ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an account, by the Japanese travellers, of the splendour and opulence of the kings and rulers of Europe in what concerns the treatment of the body, food, and accommodation, and of their great costs and expenses. European governments went into debt handsomely and, in the case of Spain, recklessly to finance their ambitions. Spain, the first global power with expenses to match but not meet its ambitions, had to borrow heavily to finance its policies. Under Philip II there were frequent defaults. Despite the general European unease with Spain’s apparent attempt to establish a ‘universal monarchy’, by the end of the 16th century European, and not a few Spanish, observers, judged that Spain was already in decline. Between 1578 and 1595 banditry and lawlessness were endemic in the Papal States. Those involved included disaffected nobility fighting against the centralizing pretensions of the papacy.
