Jean Plaidy - For a Queens Love: The Stories of the Royal Wives of Philip II

He smiled, but he was tired. There was too much talk of what he would have to do in the future; he wanted to do something pleasant now. He wanted to play, but there was no one to play with, except his little sister Maria, and how could such a solemn boy play with a baby?

So patiently he listened while his mother continued to talk of the great tasks that lay ahead of him.

He was four years old—a baby no longer.

They had talked to him very seriously before they made the journey to Avila.

“Remember,” said his mother, “that all eyes will be fixed upon you. This is a solemn occasion. As you ride through the city the people will shout your name; they will be thinking: There is the Prince. There is the boy born to be King and Emperor. You must show no fear. You must show nothing but calmness … dignity and pride in your rank. How I wish your father could be here.”

Father, King, and Emperor. They were just names to the boy. He did not remember ever seeing the man. He visualized a giant, towering above all others, dressed in garments that dazzled the eyes—brave, beautiful, strong … the greatest man in the world. The thought of his father frightened him, for continually he was told that he must grow like him. How could he? He was not big enough—even for his age. He was inclined to be breathless. He was not clever enough; he asked a great many questions, but they were often the wrong questions.

He wished that he was more like his sister, who was now three years old. She laughed aloud without thought, never asking herself: Is it right for me to laugh? Everyone loved her. They shook their heads over her high spirits, for she too had her destiny prepared for her. If she knew, she did not care. She continued to laugh and play and charm those about her. “She’s all Hapsburg!” people said. “She’s her grandfather all over again.” Her grandfather was that Philip the Handsome, the husband of the grandmother whose name was spoken in whispers, the mysterious grandmother of whom Philip could discover very little.

“Leonor,” he said, “why must I go to Avila?”

“Because you are to be breeched, my love.”

“I am to wear the clothes of a man. Well, why cannot I do that here?”

“Ah, my Philip. It is because you are a prince. You have to forget you are a little boy now. You have to be the people’s Philip for a while. They wish to see you. They wish to say, ‘He is growing up, our little Prince. He is not a baby anymore.’ And they want to see the breeching done. They will be content with nothing less.”

He shivered. He hated ceremonies. He was afraid when he rode through the town on his little mule and the people stared at him and shouted his name. He was always afraid that they would be displeased with him, that they would catch him laughing or see a tear in his eye. If they did and they gossiped about it, he would be disgraced for ever.

It was summer when they set out on the journey south from Valladolid.

On his mule, whose saddle was richly jeweled, rode Philip; about him was the bodyguard of soldiers and holy monks with the nobles of the court who were not fighting with his father in the Imperial dominions. In litters hung with rich cloth rode the Queen and her ladies; among these was Leonor, with little Maria on her lap. Oh, to be a girl and not the heir of Spain! thought Philip. That was an ignoble thought, and he would have to confess, among his other sins, that it had come to him. But how could he help wishing it as he rode past the peasants’ hovels, and the ragged people came out to look at them with strange expressions in their glittering eyes! Sometimes he felt that they were preparing to snatch his saddle from under him because they were hungry and the sight of so much riches maddened them. He felt frightened, which was wrong, for a prince must not be afraid. He felt sorry for them, which was wrong, for a prince must feel nothing but the need to preserve the dignity of his high office.

Beside him rode a boy considerably older than himself, a dark-eyed, sleek-haired Portuguese boy. Philip was drawn toward this boy because there was a look of merriment in his eyes and a dignity, which did not change when he met the Prince’s gaze. He was courteous, yet not obsequious. Philip asked his name.

“It is Ruy Gomez da Silva, Highness.”

He was all Portuguese; Philip knew that. “Keep riding beside me,” said Philip.

Ruy Gomez said: “Your Highness is gracious.” And his eyes seemed to say that it was something of a joke that a little boy of four years old should be Highness to one of his great age and wisdom.

He did look wise. How old was he? wondered Philip. Thirteen possibly, or even fourteen. A great age, that seemed; and a good age too, for he was not so old that he was a man, yet he was free from the bewilderment of babyhood, which still hung about Philip. Ruy was at the age when he had cut his way through the maze of youth and was not too old to remember the difficulties of one still struggling through it.

“Look!” said Philip. “Look at the blue hills in the distance.”

“They are several miles away yet, Highness. When we reach them we shall know our journey is almost at an end.”

