[[5]] Contemporary transcripts are in British Museum, Egerton MSS. 338, fol. 571.
[[6]] Novoa says that Olivares turned Fernando out of his bedroom, which adjoined that of the King, in order that he (Olivares) might occupy it during the King's danger.
[[7]] The principal conspirator with Olivares is represented by Novoa to have been the Marquis of Hinojosa who had until recently been the ambassador in London, and had specially signalised himself by his bitter enmity against Buckingham, whom he had tried to ruin by means of statements damaging to him, and impugning his loyalty to King James. See the correspondence in Cabala.
[[8]] Novoa.
[[9]] Ibid.
[[10]] An important series of letters from Olivares to the King soon after his illness, mainly about the Infantes, their characters, their friends, and their proceedings, is in Egerton MSS., British Museum, 2081, from which I have already quoted some papers on the same subject of an earlier date. The whole object of the letters is evidently to arouse the suspicion of the King against his brothers.
[[11]] Contemporary draft, British Museum MSS., Add. 10,236 f. 382.
[[12]] All one side of the great square was destroyed by fire a few years after the time of which we are writing (in 1631).
[[13]] The fact of so many of the wretched houses of the capital having only one storey is explained by the oppressive arrangement which placed at the disposal of the Court one entire floor of every house of more than one storey, a right grossly abused by Court hangers-on to quarter their relatives and friends rent free upon the citizens. In Philip IV.'s time this oppressive right had been partially commuted to a payment of 250,000 ducats annually by the municipality, which was estimated to be one-sixth of the rental value of such houses. Mesonero Romanes, El Antigua Madrid.
[[14]] A vivid picture of Madrid of the time is given in El Diablo Cojuelo, by Velez de Guevara, a judge, and favourite of Philip IV.