198 third count of (1601–61) 178,
Fernández del Campo y Angulo, don 219, 235
Pedro, royal secretary (d. 1680) 54 and Haro 71, 170, 192–4,
Fernandina, duke of, see Villafranca 197, 238–9
Fernando Tomás, infante (1658–9) 218 and Leopold William 192–4, 198
festivities 6, 58, 81, 85 and Monterrey 124, 193
Figueroa, Pedro de, political philosopher ambassador in Paris 232–4, 238–9
(active mid-seventeenth century) 36 as army commander 71, 194–5, 196–7
finance 7, 109, 147 as peace-maker 195–6, 218, 224
consolidated debt 108–9 choice of executors 103
gastos secretos 175 death 242
revenues from Castile 108, 201 early career and family background 5,
see also asientos, bankruptcies, coinage, 107, 193
juros, taxation failure to obtain high office in
state expenditure 107, 112, Madrid 157, 238
183–4, 202 governor-general of Milan 214, 224
financiers 98, 107, 109, 110, 171 in Brussels 192–7
see also Pichinotti impoverishment in royal service 129
fiscality, see taxation Fuente el Sol, don Juan de Bracamonte
Flanders, see Spanish Netherlands Dávila, first marquis of (active 1640s
Flanders, Army of 7, 194–5, 196, 197, until mid-1660s) 112
215, 235 Fuenterrabía 71, 232, 234
foreign policy 178–9, 181
and Stuarts 206, 234, 242 Gandía, house of 112, 119
concentration on Iberian Garay, don Juan de, soldier
commitments 183, 184, 212, 214, (active 1630s–40s) 120
215, 234, 235–6, 243 Genoa, Republic of 202
Condé alliance 185, 196–7, 227, 228–9 gentlemen of the chamber:
domestic political motivations 91, 176, acting 50, 56–9, 238
188, 191, 212–13, 217, 227 de capona 44
during 1660s 242–3 without exercise 44, 165
Madrid–Vienna alliance 179, 183, 184, Godly rule 64, 72–81, 227
198–201, 202–4, 205, 209, 211, 222, see also moral reform, providentialism
242, 243 Goetens, Damián, caretaker of the Buen
reliance on contingent factors 183, 184, Retiro (active 1640s–70s) 55, 114
200–1, 236 Góngora, don Juan Jiménez de (1608–68):
see also Haro, Olivares, peace, Portugal, assets and wealth 130–1
Pyrenees, Milan, Spanish career 98, 147
Netherlands, Spanish succession governor of the Council of Finance
war against English Protectorate (1658–63) 101, 147, 237
(1655–60) 185, 207–8, 208–9, local influence 165
212, 215 relationship with Haro 84, 88, 89–90,
Frankfurt, electoral conclave 147, 160, 164, 174–5, 233, 237
(1657–8) 131, 204–5, 209–12, 214 relationship with ministerial elite 148,
Franqueza y Esteve, don Pedro, secretary of 175, 217
Philip III (1547–1614) 54, 140 testament 244
Frías, house of, see Constable of Castile undermined (1660s) 241, 243
Fromistá, don Luis Francisco de Benavides Goring, Sir George (1608–57) 31
y Cortés, fourth marquis of, courtier, Gonzaga family 112
and father of the marquis of Caracena González, José, Councillor of Castile and
(d. 1645) 46, 166 president of the Council of Finance
Frondes 157, 179, 184, 187, 189, 191, (c. 1583–1668):
194–5, 196 assets and wealth 130
see also Bordeaux, Condé negotiating with petitioners 241
292 Index
González, José, Councillor of Castile and Guzmán, Dionisio de,
president of the Council of Finance soldier (c. 1593–1654) 120
(c. 1583–1668): (cont.) Guzmán, don Domingo
political relationships 145–6, de (d. 1689) 243–4
148, 158
president of Council of Finance Haro, don Baltasar Méndez de, canon of
(1647–51) 95, 98, 140 Toledo (d. 1644) 119
Sanlúcar inheritance 87, 88 Haro, don Diego López de, first marquis of
González de Rosende, Antonio, historian El Carpio (d. 1578) 4
(active mid-seventeenth century) 134 Haro, don Diego López de, fifth marquis of
González de Uzqueta y Valdés, don Juan, El Carpio (d. 1648):
Councillor of Castile (1615–70) 146 character 68–9
government: choice of executors 103
as joint enterprise 138, 174, 241 courtier 5, 46, 47, 51, 56, 68–9, 81
conduct of business 173, 241 death 86
different levels of intervention 95, 181 grandee pretensions 159
distribution of power 136–7 influence 67, 82
inconsistency of directives 96 marriage to doña Francisca de Guzmán 4
judicial nature 94–5, 97 Haro y Avellaneda, don Gaspar de, son of
practicalities 171–6 the count of Castrillo
see also administration, councils, juntas (1638–65) 106, 238, 244
governors-general, see viceroys Haro, don Luis Méndez de, gentleman of
Gracián, Baltasar, Jesuit writer the chamber and favourite of Philip II
(1601–58) 27–9, 31–2 (d. 1565) 4
Grajal, Juan de Vega, third count of, Haro, don Luis Méndez de, fourth marquis
courtier (d. 1648) 46, 47, 56, 69, 74, of El Carpio (d. 1614) 4
87, 165, 166, 168, 169 Haro, don Luis Méndez de, sixth marquis
Gramont, Antoine de, duke of, ambassador of El Carpio (1603–61):
of Louis XIV (1604–78) 230 ancestry and early life 3–4, 52, 158
Grana, Francesco Antonio di Carretto, CAREER:
marquis of, Imperial ambassador in missions away from court (1640s) 5,
Madrid (d. 1651) 81, 123 66–7, 69–70, 71, 81, 89–90
grandees 44 emergence as valido 68, 70, 71, 75, 78,
claims to sovereignty 73, 83, 158, 81, 86, 88–9, 91, 115, 124
160–2, 244 offices and titles 52–3, 63, 68, 76, 87–9,
lack of political unity 78 158, 159, 226
pressure on Philip IV not to appoint a periodization of ascendancy 24, 63–4,
valido 73, 77, 86 138, 207, 213, 216
see also family networks, nobility in Extremadura 165, 215–16, 217
Guadalcázar, don Francisco Antonio at the Pyrenees 130–1, 165, 178,
Fernández de Córdoba y Riederer de 227–31, 232, 234
Paar, second marquis of Guadalcázar, death 24, 239, 241
governor of El Pardo in Haro’s name legacy 244
(1611–50) 55 COURTIER:
Guastalla, dukes of 162, 169 courtier 5–7, 29–32, 64, 176, 231, 240
Gudiel y Peralta, don Luis, Councillor of and royal households 53–4, 55–6, 59,
Castile (c. 1573–1644) 140 61, 76
Guevara, Antonio de, political philosopher negotiating technique 85–6, 221, 222,
(1480–1545) 32 228–9
Guidi, Father Ippolito Camillo, resident of acts of kindness (finezas) 30–1, 229
the duke of Modena in Madrid 63 personal household 227
Guidi, Pietro Giovanni, resident of the duke discretion 94, 176
of Modena in Madrid 29–30, 69 GOVERNMENT:
Guzmán el Bueno, don Alonso Pérez de, see reliance on committees
Patriarch of the Indies ( juntas) 10, 172, 213
Index 293
personal correspondence with ministers AS VALIDO:
in the field 173, 195 sovereign pretensions 158–62, 220, 232
facilitator of government 61, 136, 138, relationship with Philip IV 3, 4, 50, 51,