Philip looked shyly at the boy; he wanted to ask what those hills were, but he must not expose his ignorance to a subject.

Ruy read his thoughts as, it seemed to Philip afterward, he did so often.

“Those are the Sierra de Guadarrama, my Prince.”

“Yes,” said Philip hastily. “Yes.”

“They seem to recede as we approach them,” said the bold boy. “Many things seem like that, your Highness.”

How was that? Philip wondered. How could things seem farther away when they grew nearer. He would not ask. He must remember that a prince does not expose his ignorance to a subject. He turned away with a hint of haughtiness, but when he looked quickly back, the black eyes smiled into his.

Avila was built on a plateau, and as they climbed toward it the inhabitants came out to welcome them. Ahead rode the standard-bearers and the procession was a dazzling one to a people unaccustomed to splendor, but all eyes were on the four-year-old boy who, tired out with his journey, his little limbs stiff through the long hours in the saddle, longing for the soft lap of Doña Leonor, sat straight, bowing his head now and then in acknowledgment of the welcome, never for one instant letting any of them guess that he was weary and more than a little frightened.

The court rested in Avila before the great ceremony was due to take place, and during that time Philip’s friendship with Ruy Gomez da Silva began.

Never in Philip’s four years had he known such an interesting companion. Ruy was a clever diplomatist; he took charge of the Prince, while he never gave the slightest sign that he knew he was doing so.

And what tales he had to tell! They were such tales that Leonor had never heard. When they returned to the quiet of the palace in Valladolid it would be Philip who would entertain Leonor with his stories of the wonders of the world. He wondered if he might ask if Ruy could stay with him in Valladolid. He was desolate at the thought of losing him, though he would not show his grief if a parting were necessary; but how he prayed that this would not be so! Perhaps he could offer a prayer at the tomb of Torquemada or by the urn that contained the arm of St. Thomas Aquinas. Perhaps he could go to the Church of San Vicente and pray to that saint, and if he thought of the horrible death that had befallen him, and if he suffered in thought that which San Vicente had suffered in actuality, the saint might listen and intercede for him.

In the meantime, here was Ruy attending the Prince, which the Queen and Leonor allowed, being glad that this should be so, for they had much to concern them. Maria, being so high-spirited, encroached on Leonor’s time; and the Queen had many self-imposed tasks to perform. She must let the people see her; she must visit the tombs of saints and martyrs; she must distribute alms to the beggars who cried out at the gates of the palace, exposing their sores while they wailed of their misfortunes, as she must to the water-carriers who called out a blessing on her as they forced their mules through the narrow streets.

So Ruy would come to the Prince’s apartment and bathe his feet and dress him; and all the time he talked, and his conversation was as colorful as he himself was.

“Did you see the great boulders on the road as we came along, Highness?”

“Yes,” said his Highness. “I did.”

“Did you know what they were?”

“Boulders,” said the Prince calmly, but he was excited. Nothing was as it seemed, according to Ruy.

“So it would seem,” said Ruy, coming closer, making his gleaming eyes long, bringing his face close to that of the Prince so that the little boy’s heart began to beat fast with expectation. “But they are the tears of Christ.” Ruy drew back to watch the effect of these words, but Philip was impassive, waiting. “He lived in Spain … here in Avila. He wandered among the plains and mountains of Spain, and when He saw this poor land … so dry that nothing would grow, He wept bitterly and when his tears fell on the barren land they turned into boulders.”

“If they had turned into a river,” said the grave little Prince, “that would have been better. For what good are the boulders but to make the way more difficult?”

Ruy burst out laughing, but he did not tell Philip why he laughed. Philip wondered whether to command him to tell, but though he was a prince, he knew the etiquette between friends. Even a Prince could not command a friend.

“It may be, Highness,” went on Ruy, “that Christ did not pass this way, for surely if He had, He would not have added to the difficulties of this land.”

“We will pray for a miracle,” said Philip. “It would be good to turn the boulders into water. Perhaps my father could do it.”

Sometimes they talked of the Cid. Philip had not heard of that hero before; there had only been one hero in his life: his father.

“What!” cried Ruy. “Your Highness does not know of the Cid!” The black eyes gleamed. If the Emperor was a hero to his son, the Cid was an even greater hero to Ruy.

