viernes, 17 de agosto de 1554

Edad:
27 años

Sucesos en Inglaterra desde la llegada del Príncipe Felipe..

Veere,

An account of what has befallen in the realm of England since Prince Philip landed there, written by a gentleman who accompanied the Prince to England and was present at all the ceremonies, in the shape of a letter to another gentleman, a friend at Salamanca.”

I wrote to you from Southampton, but have had no time or place to do so since, so have had to leave it. You will have heard that at Winchester his Highness met the Queen, who had been waiting for him there two weeks, and also that the wedding ceremonies were a fine sight, for there were six bishops in their pontificals, with crosiers and mitres, and I have never seen so many at any wedding. Their Majesties arc the happiest couple in the world, and more in love than words can say. His Highness never leaves her, and when we are on the road he is ever by her side, helping her to mount and dismount. They sometimes dine together in public, and go to mass together on holidays. The Queen, however, is not at all beautiful: small, and rather flabby than fat, she is of white complexion and fair, and has no eyebrows. She is a perfect saint, and dresses badly. All the women here wear petticoats of coloured cloth without admixture of silk, and above come coloured robes of damask, satin or velvet, very badly cut. Their shoes are sometimes of velvet, but more often of leather, and they wear black stockings and show their legs up to the knee when walking. As their skirts are not long they are passably immodest when walking, and even when seated. They are neither beautiful nor graceful when dancing, and their dances only consist in strutting or trotting about. Not a single Spanish gentleman has fallen in love with one of them nor takes any interest in them, and their feelings for us are the same. They are not the sort of women for whom Spaniards feel inclined to take much trouble or spend their substance, which is an excellent thing for the Spaniards. There are no distractions here except eating and drinking, the only variety they understand. The Queen spends over 300,000 ducats a year on her table, for all the thirteen councillors eat in the palace, as well as the household officers, the master of the horse, the master of the household, the Queen's as well as our own—for we also have English officers—and the wives of all these gentlemen into the bargain.

The Queen's ladies also eat by themselves in the palace, and their servants, as well as all the councillors, governors and household officials. And then there are the 200 men of the guard. So all these ladies and gentlemen have their private quarters in the palace, and each gentleman has his cook in the Queen's kitchens, which cook only looks after his master. There are usually eighteen kitchens in full blast, and they seem veritable hells, such is the stir and bustle in them. The palaces here are enormous, for the smallest of the four we have seen is certainly much bigger, and has more and larger apartments, than the Alcazar of Madrid, but the throng of people is such that they are full to bursting. The usual daily consumption is eighty to one hundred sheep—and the sheep here are very big and fat—, a dozen fat beeves, a dozen and a half calves, without mentioning poultry, game, deer, boars and great numbers of rabbits.

There is plenty of beer here, and they drink more than would fill the Valladolid river. In summer the ladies and some gentlemen put sugar in their wine, with the result that there are great goings on in the palace. Now, in spite of all the room there is here, they have never offered apartments in the palace to the Duchess of Alva—they are the most selfish people ever seen—and even in the country estates we have stopped at, for each man here has one, they have only given the Duke and Duchess a. house in the village, and a poor one at that. Our lords have great trouble in finding lodgings, for the English are not satisfied with preventing them from serving the King, but must inflict other miseries upon them. The English hate us Spaniards worse than they hate the Devil, and treat us accordingly. They rob us in town and on the road; no one ventures to stray two miles but they rob him; and a company of Englishmen have recently robbed and beaten over fifty Spaniards. The best of it is that the councillors know all about it and say not a word.

There are incredible numbers of robbers here; they go about in bands of twenty, and neither justice nor fear of God avail to hold them back. Mass is rarely celebrated, and meagrely attended by a few who seem to hear it unwillingly; though wherever the Queen is the Christian religion is kept up in all its dignity, for she is most holy and God-fearing. We have justice of our own; for his Majesty has commanded that while we are here no one shall say a word, but put up in silence with all the provocations of the English so they ill-treat us without fear. We have complained to Briviesca and the ambassadors, who tell us that in order to serve his Majesty we must continue to dissemble.

This match will have been a fine business if the Queen does not have a child, and I am sure she will not. They were saying in Castile that once his Highness was King of England we would lord it over France; and the very opposite has happened, for the French are stronger than ever, and are gaining ground and burning in Flanders every day. Yesterday his Highness received news that the King of France's forces had occupied a Flemish town called Renty, and his Majesty was going to try to retake it, so it was supposed a battle would take place near there. The lords and gentlemen who came with his Highness have therefore asked leave to accompany his Majesty in this campaign, so as to be able to do their duty if there is a battle. The first to apply was the Duke of Medinaceli; then came Don Antonio de Toledo, the Count of Chinchon, Gutierre Lopez, the Marquis de Las Navas, both sons of the Duke of Alva, the Marquis de Aguilar and the Count of Fuensalida. When Don Diego de Acevedo, who was at a place in the country three miles hence, heard the news, he came with thirty gentlemen, and all requested his Highness to let them go. He consented, and since then other gentlemen have been coming in day and night to ask for leave, with the result that over eighty have gone off to his Majesty's camp. All the Flemings who were here have also gone, and the Italians have accompanied the Marquis of Pescara, who is going to camp and if there is not going to be a battle will depart for Naples, where he is to take possession of that kingdom on his Highness's behalf. There are thirty-three leagues from here to the Emperor's camp, so it is a two days' and a half or three days' journey. The finest company of gentlemen that ever was seen has gone thither, and all well-equipped. His Highness is now alone, save only for the Duke of Alva, the counts of Feria and Olivares, Don Pedro de Cordova and three household officers to whom he refused leave to go; and since the day before yesterday almost all the gentlemen who came with him have departed, and they had better never come back to be treated as they are treated here.

