CHAPTER XI. Howsoever the Rivers wind, the Ocean receives them All




CALDERON, THE COURTIER.

A TALE.

CHAPTER I.

THE ANTE-CHAMBER.

The Tragi-Comedy of Court Intrigue, which had ever found its principal
theatre in Spain since the accession of the House of Austria to the
throne, was represented with singular complication of incident and
brilliancy of performance during the reign of Philip the Third. That
monarch, weak, indolent, and superstitious, left the reins of government
in the hands of the Duke of Lerma. The Duke of Lerma, in his turn, mild,
easy, ostentatious, and shamefully corrupt, resigned the authority he had
thus received to Roderigo Calderon, an able and resolute upstart, whom
nature and fortune seemed equally to favour and endow. But, not more to
his talents, which were great, than to the policy of religious
persecution which he had supported and enforced, Roderigo Calderon owed
his promotion. The King and the Inquisition had, some years before our
story opens, resolved upon the general expulsion of the Moriscos the
wealthiest, the most active, the most industrious portion of the
population.