[[22]] It is curious that during all this period of great international anxiety and important negotiations, the talk about pictures is still constantly to be met with in the diplomatic correspondence. At one time, in June 1635, Suero de Quiñones wished to send two pictures as a present to King Charles. "I (Hopton) and King (Charles's) painter have seen them, and think they are good, particularly a Venus and Adonis of Luqueto. The other piece is by Tintoret. Suero de Quiñones is poor, but of quality. I know not why he should give his pictures away thus." But Quiñones, urged doubtless by poverty rather than his quality, did not give them away after all, and perhaps never intended to do so; for Hopton writes months afterwards: "Quiñones has played the knave, and sold his pictures." On another occasion (July of the same year), Hopton expresses his delight to Cottington that Labrador's paintings had come to hand at last. "The painter who made the landskips," he continues, "is now dead, and his pieces are much sought after and highly prized. I have a few of them and am using diligence to get some more, at your lordship's service. If the man had lived I think I had carried him with me to England; for he was grown much out of love with his own country, and was much my friend." MS. Notebook.
[[23]] After they had voted this usual 9 millions to extend over three years, the Cortes were thunderstruck in the following January 1636, by a demand of Olivares that they should vote an additional 13 millions. The members were all paid and submissive; but this was too much even for them. They flatly refused to vote the sum, which they said it was quite impossible for their constituents to pay. The royal Council then at once commenced criminal proceedings against them, whereupon the members prayed for time to consult their constituents, and orders were given by the Council to levy the 13 millions of necessary without the vote: to this abject state had representative institutions been reduced in the realms of Castile. See Danvila's Poder Civil en España, Documents, and Rodriguez Villa's Newsletters, 1636-37.
[[24]] Hopton to Coke, 13th June 1635. MS. Notebook.
[[25]] Council of State Deliberations of 19th November 1635. Danvila, El Poder Civil en España.
[[26]] There was one pragmatic which touched Madrid to the quick, namely, that which forbade the use of carriages except to a very few privileged people. So great was the outcry against this, that it was found to be impossible to enforce it, as the driving about in coaches was the main pleasure and amusement of every one who could afford it, and of many people who could not. Whilst, therefore, the pragmatic was rigidly enforced in the provincial capitals, licences were issued to anyone in Madrid to own a coach on payment of 100 ducats.—Rodriguez Villa's Newsletters, January 1636. Other pragmatics were issued at the time, regulating the courtesy titles, as it was found that too many people were calling themselves Lordship.
[[27]] In the Rodriguez Villa's Newsletters at this period, hardly a week passes without reference to the selling up of some nobleman's belongings for debt. One of the most ostentatious nobles in Madrid, the Marquis de las Navas, was soon after this fined for some offence, and as he had no money an execution was put in on his coaches and horses, which it was then found were not his own but hired; and his furniture and even the tapestries of his palace belonged to other people.
[[28]] Both of them got safe away abroad, and the Marquis del Aguila was condemned to death in his absence. Herrera subsequently issued a public challenge for the Marquis to meet Him and fight in Switzerland, and thus explains the affray. The Marquis, he asserts, said in the theatre that he was drunk, and though he made no reply to this, an hour afterwards he came behind him and struck him a great blow on the back of the neck. He (Herrera) then drew his sword, and he and the Marquis were both seized by the Guard.
[[29]] La Corte y Monarquia de España en 1636-1637, a series of newsletters written by an anonymous grandee in Madrid, edited by A. Rodriguez Villa.
[[30]] Philip had grown very fond of these tests of literary promptitude, at which he appears to have shone. In Morel Fatio's Espagne au XVI. et XVII. Siècle there is reproduced the programme of a great burlesque Academy of this sort, which took place at the Buen Retiro during the fetes of 1637. There are fourteen items for competition, of which the following are good specimens: A romance declaring which stomach is most to be envied, that which will digest great sorrows or great suppers. An epigram in two Castilian couplets, declaring which is the most foolish, to be a fool sometimes or to be always discreet. Sixteen roundels, about a procuress who was dying, much comforted that there were no proper men left in the world; and just as she is about to expire, a young man comes in whom she receives with delight, saying to him, "My friend, you are just in time; there are two beautiful lasses in there, as good as gold; one dark and the other fair." And as the youth was hesitating which to choose the expiring old woman cried, "My son; for heaven's sake take the dark one. This is no time for me to deceive people." The tale has been drawn out thus, because they say it is true.
[[31]] Las Sabandijas del Conde.