Week 10

The Armada and Administrative Reform: The Spanish Council of War in the Reign of PhilipIIAuthor(s): I. A. A. ThompsonSource: The English Historical Review, Vol. 82, No. 325 (Oct., 1967), pp. 698-725Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/561097 .Accessed: 01/02/2011 11:36

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October

The Armada and administrative reform: the Spanish council of war in the reign of

Philip II' THE formative role of warfare in the development of the early modern state has become a commonplace, but a commonplace that has gained currency more by faithful reiteration than by adequate demonstration. A recent conference on 'War and Society, I300-

600oo'2 was unable to contribute to the problem much more than a string of questions which, however interesting and relevant, merely helped to underline how few answers have yet been found. This article is an attempt to investigate the relationship between war and administrative change in the case of one particular governmental institution, the Spanish council of war.

Spain must stand in the forefront of any consideration of the problem of war and government in the sixteenth century. For more than a hundred years Spain's armies dominated the battlefields of Europe. At the same time she built up a governmental machine more complex and certainly more far-reaching than any of her rivals. 'If warfare was a dominant theme in the history of Spain under Charles V and Philip II', a modern authority has written, 'bureaucratization was another.'3 The council of war - the body that was responsible for advising on military appointments, logistical planning, and the day-to-day administration of the permanent naval and military establishments in Spain, North Africa, and the Balearic and Atlantic islands - is the bridge-institution par excellence in the Spanish system, for it is here most obviously that military demand and administrative response come together.

In I96o, at the Stockholm Historical Congress, the late Professor Vicens Vives put forward a stimulating interpretation of administrative development in the western Mediterranean, postulating a conjunction between the growth of modern absolute monarchy and the culmination of the great Ottoman offensive. In his view, the crucial decade was the I 5 3os when the naval war in the Mediterranean took on really significant proportions.4 But this was a paper more inspired than substantiated. There is no reason to believe that, at that time, much of the burden of the Mediterranean war fell on the organs of government in Castile. Throughout Charles V's reign,

i. I should like to thank Professor K. Garrad for having read and commented on this paper. 2. Reported in Past and Present, 22 July 1962.

.3 J. H. Elliott, Imperial Spain I469-17I6 (I963), p. I6o. 4. J. Vicens Vives, 'Estructura administrativa estatal en los siglos XVI y XVII',

Rapports iv, XIe Congres International des Sciences Historiques (Stockholm, 1960), pp. 8, 9.

698

IN THE REIGN OF PHILIP II

there was never more than a handful of galleys attached to the flotilla of Spain. Nor were the numerous administrative functions of war undertaken solely by ministers of the Crown. Charles V relied much more than his son on private contractors to run the galleys, feed and pay the troops, and maintain frontier defences.' Even under

Philip II, defence against the Turk was an obligation that fell on

Italy even more heavily than it did on Spain.2 Moreover, the pattern of administrative change does not fit the chronology of the Turkish war. The only wholesale reconstruction of government in Spain during Charles's reign occurred not under the pressure of the Otto- man naval offensive but in 522, on the emperor's return to Spain.3 This reorganization was motivated partly, but not entirely, by the

expenses of Empire and the fiscal and military demands of the war

against France. Clearly more adequate arrangements for the mobili- zation of funds and for the reception of bullion from the Indies were required, but it was also necessary to re-establish a government that had been neglected for years and reduced to chaos by the absence of the king and the revolt of the comuneros. Moreover, some kind of machinery had to be created that could work independently of a

sovereign whose other obligations made permanent residence in Castile impossible; and here Burgundian examples seem to have provided a stimulus and a model.4 The system established between

5 22 and 5 24 remained without major modification until the I 5 os. Then, the dismembering of the Habsburg empire and the accession of the more sedentary and introverted Philip II saw government become both more Spanish and more regularized. The changes of the first half of Philip II's reign were, with the exception of the new council of Italy, designed to make the existing machinery more effective and to eliminate ambiguities in existing ordinances.5 The expansion that took place was an expansion less of the administration than of the judicature. The central organs of military government, the council and the secretariat of war, whose history could most have been expected to conform to Vicens Vives's interpretation, follow the broad lines of development marked out by other branches of the administration. Not until the I58os was there any significant alteration.

I. Ram6n Carande, Carlos Vy sus banqueros, ii, La hacienda real de Castilla (Madrid, I949), pp. 209 ff., 207, on galley contracts and the administration of Oran and Bougie. Gabriel de Morales, Datospara la historia de Melilla (Melilla, I909), p. 22, on the administration of the fortress of Melilla by the duke of Medina Sidonia.

2. H. G. Koenigsberger, The Government of Sicily under Philip II of Spain (195 I), p. 54. 3. For the details of this reorganization see Antonio Rodriguez Villa, El Emperador

Carlos Vy su Corte segtn las cartas de Don Martin de Salinas, Embajador del Infante Don Fernando (1722-39) (Madrid, I903), pp. 71, 72, 88, Ioo, o02, I49, i68, I73, 263, 327, 353.

4. Carande, chap. 2 passim. 5. Francisco de Laiglesia, Estudios Histdricos (IZ/y-z/y) (Madrid, I908), p. 197;

Francisco Gallardo Fernandez, Origen, Progresos y Estado de las Rentas de la Carona de Espata, sugobiernoy administracidn, i (Madrid, 1817), pp. 25, 26.

699 I967

THE SPANISH COUNCIL OF WAR

I

The origins of the council of war are obscure. Contemporary commentators ascribed its inception to Don Pelayo in the eighth century or even saw it as co-terminous with the monarchy itself.' However, the first reference to a council of war existing as a recognizable unit of the administration cannot be pushed further back than I5 6.2 Before that no mention is made of it; after II56, its continued existence is testified by an increasing quantity of evidence. Nothing, then, is known about its institution or its antecedents. It may have emerged gradually as a sub-committee of the council of Castile, in much the same way as did the council of the Indies, but this is little more than guesswork. If 15 16 was the date of its first appearance, it may be connected in some way with the absence of direct royal control after the death of Ferdinand, and may have been set up either as a political device to dilute the power of Cisneros or to assist him in the prosecution of the war against Francis I. In 522, the council was reconstituted as part of the general reform of the household.3 After 1522, there is no evidence of any substantial change in the council of war until the accession of Philip II in 15 5 6, and this probably amounted to no more than a change of personnel, possibly associated with Philip's noted preference for Spanish advisers.4 Apart from this, the structure of the council seems to have remained unaltered for more than sixty years, and these precisely the years of the greatest Turkish military and naval pressure. Indeed, throughout the reign of Charles V the position of the council of war in the governmental hierarchy was highly insecure, and it may even have passed through periods of more or less complete atrophy. Under the emperor, the council continued to be thought of as a personal and

I. See Mariano Alcocer Martfnez's untitled article on the councils in Revista Histdrica, Valladolid, ii (I925), I45-57, p. 15 1, and Santiago Agustin Riol. 'Informe que hizo a Su Magestad en i6 de Junio de 1726 ... sobre la creaci6n, erecci6n, e instituci6n de los Consejos y Tribunales .. .', in Antonio Valladares de Sotomayor, Semanario Erudito, iii (Madrid, 1787), 191, 195.

2. A[rchivo] G[eneral de] S[imancas], Estado legajo 3, fo. i, 'Relacion de las personas que tiene a cargo de despachar los negocios destos Reinos', dated only by the year I 5 6, states simply, 'Castilla las cosas de la guerra al c6sejo dla guerra'. This is a year earlier than the earliest record found by Fritz Walser, Die Spanischen Zentralbehorden und der Staats Rat Karls V (Gottingen, I959), p. 265, n. I47.

3. Salinas to Treasurer Salamanca, Valladolid, i Sept. 1522, 'Ha ordenado Su Majestad Consejo de Guerra y se ha deshecho el que solIa tener. .', Rodriguez Villa, p. 63.

4. This, at any rate, is the inference behind the only indication of a reorganization at the beginning of Philip II's reign, a letter of the count of Tendilla to the interim- secretary of War, Ledesma, from Granada, 17 Aug. I558, in which he refers to the newness and inexperience of the councillors . ' . . . por ser los mas de esos seniores del Consejo de guerra nuevos y no estar informados de la manera que el emperador y el rey an tomado estas cosas. ..', AGS G[uerra] A[ntigua] leg. 68, fo. 1 9 (abbreviations have been extended). On Philip's preference for Spanish advisers see J. Gounon-Loubens, Essais sur I'administration de la Castille au XVIe sicle (Paris, 860), p. 50.

October 7oo0


even an occasional adjunct of the sovereign. A memorandum to the

emperor in 5 524, advising him on the best manner of governing Spain during his absence, declared, 'Council of war, please the Lord, will not be needed, either because there will be no war, or because, if there should be one, the real council ought to reside with Your

Majesty'.1 In 1529, while Charles was out of the country, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza complained on behalf of the council of war that it was 'being ignored and not being summoned'.2 In 1532, the president of the council of Castile was writing of 'the disorder that there is in the council of war'.3 The first twenty-five years of Philip II's reign brought little change in its fortunes. Paolo Tiepolo, in I563, thought there was little worth saying about the activities of the council of war 'since Spain is at peace, and there is no business of great import'.4 In 1572, the new secretary, Delgado, complained that the councillors were so remiss in attending meetings that

they were only getting through a quarter of their business, and that he had a backlog of papers up to a year and a half old that had not yet been dealt with. Two councillors meeting mornings and afternoons could do all that was required.5 Two new members were appointed to the council in the same year, and the crisis seems to have been a temporary one. The following year, the Venetian Donato described it as 'consiglio di pochissime faccende', and it seems to have been looked on generally as not playing a very vital role in the governmental system. Donato believed, 'The king uses it only to supply certain items of information on occasions, and rather to honour some great lord with the title of councillor than really to advise on matters of war, which cannot properly be discussed without bringing in the council of state ... for the council of war is not entrusted with the secret affairs of state even when they involve war'.6 Indeed, the majority of commentators have hesitated to allow it a fully autonomous existence.7 During the reign of Charles V, it seems to have been considered a sort of administrative sub-office of

I. See Hayward Keniston, Francisco de los Cobos, Secretary of the Emperor Charles V (Pittsburgh, I960), p. 86, quoting B[ritish] M[useum] MS. Egerton 307, fos. 159-63, 'Parecer del Doctor Carvajal sobre lo que el Emperador deve ha;er para ausentarse y como debe quedar lo de los Conssejos y quien yra con el Emperador'. fo. i62v.

