"The King and Queen retired to Buen Retiro to enjoy the curious gardens and new waterworks contrived by Olivares, and a great variety of festivals. One on Midsummer night was of the greatest ostentation and curiosity I have ever seen in my life. I had {312} the honour to be invited to it, and had extraordinary favour and respect shown in the place that was given to me. The entertainment was a play that was made on purpose to be acted by the three several companies of players of this town, the intention whereof was so good; the place where it was acted being set out with three several scenes of much ostentation, and the disposition of the lights so full of novelty and delight, that I am highly tempted to give your honour a larger description of it, but that it would prove to be business enough for a large letter."[43] It was not all feasting and play-going for Sir Walter Aston at the historic "house with the seven chimneys." When he arrived to replace Arthur Hopton, early in 1636, the famous agreement between Philip and Charles was still uncompleted, and the complaints of the English shipmasters against Spanish oppression were louder and more insistent than ever. Tyrone and the Desmonds were in Madrid negotiating for the raising of fresh Catholic Irish regiments for the Spanish service, and urging Philip to make no terms about the Palatinate unless Charles would restore the lands of O'Neill. But the aid of an English fleet in the Channel became more and more desirable to Spain as the war went on; and it was clear that the old vague promises and smiling plausibilities of Olivares had at last lost their efficacy with Charles. An instructive light is thrown upon the methods by which Olivares still strove to cope with the situation, by an original holograph letter in the Record Office[44] from Olivares' confidential secretary Rojas, {313} to the imperial ambassador in Madrid, asking him by King Philip's orders to "give some words of hope to the English ambassador about the Palatinate." "It is of the utmost importance that we should make use of all such expedients as present themselves; as it appears that the King of England is extremely busy preparing a powerful fleet to be used to the detriment of this Crown, ... probably against Brazil, in co-operation with the Hollanders."