The Secretary of State or Secretary of State and of the Office was the title given in Spain to the King's ministers during the Ancient Regime of Spain, between the 17th century and the mid-19th century, when it was definitively replaced by the term "minister". It should be clarified that the Secretaries of State and of the Office of State, i.e. the heads of the Secretariat in charge of foreign affairs, were commonly known as Secretaries of State and, although they had the same rank as the other Secretaries of the Office, the Secretary of State assumed the leading role, presiding over the meetings of the ministers and attending to the most important matters.
Their origins lie in the secretaries of the 16th century Council of State, but with the reforms of Philip V, the polysynodial configuration of the Councils declined (with the exception of the Council of Castile), and it was the Secretary of State and of the Office that became the most important institution in the governmental structure, established for specific matters from 1714 onwards.
Origins of the royal secretaries in the Crown of Castile The germ of the office of the King's secretary or royal secretary arose at the beginning of the 14th century when, in the Cortes of Valladolid in 1312, Fernando IV established four chamber scribes to countersign and sign the mandates and graces issued directly by the monarch, thus transferring this task from the chancellors and senior notaries. With the establishment of the Trastámara dynasty in the middle of the 14th century, the first mentions of secretaries appear as the scribes who acted in the most private and personal sphere of the monarchs. Thus, in the reign of Henry II, Miguel Ruiz and in the reign of Henry III, Juan Martínez del Castillo stand out. During the reign of Henry III, institutional and diplomatic missions were added to the functions of the secretary, with Juan Rodríguez de Villaizán and Pedro Fernández de la Guardia standing out. These officials were not pecheros and were generally chosen from among the middle and lower nobility.
During the reign of John II, the main function of the secretaries was to dispatch all the documentation emanating from the king's chamber, which meant following the instructions of the king's will, ordering the documentation and preparing the documents, and once signed, being countersigned. In addition, in the formula of the documents signed by Fernán Díaz de Toledo (in the service of John II between 1421 and 1457), his status as secretary already appears as such. This formula continued with the royal secretaries of Henry IV.
Secretaries of the Council of State in the origins of the polisinodial system The victory of the Catholic Monarchs in the Civil War imposed the authority of monarchical power, so that the Royal Council of Castile, established in the Cortes of Valladolid (1385), was to be configured as an instrument of government and administration at the service of royal power as a result of the reforms undertaken in the Cortes of Toledo in 1480. This Royal Council would be in charge of advising on appointments and the granting of merits, of judicial tasks as the Court of Supreme Appeal of Castile and of supervising the government and administration of the kingdom. Its work was organized in five chambers: international affairs, justice, affairs of the kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon, Affairs of the Brotherhood and the Treasury.
With the complexity of the matters to be managed and the progressive increase of the dominions of the Monarchy, the distinction between the government of the Royal House and the territorial administration had to be clarified. The monarchs created boards of advisors to advise the king on a specific area, which would be the origin of the Councils. p. 21. During the reigns of Charles I and Philip II, along with the Royal Council of Castile, councils were created to advise on territorial matters (Aragon, Navarre, Flanders, Portugal, the Indies, Italy) and to advise on specialized matters, such as the Council of Orders, the Crusade, the Treasury, the Inquisition, War and the Council of State. Of this polysynodial system of Councils, the Council of State was created in 1521 and organized in 1526 as a supraterritorial body to advise the monarch with undefined competences on any subject of interest to the monarch, but normally foreign policy and serious problems that could affect the Monarchy fell within its knowledge.
From the beginning of this system to the end of the 15th century, together with the members that formed part of each Council—the councilors—it was the king's private secretaries, at first without any jurisdiction or precise powers, who acquired the greatest influence in political and administrative decisions, since they were the ones who linked the king with the Councils. They advised him and executed his will, also summarized the matter of the consultation elaborated by the council, wrote down the decision of the monarch and drafted the resolution for the council, and as they had the confidence of the monarch, they took decisions on their own account at the expense of the competences of the Council without consulting the lawyers who composed the Councils. They also attended to the daily correspondence, prepared the documents with their orders and dispatched the petitions addressed to the king. The number of royal secretaries was left to the sovereign's discretion, and in fact the Ordenamiento de Montalvo does not indicate anything about a limited number of secretaries, neither in the monarch's chamber nor in the council. There was no hierarchy or distinction in the group of royal secretaries, either. Nevertheless, a greater specialization was seen in certain secretaries by virtue of their attention to international politics: Juan de Coloma, Miguel Pérez de Almazán (1498–1514), Pedro de Quintana (1514–1517) or Pedro Ruiz de la Mota (1517–1522). The Catholic Monarchs had six or seven secretaries, whose salaries were around one hundred thousand maravedies, although they accumulated more positions and perks—and other illegitimate incomes—which made them accumulate real fortunes. And they played a fundamental role in the organization of the Hispanic Monarchy.
