[26] There was one pragmatic which touched Madrid to the quick, namely, that which forbade the use of carriages except to a very few privileged people. So great was the outcry against this, that it was found to be impossible to enforce it, as the driving about in coaches was the main pleasure and amusement of every one who could afford it, and of many people who could not. Whilst, therefore, the pragmatic was rigidly enforced in the provincial capitals, licences were issued to anyone in Madrid to own a coach on payment of 100 ducats.--Rodriguez Villa's Newsletters, January 1636. Other pragmatics were issued at the time, regulating the courtesy titles, as it was found that too many people were calling themselves _Lordship_. [27] In the Rodriguez Villa's Newsletters at this period, hardly a week passes without reference to the selling up of some nobleman's belongings for debt. One of the most ostentatious nobles in Madrid, the Marquis de las Navas, was soon after this fined for some offence, and as he had no money an execution was put in on his coaches and horses, which it was then found were not his own but hired; and his furniture and even the tapestries of his palace belonged to other people. [28] Both of them got safe away abroad, and the Marquis del Aguila was condemned to death in his absence. Herrera subsequently issued a public challenge for the Marquis to meet Him and fight in Switzerland, and thus explains the affray. The Marquis, he asserts, said in the theatre that he was drunk, and though he made no reply to this, an hour afterwards he came behind him and struck him a great blow on the back of the neck. He (Herrera) then drew his sword, and he and the Marquis were both seized by the Guard. [29] _La Corte y Monarquia de España en_ 1636-1637, a series of newsletters written by an anonymous grandee in Madrid, edited by A. Rodriguez Villa.