At length Philip grew impatient at the delay, for he would appoint no new officers until he was clean quit of Olivares and his crew, and he decided to hunt for two days at the Escorial in order that measures might be taken in his absence. No sooner had he left than the Countess of Olivares made another tearful appeal to the Queen, who dismissed her promptly; and on the second day (20th January 1643), when Philip was approaching Madrid on his way back, a great gathering of nobles came out to meet him. Through Melchior Borja they said that they wished to place themselves and their possessions at the disposal of their King once more. Hitherto they had stood aloof, for reasons now known to him; but so soon as that evil cause was removed they were willing to stand by him to the death. Then they urged him to change all his councils and administrative officers, and begin a new régime. When Philip entered the palace, he turned to Don Luis de Haro and asked, "Has he gone?" {372} "No, Sire," was the reply. "Is he waiting for us to use force?" grumbled the King; and soon the hint was conveyed to Olivares, and, convinced now of the hopelessness of his case, the man who had ruled Spain over the King for two-and-twenty disastrous years slunk out of the capital by unfrequented ways, accompanied by only four attendants in a coach with closely drawn curtains, in mortal fear of assassination; for, as his spiteful biographer says, the very children in the streets would have stoned him to death if they had known of his flitting.[44] Not until the fallen favourite had left Madrid well behind him did Philip feel himself safe. Summoning to his workroom in one of the corner towers of the old palace, Cardinals Borja and Spinola, and a number of the nobles who had opposed Olivares, he addressed a long speech to them. He was, he said, ardently determined to take the details of Government into his own hands in future. The Count-Duke had served him long, well, and zealously; but his health had broken down and he needed repose. Thenceforward he (the King) would have no confidential minister, but would work himself as minister, with the aid and counsel of his hearers, from whom he asked now reports and suggestions for future remedial action. Oñate, an old man and vain, hoped for some days that he was to replace Olivares as sole minister, but the King promptly undeceived him, and declared publicly that in future he would have no other minister but his wife, whose energy, {373} wisdom, patriotism he now understood for the first time.