Nothing even in Spain could exceed the magnificence with which Philip greeted the Bourbon Princess of Carignano. She was really a person of little importance, but her significance in Spain for the moment was that she was a sister of the Count of Soissons, who in France was in arms against Richelieu; and a foe of the Cardinal was a friend of Spain. The proud dame was equal to the occasion, and, after endless discussions as to the exact behaviour of both at a proposed interview with the English ambassador, Sir Walter Aston decided that he could not, with due regard for his dignity, meet the Princess at all. The points of difference seem trivial enough: when Aston was to take off his hat, how many steps upon the dais the lady was to advance to meet him, and so on; but the Princess was indignant that the Englishman {317} should thus haggle over the courtesy due to her, and all Madrid took malicious part in the squabble.[1] The usual round of festivities for the Princess, with the addition of a great pig-sticking day with twenty wild boars at the Pardo, were followed in a fortnight by another series more sumptuous still, to celebrate, the election of Philip's brother-in-law to the kingship of the Romans and to the succession of the imperial throne. Many detailed accounts of these extraordinary feasts, the greatest ever given in the Buen Retiro, exist;[2] but so many similar celebrations have been described in this book from Spanish sources, that it will suffice in this case to quote only Sir Walter Aston's short description of what he saw. "On the 7th February 1637 the King came from the Pardo to the Buen Retiro, and he has been busy ever since arranging the festivities for the election of the King of the Romans. The feasts began on the 15th, the King being present. A large place had been specially cleared and levelled before the Buen Retiro, and built about with uniform scaffolds two storeys high, the posts and divisions {318} all beautified with paintings and gilding. The King and the Conde (Olivares) dressed themselves in the house of Carlo Strada, the _asentista_ (loan-monger), by whom they were richly presented, not only with jewels but with the whole furniture of the apartments,[3] which he had provided for each. [Sidenote: A sumptuous show] His house is in the Carrera de San Geronimo, where the King and Conde took horse, and, attended by 200 of the nobility and persons of quality, and two triumphal chariots drawn by 20 oxen apiece, entered the Plaza, where they performed a curious masquerade after their manner full of changes, the one half of the horsemen being led by the King and the other half by the Count-Duke; the King and Conde and all the rest being richly clad after the same kind. The Plaza was round about set full of torches in several heights, and postures which had so much delight and magnificence in the appearance, that those who have looked curiously into the entertainments of former times say that amongst the