154, 173 63–4, 65, 138, 205, 220
dependence on advice of others 138, 173 and aristocracy 25, 33–5, 64, 65, 68,
responsibility for public finances 69–70, 77, 82, 86, 123–4, 138–9,
89, 110, 111, 115, 213–14, 239–40 158–65, 176
military organizer 69–70, 71, 90, 176, and diplomatic community 29–31, 65,
181, 224–5, 239–40 89, 206
failure of judgement 238–9, 240 and council presidents 6, 81–2, 146,
PERSONAL WORLD: 149–58, 171
family 58–9, 64, 67, 68, 92, 158–69, and clergy 54, 75
170, 171, 233 influence 64–6, 67, 70, 111, 123–4,
cultural interests 106, 114, 170 126, 217, 221–2
described by contemporaries 29–31, liking for warfare 94, 176, 181, 184–5,
34–5, 183, 189 209–10, 224–5, 226, 236
inheritance of count-duke of insecurity 6, 24, 55, 59, 91, 92, 148–9,
Olivares 88–9 158, 171, 178, 223
landed wealth 88–9, 110 political difficulties (1656–9) 206–7,
religious affiliations 105 208, 212, 215, 217, 219–20, 222–4,
friends and allies 53–4, 56–8, 60, 68, 225–6, 237
71, 105, 107, 114, 120, 123–4, 133, see also foreign policy, Pyrenees
136, 140, 149–57, 165, 171, 174, Haro y Paz, don Luis de, natural son of the
176, 202–3, 222, 237 count of Castrillo (d. 1670) 119
political mentality 90, 184–5, Haro y Guzmán, doña Antonia de, duchess
210–11, 212 of Medina Sidonia, daughter of don
self-presentation 17, 35, 67 Luis de Haro (d. 1676) 88, 164–5
RIVALS: Haro y Guzmán, doña Manuela de,
in general 74, 92, 106, 134–5, 237 countess of Luna, daughter of don
don Juan de Austria 223–4, 236–7 Luis de Haro (d. 1682) 233
Medina de las Torres 52–3, 56, 88–9, Haro y Guzmán, doña María de, duchess of
135–7, 153, 218, 220, 234 Pastrana, daughter of don Luis de
Aytona 56, 74, 128, 208, 220, 223, 237 Haro 163, 244
Borja 56, 74, 222, 226, 237 Heliche, don Gaspar de Haro y Guzmán,
Híjar 73, 74, 77, 82–4 marquis of Heliche and seventh
El Infantado 58, 73, 77, 86, 101, 208 marquis of El Carpio
from amongst clergy 73–4 (1629–87) 58–9, 60, 62, 86, 160,
exclusion of rivals 6, 92, 124–5, 132, 162, 163, 165, 243, 244
133–5, 153, 171, 231 Heliche, doña Antonia María de la Cerda y
CIRCLE OF POWER: Enríquez de Ribera, marchioness of
clients 55–6, 98, 140–1, 147, 148 Heliche and of El Carpio
patronage broker 89, 92, 139, 149 (1635–70) 86, 160, 163
Castrillo 69, 82, 148, 149, 237–8 Henry IV, of Castile (1425–74) 4
Fuensaldaña 192–4, 197, 238–9 Hierro, don Agustín de, Councillor of
Leganés 86, 101, 153–4, 169 Castile (d. 1660) 84 (n. 97)
Los Balbases 156, 169, 213–14, 217 Híjar, don Rodrigo Sarmiento de Silva
Monterrey 72, 149 Villandrando y la Cerda, fourth duke
Peñaranda 131, 152, 158, 209, 224–5 of (1600–64):
Góngora 98, 147, 160, 164, 174, as rival to Haro 73, 77
175, 217 conspiracy 8, 82–3
Ruiz de Contreras 164, 171, 174–5, correspondence with Sor María de
176, 208, 217, 219, 221, 222, 223 Ágreda 74
name invoked in testaments 141, 145, in exile (1644–6) 77
148, 151, 175 relationship with Philip IV 73, 80
choice of executors 103, 146 sovereign pretensions 73
294 Index
Híjar, don Rodrigo Sarmiento de Silva de Estado 99, 135, 136, 172, 174, 195,
Villandrando y la Cerda, fourth duke 208, 213
of (1600–64): (cont.) de etiquetas 45
trial 64, 82, 83–5, 181 de Guerra de España 98–9, 119–20,
Híjar, don Jaime Fernández de Híjar 172, 175
Sarmiento de Silva de Villandrando Particular 47, 98, 99, 175
y la Cerda, fifth duke of Híjar see also administration, councils,
(c. 1624–1700) 106 government
Holy Roman Empire: juros 108–9, 129
assistance for Flanders and Milan justice 84–5, 89, 94–5, 111, 177
(1656–9) 201, 202–4, 205,
211, 212 kingship 17, 21–2, 35–6, 39–40, 63,
rearmament (1655–6) 200 74–5, 94–5, 177, 181, 217, 235
honour, see reputation see also political theory, Godly rule
Hopton, Sir Arthur, English ambassador in
Madrid (c. 1588–1650) 75 La Calle, don Juan de la, Councillor of the
household: Indies (d. 1659) 146
advantages of membership 61, 232 La Cerda, Fernando de, Infante of Castile
as nursery for future ministers and (1255–75) 162
soldiers 5 see also Medinaceli, Heliche
disillusion with 61, 242–3 La Fuente, don Gaspar Teves Tello
relationships within 78 de Guzmán, first marquis of
of queen 43, 61 (c. 1608–73):
of heir to the throne 42, 76–7 ambassador in Vienna
see also access, courts, Burgundy, (1656–61) 202–3, 204–5, 214
entourage ambassador in Paris (1662–7) 239, 242–3
Humanes, doña María de Fonseca Ayala y character 203
Toledo (d. 1662) 53 early career as menino de la reina 5
hunting 48–9, 50–1, 58 family background 107
Hyde, Sir Edward, first earl of Clarendon purchase of artworks 170
(1609–74) 30, 34–5, 189 La Lapilla, doña María Felipa de Fonseca,
marchioness of 175
Infante, don Sebastián, Councillor of see also Ruiz de Contreras
Castile (d. 1673) 144 La Puebla de Montalbán, don Alfonso
Infantes, see Austria Téllez Girón, second count of,
Íñiguez de Arnedo, don Martín, Councillor steward in the king’s household
of Castile (1593–1667) 144 (1590–1666) 53, 60, 106–7, 165, 170
Inquisition 79, 101, 119, 125 La Puebla de Ovando, marquis of, see
Ipeñarrieta, don Bernardo de, Councillor of Loriana
Castile (d. 1649) 84 (n. 97) La Roca, don Juan Antonio de Vera y
Isabel, archduchess, governor-general of Figueroa, first count of
Spanish Netherlands (1583–1658) 22, 24, 31, 106, 156–7
(1568–1633) 198 La Torre, Jerónimo de, royal secretary
Isabel of Bourbon (1602–44) 42, 49, 66, (c. 1588–1658) 118, 172
69, 73, 77–8, 79, 86, 139 Lando, don Luis Manuel de, Councillor of
Finance (active 1620s–60s) 140
James VI of Scotland, and I of England Larrea, don Juan Bautista de, Councillor of
(1566–1625) 50 Castile (1588–1645) 13
John II of Castile (1405–54) 19 Larreateguí, don Martín de, Councillor of
John IV of Portugal (1604–56) 83, 207, 212 Castile (1597–1652) 84 (n. 97)
Jülich 230–1 Las Navas, house of 165, 166,
juntas 23, 95, 96, 97, 172, 181 168, 171
de don Luis de Haro y el marqués de los Las Torres, don Luis Abarca de Bolea y
Balbases 213–14 Castro Fernández de Híjar, second
de Ejecución 97, 174 marquis of (1617–c. 1654) 106
Index 295
lawsuits 60, 87–9, 95, 101–2, 126 Lionne, Hugues de, French diplomat
Le Tellier, Michel (1603–85) 228, 239 (1611–71) 199–200, 205, 208,
Leganés, don Diego Mexía Felípez de 210–12, 225, 239
Guzmán, first marquis of Lipsius, Justus, political philosopher
