Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe Part 13

[See MEMOIRS, p. 179.]

Madrid, Wednesday, 12th of October, 1664, English style.

"Since my last to you of yesterday, the President of Castile having by the King's special and angry command, gone forth to the neighbouring villages, attended with the hangman, and whatsoever else of terror incident to his place and derogatory to his person, the markets in this town begin to be furnished again plentifully enough, yet so as that the bullion remaining fallen to the half value, bread, wine, and other provisions, are held up much higher than they were before in the numerical money; the reason is, whether upon intelligence or jealousy, the people that sell, do expect a second speedy fall, in which regard they rather choose to part with their wares upon trust, as many do and will, to receive for the same at the rate money shall go awhile hence, than for present money, though to persons whom before they would have been very scrupulous to have trusted."--Ibid. p. 265.

TO MR. SECRETARY BENNET.

[See MEMOIRS, p. 178.]

Madrid, Wednesday, 19th of October, 1664, English style.

Upon the 10th instant, stilo novo, invited by the delicacy of the weather, and not knowing whether I should have another opportunity for it during my residence in this Court, together with my family, man, woman, and child, I took a small journey by stealth, of three days going and coming, to Aranjuez.

As soon as it was known that I was gone, the Duke of Medina de las Torres sent a post after me, with a letter to myself, of courtly chiding, that I had given the Spanish civility the slip in that manner, with another to the officers of the palace, to perform their part towards me, which was not wanting in any needful degree, although the Propio [Footnote: The Duke's courier.] tracing me all the way, could not reach me till I got home again.

For the same reasons, we began another journey, upon Monday last, to the Escurial. [Footnote: Lady Fanshawe, p. 180, says they went to the Escurial on the 27th of October. Her Ladyship calculated by the NEW, and Sir Richard by the OLD style.] This was not, nor could be kept secret; therefore the Duke, prompting his Catholic Majesty, sent his orders before, by virtue whereof I was lodged in the quarter there of the Duke of Montaldo, Mayor-domo Mayor to the Queen, and of like special order, by the Prior of that most famous monastery, showed, with all demonstrations of courtesy, the much that is there to be seen, besides an extraordinary present of provisions, of all which Don Juan Combos, whose company I was favoured with in this excursion, is able, if he pleases, to give you a better account than I.

Before I was returned half-way to this Court, we met some French, who told us the French Amba.s.sador was following them to the Escurial.

Advanced as far as a very small village, about a league from Madrid, the highway lying by a single house, at the outskirts thereof, at the door of the same, were two that wear his livery, of whom one of my people, asking whether the French Amba.s.sador was coming towards the Escurial? they replied 'No;' but that his Excellency was in that village, and thence immediately to return to Madrid. That is all I yet know pertaining to that matter; unless this be, that it hath rained plentifully from morning to night, being, as the year hath fallen out, very extraordinary, the first day here of winter. Thus much may be built upon as a certainty, that neither the palace here upon Monday morning when I went, nor the Escurial this morning when I left it, had the least notice or inkling of any intention of the French Amba.s.sador to go thither at this time.

A report there hath been for some days whispered, that the said Amba.s.sador is revoken. To notify which the more, it is possible he might design this visit to the Escurial, which is commonly left to the last by all public persons from abroad.--Ibid. p. 267.

TO MR. SECRETARY BENNET.

Madrid, Wednesday, 12th November, 1664, N.S.

On Monday last, in the afternoon, I should by appointment have had a conference with the Duke of Medina de las Torres, but in the morning his Excellency sent to excuse it for that time, upon notice then arrived of the death of his kinsman, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, which obliged him to the offices which those cases require.

The manner of this Duke's death, like his quality, was extraordinary.

His Excellency was, for his diversion and recreation, being as then in good health to all outward appearance, and not much stricken in years, at a town of his own, not far from Valladolid, where you know his constant appointed abode was; in that place of recreation, his Excellency had some number of dogs, newly given him, the which, looking out of his windows, he happened to see worrying a poor woman.

