It was in all respects high time that the noble courtiers who surrounded Philip should be made to occupy themselves in real warfare against the enemy of their country, for their quarrels and turbulence had already reached a point that made them a public reproach. It had been for more than a century a fixed policy of Spanish kings to keep the territorial nobles as much as possible excluded from executive activity in the Peninsula, and to attach them to the personal service of the monarch at Court. The peerage had been enormously increased under Philip III. and IV., and the numerous class of newly enriched and ennobled courtiers and officers that thronged Philip's Court, utterly idle and corrupt as they were, with no great feudal or military traditions, had become insolent and pretentious beyond measure. The broils of the nobles during the month of festivities in the early part of 1637 were so scandalous, that it was seriously considered by Philip and Olivares how they could punish the highly placed law-breakers, and positively forbid duels altogether. First, the quidnuncs on Liars' Walk were regaled at the end of January by the sight of four gentlemen of birth being led past the Calle Mayor to be hanged instead of beheaded. These criminals had plied their impudent trade of cloak-snatchers in every street in Madrid, and had, amongst many other outrages, killed a priest who had objected to part with his raiment. The Duke of Hijar, a great friend of Olivares and a notable boaster, had been relieved not only of his cape, but of his sword and buckler as well; and a considerable band of these ruffians, led by a {328} young noble of nineteen, one of those hanged, had so terrorised the streets of the capital as to make them unsafe in broad daylight. The next day, ten men and women, mostly people of good position, were whipped through the Calle Mayor as thieves and receivers; and some highly born gentlemen were condemned to death as housebreakers. "This place," wrote an eye-witness, "simply swarms with folks of this sort, and the efforts of the ministers of justice are powerless to stop them."[18]