2. B[iblioteca] N[acional, Madrid], secci6n de manuscritos I778, fo. 217, copy of a letter of the president of Castile to Francisco de los Cobos, soon after Nov. 529.

3. AGS Estado leg. 3, fo. 353. 4. Eugenio Alberi, Le Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti, I5 vols. (Florence, I839

etc.), serie i, vol. v, p. 65, Paolo Tiepolo, I9 Jan. 1563. Chap 2 of the Madrid Cortes of I563 also suggests that the council of war was not fully active, Actas de las Cortes de Castilla (Madrid, i86I etc.), i. 302.

5. AGS GA leg. 76, fo. 127, Delgado to Philip II, 1572. 6. Alberi, I, vi. 374, Leonardo Donato, I573. 7. A typical description is that of Francisco X. Garma y Duran, Teatro Universal de

Espata, iv (Barcelona, 175 ), p. I40, 'El Supremo Consejo de Guerra tiene la propria antiguedad que el Sublime de Estado porque siempre han constituido los dos un mismo Cuerpo, distinguiendose solo en los nombres, por los ramos de los expedientes.'

i967 70I


the council of state. Both the instructions the emperor left for the government of Spain in 1543 and 1548 delegated to the council of state the principal questions of war, and to the council of war 'their execution, preparation, and implementation'.' The council of state exercised ultimate supervision over questions of general policy, and under Philip II it was recognized that matters of outstanding importance ought to pass before the council of state as well as the council of war.2

The predominance of the council of state was, of course, a general predominance within the whole Spanish system of government, but over the council of war it exercised a special control by the main- tenance of a large nucleus of members common to both councils. Contemporary observers are virtually unanimous in asserting that councillors of state were ex offcio members of the council of war,3 and, excepting the episcopal members of the council of state, this by and large seems to have been true. Between 15 70, from which date the minutes of council meetings begin to list the members present, and 5 80, when for a few years they stop doing so, only five of the nineteen known councillors of war were not simultaneously members of the council of state.4 Of these five, one, Vespasiano Gonzaga, made only the rarest of appearances at the council-table, and another, Don Juan de Idiaquez, was not made a councillor of war until he was appointed to the secretaryship of state in 5 79.5 Three of the five were professional soldiers or staff officers: Vespasiano Gonzaga, Don Frances de Alava, captain-general of the artillery and sometime ambassador in Paris, a soldier with over fifty years of service, and Francisco de Ibarra, the purveyor and commissary general; but, apart from the Italian Vespasiano, prince of Sabioneda and duke of Trayeto, the 'military' members of the council were all of unexalted birth. The councillors of state, on the other hand, came without exception from the greatest families in the land: Don John of Austria, Ruy G6mez prince of liboli, the dukes of Feria, Medina- celi, Sessa, Francavilla, and Alba, the comendador mayor de Castilla, Don Luis de Zfiiga y Requesens, the comendador mayor de Alcdntara, Don Luis de Avila, the count of Chinch6n, the marquises of Los Velez, Almazan, and Aguilar, and theprior de San Juan, Don Antonio de Toledo. Several of these men were experienced military com- manders, but they were in the main either politicians or diplomats, ex-viceroys and ex-ambassadors. Some, notably the Prior Don

i. AGS Patronato Real leg. 26, fos. 27 and io6. 2. AGS GA leg. 82, fo. I93, Delgado to Philip II, i3 Dec. I577. 3. See, e.g., the Venetian ambassadors Badoero I557, Donato 1573 and Zane 1584,

Alberi, I. iii. 252, Vi. 373, v. 360. 4. The minutes of the council of war are to be found in the old section Guerra

Antigua (now Guerra y Marina) of the Archivo General de Simancas. 5. Fidel Perez-Minguez, Don Juan de IdidqueZ: Embajadory consejero de Felipe II (San

Sebastian, I934), p. 170.

October 702

I967 IN THE REIGN OF PHILIP II 703

Antonio and the marquis of Aguilar, were, if we are to believe the Venetian ambassadors, nobodies, complete mediocrities without

experience and without intelligence who owed their position, we can

only surmise, to their connections at Court or the caprice of royal favour.1 After 1572, when Don Frances de Alava and Don Juan de

Ayala were appointed to the council of war,2 these two together with Ibarra were, for several years, the only regular members of the council not also involved in the council of state. Before 1572, in terms of membership, the council of war could hardly have existed in its own right at all.

As the secretary Delgado intimated, for most of its members the council of war was only a secondary occupation, and one that, in

spite of Donato, did not carry much prestige.3 An undated memorandum submitted to Philip II suggested that the council of war be used to give advisory positions to those 'persons not qualified with the customary nobility, whom it is not meet to put in the council of state'.4 A report by Delgado on a suitable gratification for Don Sancho de Leiva relates some opposition to a gratuity of eight or ten thousand ducats and appointment to the council of war, because 'the

gratuity ought to be larger, and membership of the council of war alone was little ... If by chance the viceroyalty of Navarre was vacant that would be suitable, as he has vassals and lineage . .'5 The council of war, then, seems to have consisted of those grandees of the council of state who could not be completely disqualified from discussing matters of war and high politics, grandees who were, in fact, sworn in as 'of the council of state and war', together with certain military experts of a less elevated social status. Although, in

I. On the Prior see the comments of Badoero (I557), 'Apenas entiende nada de los asuntos de Estado ni de las cosas que estan en relaci6n con su cargo de caballerizo mayor. En suma es tenido por simple y, como suele decirse, de buena pasta', L. P. Gachard, Carlos Vy Felipe II a traves de sus contempordneos, Spanish trans. (Madrid, 1944), p. 48. An observer of I572 took a more kindly view (ibid. p. I25), but in I577 the Prior was still regarded as useless, for one reason or another (ibid. p. I34). On Aguilar see Alberi, I. v. 325, Gioan Francesco Morosini I58I, 'il quale non e mai stato fuori di Spagna, ne e stato mai a guerra alcuna, ne ha mai atteso a lettere', and the anonymous relation of 577 in Gachard, p. 35, 'es altanero, presuntuoso y de mediocre inteligencia para los asuntos de Estado. Apenas se hace caso de el y toda su importancia estriba en haber entrado en el Consejo'. Badoero's comments on the then count of Feria - 'posee una inteligencia mediocre ... Tiene poca experiencia en los asuntos de Estado, guerra y finanzas; pero esta siempre dispuesto a aprender' (Gachard, p. 45) - and those of the author of the 577 relation on the duke of Francavilla - 'tiene inteligencia, pero pocos conocimientos' (ibid. p. 134) - are also not without relevance to this point.

2. AGS GA leg 77, fo. 74, Delgado to Philip II, undated. Alava's title as captain general of the artillery was issued on 17 May 1572, so his elevation to the council is likely to have been at about the same time, GA leg. 76, fo. 33.

3. AGS GA leg. 78, fo I6o, Delgado to Philip II, undated but probably 1574, 'parescio ... que ... yo dixese a vuestra Majestad les mandase que sienpre se hallen a los consejos de guerra como a los destado/ y aunque yo se lo yo dire de parte de Vuestra Majestad/ por lo que se me ordeno lo digo aqui'; and previously, in a similar vein, GA leg. 76, fo. 127. 4. AGS Diversos de Castilla leg. 8-Io6, fo. I2,

5. AGS GA leg. 78, fos. 219, 250.


practice, the business of the council was on many occasions conducted solely in the presence of its professional and less distinguished members, this period up to the early 158os can still largely be considered as one in which the council of war was dominated by the great nobles of the council of state, a period in which the intri- cate moves of international diplomacy were as yet largely unclut- tered by the more mundane problems of organization and the processes of supply were generally routine or extra-peninsular.

II

The first reference to a secretary of war is in a letter of Salinas, Ferdinand of Austria's ambassador at the Spanish Court, in February 1523, in which he says that the emperor has retained Pedro de Zuazola as secretary for war.1 However, all the evidence would suggest that Zuazola was acting as secretary for war several years before this. During I 5 9, an official of his was receiving a stipend for 'being responsible for summoning the members of the council of war whenever they have to meet in council, and for having the despatches of war sealed and registered';2 while Zuazola's personal connection with military papers can be traced back certainly as far as 1516. The emergence of a specialized secretary of war, then, can be seen as roughly contemporaneous with the emergence of a specialized council of war. Like the council, this single secretaryship was to be sufficient to deal with the military affairs of Spain for another seventy years. During this period, the secretaries were not men with any direct knowledge of war or of logistics, but professional adminis- trators, bureaucrats trained at the desk, and trained especially among the ledgers of the royal exchequer. Zuazola was apprenticed in the office of the Secretary Gaspar de Gricio, in the days when Isabella was still alive.3 His successor, Juan Vazquez de Molina, graduated from that school of clerks brought up at the elbow of his kinsman, Francisco de los Cobos,4 and himself became the scion of one of the many families who tied their fortunes to almost hereditary service in the royal administration. His nephew, Juan Vazquez de Salazar, followed him as secretary of war, and then became secretary of state and cdmara of Castile, and secretary of justice. Salazar died after sixty-one years in the service of the Crown, leaving, in his turn,

i. Rodrfguez Villa, p. Ioo, Salinas to Treasurer Salamanca, Valladolid, 8 Feb. I523. 2. AGS Quitaciones de Corte leg. 9, cedula real 5 May 1 5 19, ordering the payment of

a salary of 15,000 maravedis a year from I Jan. 1519, 'porque Bartolome de Ybafieta, official de Pedro de (iuacola nuestro Secretario, tiene cargo por el de llamar a los del nuestro Consejo de la Guerra quando se aya de juntar a hazer consejo y de hazer sellar y rregistrar las provysiones tocantes a guerra que se ofrescen despachar de ofico . . .'.

3. Antonio and E. A. de la Torre, Cuentas de Gonzalo de Baeza, Tesorero de Isabel la Catdlica, ii, 1491-1504 (Madrid, I956), p. 580, cidula 12 Mar. I503, 'a Pedro de (uagola, criado de Gaspar de Grizio, secretario de su Alteza, 5000 mrs., de que le hizo merced', and p. 6I8, another 5000 maravedis, 10 Jan. I504. 4. Keniston, pp. 118, 334 ff.