They neither killed nor maimed her, but the Duke's apprehension was so great they would do the one or the other, that violently crying out from the place where he was unto his people to prevent it, he fell into a sudden ecstacy; from that into a deep melancholy, and from that into a fever, which dispatched him before his physicians could come from Valladolid; so thereby verifying in his particular the surname of his family, de puro bueno murio.

Upon the 7th of November, N.S. I gave the King, Queen, Prince, and Empress, the parabien of the Prince's birth-day. The day itself was the precedent, and then it was that I desired audience to that end, by the Master of the Ceremonies; but it was appointed me, as I have said, to avoid concurrence with others, as I do believe, according either to the old or new style of this Court, the which I have formerly mentioned. However, for the English Amba.s.sador alone, as might be supposed, all the royal persons put themselves de gala, both as to apparel and humour. True it is, to make up the jollity enough for two days at least, there met in one, and the parabien was accordingly both from the other Amba.s.sadors the day before, and from me then, the Peace of Germany, and the Prince's birth-day, and both were very well taken.--Ibid. p. 290.

TO MR. SECRETARY BENNET.

Madrid, Monday, 14th of November, 1664, English style.

"Inclosed with this, I send you a print of that new invention here for ploughing, which you did lately command me to enquire out." [Footnote: Mr. Bennet, in a letter to Sir Richard Fanshawe, dated 29th of September, 1664, observed, "Sir George Downing tells me of a new invention of a plough in Spain. I beseech your Excellency to enquire after it. He saith an Italian hath made it, and that it is not only received in Spain, but sent into the Indies also, for the good of their land."--Ibid. p. 279.]--Ibid. p. 321.

TO MR. SECRETARY BENNET.

[See MEMOIRS, p. 185.]

Madrid, Wednesday, 14th of December, 1664, O.S.

These five or six nights last past here hath appeared a very strange blazing star, so high and so clear that I presume it must needs have been seen in England likewise, and therefore forbear to give any description or judgment thereof, the people of this country not being so curious in such matters as ours are there.

Yesterday I went to give the King and Queen the nova buena of her Majesty's birth-day, which was the day before. As soon as I came from the King, the Dutch Amba.s.sador was called in; and at his coming out, it being a very dry day, and we having an hour to spend before the Queen would be ready to receive us, I invited him into my coach, and we took a turn in the town, which caused almost as much wonder in this people as the blazing star; and indeed I did it to that end partly, there being no offence in it that I know, so long as his Majesty hath an Envoy in Holland, and the States an Amba.s.sador in England. The truth is, many of this people begin to apprehend, that our disputes with them will have a quite other issue, and a very different operation, as other interests, and Spain amongst the rest, than Spain imagined.

Last night was before the palace a masquerade on horseback. I had a balcony appointed me in the armoury over the stables of his Majesty: the Dutch Amba.s.sador, another for him next below mine, the rest of the Amba.s.sadors in an entresuelo of the palace.

Mine I left to my gentleman, and sat myself with the Duke of Medina de las Torres, at his quarters in the palace; my wife in another room thereby with the d.u.c.h.ess.--Ibid. p. 376.

TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR.

Madrid, the 24th of January, 1664, N.S.

MY LORD,

I send your Lordship herewith enclosed, two transcripts, the one of a project, at making of which I was never good; but this is of a peace, and therefore I wish I were; a peace between Castile and Portugal, hardly practicable upon any terms, as I do humbly conceive, much less upon these, proposed by an unknown author, with regard to either side; yet I have thought them not unworthy your Lordship's notice, as possibly more practicable elsewhere, as to form, and in a great measure as to matter likewise, than in the alt.i.tude for which they were designed.

