Only a few months before this, the Church of St. Geronimo had been the scene of another of those stately ceremonials which were the birthright of Spanish princes. There, upon a splendidly decked staging before the high altar, the tiny Prince Baltasar Carlos, who had been carried thither the day before, received the oaths of the Commons of Castile as heir to the throne. There were two violent altercations for precedence between nobles, even in the King's presence, before the ceremony; but all was silence as the chubby princeling, in crimson plush embroidered with gold, toddled up the nave to the staging, held in leading strings by his two uncles Carlos and Fernando; the first in a few months to sink into the grave, a silent, amiable young enigma to the last. The little Prince, we are told, carried a miniature sword and dagger covered with enamel and diamonds, and wore a black hat trimmed with bugles and diamonds, and adorned by scarlet plumes. It is {242} to be remarked that in most of these festivities Philip himself was faithful to his love of brown for his dress; and on this occasion is described as wearing light brown velvet embroidered with gold thread, and wearing the collar of the Golden Fleece, whilst he rested his hand upon the shoulder of his gentleman-in-waiting, the Count de Galve, clad smartly in crimson satin and gold.[26] [Sidenote: Financial exactions] In the meanwhile, over the tinkling of all this courtly gaiety, there echoed the distant rumbling of the storm. Mr. Arthur Hopton, the new English ambassador, left in Madrid to look after English commercial interests, and to push the eternal question of the Palatinate, wrote to Lord Dorchester in February 1631: "All the Spanish Barbary garrisons are starving, but the want of corn here is so great that every grain from Andalusia is sorely wanted for Castile."[27] But the extravagant expenditure on the Buen Retiro and on the never-ending war had to be met somehow, and Olivares had to incur increased odium by inventing new exactions. "The Count of Olivares," continues Hopton, "being the most industrious man in his master's service, and more so in the matter of his revenue than anything else, hath made him an instrument by directing a new imposition on salt, making the King the owner of all the salt that is spent, and delivering it out at 40 reals the fanega (_i.e._ 1½ bushels), whilst remitting 12 per cent. on the wine and oil excise that had nine years to run. This is a pretty way of imposing {243} taxation on the clergy and religious without the leave of the Pope."[28]