Images of Evil, Images of Kings: The Contrasting Faces of the Royal Favourite and the Prime Minister in Early Modern European Political Literature, c. 1580-c. 1650

Some three decades years ago, Leicester Bradner examined two distinct views held by seventeenth-century English and Spanish dramatists when writing about royal favourites. Spanish playwrights, Bradner noted, sought to \u27arouse sympathy for the king and the friend he loves\u27, while the English stressed \u27the issues of good and bad government\u27 by presenting the royal favourite as an evil counsellor and a usurper, and the monarch who let him prosper as a weak ruler. Why these disparate treatments of the royal favourite? This query is particularly poignant when we consider that the English and Spanish dramatists believed that they were confronting a similar political phenomenon. Both knew that the rise of the favourite depended on the mon­arch\u27s whim and that the favourite\u27s fate was determined by the inexorable turn of the wheel of fortune. And, in both monarchies, playwrights used similar examples to portray the favourite, examples taken from the Old and New Testaments (Joseph, Haman and John the Evangelist), Roman history (Sejanus) and the past of their own countries (favcston in England and Alvaro de Luna in Spain)

The King’s Favorite

Don Francisco Gómez de Sandoval y Rojas, better known as the Duke of Lerma, is not a familiar name to those interested in the annals of power and politics. The Duke of Lerma, the favorite (El Favorito o Valido) and unofficial prime minister of Philip III of Spain from 1598 to 1618, was, however, in his own time, both in Spain and throughout Europe, quite famous. And infamous. He was respected, feared, attacked, satirized, gossiped about, eulogized, and even dramatized in plays such as The Great Favourite or the Duke of Lerma, written in 1668 by the English playwright Sir Robert Howard

Sacred and Terrifying Gazes : Languages and Images of Power in Early Modern Spain

In 1640 Diego de Saavedra y Fajardo, one of the most influential seven­teenth-century Spanish writers, made a remarkably explicit reference to the effect that images of kings had upon their subjects as he recalled his own experience of viewing a royal portrait by Velazquez. In it Philip IV appeared full of grace, august in his countenance ... [and] I was over­come with such respect, [that] I !melt down and lowered my eyes. The importance of the king\u27s representation within a monarchy like Spain\u27s, composed of a number of territories where the king was an absent ruler, is also evident in royal ceremonies celebrated in kingdoms distant from the monarchy\u27s political center. In 1621, for example, the elites of the viceroyalty of Peru took oaths of loyalty to the new monarch, Philip IV, in a ceremony replete with symbols of obedience, loyalty, and adoration for the king. In the absence of the monarch himself, a portrait of Philip, framed in gold and seated on a throne, beneath a canopy, presided over the ceremony

Review of Ruth Ruth Mackay and Sir John Elliott, \u3cem\u3eThe Limits of Royal Authority: Resistance and Obedience in Seventeenth‐Century Castile\u3c/em\u3e

During the 1640s, many Spaniards and Europeans believed that something was going terribly wrong in the Spanish monarchy. Signs of general discontent were widespread, as demonstrated by insurgent political movements in Catalonia (1640), Portugal (1640), and Naples (1647–48). In addition, between roughly 1620 and 1650 the Spanish monarchy was embroiled in an endless and debilitating “global war,” with its armies battling across Europe, America, and Asia. Many of these tensions and conflicts were linked to the attempts of the Spanish government, led by Philip IV (1621–1665) and his favorite, and prime minister, the Count-Duke of Olivares, to introduce reforms aimed at creating what was known at the time as a “regular state,” a centralized monarchy in which the king reigned supreme. Although tensions began to abate after the fall of Olivares in 1643, it should not surprise anyone that the 1640s were a period during which many of Philip IV’s subjects believed that the Spanish monarchy was on the verge of total collapse

Introduction to \u3cem\u3eKingship and Favoritism in the Spain of Philip III, 1598-1621\u3c/em\u3e

I am writing at the end of an era and the beginning of another about a monarch [Philip III] who never became a real king [de un monarca que acabó de ser rey antes de empezar a reinar]. These words, written by one of the most distinguished and influential seventeenth-century Spanish authors, Francisco de Quevedo, represent perhaps the most famous derogatory statement ever made about Philip III of Spain (1598-1621). Quevedo\u27s sharp criticism extended to the royal privado, Don Fran­cisco Gomez de Sandoval y Rojas, better known as the Duke of Lerma, and also to his allies and clients, all of whom Quevedo viewed as corrupt and inept. More than personal criticism, Quevedo\u27s words were uttered at a time when the worth of an entire era was assessed in terms of the character and deeds of the individuals in charge of public affairs. By this criterion, Quevedo\u27s appraisal of Philip Ill, Lerma, and their allies was truly devastating. His denunciation of the king and his closest advisers relegated Philip Ill\u27s reign to a position of no historical significance, in no way comparable to the reign of Philip Ill\u27s father, the extraordinary Philip II

Review of Stanley J. Stein and Barbara H. Stein, \u3cem\u3eApogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III,1759–1789\u3c/em\u3e

Although most eighteenth-century Europeans still considered Spain to be one of the most powerful polities on the continent, by the time Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations (1776), views about Spain and its empire, then headed by Charles III, seemed to have become unconditionally negative. Despite the size of its population, its terri-tories and the silver mines under Spanish jurisdiction, and its monopoly over the commercial trade with its American colonies, Smith and his contemporaries viewed Spain as one of the poorest nations in Europe. Spain’s economic backwardness was inevitably linked to its rather traditional political system. Smith, for example, believed that Spain remained a quasi-feudal state and that its colonies were ruled by an “absolute govern-ment . . . arbitrary and violent.” The predicament of the Spanish empire, according to eighteenth-century Europeans, stemmed from what many believed to be the mediocre character of Spain’s rulers and citizens. A nation that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries seemed to represent the virtues of a learned, vigorous, and expanding Europe was now seen as culturally deprived and isolated, dominated by religious fanatics, and ruled by second-rate monarchs and self-interested elites. For many decades historians have debated the merits of these views—whether they in fact reflected the political and economic realities of eighteenth-century Spain or whether they were sim-ply a part of the ideological trashing that accompanies all international struggles for world power. The loss of its American colonies in the early nineteenth century, the political instability that characterized Spain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and its inability to industrialize until recent times have seemed to many historians sufficient proof that Smith and his contemporaries were essentially right. This view of Spain in time became the interpretative paradigm used to explain an empire that, despite its power, was never able to “modernize” economically and politically

Love in the time of demons : thirteenth-century approaches to the capacity for love in fallen angels

Os demônios da Idade Média foram conhecidos, principalmente como criaturas que podiam sentir somente inveja, raiva e alegria maliciosa. Mas ainda havia uma tendência no pensamento escolástico e nos contos monásticos que também entendiam demônios como criaturas uma vez capazes - e talvez, somente uma vez-, de amor. Este artigo analisa a capacidade de amor e amizade atribuída a demônios no século XIII. Ele mostra como o amor pode ser visto como a emoção motivadora em sua queda original do Céu, e explora o papel do amor posteriormente pensado para ter jogado tanto em suas relações uns com os outros e as suas relações amorosa e sexual com os humanos.Demons in the Middle Ages were primarily known as creatures that could feel only envy, anger, and malicious glee. But there remained an undercurrent in both scholastic thought and monastic tales that also understood demons as creatures once capable-and perhaps still so-of love. This paper examines the capacity for love and friendship attributed to demons in the thirteenth century. It shows how love could be seen as the motivating emotion in their original fall from Heaven, and explores the role love is subsequently thought to have played in both their relationships with each other and their amatory and sexual relationships with humans