(1582–1655): (1547–1606) 32
and Haro 68, 71, 86, 153–4, 169 literary academies 106
and Los Balbases 155–6, 169 litigation, see lawsuits
and ministerial elite 72, 154–5, loans contracts, see asientos
169, 170 López Bravo, Mateo, political philosopher
as courtier 56, 60 (active 1610s–20s) 21, 24
as patronage broker 139 Loriana, don Francisco Dávila Guzmán
career 126, 153–4, 156–7 Velázquez, fourth marquis of
cultural interests 129, 169 Loriana, first marquis of La Puebla de
choice of executors 103 Ovando, Councillor of State
financial difficulties 129 (d. 1647) 66
lawsuits 88–9, 101, 154 Lorraine, Charles, fourth duke of
loyalty to Olivares 153 (1604–75) 189, 195, 230
longevity in office 125 Lorraine, Army of 202
local influence 165, 169 Los Balbases, Ambrogio Spinola, first
Sanlúcar inheritance 88–9, 154 marquis of (1569–1630) 193
testamentary bequests 169 Los Balbases, don Philippo Spinola, second
Leganés, doña Juana de Rojas y Córdoba, marquis of (1594–1659):
marchioness of (d. 1680) 86 and Leganés 155–6, 169
Lemos, don Francisco Fernández de Castro, as patronage broker 139
ninth count of, viceroy of Aragon choice of executors 103
(1613–62) 73, 86, 106, 134 cosmopolitan outlook 112
Lemos, don Pedro Antonio Fernández de cultural interests 169
Castro, tenth count of death 237, 238
(1632–72) 106 influence 165, 206, 213–14, 217
Leopold Ignatius, archduke and emperor testamentary bequests 169
(1640–1705) 198, 199, 200, 204, Louis XIII (1601–43) 1, 186
209, 211, 221, 243 Louis XIV (1638–1715) 82, 85, 183, 184,
Leopold William, archduke (1614–62): 187, 189, 191, 200, 203, 209, 218,
and Condé 196–7 225, 228–30, 232–3, 238, 239, 240,
and Fuensaldaña 192–4, 198 242, 243
and Schwarzenberg 194 see also Spanish succession
candidate for election as Luisa de Jesús, Sor
emperor 199, 204 see Paredes, countess of
desire for peace 195 Lumiares, counts of, see Castel Rodrigo
governor-general of Flanders 121, 123, Luna, don Gaspar Vigil de Quiñones y
192–8 Benavides, count of 233
marriage considerations 198 see also Benavente, counts of
Spanish entourage 192 Luna, doña Antonia de, niece of count of
Lérida 46, 71, 86, 90, 153 Peñaranda, lady-in-waiting to
Lerma, don Francisco Gómez de Sandoval y Mariana of Austria 53
Rojas, first duke of (1553–1625) 4, Luynes, Charles d’Albret, first duke of,
12, 20, 42, 43, 59, 70, 75, 160, 163 favourite of Louis XIII
letrados, see Councillors of Castile, (1578–1621) 22
magistrates, nobility
Lezama, don Antonio de, Councillor of the magistrates 93, 94–5, 97, 104–5, 139–41,
Indies (active 1630s–40s) 141 144–7, 181
Lezama, don Jerónimo de, royal secretary acting as interim viceroys 123
(active 1630s–50s) 141 executors in testaments 103, 148
libraries 32, 169–70 see also Councillors of Castile
Ligne, princes of 112 wealth 130, 171
296 Index
Mainz, Johann Philipp von Schönborn, 195–6, 196–7, 199, 211, 218, 219,
archbishop of (1605–73) 210, 211 225, 226, 228–31, 232, 233, 237, 238
Mairena, don Enrique Felípez de Guzmán, Medellín, don Pedro Portocarrero Folch de
first marquis of (1613–46) 46, 62, Aragón y Córdoba, count of Medellín
67, 68, 74, 75, 87 (d. 1679) 56, 223
Mairena, don Gaspar Felípez de Guzmán y Medellín, doña Ana de Córdoba y Aragón,
Velasco, second marquis of countess of 53
(1646–8) 87, 88 Medina de las Torres, Ramiro Felípez
Maldonado, Pedro de, Jesuit political Núñez de Guzmán, first duke of
philosopher (active 1600s) 12 (1600–68):
Malpica, don Baltasar Barroso de Ribera, absence from court 52
third marquis of, steward in the king’s and Castel Rodrigo 136–7
household (d. 1669) 223 and Council of Italy 153
Mancera, don Antonio Sebastián de Toledo and Haro 52–3, 56, 62, 88–9, 135–7,
Molina y Salazar, second marquis of 153, 218, 220, 237
(d. 1715) 242 and Leganés 154
Mancini, Marie (1639–1715) 239 and Monterrey 88–9, 145
Maqueda, house of, see Nájera appointment as plenipotentiary at
Mardyke, siege of (1657) 215 Westphalia 66
Margaret of Styria, consort of Philip III as courtier 50, 52, 60, 223
(1584–1611) 112 choice of executors 103
Margarita María of Austria exile in Valencia (1644–8) 66–7, 82
(1651–73) 198, 208, 243 growing influence (late 1650s and
María de Ágreda, Sor (1602–65) 79, 86, 1660s) 208, 217, 218, 241, 243
87, 227 in Zaragoza (autumn 1644) 66, 68
and aristocracy 74, 75 marriages 129, 217
and duke of Híjar 74, 83, 84–5 policies 219, 226, 234, 236
and Philip IV 73–4, 80, 138, 189, 208 political isolation 53, 139
ideas on kingship 73–5 re-establishment in Madrid 135–6
letters 73–4, 80 Sanlúcar inheritance 87–9, 129
Maria Leopoldina, archduchess and wealth 128–9, 130
empress (1632–49) 199 Medinaceli, house of 160–2
María Teresa of Austria (1638–83) 50, 53, Medinaceli, don Antonio Juan Luis de la
83, 179, 181, 198, 199, 200, 204–5, Cerda, seventh duke of
208, 209, 211, 212, 218, 225, 228–9, (1607–71) 86, 160, 163
230, 232–3, 239, 242, 243 Medinaceli, don Juan Francisco de la Cerda
see also Spanish succession Enríquez Afán de Ribera, eighth duke
Marialva, marquis of, see Cantanhede of (1637–91) 162, 163, 244
Mariana of Austria (1634–96) 43, 81, Medina Sidonia, house of 130, 164
114, 139, 184, 198, 199, 200, 208, Medina Sidonia, don Gaspar Alonso Pérez
242, 243 de Guzmán el Bueno, ninth duke of
Mariana, Father Juan de, Jesuit political (1602–64) 54, 164
philosopher (1536–1624) 20, 25, 32 Medina Sidonia, don Gaspar Juan Alonso
Márquez de Prado, don Alonso, Councillor Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno, tenth
of Castile (1614–93) 144 duke of Medina Sidonia and
Martínez, Friar Juan, confessor of Philip IV fourteenth count of Niebla
(d. 1675) 46, 47, 55, 72, 75, 119 (1630–67) 164–5, 170
Mascareñas, Jerónimo de, Portuguese Medina Sidonia, don Manuel Alonso Pérez
writer and cleric (1618–71) 114 de Guzmán el Bueno, twelfth duke of
Massimo, Camillo, papal nuncio (d. 1721) 163, 244
(1620–77) 30 Mendo, Andrés, Father, Jesuit writer
Matheu y Sanz, don Lorenzo de, Valencian (1608–84) 32–3
writer (1618–80) 114, 158 Milan:
Mazarin, Jules, Cardinal (1602–61) 1, 38, financial and military
82, 86, 185, 186, 187, 188, 190–1, contributions 113, 215, 235–6
Index 297
military assistance from the Montalto, don Luis Guillén de Moncada y
Empire 200–1, 202–4, 205, 211, 212 Aragón, seventh duke of (1614–72):
political stability 93–4, 102 excluded from court 86, 134, 221
