The fact that both Philip and Olivares were accomplished horsemen made equestrian pastimes and field sports specially fashionable in this the best period of Philip's reign. At least two realistic representations exist of hunting battues in which Philip was seen to great advantage, reproducing from the brush of the great painter the exact aspect of such diversions. That in the Ashburton Collection portrays one of the deer hunts in the leafy glades of Aranjuez, Philip's spring palace on the Tagus, twenty-eight miles from Madrid. In the wooded park the afternoon sun glints through the dark verdured trees against the cloudless sky, and upon a wide stretch of sward a great white canvas enclosure is erected. Into its gradually narrowing limits the frightened deer are being driven by beaters, and at the narrow end of the funnel, the only outlet from the enclosure, the "hunters" are stationed on prancing steeds. Over the narrowest part of the funnel neck a leafy bridge or balcony is built, decked with crimson hangings and furnished with soft cushions, upon which the {212} Queen and her ladies sit, dressed in brilliant colours. Just beneath them, on horseback, are the King, his brother Carlos, and the inevitable Olivares; and as the terrified deer rush past them underneath the ladies' bower, the cavaliers, with big sharp hunting-knives, slash at them, killing some, laming others, and leaving those they miss to the mercies of the hounds that await them beyond. The ground beneath is drenched with blood, but the ladies smile approvingly upon the butchery. The exercise demanded a firm seat in the saddle, and great agility and dexterity in the management of the horse, and it was universally admitted that no one in Spain shone so brilliantly at these battues as Philip himself,[30] though Olivares, courtier like, was only just inferior to him. The other picture by Velazquez, which is in the National Gallery in London, presents a sport somewhat less repugnant to English eyes. The scene in this case is the hunting seat of the Pardo, a few miles out of Madrid, and the King, within the canvas walls of the vast enclosure, is, from the saddle of his caracoling steed, which he sits like a centaur, thrusting his forked javelin into the flank of the boar as it rushes past, Olivares being close by, whilst other mounted courtiers in different {213} parts of the enclosure are participating in the sport. Inside the enclosure there are stationed some of the heavy leather-curtained coaches then in use, filled with ladies. The mules in every case have been unharnessed and put out of the way of a charge from an infuriated boar; but as the boars were agile when aroused, and had been known to leap into the carriages themselves, the ladies inside are armed with dainty little javelins to repel any such attempt; not very easy to happen, one would imagine, as the heavy leather aprons or screens that cover the footplate and serve as doors are closed.