For the same reasons, we began another journey, upon Monday last, to the Escurial. [Footnote: Lady Fanshawe, p. 180, says they went to the Escurial on the 27th of October. Her Ladyship calculated by the NEW, and Sir Richard by the OLD style.] This was not, nor could be kept secret; therefore the Duke, prompting his Catholic Majesty, sent his orders before, by virtue whereof I was lodged in the quarter there of the Duke of Montaldo, Mayor-domo Mayor to the Queen, and of like special order, by the Prior of that most famous monastery, showed, with all demonstrations of courtesy, the much that is there to be seen, besides an extraordinary present of provisions, of all which Don Juan Combos, whose company I was favoured with in this excursion, is able, if he pleases, to give you a better account than I.
Before I was returned half-way to this Court, we met some French, who told us the French Ambassador was following them to the Escurial. Advanced as far as a very small village, about a league from Madrid, the highway lying by a single house, at the outskirts thereof, at the door of the same, were two that wear his livery, of whom one of my people, asking whether the French Ambassador was coming towards the Escurial? they replied 'No;' but that his Excellency was in that village, and thence immediately to return to Madrid. That is all I yet know pertaining to that matter; unless this be, that it hath rained plentifully from morning to night, being, as the year hath fallen out, very extraordinary, the first day here of winter. Thus much may be built upon as a certainty, that neither the palace here upon Monday morning when I went, nor the Escurial this morning when I left it, had the least notice or inkling of any intention of the French Ambassador to go thither at this time.
A report there hath been for some days whispered, that the said Ambassador is revoken. To notify which the more, it is possible he might design this visit to the Escurial, which is commonly left to the last by all public persons from abroad.—Ibid. p. 267.
TO MR. SECRETARY BENNET.
Madrid, Wednesday, 12th November, 1664, N.S.
On Monday last, in the afternoon, I should by appointment have had a conference with the Duke of Medina de las Torres, but in the morning his Excellency sent to excuse it for that time, upon notice then arrived of the death of his kinsman, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, which obliged him to the offices which those cases require.
The manner of this Duke's death, like his quality, was extraordinary. His Excellency was, for his diversion and recreation, being as then in good health to all outward appearance, and not much stricken in years, at a town of his own, not far from Valladolid, where you know his constant appointed abode was; in that place of recreation, his Excellency had some number of dogs, newly given him, the which, looking out of his windows, he happened to see worrying a poor woman. They neither killed nor maimed her, but the Duke's apprehension was so great they would do the one or the other, that violently crying out from the place where he was unto his people to prevent it, he fell into a sudden ecstacy; from that into a deep melancholy, and from that into a fever, which dispatched him before his physicians could come from Valladolid; so thereby verifying in his particular the surname of his family, de puro bueno murio.
Upon the 7th of November, N.S. I gave the King, Queen, Prince, and Empress, the parabien of the Prince's birth-day. The day itself was the precedent, and then it was that I desired audience to that end, by the Master of the Ceremonies; but it was appointed me, as I have said, to avoid concurrence with others, as I do believe, according either to the old or new style of this Court, the which I have formerly mentioned. However, for the English Ambassador alone, as might be supposed, all the royal persons put themselves de gala, both as to apparel and humour. True it is, to make up the jollity enough for two days at least, there met in one, and the parabien was accordingly both from the other Ambassadors the day before, and from me then, the Peace of Germany, and the Prince's birth-day, and both were very well taken.—Ibid. p. 290.
TO MR. SECRETARY BENNET.
Madrid, Monday, 14th of November, 1664, English style.