There is no doubt that deep discontent {228} smouldered throughout the country at the results of Olivares' policy. Spaniards were ready enough to acclaim the privilege and duty of their country to set all the world right about religion, and to interfere in the quarrels of Central Europe. The boastful vainglory of Spanish superiority and the hollow pretence of the King's irresistible power and wealth were as popular as ever, though evidence of their falsity was patent in every house in the land. But though by most Spaniards the dire effect was not traced to its true cause, and they never thought of blaming themselves for their sufferings, the minister who was the protagonist of the system was held personally to be the cause of all the trouble. Already the outer realms, Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, and Portugal, understood clearly that Olivares aimed at destroying their ancient autonomy,[12] and were seething in anger against him and the triflers at Madrid. The greater nobles, even in Castile itself, disgusted at the monopolous arrogance of Olivares, stood ostentatiously aloof from him, only awaiting an opportunity to retaliate. The minister had taken care to place in the councils persons entirely subservient to him, or those whose age or feebleness of character made them innocuous. His principal {229} subordinate ministers were his own kinsmen,--the Count of Monterey; the Marquis del Carpio; Marquis of Leganes; the Marquis of Aytona; the Marquis of Heliche, who had married his only daughter, but to Olivares' intense grief had been left a widower within the year; and the Duke of Medina de las Torres; Cardinal Zapata, the Inquisitor-General and member of many Councils, who was old, weak, and foolish; and the King's confessor, Sotomayor, was a man of no character, and entirely sold to the minister. It will be seen, therefore, that Philip was quite inaccessible to anyone not in the interests of Olivares. The Queen resented her husband's isolation, but the minister and his wife kept her also well under subjection, and her love of pleasure made her almost as easy to manage as the King.