There was but one man who might perhaps from his position have competed with the influence of Lerma.  This was the king’s father-confessor, whom Philip wished—­although of course his wish was not gratified—­to make a member of the council of state.  The monarch, while submitting in everything secular to the duke’s decrees, had a feeble determination to consult and to be guided by his confessor in all matters of conscience.  As it was easy to suggest that high affairs of state, the duties of government, the interests of a great people, were matters not entirely foreign to the conscience of anointed kings, an opening to power might have seemed easy to an astute and ambitious churchman.  But the Dominican who kept Philip’s conscience, Gasparo de Cordova by name, was, fortunately for the favourite, of a very tender paste, easily moulded to the duke’s purpose.  Dull and ignorant enough, he was not so stupid as to doubt that, should he whisper any suggestions or criticisms in regard to the minister’s proceedings, the king would betray him and he would lose his office.  The cautious friar accordingly held his peace and his place, and there was none to dispute the sway of the autocrat.

What need to dilate further upon such a minister and upon such a system of government?  To bribe and to be bribed, to maintain stipendiaries in every foreign Government, to place the greatness of the empire upon the weakness, distraction, and misery of other nations, to stimulate civil war, revolts of nobles and citizens against authority; separation of provinces, religious discontents in every land of Christendom—­such were the simple rules ever faithfully enforced.

The other members of what was called the council were insignificant.

Philip III., on arriving at the throne, had been heard to observe that the day of simple esquires and persons of low condition was past, and that the turn of great nobles had come.  It had been his father’s policy to hold the grandees in subjection, and to govern by means of ministers who were little more than clerks, generally of humble origin; keeping the reins in his own hands.  Such great personages as he did employ, like Alva, Don John of Austria, and Farnese, were sure at last to excite his jealousy and to incur his hatred.  Forty-three years of this kind of work had brought Spain to the condition in which the third Philip found it.  The new king thought to have found a remedy in discarding the clerks, and calling in the aid of dukes.  Philip II. was at least a king.  The very first act of Philip III. at his father’s death was to abdicate.