"If we can judge by outward shows," wrote Charles and Steenie to the King, "or general speeches, we have reason to condemn your ambassadors for rather writing too sparingly than too much. To conclude, we find the Conde de Olivares so overvaluing our journey, he is so full of real courtesy, that we can do no less than beseech your Majesty to write the kindest letter of thanks and acknowledgment you can unto him. He said, no later to us than this morning, that if the Pope would not give a dispensation for a wife they would give the Infanta to thy Baby as his wench,[[33]] and hath this day written to Cardinal Ludovico, the Pope's nephew, that the King of England hath put such an obligation upon this King in sending his son hither, that he entreats him to make haste of the dispensation, for he can deny nothing that is in his kingdom.... The Pope's Nuncio works as maliciously and as actively as he can against us, but receives such rude answers that we hope he will soon weary on't. We make this collection that the Pope will be very loth to grant a dispensation, which, if he will not do, then we would gladly have your directions how far we may engage you in the acknowledgment of the Pope's special power, for we almost find, if you will be contented to acknowledge the Pope as chief head under Christ, that the match will be made without him."[[34]]
It is difficult to know what to condemn most in this astounding letter,—whether the simplicity that made Buckingham so easy a dupe of Olivares' soft speeches, or the proposal at the end, which, as the reply shows, was too much even for King James, that the latter should abandon the main condition upon which he held the Protestant crown of England. It is clear that the intention of Olivares was to cast upon the Pope the whole of the blame for the failure of the match, and this, at least from the Spanish point of view, was a statesmanlike policy, although the full falsity of it is evident to us now that we have before us the communications that passed between Madrid and Rome on the subject.[[35]]
Charles in Madrid
Leaving Charles at the embassy after the drive, Olivares and Buckingham, with Porter as their interpreter, re-entered a coach and drove off in the gathering darkness to the gardens behind the palace, to arrange the details of the coming private interview to be held that night between Philip and the English Prince. Whilst the coach, with Olivares and Buckingham, was in the green alleys of the garden, a man, unaccompanied, with his cloak masking his face, and sword and buckler by his side, was seen walking towards them. "This is the King," said Olivares, to Steenie's intense astonishment. "Is it possible," exclaimed Buckingham, "that you have a King who can walk like that? What a marvel!" and, leaping from the carriage, he knelt and kissed the young King's hand. Entering the coach again, the party, accompanied now by the King, were driven through the quiet streets of the unlit capital, for it was ten o'clock at night, to the Prado, where the Prince, with Gondomar, Bristol, Aston, and Cottington, in another coach, awaited their coming. Descending and embracing warmly, the King and Prince then re-entered the carriage with Bristol alone, and for more than half an hour discoursed amiable banalities in the darkness under the overhanging trees of the promenade.
Thenceforward Buckingham and Olivares by agreement changed offices, the former constituting himself chief equerry in waiting to Philip, whilst Olivares attended Prince Charles. In pursuance of this idea, the suite of apartments in the palace occupied by Olivares as master of the horse were hastily prepared with great magnificence for the occupation of the English Prince; and whilst their redecoration and furnishing were being accomplished, Charles was invited to transfer his lodging to the rooms in the monastery of St. Geronimo in the Prado, to which the Kings of Spain usually retired in times of mourning, and previous to state entries to the capital, an invitation which he did not accept.
In the week that followed the first meeting of Charles and his host, until Sunday the 16th March,[[36]] which was the day fixed for his public entry into the city, Madrid was astir with excitement. The pragmatic decrees recently promulgated forbidding starched and fluted ruffs, embroidered dresses, and the use of gold in tissues, and generally suppressing extravagance of living, were all suspended by proclamation during the visit of the Prince; the streets were ordered to be swept and garnished, and the houses on the line of route richly adorned; and Madrid, by the morning of the day fixed for the public entry, had covered its squalor and dirt by an overcoating of finery. All the gaols, too, were emptied of prisoners, by way of welcoming the English guest.[[37]]
In the week of waiting Charles sought permission to visit Philip privately in return for the interview in the Prado on Sunday night, and he and Buckingham gave the following account of the meeting to their "Dear Dad and Gossip."
"The next day your Baby desired to kiss the King's hand privately in the palace, which was granted, and thus performed. First, the King would not suffer him to come to his chamber, but met him at the stair-foot, then entered into the coach and walked in his park. The greatest matter that passed between them was compliments, ... and then by force he would needs convey him (i.e. Charles) half way home, in which doing they were both almost overthrown in brick pits. Two days after we met his Majesty again in his park with his two brothers; they spent their time in seeing his men kill partridges flying and conies running with a gun."[[38]]
In the meanwhile the people with pride and delight had quite satisfied themselves that the coming of the Prince meant the intended conversion of himself to Catholicism and the return of England to the fold of the Church,[[39]] and Olivares pressed this point so persistently and publicly upon Charles, that Buckingham himself began to take fright. He noticed that whenever the Count-Duke found himself near Charles, which indeed was continually, he turned the conversation towards the Catholic religion. Charles was young, the son of a Catholic mother, and was certainly for the time smitten by the Catholic Infanta: his father had professed himself Catholic again and again; and at this moment was writing thus to his "Sweet boys": "I send you, my Baby, two of your fittest chaplains for this purpose, Mawe and Wren, together with all stuff and ornaments fit for the service of God. I have fully instructed them, so as all their behaviour and service shall, I hope, prove decent and agreeable to the service of the primitive Church; and yet as near the Roman form as can lawfully be done; for it hath ever been my way to go with the Church of Rome usque ad aras." But whatever may have been the tendencies of Charles himself, Buckingham in his saner moments, and certainly Bristol, must have seen the pitfall laid for the Prince, and thus early, in the midst of all the complimentary billing and cooing before the state entry, the young adventurers began to realise the difficulty of the task, which looked so easy from a distance.