For its part, each Council had its own secretaries dependent on the Council itself and with powers limited to matters within the competence of the council, and therefore did not necessarily have to have direct access to the monarch or dispatch with him. Therefore, the personal secretary of the king was the one who established the relationship between the king and the Councils. This secretary of the Council prepared the agenda, the records of the sessions, prepared the material to be studied by the king and the matters to be discussed by the councilors of the council, drafted and made summaries of memorials to the councilors to be presented during the deliberations, and drafted the result of the deliberations of the council (the consultation), which was the document to be submitted to the king's decision. But with the creation of the Council of State, presided over by the king himself, the secretary of the Council of State became directly dependent on the king and not on the council, thus acquiring a preponderant position over the councilors themselves. This made the secretary of the Council of State, called Secretary of State, a privileged figure and key character of the Administration and the spring of power throughout the Monarchy, since they had continuous access to the king and to the secrets of the Monarchy. This allowed the Secretary of State not only to limit themselves to executing the will of the king, but to enjoy the king's confidence to advise him and guide that will, without at any time being able to aspire to impose himself on the administrative authorities, since neither by birth nor by title could he claim such a thing, since they came from the urban patriciate.
Apogee of the Council of State secretariat in the 16th century During the reign of Charles I, after Jan Hannart, Viscount of Lombeck (1522–1524) and Jean Lallemand (Juan Alemán), Baron of Bouclans (1524–1528) occupied the secretarieships of the Council of State, Francisco de los Cobos (1529–1547) obtained the position, but in his position as private secretary to the king he accompanied him on his long stays outside Spain and so the dispatch of affairs in Spain had to be carried out by interims such as Juan Vázquez de Molina or Gonzalo Pérez. After the death of Francisco de los Cobos in 1547, the secretariat of the Council of State remained vacant for a decade during which Juan Vázquez de Molina held the post on an interim basis, pp. 25, 33. controlling the levers of the Administration during the regencies established by Carlos I. With the abdication of Charles I in 1556, his son Philip II divided the secretariat of the Council of State: Juan Vázquez de Molina for the affairs of Spain in support of the regent Juana of Austria for the day-to-day management of the government, and Gonzalo Pérez for matters outside Spain. pp. 58, 68.
Throughout 1558 the conflicts between the king's court established in Brussels and the regency established in Spain became more acute, which led to the decline of Vázquez de Molina's influence. Before his return to Spain —which took place in August 1559—, the king prepared his trusted personnel to defend his interests in enforcing his orders in the government, and thus appointed Francisco de Eraso to act as interim secretary of the Council of State for Spain when Vázquez de Molina was ill and could not do so himself. Vázquez de Molina accepted this situation and obtained the definitive license to retire in 1562, leaving Eraso in charge of the secretariat until his death in 1570. pp. 86-88, 103-104, 127, 132. After the death of Gonzalo Pérez in 1566, his secretariat was occupied on an interim basis by Antonio Pérez and Gabriel de Zayas, and in 1567 Cardinal Diego de Espinosa, president of the Council of Castile, Inquisitor General and private of the king, remodeled the Council of State to strengthen the position of the learned to the detriment of the influence of the nobility, Zayas was appointed with the secretariat of the Council of State for the North ("all the affairs of State concerning the said embaxadas of the Court of the Emperor and kingdoms of France and England, and those that may be offered concerning and dependent on those parts"), and Perez with the secretariat of the Council of State for Italy ("all the business of State that may be offered concerning everything in Italy, both to the embaxada of Rome and the other potentates and ministers and our embaxadores of it"). This division was maintained until 1706. pp. 113-114, 121-123.
The defeat and death of the Portuguese king in the battle of Alcazarquivir in 1578, supposed the Spanish king to opt for the Portuguese throne, to press and to affirm his aspirations with a military campaign required to leave in Madrid trustworthy personnel to guarantee a stable government, and given that the attitude of the monarch towards Antonio Perez was of distrust, his fall was imminent. In July 1579 he was arrested and in September Juan de Idiáquez y Olazábal was appointed secretary of the Council of State in the secretariat left by Zayas and also assumed at the same time the secretariat of Antonio Pérez. pp. 225-229. However, the king disposed of the confidence in his personal secretary Mateo Vázquez de Leca to intermediate between the relationship between the monarch and the secretary of the Council of State, which relegated the secretary of State to secondary positions.