[[27]] It is rather a curious fact that the Count-Duke's father, the second Count of Olivares, had been the first councillor in 1603 to speak plainly in the Council of Philip in on the projects of Spain to dominate England. He pointed out very strongly that extension of territory did not mean increase of power, but the contrary, as it meant the distribution instead of the concentration of national strength. See the writer's Calendar of Spanish State Papers of Elizabeth, vol. iv.
[[28]] Dormer, Anales de Aragon, MS., Royal Academy of History, Madrid. The published portion of the book only covers the sixteenth century.
[[29]] Novoa and British Museum, Egerton MSS. 338.
[[30]] There is a most interesting and full unpublished account of Philip's entry and stay in Barcelona in British Museum, Add. MSS. 10,236, called Entrada que el Rey Nuestro Señor hizo en la ciudad de Barcelona y fiestas que se hicieron, 1626.
[[31]] Egerton MSS. 338.
CHAPTER V
RISE OF THE PARTY OPPOSED TO OLIVARES—THE QUEEN AND THE INFANTES CARLOS AND FERNANDO—OLIVARES REMONSTRATES WITH PHILIP FOR HIS NEGLECT OF BUSINESS—PHILIP'S REPLY—ILLNESS OF THE KING—FEARS OF OLIVARES—PHILIP'S CONSCIENCE—ASPECT OF MADRID AT THE TIME—HABITS OF THE PEOPLE—A GREAT ARTISTIC CENTRE—MANY FOREIGN VISITORS—VELAZQUEZ—PHILIP'S LOVE OF ART, LITERATURE, AND THE DRAMA—CONTEMPORARY DESCRIPTION OF A PLAYHOUSE—PHILIP AND THE CALDERONA, MOTHER OF DON JUAN OF AUSTRIA—BIRTH AND BAPTISM OF BALTASAR CARLOS—PHILIP'S FIELD SPORTS—GENERAL SOCIAL DECADENCE
On the King's return to Madrid in the spring of 1626 almost simultaneous baptism of another short-lived infant Princess and the betrothal of the Infanta Maria, the erstwhile "Princess of Wales," to the King of Hungary, heir to the empire, gave other pretext for one of those interminable rounds of pompous shows in which Philip delighted. The marriage of yet another Princess of the Spanish branch of Hapsburg to a future emperor was a provocation flung in the face of Europe, and so Richelieu understood it; and again patiently knitted his plans for taking up the challenge in due time, and defeating finally the threatened hegemony of the house of Austria to the detriment of that of Bourbon.