October 704


a son to follow him.1 The secretary of war from 1 571 to I 585, Juan Delgado, was another who spent more than half a century in an administrative career.2 His handwriting is to be found among the papers of war at least as early as 1554, when he was apparently employed by the interim-secretary Ledesma. The experience of these secretaries was gained rather in finance than in war. The interim- secretary in 1529, Andres Martinez de Ondarza, was comptroller and supervisor of the royal household.3 Zuazola left the secretaryship to become treasurer-general of Castile and to organize the finances of the expedition to Tunis.4 Delgado had been comptroller- general of the artillery and the official in charge of the account of the exchequer. From 5 71, certainly until 5 83 or I 584, when he asked to be excused the office, he served also in the council of finance.5

Too little is known to enable us to establish a definite pattern of development on the basis of an increase in the number of the council's minor officials. In 519, one man seems to have been responsible for practically everything, acting as porter, and having the despatches sealed and registered.6 By 1563, there were two porters working for the council of war.7 In the I5 70s, there was again only one, helped by his sons. Moreover, not only was he porter for the council of war, but for the councils of state, cdmara, and finance, and for all ad hoc committees as well.8 Apart from this, no non-judicial officer of the council appears on the royal payroll at this time.9 All the paper work involved in the control of a military machine that dominated half the world was the private concern of a handful of secretaries. Delgado, as the others before him, ran his office with an undisclosed number of clerks, dependent upon, paid by, and responsible to him alone, officials who come within the light of administrative recognition

i. AGS Quitaciones de Corte leg. 30 under Juan Vizquez de Salazar, and leg. 32 under Don Luis de Molina y Salazar.

2. AGS GA leg. 466, a consulta of the council of war on a petition of his son, Don Agustfn Delgado, 27 May 1596.

3. AGS Quitaciones de Corte leg. 7, a note to the contadores, i6 June I 5 19. 4. AGS Quitaciones de Corte leg. 38, title, Bologna i Jan. I533. Luisa Cuesta and

Florentino Zamora Lucas, 'Los Secretarios de Carlos V', Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos, LXIV. 2, (1958), p. 441.

5. AGS GA leg. 70, fo. 35, Luis de Escavias, joint-visitador of Oran, 'a mi Sefor Juan Delgado criado de Su Majestad y su contador general del artilleria, En Corte', Oran 21 Mar. 56o0; AGS Contadurfas Generales leg. 318, 'Titulo del oficio de la Razon de la Hacienda de Su Majestad', 9 Nov. 1568; AGS GA leg. 75, fo. 62, Juan de Recalde 'al Ilustre Sefior el Secretario Juan Delgado mi Sefior del Consejo de la azienda de Su Majestad', i2 Sept. I57I, and B.M. Addit. MS. 28344, fo. 387, undated list of petitions, but post 3 Sept. 1583. 6. AGS Quitaciones de Corte leg. 9, c6dula I 5 May 151 9.

7. AGS GA leg. 72, fo. 267, 'Recuerdos de Negocios', 1569. 8. AGS GA leg. 8i, fo. 170, consulta de partes I4 Jan. 1576, and leg. 300, consulta of the

council of war, I June 15 90, on a petition of the porter, Francisco de Ayllon, referring to his thirty years of service, and the twenty 'que an sus hijos servido'.

9. See the account book of Juan de Portillo, 'receptor del Consejo de Guerra de los maravedis aplicados .. . para gastos de Justicia y (1)etrados', AGS Contadurfa Mayor de Cuentas IIa epoca leg. 465.

I967 705

VOL. LXXXII-- NO. CCCXXV YY


only on the expense account of their master. In I548, Juan Vazquez de Molina had at least five clerical assistants.1 Gabriel de Zayas, who stood in at times for Delgado, had five or six, and Del-

gado himself had at least three at any one time.2 During the Portu-

guese campaign, he was employing seven clerks writing out despatches to the cities; but this was exceptional.3 The great majority of the officials employed by the council and the king were concerned not with war but with law, with the despatch of the judicial business that fell to the council as the highest court of military law, theffuero militar. In the I 56os and I 5 70s, there is an assessor, a relator, afiscal, an advocate of the poor, a special receiver of fines and confiscations, and several investigators and amanuenses attached to the council.4 The steady increase in the council's legal activity, largely concerned with the revision of disciplinary visitations and with appeals against judg- ments involving the soldiery, seems out of all proportion to the council's military responsibilities.5 The office of relator was tempo- rarily divided into two in I572.6 In I575, the council recommended that instead of using one of the alcaldes de corte as assessor, a salaried assessor who was not burdened with other duties should be appointed.7 In the middle of I584, two of the king's household constables were co-opted on to the judicial executive of the council of war.8 During I 573, I5 74 and I 5 75, the council was having to meet

practically every day, morning and afternoon, and in I 58o it was meeting two or three times a week just to deal with visitas.9 Never- theless, even the judicial business of the council was not sufficient to provide full-time employment for its officials. The assessors were generally members of the council of Castile also.10 The relator in 5 80 drew salaries from the council of Castile and the council of the cru<ada, as well as from that of war.11 Before his death in I 585, the

i. AGS Estado leg. i3, fo. 86, includes various petitions from 'criados de Juan Vazquez', Lagarruga, Alameda, Arriola, Maestre Juan, Juan de Segovia.

2. AGS Estado leg. 159 (fo. 69); AGS GA leg. 90, fo. 119. 3. AGS GA leg. 94, fo. 46, Delgado to Philip II, i6 Feb. I580. 4. AGS Contadurfa Mayor de Cuentas IIa epoca leg. 465. 5. E.g. AGS GA leg. 77, fo. i82, Delgado to Philip II, 1572 or I 573, 'pues los del

Consejo de Guerra que aqui estan no tienen enbaraco se podrian juntar cada semana dos o tres mafianas a ello y por que la mayor parte destas cosas tocan en Justicia pues el alcalde Salazar . . . se podria hallar de ordinario a la vista dellos con los del dicho Consejo .. .'. 6. AGS GA leg. 76, fo. I29, Delgado to Philip II, I572.

7. AGS GA leg. 80, fo. 254, Delgado to Philip II, i8 Sept. 1575. 8. AGS GA leg. 191, petition of Juan Velazquez and Juan de Sant Ihoan, I7 Oct.

1586, for their salaries from 24 July 1 584. 9. AGS GA leg. 8i, fo. 395, petition of Licenciado Ruy Perez, relator of the council

of war, 'el a que sirbe casi dos anios y en este tiempo el dicho Consejo se a tenido casi cada dia ordinariamente mafiana y tarde .. .'. He seems to have been appointed somewhere in the middle of I573, see Contadurfa Mayor de Cuentas, IIa epoca leg. 465. GA leg. 94, fo. 172, Delgado to Philip II, 28 Nov. I 580.

o. AGS GA leg. 88, fo. 212, Delgado to Philip II, I0 July I578. I . AGS GA leg. 82, fo. 77:2, Delgado to Philip II, 3 I Mar. 1577, and AGS Consejo y

Juntas de Hacienda leg. 125 new (I 8 old), a list of officers and councillors of the council of the cruw.ada, 3 Dec. 5 8o.

70o6 October


Licenciado Diego de la Vera was acting as 'attorney at Court for the poor who litigate in the royal council, in the councils of finance and war, in the contadurias mayores de hacienda and de cuentas, and in the council of the cruzada'.l

III

After sixty-odd years of existence, the council of war had established for itself no clearly defined place in the governmental hier-

archy. It existed by virtue of no formal ordinances regularizing its functions; it had no formal place in Court ceremonies and pro- cessions; the councillors received no salary and no patent of appointment.2 Its members were frequently experts, but rarely specialists; its secretaries specialists but never experts; its officers mainly part-timers. There had been no effective delineation of function between this and the other councils. It was concerned with the administration of war and the provision of military requirements within the boundaries of the peninsula, North Africa, and the Spanish islands of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.3 It was limited territorially by the council of the Indies, and by the councils of Italy and Flanders which, together with the council of state, exercised in those areas the duties that in Spain fell to the council of war.4 It was limited internally not only by being supervised by the council of state, especially on questions of appointments and foreign trade, but also by the overlapping competences of the governmental councils of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal.5 The council of war had, then, no clear monopoly of military affairs. It was quite possible for the same business to be presented before various councils, and even for a petitioner to play off one council against another. Supplicants,

I. AGS Quitaciones de Corte leg. 12, title of appointment of his successor, Licenciado Diego de Valdepefias, Monz6n, I4 July I585.

2. This is not true of the early years of Charles V. The patent of appointment of the marquis of Aguilar, 7 Sept. I 517, allows him a salary of Ioo,ooo maravedis a year, AGS Quitaciones de Corte leg. 32. But the last patent of appointment I have come across is that of the marquis of Mondejar, 24 Apr. 1546, which notes the payment of Ioo,ooo maravedis to him until I 560, Quitaciones de Corte leg. 32. After this date, all the records and contemporary descriptions indicate that the councillors, as councillors, were unpaid. See, for example, B.M., MS. Cotton Vesp. cvi, fo. 43, 'Espafia Anno 577', and Garma, iv. 54.

3. B.M. MS. Sloane 36o0, fo. 9, 'Tratados Varios Tocantes a Cosas de Espafia', 'este consejo suele tratar solamente de las cosas de Espafia y Africa'.

4. See, on the council of the Indies, E. Schafer, El Consejo Realy Supremo de las Indias, 2 vols. (Seville, 1935, 1947); on the council of state, Jose Maria Cordero Torres, El Consejo de Estado. Su trayectoria y perspectivas en Espana (Madrid, 1944); and, on the council of Italy, Camillo Giardina, II Supremo Consiglio d'Italia, Atti della Reale Acca- demia di Scienze, Lettere, e Belle Arti di Palermo, xix, fasc. I, I934 (Palermo, 1936), especially pp. 112, II5.

5. On the military duties of the council of Aragon see Carlos Riba y Garcia, El Consejo Supremo de Aragon en el reinado de Felipe II (Valencia, 19I4). There is nothing on either the council of Castile or the council of Portugal. I have not been able to see Joaquin Jose Salcedo Izu, El Consejo Real de Navarra en el siglo XVI (Pamplona, 964).

