This was Philip's tragedy, the tragedy of a lifetime which this book will try to follow to its sad disillusioned end. The haunting, sorrow-stricken, compassionate face shows through its proud mask of impassivity and its leaden eyes deep traces of the terrible struggle within; of the throes of a man who dared not show his pain, and who in later years bared his soul but to one woman in the world. Weak of will, tender of conscience, sensitive of soul. A rake without conviction, a voluptuary who sought sensuous pleasures from vicious habit long after they had ceased to be pleasures to him, and yet expiated them with agonies of remorse which made his soul a raging hell. This is the man. Philip the Great! "The Planet King," as the flattering poets called him; this pale, long-faced, sallow young man of twenty-one, who came back to his capital in the spring of 1626 already embittered and disillusioned, confronted by wars and threats of wars on all sides, overwhelmed with poverty yet inflated with pride: seeking escape from his troubles in the company of poets, painters, actors, and courtesans, and in the buffoonery of distorted dwarfs and half-idiotic monstrosities, whilst the dark heavy man with the big square head and arrogant mien led the nation down the slope that ended in inevitable disruption and ruin. [1] He wrote a series of interesting descriptions of the ceremonies and feasts in honour of Charles's visit to Madrid. _Terpsichore_. [2] _Apuntamientos_. Secretly printed in Madrid, 1623. [3] When the Duke of Osuna was arrested early in Philip's reign he had 300 servants resident in his house. [4] There are copies of many of these decrees in British Museum MSS. Add. 9933 and 9934. [5] Contemporary transcript by Father Torquemada. MSS. Add. 10,236 British Museum. The original is in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid. [6] It may be noted that Olivares, who of course cut down his own household, still had 122 servants after that process. _Revista de Archivos_, iv. p. 20. [7] British Museum, Egerton MSS. 338, f. 136. [8] The first idea of this collar, which was promptly dubbed _Golilla_ (little gorget), was merely as a support for the linen Walloon, which would thus be made to stand out like a ruff, but the silk-lined golilla alone was soon generally adopted. [9] Philip during his life was rarely seen in any other collar, though in his fine portrait as a young man at Dulwich he wears a large lace Walloon. [10] There is a most important collection of these originals and transcripts, in the Egerton MSS., British Museum. [11] British Museum, Egerton MSS. 338. [12] A biography of the Queen is given in the author's _Queens of Old Spain_. [13] The first had been a girl, prematurely born in August 1621, who died in a few hours.