Week 10

The Armada and Administrative Reform: The Spanish Council of War in the Reign of Philip
II
Author(s): I. A. A. Thompson
Source: The English Historical Review, Vol. 82, No. 325 (Oct., 1967), pp. 698-725
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/561097 .
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698 October

TheArmadaandadministrative reform:
theSpanish
council warin thereign
of 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 unable to contribute to the problem much more than a
was
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 the Spanish system,
in
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 adminis-
trative 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 53os 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, ImperialSpain I469-17I6 (I963), p. I6o.
4. J. Vicens Vives, 'Estructura administrativa estatal en los siglos XVI y XVII',
Rapportsiv, XIe Congres International Sciences
des Historiques(Stockholm, 1960), pp. 8, 9.

I967 IN THE REIGN OF PHILIP II 699
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
522 and 524 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, La hacienda
ii, real de Castilla (Madrid,
I949), pp. 209 ff., 207, on galley contracts and the administration of Oran and Bougie.
Gabriel de Morales, Datospara la historiade Melilla (Melilla, I909), p. 22, on the admini-
stration of the fortress of Melilla by the duke of Medina Sidonia.
2. H. G. Koenigsberger, The Government Sicilyunder
of 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, Embajadordel 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 Estado de las Rentas de la Caronade
y
Espata, sugobiernoy i
administracidn,(Madrid, 1817), pp. 25, 26.

7oo0 THE SPANISH COUNCIL OF WAR October

I

The origins of the council of war are obscure. Contemporary com-
mentators 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 1516 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 1556, and this prob-
ably 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 RevistaHistdrica,
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 der
und
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 senioresdel
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. 19 (abbreviations have
been extended). On Philip's preference for Spanish advisers see J. Gounon-Loubens,
Essais sur I'administration la Castilleau XVIe sicle (Paris, 860), p. 50.
de

i967 IN THE REIGN OF PHILIP II 70I

even an occasional adjunct of the sovereign. A memorandum to the
emperor in 524, advising him on the best manner of governing
5
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 with-
out 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, Franciscode los Cobos,Secretaryof the EmperorCharles 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 Cortesof
I563 also suggests that the council of war was not fully active, Actas de las Cortesde
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 Universalde
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.'

702 THE SPANISH COUNCIL OF WAR October
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 impor-
tance 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 579.5 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 mayorde 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: de
Embajadory consejero Felipe II (San
Sebastian, I934), p. 170.

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 memo-
randum 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 buenapasta', L. P.
Gachard, Carlos Vy Felipe II a travesde 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 con-
ducted 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 cdmaraof 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 year from I Jan. 1519, 'porque Bartolome de Ybafieta,
a
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, Cuentasde Gonzalode Baeza, Tesorero Isabel la
de
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, Jan. I504.
10 4. Keniston, pp. 118, 334 ff.

a son to follow him.1 The secretary of war from 1571 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 secretary-
ship 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 571, 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 consultaof 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, June I519.
i6
4. AGS Quitaciones de Corte leg. 38, title, Bologna i Jan. I533. Luisa Cuesta and
Florentino Zamora Lucas, 'Los Secretarios de Carlos V', Revista deArchivos,Bibliotecas
y Museos,LXIV. 2, (1958), p. 441.
5. AGS GA leg. 70, fo. 35, Luis de Escavias, joint-visitador Oran, 'a mi Sefor Juan
of
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, c6dulaI5 May 151 9.
7. AGS GA leg. 72, fo. 267, 'Recuerdos de Negocios', 1569.
8. AGS GA leg. 8i, fo. 170, consulta partes I4 Jan. 1576, and leg. 300, consulta the
de of
council of war, I June 1590, 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 ContadurfaMayor de
Cuentas IIa epoca leg. 465.
VOL. LXXXII-- NO. CCCXXV YY

70o6 THE SPANISH COUNCIL OF WAR October
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, theffueromilitar.In the
I 56os and I 570s, 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 alcaldesde corteas 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 575, 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.10The relatorin 580
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 1584.
9. AGS GA leg. 8i, fo. 395, petition of Licenciado Ruy Perez, relatorof the council
of war, 'el a que sirbe casi dos aniosy en este tiempo el dicho Consejo se a tenido casi
cada dia ordinariamente mafiana y tarde .. .'. He seems to have been appointed some-
where 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, Dec. 58o.
3