I967 7o7


having failed to convince the council of war of their worth, would turn to the council of Italy, where 'it is easily done, as those of that council do not know, nor can they know, the services of these men, since being men of letters they have never seen them fight'.1 A

governor of Minorca, having twice applied unsuccessfully for leave to the council of war, turned to the council of Aragon and there secured a recommendation for his petition, which the council of war then endorsed.2 The lack of precisely defined lines of demarcation was not unique to the council of war, but it was a problem that was

only aggravated by the vagueness of the council's official status and the absence of any set of written ordinances. In terms of function then, as well, it is still possible to see these years of the council's

history, right up to 1586, as a period of prolonged adolescence. It was also apparent that the council of war was itself not function-

ing satisfactorily. It seems to have shared that internal unsoundness that foreign observers had noticed in the conciliar system as a whole. The Venetian Lorenzo Priuli spoke of 'the disorder there is in these councils because of the lack of experienced councillors and because the king does not attend them'.3 This, together with the delays inevitable in a system where the king counted so much on his ministers that every detail went through the councils, yet esteemed them so little that he made all the decisions himself, meant that 'business was so in arrears that everything was done out of its time, and to negotiate in that court was unbearable'. Delgado's reports bear out many of the ambassador's strictures. The pre-occupation of some of the most important members of the council of war with other duties frequently held up the expedition of business. A sentence of death passed on a Captain Linares was referred back by the king because, 'although I believe he very well deserves the punishment . . . which is most just, it appears that few members of the council of war were present at the hearing - no more than two - and I think the case should be heard again with more of them there'.4 A little later, the secretary expressed his dissatisfaction with the method of filling vacant posts. 'If somebody says in council that a particular person is good, there is nobody will contradict him, even though he knows otherwise'.5 Time was wasted and work disrupted by bad blood, and by petty squabbles over precedence.6 It was in

I. AGS GA leg. 88, fo. 122, Delgado to Philip II, 2 Feb. 1578. 2. AGS GA leg. 77, fo. 190, Delgado to Philip II, undated, possibly 1573. 3. Alberi, i. v. 255. 4. AGS GA leg. 80, fo. 193, reply to Delgado, 5 June I575, and another instance the

following year, GA leg. 8I, fo. 328, Delgado to Philip II, I9 Oct. 1576. 5. AGS GA leg. 8I, fo. I94, Delgado to Philip II, 4 Mar. 1576. 6. The trouble seems to have come to a head in the middle of I583 with an open

clash between two particularly strong and rigid personalities, Don Frances de Alava and the marquis of Aguilar. Aguilar was resentful that he was not being allowed the authority he expected over the council's affairs. AGS GA leg. 154, fos. 293 and 316, Delgado to Philip II, 15 May and 26 June I583.

7o8 October


consequence of an incident of this kind that Delgado wrote to the

king, 'So it please Your Majesty, some way must be found to get all the members of the council to speak on everything, and to act in the resolution of affairs in the interests of Your Majesty, without

personal animosity or anything else intervening'.1

IV

The relative insignificance of the council of war is to be explained by the insulation of Castile from the organizational burdens of war for

fully three-quarters of the sixteenth century. It was not concerned

directly with the infantry stationed in the Low Countries and in

Italy, nor with the galleys of Naples and Sicily. As a result, the revolt of the Netherlands seems to have had no direct effect on the methods or the machinery of military administration in Spain. Nor did the war in the Mediterranean make demands sufficiently heavy to require the establishment of an extensive administrative apparatus. Italy, like the Netherlands before 1567, was largely self-supporting and contributed a great deal to the total cost of defence against the Turk.2 The capture of the Pefi6n de los Velez in I 564 was the only one of the great Mediterranean expeditions that was organized from

Spain. The campaigns of Gerba in 560, Malta in i 565, Lepanto in I57I, and Tunis in 1573 were all equipped in Italy, and predominantly Italian in conception and composition. For Spain, by far the most significant military operation of the first half of Philip II's

reign was the suppression of the morisco revolt in Granada between December I568 and January 1571; but this was essentially a feudal war in the tradition of the Reconquista, not a precedent for the great mobilizations of state power that were to come later.

The evidence admittedly is deficient, but there are few indications that the military activity of the I 5 6os had any marked effect on the organs of military administration in Madrid. On the threat of rebellion in the Netherlands, in 5 66, the members of the council of war who were away from Court were recalled, and the councils of state and war met day after day in a fever of secret confabulations.3 There was, at the same time, a widespread investigation into the conduct of the officers of all the councils, and rumours of a general reformation of the whole central administration4; but as far as the council of war is concerned there is no sign of any structural change whatsoever. The revolution occurred in the I 5 8os. The conquest of Portugal made necessary the permanent organization of an army of occupation and, with the political, military, and strategic con- sequences that followed from it, normalized duties that for the

I. AGS GA leg. 154, fo. 293. 2. Koenigsberger, p. 54. 3. Haus-Hof und Staats Archiv, Vienna, Spanien Varia fasz. i6. fos. 17v and 20,

'Avisos de la Corte de Espafia dende dos de Abril hasta por todo lo de Mayo', I 566. 4. Ibid. fo. I8.

I967 709


council of war had hitherto been largely sporadic, or at any rate of a much lower magnitude. The I 5 8os were a decade of continuous and

expanding warfare, in Portugal, in the Azores, in the Atlantic, in the North Sea, in Brittany; warfare conducted on a scale that had not been surpassed even by the greatest of the expeditions against the Turks, and with a frequency not to be compared with the spasmodic campaigns of the I 56os and I570s. Military action, from being the occasional act of fervour or retaliation, had become the norm. This was of necessity reflected in a marked increase in the demands and the cost of war. Within the decade, Spain's military effort on the home front, whether measured in terms of men, money or supplies, had increased by something like a factor of three.1 In contrast to the campaigns against Islam, the activities of the second half of the reign were all predominantly Castilian. Problems of administration and finance were posed on a scale never before faced by the council of war or its ministers.

The war against the Portuguese followers of the prior of Crato can be seen as the end of an epoch in the history of Spanish military administration. The campaign of I 5 80 was the last to be organized by an administrative machine that had existed with little change since the time of the reigning king's great-grandfather. It is the first that can be adequately studied.2 This itself is significant. There can be no doubt that the documents surviving in the Archive of Simancas, in the section Guerra Antigua, are incomplete for the early part of the century. For the last twenty years of Philip's reign, however, they provide a reasonable index of the quantity of work the secretariat of war had to get through. For all the years up to 15 77, only eighty- three bundles and thirty-three ledgers remain; there are five bundles in each of the years 1578 and 1579, fifteen in I 580, the first year of the Portuguese war, and eighteen by 1583. The average falls to eleven in 1584-6, to be followed by a leap from eleven to twenty-one between 5 86 and 15 87. Over the last dozen years of the reign, there is an average of twenty-eight bundles and between three and four ledgers a year, with peaks of thirty-five and thirty-seven in 1589 and I590. The picture is plain. The administrative burden of the Portuguese war was much greater than anything that had gone before it, that of the Enterprise of England twice as heavy again; and this level was maintained until the very end of the reign. It was

I. Up to 1580 the ordinary expenses of war within Spain ranged between 750,000 and 1,ooo,ooo ducats; by 1587, they had risen to about 3,000,000 ducats and reached a peak of 3,500,00o in I597. (Chap. i, Table ii of my unpublished Cambridge Ph.D. thesis, I965, War and Administrative Devolution: The Military Government of Spain in the Reign of Philip II. Alvaro Castillo, 'Dette Flottante et Dette Consolidee en Espagne de 1557 A

600o', Annales E.S.C., i8e annee (I963), no. 4, p. 748, gives an increase from beginning to end of the reign of a similar order of magnitude, but with somewhat lower figures.)

2. Jose Aparici y Garcia, Informe sobre los adelantos de la Comisidn de Historia en el Archivo de Simancas, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1848), i. 87.

October 7IO


inevitable that there must be some administrative development com- mensurate with the tasks that had to be faced.

For the council of war the quinquennium that followed the annexation of Portugal was a period of dislocation and indecisiveness. As it stood, the council was inadequate for the increased volume and

complexity of the tasks that confronted it; inadequately composed, inadequately staffed, inadequately co-ordinated. This, Philip was among the first to recognize. In his reply to Delgado's complaint about the discords within the council, in May 1583, he wrote, 'I am

looking into all this and thinking about some reorganization which will put a stop to much of the trouble - perhaps to all of it - as I will explain to you some day, God willing. In the meantime, try to see that everything goes well, and do not summon the council except when it cannot be avoided.'l The paucity of consultas surviving for these years suggests that the council of war, uprooted again by the royal progress to Aragon, met with much less frequency until the second half of 586. A petition of June of that year refers to the 'many months that a council of war has not been held in this Court'.2 Another, a fortnight later, asks for the settlement of a lawsuit that had been before the council for more than two years.3

By the beginning of 15 86, only two members of the council of war remained, for there had been hardly any new appointments since I579.4 In October 1585, Delgado died after several years of in- different health and many months away from his desk, during which time his son, Agustin, had acted as his substitute.5 He was succeeded, within a month of his death, by Antonio de Eraso, the son of Francisco de Eraso, and now secretary of the council of the Indies.6 Early in February I586, Eraso also died.7 It was to be three months before the office was filled. A few days before Eraso's death, Don Juan de Idiaquez had written to the marquis of Santa Cruz asking for his estimate of the forces needed to send against England. The

I. AGS GA leg. I54, fo. 293, Philip II's reply to Delgado, I5 May I583. 2. AGS GA leg. I91, petition of Pedro de Angulo, 27 June I586. 3. Ibid., petition of Julian Paez Daltro, I3 Aug. 586. 4. See below, p. 7 5. The marquis of Almazan was still alive, but he was away from

the Court as viceroy of Navarre from 15 79 to the end of 15 86. 5. AGS Quitaciones de Corte leg. 26, title of royal secretary, 6 July 1566, with a note

referring to his death, 9 Oct. I585; GA leg. 552, minute of a consulta of the council of war, Apr. 1599, on a petition of Don Agustfn Delgado, the son of Secretary Juan Delgado, 'fue coadjutor de su padre en los papeles de su ministerio y en la Jornada de Moncon hizo officio de Secretario de la guerra con permision del Rey nuestro Sefior que esta en el cielo. ..'.

6. AGS GA leg. I79, fo. 37, marquis of Santa Cruz 'al muy Ilustre Sefior, el Sefior An- tonio de Eraso del Consejo de Su Majestad y su Secretario de la Guerra', Lisbon, 9 Nov. 585, congratulating him on his appointment.

7. io Feb. 1586, Juan Ruiz de A?agra to the imperial ambassador, Khevenhiiller, Valencia io Feb. 1586, Haus-Hof und Staats Archiv, Vienna, Spanien Korrespondenz fasz. I2, fo. 2I5.

i967 7II


plan reached the king by-the beginning of April.1 The Enterprise of England, as Santa Cruz visualized it, an expedition twice the size of that which had conquered Portugal, was taking shape at the very moment when the secretaryship of war was vacant and the council of war practically inoperative.

