the state-coaches, which were there provided, and were waiting to follow the riders, more as a point of ceremony than for use: but to this the English ambassador would not consent; it would be a bad compliment to the great number of people who had come to have a sight of him and to do honour to the occasion; on the contrary, he wished to be introduced to everybody, and conversed with them all, when he had learnt their names, as they rode onward to the entrance of the city, being able to converse readily in the language of Castille. But by that time, as the rain continued, the plumes of feathers in their hats presented a drooping appearance, and the "linen collars labyrinthian set," as Bishop Hall describes them, had lost their starch, and the laced jackets were wet to their inner linings.*

(18.) Ford speaks of Valladolid as if he thought the position of this ancient town, at the confluence of two rivers, in a rich and fertile country, favoured as it had been by some of the former sovereigns of Spain, and adorned with splendid buildings, might have recommended it as preferable to the later capital of the realm, of which few visitors have been able to discern many attractions in aspect or climate. But the damp and cold winters, and summers alternately scorching or deluging with rain, were found to be productive of so much discomfort to the courtiers, that, after a trial of about five years, the attempt was abandoned. It * Cabrera, Relaciones, p. 243.

was perhaps after witnessing some such public spectacle as the foregoing, disconcerted by the watery element, that Gongora penned his sonnet beginning with the line

"Valladolid, thou art the Vale of Tears." Two other sonnets addressed to the same temporary abode of royalty are equally uncomplimentary. The last accuses the inhabitants of some practices to which "the gude town" of Edinburgh in later times is said to have been addicted. However, the splendour of the bull-fights, tilting-matches, and tournaments, seems at other times to have called forth his admiration for what was done even on the banks of the Pisuerga.

(19.) The visit of Lord Howard was of course celebrated with all the pomp of masque and festival, of which the Court under the Duke of Lerma's administration was capable. In his elaborate "Panegyric" on the Duke, Gongora describes the fire-works, with which, among other costly shows, the English envoy was entertained :—

"With fiery dust fine artists came to raise

Marvels of darting light; the sudden glow
Spangled with purple eyes the dim night-haze;
And tongues of fire rained showers so fast in flow,
That Night herself, in gladness with the blaze,

Gems from her starry mantle seemed to throw,
To deck the brilliant throng, that glittered soon
In dance and banquet thro' the gay saloon."

The time of the Lord High Admiral's arrival at Valla

dolid fell in with that which had been fixed for the baptism of the young Prince, afterwards Philip IV., who was born in the preceding month, April 8th, 1605.

(20.) Philip the Third, says Llorente, was a prince "whose education had made him more fit to live under the frock of St. Dominic, than to govern a kingdom."* This is spoken with some scorn; and more impartial inquirers into history will see reason to qualify it. Philip the Pious was a gentle-spirited and merciful man, religious according to the system of his church and country; one, indeed, who left the care of government too much to his Ministers, but, when he interfered, tempering the rigour of the law, mitigating harsh sentences, and averse from shedding blood. History, as it is commonly written, is scarcely fair to the character of such pacific sovereigns. More of this hereafter. But as far as regards his education in his minority, it is sufficiently known that his tutor was not a Dominican Friar, or a monk or friar of any Order, but a secular priest, Garcia de Loaysa Giron, Archdeacon of Guadalaxara, in the diocese of Toledo; which diocese he afterwards governed for a few years as Vicar General under the Archduke Albert, and subsequently himself as Archbishop. All writers agree in reporting him to have been a most amiable man, a courteous gentleman as well as a learned clerk, who fulfilled his duties conscientiously and

* Hist. de la Inquisicion, c. 37.

well.* It was not therefore from his education that the king was led to place himself under the direction of the sons of Dominic; but the Duke of Lerma, who was a great patron of theirs, once or twice recommended a candidate from their cloister to the office of King's Confessor, always an important appointment in the Spanish Court. Of one of these Friars, Diego de Mardones, who became bishop of Cordova in 1606, Gongora gives a grateful character.

(21.) The baptism of the young Prince was therefore arranged, according to the Duke's wishes, to take place in the Church of the Dominican Convent, St. Paul's, at Valladolid, of which the Duke was a second founder, and in which, after his death in 1625, he was honoured with a splendid tomb. A private passage led from the palace to the house of the Count of Miranda, situated in the way to the church; and from thence a temporary open gallery, hung with rich tapestry, conducted the procession to the porch of the sacred building. The ceremony took place on Whitsunday. The Duke, who came last, carrying the royal infant in his arms, shewed him at the windows of the gallery on either side to the assembled people below. The English envoy, with his suite, were spectators of the scene from the house of the Count of Ribadavia, also near. Cardinal Sandoval, the Archbishop who succeeded Loaysa, awaited them under a dorsal canopy

*Davila, Felipe III. 14-26. Nic Antonio in Bibl. Script. iii. 514. Amat, Hist. Eccl. xi. 383.

at the church door, attended by other prelates, who, in this ceremony, took the part of acolytes. Here the Prince of Piedmont, as godfather, received the babe from the hands of the minister, and after the solemnity of certain exorcisms, the brilliant concourse entered the church. A passage had been inclosed with rails, to secure an approach for the princely party to the portion of the building called the great chapel, where, under a tester of brocade supported by silver pillars, stood the old font, in which St. Dominic was said to have been baptized. This rude plain remnant of old sculpture, somewhat decayed by age, had been transplanted for the occasion from a nunnery church at Rioja, and must have presented a curious contrast to the finery by which it was surrounded. A silver vase, containing, as Gongora says, a little of the water of the sacred river of Palestine, was placed within the bowl of the font; and here, at the hands of the Primate of Spain, the young Prince received the names of Philip Dominic Victor, in honour of his father, of the saint, and of the Prince of Piedmont. It is a singular illustration of the lawless character of a portion of the mob who had crowded into the church, that at the very moment while the ceremony was concluding, the babe having been for a time eased of his outer garments, a little hat and cloak, to enable him to be presented with fewer impediments at the font, some thieves contrived to carry off the jewels and trinkets from his dress, and with them a highly