subsidies from Madrid 113 expressions of dislike for magistrates 101
subsidies from Naples 113, 202, 215, 236 marriage 77
wars 184, 187, 202 political ambitions 61
military integration 112, 191 return to Madrid (1658) 221–3
minister-favourite, see valido viceroy of Sardinia (1644–9)127
ministerial elite: viceroy of Valencia (1652–8) 114, 123
access to Philip IV 41–2, 46, 61, 69, Monteleone, Héctor Pignatelli de Aragón y
120, 208, 217 Cortés, sixth duke of, viceroy of
aspirations and objectives 7, 126, 127, 132 Aragon (active 1640s–50s) 114, 135
career patterns 105, 131, 133 Monterón, Friar Francisco, Dominican
close cooperation between 91, 102, mystic 73, 75, 80
114, 147 Monterrey, house of 162, 165
competence in office 132–3, 157–8, 192 Monterrey, don Manuel de Fonseca
cultural outlooks 101, 106, 147, y Zúñiga, sixth count of
169–70, 176 (c. 1590–1653):
defined by location of employment 117 and Haro 68, 72, 88–9, 149
distinction from courtiers 39, 60–2, 136 and Sanlúcar inheritance 87, 88
family inter-relationships 158–71 as patronage broker 139, 144
flexibility of outlooks 99–100, 147–8 career in Italy 72
fruits of office 117, 128–32, 145 character 72
impoverishment in royal service 117, choice of executors 103
129–30 cultural and religious patronage 128, 132
influence on the ground 165, 169 disgrace (1646–7) 72
investigations into 76, 82 influence 72, 86, 124, 169
political mentality 210–11, 212 longevity in office 125, 153
returning to Madrid 135–6, 179, 221–4 member of the Junta Particular 47,
see also Councillors of Castile, 72, 99
magistrates, nobility, viceroys possible role in downfall of Olivares 68
service away from court 66–7, 92, 96, relationship with other ministers 72,
126–7 88–9, 124, 136, 145, 193
taking the law into their own hands 8, Monterrey, doña Leonor María de
117, 121, 181, 183, 195, 210, 217, Guzmán, sixth countess of (d.
224–5, 231 1654) 58, 162
uneasiness about conduct of valido 3, 8, Monterrey, don Juan Domingo de Fonseca
22, 25, 38, 177, 206, 211, 217, Guzmán y Haro, count of, son of don
224–5 Luis de Haro (1640–1716) 59,
Mirabel, don Antonio de Zúñiga y Dávila, 162–4, 165
third marquis of, Councillor of State Monterrey, doña Inés de Fonseca y Zúñiga,
and president of the Council of seventh countess of (d. 1710) 162–4
Orders (c. 1590–1651): Mora, don Pedro de Rojas, third count of
as courtier 56, 60, 151 Mora, Councillor of Italy and writer
career and political sympathies 150–1, (d. 1665) 144
153, 169 moral reform 76, 78, 81, 85, 241
local influence 169 see also Godly rule
Modena, Francesco I d’Este, duke of Morison, Sir Richard (c. 1513–56) 76
(1610–58) 201, 202, 203, 224 Morquecho, don Bartolomé, Councillor of
Moncada, doña Catalina de, lady-in- Castile (1574–1652) 141
waiting to Mariana of Austria, sister of Mortara, don Francisco de Orozco y
marquis of Aytona 77 Ribera, second marquis of Mortara
Monferrato 181 (d. 1668):
Monsalve, don Antonio de, Councillor of appointment to Junta de Guerra de
Castile (d. 1685) 144, 148 España 172
298 Index
Mortara, don Francisco de Orozco y education 104–5
Ribera, second marquis of Mortara incentives for serving the king 117
(d. 1668) (cont.) investment in assets of the state 107,
family background 112 109–10, 130
political affiliations 107, 120, 170, 172 involvement in revolt 92, 115
reconquest of Catalonia 191 loyalty to the crown 92, 107, 109–10
viceroy of Catalonia (1656–62) 123, 124 migration to Madrid 60–1
Moscoso, doña Antonia de, lady-in-waiting relations between sword and robe 93,
to Mariana of Austria 53 94, 101, 102, 106–7
Moscoso, don Cristóbal de, Councillor of religious affiliations 105
Castile (d. 1660) 141 see also family networks, grandees,
Münster, Peace of (1648) 179, 186–7, ministerial elite, magistrates
199, 200, 209 social and political integration 6, 91, 92,
see also Westphalia 93, 94, 100, 102, 111–12, 114, 147,
165, 169–71, 175
Nájera, don Jorge de Cárdenas, sixth duke social prejudice 101
of, naval commander and Councillor Nocera, Francesco Maria Carafa y Gonzaga,
of State (d. 1644) 66 viceroy of Navarre and Aragon
Nájera, don Jaime Manuel de Cárdenas, (1579–1642) 114
seventh duke of, courtier Noroña, doña Mariana de, lady-in-waiting
(1586–1652) 46, 56 of Mariana of Austria, later
Naples: marchioness of Fuente el Sol, and of
financial contributions 113, 202, 215, 236 Trocifal 53
noble society 102
see also revolts Olivares, don Enrique de Guzmán, second
Navarra y Rocafull, don Melchor de, count of (1540–1607) 4
member of the Collateral Council of Olivares, don Gaspar de Guzmán, count-
Naples, and vice-chancellor of the duke of (1587–1645):
Crown of Aragon during the reign and publication of the Nicandro
of Carlos II (active 1650s–80s) 112 pamphlet 84
Navarra Cárcamo, don Alonso de, corregidor arbitrary government 6, 70, 91, 94, 96,
of Madrid (active 1660s) 144 97, 99, 115
Navarro de Burena, Dr Agustín de, Secretary attempts to control royal
of State and War in Brussels, Councillor households 42, 46
of Aragon (d. 1656) 114 criticism from writers 22
Náxera, Father Manuel de, Jesuit political influence over appointments 18, 139–40
writer and court preacher illegitimate descendants 68, 203
(1604–80) 28–9, 31 fall from power ( January 1643) 1, 24, 36
Necolalde, don Juan de, minor diplomat (n. 90), 59, 63, 80, 81, 147, 156, 181
(active 1630s–60s) 104 foreign policy 23, 181–2, 188
Neila, don Pedro de, Councillor of Italy, final years at Loeches and Toro 67, 75
bishop of Segovia (d. 1648) 144 legacy 35, 68, 87–9
Neuburg, Philip William, duke of pretensions to sovereignty 160
(1615–90) 230–1 praise from writers 37
Nicandro, treatise (1643) 84 perception of the Spanish political elite as
Niebla, see Medina Sidonia incompetent 132–3
Nieremberg, Juan Eusebio, Jesuit relationship with political elite 3, 4, 67,
theologian (1595–1658) 79 79, 146, 151, 177
Nieto de Trejo, don Martín, Councillor of relationship with Philip IV 5, 21, 51,
Castile (d. 1644) 141 61, 138, 178
Nithard, Father Juan Everard, confessor to Union of Arms 111
Mariana of Austria (1607–81) 43, 243 Olivares, doña Inés de Guzmán Zúñiga y
nobility: Velasco, countess of
career choices 105 (1584–1647) 42, 62, 67, 74, 75,
conflicts between 91, 94, 100, 101–2 87–8, 103, 124
Index 299