It was, then, in the shadow of the Armada that the reform of the council and the secretariat of war, which so many reasons urged, was finally carried out. Clearly, by the date of the appointment of Eraso to the secretaryship, in the first week of November 585, no firm decision to remould that office had been reached. Yet the subsequent activities of the new secretary, Alva, in the preparation of the fleet in Corunna, in 1588, enhance the view that his appointment and the changes that accompanied it, coming just at the moment when the definitive decision to embark upon the invasion of England was being made, were not merely retrospective in inspiration.2 Indeed, this is precisely the interpretation put forward by the official chronicler, Antonio de Herrera, in his Historia General, first published between I606 and I612. 'The Catholic King was planning his just revenge on the queen of England and, among other things, he appointed, in those provinces where he intended to raise supplies for the war, ministers who could be trusted to carry out his orders promptly and diligently ... In Spain, with the same end in view, ... he divided the secretariat of war, for the war department seemed a very large machine to be run by one man and, for the purpose he was contemplating, it would in the future need to be even larger ... and appointed two secretaries particularly suited to these tasks.'3 Reform, when it came, was to take two forms: in the first place, the establishment of the ministry of war on a more institutionalized and a more professional footing; in the second, the extension of the organs and the personnel of military government to enable it to cope with the vast quantity of material with which it now had to deal.

V

The bureaucratization of the council of war may have had its beginnings with a visita of the secretary in 15 83, of which no record has been found other than the mention.4 In the following year, there appear, for the first time, consultas bearing the monograms of the

r. Enrique Herrera Oria, Felipe Ily el Marques de Santa Cruz en la Empresa de Inglaterra (Madrid, I946), pp. II, 12.

2. Archivo Histdrico Espanol, ii, La Armada Invencible (Madrid, I930), p. 249. He arrived there on 17 July 1588.

3. Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, Historia General del Mundo . . . del tiempo del Seior Rey Don Felipe II el Prudente, 3 parts (Valladolid/Madrid I606-1612), iii. 43.

4. B.M. Add. MS. 28344, fo. 287v, referring to a petition of Delgado on behalf of his first official that was granted on 3 Sept. 583, 'acabada la visita'.

October 712


attending councillors' - consultas that were, in other words, not

merely communications between the secretary and the king in which it is difficult to distinguish accounts of council meetings from secretarial business and personal opinion, as they had been before, but genuine reports by the council - and royal decrees (cedulas reales), countersigned not only by the king and his secretary, which had been the practice hitherto, but also by the 'duty councillor' for that week.2 Philip's increasing incapacity3 and the deaths of Delgado and Eraso, two of his most experienced servants, broke the back of that system of direct personal consultation and supervision between king and secretary that had formed the basis of Delgado's position vis-a-vis the council.4 Not only was the council becoming an executive

body in its own right, but it also contained within itself the means of direct communication with the Crown. Don Juan de Idiaquez, councillor of war since his appointment as secretary of state in September 579, was a member of that junta de noche of intimate advisers that, from 1586, was to be practically the sole contact that Philip had with government.5 From this time, it is Idiaquez who takes on those secret duties that had given the secretaries their name. Rarely now is the king's handwriting seen in the papers of the council of war. Idiaquez himself writes out the replies to the consultas, and the secretaries, their personal notes uncommon except between themselves, are reduced to being minuters of council meetings, their duties precisely defined by a series of instructions dated I 3 June 1586, the first set of instructions for the secretaryship of war that survive.6 At the same time, the secretariat that had hither- to been staffed privately by the personal servants of the secretaries became a royal office, a department of state. In February I 587, the royal payroll was extended to include two officials for each secretary. The first official of each was a royal appointment, the second approved by the king on the nomination of the appropriate secretary.7

i. The first monogrammed consultas of the council of war that I have come across are dated 28 Sept. 1 584, AGS GA leg. 173, fo. 44z. It is interesting that it is also in I 584 that Schafer found the first monogrammed consultas of the council of the Indies, though, in this case, the monograms replaced not secretarial reports but consullas signed in full, Schiifer, i. 146.

2. Similarly, the first monogrammed cedula I have noted is of 24 Oct. 15 84, AGS GA leg. 173, fo. i68.

3. Philip was apparently so bad that in October 5 85 he received extreme unction, H. Forneron, Histoire de Philippe II, 4 vols. (Paris, i88z), iii. 2z6. From then on, the Venetian ambassadors refer repeatedly to his steadily declining health.

4. Matteo Zane, 1584, 'Secretario e don Gio. Delgado, in buona opinione del re perche prende in se molte colpe a sollevamento di S.M.', Alberi, I. v. 360.

5. On the Junta de Noche see Riba p. xxi, and Herrera, ii. 598. 6. BN, secci6n de manuscritos 2058, fo. I4. 7. AGS Quitaciones de Corte legs. io, 12, 26, 8, appointing Carlos de Ybarguen as

Alva's official, and Diego L6pez de Gimez as Prada's, with the formula 'proveimos y nombramos', and Juan de Guevara as official with Prada, with the formula 'aprobamos ansi mesmo por uno de los oficiales para que asistiese con el en el dicho oficio a Juan de Guevara nuestro aposentador quel dicho Secretario Andres de Prada nos propuso'. Alva's other official was Antonio de Irabien.

I967 713


Here, surely, can be seen the beginnings of a bureaucratic rather than a proprietary conception of office: salaried officials appointed by the Crown, an oath of honesty and secrecy, continuity of tenure, the clear prospect of systematic promotion, and, by the early years of Philip III's reign, even a training scheme.1 Bartolome de Aguilar y Anaya was appointed first official in the department of the secretary of war for the sea, in January 1594, in satisfaction of 'the many years you have served me as secretary of the despatches of my fleets and of those of the captain-general of the troops in Portu- gal'. In March 596, he was transferred as first official in the other department of war. Four years later, he became a royal secretary for life, and, in I6o6, secretary of war for land. His career ended twenty years later with promotion to the council of war itself.2 The break was never clear cut. Juan de Basarte, Delgado's head clerk, had served continuously for thirty years in the papers of war, though he died a pauper and had to be buried on credit.3 Martin Ochoa de Zarate had worked for Delgado and Eraso before his formal employment with Prada in I59I.4 But others found themselves destitute on the death of their patrons,5 and, even after 1587, the second official remained a creature of the secretary.6 Moreover, each secretary must have needed more than two officials - Prada had at least two extra 'servants' in I 586, one of them Martin Ochoa de Zarate7 - and so continued to exercise a very personal influence over his own office.

i. AGS GA leg. 712, consulta of the council of war, 3 June I609, 'Por haver crescido la ocupacion en los officios de la guerra y ser justo que se bayan criando en ellos personas de satisfaccion ... fue Vuestra Majestad servido de mandar sefialar veinticuatro escudos de sueldo al mes para dos officiales en cada officio por tiempo de tres afnos con que se fuesen avilitando y que a medida de la buena quenta que fuesen dando assi se les acrescentase . . .'.

2. AGS Quitaciones de Corte leg. 9, under Bartolome de Aguilar y Anaya. He had begun his career in the service of the marquis of Santa Cruz, and, on the latter's death, had been recommended by the king to the new captain general of the Ocean Sea, the duke of Medina Sidonia, Cesareo Fernandez Duro, La Armada Invencible, 2 vols. (Madrid, I884-5), i. 431.

3. AGS GA leg. 411I, the council of war on a petition of Domingo de Arvide, a protege of Basarte, 14 Jan. 1594.

4. AGS GA leg. 465, petition of Martin Ochoa de Zfrate, 9 Mar. I 596. 5. AGS GA leg. 209, petition of Ger6nimo de Gamboa, 25 Aug. I 587, 'ultimamente

sirvio en este Consejo tiempo de dos afios en el de los Secretarios Juan Delgado y Antonio de Eraso en toda la jornada que Vuestra Majestad hizo a los Reinos de Aragon y hasta que se hizo por Vuestra Majestad la provision de los Secretarios Andres de Alva y Prada y sus nuevos officiales que quedo desacomodado y fuera del servicio de Vuestra Majestad'.

6. There were only two changes of secretary between 1586 and I6o6. Esteban de Ibarra brought in a new second official in 1591, and Prada took his with him to the secretaryship of state in i6oo; AGS Quitaciones de Corte leg. 12, note of appointment of Diego de Ochandiano on the nomination of Ibarra, 30 Aug. 159i, and leg. I8, appointment of Francisco Lobo Castrillo, 5 Dec. 15 99, with a marginal note saying that he went with Prada to the secretariat of state and was replaced by Juan Castillo Albarado,

9 Mar. I600. 7. AGS GA leg. 191, 5 Aug. 1586, Dr. Pedro Morquecho, regidor of Grand Canary,

claimed to have received a royal writ from Martin Ochoa de Zirate, 'criado' of Secre- tary Prada.

October 7I4

1967 IN THE REIGN OF PHILIP II 715

By the spring of 15 86, only Don Juan de Idiaquez of the pre-war council was still with the king. A newer appointment, Don Juan de Zuniiga, comendador mayor de Castilla, was the only other formal member of the council.1 According to Herrera, Don Crist6bal de Moura, the diplomat, seducer of Portugal and link with the new government in Lisbon, also attended the council informally.2 The count of Barajas, councillor of state, president of Castile and of the council of the Orders, probably participated in meetings of the council of war as early as I584,3 but in neither case is there any conclusive evidence of their attendance before the autumn of 5 86.4 Moreover, in November 1586, Ziuiiga sickened and died.5 It was in these circumstances that the council was extended by the appointment, in August 1586, of Don Alonso de Vargas and Don Juan de Cardona, 'men of great experience in war, one on land, the other at sea',6 and by the return to the council of the marquis of Almazan from the viceroyalty of Navarre.7 Excluding Moura and Barajas, of the six new councillors participating between 1586 and the end of the reign only one was also a member of the council of state, and only two could be said to have had any close relationship with the greater nobility. The impression that Philip was trying to extricate the council of war from its association with an aristocratic and dilettante council of state is confirmed by the express exclusion from the council of war of the three new councillors of state appointed in 1593, the marquis of Velada and the counts of Chinch6n and Fuensalida, although this was clearly regarded as a surprising and possibly unwelcome breach of precedent.8

I. Herrera, iii. 44, 'ya no avia en el Consejo de Guerra sino Don Juan de Zuniga y Don Juan de Idiaquez'. The first appearance of the Comendador Mayor noted is I 5 Aug. I583, but from late I 5 8 until 1583, there is virtually no mention of the participants in the council's papers. Only Zniiga, Idiaquez, the marquis of Aguilar and Don Frances de Alava seem to have been concerned with the council of war from 1583 onwards. Aguilar died on 23 Oct. 585, Garma, iv. 59. Alava died in Valencia, 'viniendo Vuestra Majestad de Monzon' (AGS GA leg. 298, the council of war, 20 Aug. 1598, on a petition of his son, Don Diego) probably in February 1586, when the imperial ambassador received news of his illness, Juan Ruiz de A?agra to Khevenhiiller, Valencia Io Feb. 1586, Haus-Hof und Staats Archiv, Vienna, Spanien Korrespondenz fasz. 12, fo. 245. 2. Herrera, iii. 44.

