PhD Program in Historical studies
Lerma and the beginning of the valimiento
The reign of Philip III proved immediately very different from that of his predecessor. The Marquis of Denia, confirmed as Caballerizo mayor of the sovereign, also assumed the position of Camarero mayor, which gave him the opportunity to attend to the king at all times and the day’s activities. Starting from 1599, he was also awarded the title of nobility with which he was henceforth to be known, that of Duke of Lerma, linked to one of the few possessions that the Castilian Sandoval clan had maintained after the setbacks of the fifteenth century. But above all, with the beginning of the reign of Philip III a new model of government of the Spanish Monarchy was inaugurated, not based on the authority of the sovereign, but the power of his favourite. The valido, Lerma and his successors were defined in the same role, became the real focus of the machinery of government and the only undisputed distributor of royal favour. A king who was still young and uninterested in matters of government delegated most of his powers to his favourite, especially to speak and act on behalf of the rightful king in his place and sign state documents. In this way, Lerma was imposed as the sole intermediary between the king and the cumbersome system of Consejos (the Councils) in charge of supporting the sovereign activity of government and which were soon deprived of real power through the favourite and the creation of ad hoc committees, the juntas. Displacing families and men loyal to him as so much in the Consejos as in the juntas, Lerma secured control of the government of the monarchy and took upon himself all the most important economic, military and internal policy decisions. The distribution of awards, honors and mercedes (privileges) among his friends and allies, to the exclusion of any potential opponent, constituted a fundamental tool for the construction of a government by “a single faction”, in which all the possibilities for social and political rise were denied to those who were not allies of the valido or dependent on his power. (photo: the Ducal Palace of Lerma).