I967 IN THE REIGN OF PHILIP II 7o7
LicenciadoDiego 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 contaduriasmayoresde haciendaand de cuentas,and in the
council of the cruzada'.l

III

After sixty-odd years of existence, the council of war had estab-
lished 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 year, AGS
a
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 him until I 560, Quitaciones de Corte leg. 32. After this date, all the records
to
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 las Indias,
de
2 vols. (Seville, 1935, 1947); on the council of state, Jose Maria Cordero Torres, El
Consejode Estado. Su trayectoria perspectivasen Espana (Madrid, 1944); and, on the
y
council of Italy, Camillo Giardina, II SupremoConsigliod'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 de
Supremo Aragon en el reinado Felipe II (Valencia, 19I4). There is nothing on
de
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 sigloXVI (Pamplona, 964).

7o8 THE SPANISH COUNCIL OF WAR October

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 PhilipII, 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.

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 pre-
dominantly 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 moriscorevolt 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 56os had any marked effect on the
organs of military administration in Madrid. On the threat of
rebellion in the Netherlands, in 566, 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 58os. 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.

7IO THE SPANISH COUNCIL OF WAR October
council of war had hitherto been largely sporadic, or at any rate of a
much lower magnitude. The I 58os 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 580 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 1577, 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 586 and 1587. 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 AdministrativeDevolution:The Military Government Spain in the Reign of
of
Philip II. Alvaro Castillo, 'Dette Flottante et Dette Consolidee en Espagne de 1557 A
600o',AnnalesE.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, Informesobre los adelantosde la Comisidnde Historia en el
Archivo de Simancas,2 vols. (Madrid, 1848), i. 87.

i967 IN THE REIGN OF PHILIP II 7II
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 consultassurviving 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 1586, 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 1579 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 the council of
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.


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 1583, of which no record
has been found other than the mention.4 In the following year, there
appear, for the first time, consultasbearing the monograms of the
r. Enrique Herrera Oria, Felipe Ily el Marques Santa Cruz en la Empresade Inglaterra
de
(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 Mundo. . . del tiempodel Seior
del
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, 'acabadala visita'.


attending councillors' - consultasthat 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-visthe 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 nocheof 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 con-
sultas, 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 the council of war that I have come across are
of
dated 28 Sept. 1584, AGS GA leg. 173, fo. 44z. It is interesting that it is also in I 584 that
Schafer found the first monogrammed consultas the council of the Indies, though, in
of
this case, the monograms replaced not secretarial reports but consullassigned in full,
Schiifer, i. 146.
2. Similarly, the first monogrammed cedula have noted is of 24 Oct. 1584, AGS GA
I
leg. 173, fo. i68.
3. Philip was apparently so bad that in October 585 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 Juntade Nochesee 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.

7I4 THE SPANISH COUNCIL OF WAR October
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 employ-
ment 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 the council of war, 3 June I609, 'Por haver crescido
of
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 afnoscon
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 Praday 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. 1599, with a marginal note saying that
he went with Pradato the secretariatof state and was replaced by Juan Castillo Albarado,
9 Mar. I600.
7. AGS GA leg. 191, 5 Aug. 1586, Dr. Pedro Morquecho, regidor Grand Canary,
of
claimed to have received a royal writ from Martin Ochoa de Zirate, 'criado' of Secre-
tary Prada.

1967 IN THE REIGN OF PHILIP II 715

By the spring of 1586, 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 586.4
Moreover, in November 1586, Ziuiiga sickened and died.5 It was in
these circumstances that the council was extended by the appoint-
ment, 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 Mayornoted is I 5 Aug.
I583, but from late I 58 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 cidulareal 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 Barajasappears in a consulta 6 Aug. 1586, AGS GA leg.
of
I90; that of Moura on 15 June 1587, GA leg. 209. According to Alfonso Danvila y
Burguero, Don Cristdbalde Moura,PrimerMarquesde CastelRodrigo(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. 586. His last monogram is
on a consulta 3 Oct. 586, AGS GA leg. 90.
of
6. Herrera, iii. 44.
7. The first monograms of Cardona and Vargas appear on 6 Aug. 1586, 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 570 to I 580, 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 Badajoz,
of
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 maestrede campoof 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 1574, 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 DisciplinaMilitar, 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, AntonioPerez et PhilippeII, 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, de Espaia, 4 vols. (Madrid, I876-7),
Rey
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 dated 7 May I 597,
is
GA leg. 499, but he had already signed a cidulareal 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 Secretarfaspor Seminario .. .'.

