Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 17, 2025
His Queen, whom he did not love, but of whom he stood greatly in awe, was devoted to the interests of her kinsman the Emperor; and with her was closely leagued the Count of Melgar, Hereditary Admiral of Castile and Prime Minister. Such was the state of the question of the Spanish succession at the time when Portland had his first public audience at Versailles.
Melgar made some show of resistance, garrisoned his house, and menaced the rabble with a shower of grenades, but was soon forced to go after Oropesa; and the supreme power passed to Portocarrero. Portocarrero was one of a race of men of whom we, happily for us, have seen very little, but whose influence has been the curse of Roman Catholic countries.
The Count de Melgar was condemned par contumace; his friends were forced to blame his conduct openly; and his melancholy death which happened shortly afterwards, the result of an insult reserved sooner or later for all traitors, deprived a formidable faction of its leader. Combes, p. 109. The ultra-French party did not find a less rude adversary in Madame des Ursins.
The second party re-united the most illustrious names of the monarchy. It had for its chiefs, successively, the Count de Melgar, Admiral of Castile, the Marquis de Léganez, and the Duke de Medina-Coeli. The first-named policy tended to destroy, by its exclusive ideas, the popularity of Philip V., the second prepared to betray him.
Since the death of the Bavarian Prince, the Court had been divided between the Austrian faction, of which the Queen and the leading ministers Oropesa and Melgar were the chiefs, and the French faction, of which the most important member was Cardinal Portocarrero, Archbishop of Toledo.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking