On a sudden, however, his gracious countenance became overcast. On gazing up at one window, he observed it to be full of gentlewomen and ladies, all in yellow bands: this fashion had been discountenanced at Court ever since the trial of the Countess of Somerset; her accomplice, Mrs. Turner, having been hanged, by sentence, “in her yellow tiffany ruffs and cuffs,” she being the first inventor of the yellow starch.[309] But certain “high-handed women,” as King James termed them, chose, it seems, perhaps out of despite to Buckingham, to retain what was conceived to be a memento of the Somerset faction. No sooner did the King perceive them than he cried out “a plague take ye—are ye there?” and immediately the ladies, in alarm, vanished from the window. James was so much exhausted by his exertions this day, and by a speech of an hour long, in which nevertheless he commended brevity, that he was obliged to be carried in a chair from the Abbey, where he attended service, to the Parliament House. Footnote 309: Nichols, iv., 630; and iii., 120. By these and other symptoms, the people saw too plainly that the interests of Spain were adopted by the Favourite. Parliament, opened with so much state and promise, was opposed to the King’s wishes, and deprecated the Spanish alliance. Declamations against the growth of Popery were continually heard in that assembly, and formed a constant feature in its discussions during the reign of the Stuarts; these invectives were now exasperated by the treaty with Spain, and the indifference of James to the sufferings of the Protestant cause on the Continent. In the House of Lords, the presence of Prince Charles, around whom all the bishops, and most of the courtiers, flocked, was supposed to overawe the debates. All this time, James had “engaged his crown, blood, and soul,” such were his expressions, for the recovery of the Palatinate. Nevertheless, he dissolved Parliament early in the ensuing year; and the fruitless treaties and debasing intrigues went on as usual.[310] Footnote 310: Wilson, Hume, Oldmixon.