Lord Kensington continued, meantime, to ply the Queen Dowager with incessant flattery, and to meet her inquiries ingeniously. “I find,” he writes to the Duke of Buckingham, “the queen-mother has the only power of governing in this state. She was willing to know upon what terms stood our Spanish alliance. I told her that their delays had been so tedious that they had sometimes discouraged the King, and had so wearied the Prince and state with the dilatory proceedings in it, as that treaty, I thought, would soon have an end.” So little expectation was, at this time, entertained of an unfavourable termination of the Spanish marriage, that the Queen thought that the ambassador referred to a speedy union between Charles and the Infanta. "She strait said, ‘Of marriage?’ taking it that way. I told her I believed the contrary, and I did so her entreat, because the Spanish ambassador hath given it out, since my coming, that the alliance is fully concluded, and that my journey hath no other end than to hasten his master unto it, only to give them jealousies of me, because he, at this time, fears their dispositions stand too well prepared to desire and affect a conjunction with us."[189] Footnote 189: Cabala, 286. In another letter, also addressed to the Duke of Buckingham, it appears that Lord Kensington was allowed access at all times to the young French princess, with permission “to entertain her henceforth with a more free and amorous kind of language from the Prince;” and these and other favours were acknowledged by Kensington, as from the Duke of Buckingham, with redoubled thanks, adding that "he knew his lordship would esteem it one of the greatest happinesses that could befall him, to have any occasion offered whereby he might witness how much he adored Her Majesty’s royal virtues, and how infinitely he was her servant, ready to receive law from her, whensoever, by the least syllable of her blessed lips or pen, she should please to impose it." And then followed encomiums in the same letter from the crafty Kensington, who, as he said, solved everything as well as he could, upon the Cardinal de Richelieu, magnifying to the Queen "the Cardinal’s wisdom, his courage, his courtesy, his fidelity to the service, his affection to our business," so as to captivate the queen-mother.[190] Footnote 190: Ellis’s Original Letters, 2nd series, vol. iii., p. 199. A long conversation followed regarding the voyage into Spain, upon which memorable event the queen-mother remarked “that two kings had committed in it two great errors; the one, in trusting so precious a pledge in so hazardous an enterprize; the other, in treating so brave a guest so ill.” “Indeed, I heard,” said the Queen, “that the Prince was used ill.” “So he was,” returned Lord Kensington, “but not in his entertainment, for that was as splendid as their country could afford; but in their frivolous delay, and in the unreasonable conditions which they propounded.”