"After all this weary voyage, these people wish to subject us to a certain extent to their laws, because it is a new thing for them to have Spaniards in their country, and they want to feel safe. The Spaniards here are not comfortable, nor are they so well off as in Castile. Some even say they would rather be in the worst stubble-field in the kingdom of Toledo than in the groves of Amadis."
The courtier who wrote No. 3 is even more emphatic. He says:—
"Great rogues infest the roads and have robbed some of our people, amongst others the chamberlain of Don Juan de Pacheco, from whom they took 400 crowns and all his plate and jewelry. Not a trace has been found of them, nor of the four or five boxes missing from the King's lodgings, although the Council is sending out on all sides. The friars have had to be lodged in the college for safety and bitterly repent having come."
But dissatisfied as the Spaniards were, there was still sufficient novelty in their surroundings during their stay at Winchester in the last days of July to keep them amused. The wonderful round table of King Arthur in the castle, where the twelve peers are still enchanted, and their names written round in the places where they sat, claims the wondering attention of the visitors. The curious beer made with barley and a herb, instead of wheat, as in Flanders, is discussed; and the strange habit the ladies, and even some gentlemen, have of putting sugar in their wine, and the never-ending dancing going on amongst the ladies of the palace excite remark. On the last day of July most of the English lords and squires had gone home for the present; the Spaniards were distributed about Winchester and Southampton; the admiral of Spain was under orders to take a part of the fleet back again; and the bulk of the Spanish troops were only awaiting a fair wind to take them to Flanders, and the King and Queen, with a small suite, set out for Basing, the Lord Treasurer's[[25]] house, fifteen miles off. Most of the accounts before us end at this point but the two interesting letters to which I have given the numbers 4 and 5, written respectively from Richmond and London, show clearly the gradual exacerbation of the dislike between the Spanish and English as time went on, in spite of the diplomatic attempts to connect Philip's name at every opportunity with acts of clemency and moderation.
On the 19th of August, which is the date of the letter from Richmond, the royal honeymoon seems yet not entirely to have waned:—
"Their Majesties are the happiest couple in the world, and are more in love with each other than I can say here. He never leaves her, and on the road is always by her side, lifting her into the saddle and helping her to dismount. He dines with her publicly sometimes, and they go to Mass together on feast days."
This letter from Richmond gives the following curious account of the lavish scale on which the royal establishment was maintained:—
"All the rejoicings here consist only of eating and drinking, as they understand nothing else. The Queen spends 300,000 ducats (a year?) in food, and all the thirteen councillors and the Court favourites live in the palace, besides the lord steward, the lord chamberlain, the chancellor, and our people, with their servants. The ladies also have private rooms in the palace, with all their servants, and the Queen's guard of 200 men are also lodged there. Each of the lords has a separate cook in the Queen's kitchens, and as there are eighteen different kitchens such is the hurly burly that they are a perfect hell. Although the palaces are so large that the smallest of the four we have seen is infinitely larger, and certainly better, than the Alcazar of Madrid, they are still hardly large enough to hold the people who live in them. The ordinary (daily?) consumption of the palace is 100 sheep (which are very large and fat), twelve large oxen, eighteen calves, besides game, poultry, venison, wild boar, and a great number of rabbits. Of beer there is no end, and they drink as much as would fill the river at Valladolid."
The writer is very indignant at the scant courtesy paid to his great kinsfolk the Albas, and at the fact that they have had to put up with lodgings that are considered below their dignity even in the villages. "It is not enough," he says, "to deprive them of their office, but they must needs give them bad quarters as well.... These English are the most ungrateful people in the world, and hate the Spaniards worse than the devil, as they readily show, for they rob us in the town itself, and not a soul dares to venture two miles on the road without being robbed. There is no justice for us. We are ordered by the King to avoid dispute and put up with everything whilst we are here, enduring all their attacks in silence. They therefore despise us and treat us badly. We have complained to Bibriesca and the ambassador, but they say it is for his Majesty's sake that we must bear everything patiently."
It was no wonder that under such circumstances these proud hidalgos begged to be allowed to join the Emperor in Flanders for the war. Medina-Celi was the first to revolt at his treatment, and no sooner had he obtained leave to go than eighty other gentlemen followed him with their suites, and so by the middle of August the only Spanish nobles in attendance on Philip were Alba, Feria, Olivares, Pedro de Cordoba, Diego de Cordoba, and three gentlemen, amongst whom was Pedro Enriquez, the supposed author of the letters. The insults upon the Spaniards personally were bad enough; but what was more galling even was the disappointment they felt at the political effect of the match. Instead of a submissive people, ready to bow the neck at once to the new king and his followers, they found a country where even the native sovereign's power was strictly circumscribed, and where the foreigner's only hope of domination was by force of arms; and this they saw in the present case was impossible. Enriquez, if he be the author, says: "The marriage will indeed have been a failure if the Queen have no children. They told us in Castile that if his Highness became king of England we should be masters of France; but quite the contrary has turned out to be the fact, for the French are stronger than ever and are doing as they like in Flanders.... Kings here have as little power as if they were vassals, and the people who really govern are the councillors; they are not only lords of the land, but lords of the kings as well. They are all peers, some of them raised up by the Church revenues they have taken and others by their patrimonial estates, and they are feared much more than the sovereign. They publicly say they will not let the King go until they and the Queen think fit, as this country is quite big enough for any one king."