Ruy smiled and said: “We have the same name. He was Ruy Diaz de Bivar, el mio Cid Campeador. His real name was Rodrigo but he was called Ruy … as I am. And ‘Cid,’ that is an Arabic name which means Lord—the Champion Lord. He freed Spain from the Infidel.”

Philip’s brow was puckered. “My great-grandfather and my great-grandmother did that,” he said haughtily.

“Indeed yes,” said Ruy hastily. “But the Cid was the first to rise against them with any success. He lived long ago … long before great Ferdinand and Isabella.”

“How long before?”

“Hundreds of years … two hundred at least; and there was fighting all that time; and when your great-grandfather and your great-grandmother married they united Castile and Aragon; and that was the beginning of good times for our country.”

That was better. That was history as Philip knew it. But Ruy had many tales to tell of the Cid. He told of the hero’s love for the beautiful Doña Ximena, and how the Cid had had to fight a duel for her before he won her; he told of how she loved him and how broken-hearted she was when he must tear himself from her to fight the Infidel. From Ruy, Philip learned her prayer:

“Tu que atodos guias, vala myo Cid el Campeador.”

It was a prayer he might well say for his father. “Thou, who guardest all men, guard my lord and champion.” But his father did not need such prayers, since even the Cid could not have been so important in the eyes of God as the Emperor Charles.

Now Ruy was telling him of the Cid’s cleverness, how, wishing to raise money to pay his soldiers, he, with the help of his squire, filled coffers with sand and nails; these he showed to the Jews, telling them that they contained treasures he had won from the Moors, and proffered them as security for a loan. The Prince listened gravely. It seemed to him that sand and nails could not be worth very much, but he did not say so, as Maria would have done; he remained silent, waiting.

And the foolish Jews lent the money without opening the coffers which were heavily sealed. They dared not open them, for they knew that the Cid would be angry if they doubted his word. So … he got the money and the Jews got the coffers full of worthless sand and nails.

Philip had to question this. He cried: “But … how could the Cid keep the money when he had given nothing for it?”

“He rode away with their money, and it was too late to do anything about that when the coffers were opened.”

“But that is stealing,” pronounced the Prince. “And it is forbidden to steal.”

The merry black eyes were opened very wide. “I see I forgot to explain to your Highness. These were Jews … and Jews are infidels.”

“They are … heretics?” said Philip uncertainly.

“Infidels and heretics, your Highness … one and the same. Burn them all … torture them and send them to the flames…. That is the verdict of Holy Church.”

Philip dropped his eyes. All was well. The Cid’s honor was saved. He had stolen; but it was only from Jews.

Yet it did not say in the Scriptures: “Thou shalt not steal … except from Jews, infidels, and heretics.” He wondered why. Perhaps one day he would find out.

Ruy slipped Philip’s shirt over his head. When the little boy was naked he seemed stripped of his dignity. His body was so small and white. He guessed that Ruy’s was big and strong and brown. He felt that he was a very small boy without his clothes.

He said: “I wish that you could help me to dress with my new clothes. I wish I did not have to undress with so many people looking on.”

“That,” said Ruy, “is one of the penalties of being a prince who will one day be a king.”

“But to stand there … naked before them all.”

Ruy laughed his merry laugh. “Think nothing of it, Highness. It is no more than standing before me. There will merely be several hundred pairs of eyes upon you instead of one.”

“But …” began Philip.

“You will not be afraid,” soothed Ruy. “And when you wear the clothes of a man, you will have taken the first step toward becoming a man.”

Philip was silent. He thought of the Cid, fighting for the lady he wished to marry, cheating the Jews with his coffers full of worthless sand. He supposed it was given to some, like the Cid, to do great and glorious deeds, and to others to be quiet and grave and clever enough to hide their fears and their joys, to learn to become, not what they wished to be, but what others had decided they must be.

At last there came that hot day when they set out for the ceremony.

The Queen, with her son and little daughter, rode in state to the Cloister of St. Anne. About them were the soldiers of the King’s Guard, without whom the little Prince was never allowed to travel beyond the palace. The holy monks and nobles made up the procession, and all was pomp and ceremony of the most solemn kind.

Along the route the people had gathered. Philip was aware once more of thousands of eyes upon him. He felt smaller than he did in the privacy of his own apartments; he longed to be grown up, and as tall and strong as Ruy.