MY LORD,
I send your Lordship herewith enclosed, two transcripts, the one of a project, at making of which I was never good; but this is of a peace, and therefore I wish I were; a peace between Castile and Portugal, hardly practicable upon any terms, as I do humbly conceive, much less upon these, proposed by an unknown author, with regard to either side; yet I have thought them not unworthy your Lordship's notice, as possibly more practicable elsewhere, as to form, and in a great measure as to matter likewise, than in the altitude for which they were designed.
The other transcript is of a fresh libel, in and upon this Court and palace; a commodity I have in my nature no inclination at all to vent, either by wholesale or retail; yet is this fit also, in my humble judgment, for persons of great nearness to his Majesty not to be unacquainted with, representing sores which are in foreign kingdoms, whereby to praise God the more for the modesty of ours at home, as ours for the great goodness of his Majesty that stops our mouths, or rather fills them with prayers to God and him; not censuring other princes, neither for the liberties of their subjects in their disparagement, much less these of Spain, than whom, from all times, none talk more against, or (our own nation only excepted) act more for, their kings. This damnable libel doth not spare one Councillor of State here present, but the Inquisidor General; and to crown the damnation of it, the King himself bears the burden, besides the smaller game it picks up by the way. So more than ordinary black is the Spanish ink at this day, and the mouths of two too many, loud ones too, much of the same dye.
This King, by what I can collect, as crazy as he is, may rub out many years: his Majesty eats and drinks ordinarily with a very good stomach, I am told, three comfortable meals a day; and full of merry discourse, when and where his lined robe of Spanish royal gravity is laid aside.
Some discourse begins to be of swearing the Prince. The sending the Infanta this spring to her Imperial Crown is absolutely concluded, say the most, and some say no. Certain it is, (the ceremony of this kingdom requiring it,) that a Cardinal in the spiritual, and some very great lay-person in the temporal, should be joint conductors of her Imperial Majesty; for the first, Cardinal Colonna, a vassal born of this Crown, chosen by the Pope, is now actually entered in this Court to the same end; and for the second, the Duke of Cardona, invited thereunto by his Catholic Majesty, after many great ones, namely, the Duke of Alva and Montaldo, had refused or excused it, hath publicly accepted the charge.
By this latter hangs a story. Your Lordship well knows, that in these more civilised countries, no man will go upon his master's errand without a reward beforehand, (so the Marquis of Sande, the Conde de Molina, and others innumerable,) therefore his Catholic Majesty, even after acceptance as a thing of course, was graciously pleased to bid the said Duke of Cardona propose for himself, referring him for that purpose to the Duke's friend, the Conde de Castrillo, President of Castile. The Duke tells the Conde he must have three things granted him in hand, else would he not budge a foot. 'What are those?' said the Conde, in some disorder. 'First,' said the Duke, 'I will be made a grandee of Spain,' and his Excellency is so, I take it three or four times over: 'Secondly, I will have the Toison' he has it long since: 'Thirdly, the Conde de Chincon shall treat me with EXCELLENCY.' The riddle of this is, that the said Conde de Chincon, being no Grandee, and nominated for Ambassador Ordinary to the Emperor, though since excused of going for want of health, or other allegations, doth, upon that account alone, during life, according to the style of this Court, remain with the title of Excellency. This action of the Duke of Cardona is here very much celebrated, and the saying little less. —Ibid. p. 420.
To THE KING.
[See MEMOIRS, p. 195.]
Madrid, Monday, 6th of February, 1664-5, O.S.