On the 5th, here came, among other diversions of sports we had this Christmas, Juan Arana, the famous comedian, who here acted about two hours to the admiration of all that beheld him, considering that he was near upon eighty years of age. About this time the Duke of Alva sent my husband a fat buck; I never eat any better in England. We do take it for granted in England that there is nothing good to eat in Spain, but I assure you the want is money alone.
The 11th of December, the President of Castile gave a warrant to an officer to execute upon Don Francisco de Ayala, to carry him prisoner for some offences by him committed. This gentleman lived in a house within the protection of my husband's barriers, very near to his own dwelling-house; for which reason, no person can give or execute a warrant for what crime soever, without the leave of the Ambassador; but notwithstanding, the officer who executed this warrant, being backed by the President of Castile, did seize the person of Don Francisco de Ayala in his own house, and carried him to prison.
Notice whereof being given to my husband from him, my husband immediately wrote a letter to the President of Castile, demanding the prisoner to be immediately brought home to his house; that he would not suffer the privilege of the King, his master, to be broken, making further greater complaint of this usage to him; to which the next day, in a letter, the President replied, that an Ambassador had no power to protect out of his own house and household, with many other ridiculous excuses; but all his allegations being proved against him, both by ancient and modern custom, by hundred of examples, and nothing left him to defend himself but his own peevish wilfulness, my husband pursued the business with much vigour, telling the gentleman that brought him the President's letter, that his master, the President, as to him had once been very civil, but as to the King, his master, most uncivil, both in the acting and defending so indecent a business; for which reason he would not give an answer by letter to the President, because his to the Ambassador did not deserve one; all which my husband desired the gentleman to acquaint the President, his master, with. Then my husband visited the gentleman in prison, a thing never before known of an Ambassador; telling the prisoner openly, before many gentlemen that were there accompanying of him, that he would have him out, or else that he would immediately leave the Court. The great number of gentlemen and servants of my husband's family gave apprehensions to the keeper of the prison, when my husband demanded leave to visit the prisoner.
The next day, being the 16th, Don Francisco de Ayala was visited, by my husband's example, by most of the council and nobility of this Court. In the evening, in a letter to the Duke de Medina de las Torres, my husband inclosed a memorial to his Catholic Majesty, demanding the prisoner, saying, he was very sorry that at one time, a few years ago, in the year 1650, some English gentlemen, whereof Mr. Sparks was one, did kill one Askew, an agent of Oliver's to the Catholic King. When they had thus done, all those persons and degrees made their escape but Mr. Sparks, who took sanctuary in one of their churches; notwithstanding which, the privilege thereof being defended both by the Archbishop of Toledo and the greatest prelates of this kingdom, he was by the King and council pulled out of the church and executed, so great at that time was the fear that this Court had of Oliver; and now, violation of privileges should only have been used to his Majesty, the King of England, assuring his Majesty he neither could nor would put it up without ample restitution made.
Upon the perusal of this memorial, his Catholic Majesty did immediately command the President of Castile to send his warrant the next day, and to release Don Francisco de Ayala, and to send him home immediately to my husband, which was done accordingly that night; and my husband, with all his coaches and family, which were near a hundred persons, carried him and placed him in his own house before the officers' faces that brought him home from prison. All this you will find in your father's transactions in his Spanish embassy. In this action my husband did not receive so much content in the victory as the Spaniards of all sorts, on whom it made a very great impression; though the chief Minister of state in our country did not value this, nor give the encouragement to such a noble action as was due. And here I will impartially say, what I have observed of the Spanish nation, both in their principles, customs, and country.
I find it a received opinion that Spain affords not food either good or plentiful: true it is that strangers that neither have skill to choose, nor money to buy, will find themselves at a loss; but there is not in the Christian world better wines than their midland wines are especially, besides sherry and canary. Their water tastes like milk; their corn white to a miracle, and their wheat makes the sweetest and best bread in the world; bacon beyond belief good; the Segovia veal much larger and fatter than ours; mutton most excellent; capons much better than ours. They have a small bird that lives and fattens on grapes and corn, so fat that it exceeds the quantity of flesh. They have the best partridges I ever eat, and the best sausages; and salmon, pikes, and sea-breams, which they send up in pickle, called escabeche [Footnote: "Escabeche; a pickle made of white wine, bay leaves, sliced lemons, and spices, used for preserving fish and other food."—Dic. de la Acad. Esp.] to Madrid, and dolphins, which are excellent meat, besides carps, and many other sorts of fish. The cream, called nata, is much sweeter and thicker than any I ever saw in England; their eggs much exceed ours; and so all sorts of salads, and roots, and fruits. What I most admired are, melons, peaches, burgamot pears, grapes, oranges, lemons, citrons, figs, and pomegranates; besides that I have eaten many sorts of biscuits, cakes, cheese, and excellent sweetmeats I have not here mentioned, especially manger- blanc; and they have olives, which are no where so good; and their perfumes of amber excel all the world in their kind, both for household stuff and fumes; and there is no such water made as in Seville.
They have daily curiosities brought from Italy and the Indies to this Court, which, though I got my death-wound in, without partiality, I must say, is the best established, but our own, in the Christian world that I ever saw; and I have had the honour to live in seven. All Ambassadors live in as great splendour as the most ambitious can desire, and if they are just and good, with as much love as they can deserve.
In the Palace none serve the King and Queen but the chiefest of the nobility and ancientest families; no, not in the meanest offices.
The nation is most superstitiously devout in the Roman Catholic religion; true in trust committed to them to a miracle, withstanding all temptations to the contrary, and it hath been tried, particularly about Cadiz and St. Lucar, that for eight or ten pieces-of-eight, poor men will undertake stealing for the merchants their silver aboard when their shipping come in, which sometimes by the watch for that purpose are taken; and after their examination and refusal to declare whose the silver is, or who employed them to steal, they are oftentimes racked, which they will suffer with all the patience imaginable; and notwithstanding their officers, as they execute their punishment, mingle great promises of reward if they will confess, yet it was never known that any ever confessed; and yet these men are not worth ten pounds in the world.
They are civil to all as their qualities require, with the highest respect, so that I have seen a grandee and a duke stop their horse when an ordinary woman passeth over a kennel, because he would not spoil her clothes; and put off his hat to the meanest woman that makes a reverence, though it be their footman's wife. They meddle with no neighbour's fortune or person, but their own families; and they are punctual in visits, men to men, and women to women. They visit not together, except their greatest ministers of state, so public ministers' wives from princes. If they have animosities concerning place, they will by discretion avoid ever meeting in a third place, and yet converse in each other's houses, all the days of their lives, with satisfaction on both sides. They are generally pleasant and facetious company; but in this their women exceed, who seldom laugh, and never loud; but the most witty in repartees, and stories, and notions in the world. They sing, but not well, their way being between Italian and Spanish; they play on all kinds of instruments likewise, and dance with castanuelas very well. They work but little, but very well, especially in monasteries. They all paint white and red, from the Queen to the cobbler's wife, old and young, widows excepted, who never go out of close mourning, nor wear gloves, nor show their hair after their husband's death, and seldom marry. They are the finest- shaped women in the world, not tall, their hair and teeth are most delicate; they seldom have many children; there are none love cleanliness in diet, clothes, and houses more than they do. They dress up their oratories very fine with their own work and flowers.