This, indeed, was the period when the great artist produced some of the best of his work, such as the Surrender of Breda (the Lanzas), the portraits of the child Prince Baltasar Carlos, the fine portrait of Olivares reproduced in this book, and the famous equestrian portrait of Philip himself. In the midst of all the growing national trouble, this in many respects was the most brilliant and perhaps the happiest time of Philip's reign, so far as he personally was concerned. His habits were fixed and his pleasures keen. His fits of contrition were frequent, it is true; but they were always banished by fresh pleasures or amours contrived by Olivares. The {283} King intermittently attended to State business himself; but the interminable discussions and reports by the various Councils upon every subject made the despatch of business peculiarly irksome and tedious. The Spanish system of a consultative and deliberative bureaucracy, indeed, seemed specially devised to disgust anyone but a patient laborious plodder like Philip II. His grandson, impatient of detail and quick of apprehension, loathed the dull pompous discussions of the Councils, and not unnaturally was content to hear a summary of results from Olivares, whose final decision he always confirmed. [Sidenote: Philip's domestic life] Philip's domestic life at this time had every reason to be happy, though the growing tension between his wife and Olivares had to some extent estranged them, and the Queen was, under the influence of the minister, somewhat ostentatiously excluded from public business, not unnaturally to her annoyance. She was, however, a good wife, and shared Philip's frequent pleasures gaily, whilst in devotion of the peculiar Spanish type she was even more emphatic than he. She had a woman's reason for her dislike of Olivares, as well as the political objections to him which were the ultimate cause of his fall. It has already been mentioned that in pursuance of his system of doing everybody's work, the minister had taken under his care the management of the King's affairs of gallantry, and the results thereof. This, of course, was perfectly well known to the Queen, and the satirical poets who wrote so copiously of frailty in high places took care to publish the fact. Even Hopton, when in a gossiping mood, referred to it more than {284} once. Speaking of the skits that were current about Olivares and the new palace, he wrote: "He (Olivares) hath had likewise some harsh words with the Admiral for speaking to the King in disparagement of his new house; and the Queen hath had her little saying to him also, for some opinion she had of some secret pleasures there brought to the King."