eight sets of rations are to be served to the gentlemen of the bed-chamber, whilst the chief groom of the bed-chamber is in future to go without his fifty reals a month in lieu of salads, and his jam on fast days. The controller of the household will no longer be entitled to fresh meat, pastry, bacon, chicken custard, salad and jams, and will have to content himself in future whilst on a journey with two dishes of roast meat and one dish of boiled, and two dishes for supper,--"and he must not take anything out of the store." [Sidenote: Philip's household economies] Through every branch of the household this process of reduction was decreed by Philip, and even the pay of the guards was rigidly cut down. The members of the Spanish guard had recently had their pay doubled to 200 ducats a month, and now found themselves reduced to their former pay of 100. The King, by these reforms, decreed that a saving of 67,300 ducats a year was to {135} be effected. In another manuscript of the King's,[7] in which a year or two afterwards he recapitulates his personal efforts to remedy the evils of his country, he refers particularly to the sacrifices he made in his household for the commonweal at this time. "I have twice reformed my household," he says, "and although my servants may be more numerous than before, I have had no other money to pay them with than honours, and they have received no pecuniary pay. As for my personal expenses, the moderation of my dress and my rare feasts prove how modest it is, and I spend no money voluntarily on myself, for I try to give my vassals an example to avoid vain ostentation. So I have reconciled myself to ask for nothing for my own person, but only the indispensable funds for the defence of my realm and the Catholic faith. I want no more, not a maravedi, from my vassals, and I charge you (the Council of Castile) on your conscience to let me know if anything is being spent beyond this."