I967 IN THE REIGN OF PHILIP II 7I7
Andres de Prada and Andres de Alva. Prada since 568 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 568,
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 pro-
visioning in Portugal since 580.4 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 mem-
bers 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 the galleys of Spain, 29 Feb.
of
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 secre-
tary 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 HistdricoEspaiol, ii. 249; BN secci6n de manuscritos 2058, copy of Car-
dona's commission, 588.

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 alcaldesde
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 588 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 contratacidnof 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, consultaof 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, the contaduria
and mayorde cuentas, Nov. 1593, AGS GA leg. 388; GA leg. 77,
20
fo. 89, copy of a cidula 2 Dec. 1 573.
of
5. AGS GA leg. 411, a consulta the council of war, 8 Apr. I 594, says that judicial
of
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 594.
6. AGS GA leg. 263, fo. 230, Francisco de Idiaquez to Andres de Alva, 20 Dec. 1589.
7. AGS GA leg. I90, cedulareal, 5 Nov. I586.
8. AGS GA leg. 365, consultaof the council of war, 4 Mar. 1594.

I967 IN THE REIGN OF PHILIP II 7I9

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 king-
doms ... 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 1570s, 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 the council of war, 6 Oct. I598.
of
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.

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 70osthere were only three that were in any sense perma-
nent. 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 com-
mittee 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 order to deal with the defence of the Indies and
in
the Indies trade.4 Only from the end of 1583, 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 597 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 degaleras
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 Academiade 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, consultaof 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.

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 defdbricas, 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 adminis-
tration 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 1599, 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 the junta de armadas,26 Oct. I605.
of
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', Revistade la Biblioteca,
Archivoy
Museo,Ayuntamiento de Madrid, viii (I931), pp. 353-54, 357, 361.
5. AGS Quitaciones de Corte leg. 26, cddulareal 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 the council of war, 3 Nov. 1599, on a
of
petition of Andres de Mallea, one of two officials of Ibarra 'que sirven sin sueldo cerca
de su persona'. GA leg. 3145, consulta the Junta de Armadas, 20 Dec. I6o6, talks of
of
three officials in the secretariat of war (sea), on top of the two who drew the king's
wages.
VOL. LXXXIT- NO. CCCXXV zz

a similar solicitador the artillery appears in 1587.1 Yet another post
for
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 recog-
nized 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 58os. 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 hocresponse 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 the council of war, 5 Feb. 1599, 'sobre el
of
oficio de solicitador de los soldados en la Corte'.
3. AGS GA leg. 466, consulta the council of war, 28 Feb. I596, on a petition of
of
Miguel de Ayllon, 'portero del Consejo de Estado y Guerra', Gaspar de Espinosa, and
Diego de Olesa, his companions; GA leg. 553, consultaof 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 the council
of
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 the council of war, 20 May 1596, on a
of
petition of Martin Ochoa de Zarate; GA leg. 527, minute of a consulta petitions of
on
Bartolome de Aguilar and Juan Ruiz de Velasco, 20 Nov. 1598; GA leg. 465, minute of
a consulta 22 Mar. 1596, Francisco Enrfquez, 'escrivano de camara de Vuestra Majestad
of
en los negocios de guerra', says he spends his whole salary of Io,ooo maravedis year on
a
paper alone.
5. AGS GA leg. 527, minute of a consulta the council of war, 20 Nov. 1598.
of

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 adminis-
tration 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. I1586marks 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 au
politiqueespagnole XVII siecledansses rapportsavec
I'espritde la Contre-Reforme
(Paris, I955), p. i82.

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 administra-
tion 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 the council of war, 5
of
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 mayordeLion (Don Juan de Idiaquez), the adelantado de
Castilla, the bayliode 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, the count of Olivares. Commenting on a
and
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 the council of war, 26 Aug.
of
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 the council of finance, 21 Nov. 599).
of

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