Critical Reconsiderations of Kingship

In the introduction to this study, the term “Criminal Baroque” was invoked as a corrective for a false dichotomy that misleadingly separated early modern Spanish citizens into criminal and non-criminal camps on the basis of class distinctions. Examples of gangsters, corrupt law-enforcement officials, lawbreaking soldiers, murderous noblemen, and the multiple crimes of Don Rodrigo Calderón and his political partners, all combine to show the pervasiveness of criminality. Breaking the law cannot be reduced to the lower classes, nor kept within any arbitrarily drawn “margins” on the map of early modern Spanish society. In the previous chapter, we saw how high-ranking criminalized noblemen were punished by “la justicia, que manda hacer el Rey Nuestro Señor” [“the justice that the King Our Lord orders done”]. This study has moved up the social hierarchy and thus ends by investigating the highest echelon of power and standing. How could the king's justice operate when the king himself violated the law? Could the king be perceived as a criminal, at least on stage? The legal discussions born from these types of question are many and they mainly focus on the subject of tyranny. Comparatively, the portrayal of the king as a theatrical criminal has received little attention. If explicit verdicts are not rendered against monarchs in the comedia, a royal figure can still be judged as violating the law. Such a judgment can be made based on the monarch's similarity to blatantly criminal character types, even while he works towards the best interests of his subjects. As seen in previous chapters, many criminals that appeared on stage received ambivalent treatment from the playwrights. Jovial jaques entertained audiences as they threatened to smash in the faces those who opposed them. Heroic valentones had no scruples about killing members of la justicia if these ministers stood in the way of taking righteous action. In recent decades, historians and scholars of early modern Spanish literature have discovered that the figure of the king enjoyed an ambivalent treatment as well.