Charles looked an embodying of the idea of gloom, and Master Porter, with some ill-will, was compelled to observe a respectful silence. The Infanta and her governor hurried back to the palace, while her suitor and his followers were left to rail in their thoughts against the caprice of the ladies, and the reserve of royal masters; and so ends a pretty story of “how a princess went to gather May-dew.” This solitary and unsuccessful love-passage was the last effort which Charles made to engage the good-will of Maria. He, at once, retired to his apartments in the palace; whence he seldom went abroad, except for the purpose of attending a bull-fight. Buckingham was sick a-bed, his offended nobility lay ill-disposed at court, and the palace residence was gradually becoming irksome to all parties. Charles could only have bedchamber prayers, and not possessing a room where he might have attended the service of his own church, the sacred plate and vestments he had brought over were never used. Moreover, the Knights of the Garter, Lords Carlisle and Denbigh, had well nigh set the palace on fire, through leaving their lighted pipes in a summer-house. The threatened mischief, however, was prevented by the activity of Master Davies, my Lord of Carlisle’s barber, who “leapt down a great height and quenched it.” Perhaps a more unfortunate accident than this, in the eyes of a Catholic population, was a brawl within the royal precinct between Ballard, an English priest, and an English knight, Sir Edmund Varney. The prince had a page named Washington, lying mortally ill; to save his soul the anxious priest hastened to the death-bed of the page; here, however, he met Sir Edmund, an unflinching pillar of the English church. An unseemly scene ensued; and while knight and priest passed from words to blows, the poor suffering page silently died, and soon after was consigned to the earth under a fig-tree in Lord Bristol’s Garden.