Such was the tragic issue of Jesuit history in the land which they had been accustomed to regard as the safest and most generous country in which they had taken root. However severely we may censure the detailed procedure of the Marquis de Pombal, his action was in substance just and patriotic. Portugal, which, in the sixteenth century, had promised to become one of the greatest powers in the world, had sunk to a humiliating depth, and its decay had proceeded apace with the power of political Jesuits. They were incapable of a patriotic conception of the task of governing, and they took advantage of and encouraged the economic folly of living on overburdened colonies. If they were unwilling to discharge the proper duties of priests and refrain from intrigue for political power, they must depart.
We have already seen how this bold stroke echoed in France and encouraged the enemies of the Society. We must now turn to Spain and see how "the most Catholic majesties" of that country came to follow the terrible example of Pombal. The general outline of the story is somewhat similar to that of the story of Portugal. A series of weak and incompetent rulers occupy the throne; they are dominated (generally) by a group of court-Jesuits, who teach them that the main duty of a king is to be chaste, zealous for the faith, and generous to the Church; the broad empire of Spain is repeatedly shorn, as its increasing weakness is exposed; and at length a strong man realises the evil of Jesuit domination and induces the King to send the fathers back to the Pope's dominions from which they came. In one respect the story is even more unpleasant than that which we have just concluded. Chaste as the Spanish monarchs generally are in this period, they are so weak and purblind that the court is filled with the most sordid intrigues for power, and the Jesuits are deeply involved in these intrigues.
We left the Society in Spain enjoying a splendid prosperity in the early years of the reign of Philip IV. Readers of Major Hume's brilliant _Court of Philip IV._ (1907) will not need to be reminded that this was "the gayest and wickedest court since the days of Heliogabalus," and that Madrid was in a repellent condition of vice and decadence. The King's confessor was not a Jesuit, but a worthless Dominican, and there were spirited struggles between the rival orders. However, the Jesuits still guided the consciences of most of the nobles and wealthy people, and were generously patronised by the King. They prospered richly in the decaying kingdom, were indifferent to the periodical national disasters, and claim only that they produced such brilliant casuists as Escobar. At the end of this long and dreary reign the chronicle of the Society becomes more interesting.