whose veins was known to flow the blood of the Moslem races. For the attainment of the views of both statesmen and churchmen of the day, purblind as they were to the larger issues, the resolution to expel the Moriscos was necessary, but, as will be seen later, it was disastrous industrially and economically.

In accordance with the condition of political science of the time, the results of the measure were indeed neither considered nor understood in the latter aspects.[23] It was discussed in the King's Council, first as a point of conscience, and secondly as a political necessity, and the breathing time given to Spain by the peace with the Protestants after forty years of strife, instead of being employed in the repair and recuperation of national forces, was seized upon by those who yet pursued the chimera of domination by religious unification, to deplete still further the already exhausted country by the expulsion of the principal productive element of its population, amidst the fervent applause of the idle and thriftless majority.

And still the frenzy of waste and magnificence in all classes went on, for no men saw fully yet that ruin was the inevitable result of a state of society in which luxurious idleness, or the pretence of it, was alone regarded as honourable, and where the honey was seized by the drones of the hive before workers had stored it. On the 13th January 1608 the ceremony of swearing allegiance to the child Philip as heir to the Crown of Spain was celebrated in the church of St. Geronimo in Madrid,[24] with a lavishness that almost rivalled that of his baptism. Once more the King, in white satin and spangles and overloaded with gems, walked in procession with the fair-haired fragile Queen, even more splendidly bedight than he;[25] once more the lavish Lerma led the baby Prince as sponsor, and the courtiers who followed vied with the favourite in the magnificence of their attire; once more Cardinal Sandoval de Rojas with a crowd of prelates invested the act with all the solemn state of which the Church was capable, and in the courtly fashion of his house substituted a kiss for the canonical blow in the ceremony of confirmation.[26] Madrid was ablaze with light, and the ball in the palace at night surpassed anything that the now deposed Valladolid could show; but over all the glitter the black cloud hovered, and even whilst the ceremony of homage was being celebrated, the Council of State, despairing now of the conversion of the Moriscos by softer methods, and alarmed at the prospects of a great invasion from Morocco, practically decided to clear the soil of Spain of the descendants of its former conquerors.

Of the details of the expulsion this is not the place to speak. We are principally concerned with it here to show that Philip IV. was bound from his earliest infancy to an inherited policy, and that the seeds of social and national decadence were sown before his time. He was no Hercules to root them out, but was forced with bitter anguish to witness the riches and power of his realms choked and destroyed by the noxious growth which grew to maturity in his time: whilst he wept and prayed for the miraculous remedy that never comes, or sought forgetfulness in vicious indulgence that added private remorse to his public sorrow.

Philip's childhood

Young Philip's education and the surroundings of his childhood were not calculated to increase his self-reliance or independence of judgment. His devout, delicate, Austrian mother died in childbirth when he was but six years old, and his father's awestricken devotion thereafter grew more mystic than ever. Friars surrounded him, dictating the most trifling as well as the most important acts of his life; supernatural visions and heavenly voices assured him of divine favour in his intervals of terrified despair which reduced him almost to lunacy,[27] and the little boy who was to be the heir of his gilded misery was left to the care of cloistered churchmen, whose ideal of goodness was the suppression of all natural impulse and the extinction of personal initiative as opposed to the dread fatalism which made them supreme.

Beyond dull, ceremonious visits to the royal convent of the Discalced Carmelites, hard by the palace of Madrid, the little Prince saw no relaxation from prayers and lessons, but an occasional stage play or masque performed by himself and his young courtiers of similar age. Even as a small child this was young Philip's sole delight; and so long as he could declaim verse before his father's Court, or listen to the declamation of others, he was content. On one occasion, in 1614, it is recorded in a gossiping letter of the time, that the Prince, who was then nine years old, represented the character of cupid before the King and his family in the room in the palace devoted to such shows; and as he had to make his entry upon the stage in a high ornamental chariot, the jolting of the vehicle made the poor child seasick; and the God of love, when he advanced to the footlights, was reduced to a most unlovely plight in face of the dignified audience, though we are told that he "performed his part very prettily." There were those who shook grave heads, especially some of the friars, at this early indulgence of the heir of Spain in his passion for a pastime so little in accord with the traditional dignity of the royal house;[28] but little Philip himself very soon learnt his lesson, for he was an apt pupil, and even as a youth assumed a staid gravity on all public and ceremonious occasions entirely at variance with his demeanour in private.

In the meanwhile the country was sunk in the most abject misery. Corruption and plunder of the national resources by Lerma and his favourites and their hangers-on had at last aroused the resentment, or perhaps the jealousy, of rival self-seekers. Spain was at war again, and a league of all liberal Europe under Henry IV. of France was pledged to humble finally the inflated pretensions of the house of Austria; but just as Lerma's star was waning, and the prompt ruin of Spain seemed imminent, a circumstance happened that gave a new lease of life to the proud dreams of the Philips, and made the subsequent downfall during the reign we have to record the more complete.

In May 1610 the dagger of a crazy fanatic ended the glorious life of "Henry of Navarre"; and the coalition against Spain broke down, and gave way to a struggle between his widow Marie de Medici and James I. of England to secure the friendship of the decadent power which still loomed so large and asserted its high claims so haughtily. The Queen Regent of France, papal and clerical as she was, succeeded where crafty, servile James Stuart failed; and in 1612 the eldest daughter of Spain, the