But he was pulled out of the pond and washed with warm water in the house of Claes, and that was his sixth baptism.
VII
On that same day, His Sacred Majesty Charles resolved to hold high festival to celebrate the birth of his son befittingly. Like Claes he determined to go a-fishing, not in a canal, but in the pouches and pockets of his people. Thence is it that sovereign houses draw crusadoes, silver daelders, gold lions, and all those miraculous fishes that change, at the fisher’s will, into velvet robes, priceless jewels, exquisite wines, and dainty meats. For the rivers best stocked with fish are not those that hold most water.
Having brought together his councillors, His Sacred Majesty resolved that the fishing should be done in the following manner.
His lordship the Infante should be borne to baptism toward nine or ten of the clock; the inhabitants of Valladolid, to testify their joy, should hold revelry and feast all night long, at their own charges, and should scatter their silver upon the great square for the poor.
In five carfaxes there should be a great fountain spouting until daybreak with strong wine paid for by the city. In five other carfaxes there should be displayed, upon wooden stages, sausages, saveloys, botargoes, chitterlings, ox tongues, and all kinds of meats, also at the city’s charges.
The folk of Valladolid should erect at their own expense, along the route of the procession, a great number of triumphal arches representing Peace, Felicity, Abundance, Propitious Fortune, and emblems of all and sundry gifts from the skies with which they were loaded under the reign of His Sacred Majesty.
Finally, besides these pacific arches, there should be set up certain others on which should be displayed in bright colours less benignant emblems, as lions, eagles, lances, halberds, pikes with wavy bladed heads, hackbuts, cannons, falconets, mortars with their huge jowls, and other engines showing in image the might and power in war of His Sacred Majesty.
As for the lighting of the church, it should be graciously permitted to the Guild of Candlemakers to make free gratis and for nothing more than twenty thousand wax tapers, the unburned ends of which should revert to the chapter.