Internal Propaganda and Killings around the Court

Regarding public executions in early modern England, J. A. Sharpe has written, “[t]he men and women whose executions we have noted were, for the most part, doing more than just accepting their fates. They were the willing central participants in a theatre of punishment ”. These offered not merely a spectacle, but also a reinforcement of certain values, theater in the service of the state. In early Modern Spain, participants may have been willing to die in this service, but were spectators equally willing to trust the state's ability to enforce the law? We have seen in previous chapters that spectacles of force, on and off the stage, do not necessarily inspire the audience's confidence, nor in themselves maintain order. The audience may not despair over an entire law-enforcement regime, but may have misgivings about how it is managed by certain individuals. In terms of the Criminal Baroque, theatricalized criminals may seem like Sharpe's “willing central participants”, but initial appearances are deceptive. They can often behave in ways that exaggerate, instead of attenuate, the state's corruption and shortcomings. In early modern Spain, the original power of “la justicia que manda hacer el Rey Nuestro Señor”, referred to in the previous chapter, is never in question. At the same time, the use and abuse of this power amongst officialdom is often open to criticism. Any spectator with a basic understanding of monarchy was aware that practical power often emanated from the king's closest ministers, his validos and privados, whose legitimacy could be called into question. Despite being as practically powerful as the king himself, those placed highest in the social and political hierarchy were not beyond reproach. Their behavior could adversely influence public opinion of how a monarchy operated, if not the bedrock institution itself. In Chapter 4, we saw the counterproductive confusion between theatricality and criminality at a municipal level. When things go horribly wrong for the elite, and the “willing central participant” in the state's theatre of punishment is of the highest political level, confusion can just as easily reign.