It was five years after this, on the 25th November 1620, at the palace of Pardo, that young Philip and Isabel began their married life together. Philip was yet barely sixteen when (in March 1621) the low vitality of his father flickered out, and the monarch, who should have been a monk, passed, in alternate paroxysms of fear and ecstacies of hope, from the world in which he had meant so well and done so ill. The corruption and waste under Lerma and his crew of parasites had bled Spain to the white, and utter ruin was now the lot of whole populations. The tradition of the King’s wealth which still lingered could hardly be kept up now, though at the fall of Lerma some of the worst robbers had been made to disgorge their booty. The King had been beloved and revered for his saintliness, but all saw the desolation that his idle dependence upon favourites had caused. Spain now looked only to the sallow, long-faced boy, Philip IV., with the light blue eyes and lank flaxen hair, to save the people from starvation. Not to him, but to the man at his side, it soon learned to look. He was a big-boned powerful man of thirty-three, with a great square head, heavy stooping shoulders, fierce black eyes, burning like live coals in an olive face; and his upturned twisted moustache added to the haughty imperiousness of his mien. This was the man, Gaspar de Guzman, Count of Olivares, Duke of St. Lucar, who made a clean sweep of all the corrupt gang that had fattened upon Spain, the brood of Rojas and Sandoval, and replaced them with his own creatures. Philip, like his father, meant well, and was naturally a much more able man; but he was idle, pleasure-loving, and pathetically unable to resist temptation, each constantly recurring transgression being followed by an agony of remorse, only to be again committed when the first poignancy of regret had passed.
Following the advice of Olivares, he attempted to mend matters by cutting down expenses alone, instead of changing the system of taxation and finance; and the ‘spirited foreign policy’ which he adopted soon involved him in expenditure, which later completed the downfall of the country. The foolish old dream that catholic unity might be won by Spanish arms still kept him at war with the Dutch, whilst the Moors were harrying the Spanish coasts and commerce, and France and Spain were already at loggerheads again, now that Marie de Medici and her crew had been thrust into the background. Instead of recognising facts and lying low to recuperate, Olivares and Philip, with the blinded nation behind them, were as boastful and haughty as their predecessors had been in the days of Spain’s strength. The weak poltroon who reigned unworthily in England, was ever ready to truckle to apparent strength. He had sacrificed Raleigh at Spain’s bidding, he had been contemptuously used and scorned by Lerma and Philip III. when he had tried to marry his heir to a Spanish Infanta, and he had been cleverly kept from an alliance with France by hopes and half promises. But the Palatinate was still unrestored, and when Philip III. had died, James made another attempt with the new King to win Spain’s friendship by a marriage.