2023-05-17 01:00:00
The addiction to anonymous sex of the Planet King, Felipe IV, makes even today doubts about the number of children he fathered. Between 32 and 40 legitimate and illegitimate numbers move. The most surprising thing is that, perhaps the king who has had the most children in the history of Spain, he died without being able to produce another male heir than the sickly Charles IIwhose health did not predict a long or prosperous reign.
The handsome young man developed his obsession with sex “with the first boils of adolescence, when he rode unbridled through all fields of delight, driven by overflowing passions.” Count Duque Olivares, his main favorite, knew how to move better than anyone when it came to facilitating access to canéphora pubescents.
The tradition tells that on a certain occasion, the valid led Felipe to the house of the beautiful Duchess of Veragua, believing that her husband was away from home, so that the young man would do his part. Meanwhile, the husband suspected the plans of the valid and returned to his home with the intention of killing the nobleman. With such bad luck that he actually wounded the King in the arm. Seeing that the monarch’s life was at stake, the Count-Duke revealed the identity of the man he had harmed. Thus the Spanish king was saved from receiving a mortal goring, since the Duke of Veragua he was not like those unscrupulous husbands of the period who rented out their wives in exchange for perks.
Over the years, it became clear that Philip IV was incapable of governing himself. The immorality of the Spain of the Golden age it manifested itself in unbridled sensuality and a relaxation of customs among the nobility. Young people began at the age of twelve or fourteen to have a mistress, who was usually selected from among comedians and women with a happy life. Even married, the aristocrats continued to cohabit with women. The wives viewed these women destined for such low offices with disdain and superiority, so they did not even see them as a threat. This despite the fact that many of these relationships were unions almost as lasting as marriages.
This was not the case of the relations of Felipe IV. The Monarch hung out with women without the need for ties of affection or hardly any previous communication. That is, the relationships were devoid of any affective element. His were brief love affairs, starring women of all classes and conditions: married or widowed, maidens, servants, high-ranking ladies, nuns and, of course, also actresses. The King frequented the boxes of the popular theaters of Madrid incognito, as The Corral of the Cross o The Prince’s Corral.
The new Don Juan
There he met a young actress named María Inés Calderón, who was nicknamed ‘la Calderona’, who had had relationships in the past with the Duke of Medina de las Torres. In fact, it is said that the monarch began to take an interest in her when this duke publicly boasted of a “hidden property” (it is understood that sexual and very impressive) owned by “la Calderona”. The Monarch was admired in a work by the charms of the young woman, with more grace than beauty; and, with the excuse of congratulating her on her performance, he asked to meet with her privately. Of all the fleeting adventures, this was the most intense and the one that gave the most illustrious bastard, “a son of the earth” (the way in which children of unknown parents were registered in the baptismal book).
Against his mother’s wishes, the boy was taken from her side to be raised in a courtly environment. In this environment, the young man demonstrated great intellectual capacity and developed skills as a horseman and swordsman, being the best option for him to start an ecclesiastical career. However, the father’s recognition of him changed the fate of the child. Emulating the most famous bastard of the House of Austria, the hero of Lepanto, the boy was named Don Juan José de Austria and, at least for a time, was esteemed with his talent. In any case, his dark features and his supposed resemblance to the Duke of Medina de la Torres provided gunpowder to the murmurings of his enemies.
Portrait of Isabel de Borbón, by Rodrigo de Villandrando.
A few years after giving birth, ‘la Calderona’ requested permission from the Monarch to enter a monastery in the Utande Valley, in the Alcarria mountains, and abandon her sinful lifestyle. She was abbess there between 1643 and 1646. This was the fate of those women who left the king’s bed, or for those who, declining the monarch’s offer, had to take refuge in the clergy from possible reprisals and popular rumors. . The convents of Spain they fed on the erotic fever of the Planet King and the rest of the runaway aristocrats.
Among the less discreet adventures of Felipe IV, his sacrilegious relations with the nuns of the Convent of San Plácido are cited, especially with a nun from the sect of the alumbrados called Sister Margaret of the Cross. He went in and out of the convent like Pedro, not San Pedro, through his house. Until one day the nuns themselves decided to play a trick on him. Seconded by the Count Duke and the prothonotary Villanueva, the king ordered the perforation of a partition from the house next to the convent. The three muffled men entered through the hole and searched in the dark for Sor Margarita’s cell, where the prioress had prepared an ambush for them. In the cell was Sister Margarita lying on a coffin, with a crucifix on her chest, illuminated by four candles, just as she would have done if she had died hours before.
The birth of Don Fernando Francisco, the result of the relationship between the beardless Felipe and the daughter of Count Chirel, was recorded as the first and was a source of joy for the King.
During his long reign he only slowed the rate of sexual adventures at the end of his life, resulting in one mistress per year and between 32 and 40 legitimate and illegitimate offspring. Apart from the aforementioned Don Juan José, who would acquire political prominence during the reign of his father and later in that of his brother, some natural children of the King were educated in the court environment and held positions of responsibility.
The birth of Don Fernando Francisco, the result of the relationship of the beardless Felipe with the daughter of the Conde Chirel, was recorded as the first and was a source of joy for the King. Upon his death, at the age of eight, his body was secretly transferred to El Escorial and buried in the pantheon as a royal son. Most reached adulthood and entered religion or served in the army: there were a couple of bishops, an abbess, a master of the Order of Calatrava and a General of Artillery in Milan.
the long-suffering wife
How did Isabel de Bourbon, the French Queen who accompanied her the longest, wear the most spectacular antlers in the kingdom? The King always treated Elizabeth with respect and affection, and never allowed her infidelities to affect the Queen’s position at court, unlike some French kings who gave her lovers preeminence over their wives. The beautiful, intelligent and expressive Isabel knew that her charms were admired by the King, despite the fact that her sexual debauchery made him sneak out at night to try more women. Perhaps that is why the people adored the French woman, who from the beginning had tried to adapt to Spanish customs, including bullfights and comedies, as well as what Jose Crime and Pinuela defines “noisy amusements.”
What is unlikely is that the jovial and open Queen was unfaithful to her husband, despite which gossip arose about the flirtations that the Count of Villamediana dedicated to her.
What is not probable is that the jovial and open Queen was unfaithful to her husband, despite which gossip arose about the courtships that he dedicated to her the Count of Villamediana in his youth. being in the main square of Madrid, Back in the summer of 1622, the count went out to fight a bull and the public realized that for currency he had several silver reales with the inscription “These are my loves”, which was interpreted by the crowd as a reference to the queen. Given Felipe’s history, it wouldn’t have been bad if they gave him his own medicine for once.
The problem is that the flirtations were not reciprocated and, on top of that, they cost the count his life in strange circumstances. He was going that same year in a carriage for The main street, while the streets were full because it was a holiday, when a man came out of a doorway and pounced on Villamediana. The stranger struck the count with a dagger or crossbow, breaking two of his ribs and protruding the tip of the blade from his shoulder. Justice investigated the crime, one of many attacks in Madrid, but could not find the murderer. This fueled suspicions that it was the King himself who had ordered him to be eliminated for courting his wife or, just as likely, for courting another of the many royal mistresses.
In addition, the addiction to anonymous sex did not prevent Felipe IV from fulfilling his marital duties. He in total had 13 children in his two marriages. With Isabel he fathered six daughters and one son, of whom only Baltasar Carlos and María Teresa, the future wife of Louis XIV of France, survived childhood. From his second wife, Mariana of Austria, three boys and three girls were born, of whom Margarita María and Carlos II survived, the one who would finally receive the great Crown.
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