Oñate, don Íñigo Vélez de Guevara, fifth Paredes, doña María Inés Manrique de Lara,
count of, ambassador in Vienna, tenth countess of 49, 53, 60, 74, 189
Councillor of State (1573–1644) 47, Pastrana, don Gregorio María de Silva
63, 66, 69, 103 Mendoza y Sandoval, fifth duke of
Oñate, don Íñigo Vélez de Guevara, eighth (1649–93) 163, 244
count of Oñate (1597–1658): Patriarch of the Indies, don Alonso Pérez de
admission to Junta de Estado (1657) 208 Guzmán el Bueno (1590–1670) 46,
appointment as governor-general of 54, 55, 75, 164
Milan (1657–8) 213–14 patronage, see appointments, clientage
character 153 Pavia, siege of (1655) 202
drafts instructions for the Count of peace:
Peñaranda’s mission to Frankfurt 209 ceasefire initiative (1651) 195
exclusion from influence 134, 139, 153 congresses 183, 185–6, 210, 211, 224–5
palace builder 132 disagreement over 195
viceroy of Naples (1648–53) 153 early initiatives 23
Oñate, doña Catalina Vélez de Guevara, negotiation as artifice 182, 185,
ninth countess of 217 188–90
Orani, don Diego de Silva Mendoza y Madrid negotiations (1656) 172,
Portugal, first marquis of, first equerry 199–200, 208, 210, 212, 225
to Philip IV (d. 1661) 51, 58, 76–7, reluctance to conclude 178, 184–6,
78, 223 195–6, 218–20, 222–3
Oropesa, don Duarte Fernando Álvarez de see also Münster, Westphalia, Frankfurt,
Toledo Portugal Monroy y Ayala, Pimentel de Prado, Pyrenees
seventh count of, viceroy of Navarre Spanish overtures (1643) 1–2, 13,
and Valencia (1621–71) 121, 123, 183, 186
127, 157 Pellicer de Ossau y Tovar, José,
Oropesa, doña Ana Mónica de Córdoba historiographer and erudite
Pimentel y Zúñiga, countess of 33 (1602–79) 65, 158
Orsini, Pietro, resident of the duke of Peñaranda, don Gaspar de Bracamonte,
Modena 115 third count of (1596–1676) 198,
Ortiz de Santecilla, Gregorio, servant of don 206, 208, 226, 236
Luis de Haro (active 1650s–60s) and Castrillo 148, 244
227 and Haro 131, 152, 209, 212, 224–5
Osera, don Francisco Jacinto Funes de and ministerial elite 151, 157, 169
Villalpando, second marquis of and Sanlúcar inheritance 88
(1619–62) 9, 11, 44, 100, 114, 215, as ambassador at Frankfurt (1658) 158,
220, 222–3 205, 207, 209–12, 214
Osuna, house of 160 as courtier 44
Osuna, don Juan Téllez Girón Enríquez as patronage broker 139, 144, 148
de Ribera, fourth duke of, courtier at Brussels (1648–50) 187–90
and viceroy of Sicily (c. 1602–56) 58, at Westphalia (1645–8) 131, 151, 186–7
73, 86 career 5, 17–18, 20, 118, 131–2, 140, 151
Oyanguren, don Luis de royal secretary choice of executors 103
(d. 1665) 241 desire for peace 190, 210, 211
dynastic strategies 107
Pacheco Girón, don Pedro, comisario family background 105, 107
general de la cruzada member of the Junta Particular 99
(c. 1580–1662) 149 local influence 165
Padilla, don Carlos de purchase of artworks 170
(c. 1610–48) 82–4, 85 religious affiliations 105
Palafox, don Juan de, bishop of Puebla and uneasiness about the valido 25, 38, 188,
Osma (1600–59) 13, 106, 114, 206, 211, 212, 224–5
133–4, 177–8, 181, 202, 208 views on government and kingship 18,
Pardo, El, palace 48, 49, 50 20, 24, 235
Paredes, house of 169 views on Mazarin 188, 190–1, 235
300 Index
Peñaranda, don Gaspar de Bracamonte, visits: to Aragón (1642–6) 46–7, 65–6;
third count of (1596–1676) (cont.) to Valencia (1645) 45; to Pamplona
wealth 131 (1646) 46, 48, 71; to Atienza
Pérez, Antonio, secretary of Philip II (1646) 47; to the Pyrenees
(1540–1611) 54 (1660) 229, 232, 234; to Valladolid
Peter the Cruel (1334–69) 22 (1660) 165
Philip II (1527–98) 2, 4, 12, 17, 29, 36, picaresque fiction 101
39–40, 54, 193, 198 Pichinotti, Andrea (1592–1670) 207–8,
Philip III (1578–1621) 12, 17, 20, 39, 42, 213, 214
70, 112, 193 picture-collecting 58, 129, 136, 155,
Philip IV (1605–65) 179 169–70, 221
and grandees 73, 77 Pignatelli family 112
art-collector 170, 176, 221 Pimentel de Prado, don Antonio, soldier
as hunter 48, 51, 223 and diplomat (1604–70) 196,
audiences 28, 41–2, 47, 61, 77, 212, 218–20, 222–3, 225–6
220, 221 Piombino, Niccolò Ludovisi, prince
avoidance of executive of, viceroy of Aragon
responsibility 61–2, 80, 84–5 (d. 1664) 114, 127
conscience as a Christian king 85, 199, Piombino 116, 153, 187
200, 208, 219, 226–7, 235 political climate:
circle of advisers 206, 208, 217, 220–1 lack of factionalism 74, 79–80, 139, 234–5
desire for peace 189, 190 stability 91–2, 117, 134, 206, 217
embarrassment about ruling through a fragmentation 243–4
valido 65, 138, 241 political theory:
expressions of intention to rule in anti-Machiavellianism 32
person 1, 20–1, 24, 138, 238 conditional acceptance of the valido 17,
faith in the intercessions of the 21, 26, 28, 36, 244
Godly 80, 208 desire for personal royal government 36,
family life 49–50, 55 177, 206, 241
indecisiveness 38, 62, 67, 80, 178, 181 hostile to the valido 12–13, 17,
independence of judgement 52, 59, 60, 19–20, 23, 25, 36–8, 176, 177–8,
87, 110, 111, 165, 176, 179, 181, 244
198–9, 204–5, 236 in favour of the valido 12, 25–9, 32–3,
informality of behaviour 47–8, 221 36–8
inscrutability 41, 45, 46, 55, 212 origins of royal authority 18–19, 25
intimates of 46, 47, 51, 56–9, 60 principles of good government 7, 181,
involvement in government 173 188, 206
liking for protocol 43, 45, 55 see also kingship, Godly rule
marriages 49–50, 81, 85, 139, 184, treatises on courtliness 32, 35
198, 200 Ponce de León, don Luis, Councillor of
moral and political flexibility 80, 85 War, ambassador in Rome, governor-
movements between palaces 40, 48 general of Milan (1605–68) 126–7
personal rule (1643–8) 6, 24, 61–2, Pontremoli 172
63–4, 173, 188, 241–4 popular disquiet 115, 220
personal qualities 17, 21, 23, 80 Porres, don Felipe de, Councillor of
provisions for succession 24, 173, 179, Finance (active 1630s–50s) 140, 198
198–9, 204–5, 228–9, 243 Portalegre, don Juan de Silva, count of
public monarch 39–40, 55 (c. 1525–1601), 128
relationship with Haro 3, 4, 63–4, 138, Portolongone 116, 153, 187
173, 205, 220 Portugal:
relationship with Sor María de and Haro’s family strategy 158, 160,
Ágreda 73–4, 80, 84–5, 138, 189, 163–4, 165
208, 219 attempts to reconquer 172, 184, 202,
susceptibility to those around him 6, 61, 212–13, 214, 215–16, 219–20,
69, 80, 206–7, 220 235–7, 242
Index 301
