Philip IV., at whose court they were soon to present themselves, was now only in his nineteenth year. Like his weak father, he had thrown the reins of government, soon after his accession,[426] into the hands of an unworthy favourite. The Condé de Olivares, who had been a gentleman of the bed-chamber to Philip, when the Prince of Asturias was the haughty ruler over the destinies of the Spanish nation. Corrupt, yet able, he is stated to have increased the revenues of the crown, and, so far, to have served his sovereign by several severe but salutary measures. Having, however, acquired some credit for these reforms, he gave loose to his own rapacity, whilst he checked that of others. He even surpassed his predecessors in acts of corruption; his heart was depraved; his selfish ambition boundless; and his private character was suspected, not without just cause, to have been stained with the darkest crimes.[427] Such was the minister to whom Charles and Buckingham were now to bend, as suppliants and suitors; for Philip,[428] imbecile and indifferent, and plunged into degrading vices, was wholly a cipher in the profuse and stately Court over which he was the nominal ruler. Footnote 426: In 1621. Footnote 427: History of Spain and Portugal.—Cabinet Cyclopædia, vol. i., pp. 91, 92. Footnote 428: Of his illegitimate children, the most famous was the celebrated Don Juan, surnamed of Austria, believed to be the son of an actress of Madrid. “On this son the choicest favours of the crown were conferred.”—Ibid, 99. Throughout the rest of the journey, the travellers did not pass entirely unknown; but were, as a writer of the day informs us, “offered great honour, would they have yielded to have been publickly known,” or in case of their return by the same route. The Lords Andover and Kensington had gone twelve days previously in the same direction; and, in short, about two hundred nobles and gentlemen had set sail at Portsmouth, intending to land at St. Sebastian’s, and to ride overland to Madrid.[429] Meantime, the King desired his clergy not to “prejudicate the Prince’s journey, either in their sermons or prayers; but yet to pray to God to preserve him in his journey, and grant him a safe return to us”—not in more, he ordered, “nor in any other words than those.”[430] Footnote 429: Ellis’s Letters, vol. iii., p. 132, 1st series. Footnote 430: Ibid, 124.