Among the sights which they managed to see were the king, Louis XIII., and his royal mother, Marie de Medicis. That evening a mask was to be rehearsed at the palace, in which the queen and the Princess Henrietta Maria were to take part. On the plea of being strangers in Paris, the two young Englishmen managed to obtain admittance to this royal merrymaking, which they highly enjoyed. As to what they saw, we have a partial record in a subsequent letter from one of them. "There danced," says this epistle, "the queen and madame, with as many as made up nineteen fair dancing ladies; amongst which the queen is the handsomest, which hath wrought in me a greater desire to see her sister." This sister was then at Madrid, for the queen of France was a daughter of Philip III. of Spain. And, as if Spain was the true destination of the travellers, and to see the French queen's sister their object, at the early hour of three the next morning they were up and on horseback, riding out of Paris on the road to Bayonne. Away they went, pressing onward at speed, he whom we as yet know only as Tom Smith taking the lead, and pushing forward with such youthful eagerness that even the seasoned Buckingham looked the worse for wear before they reached the borders of Spain. Who was this eager errant knight? All London by this time knew, and it is time that we should learn. Indeed, while the youthful wayfarers were speeding away on their mad and merry ride, the privy councillors of England were on their knees before King James, half beside themselves with apprehension, saying that Prince Charles had disappeared, that the rumor was that he had gone to Spain, and begging to know if this wild rumor were true. "There is no doubt of it," said the king. "But what of that? His father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather all went into foreign countries to fetch home their wives,--why not the prince, my son?" "England may learn why," was the answer of the alarmed councillors, and after them of the disturbed country. "The king of Spain is not to be trusted with such a royal morsel. Suppose he seizes the heir to England's throne, and holds him as hostage! The boy is mad, and the king in his dotage to permit so wild a thing." Such was the scope of general comment on the prince's escapade.