diplomatic isolation 184, 195, Riaño y Gamboa, don Diego de
233–4, 237 (1589–1663):
juridical situation 96 appointment to presidency of Castile
see also revolts (1648) 82
protocol 39, 41, 42, 43, 45 decrepitude 147, 157
see also ceremony, etiquetas family 104, 146
providentialism 76, 79, 90, 184, 190–1, 200 involvement in arrest and trial of duke of
see also moral reform, Godly rule, Híjar 82, 84, 85
Nieremberg wealth 131
privado, see valido Riaño y Meneses, don Diego Luis de,
Pueyo Araciel, don Jerónimo de, member of the Comisión de Millones
Councillor of Castile and Council of Finance
(active 1640s–50s) 89–90, 141 (active 1650s–60s) 104, 146
Puñonrostro, don Gonzalo Arias y Riaño y Meneses, don Juan de, viscount
Bobadilla, fifth count of, steward of of Villagonzalo de Pedernales
the king (d. 1661) 53 (d. 1659) 104
Pyrenees, Peace of (1659): Ribera, Giuseppe de, painter
drama of the occasion 227–8 (1591–1652) 136
favourable outcome for Spain 7, Richelieu, Armand Jean du Plessis,
24, 230 Cardinal (1585–1642) 1, 3, 38,
fulfilment of terms 233–4, 239, 243 181–2, 186, 191, 225, 226
Haro’s method of negotiation 183, 221, Ríos y Guzmán, don Lope de los,
228–31 magistrate in the Chancellery of
proposals for negotiations to take place Valladolid, member of the Council of
there 189, 210, 225 Navarre, Councillor of Orders (active
restoration of Condé 86, 228–9, 232–3 1640s–70s) 144
royal marriage terms 228 Rivadeneira, Pedro de, Jesuit theologian
vindication of Haro’s ministry 178, and political philosopher (c.
207, 230–1, 232 1526–1611) 19, 20, 76
Pyrenees, royal visit to (1660) 147, 232, 234 Robles Villafañe, don Francisco
de, Councillor of Castile
Quevedo, Francisco de, political (d. 1649) 84
philosopher and satirist Robres, don Bernat Pons i Turell,
(1580–1645) 12, 21–2, 24 count of, Councillor of Aragon
(d. 1662) 42
Ramírez de Prado, don Alonso, Rocroi, battle of (May 1643) 7, 8
Councillor of the Indies Roussillon 186, 195
(1589–1674) 103–4, 148 Ruiz de Contreras, don Fernando de
Ramírez de Prado, don Lorenzo, Councillor Fonseca, marquis of La Lapilla,
of Castile (1583–1658) 98, 110, 130, secretary of the universal dispatch
148, 157 (d. 1660) 47, 82, 224
Rana, Juan, actor (1593–1672) 50 and Castrillo 174, 176
religious confraternities 78, 105–6 and Góngora 175
reputation 7, 26, 27, 28, 93, 128, 132, and Haro 164, 171, 174–5, 176, 208,
171, 176, 182, 196, 227, 229, 239, 217, 219, 221, 222, 223
240, 242 and Philip IV 175–6, 208
Rethel, battle of (December 1650) 195 career 172, 174
Retiro, see Buen Retiro death (1660) 237
revolts 24, 91–2, 94, 115 family background 118, 174
Andalusia 91, 201 wealth and local influence 175–6
Catalonia 6, 7, 96–7
Naples 91, 115, 153, 171 Saavedra Fajardo, Diego de, diplomat and
Portugal 6, 7, 96–7 political philosopher (1584–1648) 2,
see also popular disquiet 3, 19, 36–8, 177–8, 182
Sicily 91, 171 Saint Louis IX of France (1214–70) 162
302 Index
Salamanca y Salamanca, Regente don Santo Tomás, Friar Juan de, confessor of
Miguel de, Councillor of Italy and Philip IV (1589–1644) 64, 75, 80,
Castile, governor of the Council of 86, 105
Finance (c. 1597–1666) 66 (n. 11), Sardinia, viceroyalty of 127
144, 148 Sarmiento, don Antonio de, soldier and
Salamanca y Turri, don Miguel de, diplomat (d. 1644) 13
diplomat, Councillor of War and Schwarzenberg, Johann Adolf, count of,
Finance (1605–58) 65–6 (n. 11), 69, favourite of Archduke Leopold
70–1 William (d. 1683) 194, 204
Salmerón, Fray Marcos, Mercedarian court secretaries 41, 46, 100, 140–1
preacher (1588–1648) 54 attendance on the king 50, 53–4
Salvatierra, house of 119 executors in testaments 103
Salvatierra, don Diego Sarmiento de existence of a closed elite 118
Sotomayor, first count of (c. of the chamber 54
1570–1618) 105 of the universal dispatch 54, 132, 174–5
San Felices, don Juan de Moncayo y wealth 130
Gurrea, poet (active 1630s–50s) 106 Segorbe, house of 160, 233
San Lorenzo, see Escorial see also Aragón
San Martín, don Juan de, servant of don Segorbe, don Enrique Ramón Folch de
Luis de Haro 56 Cardona Aragón y Córdoba, fifth
San Plácido, convent of 79 duke of Segorbe, sixth duke of
Sandoval, doña Juana de Cardona, viceroy of Catalonia
(d. 1624) 4, 163 (1588–1650) 159, 163
Sanlúcar, duke of, see Medina de las Torres Segorbe, don Luis Ramón Folch de
Santa María, Juan de, Franciscan Cardona y Aragón, sixth duke of
theologian (active early seventeenth Segorbe, seventh duke of Cardona
century) 36 (n. 93) (1608–70) 146, 159, 163,
Santa María de Atocha, sanctuary and 168, 233
Dominican monastery 50 Segorbe, doña Catalina Antonia de Aragón
Santelices Guevara, don Juan de, Folch de Cardona, eighth duchess of
Councillor of Castile (d. 1648) 141 Segorbe, duchess of Medinaceli (d.
Santisteban, house of 165, 171 1697) 163, 244
see also Benavides Seixas y Vasconcelos, Gaspar de, writer
Santisteban, don Francisco de Benavides y (active 1640s–50s) 28, 31
de la Cueva, seventh count of, Sejanus (flourished first century AD) 36
courtier (d. 1640) 5, 53, 105, Sermoneta, Francesco Caetani, seventh
166, 167 duke of, governor-general of Milan,
Santisteban, don Diego de Benavides de viceroy of Sicily (1594–1683) 169
la Cueva y Bazán, eighth count of Servien, Abel, French diplomat
(1607–66): (d. 1659) 187
at the Pyrenees 227 Sessa, don Antonio Fernández de Córdoba
early career as menino de la reina 5 Cardona y Requesens, seventh duke of
local influence 165 (d. 1659) 101
marriage alliances with duke of Sicily:
Segorbe 166, 233 financial contributions 113
relationships with ministerial elite 107, noble society 102
157, 166, 169, 233 see also revolts
viceroy of Navarre 123, 157 viceroyalty 128, 162
Santisteban, don Francisco de Benavides y Silva, doña Ana de, marchioness of
de la Cueva Dávila y Corella, ninth Aytona 77
count of (1644–1716) 233 Silva, doña María de 78
Santa Cruz, don Álvaro de Bazán y Silva, Ruy Gómez de, see Eboli
Benavides, second marquis of, naval silver:
commander and Councillor of State charges for conversion from copper
(1571–1646) 66, 184 currency 107
Index 303
English attacks on treasure fleets 207–8, Tarazona, don Fernando de Ayala Fonseca
208–9 Toledo y Valcárcel, first marquis of
remittances from America 108 Tarazona, third count of Ayala
Siruela, don Juan Velasco de la Cueva, (1600–76):
