The far-seeing good sense of the bishop keeper of the seals had not deceived him. The whims and vanity of Buckingham encountering the Spanish haughtiness, were to be as a rock to this frail bark. The undertaking had succeeded well: the prince and the favorite had traversed Paris and France under an incognito, which was penetrated on several occasions, and they had arrived safe and sound at Madrid on the 17th of March, 1623, "more gay than they had ever been in their lives." This chivalrous freak, the imprudent straightforwardness of the proceeding for a moment appeared to seduce the Spaniards. "It only remains for us to throw the Infanta into his arms," Count Olivarez exclaimed, and the prince, putting aside all mystery, was sumptuously received at the court of Spain, admitted to the presence of the Infanta, and entertained with hopes of a speedy triumph. Appearances were soon to give way to reality. The months elapsed, the Prince of Wales and Buckingham were still at Madrid. The demands of Pope Gregory XV. became every day more extensive, and the situation more treacherous. The three sovereigns reciprocally demanded an act of respect for religious liberty, which in the main and on principle neither of them recognized nor intended to grant. The King of England wished his son to marry a Catholic princess, while remaining exclusively Protestant himself, his son, and his people. The King of Spain desired that his daughter and all her personal servants should remain openly Catholics, while living in a Protestant family and among a Protestant people, while he himself absolutely excluded all Protestants from his realm. {38} The Pope claimed for the Catholics of England full liberty of conscience, while peremptorily refusing the same privilege to the Protestants throughout his dominions, and called upon the King of England to return, together with his people, to the yoke of the only true and sovereign Church.