On Easter Monday, Bassompierre went to pay his respects to the new Queen at the Carmelite convent, where she was still in retreat. Her Majesty told him that all her ladies-in-waiting were longing to make his acquaintance—evidently, the fame of his successes amongst the fair had preceded him to Madrid—and that he ought to have compassion upon them and demand lugar[158] of every one of them. Bassompierre replied that, if he were to do that, it would occupy more time than he would require to conclude the affair of the Valtellina, and asked, as a favour, that he might be allowed to interview the whole posse of them at the same time, promising to do his best not to confound one lady with another. The Queen said that such a proceeding would not be in accordance with etiquette; but Bassompierre observed that whenever their Majesties granted favours they authorised some breach of etiquette, and that he did not see why they could not do so in this case. The Queen smiled and said that she would be quite willing, but that she dared not take so important a step without first consulting the King. However, she would speak to his Majesty, and inform him of the result.
A few days later, Bassompierre was informed that the King had been graciously pleased to consent that the rules of etiquette should be waived in his Excellency’s favour, for which his Excellency “rendered very humble thanks to the King.” Then he wrote to demand audience of all the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, and, this having been accorded, proceeded to the Alcazar and was conducted to her Majesty’s ante-chamber, where he was presently joined by a bevy of fair and intensely curious ladies, in charge of a duenna, all eager to behold this redoubtable vainqueur de dames. And when they found that, in addition to his good looks and fascinating manners, he was able to pay them the most charming compliments in irreproachable Castilian, their delight knew no bounds, and it was more than two hours before they would allow him to depart.
On April 16, Bassompierre received a despatch from Louis XIII commissioning him to present his condolences to the new King on the death of his father. When, however, he informed Zuniga of this and inquired when Philip IV could give him audience to enable him to acquit himself of his new duty, that old gentleman shook his head and declared that it was quite contrary to the etiquette of the Spanish Court for an Ambassador Extraordinary charged with the duty of concluding a treaty to represent his sovereign in a different matter, unless he were to absent himself from the capital for some days and then make a second public entry. He therefore advised his Excellency to say nothing about the matter at present, but, on the conclusion of the treaty which he was then negotiating, to take leave of the King as though he were returning to France, and to go so far as Burgos on his homeward journey. From that town he would send a courier to Madrid to announce that, having on the way received a new commission from his sovereign, he was returning to discharge it; and, on his arrival, he would, of course, be received with the same ceremony as on the previous occasion.
Bassompierre, though greatly annoyed at these exasperating formalities, which would not only delay his return to France, but involve him in a great deal of unnecessary expense and inconvenience, had no alternative but to promise compliance. He succeeded, however, in obtaining the concession that his fictitious departure for France need not be preceded by fictitious farewells of anyone besides the King and the Royal family, and that, so long as he left the capital with his whole suite and remained away for two or three days, the Escorial might be the limit of his journey.
The death of Philip III was followed by a revolution of the palace almost as sweeping as that which had succeeded the assassination of Concini in France. The new King’s favourite, Olivares, who, with his uncle Don Balthazar de Zuniga, now assumed the direction of affairs, bore a bitter grudge against the Sandoval family, who, on more than one occasion, had endeavoured to get rid of him by assassination, and he proceeded to take vengeance both upon them and their creatures. The Duke of Uceda was arrested and thrown into prison, where, like the Duke of Ossuña, he ended his days. His father, the Duke of Lerma, who, in obedience to the dying summons of Philip III, was hastening to Madrid, was met on the road by an officer of the Guards and informed that he was to return to Valladolid, on pain of immediate arrest; while, shortly afterwards, the greater part of his ill-gotten wealth
was confiscated, under a clause in the late King’s will by which he revoked the immense gifts he had made during his lifetime. The confessor Alliaga was deprived of his post of Grand Inquisitor and relegated to the obscurity of the monastery from which he had emerged; and several other highly-placed personages lost their charges and were banished from Court.
The Count of Saldagna,[159] Lerma’s younger son, thanks to his having had the good fortune to marry a daughter of the old Duke del Infantado,[160] who was held in general esteem, was more leniently dealt with than his father and elder brother, and was merely deprived of his office of cavalerizzo mayor (Grand Equerry) and ordered to go and fight the Dutch in the Netherlands. But, a day or two later, “one of the Queen’s maids-of-honour, Doña Mariana de Cordoba, presented to the King a promise of marriage which the Count of Saldagna had given her,[161] and the King commanded the said count to prepare to accomplish it.”
The royal command appears to have been accompanied by an intimation that, in the event of the count’s refusal to do the lady justice, most unpleasant things would happen to him. Anyway, Saldagna appears to have been greatly alarmed, and promised the King to lead Doña Mariana to the altar “on the first day after the octave of Easter” (April 21).