The interview between Olivares and the queen about the establishment of the young Prince of the Asturias in separate apartments with an independent household (Act II, scene ii) was evidently taken from the "Memorial" (p. 214) and from the "Caída" (p. 49). Says Philip, "And why, Conde-Duque, would he not be better off in the apartment that you yourself occupy? It is especially for the firstborn of the king, and is the one in which my father and myself were when we were princes." There also is mentioned the removal of the Count of Lemos, the Marquis of Castel Rodrigo, and Don Fernando de Borja from the palace.
In Act III, scene ii, Margarita laments the loss of Spanish possessions through the ineptitude of Olivares:
por él perdimos
a Esthin, Wiranzan y Dola,
y a más las Islas Terceras,
y el Ducado de Borgoña
y el Brasil y el Rosellón,
y Ormuz, Pernambuco y Hoa;
y no ha mucho Portugal...
The same catalogue of losses, even to the peculiar spelling of Hesdin and Bisanzón (Besançon), appears in the "Caída."
The intensely dramatic episode of the presentation of the golden cup to Olivares as a memorial from Philip is founded upon fact. Pellicer's Avisos contain even the detail of the note.[17] There too is the account of the ceremonial at the first presentation.
VERSIFICATION
The meters used by Sanz in Don Francisco de Quevedo are the following:
Redondilla, strophe of four eight-syllable or seven-syllable verses, riming abba.
Romance, eight-syllable or seven-syllable verses, indefinite in number, with even lines in assonance.