Attempts were made at the same time, as on many subsequent occasions, to suppress the ostentatious promenading up and down the Calle Mayor, which grew more scandalous as the years went on, until it reached its apogee in the reign {243} of Philip IV., and for which the taste has never yet quite died out. No women of loose life were to promenade in coaches, nor might coaches be hired for the purpose on pain of confiscation. No person but a grandee might have more than two torches carried before him under penalty of one hundred ducats fine, and if any person hired a lackey by the day, or for less than a month, he was to be put in the pillory and exiled for four years. The reasons for these regulations will be well understood by those who have studied the characteristic picaresque novels of the period, and have smiled at the amusing subterfuges adopted by impecunious scamps to pass themselves off as noble hidalgos, the better to prey upon their fellow-creatures. Amongst other things Philip III. in his youthful zeal tried to deal with the vexed subject of ruffs. He made no attempt to stand against starch any longer--indeed, to judge from his portraits, no one ever wore such stiff or extensive ruffs as he did himself, but he sternly draws the line at trimming. There must be no lace edges or ravellings; they must be pure white, with two little pleats only, and not more than 4½ inches wide, half as wide again as had been allowed by his father. For the next few years pragmatics positively rained in Madrid, altering, restricting, relaxing this or the other detail of the various decrees; but all to no purpose apparently, for in 1611 Philip came out with another long proclamation, saying that the extravagant abuse of dress being worse than ever, he has consulted discreet experts and has decided to alter the rules. The use of gold and silver thread {244} and foil, and of coloured silks, is more restricted than ever, the only exceptions being for church vestments and the dresses of officers actually engaged in war. In other respects, however, the trimmings allowed appear to be exceedingly elaborate, and in the pragmatic of 1611 about a dozen different specimen trimmings of trunks alone are described with all the finnicking minuteness of a modern Court dressmaker's bill; the sum total of it all being that the employment of silk, velvet, and other fine stuffs, stamped and plain, was now almost unrestricted, whilst bullion was more severely forbidden than before, except for ladies' jackets and a few of their trimmings.