3. His monogram is attached to a cidula real countersigned by Delgado and addressed to the purveyor and the superintendent of the fleet in Cartagena, 8 Dec. 1584, AGS GA leg. I73, fo. I44.

4. The first monogram of Barajas appears in a consulta of 6 Aug. 1586, AGS GA leg. I90; that of Moura on 15 June 1587, GA leg. 209. According to Alfonso Danvila y Burguero, Don Cristdbal de Moura, Primer Marques de Castel Rodrigo (r13 8-r16) (Madrid, I900), p. 714, Moura was made councillor of state and war in 1 587.

5. Herrera, iii. 45; Garma, iv. 63, says he died on I 7 Nov. 5 86. His last monogram is on a consulta of 3 Oct. 586, AGS GA leg. 90.

6. Herrera, iii. 44. 7. The first monograms of Cardona and Vargas appear on 6 Aug. 15 86, Almazan's on

2 Dec. 1586, AGS GA leg. I90. 8. Herrera, iii. 406. The only explanation offered was that the king wanted the new

councillors not to be burdened with military business so that they could devote more time to other affairs.


The six councillors of war were all distinguished soldiers with active service records not only on the field of battle but also in

military government. Don Alonso de Vargas, whom Herrera calls 'a

captain famous for his brilliant exploits',1 was one of Spain's great military leaders and a true professional soldier. Don Juan de Cardona had been a member of the collateral council of Naples and, for some

twenty years, captain-general of the galleys, first of Sicily, then of

Naples.2 Don Hernando de Toledo, a natural son of the duke of Alba, grand prior of Castile of the Order of St. John, viceroy and

captain-general of Catalonia from 5 70 to I 5 80, had commanded the

cavalry in the Netherlands when his father was governor there, and commanded it again when Portugal was invaded in 1580o. Don Pedro de Velasco, 'a fine gentlemen, a fine soldier, a fine minister', was an old soldier of Flanders, an ex-corregidor of Badajoz, and captain of the king's Spanish Guard.4 Don Juan de Acufia Vela, appointed to the council in 595, was a brother of the archbishop of

Burgos and a relative of the counts of Buendia; 'a gentleman of

prudence and a good soldier', he had been inspector-general of the

army in Flanders, and in 1586 succeeded Don Frances de Alava as

captain-general of the artillery of Spain.5 The last of Philip II's councillors of war was Don Pedro de Padilla. A soldier since the age of sixteen, over the course of thirty years he had risen from a captaincy in Flanders, through services in Granada, Portugal and the Azores, to be maestre de campo of the tercio of Naples, governor and captain-general of Oran, castellan of Milan, general of the army in Piedmont, and governor of the duchy of Milan.6

A similar professionalization took place in the secretaryship. From I586, the tradition of bureaucrat secretaries that had pre- vailed throughout the century7 was broken by the appointment of

i. Herrera, iii. 287. In 1 574, he was made a councillor of war in the Netherlands, and appointed 'cavega y superior' of all the companies of lancers, light horse, and mounted arqubusiers there. He appears as one of the protagonists in Francisco de Valdes's dialogue, Espejoy Disciplina Militar, published in Brussels in I 589. Argensola says that Vargas had told him that 'de soldado de quatro escudos de paga habia Ilegado al mayor cargo de todos.' Quoted in M. Mignet, Antonio Perez et Philippe II, 5th edn. (Paris i88i), p. 280, n. 2.

2. Cesareo Fernandez Duro, Armada Espanola, 9 vols. (Madrid, I895-1903), ii. 452. He was made viceroy and captain-general of Navarre at the end of Philip II's reign, and lived well into the reign of Philip III.

3. Luis Cabrera de C6rdoba, Felipe Segundo, Rey de Espaia, 4 vols. (Madrid, I876-7), ii. 59, 596, iii. 23I, 250. His first recorded appearance in the council was on io Mar. 1587, AGS GA leg. 209. He died in October 159I, B.M. Add. MS. 28375, fo. 287.

4. Cabrera, iii. 250, ii. 192, 632. His first monogram is dated 7 Aug. 1587. 5. Ibid. iii. 205, i. 483. His first monogram in the council of war is on 23 Aug. I595,

AGS GA leg. 437. He had been captain general of the artillery since 30 Aug. I586, Jorge Vig6n, Historia de la Artilleria Espanola, 3 vols. (Madrid, I947), iii. 286.

6. AGS GA leg. 552, request of Padilla for confirmation of his castellanship of the Alhambra of Granada, granted to him by Philip II, 3 Jan. 1599. Cabrera, ii. I 7 calls him 'caballero de esfuerzo y consejo'. His first monogram on a consulta is dated 7 May I 5 97, GA leg. 499, but he had already signed a cidula real on 29 Mar. I597, GA leg. 50I.

7. Cabrera, ii. 453 of Philip II 'no siendo para con el suficiente secretario sino el que se habia criado en los papeles, teniendo las Secretarfas por Seminario .. .'.

October 7I6


Andres de Prada and Andres de Alva. Prada since 5 68 had worked with the papers of Don John of Austria in all his campaigns in the Levant, in Granada and in Flanders; and when Don John died he continued in the service of the prince of Parma.1 Alva, who had served at sea since his youth, first appears in I5 63 with the renewal of his title as comptroller of the galleys of Italy.2 From February 5 68, he served continuously and actively as inspector of the galleys of Spain, and, for some time after I 80, he was also concerned with their provisioning.3 Alva was succeeded, in I59I, by Esteban de Ibarra, the purveyor-general of the fleets in Lisbon, an ex-secretary of the duke of Alba, and a man who had been connected with provisioning in Portugal since 5 80.4 Not until I606 were the secretaries

again drawn from the ranks of the central bureaucracy. As a consequence of these changes, the ministry of war became

not only a more expert and a more responsible, but also a more active body. In I5 74, when it was thought necessary to send out a

'person of quality from this Court' to act as purveyor of the fleet assembled in Santander under Pero Menendez de Aviles, because of its size and importance and 'in order to give great despatch to

everything', it was doubted whether the purveyor and commissary- general, Francisco de Ibarra of the council of war, was either willing or capable of the task. Delgado suggested that 'the business is of such a quality as would suffer to be sent on it one of Your Majesty's council of state'.5 During the Portuguese campaign, the only members of the council of war taking active part were the duke of Alba, resurrected from disgrace for the,occasion, and the captain-general of the artillery, Don Frances de Alava.6 The contrast with the new council could not be clearer. In I588, Andres de Alva was sent to take over personal direction of the preparations in Corunna, and Don Juan de Cardona ordered to Santander to take charge of 'all the affairs of the fleet and the ships, mariners and soldiers at present in the ports of Vizcaya, Galicia and Asturias .. .'.7 In I 589, the council

i. Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Indiferente General leg. 1096, petition of Prada through the council of the Indies, 30 Oct. I 580; BN secci6n de manuscritos 3207, fo. 20, relation of Simone Contarini to the Republic of Venice, I605, 'es hombre de christianidad perfecto, tiene mucha platica en negocios desde los tiempos de Don Juan de Austria y el Duque de Alva; es capaz de las materias y bien sabioso trato, limpio y libre de interes .. .'. 2. Herrera, iii. 43; AGS GA leg. 174, fo. 39, x8 July 5I63.

3. AGS GA leg. 72, fo. 93, his instructions as veedor of the galleys of Spain, 29 Feb. 1568; GA leg. 173, fo. 187, order for Antonio de Guevara and Andres de Alva to raise provisions for the galleys, 4 Mar. 1584.

4. Cabrera, iii. 572; AGS GA leg. o08, fo. 42; GA leg. 300, a paper of 30 Aug. I590 describes him as 'Proveedor General de las Armadas que el Rey junta en estos Reinos (i.e. Portugal) por quenta de Castilla'. AGS Quitaciones de Corte leg. 13, title as secretary of war, 21 Aug. 1 59.

5. AGS GA leg. 78, fos. I69 and 152:2, Delgado to Philip II, undated. 6. Julian Suarez Inclan, Guerra de Anexidn en Portugal durante el Reinado de Don

Felipe II, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1897-8), ii. 380, appendix 8. 7. Archivo Histdrico Espaiol, ii. 249; BN secci6n de manuscritos 2058, copy of Car-

dona's commission, 588.

I 967 7I7


recommended the appointment of Don Alonso de Vargas as captain- general of the cavalry, and Andres de Alva as purveyor and com-

missary-general, to join Don Hernando de Toledo in command of the force to combat the English landings in Galicia and Portugal.1 Two years later, Don Alonso de Vargas was given command of the army of Aragon, and Esteban de Ibarra made purveyor-general.2 In 1596, Don Pedro de Velasco was named general of an army to be raised for the recapture of Cadiz; but the English sailed away before it was needed.3

The emergence of a council of war both more professional and more self-contained was paralleled by the specialization of its functions within the governmental system as a whole. In 1593, the

appointment of military comptrollers was withdrawn from the council of war and restored to the council of finance from whom it had been removed twenty years earlier.4 The following year, in an

attempt to speed up the administration of justice, the council of war lost its regular judicial powers to a small committee of alcaldes de corte, judges attached to the royal household.5 At the same time, there are indications that the position of the council of war as an administrative body was becoming more clearly recognized and more precisely defined. Duties over the regulation of foreign trade, that earlier had been performed by the council of state, seem by I 5 88 to have been dealt with by the council of war. A case involving an Irish merchant arrested as an English spy in 1589 'was seen the other day in the council of state, where it seemed a matter more pertinent to the council of war than to that of state'.6 Something similar was happening in its relations with the council of the Indies. The casa de contratacidn of Seville was ordered to purchase gun- powder for the Indies fleets not on its own account but through the appropriate military authorities.7 The claim of the captain-general of the artillery, 'that the council of the Indies observe with him the form that is observed in that of war', was also upheld.8 This process of self-assertion was brought to a strident climax in the first month of

I. GA AGS leg. 262, fo. 205, consulta of the council of war, 12 May I589; and fo. 232, Philip II's selection of the captain-general, 9 May 1589.