The other transcript is of a fresh libel, in and upon this Court and palace; a commodity I have in my nature no inclination at all to vent, either by wholesale or retail; yet is this fit also, in my humble judgment, for persons of great nearness to his Majesty not to be unacquainted with, representing sores which are in foreign kingdoms, whereby to praise G.o.d the more for the modesty of ours at home, as ours for the great goodness of his Majesty that stops our mouths, or rather fills them with prayers to G.o.d and him; not censuring other princes, neither for the liberties of their subjects in their disparagement, much less these of Spain, than whom, from all times, none talk more against, or (our own nation only excepted) act more for, their kings. This d.a.m.nable libel doth not spare one Councillor of State here present, but the Inquisidor General; and to crown the d.a.m.nation of it, the King himself bears the burden, besides the smaller game it picks up by the way. So more than ordinary black is the Spanish ink at this day, and the mouths of two too many, loud ones too, much of the same dye.

This King, by what I can collect, as crazy as he is, may rub out many years: his Majesty eats and drinks ordinarily with a very good stomach, I am told, three comfortable meals a day; and full of merry discourse, when and where his lined robe of Spanish royal gravity is laid aside.

Some discourse begins to be of swearing the Prince. The sending the Infanta this spring to her Imperial Crown is absolutely concluded, say the most, and some say no. Certain it is, (the ceremony of this kingdom requiring it,) that a Cardinal in the spiritual, and some very great lay-person in the temporal, should be joint conductors of her Imperial Majesty; for the first, Cardinal Colonna, a va.s.sal born of this Crown, chosen by the Pope, is now actually entered in this Court to the same end; and for the second, the Duke of Cardona, invited thereunto by his Catholic Majesty, after many great ones, namely, the Duke of Alva and Montaldo, had refused or excused it, hath publicly accepted the charge.

By this latter hangs a story. Your Lordship well knows, that in these more civilised countries, no man will go upon his master's errand without a reward beforehand, (so the Marquis of Sande, the Conde de Molina, and others innumerable,) therefore his Catholic Majesty, even after acceptance as a thing of course, was graciously pleased to bid the said Duke of Cardona propose for himself, referring him for that purpose to the Duke's friend, the Conde de Castrillo, President of Castile. The Duke tells the Conde he must have three things granted him in hand, else would he not budge a foot. 'What are those?' said the Conde, in some disorder. 'First,' said the Duke, 'I will be made a grandee of Spain,' and his Excellency is so, I take it three or four times over: 'Secondly, I will have the Toison' he has it long since: 'Thirdly, the Conde de Chincon shall treat me with EXCELLENCY.' The riddle of this is, that the said Conde de Chincon, being no Grandee, and nominated for Amba.s.sador Ordinary to the Emperor, though since excused of going for want of health, or other allegations, doth, upon that account alone, during life, according to the style of this Court, remain with the t.i.tle of Excellency. This action of the Duke of Cardona is here very much celebrated, and the saying little less.

--Ibid. p. 420.

To THE KING.

[See MEMOIRS, p. 195.]

Madrid, Monday, 6th of February, 1664-5, O.S.

"MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY,

"The bearer hereof, Mr. Charles Bertie, son to the Earl of Lindsey, having done me the honour, together with other gentlemen of rank and personal worth, to afford me his company out of England hitherto, and now with them homewards bound by the way of France; I find myself encouraged by the opportunity of so n.o.ble a hand for conveyance, to give your Majesty this first immediate trouble of any lines of mine, since I had last the happiness to kiss that of your Majesty, as well to throw myself, in all humility, at your royal feet, as to render very briefly a faithful character of this young gentleman, in a more particular manner, whose virtues and extraordinary qualities, the former not lost, the latter acquired with much travels at few years, do no whit degenerate from the n.o.bility of his blood, and active loyalty of his progenitors; my duty to your Majesty, as well as my affection to his person, obliging me ex officio to this short testimony of his merits unrequested, to the end so hopeful a branch of that house may not want even this means among others, of being early known to his Sovereign, I could humbly wish I could add, his master too, and that in some near degree of service to your sacred person, for the present, in order to public employment for the future; towards which, as years shall increase, and occasions be ministered, he is already furnished, in a very good measure, with two princ.i.p.al and proper gifts, that of tongues, and that of observation. But I forget to whom I speak, for which most humbly begging your royal pardon, I crave leave to subscribe myself," &c.--Ibid, p. 437.