Last night there came a servant of the Duke of Florence, with news that the Marquis of Marignano had broken up 5,000 French and Gascons, and had skirmished with the Germans and Italians on their way to relieve Siena to such good effect that our men routed them, took their artillery and baggage, killed over 1,500, and chased them two miles. Letters from Italy say that the King of France's partisans who are defending Siena will not be able to hold out much longer because their munitions and stores are running short. These were good news. A courier has also come from his Majesty's camp with the report that the Spaniards have seized a hill overlooking Renty and routed more than 600 French, killing 150 and more; and now this hill has been taken the King of France will no longer be able to occupy Renty because the artillery has been hoisted upon the hill, and if the King does not retire his camp will greatly suffer from our fire. These good tidings have also arrived.

The King and Queen have no more authority in this realm than if they were vassals, for the Councillors govern, and are lords of the kingdom and even of the King and Queen. Some of these gentlemen are self-made, enriched by the rents torn from the Church which has been utterly overthrown, others were born to their estate, and they are much more obeyed and looked up to than the King and Queen. They are saying publicly that they intend to see to it in this gathering of theirs (i.e. Parliament) that his Highness be not allowed to leave the kingdom without the Queen's and their consent; for they think this realm good enough for its King to be able to do without another. The English being as they are, I should not be at all surprised to see them do it, for they rejoice to see Flanders in the sorry condition it has found its way into, and would not stir a finger were matters much worse, or even if the Low Countries were lost, and the Emperor with them. They are certainly more like Frenchmen than Spaniards.

Wè went to London last Saturday, which we ought not to have done, seeing the way Spaniards are treated there. The kind of welcome that is good enough for them is to refuse to give them lodgings and insult them as if they were savages; and even in inns they are ill-treated and robbed. It would have been well to excuse the friars his Highness brought with him from coming hither, for the English are so bad and fear God so little that they handle the friars shamefully, and the poor men do not dare to leave their quarters. The English tried to tear their cloaks off the backs of Don Pedro de Córdova and Don Antonio, his nephew, who are comendadores (i.e. of Spanish Military Orders), asking what they meant by wearing crosses and jeering at them; and everything else goes to the same tune. Doña Hieronima de Navarra and Doña Francisca de Córdova, who came over here, have not yet seen the Queen, and are not going to see her, for they have not joined the Court because they would have no one to talk with, as the English ladies are of evil conversation. The Duchess of Alva has been once to the palace, and I do not believe she will go again. In London, they say, we shall not stay more than ten days, and then we shall come back to remain here until the middle of October, when we shall go to another pleasure-house about four miles hence, called Hampton Court, one of the finest and most commodious in the land. All the Queen's houses are well furnished with tapestries, and most of the tapestries are adorned with sacred subjects, for they come from churches and monasteries which were burnt down in order to seize their revenues; and so the monks and nuns perished.

It is said that on certain days two hundred monks and nuns were beheaded because they obeyed the Pope; and although that is a thing of the past, property from the churches and monasteries found its way into the exchequer to the amount of double the former royal revenues. From the way things are going here, these godless folk do not seem to be at all firm in matters of faith, and will not make their submission to the Pope, but die stiff-necked heretics. Queen Mary—blessings on her—is beginning to set matters right, however, and a month before we arrived here she created a bishop because he had always been a good Christian; though it was done without obeisance being paid to the Pope, an obligation rarely complied with here.

The man who wrote Amadis and other books of chivalry, with all the flowery meads, pleasure-houses and enchantments, must first have visited England and seen the strange customs of the country. For who, in any other land, ever saw women riding forth alone as they do here, where many of them manage their horses with consummate skill and are as firm in the saddle as any man? You may be certain that there are more sights to be seen here in England than are described in any book of chivalry: country-houses, river-banks, woods, forests, delicious meadows, strong and beautiful castles, and everywhere fresh springs; for all these things abound here, and make the country well worth a visit and most delightful, especially in summertime. I might give you many more details of life here, but to avoid tiring you I will only say that we would rather be in Spain than see England or the sea, and we are all desiring to be off with such longing that we think or Flanders as paradise. So now you may reflect on the way things arc going in this realm.

Copy. Spanish.

Fuentes

Madrid, B.N.K.165.

Printed by Gayangos, Viage de Felipe II à Inglaterra.

Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 13, 1554-1558

Edited by Royall Tyler.

Published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1954.

 

 

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