2. Aparici, i. I i. 3. Archivo Municipal de Sevilla, Papeles Importantes Siglo XVI libro 2, no. 2,

cidula real to Seville, I8 July 1596, and duke of Medina Sidonia to Seville, Jerez de la Frontera, I5 July 1596.

4. Clause 14 of the ordinances of the council of finance, the contaduria mayor de hacienda, and the contaduria mayor de cuentas, 20 Nov. 1 593, AGS GA leg. 388; GA leg. 77, fo. 89, copy of a cidula of 2 Dec. 1 573.

5. AGS GA leg. 411, a consulta of the council of war, 8 Apr. I 594, says that judicial business has been held up for some months because the assessor was indisposed; B.M. Add. MS. 28373, fo. 121, copy of the 'Comision que se dio a los Alcaldes del Crimen para conoscer de los pleytos de la gente de guerra', 2 May 5 94.

6. AGS GA leg. 263, fo. 230, Francisco de Idiaquez to Andres de Alva, 20 Dec. 1589. 7. AGS GA leg. I90, cedula real, 5 Nov. I586. 8. AGS GA leg. 365, consulta of the council of war, 4 Mar. 1594.

October 7I8


Philip III's reign, when the council protested that it was in the council of war 'where all matters of war, that arise in these kingdoms ... should be dealt with.... The council begs Your Majesty command that such action be taken that the respect due to this council be preserved, and that the regulations, recommendations, and despatches of war and related matters of whatever sort ... pass through this council, without any other tribunal having any say in their provision'l; and, in January 1599, the king agreed that all resolutions of the military committee for the Indies, the junta de

guerra de Indias, should be passed on to the council of war for revision.2 It is easy to exaggerate. In the I59os, difficulties still existed with the council of the Indies, with the council of finance, with the council of Castile. Nevertheless, the overall impression is of a council of war confirmed in its administrative and military functions, more specialized, and more self-confident. It certainly seems to have achieved a sudden and rather startling degree of

dignity. Don Alonso de Vargas is said to have turned down the

captaincy-general of Portugal because he was refused permission to remain covered in the presence of the viceroy, the king's nephew, the Archduke Albert of Austria, 'as he thought this was an indignity for a councillor of war'.3

VI

By I 586, the council of war was so small that an increase of mem-

bership was inevitable. There are no patents of appointment. Don Alonso de Vargas and Don Juan de Cardona first appear in consultas in August 1586. The marquis of Almazan returned in December, and the first monograms of the prior Don Hernando de Toledo, Don Crist6bal de Moura and Don Pedro de Velasco are to be found between March and August 1587. There were no new appointments until I 59 5. The council of the later I 8os was certainly no larger than the nominal council of the 15 70s, though it may have been better attended, and by the end of 1596 it was for some seven months reduced to only three members.4 Nor did it meet more frequently.5 Its activity alone gives little indication of the great mass of business there was to deal with. But it was shielded against extraordinary demands by the reduction of its authority in fiscal and judicial matters, and by the increased use of separate juntas. The primary

I. AGS GA leg. 527, minute of a consulta of the council of war, 6 Oct. I598. 2. Ibid. 3. Herrera, iii. 137. 4. Barajas, Almazan and the Prior all died in 1591. Vargas was dead by 19 July I595,

and Cardona, appointed to the viceroyalty of Navarre, does not seem to have attended the council after 2 Oct. I595. Velasco, though he did not die until I598 (Cabrera, iv. 287), does not appear in the records after the middle of July 1596.

5. BN secci6n de manuscritos 2058, fo. 14, instructions to the secretaries, 13 June I586 - Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

I967 7I9


characteristic of the junta was the diversity of its membership and the ad hoc nature of its business.3 It was, therefore, the quasi- institutionalized solution to problems of a temporary or irregular nature that fell somewhere between the competence of two or more councils. More often than not, the junta was an ephemeral creation set up to consider one specific problem, on which occasion members of the council of war would be brought together with others of the councils of Castile, finance, the Indies, or even with private persons, whenever specialist interests or knowledge was required. Where the problem it was set to solve turned out to be of a more permanent kind, thejunta developed a procedural stability that brought it very close to being classed as a council.2 The regular juntas, and to some extent the occasional ones as well, were, in a consultative sense, practically independent units. 'What the council of war should control is the general and the ordinary', declared the king, 'and not specific matters that may arise. These it is not necessary for it to know. . ..'3 The number ofjuntas at any one time varied, but during the mid-5 70os there were only three that were in any sense permanent. One, thejunta de visitas, was a recurrent body of councillors of war and legal assessors meeting whenever necessary as a court of revision and appeal, and this must have survived until the reform of 1594. Another was thejunta degaleras, which was responsible for the whole economic government of the galleys of Spain and Italy and for the resolution of private petitions relating to them. This committee also remained in existence throughout the reign. The third, the junta de Indias, was really only beginning to come into existence in the later 57os0 in order to deal with the defence of the Indies and the Indies trade.4 Only from the end of 15 83, with the establishment of thejunta de Puertorrico, does the military committee for the Indies become a fully regular and formalized institution. From 159I, it was composed exclusively of councillors of the Indies, until it was super- seded, possibly from 5 97 but definitely from 6oo, by the junta de guerra de Indias, which once again had members co-opted from the council of war.5 In 1594, an Atlantic equivalent of thejunta de galeras made its first appearance, the junta de la Armada del Mar Oceano,6 more commonly known at the end of the reign as the junta de armadas. It included the presidents of the Indies and of finance, and at least one member of the council of war, assisted maybe by both

i. Lewis Hanke, 'Un Manuscrito Desconocido de Antonio de Le6n Pinelo', Boletin de la Real Academia de la Historia, cxii ( 943), 6o. 2. Hanke, p. 59.

3. AGS GA leg. 88, fo. I25, reply of Philip II to Delgado, 12 Feb. 1578. 4. Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Indiferente General leg. 738, consulta of the

council of the Indies, 26 May 1576; AGS GA leg. 82, fo. 169, Delgado to Philip II, 21 Oct. 1577, on thejunta and referring back to juntas on 3I July and 25 Aug. 1575 on the same business; GA leg. 88, fo. I25, Delgado to Philip II, 12 Feb. 1578, refers to 'los de la Junta de Yndias'. By the end of 1579, its scope had been extended to cover not only the defence but also the prompt departure of the fiotas, Schafer, ii. 375, n. 40.

5. Schafer, i. 170, 171, 204; Hanke, p. 38. 6. Schaifer, i. I70.

October 720


the secretariats of war and the Indies.' By 6Io5, it was meeting at fixed hours and was itself being forced into changes of routine by the increased pressure of business.2 In 16o4, another military junta, the junta de fdbricas, was established on a permanent basis, meeting three times a week, to supervise the construction of ships, ordnance and munitions.3 The extension of the system of juntas in the last years of the sixteenth century, specifically to meet the demands of the Atlantic war, and the enormous proliferation ofjuntas during the first half of the following century,4 while diverting a great deal of military business from the council of war, was itself a major aspect of the growth and specialization of the administrative machinery of war.

For seventy years the office of secretary of war had remained unchanged. Then, from i May I586, 'because of the quantity of business that ordinarily there is in our council of war and for some other just causes', the secretariat was divided into sections corres- ponding to 'land' and 'sea', and Andres de Prada appointed to the one and Andres de Alva to the other.5 As to the 'other just causes', we can only conclude, with Herrera, that in the light of the invasion plans 'the department of war seemed a very large machine to be run by one man, and for the purposes he was contemplating it would in the future need to be even larger'.6 The creation of a second secretariat is a striking indication of the expansion of the administration of war. But very little is known of the number of clerks employed by each secretary, apart from the two assistants who were paid by the king. By 15 99, there were certainly two other unsalaried officials in each department of the secretariat, but the scantiness of the information before 1580 makes it difficult to assess with any certainty the growth of the minor officials of the council.7 From the middle of I5 84, two constables of the royal household drew salaries for helping with the council's judicial business. A solicitador, whose job was to find out from the treasury departments on what revenues military expenses had been assigned, was given a formal position and salary in 1586, after acting in an unofficial capacity for five years, and

i. Garma, iv. 52; AGS GA leg. 440, note of secretary Juan de Ibarra of the council of the Indies to Prada, 23 July I595.

2. AGS GA leg. 3145, consulta of the junta de armadas, 26 Oct. I605. 3. AGS GA leg. I30o, copy of a royal order 'para que se haga la Junta de Fabricas

de Navios', 14 Jan. 1604. 4. See Crist6bal Espejo, 'Enumeraci6n y atribuciones de algunas juntas de la adminis-

traci6n espafiola desde el siglo XVI hasta el afio I8oo', Revista de la Biblioteca, Archivoy Museo, Ayuntamiento de Madrid, viii (I931), pp. 353-54, 357, 361.

5. AGS Quitaciones de Corte leg. 26, cddula real on the appointment of Juan de Guevara as official of Secretary Prada, 3 Feb. I 587. 6. Herrera, iii. 43.

7. AGS GA leg. 553, minute of a consulta of the council of war, 3 Nov. 1599, on a petition of Andres de Mallea, one of two officials of Ibarra 'que sirven sin sueldo cerca de su persona'. GA leg. 3145, consulta of the Junta de Armadas, 20 Dec. I6o6, talks of three officials in the secretariat of war (sea), on top of the two who drew the king's wages.

I967 721

VOL. LXXXIT- NO. CCCXXV zz


a similar solicitador for the artillery appears in 15 87.1 Yet another post of solicitador, to deal with the petitions of soldiers, was created in

1599.2 For about twenty years from the early I 570s, there had been

only one porter dealing with the councils of state, war, camara, and finance, as well as with severaljuntas; but he was assisted by his two sons who were given occasional recompense. When he died, there were for a short time three acting porters, and by the end of the

century two had been officially recognized, were receiving salaries, and had had their functions limited to the councils of war and state.3 The officials themselves continually complained that they were being overworked. According to them, the clerks of the accounts office had only to work two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon; those in the ministry of war had to work the whole of every day throughout the year, including holidays.4 Even the council recognized that the duties of the clerks of the secretariat were 'the most onerous in the Court'.5

The institutionalhistory of the council of war adds a new dimension to the significance of the Armada campaign. With an excessive con- centration on Spain's external exploits, it has possibly not been

sufficiently realized how administratively unprepared for a war of such a scale Spain was in the early 5 8os. It might also suggest that to see the Armada as the outcome of a deliberate and long- conceived 'imperialist phase' of Spanish foreign policy, rather than an ad hoc response to the hostility of the other Atlantic powers to the new geo-political conditions created by the addition of the Portu- guese empire to Philip's domains, is an interpretation that does not square easily with the remoulding of the central agencies of military administration, not effectively undertaken until I586. As late as

i. AGS GA leg. i90, petition of Francisco de Ofiate, i9. Nov. I586; Contaduria Mayor de Cuentas IIa epoca leg. 465, accounts of Juan de Portillo; GA leg. 552, petition of Sebastian de Trevinio, 6 Oct. 1598.