count of, governor-general of and counts of Monterrey 59, 72, 162
Milan, ambassador in Rome and dispute over Sanlúcar
(active 1630s–40s) 123–4, 157 inheritance 87–8
Solar y Toraya, don Juan del, secretary of and Haro 53, 56–8, 68
don Luis de Haro (d. 1669) 140 as courtier 58, 223
Solórzano Pereira, Juan de, political purchase of artworks 170
philosopher (1575–1655) 32 viceroy of Sicily 128, 133
Sotomayor, Friar Antonio de, confessor of taxation 107–8
Philip IV (c. 1557–1648) 55, 119 alleviation 107, 110–11, 173
Spanish Netherlands 7, 192–7, 198 burden on Castile 107
and Condé 191, 196–7, 227 contributions of non-Castilian
appointments 121, 123 possessions 91, 93, 111, 112
financial contributions 112–13 extraordinary measures 109, 201
governed by princes of the blood 192 proposals for tax on flour 110
military assistance from the see also bankruptcies, coinage, finance,
Empire 200–1, 202–4, 205, juros
211, 212 Terranova, don Diego de Aragón y
political stability 93–4 Tagliavia, fourth duke of
subsidies from Madrid 112–13, 202, (1596–1663):
213, 214, 215 ambassador in Vienna and
wars 184, 187, 202, 215 Rome 60, 133
Spanish succession 24, 173, 179, 198–9, as Councillor of State 220–1
200, 218, 232–3 as courtier 5, 56, 60, 223
Spinola family 112, 155–6 testamentary bequests 103–4
see also Los Balbases wealth and assets 109
Stigliano, Anna di Carafa, princess of theatre 58, 100, 227–8
(d. 1644) 129 Tobar Valderrama, Diego de, writer (active
Suárez, Father Francisco, Jesuit theologian mid-seventeenth century) 36
and political philosopher Torralba, don Íñigo Fernández de Córdoba
(1548–1617) 19, 20, 25 y Mendoza, first count of (active
Subiza, don Juan de, secretary of the count 1630s–40s) 105
of Castrillo (active 1630s–60s) Torrecuso, Carlo Andrea Caracciolo,
marquis of, soldier
Tábara, house of 169 (c. 1583–1646) 119–20
Tábara, don Antonio Pimentel Enríquez y Tortosa 191
Toledo, fourth marquis of, viceroy of Trelles, don Benito de, marquis of Torralba
Sicily (d. 1627) 105 (1613–82) 112, 144
Tábara, don Enrique Pimentel Enríquez de Trivulzio, Teodoro, Cardinal, governor-
Guzmán, fifth marquis of, viceroy of general of Milan (d. 1656) 34, 157
Navarre and Aragon, president of the Tursi, house of, see Doria family
Council of Orders (c. 1600–63) 105, Tuscany, Ferdinando II, grand duke of
155, 169 (1610–70) 172
Tacitus (flourished first century AD) 26,
36, 156 Uceda, don Cristóbal Gómez de
Talhara, don Juan Alonso de Guzmán Sandoval, first duke of
y Fuentes, first count of (1577–1624) 59, 75, 163
(c. 1625–c. 1695) 59, 62 universities 17, 19–20, 94, 105, 107
Tapia y Solís, don Gregorio de (c.
1599–1662) 118 Valencia, Friar Alexandro de, Capuchin
Tapia, Friar Pedro de (1582–1657) 47–8, court preacher, confessor of the
202, 208 infanta María Teresa (d. 1659) 53
304 Index
Valencia, don Melchor de 84 (n. 97) Velázquez, Diego de, painter
Valenciennes, battle of ( July 1656) 170 (1599–1660) 50–1, 165
Valenza del Po, siege of (1656) 203 venality of office 118
valido: Vergara, don Francisco de (d. 1672) 144
abuses of power, 36–8, 177–8, 181, 188, Vervins, Peace of (1598) 188, 190
224–5, 244 viceroys:
as beneficial to government 2–3, 17, concession of posts to Italian
62, 242 aristocrats 114
association with aggressive fiscality 107, employment abroad as political
115, 224–5 exclusion 117, 132, 192, 208–9,
attempts at legitimization 3, 35, 87, 158 213, 224–5
conditional acceptance of 17, 21, 26, incentives to serve abroad 126–8
28, 36, 244 powers limited by local institutions and
control of king’s entourage 41 councils in Madrid 6, 99, 121, 126,
criticism of 20, 22–3, 25, 74–5, 79, 244 192–3
definition of 2, 64, 89, 158 residency requirement 134, 135
dependency relationship with see also ministerial elite
king 23–4, 32–3, 178, 181–2, 213 tendency to recklessness 121
enforcer of royal orders 33–4, 138 turnover of appointments 121–3,
financial and military organizer 3, 110, 126, 243
178, 224–5 Villafranca, don García de Toledo Osorio,
friend of the king 25–6, 29, 62, 63, 138 sixth marquis of Villafranca, duke of
historical examples 21–2, 29, 35, Fernandina, naval commander,
38, 177 Councillor of State (d. 1649) 66
historiography on 11–12 Villafranca, don Fadrique de Toledo Osorio
inconsistency of treatise writers 35 y Ponce de León (1635–1705),
instability of political situation 5, 22, seventh marquis of Villafranca, second
23, 137, 178, 228–9, 231 marquis of Villanueva de
liking for warfare 3, 13, 23, 36–8, 94, Valdueza 223
185, 188, 205, 206, 224–5, 226 Villagonzalo de Pedernales, viscount of, see
potentially unlimited powers 23, Riaño y Meneses, don Juan de
35–6, 95 Villahermosa, don Carlos de Borja
representative of the crown 89 Barreto y Aragón, seventh duke of,
see also Haro, Olivares Councillor of State
stimulates revolts 13, 38, 114, 206 (1580–1647) 66, 105
surrogate valido in Spanish Villamayor y Zayas, don Francisco de, royal
Netherlands 193–4 secretary (d. 1660) 54
sympathy for 22, 25, 35, 176, 177 Villanueva, don Jerónimo de, secretary of
treatises hostile to 12–13, 17, 19–20, the universal dispatch
21, 23, 36–8, 177–8, 244 (1594–1653) 64, 79, 80, 84, 181
treatises in favour of 12, 25–9, Villanueva de Valdueza, doña Elvira Ponce
32–3, 36 de León, first marchioness of, chief
valimiento, see valido gentlewoman of the queen’s chamber
Valsaín, royal residence 48, 49, 50 (active 1650s–70s) 53
Vega de la Sagra, don Pedro de Silva, Villanueva del Río, marquis of, see Alba
marquis of (d. 1648) 83 Villasidro, don Félix Brondo y Castelví
Velada, don Antonio Sancho Dávila y (1636–67) 100
Toledo, third marquis of, governor- Vuoerden, Michel-Ange de
general of Milan, Councillor of State, (active 1650s–60s) 192, 218
and council president
(1590–1666) 152–3, 154–5, Watteville, Baron Charles de, captain-
165, 219 general of Guipúzcoa, governor of San
Velasco, don Juan Antonio de, captain of Sebastián, ambassador in London
Haro’s personal guard at the (1605–70) 114, 157, 227,
Pyrenees 53 234, 239
Index 305
Westphalia, Congress of (1643–8) 8, 9, Zane, Domenico, Venetian
183, 184, 185–8 ambassador 31
see also Münster, Peace of (1648) Zapata, don Francisco, Councillor of the
Indies (d. 1672) 141
Yáñez, Friar Pedro, Dominican court Zarzuela palace 77
preacher (d. 1667) 54, 105 Zúñiga, don Baltasar de (1561–1622) 58

