Plaza Mayor in honour of the Prince, she sat in brown satin, bordered with gold, in the fine balcony of the city bread-store overlooking the Plaza, as Charles, in black velvet and white feathers, rode his fine bay horse into the arena by the side of Philip, to take his place in an adjoining box. Before the masked ball on Easter Sunday, given by the Admiral of Castile in Charles’s honour, Isabel in white satin, covered with precious stones, dined in public; and then, changing her dress to one of black and gold, awaited the English Prince to lead her to the ballroom. There during the entertainment, and on all other occasions, he sat at her right hand under a royal canopy, with Philip on her left; whilst the Earl of Bristol, on his knees before them, interpreted the small talk suitable to the occasion. And so, with comedies and cane tourneys, banquets and balls, Charles and Buckingham were beguiled by Olivares for well nigh six months, until the farce grew stale, and Charles wended his way home again, nominally betrothed to the Infanta, but really outwitted and his country humiliated. The defeat was softened by much loving profession and splendid presents from Philip and his courtiers to the English Prince; and it is somewhat curious that, on the departure of Charles, the present given to him by Isabel again took the form of white linen garments, fifty amber-dressed skins, two hundred and fifty scented kidskins for gloves, a large sum in silver crowns, and other things.[204] Philip and his wife had now settled down to their regular life in the most brilliant court in Europe. It was the Augustan age of Spanish literature and the drama, and a perfect craze for comedies and satirical verse seized upon the Spanish people, under the influence of the King and Queen, both of them passionately fond of the theatre and diversions of all sorts. Isabel, like her husband, was conventionally devout, and her religious benefactions were constant, as well as her attendances at the ceremonies of the church;[205] but in her devotion she had none of the gloomy monastic character which had afflicted her husband’s family, and the social demeanour of the courtiers and of the townspeople generally underwent a complete change in her time. Her manners, indeed, were so free and debonair as to have given rise to some quite unsupported scandal as to her faithfulness to her husband. Madrid was a perfect hotbed of tittle-tattle; everybody considered it necessary to be able to spin satirical verses, and as these were generally anonymous and in manuscript, the reputation of no one, high or low, was safe from attack.