2. AGS GA leg. 552, minute of a consulta of the council of war, 5 Feb. 1599, 'sobre el oficio de solicitador de los soldados en la Corte'.

3. AGS GA leg. 466, consulta of the council of war, 28 Feb. I596, on a petition of Miguel de Ayllon, 'portero del Consejo de Estado y Guerra', Gaspar de Espinosa, and Diego de Olesa, his companions; GA leg. 553, consulta of the council of war, 4 Nov. 1599, says that the king had ordered a salary to be fixed for the porters, in June. Previously they had received only exgratia payments. GA leg. 569, consulta of the council of war, 5 Jan. i 6oo, declares that the porterships of the council of war are separate from 'otros porteros del numero y que como tales nunca los mayordomos mayores los nomb- raron ni mudaron a otros Tribunales ni tubieron que ver con ellos sino que sienpre sirvieron en los Consejos de Estado y Guerra y estubieron a su orden . . .'.

4. AGS GA leg. 465, minute of a consulta of the council of war, 20 May 1596, on a petition of Martin Ochoa de Zarate; GA leg. 527, minute of a consulta on petitions of Bartolome de Aguilar and Juan Ruiz de Velasco, 20 Nov. 1598; GA leg. 465, minute of a consulta of 22 Mar. 15 96, Francisco Enrfquez, 'escrivano de camara de Vuestra Majestad en los negocios de guerra', says he spends his whole salary of Io,ooo maravedis a year on paper alone.

5. AGS GA leg. 5 27, minute of a consulta of the council of war, 20 Nov. 1 598.

October 722


October I1 85, when Delgado died, none of the changes thought so necessary the following spring were apparently considered. Had Eraso lived longer, reform could not have come about as it did. The long delay of at least three months before his successors took office is indication enough that this was a period in which policy was being formulated, not merely put into effect.

But 1586 is a watershed in another and more important sense. Not until now does the council of war reveal that anti-aristocratic and pathologically bureaucratic bias that is supposed to have characterized Philip II's government. Philip was much more politic than that; as long as the council did very little, it could continue to be an aristocratic enclave, the source of a modicum of dignity and an additional title. The scale and complexity of the invasion plans. however, called for extensive functional reforms within the administration of war. The Armada thus provided the incentive for a sharp reorientation of the whole concept of government service. The experience of the council of war cannot be considered typical, for it had always been one of the least formalized of the councils, but it does suggest that it was not until late in the sixteenth century that the Crown was beginning to conceive of the agencies of government not merely as individual administrative tools but as integral parts of a monarchical state-system. I1586 marks the moment of a transition from a 'feudal' and proprietary concept of office as an honour, a right and a personal possession, to a concept of office as a career based on merit and specialist knowledge, and formalized by a direct and maybe salaried relationship to the state. There was no pressing technical reason for the change in the standing of the lesser officials, a development that, as far as can be seen, was not anticipated by either of the more professional councils about which we know most, the councils of Italy and the Indies; in many instances there was no change of personnel and for some, at least, no change in their manner of preferment. All that was altered was their title and their status. At the same time, the king's unrestricted freedom to appoint without being tied by either custom or prescription was asserted by Philip II's ignoring what had come to be regarded as the ex officio right of the captain-general of the artillery to a place on the council, in much the same way as membership of the council of state was by itself no longer permitted to be a sufficient warrant for entry into the council of war. Acufia Vela, the new captain-general in 1586, had to wait nine years before he was elevated to councillorship. In the fully- fledged absolutist philosophies of the seventeenth century, the appointment and the choice of ministers was considered an im- prescriptible mark of sovereignty, 'a prerogative and an attribute peculiar to the supreme majesty of the Prince'.' The undermining

i. J. A. Maravall, La philosophie politique espagnole au XVII siecle dans ses rapports avec I'esprit de la Contre-Reforme (Paris, I955), p. i82.

I967 723


of the honorific nature of the council of war and of the proprietary and informal character of the lesser officials seems to be a conscious

attempt to approximate administrative practice to the precepts of absolutist theory.

The process, of course, was neither complete nor unequivocal. In the succeeding reign, the membership of the council reflects much more Philip III's personal favouritisms than technical

expertise1; but this was a fate that seventeenth-century Court politics imposed on the whole administration. Yet much of what had taken place in Philip II's last years survived. By the early part of the seventeenth century the council of war had at last achieved a status sufficiently formulated to be able to ensure freedom from interference by the council of state, which was to allow matters to 'follow their ordinary course'.2 The secretariat, having been briefly reunited for six years from i6oo, was once again divided, this time permanently; and if, after I6o6, the secretaries were again drawn directly from the ranks of the central administration, they had nevertheless generally had an initial training in military government in the field before their promotion to subordinate posts in the secretariat.3 While the clerks remained personal servants of the secretary, the only career lay through the secretary's household and isolation from the problems of practical experience. Without the king's intervention in the appointment of lesser officials in I587, this interaction between the practice of military administration in the field and the war department in Madrid could not have come about. Bureaucratization was the essential prerequisite of expert government. But it was not an unmixed blessing. Bureaucratization

i. Immediately on his accession, Philip III expanded the council by at least a dozen new members, the large majority of them noblemen. A consulta of the council of war, 5 Jan. I 599, shows present the duke of Medina Sidonia, the marquis of Denia, the counts of Castel Rodrigo (Don Crist6bal de Moura), Chinch6n, Fuensalida, Fuentes, Miranda and Punioenrostro, the comendador mayor de Lion (Don Juan de Idiaquez), the adelantado de Castilla, the baylio de Lora, Don Juan de Acufia Vela, Don Bernardino de Velasco and Don Luis EnrIquez. Other members of the council included the constable of Castile, the marquises of Velada and San Germadn, and the count of Olivares. Commenting on a similar spate of appointments to the council of state, the Imperial ambassador remarked, . . . bien creo su padre no pusiera tantos grandes en el. lo demas dira el tiempo',

Khevenhiiller to the Emperor, Madrid, 2I Jan. 1599, Haus-Hof und Staats Archiv, Vienna, Spanien Korrespondenz fasz. 13, fo. 5.

2. B.M. MS. Egerton 3 9, fo. 93, minute of a consulta of the council of war, 26 Aug. I626.

3. Bartolome de Aguilar y Anaya (secretary of war - land, i6o6) had earlier been secretary of the captains-general in Lisbon. (AGS Quitaciones de Corte leg. 9). His successor, Pedro de Arze (I626), had served twenty-eight years in the Armada of the Ocean Sea, two of them as acting-purveyor, and had gone with the expedition to Larache in charge of the finances. (AGS Quitaciones de Corte leg. 36; GA leg. 552). Martin de Ar6ztegui (secretary of war - sea, i 6i 2) was previously inspector-general of the the Armada of the Ocean Sea, and earlier comptroller of troops in San Sebastian and Fuenterrabfa. (AGS Quitaciones de Corte leg. 33; Consejo y Juntas de Hacienda leg. 274 [ant. 385], consulta of the council of finance, 21 Nov. 599).

October 724


was also the essential prerequisite of proliferation and venality. Without the depersonalization of the secretarial offices, which was continued and extended in the early seventeenth century, the disas- trous manipulation of the central administration for the benefit of the royal exchequer would never have been possible.'

It would be rash to put all this down to the impact of the Atlantic war alone. There is a contagious sort of auto-dynamism about administrative change which defies easy categorization. Philip II's

journey to Lisbon in 1580-3, together with his illness in 585, disrupted the normal workings of government and ended an era of personal rule.2 A wholesale reconsideration of the nature and

organization of the conciliar system was set on foot that coincided with the new stresses of the English war but that had repercus- sions quite unconnected with military or financial administration.3 The initial stages in the reform of the council of war would seem to

correspond to this general administrative unease, but the special characteristics of that reform belong to I 586 and to the obvious and avowed pressures of war. The evidence offered by the development of the council and the secretariat of war pinpoints a crucial step in the emergence of a recognizably modern, bureaucratic state system. From the governmental aspect, it would place the turning-point of the century, that 'gran viraje hispinico del siglo xvi',4 not with Vicens Vives in the I53os, nor with Regla in the I56os, but with Merriman and Braudel in the I5 8os, with the shift of the politico- military balance from a quiescent Mediterranean to a turbulent and exhausting Atlantic.

Flinders University of South Australia I. A. A. THOMPSON

i. AGS Quitaciones de Corte leg. 20, appointment of Gabriel de Rubalcava as 'oficial tercero de la Secretaria de Guerra parte de tierra', i Aug. I628, 'por algunas consideraciones de mi servicio he resuelto que en cada uno de las mis secretarias de la guerra aya un oficial mayor, un segundo, y dos terceros, y dos entretenidos en cada una de ellas que asistan a los secretarios. .'. On the superfluity of officials in the seventeenth century see Giardina, pp. 80, 8i.

2. Cabrera tells us that the bishop of the Canaries begged Philip to consider how burdened he was with age, infirmities, and the great weight of business since the union of the kingdoms of Castile and Portugal, and to choose someone to assist him, or rather, as one person could not do it, several; Cabrera, iii. 144.

3. See Schaifer, i. 1 37, 1 52 on the visita of the council of the Indies, 1585-90o, and the establishment of a judical chamber in the casa de contratacidn, in 1 583; Cordero, p. 57 on the reforms in the council of Castile, in 1586; Riol, p. I32 on the ordinances of the cdmara de Castilla, 6 Jan. I588; Gallardo Fernandez, i. 34 on the visita of the finance departments, I581. See also Maurice Boyd, Cardinal Quiroga, Inquisitor General of Spain (Dubuque, Iowa, I954), p. 78 - for a long time the council of Castile had wanted a definition of the limits of its jurisdiction vis-a-vis the Inquisition. Nothing was done until September 1 583, when the king had Quiroga draw up a list of the legal and land areas in which he wanted to increase the privileges and jurisdiction of the Inquisition. This, together with the king's reply, 'formed the decisive statement of jurisdictional policy for the remainder of Philip's reign'.

4. Juan ReglU, 'Felipe II y el bandolerismo catalan,' separate of Hispania, lxi (x955), 7.

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