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R O Y A L FA V O U R I T I S M A N D T H E G O V E R N I N G

ALIS TAIR MALCOLM

So many people have assisted me in the preparation of this book that it is

I. THE P ROBL EM OF THE V A L I D O

2. The Royal Family and Its Entourage 39

3. Personal Rule, 1643–8 63

5. Ins and Outs: The Appointment and Employment

III. WAR A ND PEACE I N EUROPE

8. Crisis and Revival, 1657–9 206

Aftermath: The Unravelling of a Valimiento, 1659–61 232

Epilogue: Personal Rule and Regency during the 1660s 241

Select Bibliography 245

Libraries and archives

THE DESI RE FOR PERSONAL RULE

The seventeenth-century conception of Spanish royal power, and its

COURTIER AND INTERCESSOR

CONCLUSION: SOME ADVICE FOR DON

ACCESS AND PROTOCOL

LIFE BEYOND THE ALCÁZAR

Something of the atmosphere of these country sojourns can be gleaned

FRIENDS OF THE VALIDO NEAR THE

ACTING GENTLEMEN OF THE CHAMBER

Marquis of Mairena 12 July 1642 Exiled on 3 Residing in Toro and Loeches

CONCLUSION: COURT AND GOVERNMENT

Haro, El Carpio, Castrillo, Monterrey, Leganés, and the other survivors of

At some point at the beginning of 1648, Philip IV made the decision to

price ﬂuctuations. Involvement of the elites, where it occurred, can mostly be

There is a tendency within scholarship to read early modern political history

BENDING THE RULES

The early modern understanding of kingship placed a heavy emphasis on

RELATIONSHIPS ACROSS CORPORATE DIVIDES

In February 1659, there took place an incident in the theatre of the

TAX AND FINANCE IN CASTILE

CONCLUSION: AN INTEGRATED MONARCHY

The stability of the political landscape, as described in the previous

Archduke Leopold Count of Haro, Sept Cardinal Trivulzio,

Duke of Osuna, Nov

1656 Marquis of Mortara, Don Juan de Austria, May Cardinal Trivulzio,

Don Martín de Redín

PUBLIC SERVICE AND PRIVATE WEALTH

CONCLUSION: EXILE AND HOMECOMING

The count-duke of Olivares had repeatedly tried to blame the failures of

CLIENTAGE AT ONE REMOVE

don Martín de Larreategui, don Agustín de Hierro.

don Juan de Carvajal y Sande, don José Pardo de Figueroa.

don Alonso de Llano y Valdés.

THE INNER CIRCLE

Haro’s closest advisers probably amounted to no more than seven or eight

Table 6.2 Presidents and governors of councils, 1640–65

1646 Count of Chinchón,

Don Luis de Haro,

Count of Castrillo, Marquis of Tábara, Marquis of Velada,

1662 Duke of Medina de las Count of Castrillo, Jan

Don Francisco Ramos José González,

If Haro’s choice of ministerial advisers can be taken as evidence for his

Figure 6.1 The marquises of El Carpio

(1630) (1625) (1626) (1630)

(1630) (1660) (1677)

Don Gaspar de = Doña Antonia de Mendoza,

Don Baltasar Manuel de Don Alonso de Don Alfonso Téllez Girón,

Doña Leonor Dávila Don Antonio

marrying noblewomen from within a small group of titled families—

CONCLUSION: THE PRACTICALITIES

Rodrigo, as well as of Philip IV himself. The domestic troubles suffered by