Editing Philip III of Spain (section)

=== Royal seclusion ===
In his 1602 political treatise ''[[República Mista]]'', Tomás Fernández de Medrano advised Philip III of Spain that withdrawing from his [[Citizenship|subjects]] might be regarded as 'a form of religion', drawing a comparison between the king's limited interaction with his people and the [[Reverence (emotion)|reverence]] shown to the [[Sacredness|consecrated]] [[Eucharist]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Medrano |first=Juan Fernandez de |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DJ7Uw6xczpEC |title=República Mista |date=1602 |publisher=Impr. Real |pages=32 |language=es}}</ref><ref>FEROS, ''Kingship and Favoritism'', p. 84.</ref> Philip III elevated his father's principles of inaccessibility and invisibility to unprecedented levels. He drastically limited daily access to himself, granting it almost exclusively to his royal favorite, the Duke of Lerma, who managed most audiences to maintain the king's unseen presence.<ref>''King as father in Early Modern Spain'' Luis R. Corteguera University of Kansas https://dadun.unav.edu/bitstream/10171/17776/1/47916489.pdf p. 17</ref> Medrano, who noted Philip as "[[justice|just]], for traveling throughout his realm to personally hear and resolve the complaints of his people," advised the king that things rarely seen received greater [[respect]] and [[veneration]]; it was according to reason of state that the king's isolation and retreat helped avoiding chances that he might show his faults to those who would idealize him while unable to see him.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Wayback Machine. |url=https://cultureandhistory.revistas.csic.es/index.php/cultureandhistory/article/download/125/423/1279 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20230205074028/https://cultureandhistory.revistas.csic.es/index.php/cultureandhistory/article/download/125/423/1279 |archive-date=2023-02-05 |access-date=2025-03-17 |website=cultureandhistory.revistas.csic.es}}</ref> This model of symbolic kingship, grounded in controlled visibility and mediated power, helped define the role and necessity of the ''valido'' in early 17th-century Spain.<ref name=":2" />